Islam & the West, Exploring al-Ghazali's Teachings & Bridging Differences | Dato’ Dr Afifi al-Akiti

So we have to, in the end, be answerable to Allah s.w.t. right? and so for a country to succeed anywhere Don't play around with this heady mix of religion and nationalist populism. It can be very dangerous Assalamualaikum Welcome to kindred stories with me Shahril Hamdan and me Khairy Jamaluddin or KJ KJ we have a very special guest today. Today is our fourth episode of kindred stories But before we get to it, maybe a word or two about our previous episode Yes with Ayana Moon, which was an exper

ience I think for both of us not the most Well trodden ground for both of us in terms of speaking to a female influencer with hijab who was a revert from a Korean culture or Korean roots into Islam now lives in Malaysia and Indonesia. I thought that by all the by the looks of it episode was well received Very positive comments about her life story about her hijrah reverting back to Islam converting to Islam for for some and I think The strength of a character really came through in the comments

as somebody who is independent as someone who's strong As someone who is not apologetic about being an entrepreneur and making money really but at the same time really exploring her faith and strengthening her Iman and I thought that was a wonderful story for Many not just women but also Muslims looking at how she's able to strengthen her faith, but at the same time Really confront her roots which in Korean society, I suppose very very alien to Muslim society It's very homogenous society and she

mentioned about her challenges converting and trying to Reconcile that with her family. So yeah, a wonderful story and I think of all the guests we've interviewed across our different podcast KJ That was one of the most candid interviews I've had. Oh, yeah She was unfiltered. She was very happy to call out what in her own words I guess the prejudice of her own culture about Islam towards Islam she was very happy to be assertive about her own identity as a woman as an entrepreneur as you correct

ly mentioned and I actually love that bit I suppose because in my mind KJ kindred stories apart from obviously Seeking knowledge sowing kindness. It's also about trying to Bring to bear the relationship between duniawi and ahirat relationship between How our religion teaches to teaches us to go forth in the world and I think those kind of stories where people are unfiltered People Manifest exactly that spirit or that sentiment. This is what makes our episode and makes this show enjoyable at leas

t for me and I think this episode will be definitely an addition to that particular team of Going forth in this world with the basis of Islam and our spirituality and religiosity of our religion And the guest we have today is Dato Dr. Afifi al-Akiti He is the Kuwait fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology Which is Oxford University's oldest faculty. So I have to Ox what do you guys call yourself? Oxonian Which you know It does pull

at certain strings as somebody who's you know, graduated from University of Manchester So, you know the north-south divide. Oh, I'm a Mancunian speaking to Oxonian I guess first of all, thank you very much and welcome. Dato Dr. Afifi. Thank you for coming to Kindred Stories Great. Well, thank you for inviting me. In fact, sir. This is more for you reunion with Khairy Good to see an old friend It really balances the two, okay in a tricycle in a Maybe We'll start by I first came across Afifi in th

e library of the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies This was when I went back to Oxford as a as a visiting fellow. I think in the early 2000s and just before you got married I think no no just after just after And I was in the library and this was the old Oxford Center for Islam for Islamic Studies not the new wonderful building that Afifi occupies now on George Street. Yep, and I was in the library late in the evening was dark and Suddenly I I heard something scurrying in the dark corners of the

library and then this songkok pops up And I immediately knew you are Malays, we have this homing instinct And that's how we got to know each other and and I think that was quite early on and you know You were still a D field student doing a doctorate in in Oxford and and now you're full-blown Don I think you're the first Malay and congratulations in the first Malaysian on Kindred stories. We've had a Kiwi We have we've had an Indonesian. We've had Indonesians. We've had Korean Apart from that b

eing the first Malay as a as a fellow at Worcester That's how I got to know Afifi But interestingly as Shahril mentioned he teaches Not just at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, but he teaches at the at the Department of Theology Which is the oldest Faculty in Oxford. Oxford was set up to teach priests. Yep I Don't know a thousand years ago, whatever it was. It was a madrasa for Christians. It was a madrasa There you go a madrasa for Christians So maybe You want to kick start with with your

life story? We always love to get a bit of a big back story of people who come on our show I guess maybe simple question for you. How is it? Malay Muslim I understand from Perak Ended up being the Don in Oxford Well, I think this is partly... Thank you for for this wonderful occasion to spend the time in Ramadan in Malaysia and to get to meet the two of you really and But really it's the barakah of our ulama. I mean I have to say that When you study in the tradition that we do particularly in t

he classical tradition of Islam, you actually study with Shuyukh, you know the Malays called tok guru, for example So you have that kind of a one-to-one relationship a very personal relationship the sort of thing that our young ones will understand from Star Wars the Jedi Master and the Part one kind of relationship and those of us who have been to Oxford and studied in Oxford and indeed taught in Oxford will know That is precisely That is precisely the modus operandi that is precisely how Oxfor

d actually operates. It's to have that relationship with your teacher So so certainly, I mean I spend, you know, the younger part of my life basically Almost I don't want to use the term as an itinerant traveler or something like that But really, you know when to go and study with these great sages if you like in Indonesia and then a bit of time in Syria and then spend a bit of time certainly in Morocco? you know a couple of years there and It's the result being in Malaysia. I don't even have a

they say the SPM Which is the formal secondary school certificate? Is like GCSE, the O-level but this is a lesson just because you don't have the SPM doesn't mean you can't survive in the World, how did you end up university without these? So you went to these madrasas had these one-on-one? So I ended up being an imam Mashallah, and it was a very interesting experience for me. So when I was there, of course So there was really the opportunity for me to take and do my A-level And this is one of t

he things you see that I learned from Malaysia where people You know the rules stifle you. If you don't have O-level you can't do A-level, for example That's not the sort of barriers people put necessarily in the West And this is one of the things that perhaps our people must wake up and smell the coffee a bit I mean, I didn't even know the fact that for instance if you didn't do SPM You can't do STPM for instance, right or you you know, you can't get a leg up in life But this is one opportunity

you actually have and you know, and the rest as they say is history, right? In fact, what was even more interesting because you know, you know having studied with the ulama of course, you've got your the Arabic you've got, you know, you've gone through and you know done the Basics to the whatever fardhu kifaya and and and so on and so forth I have to say, you know, and the French say this is the _ , you know, the sins of the youth You feel the grass is always greener on the other side You had e

nough of studying the Malays call agama Whether it is akidah, fiqah, tasawwuf, you know This is the Malay religious education system, you know, I mean, you know, in the Muslim world we have that tradition certainly but The grass is always greener on the other side. So you always feel oh, you've never got the chance wanting to do sciences For instance, so there was an experience then when I was imam in in Belfast and I actually in fact wanted to do something different Technically even run away fr

om Islamic studies. Can you imagine it? I mean, so I ended up with I you know, I can't say I mean, I think it's very embarrassing on air to say what would the A-level grades I got But suffice it to say it was only through a sheer miracle. I went through and applied to do originally food science at the Queen's University of Belfast. You were about to become a food scientist. Exactly. Wow. Can you imagine it? And within the first year because of one of the papers I took was ancient science in a bi

t on Aristotle there and In the second term or the second semester we had to do with medieval science and then medieval science They actually teach you about how science develops certainly from the Muslim world and these are papers taught by non-muslims So it really opened my eyes These are orientalists, you know, then you thought whoa I mean these people can read Arabic as well as we do and sometimes even better and you thought but then You know when I got the invitation from the professor who

taught me and he said look you're in the wrong faculty Hmm, I mean you you're certainly gifted with languages. You're certainly You know, you have great interest in philosophy with theologies and because you know, we were trained in the madrasas so, of course Why don't you come and do history and philosophy of science and So, of course the faculty that admitted me if you know food science Originally, you know if you do your a-levels, it's embarrassing for me to say this, but this is the truth Yo

u go through a process called clearing only if you get this sort of grades where you're not But only perhaps because you know because you never had that proper training took a bit of time for me to develop my writing. I think after all your achievements is you don't need to be For someone who went through clearing yes, and now teach in Oxford. Yeah, this is nothing No, not only shot of a miracle, but it shows how working hard gets you somewhere Yeah, for the benefit of our listeners who maybe do

n't know clearing clearing is when you apply for the second time, right? So my second first time as well, but your original choices didn't admit You know, so you have to go back into the pool and they will assign you And they have to interview me and I remember that year Subhanallah was the year when my first son was born and the Malays have the saying, you know, 'Anak bawa rezeki' Yeah, He or she you know brings you provision and I've always tried to find the provenance for this in the Muslim t

radition I really can't quite find it. Specifically. It's a very So I attribute this to my eldest son that I got into the university against all odds amazingly enough, but the rest is history because by the second year of my university I Then picked up on the languages pretty well Of course had to be retrained, you know And then you know I did Greek then and then Latin for the medieval site Greek for the ancient science bit by the time I finished I got first-class Devalidatorian in the in in the

year for the joint degree double first in scholastic philosophy Which is Catholic philosophy in the history and philosophy of science So there may be people out there asking what is an ulama doing so-called alim doing here doing Christian philosophy? but well, you've done everything you can pretty much when you sit with the ulama and And my feeling is that I want to do something different It's this feeling that the grass is greener on the other side is you know, is this you want to do science?

But then I realized even when I wanted to run away from Islamic studies, Allah works in a mysterious ways You know the ulama they say man proposes God disposes Malays say 'we plan, but God decides'. My professor the one at Queen's then called up his other professor in Oxford, you know, a German famous scholar Fritz Zimmermann very strict Germanic kind of you know Professor Don originally from Germany Teachers in Oxford said look we've got somebody here that I've reached the end of my I can't tea

ch him any further So I won the Clarendon scholarship to go to Oxford says, you know Khairy, you you can either be a Rhodes Scholar or Clarendon Scholar So I'm one of the Blues the Clarendon and Rhodes is the other color and I had that scholarship all the way through To to finishing and when I arrived in Oxford in that year of 9 11 2001 I will never forget this that when I Don't know. It just dawned on me when I was, you know matriculated was the college to do medieval Islamic philosophy All rig

ht, and then I just thought to myself SubhanAllah, I've written why? wanted to run away from I mean I did that that kind of feeling, you know made you feel Oh, even when I wanted to run away from this I just wanted to be a scientist or I just wanted to do something different, you know Because you went up to Oxford as you said in 2001, that's when the September 11th attacks took place. Yeah subsequent to that everything that had to do with Islam became "trendy" in the Western world. There was a l

ot of scholarship about Islam, there was a lot of interest about Islam About trying to understand Islam as well as trying to vilify Islam and There you were at Oxford doing your PhD or Dphil doctorate as they call it in in Oxford. Oh, do you feel? Tell us about the intellectual milieu or Environment in the West at that time when you went up. It was very interesting I mean, it was in the year of 9-11. In fact, I literally arrived just over the summer. I remember that episode You know, everybody p

robably remembers that episode. It's one of the days where you were you remember where you were and And you know, the climate was such that within the first few weeks. I remember there was an attack at The Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, you know where somebody came up with a baseball bat Wanting to you know rush the place, you know and of course the the university had to call the the police and all that just because of the name Islam and And then at that time they were not even sure who did

it and all that etc. And so this is the climate of fear I mean, of course you will now know the term that is actually much more established now Which used to be instilled in some circles controversial Islamophobia, right or anti Muslim sentiment Which is which is quite high and that's partly because I mean I if you ask me, it's really You know Imam Al-Ghazali, my hero, my role model He says, people are enemies of what they are ignorant of. I mean an amazing saying of Imam Al-Ghazali This is the

problem of it's a human problem with the fear of the unknown But in fact, he didn't learn this just from Islam, actually, he got it. I mean certainly a much earlier philosopher By the name of Cicero the great that great Roman orator and philosopher actually said in Latin _ You know, so people condemn the things they don't understand. That's partly our fault that people fear Islam It may be because we do not carry ourselves in the way that we should be carrying ourselves In accordance with the Su

nnah of the Prophet peace be upon him in accordance with the Quran. Did that motivate you as a PhD or a DPhil student to stay on and become this professor, this lecturer as your part in trying to explain the unknown to the Western world in the oldest university in the Western world Well to be frank, I never never intended to end up teaching there But again, this is one of those taqdeer. It's like and this is due to the rizq of my second son now You know, I it took me a couple of years to finish

my deep with my thesis, you know A lot of kindred stories listeners gonna start having kids now Do you have kids, Shahril? I do No, indeed. We all have kids and I think we all have rizq comes in many forms certainly You know doors open through through these children and I, you know, having writers block is one thing You know, we're having to write your thesis, but the year in which my second son was born It was also the same year I submitted my thesis and Unexpectedly the professor who helped on

my chair, that fellowship, you know got better offers from as always the United States, you know across the pond and then he went there and I applied and You just went there three days of interviews and voila! As the French say and it was really Mashallah It was really unexpected at the tender age of 32 so I became a permanent staff of the university and It was a great honor, of course, you know for me, of course, you know, and as you said it earlier I think Malaysians always proud. I always sa

y, you know, they say to the first Malaysian You know from the new Nusantara also, you know, the Indonesians, the Bruneians, the Singaporeans, the Thais But indeed I after having being an appointed and of course Even before then, even when I was a student, when I arrived in Oxford When I was then humbled by that experience that I wanted to run away from Islamic studies, and then Allah end up You know God's end up sending me to do Islamic studies. Then I realized I should not fight fate anymore Y

eah, it's part like Star Wars, destiny and I immediately taught I mean I continued my teaching just as I did in Belfast, in the madrasah, The Shafi'i Madrasa there in Sunni theology there So I continued teaching and of course the local community accepted me with open arms and I taught in the local Jami mosque, which is the Oxford Central Mosque, for years that I taught there So that for me is part of my having to give back to the community, to the society so already from that point before I was

even appointed, because of the experience I had to go through that 9-11 that when we were discriminated against, you know as Muslims, then I thought it is very very important that we give The more correct Version and picture of Islam Yeah, I think I'm sure we'll go back to this relationship of Muslim in the West Islam in the West But maybe we want to go into your thesis for your detail. Yeah, PhD. Yeah You mentioned your role model Imam al-Ghazali Maybe speak in in very broad terms to begin with

what about his Thinking what about his thought that appealed to you from the start and what continues to appeal you today? Yeah Imam al-Ghazali is one of those amazing geniuses of not just the ummah, the community of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, but also in fact for the entire world and He is the so-called universal Islamic scholar, I would think I mean He you know when we talk about who is the universal Christian scholar people think of Thomas Aquinas exactly I mean, you know people thi

nk of natural law you think of Thomas Aquinas you ask, you know, who's the universal Jewish scholar? That's Maimonides, by the way Who grew up in Islamic Spain in Andalusia, and end up being the doctor, the personal physician to Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi Saladdin who you know, obviously we all know, you know fought with Richard the Lionheart, of course most famously he liberated Jerusalem again So al-Ghazali was this figure who is known as Hujjatul Islam in the Muslim tradition Interestingly his titl

e the proof of the religion, the proof of Islam almost as if he's an ambassador, you know Due to Islam and true enough both Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas both benefited greatly from him in varying degrees whether as a friend or even as a foe I mean Thomas Aquinas, for example, I mean, you know, very well respected Christian theologian He wrote this massive magnum opus called Summa Theologica Which is partly inspired by a lot of al-Ghazali's ideas But he wrote this other book called Summa Contra

Gentiles in Latin Essentially what it means in English is a book or a summary or summation of a book that is against for him kufr, kafir, on the non-believers, you know for him the Gentiles and The main reason why he wrote that book is because he was having al-Ghazali at the back of his heart Thomas Aquinas and Imam Ghazali in very layman's term. Yes They contributed to their own religion because they used existing philosophical Structures to prove the existence of God and of their religion. Tha

t's why he's the proof of Islam Yeah, I think maybe expound a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean look al-Ghazali Interestingly enough was one of the theologians in the history of mankind where he basically actually promoted the idea of what later on both philosophers and theologians call the methodic doubt and You will remember who was famous for this, of course, not so much a very religious person, but somebody who Famously started off the so-called Enlightenment movement in the West. Descarte

s. Exactly the Cartesian methodic doubt You know you go through this kind of journey to try and even doubt the existence of even God "I think therefore I am". "I think therefore I am" Cogito, ergo sum So al-Ghazali had precisely that and of course he predated Descartes by a couple of hundred years And if you read his autobiography, Khairy, I mean, it's amazing I think this should be must reading for our world. I mean if you read, you know, well This is an autobiography again. It's not normal for

you to write an autobiography to begin with And you have people like St. Augustine who wrote his confessions, right? It's a very famous autobiography but this is one of the few other scholars in the world who's written an autobiography and it's an amazing journey of how he as an one of the ulama who Had difficulty with his faith, with his Iman. He went away for a period of time He had a crisis of faith. Yeah. Mm. So here we have There was you studying food sciences Exactly, your crisis of faith

So here the great Imam, he was not secure even in his own Iman Yeah, and he was very transparent about that And that is why sometimes whether we one of the famous Catholic Popes, you know passed away the Pope John II, you know Paul, I mean Said that Faith, doubt, sorry doubt is the handmaiden of faith John Paul II famously said that Well, this is something whether he realized it or not He would have learned from al-Ghazali, of course he learned it from Descartes in that sense but I think it's a

n amazing journey of this great scholar where he was searching for God if you like and Finally found God through that experience of you know, he had to go through, you know He started off with with fiqh with you know, basic law became a lawyer He knew that, you know, if you're a lawyer, you get rid, you can get very rich and just it's you know Things are no different and today you can have lawyers. The Malays have a nice thing, you know You can be a crooked lawyer if you're a loyar buruk I mean,

I don't know how to translate that in English But it's true in these are lawyers who do law without the knowledge of spirituality I mean, you know, but al-Ghazali went through from law and then he studied even philosophy to try and find God, you know But then in the end he found tasawwuf, Sufism, right? Which is the science of the heart which is Universal in all religions, you know, it's you know, and unfortunately now with some Muslim tasawwuf, Sufism has become a bad word That I think particu

larly with some Muslim, particularly those Muslim coming from the right so to speak, you know They're a bit literal mind or literalist mind. So, you know, and and that's very sad. It's actually part of the religion of Islam It's part of the basics of Islam to for us to study. You do theology, you do law and you do Sufism If I can just jump in here, because I did SPM and I studied here. I remember He's establishing that because he's the only one probably with a full set of SPM But the relevance h

ere if I can inject is I have some memory KJ and doctor of being told to be careful with Al-Ghazali. Oh So that maybe begins to speak to your point about in certain parts of our religion how we practice it There is a certain, you know Guidance or non-guidance within carefulness, caution about getting too close to Sufism and that right and maybe I wanted to sort of Say that that was a bit of my experience growing up here And can you imagine Shahril, for someone to say be careful of Imam Al-Ghazal

i when universally majority of all the Muslims accepting including his Intellectual madhhab enemies, you know, he followed the madhhab of Imam Shafi'i the school of Imam Shafi'i in law He's followed the school of Imam Ash'ari in theology Yeah, but clearly you would expect you know, the Shias would disagree with him, but even the Shia Brothers and sisters Muslims here in this case, right? Embraced him. I mean, you know, so again, I know where this is probably coming from It's is the minority of t

hose the naysayers who really you know Find him as a great threat in that sense because it's simply you know, the Malay we have a saying "Tak kenal maka tak cinta" Yeah, I think you just need to know to get to know the man better because sure his contributions I mean amazing. He really, you know, in the Hall of Fame of Muslim scholars, you know Imam Asaf Adi, right? He's this is one of the great Muslim scholars actually, you know He put Al-Ghazali up in the Hall of Fame of all the Muslims causin

g he said that he was the one who basically a great Harmonizer who reconciled both science and religion Yeah, it's something that Thomas Aquinas, Maimonides benefited and Imam Al-Suyuti another great This is a great Shafi'i scholar. He said that, you know, Lau in Arabic? Lau means hypothetical "if". It can never happen, right? It's not the if in English or the Arabic in or _, we say in Arabic, but this is hypothetically only Right It would be him in Arabic if were there, but it would be impossib

le to be a prophet that would come after Right, Muhammad SAW. He would be Imam Al-Ghazali. This is Imam Suyuti now You're not gonna call Imam Suyuti. I mean he wouldn't say that I mean because Imam Al-Ghazali was a polymath. They were mutafanin You know well versed in almost every discipline in the Islamic sciences But also he read the so-called worldly sciences, you know Aristotle and the rest, you know I mean, I just wanted to maybe round this section off so that it's not too technical for our

viewers and our listeners, but I would maybe sort of try to describe this part of Al-Ghazali's thinking after he went away he came back He had to challenge and at this point in time of if you correct me if I'm wrong there was an assault against theology and religion by those who are more philosophically minded using logic and Al-Ghazali took it upon himself not so much to refute the methodology, but to refute the conclusion of of the world having a finite starting point, of there being a logic

to all of this, but using that framework of Aristotle, saying, okay, I'm gonna come into your ring and debate using your framework and prove the existence of an eternal God, using eternal God, Allah, using that framework. That's what he did, right? I mean, he stopped that philosophical assault against theology and religion. Exactly, to the point where Khairy and Shahril, that even, unfortunately, got even the reputation after that battle, there are orientalists, non-Muslim scholars, and even peo

ple who do not really properly know al-Ghazali well, including Muslims, who then accuse al-Ghazali as being the one who dealt the death blow to philosophy and science in Islam, because of this. I mean, he wrote the Tahafut al-Falasifah, this is the work, the Incoherence of the Philosophers, where he attacked, basically, philosophy, but he only attacked those problematic conclusions from the Aristotelian tradition, and it's not just the Aristotelian tradition, it was really more of Avicenna in th

is case, Avicenna, somebody whom he benefited a lot from, by the way, but 20 on 20 questions, there are thousands of questions, and these are the ones that he rejected, because why? He said that this contradicts the basic tenets of Islam. But to really answer your question there, Khairy, essentially, al-Ghazali was a very wily fox, a great genius, and why? Because as Khairy puts it quite rightly, he used the tools of his enemies as a tool, and precisely that, as a tool. Did you know, so Imam al-

Ghazali came up from this madrasah called the Nizamiyyah, this is one of the first universities in the world, by the way, al-Azhar in those days, in Egypt. It was Persian, wasn't it? The Korowin, of course, in Morocco today, but the Nizamiyyah were in Persia, and in Iran today, and in Baghdad as well. So his wise and generous patron was Nizam al-Mulk, the prime minister of the land. The sultan was Sultan Malik Shah, and the caliph was al-Mustazhiri. And during that time, they founded these first

universities, you know, and George Makdisi, a great orientalist scholar, wrote this wonderful book called The Rise of Colleges. You can read more about it there. But it's interesting that when al-Ghazali grew up in this madrasa tradition, there are certain sciences you're not supposed to kind of, or they don't teach, like, for example, logic, like mantiq. So it was al-Ghazali, as one of the ulama, you know, who dabbled in the sciences, and he started reading astronomy, he started reading chemis

try, physics, you know, not science, but something like that. But, you know, going beyond of his comfort zone, when other people like you were saying earlier, like your friends were like, oh, be careful of al-Ghazali, you know, because he is quite maybe misguided, even when everybody accepts him, maybe the one who is saying it actually is a reflection more on the one who is criticizing him anyway. But al-Ghazali was actually in that climate where people are saying, don't go read Aristotle. He's,

you know, not even from the Muslim world, and of course, this is well before the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him, right? But he went on to read him. And you know what happened? Because of Imam al-Ghazali, there was a paradigm shift. He openly advocated the teaching of these rational sciences in the madrasa. The sciences, for the first time, was then taught in the madrasa in the Middle Ages. This is one of the reasons why we have the Golden Age, indeed, as well. I mean, before al-Ghazali,

the sciences were more of a private enterprise of scholars like Ibn Sina, Avicenna, who were patronized by the kings, by the sultans, by the caliphs, you know, by the khalifas. But that is only a court activity. It was not institutionalized. But the thing about madrasa, it's important. I mean, it's a university, a school. You institutionalize it, you put it into the syllabus, and then you teach generations of people for hundreds of years to come. And that is one of the great jasa, the great, as

the Malays say, jasa, the great contribution of Imam Al-Ghazali. Well, we can discuss whether that tradition has gone now, because there can be a case, you can make a case where that kind of integration of the sciences and the logical sciences has gone from the tradition of teaching in the Muslim world. But before that, just to end this segment, we're gonna take a break. Can I just add after your point? Sure, sure. I just wanted to plug your book, your latest book. And I was there for the royal

launch of this book several months ago. The royal book launch, my God, in Kuala Lumpur. By the deputy king of Malaysia, Sultan Nazrin Shah. And that was the launch of Islam and biomedicine, which Afifi was the principal editor together with Aasim Padela. Yeah, a medic and a theologian. Yeah, so this is a book that looks at the intersection between Islamic theology and sciences. And I wanted to read one line, which perhaps encapsulates the entire discussion that we've been having. Al-Ghazali exp

resses this paradox best for us. And this paradox is what I think we were referring to just now, when he described reveal knowledge, which is Islamic knowledge or religious knowledge revealed by God as an intellect, akal from outside of this world. So that's his first principle. It's a knowledge from outside. You would not understand the logical basis for this in the first place. And scientific knowledge as scripture from within ourselves. I think that's a perfect way of explaining this so-calle

d paradox. And if you accept that, then things are quite clear. Shahril? Yeah, I think just to wrap this section up and also anticipate presumably our discussion after this, I think that quote that KJ just read from your book is the straddling of both logic, the balancing of that and also reveal knowledge that maybe begins to explain why until today, despite what you've just described, there will be people, especially non-Muslims and Orientalists, as you pointed out earlier, who see Imam Al-Ghaz

ali not as the person who institutionalized rational sciences within madrasas or made it something that was a practice of all Muslims, but actually as the person who introduced a new era in which Islam and the sciences were seen as incompatible. Yeah. So maybe as a final remark of this section, how do you and other scholars like you begin to break that myth so that future generations begin to appreciate Al-Ghazali more wholly and more fairly? Yeah, I mean, thank you. I mean, it's a very clever q

uote of Al-Ghazali and you can see it's a very profound one. I mean, the Arabic is even poetic, you know? You know, which is whatever is transmitted science, like religion, scriptures, the Quran, the Hadith, for example, is an aklun min khaarij. So our religion, knowledge of our religion is basic like an intellect from without. And it's interesting the way he said it, because in my, you know, I'm giving you a commentary of it, this is very Aristotelian. Because Aristotle said something about the

nous poietikos the basically the active intellect. And this is a bit technical, but Al-Ghazali's point is that religious knowledge is alien to all of us. It comes from outside of us. So, and sometimes we can't even understand it, right? Why do we pray five times a day? And why is it that in a day, Subuh is two rakaats, Zohr is four, Asr is four, Maghrib is three rakaats, and then Isha is four, a total of 17. Why 17, not 18, not 16, right? So this is Al-Ghazali's point. Then he goes on to say, b

ut our akal, our common sense, our reason, al-aqlu naqlun min dakhilin. Our reason is a bit like a scripture, a bit like a scripture from within ourself, meaning it is an authority as well, from within our fitrah. So here, Imam Al-Ghazali is in fact commenting on the most famous verse in the Quran, that verse of light, A'udhu billahi minashaytanir rajim. When Allah SWT says, there is light supervening or making strong the other light. So Al-Ghazali is trying to say, this is the light of religion

, supporting the light of science, or the light of science or akal, supporting the light of scripture or religion in that sense. So you need both, so that the two are in harmony with each other. And this is the way we should, as Muslims, not just scholars, see the world as it is, that we shouldn't laga-lagakan, this is another Malay wisdom word. We shouldn't pit these two opposite ends against each other, because it is to our detriment if we do so. So it's an amazing profound saying of Al-Ghazal

i. And you can imagine why other equally geniuses like Maimonides or Thomas Aquinas, from outside of our own religion, wow, was really affected by Al-Ghazali. And you can even imagine his own adversaries, whether they are the Shias, the Murtazilas, it's kind of on the left, or even on the right, the Zahiris, the literal-minded Muslims, for instance. His nemesis is said to be Shaykh al-Islam ibn Taymiyyah. Al-Ghazali is Hujjatul Islam. Al-Ghazali, this is Shaykh al-Islam, so I'm giving the title,

Shaykh al-Islam ibn Taymiyyah, this great Hanbali scholar who was a great nemesis. But he belonged to that very literalist school that gave birth later on to another tradition, of course, in the modern world, some call it Wahhabism or something like that. It's another story, but even he, the great nemesis, the great adversary of Al-Ghazali who came 100 years, couple of hundred years after Al-Ghazali, had this grudging respect for the man. I mean, what can you say? I mean, amazing, really. The M

uslim Ummah produced such great, I mean, ibn Taymiyyah is a bit like the Martin Luther of Islam. So Al-Ghazali is technically Thomas Aquinas of Islam. We may agree to disagree with that, but there you go. Wonderful, we will take a quick break and come back with Shaykh Afifi. Welcome back to an illuminating episode of Kindred Stories with Dato' Dr. Afifi Al-Akiti, who is the Kuwait Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and Lecturer in Islamic Studies for the Faculty of Theology, Oxford,

as well as a fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, where he's an expert of both Islam and Christianity. Afifi, we had a wonderful discussion about Al-Ghazali. We tried to make it as accessible as possible. I think the summary from that is how we try to reconcile the sciences with revealed knowledge and Al-Ghazali's pivotal role in that, in the Islamic tradition. I want to shift towards your role as somebody who is teaching in Oxford and you teach both scholars and also people who will have a car

eer in divinity. I'm sure you teach future priests in the Christian tradition. You know a lot about, of course, Islam, but also about Christianity, but to take a step back out of the theology and make it the conversation that we're having much more accessible. What do you think of multiculturalism? What do you think of how Christians and the West view Islam today? And I say this in the context where there is still a lot of misunderstanding. Although since 2001, I would say that the West's attemp

ts at understanding Islam has grown, but it's still a problem. You still have this rise of identity politics in the West where immigration is a big issue in elections in the UK and in the US, but you know that part of that subtext is against Muslims and Islam. You don't, they don't have to say it. It's a dog whistle. So what is your view on all of this? Well, Khairy, one of the things I benefited from being in Oxford is that we meet all sorts of scholars at the university and in the college, esp

ecially it's multidisciplinary. I may be a theologian or a philosopher, but then you sit with historians, political scientists, and economists. And one of the things I learned from a political scientist there, and it's mentioned that we live in an age where there is affective polarization. Now, this is affective as in A-F-F-C-E-C-T-I-V, right? You know, you play with your emotions. You get polarized because of heated feelings, as opposed to issues of polarization. And this is very interesting ho

w even politically the world at large, and we see the rise of nationalist populism on the one hand, you know, we see Trump, the rise of Trump, Bolsonaro was in Brazil. Brexit. You know, Brexit, of course, in the UK, and even, arguably, even the Muslim world, you know, Erdogan, actually. Modi, of course, in India. So these are all examples of nationalist populism on the rise, and sometimes we're heady mix with religion. So, and it's dangerous when you actually play with feelings, because when you

play with feelings, the danger is that you can end up killing someone. If it's just an issue, polarization, and I hope, you know, Malaysia never goes there to effective polarization full on. I mean, it's really when you only debate the policies. And this is something I've benefited from being, you know, so you hear these other scholars talking about this, and then I thought about it. You know, really what we are going through today, globally, not just in the UK, perhaps even in Malaysia and in

other parts of the world, certainly almost globally, is there are cultural wars going on now. Now people are talking about the different values, and there is the expectation that certain values are to be imposed on other countries and things like that, and then vice versa. So I think first, you know, I think we need to be clear. I think we are living in that climate, so it can be quite difficult with populist politicians out there, right? So it can be something which, you know, we would be dishe

artening, and I think, so, I mean, I would think that if we have to go through that, you would be the victims. Now, as a Muslim who lives in the West, we are the victims because we are the minorities. So imagine if you are in Malaysia where you are the majority, you would have the minorities there, here in Malaysia, for example, and maybe they might even feel the same way, you know, we have this full-on kind of nationalism, you know, this religious populism. So this is something we have to be ve

ry careful of. Really, we do. I mean, we must be responsible for not making things worse. We must not add fuel to fire. And even when we in the West- Does that mean for a Muslim in the West to just assimilate and lose all their- Certainly not. Muslim identity, not add fuel to fire, don't wear the hijab? No, no, no, certainly not. And one of the most wonderful things about living in Oxford in the United Kingdom, as opposed to, say, the rest of Europe, and certainly the UK is now out of Europe, so

rry Brexit, is that they really, really give you that freedom. Alhamdulillah, and you do not even actually- I have to confess, I don't really feel kind of under siege, but I do have friends who live in France, for example, because of the new laws that have come out with basically prohibiting prescribing the hijab. And people feel really under siege, unfortunately. I mean, the lesson here is that it should be laissez-faire. You know, it should not be the role of, in this case, governments to eith

er prescribe or prescribe. Just look at the example of Iran and Turkey, or France now. I mean, Turkey, it used to be the case, once upon a time, where they forbade the wearing of hijab, the Muslim women headwear. And, you know, the counterculture is, besides people go to protest to wear the hijab to try and get into universities, right? And look at what's happening in Iran today, the Mahsa Amini case, because they prescribe the wearing of it, then if you don't, again, the counterculture is, you

protest, you take it off. So I think, again, listen to Imam al-Ghazali here. Imam al-Ghazali says what? Ishmashit tafa'innaka ma'id. Live as you please, for you will die anyway. Very clear, kind of open value there. But you need to have that personal responsibility to manage this, you see? So- That's where Shahril comes, that you have to be careful, Imam al-Ghazali, live as you please. Maybe, maybe that's where it came from, when they told me that. But doctor, maybe- I hope, you know, you laugh

at Imam al-Ghazali. No, no, I definitely did. To your point about protesting, the more people told me don't go there, I went there. Exactly, right? The rules, some people say rules are meant to be broken. Exactly, especially when you're a teenager and rebellious and all the rest of it. Doctor, I think we'll go back to Malaysia, we'll come back to Malaysia later and our role as the majority community, I've always felt that the way I identify with Islam politically is that we, because we are in th

e majority in this country, we ought to be compassionate and I care more about that. But when speaking to, about Islam from the perspective of someone who lives in the West, I think I flipped the other way, which is that, sure, I've been on record saying we need integration, we need, you know, people need to integrate within the majority community and all the rest of it. But to develop KJ's point earlier, surely it's not about losing one's identity. Surely it's about also asserting and not being

embarrassed in any way about your Muslimness. I wanted to get some commentary from you. In the 21st century, what does that mean? How do you assert Muslimness in Britain or in the West? You know, it's an excellent point brought up by the two of you because the most basic way I can break it down is when you ask the question, are you Muslim first? Are you British first? Are you, you know, this question, are you, you know, if you're a British and I'm, which I'm not, by the way, I'm a Malaysian cit

izen, alhamdulillah. You're sure, yeah? Of course, absolutely. Have been offered a couple of times, but I refused and proudly, you know, carry my Malaysian passport. Of course, you know, why would you want to throw away your Malaysian passports? Wonderful, wonderful. You know, the best country, place in the world for you to live in and to be expected, say that, you know, wonderful food, right? Anyway, the thing is when we have this polarization, this effective polarization, which I referred to e

arlier, yes, this sort of polarization that Al-Ghazali for example tried to harmonize. No, don't pit between science and religion. Don't pit between your Britishness and your Islamness. Don't repeat even between your Malaysianness or your Islamness for that matter. Because yeah, I mean, you have multiple identities actually in that sense. You know, your religion is Islam. If you happen to be a citizen of a country, that is your allegiance to that country, whichever country that may be in. And th

en, and this is the bit where you have to learn unlike others who try to polarize things that these are things that, you know, as Al-Ghazali puts it, you know, that can be in harmony with each other. There is no need for you to think that they are not in harmony with each other. And I think this is where we remember when Allah SWT says in the Quran, particularly, you know, in Surah Al-Hujurat, you know, verse 13, right? Wa ja'alnakum shu'uban wa qaba ila li ta'arafu. Right, it's a beautiful vers

e that we have made you into basically races and religion. To get to know one another. To get to know one another. And the irony here is, and the Malay translation is the best one. It says, sebaik kita dapat kenal, berkenalan satu sama lain untuk apa? Sebaik kita berbaik, untuk kita suka. And, you know, so that you get- Translate that into English. So, you say that in English, so that you get to know one another. Why do you want to get to know one another in Malay when you say kenalan? Because y

ou want to get married, you know, you want to love each other. That's the whole point, you want to get to know each other. Be friends. Be friends. The default setting is to be friends. What's the point of berkenalan dengan orang? You want to get engaged with someone, maybe, or you want to start a family, or just to be friends. So, the point of the verse is, li ta'arufu, so that you become friends, if not family. This is why Allah SWT created different people. This is the point of the verse. And

that's a very beautiful ethic, by the way, which is taught by the Islamic religion, which made the Islamic religion, once upon a time, Khairy during our so-called golden age, back in the time of Al-Ghazali and the rest, where they used to rule the world. And they were the first world, while Europe, UK, Oxford, was the third world. I'm going to go in there and ask a basic question. Li ta'arufu, get to know one another amongst the community of believers, or with those who don't believe as well? Ab

solutely. Including those who don't believe as well. That's the point. i.e. human being. Right? Human being. And why? Because the verse starts off with, you know, this is one of the few places in the Quran where it doesn't say, ya ayuhal ladina amanu, it says, ya ayuhal nas. All mankind. Allah SWT is basically addressing all mankind, the children of Adam, Bani Adam, not just the Muslims. That's it. And this is the point. Right? It's a very powerful verse. You see, because of this verse, we have

a lot of things that came out of this, by the way. Very interesting verse. It is from here, this verse, that we learn the tradition that we take for granted in the West today, that they assume this is a Western value to agree to disagree. Right? To live and not live. How do we say this in the Malaysian context? you have the, you learn to disagree among ourselves. The ethic of disagreement. You know, one of the most beautiful sayings from a great Muslim scholar. His name is Al-Shafi'i, of course,

the great founder of the, one of the four schools of Sunni law. And he said, you know, like this, he said, I believe my view on a particular question that I've researched on, to be correct with the possibility of it being wrong. While the opposing view, While the possibility of the, while the view of the other that contradicts me, my view here to be wrong with the possibility of it being like, mashallah, what a great gentleman here. It's this ethic of disagreement that, you know, my friends, yo

u know, in Oxford who teaches Christian theology, Christian history, people like, you know, Professor McDermott and others, you know, who's written big books, you know, they say to me, they admire the Muslim tradition. And I ask why? It's this. It's this ethic of disagreement because, how is it that you can have, they don't understand. And how is it that you can actually have four churches, either four madhabs, but they can all be orthodox at the same time? They can all be equally correct? And n

o, orthodox means that, you know, from a Christian standpoint, right? Only you, that one's madhab, that one school, is the only right one. The others cannot, like the Protestants or the Catholics. So they fight with each other in those days. No longer today, of course, because they never had that ethic of disagreements then, but now they do, you see? But this is something, we started off with that. That's why we used to rule the world. This is the point. We were the kind of, you know, the land o

f the free. Because in the Abbasid Empire, next door to the Roman Byzantine Empire, we can build not only mosques, certainly, of course, but churches, synagogues, temples. But next door, in Constantinople, they can't even build synagogues. Or let alone, churches belong to different madhab India tradition. Forget about mosques. So they didn't have freedom of religion. We have freedom of religion. So this is a value, which we, the Muslim civilization, taught the rest of the world. Lakum dinukum wa

li adhi. The Quran says, your religion is your religion. My religion is my religion. You have freedom of religion. You can practice your religion. And so, this is all part of that learning to li ta'arafu, learning to agree to disagree, learning to know each other. And look at Al-Shafi'i, when he said that, we now take for granted in Britain, this quality of live and not live. Not a James Bond movie, but you know, truly to disagree, but we now, Muslims are lacking this very quality, unfortunately

. Afifi, I was just about to go there. Do we lack this ethics of disagreement, live and not live, agreeably disagreeing? Has that become, I mean, this image of Islam as very literalist, very rigid, not allowing for a multitude of views, is that an Orientalist trope? Or is it actually happening in the Muslim world that is so rigid? Unfortunately. Doctor, if I can tag on to that as well. I think we haven't completed our discussion about Islam in the West. And that's one particular point, that mana

ging our differences, right? Still within the context of managing differences within Islamic thought and within a Muslim community, how then does a Muslim community in a place like where you live, assert its identity? So, very simply, I think really to answer both of your questions here, this is where in my teaching to particularly the undergraduates, the freshers, right? That my lectures are usually titled Understanding Islam and the Muslims, by the way. So I always say and explain to them, und

erstanding Islam is one thing, the theory, but understanding Muslims is quite another, the practice. And that's why we find, interestingly, great scholars like Imam Tahtawi, right? Rifa'a Al-Tahtawi during the 19th century when Muhammad Ali Pasha ruled Egypt just after the invasion of Napoleon in 1792. He then realized, Tahtawi realized he needs to up the knowledge on the sciences and military technology. So he sent his Imams along with the regiment of the Egyptian army to kind of be trained in

Paris. So when Tahtawi went to Paris, he said, When I went there, I discovered Islam is in Paris, in France, in the West, but there are no Muslims there. when I went back home to Egypt, you know, wa jatul Muslimin begayril Islam. I found Muslims, but I don't see Islam, the true values of Islam. This is a very important lesson. It means Shahril, the point is you just have to learn to act on what you know. You just have to act on what you know. I mean, if you don't practice your religion, this is

what will happen. If you don't act on what you really know, you know, you think of the Japanese, for example. Can you imagine it? We believe as Muslim, right? At-Taha, you know, is shatrul iman, right? That purity, purification is half, is a part of our faith, part of our iman. Yet we can see how the state of the nation's toilets, you know, that I hear that the Malaysian Prime Minister in Malaysia recently had to kind of do a national policy program just to clean up the nation's toilets, somethi

ng like that. You go to Japan, this is like, you see Islam there, but no Muslims there. I mean, they're so clean, the toilets, you can even sleep in them. So it's a lesson of when we don't practice what we preach, this is what will happen to us in that sense. And the good thing about being in the West is that they do give you that freedom of being able to actually practice, except for in some of the other parts, we mentioned France, but at least the UK, they do. And I think this is where we must

never take our freedoms for granted. We must never, never, ever do that. And this is where living in the West, it has its challenges, but I believe through these challenges, just like Imam Al-Ghazali, just like Descartes, you know, all these other great people in the history of mankind, it actually increases their faith with the challenges they go through. It will make you a much more versatile person when you are being tested in this. So I think it, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you st

ronger, I think in that sense. So I think it's a good lesson from not just our religion, but from history as well, I think in that sense, you know? So Islam projects always a very positive message really on that. And I think it's amazing that, wow, the West really, you know, they have, they talk about this ethics of disagreement. This is why, just to round this off, you know, my Christian professors and friends were saying, they admire this. Wow. How can you have four orthodox schools, that each

one of them are right, meaning orthodoxy, ortha, from the Latin meaning, you know, correct, doxa meaning belief, you've got the right belief, but four schools, four madhab can be right? Surely, you know, it's oxymoronic from a Christian standpoint. I jokingly say that it's true. So this is where we really have to be humble here. And we realize, hmm, never take for granted our freedoms really, whether you are in the UK or whether you are in Malaysia. And this is where if you end up being the one

who oppresses others, you know, there is what others, in other religion called karma, or what we say, you know, You have to be careful because it may come back to bite you in a way that you never expected. Afifi, you have been very clear, but also kind, about living as a Muslim in the West. I want to bring the discussion to something that is troubling a lot of Muslims around the world today and that's the genocide in Gaza and while there are many lessons to be learned from the West about freedo

m, about the ethics of disagreement but I think it would be remiss for us not to talk about Western hypocrisy in the face of what is happening in Gaza today Of course the perpetrators here are the Israelis, the regime in Tel Aviv but it's very clear that they receive support, moral support, political support, even military and financial support political cover from countries in the West, in particular the United States and the UK Now how do you as a Muslim living in the West speaking about all t

he positive values of the Western tradition that you have just spoken about reconcile that with this geopolitical hypocrisy that's taking place over Gaza Thank you, so Khairy it's like we are in a tutorial, you are the tutor now I have to answer you, give the essay, 2000 words argument Now Now exactly Absolutely Khairy, I mean it's one of the things where first of all I think when you live in the West and you also realise in the UK but particularly in the United States where I don't live there b

ut I hear and we see and friends who do say and this is where we do need to distinguish between when we say particularly when it's a very sensitive question on Israel and on Judaism that we need to separate the two I think it's very important and you will be surprised Khairy, that you know the marches that are going on in Western capitals especially there are placards and Jews who demonstrate against the war, Jews against genocide, Jews against Israel for example and you will be surprised that t

he younger generation particularly, Jewish friends and so on and so forth they find whatever is happening there in our holy land is appalling I mean it is appalling but of course this is not to gloss over the fact that I think and this is where you know the moral high ground of the West has been shattered because of this you know Joseph Burrell, the high representative of the European Union, he's a bit like the foreign minister of Europe I mean two years ago, who would have thought, two years ag

o he was panned for saying what he said Europe is a garden the rest is jungle while the rest of the world for the most part of the rest of the world is a jungle a Western trope it was a Western trope right I mean well you know but although he is a lefty politician right from Spain the mask slipped I mean well, okay but to be fair to him he apologized and then he tried to explain himself he said look this is in the context of why people wanted to go to Europe you know the sense that there is more

better civilization there, better systems, wow okay so anyway he apologized two years ago but look since October the 7th because whatever happened is wrong absolutely, I mean you know it is inexcusable you know we can't, two wrongs do not make a right for us, for the Palestinians, for the Muslims but equally for the Israelis as well their government there as well you know two wrongs cannot make a right but since 7th of October you see Joseph Burrell whenever he speaks people who listen to him y

ou think has he converted or what you know he completely you know, I mean you can hear you know, it is a very different perspective than sort of you know from say Ursula von der Leyen so when he speaks, people in the global south for example the rest of the world the people whom he accused of being like in the jungle actually think that what he says actually makes sense for instance so and why and this is because of the Gaza war so it is amazing that even he can actually shift his position that

you know that he realized that Europe and indeed the west, the US, the global north is fast losing their moral high ground because of this and you know and he is now basically asking you know advocating the fact that we should be engaging with the global south in interesting ways and so on and so forth so he is an example I think of where there is a crisis of morality of ethics in that sense from the western nations because you know if you are hypocritical how can you actually start you know pre

ach other nations that you should do this or that but you know having said this and I think it is good that Joseph Burrell is basically saying this you know I mean he is basically asking for immediate ceasefire now you know so we know that the security council for example has finally you know finally reached that point but we must also not forget you know Allah SWT says this is all about the lesson here the theological lesson is about two wrongs do not make a right how do we say this in Malay ri

ght halal tak menghalalkan cara, is it? matlamat tak menghalalkan cara you know the ends does not justify the means do you know that this is a very important Islamic value quality that comes out in the Quran itself when Allah SWT says in surah Al-Fussilat good and evil are not the same thing iddafa billatihi ahsan repel what is evil with something better amazing verse of the Quran because if you do that, if you don't fight fire with fire if you don't try to break the rule of law in order to figh

t something if you don't make the ends justify the means because good and evil are not equal and you must fight with them and not like in the Christian sense you turn the other but here you fight but with something better Allah SWT says then you will make your sworn enemy into a true and faithful friend this is a verse of the Quran and I will say this so the meaning here is and I know I mean years ago when my so called claim to fame is to have written the fatwa against suicide bombing up to 2005

even while I was a student I became famous because of that before even becoming a lecturer at the university and then the basic point was simply to assert from an Islamic legal standpoint that yes if we want to fight we need to fight with proper ethics and morality correctly according to our rule of law less people misunderstand the message of my work for example on this but more importantly less people misunderstand when we say that we need to be able to kind of fight according to the rule of

law to have sabar to have patience and to have tawakkul to trust in God it's not the same thing as meek submission it's not the same thing as the Christian telling the other chief I'm having a problem there just before you come in I just wanted to raise this point I'm having a big problem with sabar when it comes to Gaza I think this is the greatest evil in our lifetime that we are witnessing and I'm having a big problem about how to deal with the west now Afifi I studied in the west I know the

western tradition but I can't bring I mean a rational person like myself has been reduced to very very dark angry thoughts against the west to the extent now that I don't interact with western diplomats in Malaysia I've received invitations and I've just basically told them to bugger off because I just don't want to deal with any western person right now and if somebody like me can have these very very dark thoughts and anger and have problem with sabar as you mentioned just now what more what m

ore somebody who can be radicalized on this how do I deal with this? how do you deal with that? this is really when you need to have faith this is really when you need to have your religion to help you out with and I happen to be a religious scholar so a bit of I wouldn't say advice this is more for myself I struggle with this everyday you see on screen I don't have social media but you see it on the news and you cry I mean this is so inhuman you dehumanize they dehumanize us basically and this

is a terrible thing right but then I tell myself I must never never just because of this you break the law never because of this then you know you end up resulting in something which is wrong right and the lesson is this to have sabar to have patience and to have tawakul in God we trust as the dollar bill says to have tawakul right it's not the same thing as meek submission M-E-E-K not the same thing as turning the other cheek that's a Christian belief we are not like that the Quran says Repel w

ith what is even better now you have to be creative what is meant by better here this is the point so to have sabar to have patience and to trust in God is not the same thing as meek submission no one is saying do nothing but nor can we do just about anything and this is the point The right to self-defense for both the Israelis as well as This is a lesson for the Israelis, yeah? And also for our side, the Palestinians as well. The right to self-defense and the right to self-determination is not

carte blanche for any of us to go against our legal precedents and for Muslims to go against the Sunnah of the Prophet SAW Very clear, we have a clear moral high ground on this. Even if the other side, even if the enemy stoops to illegitimate means, every legitimate means must be pursued in order to further the Palestinian cause, just as the Muslims did during the time of Salahuddin al-Ayyubi, during the time of Salahuddin. That is how you will get victory. Doctor, yeah. I really truly believe i

n that. And not just me, but all the other great Muslim ulama that you fight with the rule of law on this, but you are right. The West, in this sense, have lost their moral high ground. So, but that is, they will have to suffer the consequences. In Arabic, we say the aqiba of that, the repugnant consequence of that. But let us not, we, the ummah, as a result, resort to, and alhamdulillah, so far we haven't, and which is very good. And even those who are basically in the midst of all this, they h

ave been the one who have been oppressed, of course, but they do, I mean, the dignity, look at this Gaza war, this tragedy. More people are now reading the Quran, buying the Quran in the West as a result of it. People who have never, I mean, it's a bit like 9-11 all over again, in that sense. Can you imagine? There are wisdom, there are hikmah, that happens beyond that we can't sometimes see. But as a Muslim theologian, as a Muslim scholar, as a person of faith, you know, we obviously need to ma

ke sure that when we do fight on this, we do fight correctly, justly. We do not stoop using illegitimate means just because the other side are doing that. And it's good. It's for the history to record that whatever is happening, this is a real game changer. I think it's, you know, in another forum recently here, and it's sort of Oxford forum at Sunway University in Malaysia, right? Rising tides, geopolitics and geoeconomics in a global context. And this is one of those big, big, you know, realig

nment that we probably will be seeing in geopolitics, you know, where because of the Gaza war, you have really, you know, Western nations breaking up, you know, scurrying their head, trying to figure out what to do on this, the rise of the BRICS, for instance, particularly on this. And even you have a rather unexpected kind of unity of the Muslim world. Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, coming together. So, you know, subhanAllah I mean, it's one of those things. Sorry, Shahril, but yeah. No, n

o, love to hear that. But a couple of things to unpack, doctor. One, your point, you mentioned a few times about repelling with something better. But I love the fact that you recognize that as of today, nobody is complaining that Muslims are reacting in a wrong way. So you established that. So we appreciate that point, but it's not currently the problem that Muslims face. The problem that Muslims face is how do we react and how do we defend the dignity of our faith and our fellow Muslims. But th

e second point, a more interesting point, doctor, is when you say repel with something better, could it be that this something better we ought to strive for is how the Muslim ummah and the Muslim political leadership can step up? Because we can sit here for hours and complain about the West and complain about the hypocrisy of the West, and we could do that. But maybe we should spend some time to talk about the meekness and the failures of Muslim political leadership. You said just now about how

Iran and Saudi coming to terms, but that's basically grasping at straws, doctor. The fact of the matter is we have never been unified in my lifetime. It's always been that we get easily shifted around for our own national interests. There isn't a sense of sticking together, standing up for what is right. There's always the sense of nation, national boundaries or different personal political interests that are not clearly based on the deen, right? So I feel like maybe Muslims need to look inward

first and maybe not try and seek validation or hope from the West, but see what we can do with ourselves and our political leadership. Maybe any thoughts on that? Do you see a glory days for Islam leadership coming back anytime soon? Well put the way you said it just now to seek validation from others. And I think you really have to be self-sufficient. You have to start, it has to start from home. I mean, I think like Michael Jackson, we see man in the mirror and we don't have more hustle, but y

ou look at yourself and see precisely the difficulty and the problem precisely lies with us. Otherwise this will not happen. I mean, imagine now going back to the history of the Crusades, it's not something new in that sense as well. I mean, the first Crusade happened, when that happened in 10, I can't remember exactly, 40 or something like that in the 11th century, just 1090 something, just around the time of Ghazali, by the way. And when Jerusalem fell, you see what happened? So the Christians

who basically invaded Jerusalem BaitulMaqdis they basically raped and pillaged almost everyone, including the Christians who were there. But it took a slow 100 years for the Muslim world to wake up and rise up to the challenge when you have the rise of Saladin almost 100 years later. So again, and then when Saladin came to reconquer Jerusalem, he did not do what the Christians did 100 years earlier. Look, this is what I meant by that, right? It's important that we need to keep on our moral high

ground there, but you are right. This means that we are weak politically. This is our fault. We are not united enough. This is a political project, of course. And this is a question that rests on the laurels of our politicians. And it's important that they need to be able to kind of do something about it. Now, the prophet, peace be upon him, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, he's given us a path to this, right? the prophet said, peace be upon him, if you see something evil, a wrongdoing, you k

now, something wrong, then you should try and change it with your hands. If you can't change it with your hands, you do it with your tongue. And if you can't, and that is the lowest level of faith. Now, this is a very interesting way forward. I remember in a live interview with the former prime minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir, very famous, the whole of the Muslim world knows him, of course, you know. And at that time also, you know, in government, the Malaysian ambassador to the Middle East,

I think, Tan Sri Tok Guru Haji Awang, right? From the Islamic party. And I was the only non-politician there. And I remember that interview, this was during the last Gaza crisis. I think, was it a year ago, I think, wasn't it? So, I laid out this plan that the prophet had taught us. Look, it's very interesting. The prophet taught us, if you see some wrongdoing, you need to change it with your hand. The meaning there is you change it militarily. So, the reality is, can the Muslim world, the Musli

m nation, next to Israel, go into a state, you know, go into war, basically? Egypt, Jordan. I mean, if you know anything about the state of the military affairs, the genes of this, you know, all the annual books, you say it's pitiful. I don't want to say this on live TV or anything, but there are even states where, did you know the Egyptian army even having difficulty having paratroopers trying to jump out of airplanes? The state that we are in is so weak. Can you imagine it? Then you send the t

roops there, they will be decimated, for sure. So, but we will have to continue to make dua that this is the reason why Muslim nations must learn to be self-sufficient, politically, militarily, economically, so that they can stand up for what is right and justice, of course, such as in this case. But if, because they are not able to, so we make dua, these are the neighbours, Malaysia, forget about them. We're not even a neighbour, if you are far away from that. So what have we got left to do? Is

it other things other than sending a military help? There are other things that you can do. I know that there are people who boycott BDS, boycott divestment and sanctions movement, which is actually something which is done all over the world. And I give the example in that forum of Ireland. Ireland is a country in the EU where I think they are doing much better things than what perhaps Malaysia is doing. You know, since we're talking about this, you want to compare Apple to oranges, we better c

ompare with Ireland. At least they have now put up a law in their own parliament to divest investments in Israeli companies. Are we doing this? They've put this up in parliament for instance. They have a history of dispossession. They have. They know. They know. And they are better still, and in the case of South Africa, who's actually brought Israel to court, for instance. But we Muslims must look at our policies in a country like Malaysia, for example, what more can we do? Rather than just tal

king, rather than just demonstrating, the government perhaps should look more seriously about, look at some of these things. And of course, you know, we have done, you know, some of the things that we do. You know, for instance, your passport is not even allowed to enter that country and so on and so forth, right? So I think, you know, some of the other countries, they have, you know. So of course, very controversial. To be fair, I think the government's also denied Israeli flag vessels to berth

. Indeed. In ports. Right? So at least, you know, that is, I mean, so these are examples where you're trying to stop using your head, whether militarily, whether through boycott, divestment, and sanctions, for example, you know. But whatever, however way you could interpret that, it's important you try and do it with your hands, right? Now, if you can't, at that point when you can't, you're not in government, like the rest of us. We are not in government. We, you know, we don't have the ability.

One day, inshallah, you know, Khairy, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, inshallah, you know, so, you know, there are benefits and wisdom behind being in the years of wilderness, you know, because it makes you stronger, actually. But absolutely, one day when you are Prime Minister yourself you must remember this. And I think this is the point about we need to enact policies and laws to make sure within the power that we have to try and change and make the world a better place. So if we can't do th

at, if we are not in government, then the next thing we can do is advocacy. Fabilisani, then you speak. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, you know, The best form of jihad, the best form of struggle is to speak power to truth. Truth power. Sorry, to speak truth to power. You know, to speak in front of a tyrannical ruler. The truth, basically. And so this is where you get the chance to campaign, to, you know, advocate, to write and so on. But even if you can't do that, and this is what we see

in Malaysia, of course, at least you make the dua. You do your dua, Qunut nazilah, right, in Malaysia. At least we're doing it. There are others who don't even do this. But you need to have that step. Are you still not frustrated that, especially the Arab world, if I can call that out, they are the ones signing up to the Abraham Accords. They are the ones who, until today, still have relations with the regime that are killing every day. So that sense of frustration, before we even go to, you kno

w, dua and all the rest of it, these are people in positions of power, have the proximity to the genocide to do something about it. Maybe not militarily, fine, I take your point. But there are other tools geopolitically which they're clearly choosing not to use. No, I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you on this. And I think this is the point, that if it took 100 years for there to be Saladin to, you know, so we have to get our house in order, right? Absolutely, to rebuild our strength the

re. And maybe this is the beginning of it, you never know. I mean, they always say on this Gaza War, right, things are not going to be the same after this. Well, on both sides. And I think, and we pray, and we make dua, and I think, wow, maybe this is where those Arab countries who have signed up their peace agreements with the, you know, with the State of Israel, for example, they must use this as leverage. Or at least they ought to use this as leverage, surely? I mean, this is, but I'm not a p

olitician. You know, you are, Khairy, but you know, you are resting, and you're on sabbatical, but one day, and you, Shahril, you know, I mean, I believe, you know, you are the sidekick, right? So one day, when you guys get back in power, I mean, when you guys get back in power, wait for me, you know, inshallah, who will never be a politician, I mean, so, you know, knock on the door, you know, and I can't be a politician, I promise someone, I can't be a politician, you know, knock on the door, a

nd say, so what are you doing about this? Come on, what are you doing about this? You know, so that's, it's really where, you know, this is why we are all frightened about the test that God sets us. And it's easy to, of course, say this, but we can, you know, the best we can do now is advocacy, absolutely. If we have our friends in the Middle East there, this is the sort of thing we need to encourage people to up their technology, up their knowledge, and up their capabilities, really. And that r

eally just shows that, you know, we were no longer, of course, we are the third world now, I mean, we used to be the first world, so. Yeah, we will take a break on that, and thank you for the advice. I can confirm very much that Shahril is an equal partner now. Yeah, anything less. But we will come back with the last segment where we want to talk about when Muslims are in the majority. I think we spent a lot of time speaking about when Muslims are in the minority in the West, but let's flip that

for the last segment and talk about the situation where Muslims are in a majority and how we treat minorities. We'll be right back after this. Welcome back to possibly one of the final segments of this episode of Kindred Stories with Dr. Afifi. Thank you so much for your generosity and your time. Doctor, we've spent quite a bit of time talking about Islam in the West, how to assert identity, how to manage differences in a position or from a position of relative weakness or maybe a position of m

inority. We are speaking obviously in Kuala Lumpur where that is not the case, where Islam and Muslims are the majority, where we hold political power, where we hold political leadership. And in Malaysia and other places of this type, occasionally there will be issues and events and incidents where the question of how Muslims should react to any offense to its religion becomes very, very relevant. And for our international audience, one such incident has recently occurred in Malaysia where a pri

nting or an apparel, 14 pairs of socks were printed, had the printing of Allah on it, on them. So basically, for Muslims, it's very, very hard to swallow the idea of having God's name printed on an apparel that we wear on our feet. All indications are that was an accident. It wasn't something that was purposely done by the business relevant in this case. But it obviously caused a lot of consternation and a lot of debate within Malaysia among Muslims and non-Muslims of what the right and proper r

eaction is. There has been calls to boycott this particular chain of shops that were carrying the socks. And that has also created obviously an environment in which people are very angry and some unfortunate incidents and attacks on those shops. Isolated incidents, but incidents nonetheless have occurred. So doctor, I don't want to necessarily talk about, we don't want to talk about that incident per se, but use that as a window, as an introduction to the broader question of what the right and p

roper role of Muslims in majority positions. And is there, apart from just the boycott, other counter reaction as well from the Muslim side? So other counter reactions included, like I said, a couple of incidents where petrol bombs were thrown into the shops. No loss of life, Alhamdulillah, but still something worrying and concerning. And not to forget the messages that have been sent on social media that go beyond just the simple boycott of one store, but rather beyond the pale of boycotting al

l non-Muslim businesses regardless. So it's reached a point where... Correct. I think once we go into social media and the comments, it gets very, very dark. So without being too specific, doctor, because we obviously want to speak to international audience, people in Malaysia, people in Indonesia, people in Muslim majority places, we'll always get cases where our religion is, we feel an offence to it. How far do we go? Okay. Well, this is a problem, of course, not unique to Malaysia for Muslims

generally. In fact, if you look at the last 20 years, there have been many incidences involving, quote, unquote, "provocation, Muslim provocation, provocation against our beliefs", Muslims and whether these are deliberate or not, and the whole Islamophobia we're talking about, whether it was part of that. So for instance, in the West, we've had examples like the cartoon controversy. Charlie Hebdo. The Charlie Hebdo example and the teddy bear thing. I mean, there's a lot of these, you know, a lo

t of these sorts of examples, right? So where the sanctity of one's religion is basically at stake, it is seen. So how do we react to it? And it's completely understandable, as I mentioned, in the political context in which we live in today, where there is this effective polarisation, that culture wars are going on, and that, of course, feelings will run high, and we do not know whether there are Asian provocateur or not. You know, we don't want to be conspiracy theorists here or anything like t

hat, but then, you know, that's always part of the possibility, you see, that we should be mindful that that is the case. On this particular case in Malaysia, of course, I'm mindful of the fact that this is an ongoing case. It's an ongoing police case. So, you know, we don't want to, you know, we don't know until the end of the investigation and all that, but assuming so, right, as said, that that is the case indeed, and particularly now that there is the reaction on the Muslim side of not only

boycott, but, you know, the physical attacks and the shocks. My real, you know, thinking on this is particularly when you look at all the instances where we do have these sort of Muslim attacks, if you like, deliberately or not, or provocateur or not, otherwise. I'm reminded of, in fact, the seerah of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in the beloved messenger himself, during his most difficult year of his mission, sometimes known as the year of sadness, actually. Lost his wife.

This is the time, that's right. Lost his uncle, his guardian, Ta'if. He was rejected by Ta'if. Exactly. So, he went, he tried to go and check out, scope out, if you like, a new territory, Taif, to spread the word, right? And then when he was in Taif, look at exactly what happened. I mean, he went there and he was hounded out of Taif. They threw stones at him. And who threw the stones? These were kids. Kids These were, and people who can't take care of their emotions, they were, you know, again p

eople who were very reacting against, you know, because they were, you know, there were people orchestrating against the Prophet, you know, there were provocations against the Prophet, et cetera, et cetera, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And he was injured. This is the great messenger of God, the final messenger of mankind. You know, he was really pelted with stones. And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala did what? Sent the archangel, Gabriel Alaihissalam, Gabriel Alaihissalam came to his, you know, to his

aid. The angels were then sent to, if you want to zap all these people off, we'll zap all these people off, you know, like in the cartoons, you know. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was given the choice to destroy them. But he stood back, stepped back, and instead said, no, do not attack them, do not attack those who attack me. Right? And instead, you know, he's repelling evil with what is better He instead made the du'a that the generation of these people will be true believers for which

they truly are today, masha'Allah. So this is a lesson for us. The person of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam himself being attacked physically, right? Physically. Look at the magnanimity of the Prophet, the generosity of the Prophet in this case. So my advice on this is that you can do what you can in order to protest or do whatever it is that you feel to protest the sanctity of religion, but do not break the law. You do not go beyond the confines of the law, of this land or any

other land in that matter. This is why Muslims are law-abiding human beings, no matter in which country you are in. And it's understandable, we understand, but it is not an excuse, it is not an excuse. Because we go back to the time of the Prophet, look, this most difficult time, the year of his sadness, look at what he did. He did not just turn the other cheek, he didn't turn, he actually did something positive there, he made dua that mujarab, he did, you know. And we must remember, Malaysia,

for instance, is a very interesting country. You know, it's a country where it is a Muslim-majority country, it is the, you know, one of the few countries in the world I can think of, in one article of the constitution of Malaysia, Article 3, Section 1 of the constitution says, Islam is the religion of the Federation, and any other religion may be practiced in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation. Wow, in this one article of the constitution, you have an Islamic principle being assert

ed, and at the same time, a so-called secular principle being asserted, which is the freedom of religion here, but I don't like to use the term secular, Hans Kuhn uses the term secularity. Secularity is not secular in the sense of the French madhhab, Laïcité , you can't even display religious objects and things like that, hence why hijab is banned in schools, for example, but simply secularity in the sense that there is freedom of religion, just as the Quran says, lakum dinukum wa liya din. This

is an amazing country where you actually have freedom of religion, but the established religion is Islam. It's like the UK, the established church is the Church of England, the Anglican, but, you know, King Charles sees himself as the defender of, you know, not just the Christian faith, but also the faith, other faith as well. So here, our king and our rulers, you know, who are heads of the Islamic religion, they are not only the defender of the Muslim faith, but they are also the guarantor of

the other faith as well. I like that. And why do I need to say this? This is important, particularly in this context. We must not break our own law, and what I mean by that is not just our own public law in Malaysia, but our own sharia laws. Did you know that in Islamic law, to oppress non-Muslims is basically, you know, haram? That's number one. To oppress non-Muslims. This is agreed upon by all the four schools of Islam, all of the four madhabs of Islam, including the Syiah, by the way. So the

re's a consensus, there's a universal consensus, you cannot oppress non-believers. What's even more interesting, in the Hanafi school, which is one of the Ahli Sunnah wa Jama'a school, they even go beyond this and they say, and you know, in the Shafi'i, Imam Ibn Hajar al-Haytami says this in one of his works called Zawajir al-Iktiraf al-Kabair, to remove or to keep away from basically committing major sins. This is one of his major works, you know, basically listing all the major sins. So he lis

ts as one of the major sins, this is a jurist in the Shafi'i school saying, to oppress non-Muslims, but the Hanafi scholars, they went beyond by saying, especially if the non-Muslim is a citizen of your country, a dhimmi, a muwatun in the modern sense, a dhimmi, meaning, you know, you are citizens of the country. So if it is a sin to oppress non-Muslims, it is worse to oppress non-Muslims if they are citizens. And most interestingly, the Hanafis, you know, this is the school of the Khilafat of O

thmaniyah, the Ottoman Caliphs, that's why they have multiculturalism in their lands. Islam is the religion of the Caliphate, but other religions thrive at the same time. And there are always episodes of this in the Ottoman story, that people, you know, provoke and it's normal, it's, you know, unfortunately, people who are __ But it is the duty of the leaders, duty of the politicians, the duty of those who are supposed to be leading us to speak up about the truth in these matters. Allah says in

Surah An-Nisa verse 135, right, O you who believe, stand up for justice, uphold justice, you know, as witnesses to God, even if it is against yourself, your people, you know, even if they are believers in this case, even if it is against yourself, even if it is yours against yourself, or against your parents, or against your relatives. The rule of law must be upheld. So this is where we need to ensure the safety of everybody concerned. It is absolutely understandable. What has happened has infla

med feelings. Absolutely. But two ends does not justify, you know, two wrongs, sorry, do not make a right, make Absolutely. Just like we don't want to be like the Israelis. Right. And we don't want to be people who break the law in this case. But in this debate, Afifi, just to come back to this particular example, where, you know, Allah was printed on footwear, right? And that obviously is sacrilege for us. But to the some Muslims in Malaysia, they are trying to weigh between the importance of d

efending the sanctity of the faith. And that trumps, sorry, using the word trumps, that outweighs, that outweighs, that outweighs compassion and forgiveness. So how do you weigh this? Well, I mean, this is one of the big differences between the, I mean, this final religion, Islam, interestingly, and the rest of the world, because the rest of the world do not understand with the cartoon controversy, with everything including this, because they don't take religion seriously. It's just a fact. Mash

a Allah, this is what makes us unique in that sense. Religiosity is something that's within our psyche. Even among those of us who, if we say we don't practice, you know, this is the very minimum, that if you touch this article of faith, even if the person may be a drunkard, takes up drugs or whatever it is, you know, this is the thing that he or she will feel, I need to do this for my faith, right? And this is something which certainly in a civilization, particularly in the West, where religion

doesn't really play that, you know, it's really not so much in public life anymore compared to in Muslim countries, where it is, you see, of course, this is the big difference. So again, as I said, the fact that if they have those feelings means actually they have Iman, in that sense, they have faith. But how does that go to forgiveness? So this is where they have to struggle, this is like you're being tested by God, just as the Prophet s.a.w. was tested in Ta'if, that he did not break the law,

he did not try to make two wrongs make a right, in this case, he did not, you know, he held his high ground. Gandhi would have been proud with this, in this case, non-resistance, but it's not complete non-resistance, for example. He did make du'a, he did do things in effect later on that changed Ta'if, actually, in creative and different, interesting ways. But how do we then change and shift from that faith that we, you know, that means that's a mark of faith, you have to have, masha'Allah, thi

s is really where, you know, true faith must come in. This is really where, you know, you have to flip. This is really where you really have to ask Allah to open your heart so that you have a lot of this sabar and ta'wakul just now that we talked about. It's not an easy thing, I know, but don't forget, to have sabar and ta'wakul, as I said, is not the same thing as meek submission. No one can do, you know, we are not saying do nothing, but no one can do just about anything is also the point. Sor

ry, sorry. If I can be slightly provocative, I think what you both have just discussed is the right and proper way for people who genuinely feel offended and would like to stand up for his or her religion, but in a way that is dignified, in a way that does not contravene our own rules and laws, not just national laws, but the sharia law and what we are taught to do and be. But I want to be provocative by suggesting this, by suggesting that for some people, maybe that's not even the intention, do

ctor, that it could be that oftentimes the need to perform the religion, the performativity of your religion, the performative aspects of the religion. Actually, an egotistical expression. And I say this not by judging other people, but maybe judging myself and being honest with myself. There might have been moments in my life and maybe until today, in which I feel the need to express and exhibit my Muslimness, not in the way I act, but in what I say and what I do and it needs to be public, it n

eeds to be on social media. You know, now KJ and I are out of politics for the moment, you know, KJ will know this, how many... Notice the qualification. Yeah, that's why our other podcast is actually called that Keluar Sekejap out for the moment. But in any case, doctor, just to share, politicians in Malaysia, including myself, would have at times purposely show a picture of us praying and put it on Instagram, put it on social media. Right. And that's an expression, that's a performance of my r

eligiosity. And on something like this, I wonder whether for some, the expression of anger, expression of being upset with what's happened is also about me. It's not so much always going to be about Allah, it's about me. And if it's about more about me and not about my God, presumably doctor, that's wrong. Yeah. Well, you've answered your own question, if I may say so. I mean, it's a nice mirror there, absolutely, you're absolutely right. So the one who's actually exhibiting those demonstrations

, you actually, you are showing yourself and in many respects, whether because if you are an unhinged person with respect, you know, not balanced, you know, it will, it will display itself and that's understandable. But this is why we do need our faith in those times. It's really that will give you that grounding, it will give you those roots if you're true to your faith. The answer to that shift that finally is actually seeking there, you know, from, yeah, your faith is being tested by showing

some provocation there, deliberate or not, you know, but then if you really have true faith, right, bilatihi ahsan, just now, right? You will cool down. You will, you know, but that is the test of our character. And this is not to judge anyone, by the way, just because, you know, somebody does it differently. We don't know their intentions. We can never know their intentions. Exactly, we do not know their intentions. You touch on a wider interesting thing, perhaps not only vis-a-vis Malaysia in

this region, but Muslim politics generally, where there is this whole issue in the Middle East, you know, going all the way to Southeast Asia to the Nusantara, and it is all a question about, you know, there are politicians who politicize religion and that in itself can be problematic as well because, and then this is, this is why, for example, when, when people politicize religion, it can be a bad thing because if you end up, if you end up basically saying that because of one's religion, you kn

ow, you, you know, essentially what we mean by that is that we politicize religion, that means, you know, you believe your policies to be the only right ones and the other policies to be, to be wrong. And therefore, if you, if you, you know, if you follow these policies, then, you know, you will be saved. You will have salvation and, you know, it's the other way around there. That is equally as dangerous as well, you know, because then, you know, this interesting performative action of your fait

h, whether you want to get votes for it, which is natural for politicians to do. So we have to, in the end, be answerable to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? And so for a country to succeed anywhere, don't play around with this heady mix of religion and nationalist populism, it can be very dangerous. And this is where we need to reset that kind of, that tone of that. to the Malays have a nice from Khairi State, you know, saying, sawo matang. How to translate that into English, Khairi? Very seas

oned, kind of. Seasoned, brown. Brownish, you know. Well done. Not raw, not medium well done, but it's really well done. I mean, so you see, I have a legal, a fake maxim, a sharia maxim that I coined myself my own experience of, you know, having studied with the ulama and now teaching, of course. Al-madahibu fil-fiqhi kal-a'zabi fi-siyasa Very simple, if you have Arabic, you can, you know, learn that. It's very nice. In the same way that we can agree to disagree when it comes to the questions of

Islamic law in the madhabs of faith, you know, the four schools of law. Can you imagine, we are Shafi'is, you pray next door with somebody who is Maliki or Hanafi or Amli when you go to Makkah, when you go to the Haram, or even here in Malaysia, you have a lot more Muslims who come from different madhabs, including Shias, for example. I mean, you know, so with the other school, the other madhab, you don't even bite an eyelid. So in the same way we can actually agree to disagree with difference

of opinion in madhabs, surely more so we can agree to disagree fil-a'zabi siyasa, in political parties. So we are not saying that there is no politics in Islam. I mean, you know, this is, no, there is, but there is party political in Islam there, because, you know, the point is you have a different Shia, a different subjective view as to what policy is the better and the right one. That is the sort of culture that we need to teach more Muslims, not just in this country, but the rest of the Musli

m countries. Because otherwise you will end up having in some countries, I won't mention countries, you know, authoritarian rule, at least in Malaysia you have, you know, this is a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy, Westminster style a la Malaysia, you know. But, you know, and we are kind of going through growing pains. And alhamdulillah our country has had experience of change of government for the last few years now. And I think Malaysia is an example where unfortunately i

t is usually the case where whenever Britain sneezes, we catch the cold. But now we sneezed in, was it three years, we had three prime ministers and now Britain had one year and three prime ministers. We are exploiting kind of a bad example there. But that aside, we must learn to be politically mature and learn to argue and debate in parliament so that we can, you know, argue using arguments. And it is to move away from that affective polarization to issues polarization. I think that is a great

sort of way to wrap that conversation up. But, you know, one great response that I have gotten for Kindred Stories, and this is my last question to you, Afifi, has been from non-Muslim friends who have listened to Kindred Stories in order to learn more about Islam. Coming back to, and this is just a basic question to dispel a common perception out there. So coming back to the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, what he went through in his year of sadness, with the

deaths, with the embargo, with what happened in Taif, and you said he repelled that with something better. But it always comes back to, in the Western consciousness, the Prophet as a military leader because of the conquest that happened. In the popular myth, not necessarily myth, but in the popular canon in the West of Islam, at the tip of a sword, Khalid al-Walid, the sword of Islam. And we can't deny that during the Prophet, and of course during the rightly guided Khalid, there was massive ex

pansion beyond the Hijaz to the Levant and half the world. So how do you speak to a non-Muslim who has that perception in the mind, you know, Muhammad didn't just repel with prayer. There was a military campaign. Indeed, and there is balance. And that's why we in the Islamic religion, we have the law of war. The law of war, like what we now know today, the Geneva Convention for example, I mean it's interesting that if you look at the history of religion, in the Christian tradition, they had to w

ork on their so-called law of war, just war theory, right, from the time of St. Augustine, this is before the time of Prophet Muhammad, all the way to Thomas Aquinas, almost a hundred years. Sorry, a thousand years give and take. Whereas in Islam, in the very first verse revealed in the Quran about warfare, right, in Surah Al-Baqarah, I think it's verse 190, in an amazing verse of Allah SWT, in this one verse of the Quran, God says, and fight those who fight you in the path of God, right, so fig

ht those who fight you in the path of God, and then do not transgress. For God does not love those who transgress. In this one verse, Khairi, now you did your PPE in Oxford, you had your lovely philosophy tutorials. One of the things you will learn about the law of war, just war theory, is that you have what is called the juz ad bellum and the juz in bellum constitution. So I'm sorry, this is a bit technical. So when you talk about going to war, is this a just war or not? Juz ad bellum constitut

ion. And then juz in bellum is the conduct of war. When you fight in a war, you need to fight, as I said earlier, in the case of Gaza, you need to follow the rule of war, which these days are not. So in this verse, in the one verse, the first part of the verse says, fight those who fight you. So this is the juz ad bellum consideration. And the next part of the verse is, wala ta'atadu, and do not break the law, is the juz in bellum consideration. MashaAllah, in the one verse of the Quran, a whole

almost 1000 years of Christian history to develop the just war theory, is unraveled in the one verse. And that is because, subhanAllah, the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. was not only having a Jesus-like mission a.s. in Mecca, when he preached in Mecca the first 10 years of his life, in Mecca, his mission was like Nabi Allah Isa a.s. Because he did not have a state. He was not a general, nor was he a statesman. He was like all of us in that sense that, you know, he did not have power. But he also had

the Medinan face of his life. The Meccan and the Medinan face. So when he went to Medina after the Hijrah of the Prophet s.a.w. and the community, he basically ruled as almost a city-state. Right? And he became a general. And that is no longer the mission of Jesus a.s. because Jesus never had a state. Right? It was like the mission of Moses a.s. or David a.s. or Solomon a.s. Suleiman a.s. So it is interesting. This is why our Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. is seen to be the perfect messenger. He brings

both of this. So he performed the mission of Jesus of this when he was in Taif. He is not turning the other cheek. He is repelling with something better than evil. Yeah? But he did not have power. I mean military power to change the facts on the ground, for example. But when he had power to change the facts on the ground, he made sure to change the world to become a better place. And it just so happens that through the accident of history and the miracle of history, and certainly everybody who

studies Islamic history, from Hodgson to anybody else, given the rise and fall of civilization, they all say the same thing. That it is, wow, one of these great accident, miracle of history that the Muslims basically conquered half the known world. Why? Because in the end we saved civilization. It is true. But in every history there are atrocities and all that, of course, but not with our Prophet peace be upon him, nor his Sahabi. Imagine, you know, you give the example of Khalid bin Walid. You

give the example of, you know, you give the example of those Sahabis who fought alongside the Prophet. There was one Sahabi who basically, you know, and this is the example when, you know, after Khalid became Muslim, so he then, you know, had one of the enemies on the ground and he ended up killing the person. Even when the person surrendered, I say, and la ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah. Right? And then when he was reprimanded by the Prophet, why did you do that? Oh, I know he is an inver

tebrate liar. Kazab, you know, he is an invertebrate liar. I know this guy from very young, blah, blah, blah. You know, one of the Sahabi did this. And then the Prophet said, did you cut open his heart to see that he had faith? How dare you? Allah, you know. That is why when you say Islam being a religion of a sort, yes, in places like Andalusia. But look at what happened to Andalusia. Islam did not last there. Alhamdulillah Islam is coming back there. Right? But historically. After 1492, he did

n't last there. And one of the benefits I had the occasion, MashaAllah you have one of the great scholars from Southeast Asia, Habib Hassan Al-Atfah from Singapore. Wonderful friend. And he had this wonderful insight. He said whenever Islam is spread by the sword, it doesn't last in that sense, you know. But look at in the Nusantara in Southeast Asia. He did not spread by the sword. Never thought of that. Yeah. He came here by the Sufi. The Sufis brought Islam to this country, to this region. Fr

om Hadhramaut, from Yemen. MashaAllah from India. And even from China. And Islam was spread here through trade. Commerce. And Muslims who came here, they were sailors. And there were certain, you know, the locals were normally, you know, they don't wash themselves, kind of quote unquote dirty. But they see all these clean people, they come and wow. They really look like holy people. And they are holy people. And they end up becoming Muslim. And the Sultan of Malacca became Muslim. And the rest b

ecame Muslim, you know. So, and the rest as they say is history. And Alhamdulillah, till today, Islam lasts today compared to what happened in Spain. So, I think this is a lesson for us all. I mean, I think in the sense that of course, you know. So, I, you know, with my own students. And I've had students who Alhamdulillah, I mean, this is, you know, they say Hidayah is in the hands of Allah. Dawah is in the hands of mankind. You know, people who become and enter the faith, Alhamdulillah. In all

my years of teaching and I, you know. But I learn a lot from them equally as well. I mean, it's a very humbling experience. And this is where we cannot be judgmental on these matters. And people will always be judgmental, Khairi, I know. People always think that Islam is the worst religion because of this, you know. But this is when with knowledge, you know, light comes and darkness falls. And falsehood disappears. So, really and that's the beautiful quality of not only being in Oxford. The ver

y Islamic quality, really. But the Prophet and I love it and I want to end here perhaps. When I just heard the two of you particularly when you say that this podcast, you see. This Kindred Stories is about seeking knowledge and? Sowing kindness. Sowing kindness. You know, italabul ilm in Arabic, right? You know, it's seeking italabul ilm while we've seen. And the Prophet said in a beautiful weak Ta'if Hadith but equally usable. Just because, you know, there are Muslims today who are allergic. Yo

u can't use a Ta'if Hadith. Oh, dear. No. Seek knowledge even unto the final frontiers of knowledge like Star Trek. You know, where boldly go where no one has gone before. That's a very Islamic quality, absolutely. But why do you seek knowledge? It's because you want to sow kindness. Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also taught us. Spread peace, you know, to mankind. You know, give salam to people. How do you sow kindness? By sharing food. You know, so. And I think, you know, give

n that this is the month of Ramadan. The last ten nights of Ramadan, mashaAllah. And we're having Eid very, very soon, you know. So, Selamat Hari Raya or whatever it is you want to say. You know, and I miss that saying, Selamat Hari Raya. Maaf, Zahir Bhattin. The only Muslims who do this are in all my travels throughout all the Muslim lands and non-Muslim lands as well. The Middle East to China and South Africa and everywhere. We are really the only people on the face of the earth who say, Selam

at Hari Raya, Eid Mubarak, you know. And Afwan Zohiran Bahtin. I have to translate it into Arabic there, you know. Maaf, Zahir Bhattin. Please forgive me for my trespasses. Forgive me, body and soul. Yeah, body and soul. And these are the sort of things that Malaysians, Indonesians, you know, Malaysians, Bruneians, Singaporeans, Southern Thais and Southern Filipinos must export. The Nusantara Muslims must export to the rest of the Muslim world. We should be proud of that, you know. It's a good t

hing. So, it's good to say Eid Mubarak, no problem. It's very Arabic and all that, very Indian as well. But let us not forget our own Malay heritage. Selamat Hari Raya. Maaf, Zahir Bhattin. And I think it's one of the marvels of life. In all my travels, I'm still amazed at my home. And I'm still travelling. Still haven't come home yet. Inshallah, one day when I retire, perhaps. But I look forward to having you for a sabbatical in Oxford. Well, to our modern-day Ibn Battuta, continue with your tr

avels, my friend. And seek knowledge until the ends of the earth. Shahril, any last words from you? This is a fantastic and really illuminating conversation, Doctor. Well, I'm the one who's benefiting from it. Seek knowledge until kindness. Fantastic exposition of why Islam is a religion of compassion. How we balance extremes and how we go forth in this world. So, thank you very much for your time. Eid Mubarak. Maaf, Zahir Bhattin. Selamat Hari Raya. Maaf, Zahir Bhattin. Eid Mubarak. Thank you v

ery much.