Imam Tom Talks About His Favourite Books (2022-06-12) #

0:00:02 hello everyone and welcome to blogging
0:00:05 theology today i am delighted to talk to
0:00:08 imam tom fakini you're most welcome sir
0:00:11 thank you so much it's a pleasure and an
0:00:13 honor to be here
0:00:14 well tom for those who don't know um has
0:00:16 kindly agreed to discuss the books that
0:00:19 have made a significant difference to
0:00:21 him intellectually now apart from the
0:00:24 intrinsic interest in what he might have
0:00:26 to say
0:00:27 um it will hopefully encourage us all to
0:00:29 read good books for ourselves
0:00:32 now tom accepted islam in his early
0:00:35 twenties and he holds a ba in political
0:00:38 science from vassal college and a ba in
0:00:41 islamic law from the islamic university
0:00:43 of medina no less
0:00:45 graduating in 2020 he's also a qualified
0:00:50 chaplain
0:00:51 tom is the is currently the imam and
0:00:53 program director of utica masjid now
0:00:56 utica is in new york in new york state
0:00:59 in america obviously as well as the imam
0:01:01 of hamilton college where he does
0:01:03 chaplaincy work he also teaches tafsir
0:01:07 to middle schoolers online through
0:01:09 legacy international online high school
0:01:12 and he has a fantastic youtube channel
0:01:15 uh entitled utica masjid which i
0:01:17 stumbled across by chance if there's
0:01:19 such a thing about his chance
0:01:21 and i will link to it in the description
0:01:24 below and um it is a gem
0:01:27 um anyway i won't praise you too much
0:01:28 but i would i definitely encourage
0:01:30 people to subscribe to i don't normally
0:01:33 encourage people to subscribe to things
0:01:34 when i do uh these kind of uh interviews
0:01:37 but i i do on this occasion uh in an
0:01:39 unqualified way do subscribe to tom
0:01:42 imam tom's channel and for excellent
0:01:45 content because it really is superb
0:01:47 so um
0:01:49 tom over to you what might be some of
0:01:52 your favorite books
0:01:55 well i guess i should start if i'm going
0:01:57 to start chronologically then it kind of
0:01:59 traces my
0:02:01 it's it's an inseparable account of how
0:02:04 i came to islam because i kind of came
0:02:06 into college as
0:02:10 very much on the left
0:02:12 very much kind of progressive
0:02:15 politics leaning towards
0:02:17 even
0:02:18 some sort of
0:02:20 anarchism marxism sorts of things like
0:02:22 that those are my commitments when i
0:02:23 when i got to college
0:02:25 and then the interesting kind of path
0:02:27 that i took was one of
0:02:29 kind of a destabilization
0:02:31 of
0:02:32 the things that i had
0:02:34 intellectually committed myself to and
0:02:36 at the same time
0:02:37 encountering islam for the first time in
0:02:40 a serious way so the first kind of book
0:02:42 that had kind of a profound impact on me
0:02:44 was uh actually
0:02:45 um the order of things by foucault so i
0:02:48 you know
0:02:49 is a
0:02:50 controversial figure and rightly so and
0:02:52 there's lots to critique um but
0:02:55 there's also a lot of useful kind of um
0:02:59 perspective that he has
0:03:01 jessica foucault i mean i don't not for
0:03:04 your benefit so much but i think
0:03:05 obviously is a very famous french
0:03:06 intellectual associated with marxist
0:03:09 marxism to some extent and and certain
0:03:11 very fashionable um
0:03:13 french ideas which have influenced the
0:03:15 whole world the whole western world
0:03:17 united states and latterly britain as
0:03:19 well he's now i passed away of course i
0:03:21 think he was very prominent in the 1980s
0:03:24 and the 1990s perhaps but um yeah sorry
0:03:28 no thank you for that and so yeah the
0:03:30 main um thing that the order of things
0:03:32 awakened me to was his concept of
0:03:34 episteme right so this kind of idea that
0:03:37 there's a a background grammar of
0:03:40 associations of values of understandings
0:03:43 that are kind of unspoken
0:03:45 in any particular culture or more
0:03:48 uh accurately an era
0:03:50 right and so
0:03:51 we really risk um
0:03:54 kind of falling into anachronisms right
0:03:58 if we're going to look into the pastor
0:04:00 we're going to look into a tradition
0:04:01 such as islam and we might
0:04:03 look at it with certain lenses people
0:04:05 want to know um
0:04:07 about
0:04:08 feminism in islam or about freedom in
0:04:10 islam or democracy in islam and people
0:04:13 don't realize when they ask these sorts
0:04:14 of questions that it's quite
0:04:15 anachronistic because we're talking
0:04:17 about either concepts or categories that
0:04:20 developed
0:04:21 not only in a different location but
0:04:23 also in a different time with different
0:04:24 assumptions about who is a human being
0:04:26 what is the reality that we live in at
0:04:28 all
0:04:29 and so
0:04:30 um that was kind of the first thing that
0:04:32 awakened me to kind of think about
0:04:35 these things um
0:04:37 it kind of particularized i should say
0:04:40 um
0:04:41 to use that kind of jargon uh the
0:04:43 commitments that i had at the time and
0:04:45 that's kind of i guess one of the the
0:04:47 main takeaways that i got from foucault
0:04:49 is that there's sort of uh academic
0:04:52 disciplines that originated in the west
0:04:54 anthropology political science econ et
0:04:56 cetera et cetera
0:04:58 that for a long time uh they engaged in
0:05:01 producing knowledge about a certain
0:05:03 quote-unquote other the the muslim or
0:05:05 the you know the foreigner or the
0:05:08 non-european subject and foucault kind
0:05:10 of flipped the lens where he kind of
0:05:12 took uh some certain academic
0:05:14 disciplines and
0:05:16 subjected
0:05:17 europe and european institutions and
0:05:18 european thought to those same tools and
0:05:21 so now instead of becoming the just
0:05:24 assumed background through which
0:05:26 everything is thought now we can have a
0:05:27 conversation about the particularity of
0:05:29 certain ideas in certain categories and
0:05:31 certain concepts um
0:05:33 so that was the main thing that kind of
0:05:35 i guess destabilized me um yeah i like
0:05:38 that i didn't say it shook you up uh
0:05:40 intellectually and made you realize the
0:05:43 particularity or the relativity of the
0:05:45 views which we take as common sense and
0:05:47 just part of the air we breathe actually
0:05:48 they're very
0:05:50 regional historically limited
0:05:52 and the result of a long historical
0:05:54 process that you can we can look back to
0:05:56 you know back to the enlightenment
0:05:57 renaissance and ancient greece is all
0:05:59 you know but it's very situated in a
0:06:01 certain part of the globe that has
0:06:03 become perhaps hegemonic um now
0:06:06 for other reasons but i like what you
0:06:08 say so that was kind of you you're
0:06:10 becoming self-aware of the historical
0:06:12 contingency i should say the contingency
0:06:15 of our beliefs and they're not just
0:06:17 natural uh although they feel very kind
0:06:19 of just you know it's a part of the air
0:06:21 we breathe actually they're very
0:06:22 particular and it was a lot of a long
0:06:24 historical process that led to this uh
0:06:26 where we are today
0:06:28 yes very much so and so you know as i
0:06:30 said i came into college with this sort
0:06:32 of very much solid leftist uh even
0:06:35 internationalist sort of position
0:06:37 uh and so that started to come into
0:06:39 question i started to attempt to account
0:06:41 for my own beliefs and commitments um
0:06:44 and then throughout my coursework
0:06:45 actually started as a history major but
0:06:47 i didn't find history as interesting as
0:06:49 political science so i switched and
0:06:52 eventually went to political theory uh
0:06:54 specifically and my advisor was uh
0:06:57 he was an indian national and he was all
0:06:59 about postcolonial theory and so we were
0:07:02 heavily reading that sort of stuff
0:07:04 um
0:07:05 so i came across that my the next big
0:07:07 book i guess and um and thinker that
0:07:10 kind of took hold of me was
0:07:13 right and particularly the book the
0:07:15 formations of the secular and this is
0:07:17 something that has affected many many
0:07:18 people
0:07:19 um
0:07:20 so he takes kind of the the
0:07:23 technique of foucault but he um has more
0:07:26 particular interests
0:07:28 and one of those
0:07:29 interests was secularism okay uh which
0:07:33 was very very interesting to me because
0:07:36 we
0:07:37 in the common culture the vernacular of
0:07:39 people we talk about secularism and
0:07:42 religion in a certain way we especially
0:07:44 in america here uh separation of church
0:07:46 and state like this is a big thing
0:07:48 everybody don't talk religion and
0:07:49 politics you know all these sorts of
0:07:50 things that everybody always says uh i
0:07:54 always only wanted to talk about
0:07:55 religion and politics by the way sorry
0:07:57 ironic by the rest of the world we see
0:07:58 the you know millions and millions of
0:08:00 evangelical christians who are
0:08:01 passionately zionist um you were if you
0:08:04 were influencing american foreign policy
0:08:06 and electing people um to it which has
0:08:08 geopolitical i mean you couldn't get a
0:08:10 more in
0:08:11 uh intrinsically uh indestructibly bound
0:08:15 up political religious system even
0:08:17 though it's officially the opposite his
0:08:19 absolute separation uh the rest of us it
0:08:21 looks very ironic that that rhetoric is
0:08:23 still believed to be kind of true in in
0:08:26 any way but
0:08:27 certainly and so kind of the surface
0:08:29 level point is where some people have
0:08:31 have noticed is that okay well this is
0:08:32 hypocritical there is religion in
0:08:34 politics there is religion but the the
0:08:37 underlying point is that the
0:08:38 relationship between secularism or what
0:08:41 we ever wanted we wouldn't say the
0:08:43 secular state and religion is not one of
0:08:45 separation it's actually one of active
0:08:47 production
0:08:48 right so um
0:08:49 the idea that there could be such a
0:08:51 thing as a secular state uh by default
0:08:55 requires the production of a certain
0:08:56 definition of religion even the category
0:08:59 of religion itself right like this a
0:09:01 word we have religion okay and that was
0:09:03 one of the big things that blew my mind
0:09:05 about asset is that you know this um
0:09:08 people weren't calling it religion
0:09:10 until very recently they were calling it
0:09:12 truth and falsehood
0:09:14 orthodoxy and heterodoxy or they're
0:09:16 calling it they were thinking through
0:09:18 these things in other categories and so
0:09:21 there is no such thing as religion
0:09:23 without the secular right like the
0:09:25 secular is is directly involved in
0:09:28 producing something maybe we call it
0:09:30 acceptable faith or acceptable
0:09:32 religiosity it becomes the judge
0:09:35 it becomes the arbiter
0:09:37 this happens all the time in our country
0:09:38 in the supreme court and they have to
0:09:40 because people are going to appeal for
0:09:42 certain exemptions or something on
0:09:44 grounds of their religious faith well
0:09:47 which
0:09:48 religious faiths are considered
0:09:49 legitimate which religious commitments
0:09:51 and beliefs are considered normative
0:09:53 which are considered uh reasonable uh
0:09:56 these are all things that this quote
0:09:58 unquote secular state has to adjudicate
0:10:00 all the time right so um it isn't it is
0:10:03 not a just a mere issue of separation
0:10:05 and distance it is one in which actually
0:10:08 the the secular produces a certain type
0:10:10 of acceptable religiosity one that might
0:10:13 be
0:10:14 um
0:10:15 one that might be uh that might i should
0:10:17 say prioritize or emphasize or encourage
0:10:20 a privatization of faith or
0:10:23 a certain
0:10:24 entrance of religion and politics like
0:10:26 you say if we're talking about uh the
0:10:28 entrance of evangelical politics into
0:10:30 our relationship with israel then okay
0:10:32 that's okay but it's very okay it's
0:10:35 almost i mean i'm an outsider if you
0:10:36 give me wrong it almost seems it's
0:10:38 obligatory it's not like it's permitted
0:10:40 it's
0:10:41 in the public domain in the media and so
0:10:43 on one must almost perform the
0:10:45 endorsement and the encouragement of
0:10:47 certain positions on a certain subject
0:10:48 shall we say um
0:10:50 to be at all uh a part of the mainstream
0:10:53 even would be acceptable in public
0:10:55 discourse it's that it's that uh
0:10:57 compulsory yes and and one one term that
0:11:00 makes its rounds that kind of captures
0:11:02 that sentiment uh very well i think is
0:11:04 the whole idea of a judeo-christian
0:11:06 tradition right this kind of myth that's
0:11:08 been established as yes somehow uh
0:11:11 christianity and and judaism have
0:11:13 something more in common and that kind
0:11:15 of leaves the third wheel as islam you
0:11:17 know you know out on the outside looking
0:11:19 in um it kind of tips attack or or
0:11:22 acknowledges this sort of
0:11:24 yes mandatory entrance of religion a
0:11:27 certain type of religion into secular
0:11:29 politics whereas others if we're to take
0:11:30 the logic and apply it evenly across the
0:11:32 board it would be completely uh rejected
0:11:35 if we're going to draw sort of
0:11:37 let's imagine the affinities uh the
0:11:40 geographical affinities that muslims
0:11:41 have across the world
0:11:44 when iraq was invaded or when
0:11:45 afghanistan was invaded or these other
0:11:47 sorts of things
0:11:48 yeah they they're not they're not only
0:11:50 considered to further your point they're
0:11:52 not only considered illegitimate they
0:11:54 are by definition uh a pariah right to
0:11:56 the state they are they are security
0:11:58 risk they have to be neutralized they
0:12:00 have to be policed and they have to be
0:12:02 um you know
0:12:03 certain actors need to be thrown in jail
0:12:05 you have the holy land foundation right
0:12:07 that was raising money for
0:12:09 or the or the west bank and
0:12:11 they were thrown they were thrown in
0:12:12 jail on the subject of a big
0:12:14 um criminal investigation supposedly
0:12:17 because
0:12:18 based on some suspicion that the money
0:12:20 that they were raising was going to
0:12:21 hamas in in gaza so
0:12:24 it's very very politicized it's nothing
0:12:26 but politicized and sort of what
0:12:28 religiosity is able to enter into the
0:12:30 supposedly neutral public sphere is
0:12:32 actually um
0:12:34 very uh particularly defined
0:12:37 yes yes
0:12:38 yes yeah
0:12:40 so that was so that was kind of what
0:12:42 spurred me onto this path of thinking
0:12:44 about
0:12:45 yes religiosity and it honestly it kind
0:12:48 of brought me back to religiosity
0:12:50 because at that point in my life i
0:12:51 didn't think very highly of religion um
0:12:54 but when i saw and part of my other
0:12:56 studies and there's not one particular
0:12:58 book i can point to but it's the sort of
0:12:59 typical post-colonial canon of benon and
0:13:03 homi baba and spivak and these people
0:13:06 that you know we were reading as part of
0:13:07 the coursework
0:13:09 allowed me to see
0:13:11 that the civilization mission of
0:13:14 european colonization had never stopped
0:13:16 that it simply only changed forms or it
0:13:18 had different waves right so you could
0:13:21 identify perhaps the first wave as the
0:13:23 the conversion impetus right and then
0:13:26 perhaps the second wave was the resource
0:13:28 extraction and then the third wave
0:13:31 perhaps was the the secular civilization
0:13:34 mission right we have um when we get to
0:13:37 the 1800s especially from the mid-1800s
0:13:39 on most of the colonial encounters it's
0:13:41 not about converting people to a certain
0:13:43 religion it's about trying to civilize
0:13:45 yeah it supplies the civilize the the
0:13:47 barbarian and this language you're using
0:13:50 it's not you retrospectively
0:13:51 characterizing itself that is the
0:13:53 language that was used oh yeah actually
0:13:55 because civilizing uh muslims
0:13:59 who needed to be civilized i mean it's
0:14:01 quite extraordinary and this was seen as
0:14:02 uh
0:14:03 the uh the prime directive of the west
0:14:06 it was civilized civilize the world and
0:14:10 you're saying that this this whole kind
0:14:12 of prime directive has changed form but
0:14:14 the the fundamental imperative is still
0:14:17 active today uh yet to say how but i i
0:14:20 think you have a good point
0:14:21 yes and the final way we could say that
0:14:23 we're still writing is the whole human
0:14:24 rights regime okay so we're talking
0:14:27 about the institutions such as the u.n
0:14:29 and the imf and the world bank and how a
0:14:31 lot of times financial resources and
0:14:33 financial flexibility is tied to certain
0:14:36 ideas of what human rights should look
0:14:37 like what women's rights should look
0:14:39 like
0:14:40 sabah mahmoud collaborated uh with some
0:14:43 other thinkers on a very powerful
0:14:45 article around the time of the invasion
0:14:47 of afghanistan about
0:14:49 the discourse uh that was used before
0:14:52 the invasion of afghanistan in 2001 and
0:14:55 how the war was justified on
0:14:57 humanitarian grounds about liberating
0:14:59 the afghani women and this is a trope
0:15:01 that goes back a long long time but this
0:15:03 is the sort of thing it's another wave
0:15:05 of colonialism
0:15:07 um saving you know especially saving the
0:15:09 muslim supposedly oppressed muslim woman
0:15:11 from the barbaric muslim man
0:15:12 um but there's other sorts of things it
0:15:14 could be gay rights uh it could be
0:15:16 women's rights it could happen recently
0:15:18 literally in the last week or so um i i
0:15:20 think the the american embassy in kuwait
0:15:23 um had the temerity to hoist the the
0:15:26 lgbt rainbow flag thing
0:15:28 um much to the uh and the kuwaiti
0:15:31 government uh or whatever protest
0:15:32 ambassador protested why are you flagged
0:15:35 for you know this is absolutely contrary
0:15:37 to our values and our faith but the the
0:15:39 arrogance that uh that the country
0:15:41 should do that is part of this
0:15:44 civilizing mission so that muslims now
0:15:47 will change their religion and see
0:15:49 things as secular liberal westerners do
0:15:51 when it comes to a whole raft of issues
0:15:53 with gender gender or sexuality you name
0:15:56 it so the the the the uh
0:15:59 the prime directive i'm calling it um
0:16:01 continues in uh and but it's just as
0:16:04 aggressive because it's now um in your
0:16:06 face
0:16:07 and it's not negotiable you've got to
0:16:09 accept this agenda and this agenda by
0:16:11 the way is always changing i mean it's
0:16:13 very different from what it was five
0:16:14 years ago
0:16:15 uh and doubt this is very different
0:16:17 point it would be in five ten years who
0:16:18 knows what then it would be maybe the
0:16:20 right to people to commit incest or or
0:16:22 uh i can speculate about bestiality or
0:16:25 who knows what things which are
0:16:26 unthinkable in taboo now
0:16:28 but these things we accept today were
0:16:30 unthinkable in taboo five minutes ago so
0:16:33 who knows what the next uh prime
0:16:35 directive will will require muslims to
0:16:37 embrace from the west and the whole
0:16:39 world not just uh muslims by the way uh
0:16:42 catholics traditional catholic
0:16:43 traditional jews um even traditional
0:16:45 atheists will also be required to
0:16:48 submit to this prime directive
0:16:51 very much so and it's very much by hook
0:16:53 and by crook i mean like there's there's
0:16:55 incentives and then there's interference
0:16:56 there's destabilization right and this
0:16:59 is a point that we'll get to later when
0:17:00 we talk about halak the idea of
0:17:02 exceptionality right or the idea that um
0:17:05 you know the world can run on democracy
0:17:07 until it steps out of bounds and then it
0:17:10 needs an intervention right so if for
0:17:12 example the
0:17:14 one of the prime examples is when they
0:17:16 elected hamas as their democratic
0:17:18 democratically elected government i
0:17:19 believe that was 2006. um that couldn't
0:17:22 happen right that was the wrong choice
0:17:24 and so which value is going to win out
0:17:26 is it going to be the the process value
0:17:28 of people and self-determination and
0:17:30 these freedom and all these sorts of
0:17:32 things that we hear liberalism justified
0:17:34 upon the grounds of or is it going to be
0:17:37 well who's really a minimal amenable to
0:17:39 neoliberal capitalism and to our
0:17:41 conception of women's rights or our
0:17:43 conception of the human being right it's
0:17:45 kind of like uh it's clear which one
0:17:47 takes priority and yeah but i i don't
0:17:49 think it's just that i think i mean
0:17:51 historically we look to chile in the
0:17:53 it's called the other 911 as it's called
0:17:56 september the 11th i think it was 1977
0:17:58 or something 1970s when the democratic
0:18:00 elected government of chile headed by
0:18:02 allende his name was actually overthrown
0:18:05 by the americans and this is not a
0:18:06 conspiracy theory this is a recognized
0:18:09 documented fact and then before that in
0:18:11 1953 i think there was a democratically
0:18:13 elected government in iran this is
0:18:15 before the ayatollah and the the current
0:18:18 regime and the democratic gov that was
0:18:20 actively overthrown not just by the cia
0:18:23 but by our guys mi6
0:18:26 even the bbc had a right if you google
0:18:28 this there's actually a whole wikipedia
0:18:30 page i i find it fascinating how the bbc
0:18:32 played a role this is the british
0:18:34 broadcasting authority uh corporation
0:18:36 here in the uk actually had a very
0:18:38 interesting role
0:18:39 in the timing of the overthrow of the
0:18:42 democratic elected government in iran
0:18:44 you wouldn't believe it but the reason
0:18:45 was oil
0:18:47 oil
0:18:48 um and uh so the the west has a very
0:18:50 long history of overthrowing
0:18:52 democratically elected governments when
0:18:56 they don't
0:18:57 conform to the policy agenda or
0:19:00 expectations of washington and london
0:19:02 usually they're usually so it's not
0:19:04 really to do with democracy but the
0:19:06 democracy is not the highest good at the
0:19:08 end of the day it's what's in the west's
0:19:09 interests whether it be geopolitics or
0:19:12 oil or whatever anyway
0:19:15 they have many tools in the toolbox
0:19:16 right so regime change is one of those
0:19:18 one of those tools financial
0:19:19 destabilization is another one of those
0:19:21 tools interfering in elections in the
0:19:23 first place you know is one of those
0:19:25 tools um all sorts of things that they
0:19:27 have and yeah so it's so it's very much
0:19:29 we're still living in the state of
0:19:31 colonial opposition and the irony the
0:19:33 irony is that you'll have folks
0:19:35 especially liberals in north america and
0:19:37 the quote-unquote west who um are
0:19:39 ringing their hands about the legacy the
0:19:42 colonial legacy um of yesteryear and yet
0:19:45 they're on the front lines
0:19:46 uh of today's colonialism they're on the
0:19:48 front line a very nice a very nice point
0:19:51 there tom very nice points yes they're
0:19:53 kind of disowning the past closeum but
0:19:55 actually through the back door they're
0:19:56 promoting a new kind of colonialism
0:19:58 whilst pretending not to be promoting
0:20:00 colonialism at all
0:20:01 yeah very interesting so
0:20:04 um so and there's a you know getting
0:20:06 back to essence so one of his footnotes
0:20:08 i'll never forget one thing that's stuck
0:20:09 with me um
0:20:11 he shows how this sort of
0:20:14 he he uses one historical example to
0:20:16 show how there's sort of this um
0:20:19 this is a legacy of uh again i guess
0:20:22 this this goes back to the difference or
0:20:25 the disconnect between the legitimizing
0:20:28 discourse and the reality so we're
0:20:30 talking about how does the the world
0:20:32 justify these sorts of interventions for
0:20:34 freedom and democracy etc etc but really
0:20:36 there's something else going on
0:20:38 so essa you know cites in one of his
0:20:40 footnotes um when the
0:20:43 the european colonial powers at the end
0:20:45 of world war one are about to carve up
0:20:46 turkey
0:20:47 or the ottoman empire um they don't get
0:20:50 to do it as much as they wanted to for
0:20:52 reasons obviously but they they have the
0:20:54 plan they have the maps all drawn out
0:20:56 and they have the
0:20:58 their kind of speech prepared their
0:20:59 justification and the british had
0:21:02 included uh the reason for
0:21:05 crimes against christendom okay so it
0:21:08 said crimes against christendom and that
0:21:09 the whole armenian situation etc etc um
0:21:13 but france objected to that language
0:21:15 because france had territory you know
0:21:17 vast territories in which they had lots
0:21:19 of muslims west africa and they said no
0:21:21 we can't use that language we have to
0:21:22 use something else so the language that
0:21:24 they settled upon was crimes against
0:21:26 humanity
0:21:27 and that was the first instance of the
0:21:30 use of this phrase
0:21:32 according to asset of these crimes
0:21:33 against humanity so we see how we have
0:21:35 this assumed christian subject
0:21:39 who the
0:21:42 the powers that be we want to call it
0:21:43 europe we want to call it the west
0:21:44 letter we don't call it have realized
0:21:46 that they need to cloak that actual
0:21:49 subject with a more universal language
0:21:51 right we can't get around um just
0:21:54 slaying people and saving the christians
0:21:56 and you know fighting the infidels
0:21:57 anymore we have to uh we have to at
0:22:00 least give lip service to the fact that
0:22:02 this is for all humanity and people
0:22:04 believe in that actually to various
0:22:06 degrees or not um
0:22:08 but this sort of discord is something
0:22:10 that has always kind of stuck with me
0:22:12 um
0:22:13 so to get back to kind of i guess the
0:22:15 the broader sort of trajectory i was on
0:22:17 so i had really awoken in maybe the idea
0:22:20 of the religious as sort of a sphere or
0:22:23 something to
0:22:25 redirect my attention back to or perhaps
0:22:27 rethink
0:22:28 because he's saying that okay
0:22:30 part and parcel of this new colonialism
0:22:33 or at least the implication he doesn't
0:22:34 really he's not
0:22:35 super
0:22:37 confrontational with his language but
0:22:39 inferred in his work is that
0:22:41 one of the arenas of this new
0:22:43 colonialism is also the secular
0:22:46 right the replacement of the religious
0:22:48 subjects or
0:22:49 what we
0:22:50 used to be called a subject maybe a
0:22:52 moral subject a spiritual subject a
0:22:54 theological subject an orthodox subject
0:22:56 with a secular citizen
0:22:59 and that's where he he places the the
0:23:01 difference of secularism and the kind of
0:23:03 what makes secularism special is that he
0:23:06 calls it a transcendent identity so it
0:23:08 replaces
0:23:10 it actually displaces how we think about
0:23:12 ourselves
0:23:13 before the idea of a secular and
0:23:16 religious how did people conceive of
0:23:17 themselves they conceive of themselves
0:23:20 primarily as maybe human primarily as
0:23:22 perhaps souls primarily as muslims
0:23:25 primarily as christians
0:23:27 the logic of secularism requires a
0:23:30 transcendent a transcendent identity
0:23:32 that is the citizen
0:23:34 in which now the religious identity is
0:23:36 tucked as
0:23:37 a minor identity marker you know just
0:23:39 like alongside your ethnicity and your
0:23:41 gender and whatever else you have
0:23:43 so
0:23:44 that goes back to kind of foucault and
0:23:46 the idea of the order of things how are
0:23:47 you arranging things what are the
0:23:49 categories through which you're thinking
0:23:51 if you're thinking through the secular
0:23:53 then religion can only be something that
0:23:55 is private something that is uh
0:23:58 a
0:23:59 not
0:24:00 we could say a secondary or a tertiary
0:24:02 sort of identity marker and what strikes
0:24:04 me very much is that classically uh
0:24:07 catholicism the world's largest religion
0:24:09 um
0:24:10 uh would have agreed very much with
0:24:12 islam in identifying the the the human
0:24:14 being as a servant of god or a child of
0:24:17 god uh in a theological a metaphysical
0:24:20 universe so there was no secular realm
0:24:21 it was there was christendom of course
0:24:23 this great concept of christendom which
0:24:25 is arguably parallel with the idea of
0:24:28 say like the ottoman empire but um um
0:24:30 but but that is gone now and since the
0:24:32 second vatican council at least in the
0:24:34 catholic church now this seems to they
0:24:36 seem to have largely it could be a
0:24:38 mistake but my impression has largely
0:24:39 accepted the secular agenda so they
0:24:41 accepted secular democracy the language
0:24:44 of human rights and so on and and the
0:24:46 private role of religion now which
0:24:48 wasn't the case before in in faith and
0:24:50 then with jews as well today who uh
0:24:53 appeared to me wrongly perhaps as
0:24:55 largely secular but historically with
0:24:56 israel of course the state i mean the
0:24:59 biblical the israelites in israel i
0:25:01 should say um in the in the jewish bible
0:25:04 was anything but a secular state you
0:25:05 know you had god ruling through his
0:25:07 prophets through his kings uh
0:25:09 occasionally directly um so it seems to
0:25:12 me uh maybe this is the attraction where
0:25:14 you're going to the islam is the only
0:25:17 uh abrahamic faith or global faith left
0:25:20 standing that is um completely uncont
0:25:23 largely uncontaminated by uh the the
0:25:26 winds of secularism which have basically
0:25:29 humanized or secularized other faiths
0:25:32 and islam is left standing alone
0:25:34 to face verte commas modernity inverted
0:25:38 commerce because it's not just modern
0:25:39 it's western it's secular it's liberal
0:25:42 it has a very particular historical
0:25:44 origin a particular expression and it's
0:25:46 evolving and changing all the time as
0:25:48 well
0:25:49 so anyway that would be my
0:25:51 segue
0:25:52 that's fantastic and that's exactly sort
0:25:54 of the realization i had that that got
0:25:56 me interested in islam in the first
0:25:58 place um that's exactly what i came to
0:26:00 feel uh in my first undergrad that islam
0:26:03 was the last thing left yeah and i
0:26:05 hadn't even
0:26:07 done the research that i had done you
0:26:09 know since then about even how far
0:26:11 eastern faiths such as buddhism and such
0:26:13 as hinduism and such as other uh taoism
0:26:15 and other traditions have kind of been
0:26:18 uh subjected to the secularizing and and
0:26:21 reforming
0:26:23 process in really really interesting
0:26:24 ways i wish there was actually more
0:26:26 awareness about that maybe for a future
0:26:29 a future project but islam really is
0:26:32 kind of the last
0:26:33 pre-modern in the sense that you spoke
0:26:35 the definition of modern
0:26:37 faith system that's left standing even
0:26:39 even you know a source of of culture or
0:26:42 source of sentiment or even we could say
0:26:44 in in foucault's terms episteme it's
0:26:46 it's the last resistant episteme where
0:26:49 you can actually have an
0:26:51 an entirely different world view because
0:26:53 the diversity that's being that's being
0:26:55 kind of championed today is the the
0:26:57 thinnest and most superficial type of do
0:27:00 we have we would like to have all
0:27:01 different skin colors and all different
0:27:03 clothes and all different whatever maybe
0:27:05 foods but everybody believes the same
0:27:07 thing yes
0:27:08 different sexualities but we're all as
0:27:10 you say well with it within this same
0:27:12 concept the same paradigm which is
0:27:14 bounded by secular liberalism because
0:27:17 within this you're not going to
0:27:19 traditional believers be they
0:27:21 muslim catholic or jewish have no home
0:27:23 the one thing you can't be i should say
0:27:25 is traditional so you can't believe in
0:27:27 traditional values the traditional
0:27:29 reference to the transcendent um uh i
0:27:32 god that that is other you know as
0:27:35 you're saying within our own small
0:27:37 little bubble that's what's permissible
0:27:39 only
0:27:40 yes yes very much so uh so that was kind
0:27:42 of the the start of that whole inquiry
0:27:44 and that led me down the path that it
0:27:46 led me um and i came to see how the
0:27:48 secular was just as
0:27:51 much a crucial part of the new
0:27:52 colonialism as the other sorts of
0:27:56 aspects of human rights and
0:27:58 this and that and the other
0:28:00 and so that was you know after after
0:28:02 time that kind of um
0:28:04 long story short that's how i came to
0:28:06 islam
0:28:07 but with um
0:28:08 that kind of wraps up uh
0:28:11 asset but then there's other sort of
0:28:13 thinkers that are tied to him there was
0:28:14 uh mahmud who
0:28:16 i read a bit of who was an
0:28:18 anthropologist she passed away um but
0:28:20 she had a book called politics of piety
0:28:22 that was very nice
0:28:24 it was super interesting because her
0:28:25 positionality coming to it she was kind
0:28:28 of like a secular pakistani woman
0:28:30 who was doing field work in egypt about
0:28:33 the mosque movement or about some sort
0:28:35 of
0:28:36 religious revivalism in egypt
0:28:38 and through stepping outside of her own
0:28:40 culture
0:28:42 she was able to see islam in a
0:28:44 completely different light
0:28:47 not going to claim that you know she had
0:28:49 this you know personal revelation and
0:28:51 became like a super practicing i don't
0:28:53 know i don't know her personal life but
0:28:55 she at least and you picked this up in
0:28:56 the book came to appreciate
0:28:58 after she left her own cultural kind of
0:29:00 context and cultural rivalries about
0:29:02 secularism in pakistan versus you know
0:29:04 religious
0:29:05 whatever in pakistan
0:29:07 what she was able to observe in egypt
0:29:09 was something entirely different and she
0:29:11 actually wrote very profoundly about um
0:29:13 the mosque movement and about sort of
0:29:15 religious revivalism and the sorts of
0:29:17 concerns
0:29:18 um
0:29:19 sorts of concerns that are that have
0:29:21 been very central to me since i
0:29:24 embarked on this path which is exactly
0:29:26 that so
0:29:27 one of my chief concerns as just a
0:29:30 thinking person and someone who has kind
0:29:32 of the training or experience as i do is
0:29:34 drawing the line
0:29:37 between that kind of secularized or
0:29:40 secular produced religion
0:29:42 and our authentic
0:29:44 pre-modern
0:29:46 pre-secular
0:29:47 religious tradition
0:29:49 because the danger the danger and this
0:29:51 is you know obvious to you is that
0:29:54 the danger is that we think maybe we're
0:29:57 presented with a form of islam
0:29:59 or presented with a form of religiosity
0:30:01 that we believe to be the authentic
0:30:03 pre-modern continuous tradition that is
0:30:06 islam and in reality it's the secular
0:30:08 reformed production that is very
0:30:10 amenable to the
0:30:12 secular nation state and then we forget
0:30:15 and then then what right that's that's
0:30:17 like the worst thing and what makes it
0:30:20 tricky is that everybody knows in islam
0:30:22 if you're a muslim you know that you
0:30:23 have to appeal to quran and sunnah every
0:30:25 single movement has to appeal to quran
0:30:26 and so no one's going to take you
0:30:27 seriously unless you see that your
0:30:29 beliefs are based on foreign but but
0:30:32 that doesn't mean that the things that
0:30:34 you're advocating for are necessarily
0:30:36 part of that continuous tradition maybe
0:30:38 it may be that there's something that's
0:30:40 new that's been
0:30:41 introduced
0:30:42 into how you're interacting or
0:30:44 interpreting or even applying this
0:30:47 tradition that is actually part of
0:30:49 senate this colonial heritage and not
0:30:51 something that goes back further than
0:30:52 that
0:30:53 so that's always interested me they're
0:30:55 trying to delineate those sorts of
0:30:57 things well i think it's as i say i
0:30:59 think it's made a lot harder this
0:31:01 happens both in the united states and in
0:31:02 britain too is the political alliance
0:31:04 between muslim activists and
0:31:06 intellectuals and politicians and the
0:31:08 left the political left which seems to
0:31:10 be the default position so
0:31:13 and this this comes at a huge price tag
0:31:14 yes the left may come to our age to
0:31:17 protect us and speak for muslims if
0:31:20 they're attacked or oppressed and that
0:31:21 that's all very nice of course they're
0:31:23 good of course
0:31:24 but i i i would think it comes at a huge
0:31:26 price tag uh and then for many muslims i
0:31:29 was not gonna mention any names of
0:31:30 course but for many muslims it appears
0:31:32 to me that they
0:31:33 uh become very quiet or very silent on
0:31:36 those issues uh which the left do
0:31:39 champion now very very loudly and
0:31:40 aggressively which of course are
0:31:42 antithetical to the muslim position so
0:31:44 there's it's kind of you get this kind
0:31:46 of truncated
0:31:48 um islam presented in effect to the
0:31:51 public because it's not the form not the
0:31:52 holistic system where there's ethics and
0:31:55 politics and there's uh teachings of
0:31:57 sexual morality and so on it's a kind of
0:31:59 uh truncated version uh which kind of
0:32:02 fits in with the left's uh alliance the
0:32:04 alliance with the left and that that's
0:32:06 really sad because um for obvious
0:32:08 reasons for those reasons but also
0:32:10 because i think i know it's a bit
0:32:11 different in america but
0:32:13 there's much on the traditional right as
0:32:16 it's
0:32:16 call it in britain the conservative
0:32:18 right which is very similar and overlaps
0:32:21 with islamic teaching for example
0:32:23 there's socially conservative views
0:32:24 about
0:32:25 marriage and
0:32:27 gender roles and so on
0:32:29 um and for those reasons which i
0:32:31 understand america they've been quite
0:32:32 violent attacks from the right on
0:32:34 muslims but at least
0:32:35 there are conservative thinkers like sir
0:32:38 roger scrutin the british philosopher
0:32:39 who um who who did in his later years he
0:32:42 died recently have very positive
0:32:45 engagements and conversations with hamza
0:32:47 yusuf for example say tuna um where
0:32:49 there seemed to be a considerable
0:32:50 convergence between traditional
0:32:53 conservative philosophy and politics and
0:32:56 islamic discourse
0:32:58 and i found that very refreshing rather
0:33:00 than the usual kind of
0:33:02 left-wing militant
0:33:04 political discourse and the muslim
0:33:05 involvement in that as almost a a a c
0:33:08 not of any involvement in public life an
0:33:11 indispensable condition of public life
0:33:14 very much so someone put it and i
0:33:15 thought it was very succinct they said
0:33:17 that uh the right wants to kill muslims
0:33:19 and the last ones to kill islam
0:33:21 yeah yes
0:33:23 that's fairly accurate um and yeah 100
0:33:26 what you said we need to be aware of the
0:33:28 categories through which we're thinking
0:33:30 about our religion you know if somebody
0:33:32 is you know you take all of the
0:33:33 categories that are meaningful to the
0:33:35 elect justice uh you know individual
0:33:38 autonomy uh all these sorts of things
0:33:41 if those are your
0:33:42 sacred categories right and you can come
0:33:45 to the tradition you can come to the
0:33:46 quran and the sunnah
0:33:47 those are your blinders those are your
0:33:50 lens that you're looking through you're
0:33:51 only going to you're going to curate the
0:33:53 tradition and only choose that which uh
0:33:56 adheres to this regime of kind of values
0:33:58 and principles and everything that
0:34:00 violates it you're either going to not
0:34:02 notice in the first place you're going
0:34:03 to
0:34:04 explain it away in some way sense and
0:34:06 you've predict that's the danger that
0:34:07 you've then produced a new islam
0:34:09 yeah is not actually a snap but maybe
0:34:11 you you do actually believe that it's
0:34:13 islam yes as opposed to you know trying
0:34:16 to reclaim what are the actual we could
0:34:19 say indigenous categories through which
0:34:21 we think thing
0:34:22 through which we think uh of things as
0:34:24 muslims
0:34:26 absolutely right
0:34:29 yeah so
0:34:30 the the next book or i guess the the the
0:34:33 final book and this is one that i
0:34:34 haven't even finished yet but that's
0:34:36 engrossing me and is and we talked a
0:34:38 little bit about it
0:34:40 oh yes
0:34:41 uh particularly restating uh orientalism
0:34:44 so orientalism i read a lot of sareed as
0:34:47 part of my first
0:34:48 uh undergrad and i didn't get around to
0:34:50 reading khalak until actually fairly
0:34:52 recently
0:34:53 and um
0:34:54 hadak seems to me like to have taken
0:34:57 this kind of trajectory of of asset and
0:34:59 taking it even further um and he has a
0:35:02 lot more familiarity and expertise when
0:35:05 it comes to the islamic tradition um
0:35:08 than i think essed had
0:35:10 i said
0:35:12 sometimes i read asset and i feel like
0:35:13 he really pulled his punches like you
0:35:15 know he he has in the meat of his book
0:35:17 so much uh there that's that's
0:35:21 ready to critique and subvert and
0:35:23 undermine sort of the things that are
0:35:24 going on and then kind of his
0:35:26 recommendations at the end are like very
0:35:28 very like polite whereas i feel like uh
0:35:31 halak is is much more kind of
0:35:33 straightforward and much more um
0:35:37 not confrontational but uh direct when
0:35:39 it comes to his his criticisms of kind
0:35:41 of this modern episteme okay
0:35:44 can we just clarify you don't know who
0:35:46 halag is
0:35:47 happens to be a professor at columbia
0:35:50 university in the united states he is a
0:35:52 christian
0:35:53 and he's born in uh a place called
0:35:56 nazareth which i think someone else
0:35:57 rather famous was born there once i
0:35:59 think i forget who um
0:36:01 and um no he was born in nazareth
0:36:03 seriously he's a christian and he
0:36:04 features i kid you not in the top 500
0:36:07 leading muslim thinkers or leaders in
0:36:09 the world if you look at the top 500
0:36:11 list put out by muslims he's in it he's
0:36:14 not even a muslim
0:36:16 he's like an honorary muslim because he
0:36:18 understands islam uh
0:36:20 very well it seems particularly sharia
0:36:22 islamic law he has a um he's an expert
0:36:25 he teaches islamic law at columbia
0:36:27 university amongst many other things
0:36:29 philosophy and history and politics
0:36:30 political theory and he is the latest
0:36:33 hot thing to go i mean i'm reading the
0:36:34 impossible state by him at the moment uh
0:36:37 like yourself i've only encountered his
0:36:39 work recently um much belatedly so i i'm
0:36:43 i just
0:36:44 this was an award-winning book uh very
0:36:47 significant uh product just written
0:36:50 some years ago and he's written another
0:36:52 book or two since then um but no he is
0:36:55 hot property uh intellectual hot
0:36:56 property and he is a must-read author i
0:36:59 understand and i'm certainly benefiting
0:37:01 from him in the moment so
0:37:03 yeah i'm completely uh engrossed you
0:37:05 know that comes along uh some of those
0:37:08 books where you just
0:37:10 you stay up at night
0:37:11 trying to finish them or trying to
0:37:12 finish the chapter and and that's it's
0:37:15 definitely one um
0:37:17 what i like particularly about restating
0:37:18 orientalism is that he takes kind
0:37:20 because people have a lot of critiques
0:37:21 and people are very suspicious you know
0:37:24 for example because i've kind of been
0:37:26 influenced by foucault and that sort of
0:37:28 critical theory sort of milieu a lot of
0:37:30 people they have very little respect for
0:37:32 that sort of milieu and rightly so
0:37:34 because of where the culture has gone
0:37:36 right like a lot of kind of at least in
0:37:38 north america the way that um certain
0:37:41 ideas or certain strains within
0:37:43 post-modern theory and within um you
0:37:46 know critical theory have made it into
0:37:49 the mainstream um in a very problematic
0:37:51 way
0:37:52 and so some people look very you know
0:37:54 asking me about you read foucault and
0:37:57 these sorts of guys but um
0:38:00 those are over simplifications right
0:38:01 there's definitely a lot to glean and i
0:38:03 think halaq shows the power or the
0:38:05 potential power of kind of those methods
0:38:08 when they're applied in the right way
0:38:10 because
0:38:11 he's looking at
0:38:13 this modern episteme that we're in and
0:38:15 he's taking
0:38:16 especially in restating orientalism
0:38:18 because his his point of departure for
0:38:19 the book is to kind of critique saueed
0:38:22 in his books orientalism and um
0:38:25 imperialism which were required reading
0:38:27 for us when we were you know and
0:38:30 did
0:38:32 uh what was like the precursor in some
0:38:34 ways if that makes sense of uh
0:38:37 he also was a palestinian although i
0:38:39 don't think he was born in nazareth
0:38:40 maybe he was born in bethlehem i don't
0:38:42 know but he was born in palestine and
0:38:44 ended up in america and being a
0:38:46 professor as well so they end up in the
0:38:47 same kind of trajectory but his his uh
0:38:50 magnum opus his great work is
0:38:53 orientalism it's called orientalism and
0:38:55 this was like required really it
0:38:57 probably still is required reading on
0:38:58 university courses when it comes to but
0:39:01 i'll show you here
0:39:06 show you how so this is uh the book
0:39:08 orientalism with a rather dodgy uh cover
0:39:11 as a highly acclaimed uh work and uh uh
0:39:15 he um
0:39:16 uh sadly passed away uh um a couple of
0:39:19 years ago but oh he was a professor at
0:39:20 columbia university as well i just
0:39:22 realized i wonder if he was the
0:39:23 predecessor uh uh anyway this is the
0:39:26 book you're referring to um it's called
0:39:28 restating oriental a critic of modern
0:39:30 knowledge uh by halak there we go which
0:39:33 i've not read yet it's on my reading
0:39:35 list to read uh next and uh it is hot
0:39:38 property this is what one should be
0:39:40 reading at the moment if one wants to be
0:39:41 seriously engaged in the current debates
0:39:43 about political theory and critiquing
0:39:45 western epistemology this effortless
0:39:48 assumption that whether we the way we
0:39:50 see the world in the west is the natural
0:39:52 normative way that the universal prism
0:39:54 through which we see reality and in fact
0:39:56 it's not really like that at all it's
0:39:57 very particular it has particular
0:39:59 agendas and when it comes to muslims it
0:40:01 can be very toxic anyway i don't
0:40:04 anticipate that
0:40:05 and
0:40:06 you know i think that a kind of a latent
0:40:08 benefit of the book is that it
0:40:10 delineates kind of the uh the useful
0:40:13 parts about critical theory from the
0:40:15 more i think harmful parts because he
0:40:17 really um
0:40:19 blasts saeed to be honest when it comes
0:40:21 to his theoretical sloppiness
0:40:24 and his lack of rigor uh and and he he
0:40:27 pulls quotes and he you know he's
0:40:29 referencing very very specific things
0:40:31 about basically the climate that that
0:40:33 saeed had basically taken uh critical
0:40:36 theory and turned it into the cultural
0:40:38 phenomenon it is today where it's just
0:40:40 basically identity politics where it's
0:40:42 like if you're not from
0:40:44 x
0:40:45 place you can't speak about x
0:40:47 right um if you are not arab you can't
0:40:49 speak about arabs if you're not right
0:40:51 that was his idea his his conception of
0:40:53 orientalism was simply misrepresentation
0:40:57 yes and so um which is very very thin uh
0:41:00 compared to what halaq like goes to
0:41:03 basically
0:41:05 actually compares himself to he he says
0:41:07 that uh i i hijacked
0:41:10 saeed's ship and i rebuild it and i took
0:41:12 it to a completely different destination
0:41:14 so
0:41:15 his project in the book is to kind of
0:41:16 take the the parts of set of satins kind
0:41:20 of uh either sensibility or whatever
0:41:23 theoretical value he had but then to
0:41:25 really put some meat on the bones and to
0:41:27 make it rigorous and to make it
0:41:29 theoretically robust
0:41:31 and what and what he ends up producing
0:41:33 is absolutely amazing whereas we see the
0:41:36 the orientalism of
0:41:37 is the one that has drifted into
0:41:39 mainstream culture um where you know and
0:41:42 the left and the what we associate with
0:41:43 post-modernism and and whatever marxist
0:41:46 culture whatever we want to call it um
0:41:48 but halak has a completely different
0:41:49 take entirely um
0:41:51 and he can he he he critically critiques
0:41:54 foucault as well
0:41:55 appears in the impossible state anyway
0:41:57 that i've read he actively engages with
0:41:59 the you know the the very influential
0:42:01 philosophers and political theorists
0:42:02 from the west often from france for some
0:42:04 reason um who
0:42:06 who kind of form the uh epistemological
0:42:09 background that we live and breathe
0:42:10 through today and we don't realize it so
0:42:13 and and part of halak's brilliance is to
0:42:15 kind of deconstruct this and show that
0:42:17 this is where this comes from it's not
0:42:18 kind of just a natural phenomena
0:42:22 yes very much so and and one of his
0:42:24 major i guess points in the book is okay
0:42:28 we use this word modern all the time but
0:42:30 it's actually quite a slippery concept
0:42:32 it's certainly not a coherent one where
0:42:34 do we
0:42:35 draw the line what is the beginning of
0:42:37 the modern is modern simply having
0:42:40 technology gadgetry industrial
0:42:42 revolution is it the enlightenment is it
0:42:44 the episteme what is it really um and
0:42:47 halak i think you know he has a more
0:42:49 narrow definition of what modernity is
0:42:52 than some other thinkers who try to even
0:42:55 expand it back to the the renaissance
0:42:57 even or just after the renaissance so a
0:42:59 lot was talking about modernity as
0:43:01 basically the point at which um the
0:43:04 state became sovereign
0:43:06 right yes okay so uh
0:43:08 whereas and someone's like and we do
0:43:11 this all the time even again talking
0:43:12 about anachronisms when we talk about um
0:43:15 uh the muslim state of medina right
0:43:17 halaq would probably uh bristle out that
0:43:19 one he had a heart attack if you said
0:43:21 that to him yeah yes he would he would
0:43:23 tell you if you were a student of his
0:43:24 you said that you quoted that in an
0:43:26 essay you'd fail in his class you'd get
0:43:29 a big red line yes exactly you would you
0:43:31 would
0:43:32 he his point is that the state is
0:43:33 something entirely different it's it's a
0:43:36 technology of governance that has that
0:43:38 is completely unprecedented
0:43:40 in its reach and its ability to shape
0:43:43 the interiority of subjects whereas uh
0:43:46 before there was always something
0:43:48 external to governance to hold it to
0:43:50 some type of accountability even if
0:43:52 there were uh individual situations
0:43:54 where maybe there was a despot or a
0:43:56 tyrant who
0:43:58 superseded those bounds but at least
0:44:00 even even the the king that claimed to
0:44:03 be a god um he had to adhere to what
0:44:05 people's expectations were for what a
0:44:07 god should be and he risked
0:44:10 losing legitimacy if he violated any of
0:44:12 those sorts of expectations the king you
0:44:14 know before constitutionalism there was
0:44:16 still a sense of common law there was a
0:44:18 sense of proprietaryness or justness
0:44:21 that had to be adhered to um was above
0:44:24 himself
0:44:25 he couldn't he didn't have absolute
0:44:27 sovereignty in the sense that he
0:44:28 couldn't do it just exactly whatever he
0:44:31 wanted to without any justification he
0:44:33 had to justify himself according to some
0:44:35 regime of sensibility or some regime of
0:44:38 of of ethics whereas what happens with
0:44:40 the modern state is that the modern
0:44:42 state has freed itself from needing to
0:44:45 legitimize itself to basically anything
0:44:48 it doesn't admit that right if we look
0:44:50 at the the democratic state we have all
0:44:52 this pageantry about elections and
0:44:53 things like that social compact theory
0:44:56 and this kind of uh collective delusion
0:44:58 that um
0:45:00 we
0:45:01 accept the governing structures just by
0:45:03 going to the polls every four years
0:45:05 right uh which is kind of a fantastic
0:45:07 notion but uh in reality in reality uh
0:45:10 the state is completely sovereign
0:45:12 absolutely sovereign in an unprecedented
0:45:14 way it has the there's a fantastic quote
0:45:17 here i actually have it on my iphone
0:45:18 because i'm so impressed by halak
0:45:21 if i may just read it it's about the
0:45:23 secularism but also to do with uh the
0:45:25 state he says uh i forget which book
0:45:27 this is from i think it might be from
0:45:28 the impossible state let us remember
0:45:30 what secularism is right professor halak
0:45:33 secularism is not just segregating
0:45:35 religious life into the private sphere
0:45:37 it is rather the determination of the
0:45:40 state of what religion is and is not
0:45:43 where and how it can be exercised in
0:45:46 terms of political theology i mean
0:45:48 political theology that's a subject in
0:45:49 itself secularism is the murder
0:45:52 of god by the state
0:45:55 that is so that is that sends itself is
0:45:58 so cool in terms of political theology
0:46:01 secularism is the murder of god by the
0:46:04 state the state can delimit limit
0:46:07 exclude or could tell any religious
0:46:09 practice thinking here in france for
0:46:11 example and thus has the power to
0:46:13 determine the quality and quantity of
0:46:15 the religious sphere as it sees fit
0:46:19 i mean that's absolutely that's a great
0:46:21 prose but also
0:46:23 it really gets to the heart of the
0:46:25 matter in terms of this idea of
0:46:26 political theology is something i'd love
0:46:27 to see more revived not just not just
0:46:30 theology which i'm very interested or
0:46:31 just politics but political theology
0:46:33 because the west has a very uh profound
0:46:36 political theology or they might not put
0:46:38 it in those terms
0:46:40 in its secular view
0:46:42 where
0:46:43 secularism is the murder of god by the
0:46:45 state the state is the new god
0:46:48 particularly places like france where
0:46:50 the ultimate authority the sovereignty
0:46:52 now belongs to the state in a very
0:46:54 absolute way and lo and behold if any
0:46:57 muslim possibly says allahu akbar god is
0:47:00 greater than which is just the the basic
0:47:02 belief that god is sovereign and and
0:47:04 that is um political suicide in france
0:47:08 it's actually a blasphemy against the
0:47:11 secular god to actually say god is
0:47:13 greater than that
0:47:15 um anyway
0:47:17 yes now france is actually a very useful
0:47:19 example for uh showing the type of
0:47:22 secularism kind of taken to its its its
0:47:24 final form or maybe its logical
0:47:26 conclusion because you know there's a
0:47:28 lot less uh
0:47:30 the the mask has been ripped off so
0:47:33 you know all the the pretense of
0:47:35 toleration and the pretense of uh you
0:47:37 know rational discourse is completely
0:47:39 gone i mean they simply uh are viciously
0:47:43 kind of attacking
0:47:44 and policing the interiority of people
0:47:46 and that's the kind of point of that
0:47:48 halak has right because it's not simply
0:47:50 how you conduct yourself in public it's
0:47:53 how do you feel interior you know to
0:47:56 yourself are you is your allegiance to
0:47:58 the state yes or you're allegiant to
0:48:00 allah or islam and if and we're going to
0:48:03 find out if your allegiance is really to
0:48:06 islam or to allah maybe it's the hijab
0:48:07 maybe it's allahu akbar maybe you're you
0:48:09 want a home school maybe you have a
0:48:11 beard whatever it whatever that external
0:48:13 signs are what we're really concerned is
0:48:15 is your interiority that's totalitarian
0:48:17 in a way that no pre-modern governance
0:48:20 structure could imagine and certainly
0:48:22 new islamic governance if you look at
0:48:23 the the great islamic ottoman empires
0:48:26 and so on people were allowed to believe
0:48:28 and have their own communities they
0:48:29 weren't required by the state to believe
0:48:30 anything um
0:48:32 on the contrary christians were allowed
0:48:33 to drink wine and eat pork and have
0:48:36 christian beliefs and so in an islamic
0:48:38 framework under islamic governance and
0:48:40 uh is but the
0:48:42 in essence the islamic experience
0:48:44 historically politically was much more
0:48:45 pluralist and diverse in the real in a
0:48:48 real sense not just in the narrow way
0:48:50 that you mentioned earlier the modern
0:48:52 western democracies are they're much
0:48:53 less diverse and less pluralist and when
0:48:56 i say this to people in the west they
0:48:58 just don't believe so what are you
0:49:00 talking about how can this be true
0:49:02 until you actually explain it to them
0:49:04 how it's true how the ottoman system
0:49:06 worked for i don't know seven eight
0:49:08 hundred years you know or back to medina
0:49:11 the so-called constitution of medina
0:49:13 where um you know jews and muslims and
0:49:16 so on were each given their their rights
0:49:18 to practice freely of their faith under
0:49:20 the the the the rulership people like of
0:49:23 the prophet muhammad upon mvp so this is
0:49:25 about the dna of islam it's not some
0:49:27 kind of
0:49:28 modern liberal idea
0:49:30 very much so yeah no it's it's it's
0:49:32 shocking once you remove kind of the
0:49:34 smoke and mirrors and the mask off of
0:49:36 things how uh even the so-called virtues
0:49:39 that the west attempts to attain to
0:49:42 whatever are
0:49:44 legitimate virtues islam has completely
0:49:46 outpaced them both both historically and
0:49:48 textually right if we're going to talk
0:49:50 about real tolerance not just phony
0:49:53 surface level top princeton islam far
0:49:56 outpaces the west and the history of
0:49:58 europe and christianity uh and the same
0:50:00 thing with pluralism and these sorts of
0:50:02 things
0:50:02 yeah so
0:50:04 yeah
0:50:05 it's very true and so that's
0:50:07 sensitive to that throughout his
0:50:08 writings and that's one of the most
0:50:10 beautiful things about reading his
0:50:11 writing is that
0:50:13 it and irony of all ironies is that you
0:50:15 know yes he's
0:50:16 perhaps not a muslim i mean allah knows
0:50:18 best but he doesn't profess to be a
0:50:20 muslim and so the way he that he writes
0:50:22 about islam it makes you feel that is
0:50:25 makes you feel a certain pride
0:50:28 in the pre-modern
0:50:30 islam and practice of the sharia and end
0:50:33 of islam he has a really interesting
0:50:35 discussion in restating orientalism
0:50:37 about the differences between um the llc
0:50:41 right the limited liability corporation
0:50:43 and the what
0:50:44 right two different technologies and his
0:50:47 point and people make this mistake all
0:50:48 the time they they um they engage in
0:50:51 what i believe he calls the theology of
0:50:53 history which is to assume that um
0:50:56 technology just you know unfolds in some
0:50:58 linear fashion and it's just a matter of
0:51:00 time until you know the nuclear weapons
0:51:02 happen and this happens and that happens
0:51:04 and you know halaq
0:51:06 does take kind of the the method of
0:51:08 foucault and say no that the episteme is
0:51:10 what's going to shape the contours of
0:51:12 what you can even think yes that esteem
0:51:15 is going to shape the possibilities of
0:51:17 what you can even do even the words that
0:51:19 we have in the language for things like
0:51:21 the episteme is going to to it's not
0:51:23 like you know
0:51:25 an extremely narrow path but there are
0:51:27 borders to it it's not infinite and so
0:51:29 the episteme is going to determine what
0:51:31 you can possibly think say and do and so
0:51:34 the point is not that muslims did not
0:51:37 have the technology for example they
0:51:39 simply were behind the west and couldn't
0:51:42 invent a nuclear warhead it was that the
0:51:45 episteme prevented such barbarity right
0:51:48 the the episteme that sought to um the
0:51:51 type of subject that the sharia aims to
0:51:54 produce the moral subject is incapable
0:51:57 of
0:51:58 imagining such a destructive and
0:52:00 barbaric thing yeah
0:52:02 and so
0:52:03 people put all this pride in sort of
0:52:05 military technology and advancement and
0:52:07 really all that it's proven is that
0:52:08 there are some people that are more
0:52:10 ruthless than others and are have you
0:52:12 know sicker imaginations and more
0:52:14 barbaric imaginations than others and
0:52:16 then we come full circle because who's
0:52:17 the who's the the savage and who's the
0:52:19 civilized mm-hmm no i i it's absolutely
0:52:22 absolutely true i was thinking about the
0:52:24 recent technologies developed to you
0:52:27 know gender transitioning and all the
0:52:29 sophisticated technology you know to
0:52:31 actually you know this would be it's not
0:52:33 the muslims couldn't develop they would
0:52:35 never develop that because it would be
0:52:36 unthinkable because it would violate
0:52:38 certain basic moral uh commitments to
0:52:41 the nature of male and female and so on
0:52:43 but the west uh often
0:52:45 it has not been inhibited by
0:52:47 any moral code it seems he said if
0:52:49 science can do it you go ahead and do it
0:52:51 see if you can invent
0:52:53 this weapon of mass destruction by a
0:52:54 nuclear weapon and and use it the only
0:52:56 country in the world i think has ever
0:52:58 used nuclear weapons on civilian
0:53:00 populations is the united states of
0:53:02 america twice
0:53:04 uh
0:53:05 in japan and it destroyed nagasaki and
0:53:08 horizon is the only country's ever done
0:53:10 that in history
0:53:11 actually uh weapons actually use weapons
0:53:14 of mass destruction um on a massive
0:53:16 scale um anyway this is one
0:53:20 refuses to apologize and refugees
0:53:22 refuses to take part in any sort of
0:53:24 reparation for for what it's done and
0:53:26 continues to lead to live
0:53:28 haunted by the guilty conscience i think
0:53:31 that resulted from those sorts of
0:53:33 actions because
0:53:34 american foreign policy is often
0:53:36 animated by a level of paranoia that
0:53:38 defies reason
0:53:40 especially paranoia that other sort of
0:53:41 states are going to obtain this sort of
0:53:43 weaponry or all we all these action
0:53:45 movies have to do with you know the
0:53:48 leaking of nuclear technology to these
0:53:50 sort of bad guys who are the only
0:53:53 we're the only people who have ever used
0:53:54 that technology right it's uh it's kind
0:53:56 of a reminds me of crusoe and sort of
0:53:59 this fantastic paranoia
0:54:01 um
0:54:02 but yeah so so halak for example he and
0:54:04 this is not to say and we should clarify
0:54:06 because some people think uh in in
0:54:08 too stark of terms so when they think
0:54:10 about critiquing modernity they're
0:54:12 assuming that modernity is just you know
0:54:14 um
0:54:16 technology and computers and cell phones
0:54:18 and stuff like that and so
0:54:19 the question that always you know or the
0:54:22 retorts that people always give as well
0:54:24 okay well uh
0:54:26 you don't want to have technology you
0:54:27 don't want to have this and you don't
0:54:29 want to have that said no the idea
0:54:31 behind the episteme or the difference in
0:54:33 the episteme that we're we're drawing
0:54:35 here is that
0:54:36 an islamic modernity if we're going to
0:54:38 say that um
0:54:40 if modernity is simply technological
0:54:42 process or
0:54:44 excuse me technological progress then an
0:54:46 islamic modernity would have produced
0:54:48 the goods that we enjoy without the bats
0:54:52 right like certain things would have
0:54:53 been impossible yeah right we don't need
0:54:55 to uh choose between oh well if we want
0:54:58 internet then we have to also have the
0:55:00 nuclear warhead right that's not a
0:55:02 foregone conclusion right we could have
0:55:04 had the internet without the nuclear
0:55:05 warhead but we didn't why didn't we
0:55:08 because we have we live under a certain
0:55:10 episteme that separates as halak says
0:55:12 the separation between is and ought
0:55:14 which is what you just said for example
0:55:16 when if we can do it meaning if it's
0:55:19 possible to physically be done then it
0:55:20 should be done then we can yes yes
0:55:22 exactly whereas uh leaving aside all
0:55:25 concerns as to you know what should we
0:55:27 do like what's the best thing what's the
0:55:28 most moral thing and so he compares the
0:55:31 technology he goes back all the way to
0:55:32 the limited liability corporation and
0:55:35 has some interesting sort of citations
0:55:37 about the debate about that
0:55:39 that economic technology when it first
0:55:41 arose and kind of the debate around how
0:55:43 it was going to be potentially abusive
0:55:46 and he compares it to the lock
0:55:48 system which is kind of the opposite
0:55:50 so could you explain what that system is
0:55:52 for those who might not know yeah so the
0:55:53 watch system is a system of we could say
0:55:55 either a trust or an endowment so it has
0:55:57 to do with freezing and underlying asset
0:55:59 usually land
0:56:01 and or or a building or something like
0:56:03 that and
0:56:04 freezing it in the sense that it cannot
0:56:06 be sold it cannot be transferred it
0:56:08 cannot be given away as a gift and it
0:56:10 cannot be inherited uh and it is
0:56:13 the use of fructs which is the technical
0:56:16 term for the revenue that it generates
0:56:18 uh is dedicated to a certain charitable
0:56:20 cause
0:56:21 um and halaq goes into a lot of detail
0:56:25 about the walk system and how central
0:56:27 the walk system was to uh to islamic
0:56:30 civilization for hundreds and hundreds
0:56:32 of years
0:56:33 um
0:56:33 and that is completely in line with
0:56:35 everything that i've ever read even from
0:56:37 you know classical islamic sources that
0:56:39 describe how there used to be
0:56:41 certain
0:56:42 endowments like this that were running
0:56:44 hospitals for example and certain that
0:56:46 were running schools and others that
0:56:48 were paving the roads or making roads
0:56:50 and others that were providing water to
0:56:52 people on the street and education
0:56:53 sporting scholars
0:56:55 as well and this of course independent
0:56:57 of the state so these guys were not
0:56:58 employees of the state and all the the
0:57:01 the connections and the ties and the
0:57:03 liabilities that that inevitably means
0:57:05 they were independent and they had their
0:57:06 own revenue from say
0:57:08 the land or the the house or the
0:57:10 building whatever you mentioned exactly
0:57:12 and that that is the the point that he's
0:57:14 driving to specifically in restating
0:57:15 orientalism where he eventually
0:57:17 addresses education as its own uh as its
0:57:20 own thing and shows how independent like
0:57:22 what
0:57:23 it's not to say that there was never any
0:57:26 relationship or even attempted
0:57:27 interference between say a regime or a
0:57:30 political regime and a walk for their
0:57:32 educational institutions but there was
0:57:34 no national curriculum and national
0:57:36 standards and enforcement of these
0:57:40 pronouns or that pronouns or this
0:57:41 curriculum or that curriculum it was
0:57:43 very very much more uh decentralized and
0:57:46 independent and so
0:57:48 you know it avoided that sort of
0:57:50 conflict of interest i remember a friend
0:57:52 of mine saying i forget the exact date
0:57:54 um but there was a time when there's the
0:57:56 ulama the the islamic scholars at
0:57:57 al-azhar university the most one of the
0:57:59 most if not the most prestigious
0:58:01 seat of learning in the in the muslim
0:58:03 world were obviously scholars and
0:58:05 independent and there was a time in the
0:58:07 20th century
0:58:08 it might have been under nasa i forget
0:58:09 when uh when they became employees of
0:58:12 the state they became civil servants
0:58:16 can you imagine i mean imagine the
0:58:17 change that meant when this state
0:58:19 actually employs you are you going to
0:58:21 criticize the state are you then going
0:58:23 to accept its directives it's programs
0:58:25 it's encouragements perhaps to maybe not
0:58:27 say this and maybe look at that you're
0:58:28 not independent anymore and but it gave
0:58:30 them job security because they were
0:58:32 applied by the state but at a huge cost
0:58:34 and and so that i don't know chris that
0:58:36 is direct because i don't know nothing
0:58:37 about it but it does seem that they are
0:58:39 now civil servants whereas before they
0:58:41 were independent and that surely that is
0:58:42 significant
0:58:44 yes and and that's actually one of the
0:58:45 beauties of specifically that book is
0:58:47 halak goes into uh a lot of detail and
0:58:50 skips around the muslim world to show
0:58:52 the process and it mostly happened
0:58:54 across the 1800s particularly the latter
0:58:56 half of the 1800s um we're talking
0:58:59 algeria we're talking egypt we're
0:59:01 talking even even the ottoman empire
0:59:04 india pakistan indonesia the playbook
0:59:07 was always the same
0:59:08 and it comes right back to that state
0:59:10 sovereignty that he talks about and what
0:59:12 you just kind of illustrated is that
0:59:14 that in order for state sovereignty to
0:59:16 be asserted
0:59:17 the first thing that they did when they
0:59:19 came to muslim lands was break up the
0:59:21 walks they broke up the walk they
0:59:24 seized the property the underlying
0:59:26 assets it could no longer function
0:59:27 independently it had to be subsumed
0:59:29 within a department of this department
0:59:32 of education department of property
0:59:34 though sometimes it was as crude as
0:59:37 those underlying assets being put back
0:59:39 on the market and returned to
0:59:40 circulation but sometimes they let them
0:59:42 exist but they exactly like with how
0:59:45 they appropriated the use of fruct or
0:59:47 they meddled with the um they salaried
0:59:50 everybody and they brought them under
0:59:51 the centralized control of the of the
0:59:54 sovereign state and so
0:59:56 that was
0:59:57 maybe even more significant this is
0:59:59 where halaq would draw a distinction
1:00:00 between sort of like pre-modern
1:00:02 colonialism which is kind of your
1:00:04 columbus and your these guys who are
1:00:06 just going for conversion and stealing
1:00:08 gold and you know barbarism and things
1:00:09 like that versus once we get to the 18th
1:00:12 uh assuming the 19th century the 1800s
1:00:15 it's kind of a different flavor that's
1:00:17 where his
1:00:18 definition of modernity really kicks off
1:00:20 where
1:00:21 it's about the sovereign state
1:00:23 it's about control it's about
1:00:26 controlling the internal subject
1:00:27 producing an entirely new subject and
1:00:29 this is where we get quotes from all the
1:00:30 colonial administrators you know we want
1:00:32 to kill the indian and save the man or
1:00:35 you know we want people who are uh
1:00:37 indian in their color and in their etc
1:00:39 but they're they're british and their
1:00:41 mannerisms and their opinions and etc
1:00:43 etc this type of thinking where we want
1:00:45 to keep the thin superficial diversity
1:00:48 but the internal diversity we want to
1:00:50 crush it we want to make sure that there
1:00:52 is no subjectivity except for a
1:00:54 subjectivity that is obedient to the
1:00:56 secular state and its logic
1:00:58 um and so that's where they reformed uh
1:01:01 law codes halaq goes into a lot of
1:01:03 detail about reforming of the legal
1:01:05 codes and compares the the sharia and
1:01:08 all of its kind of um you know it's it's
1:01:11 local sensitivities it's decentralized
1:01:14 nature uh versus the kind of
1:01:16 codification of law that became very
1:01:18 rigid and inflexible and and centralized
1:01:21 again from morocco to indonesia like he
1:01:24 skips across the muslim world and shows
1:01:25 how this is
1:01:27 only
1:01:28 possible within this sort of episteme
1:01:30 that demands this sort of
1:01:32 totalitarian control of the internal
1:01:34 self this did not exist this is
1:01:36 unprecedented that's how lux clean i
1:01:37 don't know i'm president and that's the
1:01:39 point when he's very critical in the
1:01:40 impossible state which by which he means
1:01:43 the islamic state in a conceived
1:01:46 modern state is impossible because of
1:01:48 those reasons simply to islamicize the
1:01:50 modern state is not is it is a
1:01:52 contradiction in terms the islamic
1:01:54 government has always been very
1:01:55 different it's been more decentralized
1:01:58 there's been these independent uh
1:02:00 agencies like uh with the ulama
1:02:03 and so on it's not this absolute state
1:02:05 this unprecedented phenomenon we see we
1:02:08 see today which he which he says is very
1:02:10 un-islamic you can't just islamize it
1:02:12 you have to have a different paradigm
1:02:14 although i'm not sure he
1:02:16 talks about the alternative paradigm in
1:02:17 that book but um and this is a central
1:02:19 question for muslims of course in terms
1:02:21 of the caliphate uh which i think is a
1:02:23 really important subject different area
1:02:25 of course for discourse from us now but
1:02:27 uh
1:02:28 he makes them very profound but for a
1:02:29 christian is to make these points
1:02:32 for a muslim audience who are
1:02:33 appreciating what he's saying is also
1:02:34 unprecedented i think
1:02:36 yes very much so yeah and i mean we see
1:02:39 the illustrations of those points now
1:02:40 right you look at
1:02:42 look at all the examples that we have of
1:02:44 a state-sponsored islam
1:02:46 yeah without naming names everybody
1:02:49 knows you know the sort of the when the
1:02:51 state gets behind islam it's always with
1:02:52 an agenda it's impossible not to and so
1:02:55 they're in the process of curating that
1:02:57 tradition to something that's amenable
1:02:59 to their own interests
1:03:01 and then because it's the sovereignty of
1:03:03 the state that's at that's at stake um
1:03:06 they're going to be very very ready to
1:03:08 declare anything and everything else as
1:03:10 not islam as heresy et cetera et cetera
1:03:12 and so it's actually a very precarious
1:03:14 thing we can't have just an islam that's
1:03:16 simply sprinkled on top
1:03:18 of uh the same forms and the same
1:03:20 episteme that has produced the modern
1:03:22 state we really do need a a paradigm
1:03:24 shift uh as it were
1:03:26 um yeah but yeah and it shows me really
1:03:29 great ironies uh of our our time in the
1:03:31 west if you really want to be radical
1:03:33 you want to be a subversive you want to
1:03:35 be a revolutionary don't become an
1:03:37 anarchist don't become a marxist because
1:03:40 a lot of your marxist radical views are
1:03:44 culturally dominant they're in the media
1:03:46 they're fashionable corporations are
1:03:48 shouting your slogans now if you really
1:03:50 want to be a radical rebel you're going
1:03:51 to be subversive
1:03:53 be a muslim
1:03:54 yeah very much
1:03:56 or be a traditionalist i mean there are
1:03:58 traditional catholics and others who
1:04:00 occupy a similar kind of
1:04:02 space in that kind of subversive area
1:04:05 but muslims are the by far the biggest
1:04:07 and
1:04:08 unsubverted uh religion in the world
1:04:11 though and it is muslims are the real
1:04:13 they're not a threat that they are a
1:04:15 potential
1:04:16 hope for a different paradigm that could
1:04:18 bring uh much more holistic healing and
1:04:20 liberation for humanity so it's not a
1:04:22 dangerous threat it's actually
1:04:24 an alternative for hope where secular
1:04:27 models and discourses just don't offer
1:04:29 any answers about what is a meaning to
1:04:31 life how do we live our lives how do we
1:04:33 relate to god is there an afterlife
1:04:36 what does it mean to be good that
1:04:38 this discourse has nothing really to
1:04:40 give no answers really but religion does
1:04:42 have answers and islam preeminently
1:04:45 has uh the complete set of answers
1:04:48 arguably um to offer mankind and that's
1:04:51 the great hope i think of religion
1:04:54 where liberalism can't offer any answers
1:04:56 really
1:04:57 yes no that's that's i think one of the
1:04:59 most important things especially to
1:05:00 drive home to non-muslims is that uh
1:05:03 look at the society that we're in
1:05:04 everybody is sick
1:05:06 everybody's sick uh when it comes to
1:05:08 there's the drug addiction and
1:05:10 pornography and and your
1:05:12 media and everything people are living
1:05:15 living miserable lives and it's
1:05:17 impressive
1:05:19 the degree to which corporate mass media
1:05:22 is able to convince people that they are
1:05:25 living in the most free and happy time
1:05:28 that has ever existed the pinnacle of
1:05:30 progress of western civilization we've
1:05:32 got the best of the greeks and the best
1:05:33 of christianity and the best of this and
1:05:35 the best of that and yet everybody's
1:05:37 sick
1:05:37 we're killing the earth
1:05:39 you know that we're destroying the
1:05:40 environment nobody's happy right and
1:05:44 there's this kind of
1:05:46 cognitive dissonance that people have
1:05:47 yet to admit but i think if they admit
1:05:50 it
1:05:51 then they need to start looking for for
1:05:52 alternatives and for redemption now
1:05:55 that's that's the word that i like to
1:05:56 use that islam has the redemption of the
1:05:58 west or any place inside of it
1:06:01 and that again last hope it's the last
1:06:03 hope because
1:06:06 whether it's the secular state or
1:06:08 whether it's kind of the corporate
1:06:09 interests or neoliberal capitalism has
1:06:12 successfully managed to to co-opt every
1:06:15 other sort of movement and resistance as
1:06:17 you said you know and then you've got
1:06:18 you've got uh pride flags on on on
1:06:21 warheads
1:06:22 that get dropped on countries right
1:06:24 that's just like a perfect metaphor for
1:06:27 um the trivialization of what people
1:06:30 incorrectly assume is some sort of
1:06:32 liberatory uh you know world view or
1:06:34 something like that i i saw a recent
1:06:36 prayer i won't mention what it is but
1:06:38 there was a a as a us army uh advert uh
1:06:41 or military advertising army or not and
1:06:43 a picture of a helmet and it had a
1:06:44 picture of four bullets strapped to the
1:06:46 helmet and this is an official military
1:06:48 us military advert by the way and they
1:06:50 were all gay pride things like gay
1:06:51 bullets basically
1:06:53 and the idea is you can you can go and
1:06:55 fight and kill the enemy with some gay
1:06:57 bullets in the name of that i mean
1:07:00 it it is unthinkable that this has been
1:07:03 done five minutes ago and now this is
1:07:04 now official propaganda yeah lgbt
1:07:07 bullets that will kill the enemy i mean
1:07:10 presumably muslims or um
1:07:18 the ways in which they're being used and
1:07:20 even their their their good
1:07:22 sensibilities of justice or their
1:07:23 sympathies are being used and co-opted
1:07:26 right all of these things are part of
1:07:27 the same cultural force the same global
1:07:30 mono culture that's kind of being uh
1:07:32 shoved down our throats and the only
1:07:33 thing left the only thing left to resist
1:07:35 it is islam
1:07:36 so
1:07:37 and if we sacrifice as you were saying
1:07:39 that the sad thing is that if we
1:07:40 sacrifice that islam
1:07:42 in order to fit in and curate our
1:07:44 tradition and for the sake of political
1:07:46 alliances we're going to lose the exact
1:07:49 thing that stands to redeem
1:07:52 the place that we live in and everybody
1:07:54 in it
1:07:56 amen to that
1:07:58 i'm into that
1:07:59 well um i guess that's it well thank you
1:08:01 very much uh indeed uh imam tom for uh
1:08:04 your producers reading and your time and
1:08:07 i i i will um i'll itemize the books
1:08:10 that you mentioned in the description
1:08:11 below as well as put a link to
1:08:13 um your mosque and your youtube channel
1:08:16 which is definitely worth uh following
1:08:17 you're very very active on youtube
1:08:19 producing some very good quality content
1:08:21 on a on a daily almost hourly basis
1:08:24 sometimes i feel it's it's it's a a
1:08:26 great output there
1:08:28 um
1:08:29 and um well thank you very much um imam
1:08:32 tom for your time thank you thank you so
1:08:33 much paul pleasure thank you until next
1:08:35 time