Revisionism, Extremism, Rebellions and the Muslim Civilisation & the Boys in the Cave

Why is history important? History teaches you lessons. This is why Allah Allah in the Quran repeatedly gives us histories of the previous nations. The purpose of repeating the stories are born in Israel and the people have vowed, and people of Solomon and people often know and people of other prophets for that matter is to teach you lessons. These stories are told for a reason. And the reason is, to get people to contemplate, to ponder upon the errors and mistakes of the previous nations, so that we don't repeat them.

And also at the same time will repeat what they did, right? If there is something right, we must repeat it. All the virtuous acts, all the

good deeds, all the achievements that were positive, we must repeat them. That's why history is a very powerful argument from Allah subhanaw taala. So we must learn from the errors and the virtues of the past nations. This is why knowing your history, as Muslims,

in particular, and as humans in general is absolutely crucial. You cannot ignore history, or people who forget the history are condemned to relive it. If you don't learn from your history. If you don't take lessons from what happened before you, you will fall victim to same problems, same diseases, same errors, same social destructions that occurred in the past. So to avoid the disasters and the catastrophes and the mistakes and the errors of the past, you must study history very, very carefully. Otherwise, they will repeat the keep repeating and this is why

this is welcome back to another episode of boys in the cave. I'm your co host tans and I'm joined by my other co hosts Raphael and humbly law, we're joined by a very, very special guest. We'll start Adnan Rashid. So we'll start that Nan is a historian with a specialty in the history history of Islamic civilization comparative religion in Hadith literature and he has a honors degree in history from the University of London. I think you graduated recently.

From Lula Mashallah. And you're also I think, continuing further studies from memory. Um, I watched your recent video, you said that you're looking to do a PhD soon Is that correct? And Sharla

and what's that looking to specialize in Indian history,

Islamic law, during the Mughal period, inshallah. inshallah, because we actually watched your recent, I watched your recent episode with Delia Hassan, who we've had on twice on our podcast. Angela is very insightful in general Mughal history. So you're also the head of Heaton Institute, as well as senior researcher and lecturer sir Assalamu alaikum. And welcome to boys in the cave or Alico Salama, thank you very much for having me. And I'm very grateful for this opportunity

as a way for having you on. I think one of the main things I really wanted to probably ask you about because I used to watch your videos now, I've been watching your videos now for almost half a decade, by the way, just some context was that a referral is a river, I'll tell you about that I was really gonna get there. Just see my family background is mostly Mediterranean Italian I was born into a non Muslim family obviously started to come across Islam in my teens. And obviously nowadays with the internet and with sort of the you know, YouTube and social media, Islam has quite a big presence on there. And I think really, we punch above our weight in a lot of discussions about

philosophy, comparative religion, in the in these Western countries where we may not have great populations, but we certainly have a lot of contribution. And I've been watching your videos and the videos of a lot of the other pioneers in the in the dour scene, particularly in the UK, which was one that was, to me probably the most interesting, engaging and exciting. I used to watch a lot of Hamza daughters, for example, and I'm aware of the fact that you've been active in dour probably a lot longer than than many of these brothers, who are quite popular these days. And I wanted to get your insights and this is pretty pretty deep to start off with but on how the internet social media

YouTube has revolutionized and changed the Dallas scene in terms of Islamic discourse with other religions. And with atheism and secularism and the accessibility to these discussions now through through YouTube and, and other platforms. How has this really changed our and how much has it changed since you became active?

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim thank you for that question. I believe social media has changed the dynamics of dialogue globally. Tao was previously not widely disseminated due to the limitations we had in terms of media technology. If you're a member, I don't know if you are old enough to remember. But in the 90s people used to watch our videos on these VHS tapes. They were big VCR.

And people would simply, you know, I mean, I am one of those people I used to watch, check out my dad's

videos, through a VCR basically, on my television set. And you know,

that was the main medium we used to get knowledge from the art like check it out, and Dr. Zakir Naik and other individuals like them. By the way check ama de dot Sun was shot this morning in South Africa. Unfortunately, yeah, it is a recent event.

It's very tragic. It's very sad. Such a great man who served the country so much for so many decades. His son ended up like that, unfortunately, thought Africa is going through a very, very difficult period, these days due to the high crime rate. And we pray that shake amedy dot sun chef use of deedat recovers soon, and goes back to normality mean. It is a very sad news we received today. And we pray collectively that may Allah Subhana Allah bless him with a quick recovery. And I mean, even just just to give a context as well, I think shake up and did that and his son, they were instrumental with helping people exactly like in the contemporary times. And so he's played a

massive role, I guess, in contemporary

art, I consider myself a product of shakaama dots work. I used to watch his videos, take notes, sit down, highlight biblical verses, and then read them again and again and go to speaker's corner in the mid 2000s. And then I got more active by the year 2008, I started getting into debating with some of the people who used to attend there. And from then onwards, it has been, you know, just getting busier and busier by the day. So dynamics have changed. Now, Tao is a global thing, due to

the good use of social media because social media is like a two edged sword. You can use it for bad things people are, you know, spreading a lot of falsehood, a lot of satanic stuff. You know, people are using it for spreading Moncure all around the world. At the same time. The Olia of Erhan, the friends of Allah subhanaw taala

are also using it to spread goodness, inviting people to goodness, inviting people to sanity inviting, inviting people to morality and all these things. And Alhamdulillah social media has changed the dynamics. In fact, people, non Muslims now can listen to our words and watch our content on a wider scale. People like Mufti menk, are reaching out to, let's say, millions of people around the world and a lot of his listeners are actually non Muslims. Believe it or not. He's very popular in Africa. Even African Christians listen to him. And his work is affecting a lot of people around the world. And this is purely due to social media. If we were to,

if we were still limited by these VHS tapes, and if technology hadn't moved on, then people like multi make, they would be very limited. They would be limited to the Muslim community, purely people who have interest to listen to him, or Islamic content. But just because he's on Twitter, he's on Instagram, he's on, you know, YouTube, a lot more people are listening to his stuff. Likewise, there are other dour individuals around the world. Many intellectuals, many activists are reaching out to hundreds of 1000s of people, possibly millions of people. So social media has definitely changed the dynamics of Dawa in the last five years, if not more.

And it is a good thing. It is a good thing. We must learn the art of technology. And we must, we really need to get involved more. We need to pioneer

investment. And I would say investment in learning technology in training ourselves in these technologies so that we can become inventors. Not only using technology, but how to make

It also is also very important because we are relying on mainly non non Muslim sources to get this technology. So we need to pioneer the field of media, we need to become producers, we need to become manufacturers, we need to become inventors, just like we once were.

During a golden age, you know, we talk about so often. So I believe dynamics have changed.

So Paula, even, just to give a quick insight, like boyson came in shallow trying to go video full time and all that. And even in that process, just trying to find you first instinct is like to go to a camera expert in the Muslim community or a video expert in the Muslim community and get their insights and stuff. Botswana, we don't have enough of that. So I'm actually having to go to, you know, non Muslim experts as well. And there's many there's plenty as well use this research on Google. So it actually shows like as a community, we're not kind of up to the mark, I'm sure there is honor, like one path and stuff to doing amazing works in there, um, high quality, but I'm talking

to like a vast amount. There's there's not as much unfortunately, sure, the same with, you know, the British versions of the British Tao outlets. I think it's showing up for him to have the Raheem green, who was someone who was again, very influential in the sort of journey that I took from, from you know, where I was, in my life to becoming a Muslim and a lot of these famous dour sort of institutions propagating with cash, I'm sure they have Muslim

savvy, ographers and stuff, but by and large, especially in minority communities, it can be sometimes a skill shortage. Yeah, exactly. And it's a shame it's kind of, I guess, inhibiting a bit of a bit of adult reach millions because I remember even I mentioned this on Superman's episode that will not be binge watching on speaker's corner and I'm going into the light is around the 2000 1000s. I'm seeing up to shake up Dr. Abdul Rahim green on the on this pulpit sort of thing with this some little grainy video

with the camcorder some guy recording, and now we have HD quality. I think I was watching a speaker's corner. It's a full HD live streaming now it's so vanilla, how I guess the Times have changed on us. Yeah, absolutely. Even speaker's corner has changed. It never used to be like that. Previously, people would hardly video these discussions and debates.

And recently, I would say in the last three years, it has really picked up speaker's corner discussions would mainly be wasted, simply because no one was recording and there was no record of these discussions. But now every single discussion good and bad discussions are being recorded. And people are choosing carefully, you know, and

by the grace of Allah, some of the discussions are reaching out to millions, millions of people, some of these videos have phenomenal hits. And it is like a phenomenon. You know, people from all around the world are watching these discussions and they're taking interest in these discussions, because there is no other platform like that in the world, to my knowledge, where people get together and discuss matters of religion, philosophy, politics, history, and other matters.

That you know, are very important for people living in London, if not in Britain. And it is a model it is a model place it needs to be

encouraged it is it is very much cherished by people who attend. Of course, it's not always pleasant listening to people who you know, sometimes people come with a lot of ideas, and you don't agree with those ideas, but that's such as the nature of the place, and Alhamdulillah as far as Tao is concerned, it has really picked up from speaker's corner Mashallah. A lot of youngsters around the world are now learning arguments, they are gaining confidence in Islam. They are the what are they actually wait for the videos to come out? Right. And this is one of the beautiful things about this place.

Absolutely. I think the difference I noticed between the United Kingdom and the United States for example, which also has quite a, a large Muslim minority and also some very influential Muslim figures who have large followings through digital and social media. I find that you know, some of the great ideas propagated and the contributions have checked off the asset quality for example, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf is a checker there is a checker that are very influential, but the thing is about the UK was the the discussion that they were able to have with other ideologies or formers on a public platform made it unique. So there was no sort of speaker's corner in the United States and

amongst the bubbles, I would say I would put it crudely, I would say, speaker's corner is the UFC of dour

You see, it's like cage fighting. It's like you have these people who come to fight intellectually, okay? And there are no rules, there are no rules. So you can say what you like. And you can you can expect anything to come up and you have to be prepared to answer. You have to be prepared to give some sort of response and, and, and it really prepares you, it really trains you hard. You know, once you have been trained in speaker's corner,

you know, it is very difficult to be beaten in any arena around the world, when you when you having a dialogue and discussion.

And it's a very good place to learn arguments from all sides, from atheists, from Christians, from Muslims, from Shias from Sony's

you know, some people come in, you know, they preach their philosophy, you know, people that are communist there, there are Nazis, I mean, right wing, you know, sometimes you find right wing extremists there, sometimes you have some, unfortunately, so called muslim extremists there as well. Okay. So, in fact, there are they are extremists, from all so you get all sorts of people there. So it can get messy at times, it can get very messy, things are thrown around all over the place. And you really have to do you have to keep your calm you have to do basically, I think, something that we've spoken to Dr. Gillen about and it's kind of stuck with me to this day is that he mentioned

like, imagine for for Muslim. It's like if you're in the thick of things, and you're thinking why am I bombarded with all these arguments the point but then Dr. Guillen mentioned that one of the wisdoms I guess, for atheists existing for Christians existing is that us as Muslims learn the deen better because like, for example, you're alluding to speaker's corner being sort of like a UFC cage fight. So that means you have to train yourself. So when you train yourself, you have to hit the books, you have to understand the arguments, you have to understand what the scholars are saying. And then you present your case. So that's what kind of when you when you're interacting with people

from different faiths, that's what you sort of encountered. And the thing is about nowadays is that that extends to the laity, the Muslim laity. So it's not just the oma and the, you know, the teachers within the community who have studied traditionally and heavy jazz. And, you know, in universities, it's actually ordinary Muslims are going out and researching sort of Tafseer of different Ayah to really get to the core of the meanings of them, and having to delve into, you know, aspects of acleda, even handful of laypeople who are sort of among the most sort of

intellectual, yes, so some of these discussions are very deep. They are very deep discussions, if you noticed, in speaker's corner, sometimes

very intricate, and delicate points of raised from Muslim theology and Christian theology. And sometimes people bring out, you know, a lot of research to discuss, and we really have to dig deeper into classical works to give answer.

So it can teach you at the same time a lot, it can teach you a lot. I wanted to ask as well, you mentioning, you know, being involved in speaker's corner in speaker's corner in general, you've also done, you know, debates and talks worldwide. And obviously, that means that you've encountered with Muslim youth, Muslims in general, Muslims of all spectrums, and had discussions with, you know, Christian apologists, etc, etc. So, with all those experiences combined, what would you say is the biggest issue or problem facing the oma at this sort of frame that a little bit more specifically? I mean, I think if you look in the last century, there was a lot of missionary activity, and it was

the missionary activity from Christians, that actually sparked a dots,

sort of introduction of

the polemic like is and revival of Islamic polemics. It's very interesting how that how that was sort of the cause that the issue that he identified with his community at the time, the sort of aggressive Christian missionaries, and how he developed a response to that in a very famous and notable in a very famous, notable, effective way. But what would you say nowadays, is the sort of

buzzwords that are the sort of buzzwords and problems affecting the Muslim youth? If we say for example, it was the aggressive Christian missionaries in the past, would you say it's new atheism today? Would you say that it's politics and geopolitics in the Muslim world? What would what would your sort of identification of these major issues? I think one of the biggest, I think one of the biggest problems we're facing today is an identity crisis. We have lost touch with our civilization if you like. You see, we have little knowledge of our achievements of the past. We have little knowledge of our luminaries, our heroes, we know very little about what Muslim civilization is what

it stands for, what it's achieved.

We're on how can we revive them today, if you don't know your past, you will never have a desire to repeat it, if it if it was great, if it was virtuous, we have many things to cherish in our past in our history. And we can only cherish them and we know about them. And once we get to know about them, we do we develop a sense of attachment to our civilization, we become

more aware, we become more

are kind of caught it.

I don't know you don't want to use the word proud of it, because pride is not always the right thing. But we become more

you know, awakened.

Pleased we become more pleased with our past, you know, we are because we are more aware, it makes us

It makes us more less use the word proud of it, you know, but in the right sense, not being proud as it as in you know, you have a sense of superiority over other civilizations, though not not not, that's not what I mean. What I mean by that is that you you have a sense of confidence in your past that, okay, we stand on the shoulders of giants, we have something great to look up to, we have something very, very powerful, we have a very, very great, I mean, amazing tradition, whether it's in poetry, whether it is an intellectual activity, whether it is in education, whether it is in philosophy, whether it is in literature, you name it, we have some giants in the past, how many

Muslims do you know youngsters who are aware of Arabic points, and some of the poetry is so deep that you will you will forget about Plato and Aristotle and you know, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth and all these people, you will actually forget about them. Seriously, I'm not saying these people shouldn't be studied, they should be studied. But if we're gonna if we're not studying our own

histories and our own

luminaries of the past, then how will How will we How will we ever appreciate them? So, this is the point I'm trying to make that we have Arabic points Arabic thinkers, intellectuals, Persian we have so much in the Persian language, okay, we have so much in the audio language for example, okay, these are the three main Islamic languages spoken in the world in the Muslim world, okay, Arabic Persian, when it comes to literature, there is no there is a vast amount of literature in these three languages and they have been neglected lately. And this is because of this identity crisis, we are failing you know, we have we have we are facing around the world. So this is one of the biggest

problems we are facing, this is why

we do not find ways to unite on

common things as Muslims, right. We are very nationalistic when it comes to our culture, our civilizations, we mainly defend our own cultures, our own civilizations, our own linguistic traditions, we are not aware of the wider achievements of the Muslim civilization from let's say, Allen Dulles to all the way to China. Okay, so this is our civilization, we need to own it, we need to cherish it, we need to learn about and we need to claim it, we need to reclaim it. Okay? This belongs to us. We're not confined by few lines drawn by some colonial administrators in the 1940s or 1930s, the 1960s were not confined by these lines. We are Muslims. We are an oma and we share this

legacy as brothers and sisters. Okay.

Whatever the Muslim civilization achieved from northern China, to all the way to Spain, okay, one of the largest stretches of land in human history ever governed by one group of people, okay, it is ours to claim. So I feel we really need to learn about our civilization more, and then we will appreciate it, then we'll be exposed to, you know, a mountain of knowledge and then inshallah to Allah, things will start to get better. This is one of the reasons I believe we are seriously, you know, we are being victimized around the world. Okay, because we are not united on one idea. And that idea, I believe, is the most in civilization. Right? And this is why a lot of the Muslims feel

that they have to apologize for Islam. They have to apologize for being Muslim. You have to you have to be apologetic to look like a Muslim, especially those Muslims who live in the West because of recent propaganda recent onslaught against Muslims Islamophobia, the rise of Islamophobia in the West, okay, whether it's Australia, whether it's Canada

Whether it's the US or Western Europe, wherever you may be, okay, we have been made to somehow feel apologetic about Islam, as if we have to really polish it. No, this is happening because we have made to believe subliminally that we are to blame for all the recent geopolitical disasters and catastrophes in the Middle East. Whatever is happening, all the terrorism, all the extremism on the part of, let's say, people like ISIS and other unfortunate recent events, they are actually a product of

Western deeds in these lands. I mean, we have discussed this many times that where did groups like ISIS emerge from? Where did they come from? Are they a product of the Muslim civilization?

Are they a product of Islam? Or were they produced by the geopolitical census catastrophes or geopolitical in justices? In these lands? They are a reactionary movement, albeit a barbaric one. Okay, albeit a very savage one. But they are a reaction to a situation created in places like Iraq, for example. Okay, Iraq invasion produced ISIS. And there are academic references to this. I mean, in fact, even Hillary Clinton, she was using this rhetoric against Donald Trump and

her opponents

during the election campaign that we created it absolutely. And she was right about for once I can agree with her, that it is

some of the Western deeds in unfortunately, in our lands in the Middle East,

where all of this happened, so Islamic civilization of free of such extremism, such acts, or such, you know, events. Our civilization is magnificent, it is great. We cherish our points, our philosophers,

our intellectuals, our libraries, our monuments, our architectural achievements, our caligraphy our art, whether it's it is in a London close, or in North Africa, or in Egypt, or in Syria, let's say or in Palestine, or in India, the Mughal monuments or the dailies, ultimate period, more monuments, or as far as Central Asia. Okay, Islam created a huge, huge, hugely magnificent civilization, which, which, which unfortunately, hasn't been studied today.

To date, properly, with the Muslim the guilty of neglecting our own civilization, on history, we have left it to to others not that others

shouldn't be thanked, we thank all Western scholars, or Western intellectuals who have studied our civilization and highlighted some magnificent as there are some is what we get from these from these are like the orientalist scholars. I did a research paper recently about Patricia Crone, and her and her theories about the sort of emergence of Islam in late antiquity. And honestly, like some of the some of the contributions have literally been nothing more than just

horrible smears of Islamic history. There are some obviously, notable exceptions of genuine Western scholars. But I do think that what the point, the point that you're making about Muslims need to reclaim their own history and reclaim their own identity is poignant, because if we don't, then we allow people like Douglas Murray, for example, and other sort of pseudo intellectuals in the west to tell us about our own history and tell us about how we were violent, and how we contributed nothing to human civilization as a more broad even, like, even in the field of science like Neil deGrasse Tyson calzones, like, you know, bizarrely you know, destroyed intellectually he knows nothing about

because early in the first place, someone probably just told him that and he just transmitted it, because it there's there's barely any fact to any of that, this petitioner this this is why this is why we need more Muslim historian absolutely more Muslim social scientists, more Muslim anthropologists, more Muslim Muslim archaeologists, more Muslim intellectuals, poets, philosophers, thinkers, we need more. when when when you look at the Muslim world, what do you see? You see Muslims wanting to become engineers, lawyers, accountants, okay. You just want to become someone with a screwdriver in your hand. Just a worker, just a worker, just a slave. Just a slave to the

system. When eight people to work Don't get me wrong. We need carpenters. We need taxi drivers. We need restaurant owners. We need people who work in the underground to fix the

The tracks, we need all that. Okay, by the way, we have underground trains in London, so I'm not okay in case you're wondering what what, what is underground? Okay, so, so we need all those people. But do the Muslims have to do all that? Have we taken a contract for all these things around the world? Do we have to drive all the taxes? Do we have to own all the restaurants? Do we have to be all the waiters around the world? No, we want we want to lead the world intellectually. For over 1000 years, we were the intellectual giants of the world absolutely gave the West what they know of Greek philosophy. The West got to know Aristotle through Arabic translations, and Arabic

commentaries written by Muslim

scholars in Spain, and some of them are non Muslims, who wrote in the Arabic language such as the Jewish scholars as well as some Christian scholars. Yeah, my modesty is for example, yes, absolutely. So we are a people of justice. So when you mentioned people like Patricia Crone and Douglas Murray, they've always been known as bigots, they will never have any respect in academic circles. They will never be accepted as scholars truth. I mean, Patricia Crone To be fair, she's she's not the same as it was. Douglas Murray. She was definitely she was very learned you cannot take that away from her she was highly learn. Douglas Murray is not someone who deserves that honor

because he's not learned in Islam. He's just a bigot, who is a paid puppet to peddle hate against Islam and Muslims. He is following an agenda. He works with a think tank that is out which is inherently Islamophobic this is what they do. They are xenophobic, not only xenophobic, they are specifically Islamophobic. Right. So these people, their businesses Islamophobia, okay. I cannot say that about Patricia crona. She's, she had been, she had been thoroughly refuted by other academics such as Sargent. There's an article written by Sergeant on Patricia krones approach to the theory she had on mecca for example. Okay, there are other Western academics who do not agree with her

people like you, Kennedy, who happened to be my supervisor, Donna Austin disagreed, Fred, Donna,

Fred Donna disagrees.

Then we have Robert Hoyland, who, who is not one of these, you know, revisionists as such, some people they have to be historically correct. You see, they have to be careful about their career as well. So they can't say things openly about Islam that will go against the revisionist theory outrightly Yeah, so they have to be very careful, they have to be diplomatic with the language, they have to be very academic.

So to say, so, they have to be careful when there are certain revisionist scholars no doubt, but they are on the backfoot. Now, they have been rejected. Recently, recent scholarship is very much in favor of the traditional view on Islamic history. Because a lot of the traditional

You know, a lot of the traditional literature has been confirmed by material evidence, such as what we have found manuscripts recently in in epigraphic, records around the Mecca. You know, there are inscriptions on rocks. This is new evidence surfacing. And a lot of scholars are studying it numismatic evidence has been added. Then there is there are inscriptions. There are monuments that are manuscripts, so a lot of this. I mean, there is preparing evidence, for example, there is there is a scholar, she teaches at Oxford University. Her name is Fanny besought. She has done some good work recently on preparing to basically confirm that the advent of Islam, for the Middle East and

beyond, was actually a source of prosperity.

Some some, some of these revisionist scholars were of the view that Islam brought suffering with it, you know, this is this was a very hostile, almost in Islamophobic view among some scholars. Some of them happen to be from Israel, for understandable reasons. Okay. And they were peddling this view, but other scholars have completely refuted it in the light of evidence they have found.

And they claim that Islam actually the advent of Islam was a source of prosperity for a lot of these rent lands and they have used specific examples to make the points. So people like Douglas Murray and maajid Nawaz and Tarik Fatah, and chard, Manji, and iron Hirsi Ali. These guys are paid puppets to

throw dirt at Islam and this is why we need more intellectuals who are involved.

In media, we need more journalists. We need more authors. We need more intellectuals. We need to really,

you know, raise the pressure we need to raise the bar when it comes to more Muslim representation on Western media. Unfortunately, the people who have been representing us are barely capable to represent Islam, Muslim civilization and Muslim culture at large. So Western masses are really are largely very ignorant of Islam. And not only that, what they do know is very negative, twisted because most people they are listening to our enemies of Islam. Okay, they are islamophobes they are outright islamophobes. It's interesting, because with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, it's crazy how much reach they're getting now because I was literally I was literally sitting to like, listen to business

podcasts. I listen, I was listening to Tim Ferriss with Gary Vaynerchuk. And then he was talking a Tim Ferriss was talking about I think he did a book asking questions to people that have succeeded in life, essentially. And he was reading out the names of the people he interviewed. And then he mentioned ion Hirsi Ali. I'm like, how did how did she get on to like a business podcast and be champions as like someone that's revolutionized, I guess, society to some degree because she was exposed as a liar. Like she like if you look at the videos, and the people that did the research, she's lied about her background and what happened and even a family I think there was some situation

she accused her family member of doing something bad to her. She hasn't lied, man, like the conclusions the way she smears the entire Muslim world with the same people in her in her heads. It doesn't matter what her past is, it doesn't matter whether she lied about the past or not. What really matters is what she's doing now. And what she has been doing in the past. In recent past, for example, when she wrote this book, she has somehow become an expert on Islam for some reason, unfortunately, right? She's being paraded around the world to somehow highlight the Muslim, you know, the barbarity of Islamic cultures. Basically, she is, for some reason, her personal

experiences, whether

true or false, we don't know whether she's telling the truth about her personal experiences, her personal experiences, for some reason I become the, you know, how can I put it, the classic example of

experiences Muslim women face around the world, you know, this is this is this is the bigotry we're facing. This is the level of bigotry, or this is the level of injustice we are facing on Western media, unfortunately, because these people are being paraded around as if they represent even Malala is another case Malala uses a pocket from Pakistan.

I wish her the best. You know, I I believe she's a child and she's being used

for some very

agenda driven, you know, ends and and she is not fully aware, I believe she's not fully aware of, you know, her significance when it comes to propaganda against Muslim cultures. So what why is she? Why is she being champion? Sorry? Well, why is she being criticized? I know, like she's being criticized in the most elaborate, like, Why? Because people will see her as just, you know, she's promoting education for women and this and that, and she made it out run from a disaster situations, I think the kind of in and perhaps that can clear this up. It's about the propagation of the dichotomy between Islam and progress to some extent. Is that is that what we're kind of getting at

with that? Absolutely. So indirectly, what what is being shown here is that look at this poor girl, she is from a Muslim country, she was shot.

Because she was promoting education for girls. We picked her up, we brought her to the civilized West. And now we are sending her to Oxford University. She's shaking hands with some of the major leaders of the Western world. She delivered a speech at the Canadian Parliament. I don't know what the equivalent of the Parliament in Canada is. But she, she delivered a speech in front of Justin Trudeau and she met Trump, she met some of the and look at this girl and we we basically we we are against such oppression, but so are the Muslims. This is what the world is not realizing by parading around the world like this. The impression that's being given is that the Muslim world is absolutely

barbaric. There is no value for such people in the Muslim world. And people like Malala are suffering in the Muslim world, which is far from far which is far from truth. Okay, if you go to Qatar, if you go to the by if you go to Malaysia, okay, if you go to places like Pakistan, where Muslim women are very prominent in politics, in academia, some of them some of the best journalists in places like Pakistan are women. Okay? So all of this is not shown to the world. Unfortunately, all

You know, all the people in Canada, they don't watch Pakistani news channels. They don't know what women scholars are doing in Pakistan, or what women's scholars there are in Malaysia, or how educated women are in places like Qatar or Dubai, or even Jordan, for example, or Egypt, you know, for that matter. So the western masses are not being shown this side, they are only shown this poor girl who was shot for promoting education, hence, the barbarity of Muslim. Yeah. And the way it's framed is often that she was shocked by Islam itself. Like, even though there is

the case. And we to be honest with you, we don't have we have no idea who shot her. Although the blame is put against some extreme elements in Pakistan, I wouldn't be surprised if they did it. I would, because this is why the extremists This is why they're extremists, right.

Islam specifically stands out as a faith as a as an ideology that promotes education of women in particular, in particular, to an extent that never before in the history of humanity, so many women were educated by any other civilization. Let me repeat that. So it's clear. Never before in the history of humanity, so many women in such large numbers, were ever educated by any other civilization than Islam. Okay, the Muslim civilization for over 1000 years facilitated education for women in particular. Okay. There is a book actually written by Asma Saeed, she's an American academic, she has written a book on the education of women in medieval Islam, basically, you know,

so she talks about early Islamic period, when a lot of women were Hadith scholars, they were educated by Hadith scholars, and they became authorities and Hadees for the in the first three centuries. And then later on,

you know, the Ottomans pioneered it.

And even during the ubit, period, there are some examples. So there's a there's a lot to cherish in our history, which has been neglected. And the only reason we fall for these traps and these propaganda campaigns is because we are not aware of our history, we don't understand our civilization. We don't, we don't we're not aware of the evidence.

With with the idea of, like, I know, we're talking about, you know, women's achievements in Islam and Muslim countries, in women in politics, and academia and all that. And I obviously agree, but I think this is an interesting kind of discussion point where we can talk about like, people don't like some honest people that want to study societies just in general of how the Muslim society is compared to what the West is. And for the most part, and I actually ascribed to this to certainty, because I'm from a Bangladeshi background, like if you go to Bangladesh, what happens is that men are so dominant in society. So it's a bit harder for women to find those right channels in order to

succeed, it's more of a sort of, maybe perhaps an outlier case, or perhaps is a bit more harder compared to women in the West, as well. So when we have these conversations, like we will talk about Malala and how she's peddling this idea, you know, this is the state of

fault. I mean, just to clarify, it's not molars fault. I don't blame her for this. Yeah.

I, I actually blame her father more than anyone else, because he seems to be an opportunist who is using his daughter, for whatever ends he has in his mind, in his mind. So I don't blame the girl. She's, she's a still still a child. She's studying and she's, she's living a good life. But she deserves, she suffered, there's no doubt she suffered, but her suffering is being manipulated and is being used for the wrong wrong reasons to tarnish a great civilization. And this is what we need to highlight. I agree with that. I was more referring to perhaps studying society in Muslim world may perhaps in the subcontinent and bung like I can only speak for Bangladesh, compared to perhaps in

the West, that people that are maybe a non Muslim, but want to us and see, they'll, they'll agree that what we're talking about with Malala and stuff, but when they try to analyze, perhaps, Bangladesh that they don't want to come off as Islamophobic. But then they may make observations saying that it's a bit harder for women to kind of progress within society because males are so dominated compared to the west. So isn't that a kind of reminder that Bangladesh, two of the most powerful people in Bangladesh for the last three decades have been women colors? such as that? No, but that's my I'm saying there will be cases I'm not, of course, of course, but I'm saying

For the most part like I've been in Bangladesh, you know that it's all you know the society, males, but compare that compare that to the United States or Australia, like we had a female prime minister for two years, and how I don't like every day you open the newspaper, there was something sexist written about them. Yeah. And Hillary Clinton like, it

wasn't my main reason for this decline of women's education in landline, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, India is also part of it, by the way, India is no different. In fact, literacy rate in India is possibly far less than what we have in Bangladesh and Pakistan, partly because India is larger as a country. Okay, so India is a non Muslim country, predominantly speaking, and it's, it has the same problem, I'm pretty sure Burma is going through the same issue. And other so called third world countries, Africa, okay, Africa is not so you know, Sub Saharan Africa is not a Muslim. So, the reasons are more economic than, than cultural or religious, okay. It is because of corruption in

these lands. Money never makes it to institutions. Okay, money

before it reaches these instant institutions, money snatched by predators, vultures, scavengers, who are very often governing on the highest posts, serving the highest, you know, positions in the in these lands. And that's why

education is a problem not only for women, also for men, for example, in Pakistan, unfortunately, corruption completely devastated the country, schools are not even functioning properly in Pakistan. So before we start talking about gender issues, we need to start thinking of rebuilding our institutions. Once these institutions are working properly, and they are funded, as they should be funded, then we can start thinking of having some balance when it comes to gender equality. Okay, I definitely agree with you this, this is a valid criticism of our lands, no doubt 100%. There are problems there. But these problems are not caused by the religion of Islam. In fact, when you're

following our religion, when we did

follow our principles, so to say, we prospered. And the best period in our history, when it comes to education of women in particular, was when Islam was dominant as an intellectual power in the world. And that dominance, of course, came from political power. And that political power came from economic strength. So economically, Muslims are very powerful in the past, okay, they controlled the flow of silver and gold, they control major economies around the world, they controlled the Mediterranean Sea, when it came to trading. And for this reason, there was plenty of money to invest in institutions, and women and men were being educated. Now, economically, we are in a decline in

the so called third world countries is not only a Muslim problem, it is a global problem. If you go to South America, for example, if you go to countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, or even Brazil, okay, if you go to Honduras, you you might find similar problems. Okay.

So it it has to it has something to do with how economies work, and how corruption can be controlled, controlled in these lands in these countries. The issue I had with like not not the issue I had with the point you made Tenzin. But the point I was trying to make was not that I didn't fundamentally understand that people can make and level these criticisms about patriarchal, oppressive patriarchy in that happened to be in some countries, it's that I don't think that the West is necessarily a great deal less sexist. I think sexism manifests in different ways. I mean, growing up in the eastern suburbs, for example, I saw that women were obviously educated the same as

men. In fact, the gold school next to the boys school that I went to, actually did better. So obviously, in a very sort of realistic, light. Men and women in education generally do better

than boys. Yeah. They were they were like, the thing is the kind of language that I heard my peers, and even at times, perhaps I myself fell into was one of objectifying women to the point where

they literally had no agency except for the physical appearance, or something or things like this. And it's something that we overlook a lot. It was that I identified that yes, there were issues in the Muslim communities and in ethnic communities and in migrant communities in Australia, to do with sexism, but it wasn't that they were any more sexist. It's just that sexism manifested in a very different way to how it manifested in the sort of

liberal and open. I agree. But I'm saying even I'm talking about more structures in place that allow pathways for women to I guess so in, and I feel that it's a lot more tougher in Bangladesh. But yeah, but I wanted to ask, like, I agree with the idea, it's economic and the structures in place. And that's what we have to focus on that and now allow for, you know, women to, you know, flourish within our society. And we can also argue that, you know, threads back to kind of, it's like a sprung out from colonialism and the after effects of that, and that's why we're in this state, because we only have the structures that were given after kind of colonialism. And due to, you know,

capitalism in this day and age, it sort of holds us in a way of proper progression, because we're kind of stuck as all the resources are drained from, from those countries. But so we can always tie it back to, I guess, some sort of colonialism in a sense. But I want to ask that, because I noticed this, I mean, a lot of your talks, and you did it as well, that you mentioned, extremism and all that, and it's about

condemning it. And I've noticed that you do that in your talk as well. I wanted to ask, though, this is just my opinion, wouldn't you say that it's a better tactic, and I know you have, by the way, I know you've criticized, you know, the West and what they do and all that sort of stuff. But why don't you say, like, to rather not just condemn extremism, it's better to just focus on the the core problem, which is perhaps, you know, you mentioned yourself that, you know, extremism is bred from, quote, unquote, extremism is a reaction to what the West are doing. So Isn't it better to just focus on perhaps what the West are doing, and put your energy to that, rather than us being on the

backfoot? and saying, you know, we have to condemn extremism with the community, because that kind of may apply that there's something inherent within Islam that may get out of hand that, you know, causes extremism, if you if that makes sense. So, that was just my question. I I agree with you, somewhat. But at the same time, I have a different approach. I what I do is, I believe in acknowledging faults, where they exist. For example, if there are faults in our communities, in,

in our people, for example, we acknowledge it, and then at the same time, we highlight the elephant in the room. Okay, we should never fail to highlight the elephant in the room and the elephant in the room is, of course,

the causes we have already discussed. You know,

few minutes ago, right? We talked about the causes of terrorism, global terrorism, it never existed in NSA, in the 80s. not to this extent, not to the extent we are facing now in the world today. Right? What happened? What went wrong? Why did people become so extreme that they have to resort to such barbaric and uncivilized ways to get back to the enemies or even to get their voices heard? Right? So we have to

look at the causes more carefully. So we do acknowledge extremism where it exists. We don't say I mean, because if we don't acknowledge it, what happens is our enemies, people who are trying to tarnish our name, people who are trying to tarnish our faith and our civilization, they use that as as some kind of insinuation that we are in a tacit kind of, you know, agreement with what's happening in the Middle East. No, we're not. We make that very clear that we are civilized humans, and Islam made us civilized. Our civilization is purely Islamic. It is the Quran we refer back to the Quran is our source to show us what is extreme and what is not. The Quran has categorically

given us rules of engagement, even in conflict. When we look at Surah Baqarah verses 190 and 91 992. Right. The Quran is very categorical, what is extreme and what is not. So, we we should be proud to use the word again in the right sense of our civilization, our faith, our sources, right? The Quran and the Sunnah is the reason why we condemn extremists in our myths, at the same time, it is the Quran and the Sunnah, that guides us to highlight the elephant in the room, wherever it may be, whatever situation we may be facing, in whatever period in whatever time in whatever, let's say place. So if there is a problem, if there is a larger problem we need to highlight like Western

foreign policies in the Middle East, and propaganda on predominantly Western news channels like CNN, Fox News, NBC, these channels have been pumping a lot of Islamophobia and xenophobia

In the last decade, we need to highlight these problems. Okay, deliberately making the masses ignorant of the true nature of

the culture of Islam, or even the Muslim peoples in general. Right. So I believe the approach has to be fair, it has to be just we acknowledge with the problem where they exist, at the same time, we are like the elephant in the room. So we do both at the same time, this is what my approach is. At the end, the only thing I would say is that, like, for example, if you live in the UK or living in Australia, Sydney,

a, this is say, a white European, in a society that was non Muslim, obviously, they're not going to actively always be like, Hey, I condemn Western foreign policy like, what, like, if you take your example for us, we're actually doing that, like we're saying, Oh, you know, we condemn terrorism. So for them, it's not like they're going out of their way to be like ARCA condemn this. So why don't you say that that like, because they do that they are sorry, they don't do that. We need to emphasize the point more that is due to your actions and you know, the global sort of region, palate, you do have, because that seems to be lost. So like, if you if I say, like, I condemn

extremism, what you're actually doing, like, for example, like for me, I'd be like, you know, Muslims need to unite under, you know, a law for example, for in that sense, but then if a Muslim sorry, a normal some, here's what I say, they'll think ISIS straightaway because of their preconceived notions, but obviously, I don't ascribe to, you know, ISIS and what they do, but it's a different history, because if you, you know, obviously you self in, we would all know that. If your research history, we know that, you know, Muslims had empires, and you know, Hill offers and all that. But then if we kind of blur the lines, if they're using the same terminology on us, as we do,

like, for example, ISIS, and when we first say, Okay, I condemn extremism, but then they'll be like, Okay, cool. And then you say, afterwards, but, you know, I want you know,

the Muslim world to unite, they'll be like, what's going on? This is ISIS, so you have to kind of play into different scenarios. So right you're actually doing is that you're playing into what I guess the, the non Muslim, European white man sort of wants you to think. So my kind of approach was kind of alluding to is that it wouldn't be better to just focus on the the way that perhaps the wider society is meant to be perceived as by, you know, the, the non Muslim white men, and we need to break that and then make the focal point on,

you know, talking about what the West do is, specifically because that's not even something they are willing to acknowledge, like, it's not like white, European non Muslims are gonna go out and condemn, you know, some white supremacist that shot up a school shooting, it's always a Muslim that has to, if a Muslim does something, it's always a Muslim community, they do condemn it, to be honest. And I mean, you got to bear in mind that Europeans have fun to the extent that we have to do because we're expected to minority not not so much when I you know, my family are European non Muslims. And I'd say that 90% of them understand perfectly well, that terrorism is a response to

foreign policy. I'm not, I'm not denying that. But I'm saying that we Muslim community are put on an unrealistic standard in order to paint that picture compared to you know, that but you also have to bear in mind, the other side of the coin is within the Muslim communities. In the meantime, people are still losing their lives for dumb ideas and narratives pushed by these extreme organizations. extremist movements, argue that that's only like very isolated cases. And it's, I don't think it is that isolated man, to be honest, in my experience, there are a lot of young Muslim guys in our age, a bit younger, even, who are who are basically throwing away their lives, subscribing to these

extremist ideologies and movements that are corruptions and distortions of the Quran and Sunnah. And if you're not talking about the fact that these are corruptions and distortions of the Quran, and Sunnah, and you're not strong and robust, in your condemnation of these, not just your combination, but your explanation of why this is bottle and this is actually you know, deeply, deeply problematic, then you're gonna have young people you might even save one or two people if but if we make that kind of our focus point that happens is that this what what the government's are doing, you know, this a CV programs and all that.

They they'll use those examples to be like, No, we need to monitor you never make it cleaner. You never make it your focus point. And that that's like the main it can't be the focus point. You're right. But that doesn't mean that it can't be. It can't be a fundamental aspect in your in your in your discussion and like, like we said and unsaid, having that twofold approach. You can't make it the focus. No one's out. I'm not arguing. I mean, there are people who are advocating in regards to having like people extreme having a focus on extremist groups and tendencies either

Saying that we have to focus on the root causes of terrorism and the root causes of violence, that being you know, in more often than not imperialism and aggression against your country. So what I'm saying is that, you know, people within the community like right wing think tanks, I'll make it as there's something inherent within Islam. And not only that, like, if you make the focus point about, you know, Muslims that are, quote, unquote, going, or going rogue, and a lot of them, I don't know, like they've been cases within or even really practicing in the first place, they kind of latch on to it for different reasons, like I don't know, belonging, and whatnot. But if you make that that

you focus on, what happens is that that kind of opens the gateways for CVE.

programs. So the government will be like, okay, there's something we need to like, excuse me monitor the Muslim community for these sort of individual cases. And that puts the whole community kind of at risk, right, where they should monitor their own foreign policy first. Yeah, that's what I'm saying is, like, shouldn't like rather than condemning streamers, rather, shouldn't it be the focus is on the bigger picture, which is, you know, always condemning foreign policy and going out there not making a focus on you know, our own community, even though behind the scenes will, will take care of our community, right. But that kind of plays into this goes on moderate Muslim in a radical

Muslim. And when these terms are being used, it sort of creates problems. Obviously, I reject that that spectrum, although my point is, is that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Some would say they are mutually exclusive. In my experience, they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. I think that they can be worked on to refute, bottle

complete and agreed upon bottle in the community, we think about it, man, if you had any, any other thing in Assam that people were doing, that was a widespread issue. It's not necessarily an abundant issue, but a widespread enough issue that occurs in enough communities as the desire to join murderous and bloodthirsty groups. You see, my response to this problem is basically that we need to have a multifaceted approach. We need to work on all possible levels, for example, they need to be a political response, like there has been recently from Imran Khan at the UN. He made a speech and he highlighted this issue, how the prophet of Islam is being tarnished. And no one bats an eyelid. And

how Islamophobia is deliberately pumped through the Western media, and no one cares, how, you know, Muslims are being brutalized around the world, although he failed to mention the case of the the the Uighur people in China, for political reasons, understandably so because Pakistan depends on China for economic investments. But he raised all these points and tell you about the gun has been recently highlighting all these issues that just to us. I mean, if for example, he confronted the German Chancellor Merkel on this issue that you cannot say Islamic extremism, because now you are insinuating that Islam is somehow linked to extremism, you cannot say that extremism is extremism.

And you can't just say Islamic extremism conveniently and get away with it, it's not going to be acceptable anymore. So when we have global leaders, speaking this language, it is very important to have that that sort of

political representation on that level, then we need journalists, then we need academics, then we need activists, then we need, you know, street art, for example, okay, then we need, I'm saying all levels, the Muslims need to wake up and they need to start.

You know, they need to start putting the record straight, basically start, we need to start speaking this language that hold on a second enough is enough, you've had, you know, you've had your time. For the last two decades since 911. Western media seems to have been given impunity, basically, to tarnish Islam and Muslims all around the world, sometimes directly, other times, indirectly, in a very subtle way. So we need to fix this, we need to fix this, we need to fix the language. And this starts on all levels. I believe you can't just have

you know, this on one level, on the mosque level, or let's say on the university level, this needs to go all the way up to the top.

As far as presidents and prime ministers of countries are concerned, and it needs to go down to the level of the man who's selling fruit in the marketplace. You know, we all need to be educated on this. We need education. Education is our problem. And this is why we need investment in education. We need to be more aware of the situation. Fortunately, another problem we have is that in the Muslim world, a lot of people are not even aware of Islamophobia. They don't know that it exists, because they've never faced it. Because they live in Muslim majority countries. They never have to face pressure.

Again, against Islam, they know they don't have to hear insults against the Prophet sallallahu. Okay, this is mainly happening in non Muslim lands, in particular Western countries, right. So that's why we need solid political representation. And we need to lobby our leaders in the Muslim lands and and talk to them about this, and then they will take action. So recently, I believe this summit in Malaysia was

a breath of fresh air. I believe that was that was a good step, although, even from the start, it seemed it looked divided. The house was divided, because many countries would not attend, including Pakistan, which has a nuclear power, unfortunately, but at the same time,

you know, it was a good step in the right direction. So we need a multifaceted approach. And then it will start to happen when Western masses hear our leaders talking like that in the UN. And when our journalists, our political representatives, or politicians in places like Britain, America, Australia, when we have proper Muslim representation in US Congress, we must have representation in

although I don't agree with everything, this

our Somali sister forgot her name in the US. ohana. Sorry, in Hama, yes, Milan. She, I believe she's doing a lot of good work. She's confronting a lot of xenophobia, a lot of Islamophobia. At the same time, she's doing a lot of controversial things, which I don't agree with, I clearly don't agree with a lot of unorthodox stuff is she's doing but she's not she's not living in ninth century about that issue. She's not in, she's not living with hasm in the 11th, century, katama, right, she is living in, in the US, she is facing a very hostile situation at times, as a Muslim woman, as a hijabi Muslim woman standing up to some of these xenophobic monsters.

You know, it's not easy. So we really need to make the offer her that she doesn't, she doesn't go too far in compromising some of our principles, and stand up for the dean, or stand up for the Muslim world, you know, and highlight these problems. So again, to highlight,

you know, the main issue, we need to have a multifaceted approach. It has to be across the board. And I think going back now, to sort of how this is all interconnected, very, very deeply. But you mentioned a lot about being Muslims being aware and awake as to the realities of Muslim civilization. Now, I want to preface this question, too, with something that I realized recently, myself personally, and it actually links very much to the point you were making before, I used to be very skeptical of the idea of an Islamic civilization. In fact, if some people asked me, I would have rejected that, that such a phenomenon existed, I would have said that, you know, Islam is you

know, very diverse and you can't necessarily say that there is a there is a united oma, as we all dream of it, but I traveled to Morocco recently Alhamdulillah It was an amazing experience, and being welcomed there by people who don't speak my language as you know, a European Australian Muslim welcomed as a brother, by people I privilege completely on the other side. My wife is a Bangladeshi. And it's exactly the same people would people would ask you and they'd be like, oh, Mashallah, you're Muslim, Salaam Alaikum welcome, masala, and enjoy, like, take they, you know, they give us things. And they would, they would genuinely, genuinely be so pleased and warm

and very, very welcoming, and very, very, very pleased with the fact that you are their Muslim brother. And that's something that you would never get in Christendom, you know, obviously, growing up in a secular Christian family, I could go to Rome, I could go to Poland, no one ever be like, Oh, you're Catholic. Oh, welcome. No One No one cares. It was Islam has a very distinct flavor in that sense. And the other thing I realized, as well was reading a bit about allama Iqbal. I noticed like how does a southern Italian Australian draw so much inspiration from a man writing poetry in Hindustan 100 100 years ago, that, that that's something unique and something special and something

which, which for me, really speaks to the idea that there is a Muslim civilization. But I want to ask you about this Muslim civilization. And now that I do, obviously, kind of I'm far more receptive to its existence.

I want to ask you, or start, is there a point in time because we all know that he left went into a very, very famous demise? Is there a point in time where you think we fell off the rails a little bit? Is there a point in time where you think that perhaps the glory and wonder and the genius of the collective Muslim effort began to fade a little bit into the backdrop and why and how did this take place?

Resources homes destined for qualified return but like after that period, like are saying that if at any point in time because he was talking about how we've lost this collective imagination and understanding and unity and and level of zeal and genius.

Okay, what was the cause of that? And let me begin with your experience of the Muslim civilization when you went to Morocco, Christendom is not Christian anymore. This is what you have to understand. Okay, what you call Christendom, Western Europe has predominantly abandoned Christianity, Christianity now is a very absent force in Europe, it only exists in monuments and in cathedrals, some magnificent pieces of architecture. And that's all that is left of Christianity. So Christianity is on the backfoot in Western Europe. Okay. I wouldn't say that for places like Poland or even Italy, I mean, somewhat, you know, there are some denominations that are still flourishing

in the US. I would say yes, there is an element, religious element, no doubt, okay. But predominantly speaking,

Christendom is kind of is only a name, it doesn't exist anymore. Islam is a living civilization to this day, okay. Although the best part the classical period, the Golden Age is over. For a number of reasons, but the civilization still lives on in the people. Okay, as disorganized, as

scattered as disorientated as we may be, but we are still one block we feel the same. Okay. As you can see, the the pain of the Muslims of China is felt all over the world. The pain of the Muslims of Rohingya crisis is felt all over the world. Now, what's happening in India, there are Muslim Muslim speaking about it all over the world, there are Muslims in the US, this oma will always remain an oma no matter what others may think, but that that oma aspect of that, oh, my element will never part from this. Civilization Alhamdulillah still a living civilization, and Koran is the guarantee so long as the Quran exists, the Muslim civilization will always last so long as the Quran exists.

Coming back to your issue of the decline, or was there a perfect time in the Muslim history when Muslims governed perfectly? If that's what if that's what your question was? I don't think that was the case ever. Immediately after the progress of the lysosome, after the time of the whole of Russia in In fact, even during the time of the whole of Russia, Dean, you know, human imperfection was manifest.

The system is perfect. Okay, but humans are not humans are vulnerable to a number of temptations a number of distractions, okay, we are susceptible to faults, to errors to misjudgments, and this was seen immediately after the death of the Prophet sallallahu sallam. And in fact, the prophet had warned that this will happen after me. Okay, do not become disbelievers, and strike each other's necks after I die. This is what the prophet SAW Selim said, Okay. He emphasized so much on the rights of the Muslims in hospital vada. Why do you think he was doing that? Because he was warned, in fact, there are prophecies, the professor sort of made about assignment of funds death, that you

will be asked to take off the clock. And when you are asked to take off your clock, do not do so. And that cloak was the cloak of khilafah, which was put on him by the Prophet salallahu Salam by the virtue of this Hadees right. So when this man was asked to abandon his claim to being the Caliph of the Muslims, he refused because he remembered the Hadees. Likewise, the promises are made of the prophecies, the fitna that came in, in the time of aluminium Italia, so we go on to the Umayyad period, it was not perfect that ambassade period was not perfect. Then if you want to talk about the Ottomans, the Mughals are good are you reads or the sell jokes or the you know all the other minor

dynasties throughout the Muslim history? You know, wherever they may be.

There was no such thing as a perfect government ever in Muslim history. Okay. No doubt there were periods of

high achievement. There were periods of high morality. There were periods of high levels of education and economic prosperity.

But

it was never consistent. So Muslims struggled to implement Islam and practice it to the best of their abilities. So when people talk about a perfect state, or utopia, okay, some way where everyone is basically living happily ever after. Okay, Fairyland world, or the Pope, my, my little pony land, it never existed. It never existed in Muslim history. And this is how it was meant to be. Islam was sent down as a perfect system to be,

to be to be to be implemented by imperfect creation of a law which is, which is the humans basically, right. So you will never have a perfect state ever, anywhere.

We can say the prophets time in Medina was highly prosperous, in that sense, but again, there were problems there, poverty was not allowed to govern in peace. He was in conflict continuously, he was fighting his enemies continuously non stop, right, even at the time of aboubaker, two years, he had chaotic two years. on mobile, Qatar was again, focusing on the Byzantines and the Persians. And it continued like that. So it will always be a struggle to apply Islam fully. You will never find any example in Muslim history where Islam was perfectly fully completely practiced by one dynasty or one kale if it doesn't exist. That's my theory. Okay. This is why I believe those perfectionist out

there who eventually become two theories and they start this owning people or excommunicating people from Islam for falling in error, or not being able to govern by Sharia, in totality, in completion, their view is very extreme, actually, is borderline chaotic view, you know, because the carotid you are these people, the coverage were perfectionist, they were actually perfectionist, you know, that just they had a very strict very,

how can I put an extreme level of piety and the judge others by that level of, you know, that level of piety that standard to an extent that did his own to the Sahaba, they declared Ali to be a Kaffir. The declared Mojave to be a Kaffir. Anyone who did agree with them was a Kaffir, basically, effectively. So we have this phenomenon in this world today. Unfortunately, within the Muslim communities, we have youngsters, who become very zealous, they become perfectionist, they start to look for a perfect human being. And other Muslims, they start to look for a perfect system, perfect country, if a ruler or if a country makes a mistake, immediately they take out the takfeer guns and

they start to shoot people down, unfortunately. So this is because of ignorance, because they are not aware of Muslim history. They don't know that never was there a perfect state or perfect

government in the history of Islam, there was always a struggle to apply Islam to the best of their abilities. However, with the struggle, we would see like perhaps certain downfalls at times and by the way, shout out to Yemen, in our boys in the cave, Patreon chats exclusive chat where people ask they can ask the questions directly and to be asked. So yeah, man was asking that. For example, Dr. Shadi tweeted recently how Muslim leaders in Andalusia deserve to be conquered. So there's that dichotomy of is it perhaps the mistakes of the rulers they made that cause that decline? Or there's that sort of perspective within Islam is that a times the sins of the community or the people also

play an effect of the political situation? So versus the masses for, for those sort of specific situations? So would you even see Islamic history as having any downfall at all? And if so, because you're kind of saying that, you know, those who struggle to apply some which I understand, I don't I don't agree with this way of thinking, I believe one of the one of the worst enemies of the Muslim civilization was this way of thinking that there has to be a perfect ruler, who has to govern perfectly by the rules of Islam. And by using this particular way of thinking, people rebelled against states, people rebelled against rulers, and they went from bad to worse. It happened

recently. You know, what happened in the Arab Spring? They removed their Mubarak and then who came who came who replaced Mubarak mercy? Okay, and now people are praying to go back to the to the rule of robotic because they're saying more barks rule. As bad as it was.

was a lot better than what we have today, Libya, for example, people are praying to go back to the time of Gaddafi as bad as he was as a ruler. So this is what it does. I mean, no one deserves to be defeated or ousted. In that sense. I'm not a person of status quo. I don't believe in status quo. But I believe in gradual change. I believe in political change. I believe change must be done through education. rebellions must be avoided at all costs. Violence only leads to bigger disasters, what what we have seen in Syria recently, is a great example of that. Syria has been devastated. Was it worth it? The the person who was to be ousted is still there, possibly stronger than before

Bashar Al Assad is still ruling. And who has lost the people of Syria, unfortunately, our sisters have been raped in the 1000s children have lost their childhood in war, this trauma, this this generation has been lost. You cannot imagine what the trauma of war is like, I've never I've never witnessed it. I've never experienced it, but I can only imagine. Okay. And and I can give you other examples. I'll give you one crude example. What happened in India, how do you think the East India Company came to power? There is a there is a recent book you must read it is by William Dalrymple. And it is titled anarchy. Okay, shout out to Josh. He's a massive fan of ripple. ripple is an

amazing. I mean, I don't agree with all the things he writes, but he's an amazing author. And I particularly don't agree with when he puts

a review by Salman Rushdie on his boxes, it really ticks me off. I don't know why he needs to do that. Okay. But he's an amazing moto. So we have to do justice and we have to give credit where it's due. And his recent book anarchy is is a very good history of how Eastern your company came to power and how it devastated India. Right. But how did it come to power? Because someone in Bengal thought the current Nawab who was a bad man, no doubt. According to the sources I've read so far, the warfare Roger Dola, who was the Nawab of Bengal in 1757, was a very unpopular ruler. He was a very bad ruler made very bad choices. So what happened? His his generals, his noble started to plot

against him. They wanted to remove him to replace him with let's say, someone like me Jaffer, who was appointed as the next Nawab by Lord Clive, the man who fought the battle of philosophy in 1757. So East India Company was invited to oust the wapsi Raja dolla to plant another puppet Nawab. And, lo and behold, this particular disaster caused, eventually the conquest of all of India, you see what it does. So when you want to remove one bad ruler, what you do is you remove him.

And what comes as a replacement, it's far worse in consequences than that what you had there in the first place. So instead of causing drastic,

how can I put it instead of taking drastic measures, instead of doing violence, instead of rebelling? There are other ways

to to do politics and this is why I believe Allah Ma, the scholars of the land, and who are the scholars of the land, the the most recognized the most,

you know, respected individuals. I'm not talking about sellouts. I'm talking about true scholars, sincere scholars who are sincere with the oma, there must be followed, there must be followed there must be approached and they must be, you know, you know, there must guide the masses, we should not become part of political movements, ragtag political movements, that are reactionary, and that only lasts 50 to 60 years, and then they are forgotten we should not become part rather we should become repeated haich D, I am referring to any movement, any movement that leads to events, such catastrophes that promotes rebellions, that promotes you know, disturbance of the status quo, and

then replacing bad with worse, okay, this is what I'm talking about. I'm saying we should, we must aim to become a part of the larger Muslim civilization rather than become a reactionary movement that ends up in a disaster. I mean, you will you will only appreciate what I'm saying.

When do you have a thorough

look into the Muslim history? And see what devastated some of the Muslim civilizations or some of the Muslim dynasties in the past?

Who said, wouldn't you say like, perhaps your examples that you're bringing to light is more stemmed from I know, the strong opinions of you know, islamically. You know, rebellions are not allowed. So why don't you say that? You only bring examples for that, because people who may be undergoing those unfortunate situation or political situations in in those lands? They wait, what what sort of scope Do they have for attaining justice, then like, what can they essentially do? I know, you mentioned, you know, gradual changes, but what does that even mean? Is it isn't justice to remove injustice, to replace it with a bigger injustice? Is that justice, there is not an example in our history, where a

rebellion has actually benefited us, there is only one example I can think of, and that's the ambassade revolution, okay. Even the basket revolution initially was called a commodity movement. And then later on, because it managed to dominate the the best part of the Muslim world all the way from North Africa to to Central Asia. And then it was as a pragmatic move, accepted by the LMR as the the valid governing force within the Muslim world, okay. That's the only example I can think of, okay, and even that led to disasters initially, right? Imagine what happened between the Ottomans and the timurid. Amir Taymor. timberlane

had defeated the Ottoman Emperor by ziet yelder. And that nearly caused the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, because after the demise of the Emperor, three of his sons fought each other for succession. Right. So I believe all of these measures, these movements, you know, having studied history, for the best part of my life, you know, my views have changed drastically, my views have changed, you know, I have learned a lot. And I am, by the way, I'm not a quietest. I don't believe in status quo and suffering. But what I believe in is that when we want to change a bad situation, that we must follow the guidance of the allama, the scholars of the land, and if they guide us into a particular

way of removing injustice, then even then I believe, even then, we have to assess the situation. Sometimes scholars can be wrong, they can make mistakes. So we have to be very, very careful. This is what has caused the Muslim civilization to flourish. This is what has caused the Muslim similary Muslim civilization to be

a force for good, because we can never be part of devastation, we can never be part of destruction, we can never be part of injustice, we can never be those people who take sides with injustice, rather, we must always struggle to remove it justice, but how we do it is another question. And that has to be decided by the law of the land. This is what we have been taught by the prophet sallallahu wasallam. So I don't believe in these reactionary movements that lead to catastrophic events. And and sometimes they don't know I mean, for example, what was the slogan during the Arab Spring, a sharp, you read Scott and disarm? A sharp you read Scotland ism, but none of them were saying, My

buddy, Scott morbidelli. Scott, what? They were saying we want the demolition of the system, we want to remove the system. Okay. But what do you bring to replace it? No one was talking about that. There was no guidance. Okay, what are you going to replace it with? No one was talking about that. Hence, the current situation in Libya, in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen. And I really wish that this doesn't happen in any other country. Again, I really wish it's catastrophic. I do want to sort of probe you a little bit more just display. I don't know if you guys agree with me. This is this is the way I think this is my thinking this is the way

I think I'm personally I'm not probably well enough equipped to to dismantle what you're saying, I'm sure that there are notable thinkers in the Muslim community who would disagree with that view, I tend to sort of, I tend to sort of take a backward step and try and think critically about these things. And I think that there is a case to be made

a very healthy discussion, we need to have more of these discussions. So that are intellectuals or thinkers, as as different, as different as they might be in the views. You know, they are free to differ. They don't have to agree with each other, but why

We start brainstorming in the light of our history in the light of our theological guidance, then I think we would come to senses inshallah as an oma.

I suppose the counter argument is by and large around the fact that we should always be striving to do what's best and there are certain lines for example, if for example, there are certain lines that can be crossed by a tyrant ruler for example, if that ruler is promoting something that's good for Can you then remove them

but

who defines what's the best? Who defines Is it is it Joe? Is it Tom? Is it Terry? Is it Abdullah is awesome. Okay.

Who defines it is it is the law of the land the Quran commands us to follow them. First Allah Allah decree in controllato Allah moon Quran says out of 11 a chatango gvi you alladhina amanu A Tierra la tierra pseudo Olam remain calm for internal zatoichi para la la Russell. Okay, follow a lion is messenger and those who are in power and the Allah ma the Buddha serene have explained that all Omri men come here means to Allah, primarily your scholars, and I'm not talking about against sellouts. People who are working for the tyrants, I'm not talking about them. So put them out of the picture. I'm talking about people who are sincere, the cry for the oma they have pain for the oma, they

really feel for the oma right. So it is very, very clear that what is the right course of action in a given situation must be determined by the scholars who are best place to guide oma, if there is a tyrant who is promoting Cofer, and is doing injustice, then, in that case, the allama must be consulted and the guidance must be followed.

It's It is a very complex discussion. And like I said that there are Muslim thinkers and intellectuals within the community who have vastly different views. I remember we had Ismail Royer on

a while ago, and he actually made the point that if you had a Islamic movement, for example, in Egypt, he said that the the apparatus and the structures in Egypt and everything there is kind of funneled towards an oppressive, tyrannical security state. And he said that basically the choice is between a secular security state and an Islamist security state, but it's still going to be a highly oppressive system more more likely than not. It's not all of a sudden as a white

collar and white collar, the Turkish more.

Well, that's it. I mean, they've tried many times in Turkey to be fair, like, the one is not the first

Muslim in court, like yeah, we had, we have, we had 100, and he was hanged for trying to Islamic by Turkey. There was a book on

non mentoring. He was a Turkish Prime Minister, who was handed by the secular

military establishment of Turkey. Yeah, that just run straight over the top of anyone who tries to never give up. The Turks are very stubborn, Mashallah for the right reasons. And they have managed to somewhat Islami phi, Turkey, and it still is still a long journey, you know, to expect from Erdogan to become full Bhansali, menaquinone and 10 years, It's madness. Some of us are very unfair, very unjust. Yeah, I'm not a spokesperson of the gun. He's not my hero, necessarily. But I like his system, the way he's doing his politics, you know, is a strongly Absolutely, and I think there's a lot to be said about what he's done for, for Muslims in Turkey. I mean, if you a lot of his

detractors, I would often ask them directly. And like I said, I don't necessarily agree with every

policy level. But But you can't deny I honestly don't think you can deny the fact that all of his detractors in in the way I say this, as an Australian, obviously involved in our discussions in the West, I don't know about the Muslim world, but all of his detractors in the West that come from these kind of

this kind of leaning towards revolutionary groups, and and Islam is politics. And again, I don't necessarily disagree with all of them, but one of the points they raised about earlier one is that, you know, he could be doing so much more and that he should be you know, intervening greater, like against tyrants in Syria and Israel and, and for the Palestinian people. He's done it he has done quite a bit, but think about what he's done for the average Muslim in Turkey before he came in, and Muslim woman couldn't even wear her headscarf in many public institutions. She couldn't get certain jobs if she wore a headscarf. She couldn't wear to school. She you weren't allowed to talk openly

about your faith in a country that's 97 or 98% Muslim, and he has now allowed he's turned the pendulum just towards something

thing that at least acknowledges Allah and His messenger. It's like Lena inside ratchet. Like if we're trying too hard too fast, it's going to be causing perhaps issues you're not placing as a good start you mentioned like gradual changes, you say that or Dolan is sort of playing into sort of the theory that you have that it's better to go through gradual change. And what this can take this example into, like how perhaps Ilhan Omar is doing, even within her politics. Like it's just gradual change, like slowly being involved with the system and perhaps, you know, changing. I don't know, making reforms and all that, like, is this the sort of approach lobby groups? Yeah, this is sort of

approach we should be heading forth like, should we should that be our main focus? And would you say or do any sort of doing that gradual change that you use? I believe that it has long lasting, it is more durable, it has, it is far more effective. It doesn't cause disasters and catastrophes. It doesn't cause any suffering. You don't have starving people. You don't have dead people. You don't have

refugee camps. You know, your people and education is the way I believe, work on education, invest in education. And when I say education, I don't mean any more engineers and doctors and lawyers, and chartered accountants, I mean, intellectuals, thinkers, okay, invest in humanities, produce more leaders produce more, more journalists, more authors, more researchers, for that matter. Okay. Get involved in politics more, okay. You will have a louder voice.

Not necessarily due to your vocal cords. But the amount of reach you will have. Okay, you will win, you will win. Like Ilhan Omar is just just a Somali lady from Somalia. Okay. Why is she important? Because she is an elected Congresswoman. Right? She is important for that reason. And that's why she has to be taken seriously. So we need we can't we just can't give up and start having idealistic ambitions. That may not be realistic anytime soon. But we can do things far more effective that are in our power. So I believe we need to be pragmatic about our situation today in the world. And would you say however, like for example, we have the hindutva situation in India and even the Uighur

Muslims, like they're already in such a Muslims in those, you know, in China and India are in such a terrible state where they don't have that option at the current present moment to you know, have that power within our politics or have the journalists what's sort of their approach? Yeah, this is this is what I talked about the multifaceted approach when we have presidents and prime ministers like Imran Khan tygerberg doggone, and Mahathir Mohamad, making statements strong, powerful statement against such oppression and such barbarity

against let's say, what the BJP government is doing in India, or what the Burmese government was doing against the Rohingya people? And what what's happening in China against the wiggers then there will be pressure exerted against these oppressors and they will stop eventually and the world will listen. But we have to speak up, we have to speak up, okay.

You know, we have no option other than to speak up so our leaders or intellectuals or academics, or politicians or journalists or little make noise at the same time, when something like this happens, and not making noise for the sake of making noise, rather making noise with substance with evidence with the correct guidance and give solutions not only highlight the problem, rather give solutions at the same time, but this is the solution we propose. So so that we can we can avoid any such disasters in the future. inshallah, um, I know we've hit the towards the end of the episode, but I do want to ask one last question, inshallah and we actually asked this question to all our guests

and I think this question is probably best suited to start at none considering you know, his his story and and researches so this might be either very easy question, super, super easy question or very, very hard question. So it's, uh, one or the other. So here it goes, inshallah. So if you had to chew with three people in a cave because our boys in a cave, and you can't include a wrestler, so some or the Sahaba let's just assume they're already in the cave. And they're telling you to pick three people in history could be Muslim, non Muslim, they could be past or present. To have a conversation with who would they be?

I would have a blue Tamia

and shower you law. And my great grandfather's grandfather, schekman. Dean.

A little bit about him. Sorry. Tell us about

Little bit about check miniature din is my is my direct ancestor, my great grandfather's grandfather was a scholar of Islam.

I, I know about him from the literature that has been that that I came across recently in our ancestral library. And he was a great man who struggled for independence against the British East India rule in India. He was actually part of the Indian War of Independence in 1857. He was put on trial as well. He had, he had sought knowledge seriously. He was a scholar of Hudis and rhodolite he died in 1895, if I'm not mistaken, and I would love to meet with him and I would love to talk to him and ask him about his experiences and his life and how he went about things, you know. And of course, I would love to have have the company of scheffel Islamic Damian showered a lot great

personalities.

A g a g personalities, I would say, you know, in many ways, many respects. Of course, there are greater personalities than them. You know, there are people like Mr. Mohammed and humble mama Shafi. Okay, Mama ghazali, for example. We have so many intellectuals, you know why our history is absolutely filled with heroes and thinker. intellectuals and poets and philosophers. We have just really, really, really we have really ignored them. You know, you're talking about a boil earlier. It Paul, I would say is a child in comparison to thinkers. He was following it. Paul would say that himself. Yeah, yeah, it Bob was inspired by people like half his Shirazi. He was also inspired by

Rumi, although I don't agree with everything Rumi.

You know, put in his poetry. But he was a thinker, no doubt, you can't take that away from him. And he was inspired by vasanti. For example, a ball was very much inspired by Sharia law. So all of these people inspired a ball they made a ball was a product of again, the Muslim civilization of India, and the Persian age civilization,

of the region, let's say Persia, Afghanistan and India, put together so we are standing on the shoulders of giants. If we

realize now what I found amazing Bashar while the Allies even during his time, he's writing books on reputations on atheism and that means that he was ahead of his time Subhanallah and so that'd be amazing to sit down have a conversation, his political theory, his political theory, if you want to read about his political theory, it is in two books primarily. One is hajat or Lyle balega. Which which you can find it in English language it has been translated by Marsha Kay, her son men and it is titled The decisive proof for god Okay, his political theory can be found there and also another book is a little different okay laugh until full of it was originally penned in the Persian language

and now you can find an Arabic translation of it very, very powerful works very powerful author shout out Allah Subhana Allah and we have actually had this is a fantastic conversation home doula, and we actually didn't even cover

the cover, but inshallah I hope in the future, we can perhaps do another episode, we can cover even more ground I know, you know, there's you you've studied a lot about Hadith and even, you know, Shia sort of theology as well. So it'd be interesting. So there's lots of going into and a lot to discuss, but I think inshallah the viewers are benefit from today's conversation. So just

for coming on boys in the cave shala hope we can connect in the future and May Allah bless bless your works, and inshallah I'm hoping to do.

In short, may Allah bless Yo, yo, yo, if it's for the PhD, you're going to be doing a man, I mean, and I would like to thank you both for providing me with this opportunity to express my views on such delicate matters. And I hope that these podcasts are these audio recordings and these programs will serve as a legacy for myself, I hope my children, my progeny will take benefit from these recordings. Maybe sometime in the future, I hope this becomes sort of kajaria for me and other people are to, to benefit from this and I beg for your forgiveness if I've said anything wrong. If I have made any mistakes, any errors. That was not my intention. I mean, good for all of humanity, not

only for Muslims, and I really hope that this world becomes a better place for our future generations. And you're very welcome to get in touch with me in the future any time to talk about any matter that I can, you know, I'm able to talk about inshallah, you're very well

corrugated tire fantastic to the head. And they'll

ensure Yeah, there's a fascinating conversation. So we'll wrap it up there. And Sure. So for our listeners, thank you for giving us your attention. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email us at info boys in the cave comm or find us on Facebook. And by the way, those times, we've actually started these boys in the cave, what's up thread for fans around the world? Literally, all you need to do is hop on Patreon. It's it's $5 per month, if you just donate there, you get on to the thread and what happens is that even I can notify the chat that we're actually doing a conversation with whoever's the guests, and they actually just shoot me questions. So we're actually

having a good time there. We're actually discussing important issues. So inshallah like, you don't want to miss out on that. So hop on patreon.com slash boys in the cave and become a $5 Patreon. So check that out and shout out to man for assisting us with a question he he he asked about the whole rulers and interactions and actually opened up a fantastic conversation for us. hamdulillah sir. Also, if you want to check us out, we're on iTunes give us a five star there so for our special guests, Mr. Adnan Rashid, co hosts Raphael and myself. We will show the best