Ep. 22 - Islam Misused: Women, Sharia, and the Taliban’s Distortions feat. Dr. Mustapha Sheikh

Today we're honored to have with us Professor Mustafa Shaikh , a dear and respected scholar whose work delves deep into Islamic jurisprudence and its modern day implications . Before we begin our discussion , zobarjan , could you share Professor Shaikh's bio and introduce him a bit further ? Could ?

Professor Mustafa is both an academic and a theologian , having studied in Syria and the UK with a degree in Arabic and Islamic law from Fath al-Islami in Syria and EHS in Wales in Syria and EHS in Wales . He also has a MST in the study of religions from the University of Oxford and a PhD in theology , also from the University of Oxford .

Dr Mustafa's areas of expertise are Islamic law and legal theory , ijtihadi slash , reformist Methodologies , ottoman History , critical Islamic Studies , islamic Finance , the Halal Industry , islamophobia and Muslim Intellectual History .

His work is distinguished in the field for its critical engagement with Muslim tradition that is attentive to the play between power and knowledge building , and for a scholarly approach grounded in both academic and traditional madrasa training .

Of course , professor Mustafa has a long list of works , including notable books and publications , that we will touch on towards the end of this podcast . So , with no further ado , I would like to welcome Dr Mustafa Sheikh . Thank you for joining Radio Resistance . As-salamu alaykum to both of you .

Thank you so much for're going to be discussing the situation in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime , specifically when it comes to their rule of law in what they describe as an Islamic emirate describe as an Islamic emirate .

So we will be analyzing that from an analysis of Islamic law and we have a bunch of questions that we want to ask our dear Professor , sheikh . And the first question that we're going to jump into is the topic of women's rights and specifically when it comes to girls' education .

That's something that's caught the attention of the world , although this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a lot of the misdoings that the Taliban are committing in Afghanistan . But , sheikh , I wanted to ask you , the Taliban have banned girls' education beyond sixth grade . They've barred young women from university .

They've erased women from public spaces , virtually public life , from almost all sorts of work . I wanted to ask you , professor , what does Islam say about this ? I know it's kind of a general question , but is seeking knowledge limited to just learning Islamic studies or the deen ? What's your take on that , professor ?

So I'll assume , for the purposes of my answer , that the Taliban are at least allowing women and girls to gain an Islamic education and that what they're barring them from , they've banned them from , is what they may perceive as secular education . Okay , and we know that that's certainly from grade six onwards , okay .

So roughly 11 , 12-year-olds and above , females are banned from education . So I'm going to make that assumption in my response . So what comes to mind immediately is that they are bifurcating knowledge . They're dividing knowledge up into two categories sacred and profane , religious and worldly , if you want to put it in more simple terms .

And I want to probe for a moment what that actually means , what the implications are for that kind of bifurcation , that division , for that kind of bifurcation , that division , because in my mind there is no precedent for that within our deen .

You may find this maybe slightly strange , but I want to flag a hadith that we hear a lot we it um on the mimbar , especially at jumma , particularly certain masjids , uh , typically salafi masjids where the khatib will begin quite often with the statement of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam , where he said where he said that the best speech of God , the best

speech , is the book of God and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad , and the worst of affairs are its innovations . Every invention is an innovation and every innovation is misguidance . All right , this is a common and well-known hadith .

It's about bida , it's about innovation , and I want to begin my answer by invoking that hadith , because I can think of no worse innovation in our deen than the bifurcation of knowledge into religious and secular . I'm going to go into that a little bit more , if you would allow me .

There's a verse in the Quran which it actually it's the one verse in the Quran where the occurrence of bida'a comes up , and it's in reference to the monastic tradition , in which Allah , god , says that monasticism , rahbaniyyah , is something that has been invented and for which there is no basis in religion .

The verse runs وَرَهْبَانِيَّةً ابْتَدَعُوهَا مَا كَتَبْنَاهَا عَلَيْهِمْ . So this is a reference in the Qur'an to the Christian monastic tradition , quran to the Christian monastic tradition . I think it's really , really important for us to pause for a moment and think about why God , at least for Muslims in the Quran , highlights this .

What was so grave about the early Christians creating a monastic tradition , christians creating a monastic tradition ?

Monasticism in Christianity marks a pivotal moment where religion becomes distinct and discrete and separated from ordinary rhythms of daily life Through the establishment of monasteries and the adoption of a lifestyle explicitly devoted to spiritual pursuits , monasticism institutionalized the idea that religious practice could exist apart from worldly concerns such as family , society ,

politics . That separation , then , is the moment I would suggest marks a distinction between the sacred and the secular . So cosmology , up until that point , didn't see that kind of separation , even within the Christian world , but definitely outside of Christianity .

So this is a turning point , in a sense , and monks , then the monastic tradition , it defined the monastery as the locus of the sacred , broader society then becomes implicitly framed as operating outside the realm of divine concern .

Now already , we can see that this is very , very different to other traditions , non-christian faiths , where the sacred and the profane are intermingled . They're entangled , all right , seamlessly in fact , in daily life , all right , seamlessly in fact , in daily life .

So this , then , also for me , marks the beginning of a separate domain that we might term the secular , all right . And the secular is a domain not just where we have the absence of religion , but is a conceptual and practical domain distinct from the sacred .

It's a domain and a development uniquely rooted in the Christian monastic tradition and its theological underpinnings . And it's what ties , therefore , the phenomenon of secular or secularity specifically to the long history of christianity . Now . So christianity then makes this distinction between sacred religion and worldly religion .

So then within the church , or especially within the monastery , knowledge deemed religious centers on theology , centers on scriptural studies . It centers on spiritual practice and the worldly knowledge is that which relates to commerce , governance , daily life .

That hundreds of years later , that division becomes further institutionalized in medieval Europe when we see the rise of the first universities , including my own , alma Mater , oxford University , cambridge University , edinburgh University and others across Europe . So they reinscribe that division of knowledge as being religious and worldly .

So you have the department of theology and then you also have departments of science and of philosophy and of literature and languages . But in the medieval period you see thinkers like Aquinas grappling with theology and its relationship to worldly knowledge , desperately trying to reconcile Christian theology with Aristotelian philosophy . That becomes their struggle .

At the same time we don't refer to it in our own tradition as medieval , but in classical Islam , at exactly the same time as Aquinas , we're seeing thinkers like Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd not having anything of the sort to grapple with . For them , knowledge is not distinct , it's not discrete in terms of worldly and religious .

You see them engaging in philosophical thought , scientific thinking as well as theological , seamlessly . That dualistic framing , which is a very Christian framing , is not something that permeates their approach . So I hope that you're following . Is this making sense ?

So he commands his companions to go even as far as China . He's not sending them there to learn theological knowledge . It is whatever they may benefit from in their dini or dunyawi concerns that is of value .

There's something divine in that act , and I think , therefore , your point , in raising that hadith and that hadith , I mean there'll be some , especially those with interest in hadith studies , who will say well , how sound is that hadith ? I mean there'll be some , especially those with interest in hadith studies , who will say , well , how sound is that hadith ?

It's certainly sound in its meaning , and there are ample reports that are of the same kind , but also of a similar nature , which leave us in no doubt that the Prophet was of the view that knowledge is the lost property of the believer . Wherever he finds it , he should engage with it , take it up , and so we have traditions of that kind .

So I'm so glad that you mentioned that . That actually reinforces the point . So there isn't this notion , Kamel . Is there anything else that either you or Zubay would like to come in on here ?

As far as authenticity , if most scholars are in agreement , or if it is a what's going on in the interpretation there that causes for them to think , secular sciences were not included when the Prophet states to seek knowledge , even as far as China .

So this pre-existing division of the world into the sacred and secular domains informs enlightenment thinkers' understanding of religion as distinct as private , as only interested in spirituality or the spiritual domain , and separate from material and political spheres .

They then and this is the the genius in a sense , for themselves , for the rest of us , this becomes the bane of our , our history . They then um universalize that concept religion and they apply it to all world faiths . They encounter those through colonialism and they start demarcating these other world faiths as religions .

But within that application of that category of religion is an implicit bias rooted within the Christian tradition . So Christianity , then , in this engagement between all , this confrontation of Europe with non-Europe , christianity , particularly in its Protestant expression , becomes the ideal type against which other traditions are being measured .

Individual belief texts and the dichotomy between the sacred and profane reflected specific Christian theological and historical developments , such as the Reformation and the rise of secular governance , traditions that didn't conform to that model .

We can look at Hinduism , for example , which interweaves ritual philosophy and social organization , our own deen Islam as well , which integrates law , politics , spirituality . They were misrepresented as deviations from this universal framework . So there's this almost so European Christian Enlightenment .

We can go even further and say Protestant imposition placed on all of the rest of us , in a sense Forcing upon us categories that don't align necessarily with our own self-conceptions , with our own self-conceptions Now . So the , but unfortunately we take up these categories . So the colonized , they take up those categories of the colonizer .

This is something that's Khaldunian . Ibn Khaldun explains that the dominated will emulate the one who has dominated them . This is a sad fact . So it's not just territorial colonization but also the colonization of the mind .

And so these categories are taken up by ourselves during that colonial period , and our ulama then also start to bifurcate the world into these two domains and we start to see the separation of religious learning , religious knowledge , which is then sort of rendered the domain of the madrasa , and secular knowledge , which is the domain of the newly emerging universities

in the Muslim world , in Lahore , in Dakar , in the Hijaz , in wherever it is in the Muslim world , you start to see the emergence of those universities and they're the domain of secular knowledge . So there's this acceptance , and the ulama then term the so-called sacred sciences ulum ad-din and the profane ulum al-aql .

But for me , and this is why I begin with those hadith at the beginning in the ayah , this for me represents one of the most serious and problematic innovations within our intellectual tradition . It's a dualistic framework , alien to the integrative ethos of classical Islamic thought . It mirrors the Christian epistemological model .

It can be seen , in fact , as a form of Christianization of Islam . And so when we then look at movements , organizations of phenomena such as the Taliban , we're seeing the lasting effects of that bifurcation very , very starkly . Groups like the Taliban , whose ideological foundation emerges from a madrasa tradition shaped by this division .

It's a reductionist approach which adopts a very specific reading of faith and religion and neglects broader intellectual , scientific and socio-political engagement .

Over time , this isolation from the broader intellectual and cultural currents and even political currents of society , create an environment where rigid and insular interpretations of islam thrive , and so I hope that that this makes sense I know it makes a whole lot of sense .

Is that right , given that classical Islamic scholars and you mentioned , I think , ibn Sina and some others since they saw no such divide . How do you think this perspective could be revived today to counter the Taliban's very narrow approach to education specifically ?

We're talking about entrenched understandings of knowledge over hundreds of years of inferiority complex , of the imposition of what Ramon Grosvogel , professor of indigenous studies and decolonial thought in America .

He's at the University of California , berkeley , what he calls the exportation of the westernized university , that same university that you find exported to our great metropolises in the Muslim world which export westernized knowledge , european philosophy , in particular , the philosophical , sociological , political thinking of five nations Great Britain , united States , france , germany

and Italy . All right . So what we're talking about actually is we need a complete reorientation .

It's one of the things that the field of work that I'm involved in at the University of Leeds , critical Muslim Studies , is doing , of Leeds , critical Muslim Studies , is doing , and there are many other similar projects which are recognising that a lot of reorienting and reconstruction needs to happen .

What I would suggest is we might term ground clearing all right , and that involves serious critique of the past . Serious historical investigation of the past . Serious historical investigation of the past , critique of what our present reality is now , and having to do that before we can reimagine ourselves and our knowledge systems into the future no-transcript .

Yeah , I think we can move on to the next topic . Zubair John , you wanted to ask that .

How so , right , he lives in an age before these disciplines become discrete entities . Okay , how is he a civil engineer ? He's a civil engineer in his involvement in the planning of the first Muslim city-state . He's an economist and financial planner . He established principles for trade contracts , ethical business practices . He's a diplomat and statesman .

We think about Hudaybiyyah and the strategic genius involved in negotiating a really , really difficult agreement which ultimately secured the long-term security and preservation of the Deen . He is involved in environmental stewardship , recognizing already the role and responsibility we have for protecting the environment . He advocates for the conservation of natural resources .

Instructing his community to plant trees is complicated up until now . Let's really simplify this . Where is in the approach of the Taliban and similar phenomena ? Where is the prophetic model ? All right , you know , are we seeing that in their education system or in their pedagogy , in their approach ? I'm afraid we're not .

And so you know , we talk about innovations , but we also can talk about the absence of the sunnah when we engage in a discussion like this .

The way you know , how you set it up with , the way that the sciences were separated when it comes to knowledge , how it goes into a secular versus specifically religious , it makes me wonder .

When it comes to the Taliban's practices , right , they say that they're implementing the Sharia and they claim to be , you know , puritans , like strict adherence to the Hanafi school of law , the Hanafi Madhab , like strict adherence to the Hanafi school of law , the Hanafi madhab .

And to me it's just very ironic that they claim to be these master Hanafis when in reality the Hanafi school has always been known for its more rational approach as opposed to the Taliban's . More you know their interpretation .

Where it's , they're not taking it from a rational perspective , it's more from a literal perspective , their reliance more on texts instead of using , you know , logic , and aql versus naql , I guess you know logic and the aql versus naql , I guess um , so the hanafi school has was always known for the rational approach , the use of qiyas or legal reasoning .

Yet , uh again , the taliban seem to contradict this in their actions when it comes to simple things such as uh dress code , um , the enforcement of uh men's beards or you you know other things like girls' education , as we mentioned , and other kind of rulings that they've put out . That's honestly kind of a mockery of this religion , in my opinion .

So when we see this , would you say that their methods , the methods of the Taliban , and their and the way of their thinking , is it actually representative of the original teachings of the Hanafi school of Imam Abu Hanifa or are they following a different interpretation and is it kind of mixed with , maybe , tribal customs or are they taking it from a different

approach , such as the Diobendi school ? Because when we mentioned earlier the removal of , I guess , other sciences and secular education , it reminded me very much of the formation of Dada Lulum Dioband , specifically the whole Diobandi movement when it was formed as a post-colonial , I guess , reaction in British India .

I think you know one of the main things that they decided to do the ulama there was removing the secular approach , the use of logic and rhetoric , which I guess it belonged to the system of Dars al-Nizamiyah .

When that was removed , I think that took a big hit to the Hanafi school in general within Asia , as opposed to what was known in Central Asia , in the school of Bukhara and Balch and in other places .

So I don't mean to like answer the question myself , but I think that those little points to me stood out when you , when you mentioned that separation of of the sciences . So , without making the question longer than it already is , would you say that the Taliban are adherents or actual practicers of the Hanafi school , or is it a mix of other things ?

So I'm really pleased for you also to share your reflections . You both have knowledge , mashallah . So I think actually it's important that you're right to point out that the School of the Uband and other schools and movements within India , especially under British colonial rule , are a reaction to British colonialism , and that is really important .

You know , they don't just emerge in a vacuum , they emerge in this dialectical situation and so they then therefore take on a very specific sociopolitical , geographic kind of form . And if we neglect that history , you know we run into big problems .

There are serious implications for the way in which we see these movements , especially as each of them are movements that lay claim to truth and you know , and on the basis of those claims also otherize other Muslims . You know to a greater or lesser extent . So that kind of history is really important .

But I have to say my own work , my own research , particularly in my work on the Ottomans , ottoman Islamic thought . I focused in my work on the 17th century because it's a really important , pivotal moment in the long history of Sufism .

It is a period in which Ottoman , turkish scholars , ulema , are fashioning a new form of Sufism , which Professor Fazlur Rahman , the late great Fazlur Rahman at Chicago University , professor of Islamic Studies , described as Neo-Sufism , which actually had its roots in the thought of Ibn Taymiyyah , a well-known theologian , of course , and controversial theologian , and

controversial theologian at that .

These Ottoman ulama , they're Hanafi , they're Maturidi , but they're working and engaging with Ibn Taymiyyah's thought and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah and other Hanbali thinkers , and they're fashioning a new way of conceiving and conceptualizing Sufism which is shorn from stripped of , in other words , unacceptable un-Islamic accretions , innovations , in a sense , things like the visitation

of the graves . They were opposed to particular forms of invocations that don't have a basis in the sunnah , and so they are once fashioning this kind of system , and it's a network of these scholars by the way , it's not just one or two .

I'm thinking now of scholars like Imam al-Birgivi , imam Ahmed , rumi , al-akhisari and others besides are fashioning this and at the same time , they're engaging in a political campaign which resembles , bizarrely , actually the kinds of campaigns we're seeing in Afghanistan today , the vice and virtue kind of the vice and virtue policy .

It's a very kind of similar thing going on in the 17th century , where these individuals , scholars and their disciples are going out onto the street and imposing their vision and picking up people on sometimes really minor , insignificant things , like the length of the beard , for example , like , um , you know , um , the things that they're drinking it could be coffee ,

it could be um , the ways in which you know the , whether they're going to pray or not , uh , and and and whether they're smelling bad . They're literally going , going out and imposing their will on Ottoman society . But there's something else that's going on within this movement and they give a name to it as well , this project of theirs .

They call it Tariqa Muhammadiyya . Now , you both will know that Tariqa is mystical path . It's a very Sufi terminology that Sufi movements and Sufi organizations have used . It is the spiritual path .

They coined their project as Tariqa Muhammadiyya , which is centering the prophet within the spiritual tradition , and not just the Prophet but his hadith , and it's at this moment that I suggest that Hanafi scholars and Hanafism .

At this moment it starts to shafi'ize , it starts to adopt Bukhari , muslim , abu Dawud , the Sihah , which are Hadith collections that are formed by , primarily , disciples of Imam Ash-Shafi and they take those as the ultimate statements on the prophetic sunnah . So these Ottoman Hanavi scholars are doing this . It's a form of Shafi'ization and for me it marks a .

I describe it as um a second canonization of the hadith . The first canonization of hadith happens during the first couple of hundred years after the prophet . It's that history of the great collectors of hadith going around um the muslim lands , collecting and recording and sifting and producing those volumes . That's the first canonization .

But the second canonization is when , particularly one set of hadith collections , all linked in one way or another to imam ash-shafi and and and and significantly among them are the jami-Sahih of al-Bukhari and the collection of Muslim , they are , within Hanafi lands , accepted also as the final statements or the final expressions of the Sunnah of the Prophet .

And they sideline in that moment their own hadith collections , which are connected with their own school , their own Hanafi school , which are hadith collections which support their own jurisprudence , support their own theological understandings , and so this is something that happens .

It's described as Tariqah Muhammadiyah and then it's diffused throughout the eastern Muslim lands , all of the Hanafi east , you start to see the diffusion through scholarly networks of this Tariqah Muhammadiyah .

Fast forward a little bit and you'll start to see see movements describing themselves as the true inheritors of the Prophet and the guardians of the Muslim spiritual tradition . They're also deeply political as well , okay , and they're very quick to otherize other Muslims .

Now the one which is most relevant for us we're thinking about the Taliban now would be the Tariqa Muhammadiyah as conceptualized by Sayyid Ahmed of Raibureli , who lived 1786 to 1831 . He was a prominent Indian Islamic reformer and he was engaged in a reformist and revivalist project , trying to reform Muslim societies .

His movement sought to purify Islamic practices , strengthen adherence to the Sharia , resist external influences . So he's actively engaged in anti-colonial struggle . But his movement has this typical you know the list that you can recognize this Tariqa Muhammadiyah approach from . In some ways you also see it within the Hijaz .

It's the same kind of mission of Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab . It emphasizes Tawheed , the idea of the revival of the Sunnah Ihyaa Sunnah , of the sunnah Ihya al-Sunnah . It's anti-traditional Sufi all right and identifies all of the innovations , unacceptable innovations of the other Sufi tariqas . It gives emphasis to jihad against oppression , community reform , all right so .

But what's really interesting is that his particular movement it establishes itself in .

What's really interesting is that his particular movement it establishes itself in what's today the northwestern frontier province , in Swat in particular , and so this Tariqa Muhammadiyya movement has strong roots there , and then it continues then to inform particular forms of Islamic understanding in that region .

And I would say , if we want to see a genealogy trace , a genealogy for the Taliban , we would want to be tracing it through that . But note , and do not forget , please , that this is a genealogy that goes back hundreds of years back to , dare I say it , you know , the great Ottomans .

You know , and you know , with all of the symbolism that it has for so many Muslims . Yep , absolutely rightly so . They have that symbolic currency . But this is a trend , a genealogy that goes back there also to Istanbul in the 1600s . So there are things that we can draw out there and all sorts of implications for our conversation .

I'll leave that for you to take up as you wish , but I hope that that makes sense and feel very free to kind of probe me on anything I've said . If I can clarify anything that isn't clear , I'd be very happy to do so .

Under pressure from ulama for his work seeking to reform the Pakistani education system , he's pushed out ultimately and goes into self-imposed exile in the United States and sets up , eventually , the Islamic Studies program at Chicago University . So that's Professor Fazlur Rahman .

So I just wanted to make sure we were talking about two different people .

And one of those areas that I remember I had made like a long thread on Twitter before my original account was deleted . I had a lot of good stuff on there and one of those was this long thread . I remember it went viral on there and one of those was this long thread . I remember it went viral .

The Taliban had announced that they're actually their Supreme Court of the Islamic Emirate of the Taliban . They said that they had implemented 175 Qisas rulings and 37 stonings had taken place . This was in May of 2023 . So this was like less than two years into their rule and I remember I made this . A long thread started out with this one post .

I have a screenshot of it , only the first part where I wrote in roughly 500 years of Ottoman rule , an Islamic caliphate that implemented Hanafi law , records indicate that there was only one or two stonings that took place .

And even that was contested in regards to I think , evidence that was unclear Due to the strictness of you know , as you could tell us , professor , of how difficult it is to make that ruling the evidence required for witnesses seeing the actual act , whereas the Taliban , in 20 months , had implemented 37 stonings .

You know they killed 37 people on accusations of adultery or zina . So this is , I thought , very interesting . And when people claim that this is this purely Sharia , you know this is the only Muslim country in the world that's implementing the Prophet's teachings and to me that is a very problematic way of looking at it .

So when I brought up the Ottoman comparison , what do you think that holds any weight , or what are your thoughts on something like that ?

It falls very , very quickly . You know , the Ottomans were fundamentally a great Muslim power that were in one way or another able to represent the territories that they controlled .

They , as you say , in their application of things like the hudud , basic understanding of the Sharia was there , that these hudud , you know they aren't the be-all and end-all of the Sharia as it seems to be understood within the kind of understanding of Islam among the Taliban , understanding of Islam among the Taliban .

It's what I would suggest is a very limited understanding of Sharia . It's literally seeing Sharia as just a checklist of rules rather than a holistic system which I think the Ottomans got .

They weren't about the Ottomans and in fact , other great Muslim powers both before the Ottomans and in fact , other great Muslim powers both before the Ottomans and concurrent with the Ottomans , were not about micromanaging society .

The Qadiz Adelis , who I've written about , that 17th century Ottoman movement of Puritans who look very much like the Puritans in Europe around the same time . Protestant Puritans . They were about that .

They were about micromanaging society , checking on the length of beards , checking on how people dress , whether they're listening or not to music , all of that kind of stuff . That's much more akin to the kind of thing that we're seeing .

Ethic is strong in the Qadiz Adli and that's something that also you find transmitted through those scholarly networks within that Tariqa Muhammadiyah approach , which I would suggest is the comparator when we're thinking about the Taliban , in this kind of overemphasis on very specific what we might term philosophically and in the work of my colleague , Professor Salman Sayyed

at University of Leeds , who's written a very , very important study called Recalling the Caliphate . It's a study of Islamism , but what he would describe as an ontic understanding of Islam , a checklist understanding of Islam , rather than an ontological understanding which appreciates the depth , and an understanding of Islam which is rooted in something beyond that .

Actually we can get into what actually we mean by that , but it isn't reducible to any particular manifestation of Islam , and I think that's what Muslims of the globe over the ummah . When we look at what's happening in Afghanistan , it's why we can recognize that that is not right , All right .

The spirit of Islam , the spirit of the Sharia , is not being enacted there . We're not seeing it manifest there .

So thank you for clarifying that they don't have any sort of real understanding .

Beyond the legalistic aspect , however , I think there is a profound and often overlooked dimension to the sharia the esoteric right , the spiritual aspects that aim to refine the soul and elevate human consciousness , right , it's uh , um , we tend to get stuck in the external or exoteric dimensions of the laws , and so , yeah , I think it's a very transformative journey

towards inner peace and moral excellence , right Even the prophetic mission statement of makaram al-akhlaq being the ultimate objective and goal . So , professor , how do you think a genuine understanding of Sharia , especially its esoteric dimensions , could reshape societies and fostering not only legal justice but also spiritual growth and moral integrity ?

I think that the Taliban and their representatives would differ with that and say no in the establishment and in the implementation of rules and norms that govern Muslim behavior , that govern Muslim behavior , that that is the way to shape the internal and that is the way to form a certain type of kind of Muslim disposition and iman , etc .

That's probably the way that they would respond to that . I think we want to be thinking more broadly . Well , any kind of emirate , any sort of proxy for an Islamic great power , which we don't have currently , I don't think the Taliban can even claim to provide that for Muslims . They see themselves quite distinctly as an emirate , not as a caliphate .

It's a recognition , I think , of their position in the global order . But even as an emirate , they have to at the very least create a political structure that safeguards the Muslims in Afghanistan and safeguard them in their ability to live as human beings , and that it seems they're failing at .

And that , surely , is one of the ways in which we think about Islam as an ontological phenomenon , that it is something that , should you know , my colleague Professor Salman Syed , allows Muslims to be at home in the world as Muslims . The Taliban have excluded half of the ummah in Afghanistan , the women . What about the situation of children ?

You know they are not safeguarded , they are not being allowed to thrive and flourish all right , not only as Muslims but as human beings . And so you know , I think we want to be thinking about Sharia , we want to be thinking about ontological Islam in these terms , and when we assess what's happening there , we can see how far short it falls .

How far short it falls , the solution for me , wouldn't be an emphasis on the esoteric , but actually on the political and the ways in which people are living , or are unable to live , in that situation in Afghanistan . And that falls very well short of what an Islamic polity should be creating , what kinds of conditions it should be nurturing and fostering .

The silence from many scholars and delegations whitewashing the Taliban has deepened this disconnection right . So what is your perspective on the silence and how can we encourage more scholars to speak out against such injustices ?

I hope that any scholars , any ulama , any students of knowledge listening in will at least be able to benefit from this long history that we've been thinking about of the development of Islamic thought right up until the contemporary age and the ways in which we've seen the fragmentation of Islamic thought or our ulum , the concept of knowledge and the fragmentation of

it and the acceptance of religious and secular forms of knowledge and understanding . Because if they understand that and if they are acquainted with that history , then it shouldn't be difficult for them to call out what's happening in Afghanistan under the Taliban . It shouldn't be difficult for them to call out the gross injustices .

The challenge for our ulama is that when they look at the Taliban , sadly I think many of them see a mirror . They see themselves , they see their own madrasa training , they see their own understanding of Islam in , you know , just an ontical understanding of Islam and Islam , which is a checklist of do's and don'ts .

They see , you know the value of Amr bil-Ma'ruf and Nahyan al-Munkar and they think that that idea of propagating virtue and preventing vice is to be undertaken in the way that the Taliban are doing it .

Vice is to be undertaken in the way that the Taliban are doing it the micromanagement of society , the going around of any Tom , dick and Harry and imposing their will on others without any kind of clear jurisdiction . There's no evidentiary basis . Often it is just going out there and doing as you will , manhandling people .

The challenge I think our scholars have is identifying the problem in the first place . I hope that our conversation , in the way that we're doing it , we're doing it in a way which I think is fair , it's academic , it's intellectual , it's deeply historical .

Hopefully it opens up the possibility for the ulama to start to think about this themselves in a way which is kind of detached and dispassionate and actually looking at the facts .

And if they are able to do that , I think it will be the first step to them actually criticizing very clearly and calling out very clearly and standing up on firm ground against what's happening . I think honestly that many of them , their silence isn't because of a kind of willful silence .

Genuinely , I think a lot of them don't know how to respond because they would worry , I think , that they would disempower or delegitimize themselves .

They themselves are caught in that bind or that binary of religious knowledge and secular knowledge , and so many of them , in their religious training in madrasas , that training , as you've mentioned , kumail , is done , done , and I think , zubair you mentioned it's done , um , it's , it's .

It's the study of a curriculum which has dissociated um , you know , the , the , the , the , the science of logic , philosophy , mathematics , astronomy . There's no , there's no curriculum that integrates the different branches of knowledge .

And so what they do is they study the scriptural text , the Quran and the Hadith , they'll study law , they'll study theology , and even if they have some Western secular so-called training they're graduates from universities perhaps and they've gone on and studied at madrasa they are still not being able to bridge between the knowledge and learning they get from the

madrasa and the world , the reality they live . And I say that as someone who's experienced this .

I studied at a madrasa , at several madrasas , so I know the inner workings of that and I know how difficult it was for me to grapple with my learning that I was getting at the madrasa and the real world , with my learning that I was getting at the madrasa and the real world , so making sense of ahkam , for example , on bayat and shirat , the rules on commerce

, on sale and on trade , and reconciling that with the modern banking and finance . How do we do that as Muslims ?

It's a really difficult task because you're not studying economics in the madrasa in any way that makes sense in the modern world , the modern kind of economic system , and I think this is one of the reasons why many of the ulama , especially in , I'd suggest , the Muslim world , are silent . The Muslim world are silent in .

The ulama who are in the West so called so now America , australia maybe they have less of an excuse and we may need to think about why they're silent . We may want to be thinking about for some of them . Is this actually just because of misogyny , that who the Taliban are imposing themselves on are fundamentally women ?

Yes , half the Ummah , but they are women and there's this inability to connect with that and see that as injustice , as tyranny , because ultimately it's women that are being affected there and we might want to be thinking about that now . Is this because of just kind of prevalent misogyny and patriarchy ?

And that's a serious issue , of course , and it's something for us to be thinking about . I think you , kumail Zubair , myself , we wouldn't think twice about calling out the misogyny and the violence that's being done to the women .

In fact , we probably will use terms like gender apartheid and femicide , because that is how the human rights organizations are describing what is happening there , and so there are going to be different reasons why scholars are silent . It's going to be very difficult to generalize , but I'd suggest that those are some of them .

The one aspect that I could add on to that is okay , I understand the silence of a lot of the scholars , due to whatever reasons , like , for example , a large segment of the Muslim scholars , specifically those scholars who are in the UK , I know for sure , and definitely in the UK , but in America as well , like a lot of the masajid .

The mosques here are and I hate to do that , to do the labeling right but to avoid being divisive but just most mosques are run by either Salafi scholars or Diobandi scholars . So the whole leadership of the masjid is typically , at least in the US , falls under Diobandi scholarship .

If it's not , it's going to be from usually an Arab community and the scholar happens to be from a Salafi background . And I can see the overlapping of ideological perspectives from both groups in certain ways , specifically from a fiqh perspective , when it comes to the Diobandi masajid and the ulama there .

Because when you mentioned that disconnect between coming out of the madrasah being equipped with knowing hadith , for example , and knowing ahkam , or this is what is applied to this fiqh ruling , but from the books of a thousand years ago and not knowing , not having that connection with the current world , not having a degree in a specific science , such as , I don't

know , politics or business , or just human , human , uh , the humanities , uh . So I see this disconnect myself , even forget the taliban I'm talking about from everyday perspective . I grew up going to these masajid , so I know the inner workings of you , know how these scholars think and I see what they put out and I've always felt this shortcoming on their behalf .

No disrespect towards their ilm in regards to knowing you know their knowledge , in regards to memorizing hadith and all these things .

Credit where it's due , but that disconnect where , like the youth , it's always like you see these mosques and you don't see a lot of youth coming , it's because they feel this disconnect when it's always just this is haram and this is halal , and not being able to connect from a more personal dynamic of like .

Okay , well , the youth are growing up here in this country , in the West , there's a slew of other problems and we keep talking about the fiqh of salah and we keep talking about the fiqh of wudu . It's like there's a million other things and they're not applying it .

They're not connecting with the common people who live and work and who grew up in this country , in the West , so that disconnect comes from that madrasah system of whatever Darul Ulum , dioband or whatever it is .

And the Taliban also happen to come out of a lot of these type of madrasas on the tribal belt in Pakistan and in other areas , and they come out with the same type of thinking . You know , one of the branches of this is the Tablighi Jamaat . Right , I'm sure you know about them . They credit where it's due . I've been out with them . They do good work .

They invite people to come pray Excellent . But when I see the Taliban , it's like they're taking the Ubandi fiqh , or thought and the propagation of telling people to come to the mosque and stuff the practices of tabligh and they're implementing that now into governance of a country . So they're putting it into practice .

Imagine taking tablighi jamaat and you're implementing that now into governance of a country . So they're putting it into practice . Imagine taking tablighi jamaat and you're putting it into practice of running a country . That's what they're doing .

So instead of now just knocking on the doors and telling people to come pray , it's , you know , coming up with an AK-47 and making lists of people who aren't coming to the masjid and again implementing these laws of you know , the beard has to be this long these literal interpretations of fiqh that are not really working with , I guess , modern situations .

So anyway , I understand that I understand those crowd of people who maybe haven't said anything about the Taliban , but it's the others who have not just been silenced , that I understand those crowd of people who maybe haven't said anything about the Taliban , but it's the others who have not just been silenced , but when they come out and they fully support the

Taliban , I don't . I don't have an answer to these people because just there's so many different things that , just from the outward , we spoke about this professor on the side .

When it comes to the rulership itself , when you cannot see the ruler itself , mullah ibn Talha , right , the leader , the spiritual leader of the Taliban , of the entire movement , till this day no one has even seen his face and it's like just using common sense from a you don't have to cite . If we wanted to cite Islamic sources , we could .

There's Mawaradi , who says in his Ahkam al-Sultaniya about the need to be able to identify the leader the leader needs to be identifiable to the people . Ambiguity in a leader's identity and authority undermines trust and accountability . Ambiguity in a leader's identity and authority undermines trust and accountability . Just things from a common sense perspective .

Suicide bombings for 20 years , killing thousands upon thousands of Muslims in masjids , in markets and they haven't disavowed these practices right , they've doubled down on it . They paid the families of suicide bombers , they formed a new suicide bombing brigade . So are these , are the people who who continue to whitewash and just to openly support ?

We've seen delegations of scholars from the UK , from other places , come to Afghanistan and they go as far as kissing the hand of the Taliban and sitting down with them and then coming back and writing , making these big , these videos , propagating them and supporting them . So that is the one side I won't understand .

I don't know what is the solution to that , because I guess this question , this fourth question that we asked , of the main purpose of this , was that there are Muslims in Afghanistan that are leaving Islam , they're turning away from the deen . I never in my life thought that there were Afghans who identified as atheists . I've never seen it .

It was only when it came to the activism of Afghanistan in the last couple of years have I seen people just saying I lived under the Taliban . I saw that women . There are girls who were raped in their prisons and that escaped them and they said to hell with Islam , when this is the Islam that they're implementing .

And the Muslim world has been silent and , in fact , scholars have come and have given them you know their flowers and have praised them .

So this is a big problem that needs to be addressed in the Ummah at large , because 40 million people , their Iman , is at risk here , and I think this is something that hits home for me more than anything , because I still have my entire extended family lives back home .

I have girl cousins who are going through depression and stuff because they can't go to school . They live through a democratic republic , a moderate form of islam , and all of a sudden they go through this and it's anyway . Sorry , I , I don't , I don't mean to go on for too long . I kind of hijacked .

You're our guest , so please , what are , what are your thoughts on all this ?

These are Afghan women working on the ground to try , and you know , to resist what's happening and raise awareness .

It's so important for us to show our Afghan brothers and sisters that the Ummah is there and the Ummah hears , even if the Ummah is a minority of us , but that you know we raise our voices , even if the Ummah is a minority of us , but that you know we raise our voices .

You know it's sad , but the depoliticization of the ulama as a class is something that has gone on for over hundreds of years , and the marginalization of the ulama , often self-imposed , is what has produced some of the effects that we're seeing now .

I mean , yes , they're failing to call out some of the most repugnant injustices that are happening to the ummah , to members of the ummah . They're failing to call out systemic oppression of the ummah , to members of the Ummah .

They're failing to call out systemic oppression of the Ummah in the form of Islamophobia we struggle to find Ulama talking about that On the Mimbar . You know , you're just not seeing these important global discussions , you know , figuring in the Khutbah , you know , or in any of their pedagogy .

It's very rare , on the rare occasion that we've seen it , palestine has changed that somewhat and we've seen the emergence , suddenly , or the kind of the awakening within some scholars , some ulama , some ustads , of a kind of a political understanding and willingness to speak up .

But it seems that it hasn't gone beyond that , it's not extending to all domains and all areas of the ummah and to all peoples in the ummah , especially our women folk , all right , and so clearly there are blind spots there that there's a lack of awareness of , you know , a major system of oppression which is patriarchy , all right , and the kind of misogyny that

it produces . They need to educate themselves on that . We need to help them in that as well . You know , those men of us who understand this and who get this .

We need to go out and do the work and not just be allies but actually ourselves go out and do some of that socialization , especially if we have contact with ulama and students of knowledge and other leaders , religious leaders .

So there's a lot of work that needs to be done , other leaders , religious leaders so there's a lot of work that needs to be done and I think , yeah , you're right , we need to take seriously the fact that what it does for the image of Islam and how it can lead to the internalisation of , you know , this kind of trauma can ultimately lead to a dissociation or

feelings of dissociation from the faith , and that's something that you know , kind of . It's surely not what you know these people who are enacting this want , but this is the consequence of their actions . Yeah , and it's incredibly sad . We have a lot of work to do um and um .

I think you know platforms like this that you , uh and kumail the news of air are , um have created , are are going to be really important for um , for this education and this socialization , and and and bringing to the fore these really kind of important discussion points .

Uh , I'm sure many of our viewers are going to be eager I I myself am as well , but we can always follow up , inshallah .

So my book Ottoman Puritanism and Its Discontents , imam Ahmed Rumi al-Aqisari and the Qadiz Adlis is published by Oxford University Press and it tells a story of these Ottoman Puritans from the 17th century and it would help , you know , audience members who are interested to understand more the development of this Tariqa Muhammadiyya , which then subsequently goes and has

this long genealogy across the Muslim world . It doesn't only ever figure in kinds of deeply problematic manifestations like we've described of the Taliban . There were other great anti-colonial movements which self-labeled as Tariqa Muhammadiyah , which are truly models of how resistance should be done . They were inclusive , you know .

They incorporated women as well as men , all right , young and old , abled and disabled , and you know they served as the substrate for , you know , great Islamic societies after them in the post-colonial period and Islamic structures and welfare systems and so on . So there are great examples of this as well . Today we just happen to look at a specific genealogy .

So Ottoman Puritanism would be hopefully of use to those who want to know more about that .

I've written on Hanafi fiqh , so I have papers again on the long history of the Hanafi madhhab and how it has evolved in terms of both its legal , jurisprudential thinking but also theological and the ways in which those are entangled , and you know clear moments in which the Madhab kind of takes on , you know , quite a distinct trajectory that starts to move away

from the spirit of the founders Abu Hanifa , abu Yusuf , you know and even those from the early and classical period . So I've written a little bit about that as well and that could be useful for those who want to understand more about the Hanafi Madhab in its long history and how it's kind of evolved and developed , and so I hope those would be useful .

But I've also written on Islamophobia . I write a lot on social justice and that's that's kind of the key theme of today's conversation on how we bring about a just order .

So my next co-edited volume which is coming out hopefully in 2025 , is about global structures of injustice and oppression and it takes case studies not just from the Muslim world but from other areas as well , looking at the ways in which oppression and injustice affect the disabled , youth , muslims , the Palestinians , women , and we've got contributors to this volume from

all around the world . The title of that volume is Globalized Injustice . It's Globalized Injustice Relational Contexts and Modalities of Resistance , and that's going to be published by Cambridge scholars publishers , and so those are some of my works , but Others can be found on my profile page Linked with my university , and so perhaps these could be shared .

Zawahir and I , again , are truly honored to have had this conversation . We hope it's sparked something meaningful in all of you . If you found value in today's episode , please , please , take a moment to like , subscribe and share with others who you really may benefit from it as well . Thank you for being with us .

Let's continue working toward a world where justice , mercy and peace are not just ideals but lived truths . Until next time , maasana , on .