A leader is accountable

Sometimes, Mahdi would not come home at night. I used to ask him why, but he never gave a satisfying response. That was until one rainy night… It was raining very heavily. Mahdi stood up and said, “I should get going!”

I asked: “Where to?”

He answered: “I’m not going anywhere bad. Don’t worry”.

He did not want to tell me, but since I insisted, he said, “get up! Let’s go together, you’ll see where I’m going”.

In those days, Mahdi was the mayor of the city and I was his deputy. We left and reached an certain area. I said: “We have arrived… Now what?” He said: “Don’t you see how much water has accumulated here? We are the managers of this city and are accountable for this”.

He got out of the car and went across the water up to the gate of a house. He knocked at the gate and an old man came out of the house. Mahdi said salam and then exclaimed, “Hajj Agha! The rain is pouring down into your house. We have come to help you”. The old man cut him off with an angry tone saying, “What have come here for? Have you come here to tell me that my house is getting ruined?” And after releasing all his anger and saying whatever he had to say about the mayor, he slammed the door and said, “go away! May God grant you sustenance somewhere else”.

A bunch of people heard the old man yelling and gathered around the house. Mahdi asked someone to bring him a shovel. When the shovel was brought, together with Mahdi, we started digging a path to divert the water away from the house.  This went on until the morning prayers.

This was a story from the life of Shahid… Mahdi Bakeri. A young leader who served the people for Allah’s sake, and finally gave his life away, for Allah’s sake.