Magomyed was born in Saudi Arabia during a time of profound darkness. The morality police controlled the population through roadside checkpoints. They would halt vehicles and demand identification while aggressively interrogating passengers: “Who is this woman beside you?” Clerics cited ‘honour’ in their sermons, urging men to tighten their control over the women of their families, warning that otherwise they would be “forced” to commit violence to safeguard familial honor. Teachings such as these, repeated endlessly, propelled thousands of young men into the ranks of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and similar groups.

At seventeen, Magomyed was on the way to answer the call for jihad in Syria. Only 50 kilometers from the Saudi–Iraqi border, he turned back, deciding he wanted to find a different way to serve the ummah. Over the next two years he completely deradicalized, and later moved to Canada to pursue an engineering degree. 

Mogamyed will join Yasmine to discuss the normalization of radicalization in Islamic countries, how quickly that radicalization can lead to giving up your life in the name of Allah, and discuss the difficulty of deradicalization and all of the obstacles and risks involved with making that decision.

Amanda Knox is an exoneree, journalist, public speaker, author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, Waiting to Be Heard and FREE: My Search for Meaning. She is the host of the podcast Hard Knox. Between 2007 and 2015, Amanda spent nearly four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial for a murder she didn’t commit. She was finally acquitted of murder in 2015. She has since become an advocate for criminal justice reform and media ethics. Amanda is an Executive Producer of the 2025 mini-series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox available on Hulu/Disney+.

Amanda will be joining Yasmine to ponder the questions: 
What does resilience actually look like? 
What does it mean to be free?
How do we live with what we can’t undo?

 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amamaknox/
X: https://x.com/amandaknox
Website: https://www.amandaknox.com

Waiting to be Heard: https://www.amandaknox.com/waiting-to-be-heard.htmlFREE: My Search for Meaning: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/amanda-knox/free/9781538770719/

Jay Solomon, author of The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East and co-author of The Free Press report How Qatar Bought America joins Yasmine in Episode 4 of Islam and the West to discuss how Islamist governments like Qatar and Iran have spent billions of dollars infiltrating the media, education and governments in the West to control the narrative and spread their ideology.

Jay Solomon is one of the U.S.’s premier investigative journalists and writers, with a global track record that goes back nearly 30 years. He was The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign affairs correspondent for over a decade, during which he broke some of Washington’s largest stories, such as the Obama administration’s secret cash shipments to Iran. He also served tours in the Middle East, India, and East Asia. He’s an expert on international sanctions, illicit finance, nuclear proliferation, and cyber warfare.

Jay on X: https://x.com/jaysolomon

Jay’s works:

• The Iran Wars: https://a.co/d/hoNi9nr
• 
  
  How Qatar Bought America: https://www.thefp.com/p/how-qatar-bought-america?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

In a new special series called Islam and the West, Yasmine is inviting the most brilliant minds of our time to discuss the most pressing issues of our time. These conversations help us understand the goals of Islamists in the West, who are infiltrating our governments, media and academic institutions. They also examine strategies to battle the overwhelming antisemitism and Islamism in the West.

Dalia Ziada, who serves as the Washington, D.C. Coordinator for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), joins Yasmine in Episode 3 of Islam and the West to discuss the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists’ mission in the West today. 

Dalia Ziada is an Egyptian Muslim writer and political analyst.  She specializes in governance, geopolitics, and regional security in the Middle East. Dalia held senior positions at regional and international think tanks and civil society organizations, in Egypt, Israel, and the United States. She has led projects, advised policymakers, and authored articles, papers, and books analyzing the geopolitical conflicts and power relations in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. Since May 2024, Dalia has been visiting American university campuses, in partnership with Hillel International, lecturing on the changing geopolitics of the Middle East in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daliaziada

X/Twitter: https://x.com/daliaziada

In a new special series called Islam and the West, Yasmine is inviting the most brilliant minds of our time to discuss the most pressing issues of our time. These conversations help us understand the goals of Islamists in the West, who are infiltrating our governments, media and academic institutions. They also examine strategies to battle the overwhelming antisemitism and Islamism in the West.

Hamed Abdel-Samad, author of Islamic Fascism, joins Yasmine in Episode 2 of Islam and the West to shed light on the Muslim Brotherhood. They will discuss their origin in Egypt, how they perfected their ideological tactics through the Middle East, and how they are using those tactics on the West today.

Hamed was born in Egypt to a Sunni Muslim Imam and became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in his university days. A stay in a summer camp run by the Muslim Brotherhood triggered doubts, causing him to become skeptical, and eventually an atheist. He studied multiple languages as well as political science in Germany, and has worked as a scholar for most of his life. Following the publication of his book Mein Abschied vom Himmel (My Farewell from Heaven, 2009) in Egypt, a group issued a fatwa threatening Abdel-Samad and he was put under police protection. Hamed has called for an "Islam light" in Europe without sharia, jihad, "gender apartheid", proselytism, and "entitlement mentality", and has received multiple fatwas calling for his killing as he is accused of heresy in Egypt. In his latest book, Islamic Fascism (Der islamische Faschismus, 2014), Abdel-Samad describes Islam as a fascist ideology under the cover of a religion.

X: https://x.com/hamed_samad

Sara is the author of a personal memoir Kissing Girls on Shabbat recounting her courageous journey of self-acceptance as a queer woman navigating life within and beyond the constraints of a Hasidic Jewish community. This poignant exploration of identity, resilience, and love resonates deeply with readers and shines a light on the universal struggle to embrace one’s true self.

Sara is a therapist, writer, and speaker who helps members of the queer community and individuals who have survived trauma to live bold, honest, and proud lives. She also serves as a Clinical Supervisor for Jewish Lesbian Youth, a non-profit organization that supports and empowers LGBTQ youth.

Website: https://www.drsaraglass.com/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/drsaraglass/

X: https://x.com/DrSaraGlass

Michael was born in the US into a Coptic Orthodox family, but he’d drifted in and out of Agnosticism since he was a teenager. Michael converted to Islam because he hated Jews so much. For nearly 20 years, he sympathized and advocated for the Palestinians until he felt like he had to choose between his humanity and continuing to support a cause he increasingly saw as morally bankrupt and depraved. That is when he started creating content that focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

After spending nearly 20 years supporting a cause that would have gladly murdered every Israeli, Michael believes he owes it to the Jewish community to tell his story and share his knowledge, to fight the propaganda machine and hopefully pull people out of the "free Palestine" death cult. Leaning heavily into books and recollections of history for information, Michael tries to raise awareness about the problems with the Palestinian leadership, to uplift and showcase Jewish voices and opinions, and to defend Zionism to a world that has a very poor understanding of what Zionism is.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/koptickaparah0548/ 

Sheikh Mirza Ismail is a Yezidi religious leader who was forced to flee Iraq because of religious persecution. Spending over two years as a refugee in Syria and Turkey, Sheikh Mirza made his way to Canada where he received a degree in Social Service Work from Medix College in 2010. As a Sheikh, Mirza Ismail holds a portion of leadership among the Yezidi people and is the Founder and President of the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International: www.yezidihumanrights.org 

Mirza was born in Shingal, the Yezidi region of Iraq that was over-run by ISIS in August of 2014. He has travelled all over the world speaking with government officials, media, and organizations about the plight of the Yezidi people and other minorities suffering at the hands of ISIS. Since September 2014, Sheikh Mirza has been visiting Iraq frequently; meeting and interviewing the IDPs (Internationally Displaced People), especially the Yezidi women and girls who lived under the law of the ISIS and escaped the humanitarian crisis that saw the Yezidi genocide and enslavement.

Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International (YHROI): 

www.yezidihumanrights.org

[email protected] 

1-416-843-7973

In this very special episode, we celebrate my birthday by catching up with my wonderful friends, guests, and community.  

I’m honored, privileged and delighted to have these brave, strong, wonderful people in my life, who fill it with meaning and purpose, and who valiantly stand with me in the bold pursuit of human connection, mutual support, and critical thinking in a world often divided by ideology and prejudice.

A big thank you to my entire community of listeners and guests for making these past 4 years matter!

Listen to Mün’s beautiful and powerful gift to me - her song, “Opening doors” -  here: https://youtu.be/OjT0qE-8D7k?si=5iPxiy6eyoa-bGAZ 

Selina Robinson is a Canadian politician and author of Truth be Told. After a webinar in early 2024, in which Robinson referred to the territory on which Israel was founded as “a crappy piece of land,” she became the centre of a political firestorm, in which activists and a group of Muslim clergy demanded her resignation. She was subjected to online harassment, including a credible death threat, and her constituency office was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti. Selina was consequently fired from BC’s cabinet and was told she could not continue with her responsibilities due to the “depth of work” she had to do to repair the harm caused by her comments.

X: https://x.com/SelinaMRobinson
BluSky: https://bsky.app/profile/selinarobinson.bsky.social
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robinson.selina