The Thinking Muslim

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Sami Hamdi for the past five months has helped us untangle and understand the motives and actions of the actors that wage genocide in Gaza. The conflict, if that is even a proper term to use, seems to be continuing despite discussions of an end game. At the time of recording this interview, we have heard from Joe Biden casually licking an ice cream and talking of ceasefires when tens of thousands starve in Northern Gaza. The callousness with which the west now talk of mopping up a crime scene is staggering. How can a liberal west, fixated on preaching rights have maintained this collective pretence?

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We had a problem with our guest’s audio this week. Apologies for this, we wanted to however get this episode out.

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This past few weeks in Pakistan have been a rollercoaster ride. We have seen the continued, brazen army interference in elections that for so long has earned the country the dubious title of possessing a ‘sham democracy’. The country’s elected leader, Imran Khan, is languishing in prison on what are trumped-up charges and hundreds of his party members have been chased, arrested and incarcerated by what can only be described as the deep state apparatus.

Election day was a sham. And it seems the army’s designated successors are about to take their positions. But, often, what is on the surface may conceal deeper facts. Today we have political analyst Kashif Gilani from Islamabad to discuss the situation.

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Our guest this week, Dr Sohail Hanif, argues that we need to reconnect with not just our relationship with our umma but also have to reorient our lives to live like the murabitun of the past, those who saw themselves as within a wider objective of thinking about deen and the umma and their part within this rubric. In this endeavour, to change our mentality, we have to reconfigure how we view some of the fundamental Islamic ideas of zakat, ummah and jihad. Are we in the west manning an outpost of this umma. And has Gaza taught us a wider lesson about reorienting our mentalities. 

Dr Sohail is the National Zakat Foundation’s Chief Executive. Prior to this, he held the position of Lecturer at Cambridge Muslim College. He also was the Head of Sciences at Qasid Arabic Institute in Amman. He has expertise in Islamic law, having studied extensively with traditional scholars, and holds a PhD from Oxford University. Listen to the audio version of the podcast:

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How do we learn from the wisdom of others in a world intent on ruthless autonomy? Today, with the Gaza war as our backdrop, we ask Dr Yakoob Ahmed what pieces of advice he would give to his 18-year-old self.

Dr Yakoob Ahmed is an academic specialising in late Ottoman history. He is a PhD graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies and currently teaches Islamic history at Istanbul University. He is in the process of completing his first book on the late Ottoman ulema, to be published next year.

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The recent ICJ interim order has been interpreted in many ways by its proponents, who hail it a victory and its opponents, who denounce it as an Israeli conspiracy. However, many have questioned the efficacy of the interim order, pointing to the ICJ’s lack of enforcement and the absence of an explicit mention of a ceasefire. To help us understand the complexities surrounding the judgement, we have invited, at short notice, Tayab Ali in once again.

Tayab Ali, is a lawyer specialising in international law. He is a partner at the legal firm Bindmans. He has represented clients in the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights and at international political and legal institutions, including the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights.

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When we consider the ongoing slaughter that is Gaza and the West's complicity, it's not the world leaders, East or West, who have captured our collective imagination – it's the ordinary people who have made the difference. It's the journalists, poets – the doctors and nurses that have helped the world see the atrocities of settler colonialism and its abject violence. Certainly, a defused media has given the world, possibly for the very first time, the ability to witness the horrors of Israel – but it is people like my guest today who have been able to articulate a narrative that rises above the deliberate propaganda that passes as commentary.

Professor Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a multi-award-winning Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon. He has worked in multiple war zones, including Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Gaza. He was, until recently, working to save lives in Gaza’s war ravaged and ill-equipped hospitals.

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Zionism is the ideology that underpins the barbarism that has been meted out on Palestinians, its latest chapter being the slaughter that is currently happening in Gaza. Yet its ideals remain respectable in establishment circles. In the United States, political leaders fall over one another to declare their un denying loyalty to the creed and in Britain, there has been a long tradition of Christian Zionism that spans back to the early twentieth century and the Balfour Declaration. 

 Ahmed Paul Keeler. He argues that Zionism has become embedded into the Western mindset through education and culture. It relies upon a Darwinian hierarchy that places Europeans at the top and Arabs and others as savages and less human, terms that have been uttered in recent events with greater frequency. Ahmed was born in 1942 and was brought up in a conservative upper-middle class Anglo Catholic family. He belonged to a generation that was brought up to serve the British empire. Ahmed Keeler is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, and was a Distinguished Fellow at The Faculty of Leadership and Management, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia in 2016.

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#thethinkingmuslimpodcast episode133

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Today, we are confronting nothing short of a campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians of Gaza, not seen since the Nakba or Catastrophe of 1948. Yet many in the Western world are silent to the suffering. Much of what justifies Israel and its actions in the West is premised on history, and many European and American historians have been ready to present a compelling argument for Zionism and the case for Israel in the heart of the Middle East.

This historical justification, based on persecution and antisemitism, gives the story of Israel a potency that has for many years served to find acceptance in the West – of impunity to act without restraint - that is not offered to any other state. At the same time, the Palestinian story has been undermined by these same historians. They were a Bedouin community, readily able to vacate their land – it is said. Palestinians, according to leading Israeli politicians, is a mythical people.

Today, we are honoured to have Professor Avi Shlaim with us to untangle historical facts from fiction. Avi Shlaim is an eminent historian. He is an Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford University and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2014) and Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations (2009). Professor Shlaim is a dual Israeli British citizen who lived in the country as a child. His family originated from Iraq and migrated to the newly founded state in 1950.

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We have now passed three months of the Gaza slaughter, and according to the UN, Gaza has become uninhabitable. During these past few days, we have seen another frenetic series of diplomatic meetings by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in the region as the US looks to consolidate the status quo. The genocidal intent of the Israeli state. If it was unclear at the start of the conflict, it is clear now that the United States has given the green light to the Israelis to mete out their punishment. The Arab and Muslim states have, it seems, mostly acquiesced with the US. In public, they condemn, whereas in private, they look the other way or, in the case of Egypt, conspire with the US and Israel to make sure Gaza’s resistance is erased. We have, however, seen signs, that can be interpreted as further escalation. The Houthis in Yemen have now accosted over 20 ships in the Red Sea, and on Lebanon's southern border, there remains an active engagement with Israeli soldiers.

To help us understand the complexities of the current crisis, I have invited Sami Hamdi back into the studio. Sami is the director of the International Interest, a risk advisory.

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#thethinkingmuslimpodcast episode130

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In the long durée of Islamic history, we often lose sight that every generation, even the best generation, that of the companions, had deep challenges to overcome. Our enemies have continuously worked to undermine our unity, and it is often the hard lessons of these challenges that help us overcome our petty disputes and territorial differences. This episode we focus on the notion of unity and its real implications. If we agree the lack of Muslim unity is holding us back – how do we overcome this challenge? And are we destined to slide into further decline? And is their hope in this crisis?

Dr Omar Suleiman is the founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute.

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