Ep 253. - The Medina Model: Islam’s Blueprint for Muslims in the West | Dr. Sohail Hanif
What does it mean to build a Medina, and why are collective institutions so central to a strong and vibrant communal life? In this episode, we delve into the idea of a Medina and how establishing collective institutions can strengthen and sustain a thriving community. The discussion also reflects on the profound significance of the Qur’anic message, emphasising Islam’s deep concern for the world around us and its call for believers to live lives of purpose, impact, and meaningful contribution. Joining me for this conversation is Dr Sohail Hanif, CEO of the National Zakat Foundation and lecturer at Cambridge Muslim College, whose work focuses on Islamic law, theology, and communal development.
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Transcript - This is an AI generated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation
Introduction
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Medina has something else. You could say God's plan for man. In each and every major place where
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Muslims live, Paris or London or New York, there would be a a a council that emulating
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the prophetic Medina model. Is that right? I believe Muslims in the West especially,
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they have a most tremendous opportunity. We have the freedom to create institutions on a black
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canvas really. And whenever you create communal power, you're protecting people from government. How do we rebuild an Islamic civilization? Dr. Sahel Hanib, CEO of the National Zaka Foundation
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believes that Muslims principally in the west need to think deeply about how the Medina model
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of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is a blueprint for building communities. The prophet said sallallahu alaihi wasallam that when a person is by themselves, the devil is the interfering
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party. If we don't coordinate as a community, if we don't represent his mercy and his justice
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and his wisdom and his teaching, we are letting him down. You could even go far and say we are
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betraying him. Dr. Selhan, alaykumah and welcome back to the thinking Muslim. It's a great pleasure
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to be back. It's really wonderful to have you back with us. Now I think it's been over a year
1:20
since we last had that conversation about the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam's Medina and
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society and how he built uh this um society. And I think what uh what really stood out for me was
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um uh often we uh disconnect the sacred law the different laws about Juma and communities and and
Medinan model
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about you know various aspects of comm community communal living. we separate them from one another
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and and alhamdulillah you did a very amazing job of connecting how um how religious life was very
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clearly connected to communal life as Muslims and and I think there was a message at the end
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that we as Muslims especially those living in the west where you know we don't have these
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natural communities we need to think about organi organizing ourselves around uh the Medina model
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and I want to expand on that Medina model today I mean maybe it's also Worth saying I've visited a number of places over the last maybe few months and um I've come across uh you know alhamdulillah
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a number of Muslims in America in Malaysia many places who've said to me that they really found
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our conversation your your uh your uh conversation about this subject really inspiring. So Jakar
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thank you so much for that. So we want to expand on this Medina society today and what it means to
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build a Medina model. Now maybe I I think let's start with where we left off the last time. You
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argue that wherever there's a Muslim community uh there is a need to build a medina. Um explain
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what this model is and maybe how different it is to what we've already achieved in say America or
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Canada or in the UK. Sure. Just before I start as well, I've traveled a fair bit since we spoke
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last time and I'm astonished by the number of people who bring up my conversation with you
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uh which is testament to I think the I think the sort of international platform and conversation
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that that that is facilitated through your work. So uh it's an honor and pleasure to be with you
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and discussing with you and uh working with you. Alhamdulillah. Um at its core what uh and I also
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apologize I didn't relisten to the last one. So if there is an overlap please please guide me in my uh conversation. Uh at its core what I think we all have to think about are just a few premises.
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uh not all of them might be central to the argument. If I just start from the beginning, the
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fact that the companions of our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam chose at the beginning as the
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beginning of our calendar, the hijra already is a monumental civilizational starting point that
4:11
every year and we are just in the beginning of the year 1447. It's almost like taking back to think
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about the great event that we are marking with the passage of time. Uh in the Christian tradition,
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it was the birth of Jesus Christatam. And for us, it was not the birth of our prophet sallallahu
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alaihi wasallam. It was this very difficult movement away from homeland to build something
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new with sacrifice, with sweat, with tears uh with a migrant community, with a receiving community
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who shared with them and they built something tremendous. And that thing that they built is
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what I believe that the sacred law of Islam is describing. And so Medina has a geography.
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It's in somewhere in Arabia, uh, somewhere north of Mecca. Uh, Medina has a history. This event
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I'm describing took place, 1447 years ago. But Medina has something else, which is a timeless
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significance of you could say God's plan for man. Yeah. You could say this community's duty
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to representing and serving its prophetat wasam. All of that is encaptured in this project which
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only took 10 years. And that's why I believe although I cannot demonstrate here and will
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take some effort but I believe it's demonstrable as some scholars have suggested that what the
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prophet achieved sallallahu alaihi wasallam in those 10 years is miraculous. Why miraculous?
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because there was no precedent in Arabia for the systems, the roles, the jobs, the structuring,
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the sheer civilizational transformation that was brought on in that short space of time
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while warding off all kinds of threats. So that's just something of the context and in
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terms of what we're discussing is that our sacred law which is the foundational discipline of study
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uh for Muslims across their history. It lays out a discussion of prayer and zakat and fasting and
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Hajj and marriage and marriage divorce child care uh trade a whole host of uh topics and duties. But
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if you really put it together, it really is the map and skeleton of what the prophet built and
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uh brought into the world in that society. So when it means for what it means for Muslims to
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follow their prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is therefore not simply within themselves to be
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better people but it's as a collective to live in a better way. Mhm. And it's in the collective
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that we represent our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. As individuals, we have our failings
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and our shortcomings. But as a collective, we are the bearers of his message. And we bear it through
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community. So the last thing I'll say when I talk about what do we mean when we say building Medina,
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what I've started calling it now is I call it structured community. structured um what
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do I mean by by structured I mean structures of leadership and the reason why that's important
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is we talk a lot about the importance of um and faith communities and faith ties but when
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you talk about um as just a tie then it seems more like a network or a club or a friendship
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uh extended family but that's not what um is it's something beyond that because the word
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um in Arabic It means a collective that's come together for a purpose. And it's not possible
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for a collective to fulfill a purpose without some structures of leadership. Otherwise, the moment we
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come to our first decision, we're all going to disperse in our separate uh separate ways. And
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so what is Medina? It is the method of structured umah. How do you bring a community together with
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uh leadership structures where they can observe worship and prayer and taxation and solidarity,
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arbitration, trade, marriage, governance in a way that they can move as one and find safety in this
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community. Uh why do I call this a duty? Because following the sacred law can only be done in this
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way and that's why uh we can discuss this further even in minority settings. Our scholars said then
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you should strive wherever you are to build out these communities. Maybe later we can discuss what
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that looks like. Finally, how is this different from what we've done today is I'm I would suggest
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that there is no collective vision because there is no commitment to collective leadership. Now,
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leadership might seem something people talk about too much and people say, "Oh, it's all everyone's
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always talking about leadership and corporate leadership and this leadership and that leadership and Islam is not about that." Islam says, "Don't crave leadership." So, we've got one angle over
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there and then there's the other angle of well, it's so I don't know backwards medieval that
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everything comes together in one point. We're free. We're independent. We have differences. We're diverse. And so, there's two polls on this topic of leadership. But when I say there's a
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problem in lack of a leadership narrative and leadership culture is that the point of again
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the word um is coordinated action. It's a group which has to do something, achieve something and
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you can't do that without leadership structure. So what we have now are lots of interesting projects
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which are disjointed. So if I run for example a mosque, I feel that my job is to make it the
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best mosque the best mosque it can be. When you put it into a larger land narrative of structured
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community, you realize oh my mosque is not a beall and end all. It's like a team within a department.
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If if if if structured um is like an organization, my mosque is a team in a department. So my team
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only wins if my department wins. So I've got to think about how can I use my mosque to improve the
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other mosques? How can we bring all our mosques together? Okay, our mosques are together. How do we coordinate that with our welfare? Okay, so that that's the idea. It's a narrative of coordinated
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movement. With a lack of such a narrative, we only have splintered projects. Yeah. And because we
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only have splintered projects, we actually have no direction of travel. And so it takes a disaster,
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whether it's at home with riots in Stockport or the like, or whether it's overseas with genocides
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that we feel we should have a greater voice to stop than but we don't. Then so a disaster hits and they're wondering, oh, we're like 3 4 million. We have no voice. Nobody cares. We don't
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matter what's going on. And then we scramble for strategies. But those strategies are devoid of a
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faith narrative, devoid of a scholarly narrative. And this community won't mobilize if it's not tied
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to the reason why it's a faith community in the first place. And for me, all of that is
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a description of what's missing. Rather, to be a Muslim is to be committed to a culture. We have
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no culture of communal leadership. our culture. If I was asked to reflect on our community culture,
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it's one of criticism, bringing people down, uh, armchair commentary, which absolutely fine,
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but where's the culture of building and so I think we have in many ways ourselves to blame
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for lack of direction, lack of leadership, lack of a culture which is communal. Uh, and that's where
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this overarching duty I think finds its place. Jakar, I think that's really uh really wonderful
Islamic Leadership Structure
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um an explanation of Medina and what you're thinking about when you talk about Medina. Um
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I want to untangle a lot of what you've said and we we can expand on that but let's just focus on
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this idea of leadership structure. Now I know that like historically from a like um wide perspective
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um we know that Islam does not have a clergy and so we don't have sort of a central scholarly
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leadership and and so many of our greatness so much of our greatness came from you know
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the devolved nature of Islamic knowledge in a way that Islamic knowledge developed through mazahib and beyond right so we have got um we we haven't got a central leadership when it comes to learning
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and knowledge. So I suppose the only discernable central leadership we had in Islamic history was
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government were caliphates were governors that were appointed by governments were uh am were were
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judges kadis you know these were people that were appointed by a political central leadership right
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so um uh of course in the west we can't have that and we don't have that and there is no aspiration
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to build like a se separate political structure ruction. I suppose largely we're talking about western communities here. So I'm just wondering uh even the Medina society arguably could not have
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been realized without the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam acting as a political leader you know
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over a political community. So I'm just wondering how do you reconcile that the governmental aspects
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with this idea of building a medina? Yeah there's a lot here now. Okay. So guide the you can guide
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the conversation. We'll come to the west in a little bit and I believe that what we have to
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do in the west or in minority settings I call it politics bottom up and it has a particular
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set of cultures, values, strategies and I think that thing which I call politics bottom up is in
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my estimation the conclusion of what I'd like us to be discussing today. That's it. That's what we have to do right and we should tease out what does that look like and what does it mean and
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what's the next steps coming to the first part you're completely correct that again your first
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part had two quite fascinating things uh there is no uh poplike figure there's no human being
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who just represents god in and of themselves after the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam and this point has been a frustration by the way for like western governments and so
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on so who's the man or woman or whoever who's the person. Yeah. If we spoke to them, they speak in
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the name of the community and we're frustrating German because we don't have that person. Uh which
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in one point of view by all means it's a strength. We're devolved. We're decentralized. We, you know, there's no one head you can control. That's all well and good, but that brings all the problems
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we were hinting at. So the sacred law is one of communal uh what can I say? It's one in which
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we all take responsibility for serving the whole. That's why when we talk about what are the values
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for the politics bottom up right at its core is what I call it a culture change. If you think
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of again Muslims in London as an organization in organization speak they say that what's the
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most important thing you need. You want to get the right people in. You want to set the direction and
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you want to have a culture which is healthy. They work together well. They've got a good mode of how
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they collaborate and work. They'll figure out the strategy. They'll figure out the next steps. These
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are the building blocks. I'm going to be using this metaphor maybe more than once today to say
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that if you want a vision for Muslims in London and why I'm saying London not UK. So I'm going to be suggesting because the word Medina means city, doesn't mean country, doesn't mean continent,
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right? I'm going to be suggesting that the sacred law of Islam we do jump to the what's at top and we talk about caliphate and global but its fundamental unit if you reflect on the sacred law
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is the city or town that's the structure and so if I'm going to now in my examples think of Muslims
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in London and what they need um as we as we sort of build out that vision there is this sense of
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getting the culture right getting us familiar that that's what we want and we're going to work
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together for that aim. Yes. So when we think about that's what we have to do going up. Coming back to
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your question it was roles and that's something I hope we can get time to talk about. Yeah. Uh I call Medina at the time of our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam I used the phrase scalable
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movement right because it wasn't just this is Medina everyone come here and marvel. It was a set
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of jobs, roles, responsibilities that were given to people and we can discuss in a little bit how
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they were chosen, how they were trained, how they were monitored. But at the end of the day, there were roles and when new tribes came in to convert to Islam, if they were individuals that came by
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themselves, they were given some individual duties. Pray, fast, be good to your relatives,
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and then they went off. Mhm. If tribes came to accept Islam, yeah, then they were given jobs, uh,
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usually it was amongst them, i.e. leadership was being developed in every community. Fascinatingly,
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if I just give the example of the conquest of Mecca to illustrate this and the conquest of Mecca which happened around the year 8 after hijra, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
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didn't stay there. He went back to Medina. There was a Hajj in year 8. uh there was a Hajj in year
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nine and then the prophet did his hajj year 10 sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So at the conquest of Mecca he didn't go back until he created the structures of Medina in Mecca. That's what I mean
18:28
by the scalable movement. How did he do that? Yeah. He chose a teenager 90 odd years of age
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some say 20 by the name of Ibid and he said you're the governor of Mecca. And so there's a leadership
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structure. It was understood that to be a governor would mean to judge in people's disputes. So it
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takes on the role of the judge. It would mean that it would be to coordinate zakat. We can talk about
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that a bit more. But it's his job to make sure zakat is happening. Which means it's his job to
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appoint people in roles of collectors and scribes. There's a lot of jobs in zakat. Make sure they all get paid. It meant that he was responsible. He was also in charge of the hajj. So in that Hajj
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of year 8, the Muslims had a leader which was this manbid and the idolatist also did Hajj that year.
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So Muslims and idolatists did Hajj together in year 8. And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam didn't leave Mecca until he appointed a market inspector by a man of by the name of Al
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which was an entire role. It was a philosophy of the market and trade. Medina had it. Mecca didn't
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have it. He didn't leave till he made it in Mecca. That's what I said. Medina is a scalable movement
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at its core is a set of institutions and roles and wherever people came amongst them leadership
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was being created. That's why leadership is at the core actually of this vision. The prophet
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sallallahu alaihi wasallam didn't leave to Medina. Yeah. Till he appointed a muadin and the madin
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story if I can share a little bit of stories. I want to have a bit more stories today. You see just to flesh out the how as opposed to just the the what. Yeah. Uh there was uh after the conquest
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of Mecca after the battle of Hanain actually uh that the Muslims stopped in a place and Bilal
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was giving the adan may Allah be pleased with him and some teenagers were making fun of the adan as teenagers do make fun of stuff and so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam called for the
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teenagers to come and then he said who was the one with the louder voice and so was this guy. So he
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thought he's going to get it. And then the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam he he prayed for him
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uh touched his I think his head or his chest. He prayed for him and said actually this is how you
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this is how you how you do the adan. Yeah. And one of the most strongest hadiths of how to give the adan is the adan of this young teenager. They say he was about 16 years old at the time. His name is
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known as Abu Mahur. And then he youngster was very touched by that care by that love by that deep
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training. He accepted Islam. He accept this was the prophet of God sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And the prophet didn't leave him with just oh here's a nice I'm off now. He gave him a job. The job
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was you're the mad of Mecca. Wow. And so look at these roles. It's not it's it's it's a trajectory
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for that entire community cuz other jobs are going to be created now cuz you've hired the main roles
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and the model is already in Medina. Abu Mahd this teenager he stayed the muad of Mecca for all of
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his life and they say the adan of Makkah stayed in his life all through to the um through his
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children sorry until the time of so even 200 years after HR the children and the descendants of Mahad
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had the honor of giving the adan in Mecca so it's just an illustration that you're correct to build
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Medina is about institutions so I I believe the Sharia yes The rules of prayer, zakat,
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etc. are the systems that we have to build and I sometimes call them institutions that we have to build. There's a how which some of these stories we can discuss are the people we have to develop.
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Also in the how is a culture we have to develop and then there's roles. Medina only works because
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there are people who take on responsibilities. Yeah. And that brings together what happened in
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the geographical Medina and all the other, if I can use the word Medina in quotation marks, all the other Medinas that were established in the life of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So
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going back to your original question, it is roles, it is responsibilities, there is an appointment.
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In the appointment it was coming from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and then they were appointing like I said if Assad ifab's in charge of Mecca there's lots of roles he will
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have to now start recruiting for to bring about the this Medina and model if you like in Mecca
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and your question is fair what do we do if there is no authority from the top all I'll say for now
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is it's politics bottom up it sounds harder because of course if you have an amir and the
Legitimacy - ‘bottom up’ politics’
23:08
amir says this is how it's going to be done then you you obey him and you you do it right whereas
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if you're trying to build something bottom up like what's the legitimacy that you can give to
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I don't know someone in London who says okay now I'm I'm your we know London very well you'll have
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a hundred amirs by noon so how how does one get over that legitimacy gap so that's now the whole
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journey of politics bottom up uh I think there's a few things uh at play here first of all let's
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go back to a political theory in our sacred law and before that let's go back to another theory of residence which I'm sure we we discussed last time which was should Muslims be living outside
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of a Muslim political entity some scholars said no you can't on the premise of what we've said today
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that the sacred law is social it's communal if and as much as I use word political but
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the way I use political is just a community with coordinated leadership structures is a political
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entity cuz you can make coordinated movement from it. So in as much as the Sharia is social,
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communal, political, leadership structures to live as community uh then you're going
24:21
over there. There is no structure on top. So how are you going to live as a Muslim? You have to leave. Many Maliki scholars said that. And on the other side of the spectrum,
24:31
uh you have scholars for example on the Sha and Hanafi schools who said the quite opposite. Some
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of the shafi scholars said you are not allowed to leave because you are now in a space where you are
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safe you're able to practice your faith and how can you abandon that rather the people who are
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there in that land will benefit from you and I'd like to end on why cuz when we discuss power and
24:55
community and it looks very internal looking it looks very power hungry and it's not clear what
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is this all for and I want to come at the end of Why I believe this is good for Britain, good for
25:09
America, good for the world and I'll come back to that and that's what scholari said that they will
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benefit from you on what grounds are you leaving and our scholars and I think this statement it
25:19
comes from studying all of the sacred law they say if you are in such a place then you can't be a Muslim community living out of sacred law and if you want to live in sacred law it has to
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be in structured community so they say you have to now coordinate ordinate amongst yourselves appoint
25:36
your Friday im coordinate appoint your coordinate appoint your leadership now where's this theory
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coming from it's coming from the fact which I'm sure western theorists would share as well I've just not studied in western political theory the fact that ultimate power rests in people always
25:54
there's no actual possible notion of absolute power because the truth of the matter is when
26:01
a public stop following Zit for stops following a leader, that leader has no power. And he can have
26:08
the biggest dictatorship and the biggest army and the biggest whatever. You can't just run off and
26:13
say people will always follow me. So power is always negotiated and authority is awarded from
26:20
by people. If you look at the prayer which I think is the the greatest space of Islamic education and
26:28
communal living and the spirit of the law because that's where we learn that oh we have to move as
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one behind a leadership try your best to appoint the best leader cuz then more people will come
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but whoever you get you must move with them it's the essential education of living in community is
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is in prayer now who made that person the imam you'll say the government makes a pride imam,
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you will say the mosque board makes him the imam. But if the entire community stops praying behind
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that person, by definition, that person is not an imam. An imam has a community. So when we pray
27:05
behind someone, we are awarding them the authority to lead us. And the sacred law is just teaching us
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that a we have that power and b we have to use it. We have to create structures in which we can
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place our authority so that we can move together with them. So I just want to say in our Sharia
27:25
political the I'm sure is is a much larger one. Power is actually with the people. Yeah. And if
27:31
you have a community and there's no Muslim amir, power is in the community. But this is where it
27:37
gets tricky. They have to be taught. They have to be informed. And this is what I call the culture change that you have a power and your duty, your calling, your sunnah, your religion, your success,
27:51
your thriving, your spirituality is in creating structures and placing your power in them,
27:58
allowing them to lead you. That's hard work. Uh and the way it works is when we call politics
28:05
bottom up. I believe that our leaders in our community are going to be the ones who have the
28:13
ability to form the large coalitions to overcome differences to create alliances. I'll speak later
28:22
about the importance of alliances within wider society because I want to speak later about why
28:28
this vision is a vision for the countries in which we live. But if I just look internally facing that's the challenge of leadership and all of the sunnah of is actually about this point. If
28:39
you look at how much the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam stressed ethics in trade not to overtake
28:45
somebody else in their trade not to speak ill about people behind their back. The fact that one of the best charities you could do in your life is to make up between two people who have
28:54
fallen out. Even if it involves telling a white lie like I heard he regretted it. I heard you do
28:59
this one. You guys get back together again. The entire sunnah, if you really study it,
29:05
it is this culture, a culture of we are together and a culture around leadership, which I'd like
29:11
to speak a little bit more about in a little bit. But just to get to the core of it, it's us create
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and we've already started this journey. So let's look at mosques. Uh we might not like the mosque
29:24
committee. We might consider them racist. We might consider them backwards. We might consider them close-minded. But if we pray in those mosques, we have placed some of our authority in them. We've
29:35
said we are going to validate your work and we're going to pray here. We have disagreements, we'll
29:40
make it work. We pray Friday prayers together. So can you see not through any political power, we've
29:47
got great structures that we've created. If you just think about what mosques have facilitated, Friday prayers happen at 1. uh you get the prayer timetables announced there. There's
29:58
no fighting who's the Imam. There's no it's very rare there'll be some fist fight in a car park
30:04
over something that was said. Very rare. The only thing is does the vision stop there? What comes
30:12
next? Yeah. But that's in short is what I call the hard work, the laborious work and the necessary
30:21
work that our sacred tradition is calling us to. And it is politics bottom up, creating alliances,
30:28
educating people about community, educating institution builders that a you're not alone.
30:35
There's a community that will support you, but b you are not an end unto yourself. Your
30:40
mosque is not the be all and end all of what your community needs. You have to learn to collaborate,
30:48
build and create structures bigger than yours. Just like again the model of the um the model
30:54
of the organization. If I'm in a finance team and all the other teams are failing, I have no right
31:00
to celebrate and dance about it. I've got to find ways cuz the win is a collective win. That's the
31:06
hard work. That's what I think we have to do. I mean what you described there does require a pretty pretty profound cultural shift. I mean it requires an active citizenry for example. I would
Cultural shift
31:17
argue that we we only accept the mosque structures sometimes because we have to pray and we have to
31:24
pray Juma and so we go to the mosque sometimes begrudgingly because we can see that some of the mosque committees are not really serving a greater role in the welfare of the Muslim communities.
31:35
um it's going to require sort of a culture of of obedience in a way because once you have a leader
31:40
good or bad you have to somewhat obey them. You have to obey them in order for your community to
31:45
work in a singular direction. So that culture requires a lot of self-restraint but it also
31:53
requires us I mean sometimes we have too many leaders too many people who come forward you you remember during the time of elections you know we had 10 candidates that put themselves forward
32:03
uh for for for election. So um it it requires a pretty profound cultural shift for our community
32:11
to work in unison and to work for the betterment of the community before we even get to aims and objectives greater aims and objectives like how how do you imagine that cultural shift can be can
32:22
be realized. So I want two things I want to share with you. One is just I think three points that I felt were at the heart of the culture that the prophet was creating sallallahu alaihi wasallam as
32:32
he went through this task was building me because again there's no there's no absolute leadership in the world where you just click your finger and the world moves. Yeah. And so he was new in
32:40
this town. He had different tribes and different faiths and so it was a cultural project there as
32:46
well where people's whole notions of solidarity were being transformed. Yeah. Through their time
32:51
with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So cultural change is a sunnah. Is that making sense?
32:56
It's not just we have to do it to catch up. It is the sunnah. It's exactly what the prophet was doing sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So want to say just three bullets of what I think is in cultural
33:04
change. Yeah. And I want to talk a little bit about sidest stepping the mosque and thinking of other institutions we can develop which I think will transform this conversation for us
33:13
when we bring it down to our where we are. If I go back to the the prophetic culture,
33:18
there's three two three bullets that really stood out for me and what I'm calling a lead a structured um building it. Uh point number one was to discourage strongly the craving
33:33
of leadership. That's point number one. Yeah. Because when you talk about leadership culture, it's yeah, oh me, I want to be leader. I want to be leader. And so step number one is we
33:42
don't want people who think about being leaders and there's a number of statements like this
33:49
uh one was a hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam uh I can't all of the Arabic now
33:58
wording of that effect I forget the hadith the wordings now but we do not give this command to a people who are avid for it and there's one person called Abd Rahman uh Abd
34:09
Abdman Samur I believe was the name he came up and said to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam appoint me give me give me a position you're giving all these jobs
34:16
everywhere give me a job and the prophet said to him sallallahu alaihi wasallam
34:24
do not ask for leadership because if it's given to you after you're sort of avidly asking for it
34:31
Allah will leave you to it but if it comes to you not through your avidly seeking it Allah will aid
34:39
you in it. So it's so interesting. I'm going to put two points side by side. Bullet one is
34:45
a culture where we are not craving leadership. Bullet number two is a culture where we do not
34:52
move without leadership. When you bring them together, you get a community that understands
34:58
how to follow. Because what is bullet number two? Throughout the sunnah was a notion of leadership.
35:03
So for example is a hadith that says if three people are traveling together they should appoint
35:09
a leader. Why? What it goes back to the question what is the point of leadership? It is not lording
35:14
over people. It's not being superior over people. Actually goes back to this one point which is this
35:20
is a vision of communal movement, communal impact, communal effectiveness, communal solidarity.
35:29
Without leadership, we will not have a mechanism to reach a decision. That's for
35:35
me at for me that's at the core of leadership. The moment we have three best best best friends,
35:41
but one when they're lost in the desert, one says let's go right and one says let's go left and one says let's go forward. Uh you're going to create a strain on on a group.
35:50
Yeah. How do you avoid that strain? Before you get to the crossroad, you just decide.
35:55
There's a bullet number three about to come up, but you just decide when all else fails, you're the leader. And we when when you appoint a leader, it means that before I appointed you,
36:04
I had some authority. I'm investing it in you for our better good. That's the idea. We all
36:10
have power. Leadership is about investing it in someone for the greater good. And so in that case,
36:16
everyone is leading. Does that make everyone is is helping move forward? Now
36:22
uh bullet number three of the prophetic culture around leadership. One is we do not want a culture
36:30
of craving positions. Number two, we want a culture that we move with leadership so that
36:36
we anticipate difficult decisions before they come and we've already put into place what in
36:41
today's parliament is governance of how to overcome the decision and move as one.
36:48
Point number three, yeah, is a culture for the leaders which is deep consultation. A culture of
36:57
deep consultation and this is something that the Quran recommends uh encourages a great deal. Yeah.
37:06
Uh one of the traits of the praised people in surah a surah is called consultation.
37:12
And because of this word that these great good people Yeah. They consult, they don't dictate,
37:19
they don't force, they give everyone's leadership its respect. Uh and it was
37:25
an instruction also in the Quran in Ali where the prophet was told sallallahu alaihi wasallam
37:34
all of these are cultures and leadership. The prophet himself was told sallallahu alaihi wasallam consult to them in the weighty matter. Don't just say I'm Allah sent to
37:44
me. I'm inspired. Do what I say. Rather, it was come many. What do you think? What do
37:51
you think? What do you think? Uh, and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam like all of the Quran,
37:56
he modeled it. He modeled the entire Quran. He modeled consultation. It is frankly astonishing
38:04
how many times in the SA at important junctures, everyone just got around and they talked and he
38:11
stopped and said, "What do you think?" And what do you think? And he taught sallallahu alaihi wasallam for all leaders after him that he would actually move with the consultation.
38:20
And there's a very important lesson I he gave people real importance and real leadership in
38:25
that. So for example at the battle of the Quraysh had sent out an army up and so it
38:31
was after Jumar they sat and he asked for consultation about where to fight them, where to meet them. an army is coming. And they say that in that meeting there were some older
38:42
Muslims who kind of stayed quiet out of respect for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam so he
38:48
could judge. And there were some younger people in the group who are a bit more passionate. The
38:54
passionate voices said why should we wait for them to attack Medina and be like cowardly? Let's go
39:01
out. Let's form lines and fight like men. A real army. We are a real army. The prophet sallallahu
39:07
alaihi wasallam in that consultation he actually wanted to fight in Medina a more like street to
39:13
street battle where they'd have a a better sort of advantage within the terrain because the army
39:19
was coming like guerrilla warfare. Correct. Yeah. But and he also saw a dream that sort of implied this. But when all the voices in the room were about going out, he said, "Okay, we're going to go
39:31
out." Right? He went into the house to put on his armor. while he was in the older companions were
39:37
telling off the youngsters what have you done and he didn't want this and why you open your mouth and so when the prophet came out sallallahu alaihi wasallam the younger the everyone else
39:45
said it's okay we've changed our mind we'll do whatever you want and he said no it's it's been done now and that's also modeling the Quranic verse which was consult them in the command
39:58
when you've made your resolve then rely on Allah so he said it's been done and they went out sorry to make this into a story but I just wanted a more of some cuz stories convey culture and I
40:08
think that's an important part of our conversation today. So if you look at these three bullets and if you think of culture formation was the Medina project not just a a a side effect of it. These
40:19
are things we have to talk about today that we need to have a narrative of leadership cuz
40:25
the entire sacred law revolves around it. We need a narrative of not creating leadership.
40:30
When you bring those two together there's a tension. Yeah. And in that tension, we create the culture of following. We have to move as one. We shouldn't all be craving it. Let's just get
40:40
someone. Let's just move. When you don't have the two poles in tension, you don't create the culture of following. And then the consultation is very important cuz it's when you really give the sense
40:50
that it's a leadership which is communally based. And that was the difference of what you said,
40:56
Islam versus other cultures. And I want to come back again later to the sheer unique character
41:03
of communal power throughout our sacred law. So coming back to today, we can talk at length about
41:09
how to create a mosque culture transformation. I've given some bullets and we can talk more and there's others more qualified than me who do mosque culture, you know, real really in in the
41:19
in the weeds. If I sidestep to the space I'm in, which is the other, I think fundamental sacred law
41:26
institution, which is zakat. Yeah, if you look at zakat, zakat, and if I can now make zakat a
41:33
past and present comparison in the spirit of of a conversation today, in the past, zakat was part of
41:40
the most essential pillars of the scalable movement. If if a community came to Islam,
41:46
they were given a governor, a judge, a zakat collector. They might have been the same person,
41:53
they might have been different people. And then the zakat. So this was I cannot describe enough
41:58
how it is the most one of the most central pillars of this movement because what does
42:04
it create? You come into a land and normally again the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is
42:09
creating leaders amongst communities. It wasn't imagine sorry conquest of Makkah. He didn't say I've got all these companions from Makkah I'm putting my people in charge. He didn't do that.
42:18
He created leaders and he went back. So uh and occasionally he sent people like Mad Bul was sent
42:26
uh to Aljun in Yemen to be a zakat collector and judge. In the zakat collection in the time of the
42:33
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam there was an incredible proliferation of roles like really
42:41
incredible. Uh medians didn't used to read and write and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
42:46
brought in a sort of revolution in in in literacy. Yeah. where he got people to teach others how to
42:53
write and there was a whole explosion of writing that happened and he brought writing into the
42:58
Sharia sacred law jobs. So zakad had lots of writing in it. You had scribes uh whose job it
43:06
was to measure land and separate that's his land that's that person's land so that zakat collection
43:12
could happen. You had scribes like who's got many famous things in the in the but he was one of his
43:18
jobs in zakat what's what's known as which means to go into people's farms and to estimate and they
43:26
were very well trained they often had almost no error I don't know how they used to do this you'd estimate the volume of dates from the tree to then say you owe this volume of dates and then it would
43:37
get paid all of this is a part of a written culture you had receipts of zakat So that if
43:43
another collector came, you could show the receipt that you've paid your zakat. You had guardians and
43:48
custodians of zakat. Because if zakat was paid in animals, they'd go into a farmland and there'd be
43:53
shepherds who look after them. All zakat would go to a central treasury. You had people to guard it.
43:59
And so zakat when zakat goes to a community. And that's why from the time of the earliest
44:05
community, and that's I'll come back to the idea of a city mode, it was meant to be circulated within cities. It's a system because it's meant to have leaders within a city. The leaders are meant
44:16
to have helpers and aids and people with various roles and scribes and receipts and so on. And they
44:23
store it and they circulate it. So when zakat goes to a new community, it transforms the structure of
44:31
that community because you have to have trust and leadership and systems and representation. Uh and
44:40
that's uh that's what gave um authority to these governors. Cuz if you think of zakat as taxation,
44:47
what is taxation? It's a duty you pay to belong to be cared for and to have representation.
44:59
When we now come into today's world in the politics bottom up, I believe it's our duty if
45:08
we are going to practice the prophetic practice of zakat that we have to start building structures,
45:15
leadership structures where we live and it's very natural because if you say let's if you start
45:21
from a blank canvas and we want to circulate uh London's a very big city let's go to Uh,
45:30
I'm going to insult other cities now. I was going to say Birmingham, but that's a pretty big city as well. But anyway, let's go to Edinburgh, but now they'll be angry. The Scots will be angry as well.
45:40
Now, but if you just say we're going to circulate Edinburgh the cart in Edinburgh on a black canvas,
45:46
a lot of jobs are going to come out. Who's in charge? Who do we entrust with our money? How do
45:51
we know that the money is being spent? Uh what's the governance structure of that? How is it going to be stored? Then it's how do we know who the Muslims of Edinburgh are? You almost start doing
46:00
a census. And you know censuses started in the prophet's life sallallahu alaihi wasallam. He sent the companion out to make a a record of the of the fighting community of of Medina. They came back
46:10
with about 1,500 names. Lots of amazing things started in those 10 years. So in Edinburgh, you'll
46:16
do your census. If a new migrant community comes, a new asylum seekers come, they have to plug into
46:22
a system, right? And then so you naturally create leadership, you create a lot of roles, you create
46:29
trust and I believe this system of trust will transform what's happening in our mosques. Why?
46:37
So at National Zakat Foundation, we've started distributing with mosques, individual mosque.
46:42
The idea was making this as a part of bringing communities together, zakat and community. But
46:49
now we're discussing what's the next step. And for us, the next step is forming bodies that can
46:56
represent all the Muslim communities of that area, including the mosques that are working with us,
47:02
including other experts. And so you're creating now a communal leadership around welfare. And
47:09
then what we're trying to do is helping this communal body partner with work with all other
47:16
actors who are dealing with welfare. So just to create local zakat, I think we can create
47:23
a formidable leadership structure around welfare and I think that will transform the conversation
47:30
on how mosques can create leadership. Zakat and salat have been since the earliest community two
47:37
sides of a coin. Right? The Quran mentions them about 28 times side by side. S Abu Bakr said
47:47
by Allah I'll fight anyone who separates them. So the reason why in many ways I came
47:53
into the zakat scene is because I think it will be the most I feel transformative
48:00
contribution to changing this culture of our our vision for our communities.
How to appoint leaders
48:07
Um when we talk about culture, I mean Jazak was really well explained. When we talk about culture, what about the idea of merit and and appointing leaders uh who have expertise, who have knowledge,
48:19
who have wisdom um more often than not within our communities in the west, those who occupy
48:25
positions often or sometimes are not uh they don't hold those positions because of merit, but there
48:32
are other factors at play. you know, maybe they're the they are elders from the strongest clan. Maybe
48:38
they have deep connections with the local politics and and that in a way corrupts, you know, the
48:44
the nature of that leadership like how important going back to the Medina model, how important was
48:50
uh this meritocracy, if if that is what we call Medina uh in in in uh in imbuing this type of
48:58
culture. So there's a couple of pieces here and we can go back to the most important school in
49:05
Medina which is the mosque and I said prayer is the greatest school in what this new citizenry and
49:12
culture is which is coming together moving as one which is an incredible ritual if you think about
49:18
it. We often have this very bad understanding of that where we're disorganized. We we we do this,
49:23
we do that. But if you just think about honestly how prayer works, it's a remarkable thing that we've that we have. We move as one, we have a leader. How do you appoint the leader of
49:33
the prayer? So our scholars say, you know, you should appoint the most learned, the most this,
49:39
the most that. They even come down to things like uh best in character, then come down to best looking. It's quite funny. Why do they do all of that? I mean, what does best looking mean? Sorry.
49:48
All it means is if everything else is the same. Yeah. Uh but this one's got better style. Let's
49:54
get the the stylish one in. You'll always win then. No, I'm sorry, but I'll tell you afterwards. I've got a funny comment why you will definitely 100% win. But uh I'll tell you afterwards why all
50:05
of this? It was the idea that if you have the best leader, it facilitates following. It goes back to
50:12
the idea that the whole leadership theory is not one of I click my fingers and you're with me.
50:17
It's really taking even the Medina top down is negotiating relationships all the time, right?
50:24
And so the fick of prayer captures that. But if the leader is not the most this or the most that
50:32
or the other, if you want group prayer, you'll still pray with them. That's the idea. Yeah. uh
50:38
and the Sahaba were severely tested in this after the early caliphate of the rightly guided califfs.
50:45
those who lived long amongst the companions as the prophet declared in the famous hadith he said
50:54
those who will live long amongst you you're going to see many differences and there was some very
51:00
challenging challenging things the prophet the companion saw at the end uh Friday prayers behind
51:05
als tough tough tough tough things but they had to negotiate that in that negotiation They found ways
51:15
to not undermine Friday prayer, to not undermine the structures of community and ways to challenge
51:22
those structures to be better. And so all I'll say is it is not meritocracy intrinsically because if
51:29
you say that you've created an ideal you might not catch but what it is it's a system for communal
51:37
leadership uh under this sacred law. within that we do our best to get the best people.
51:45
We then do our best to hold our leadership to account while not undermining the sacred
51:50
law. Cuz you could say things like abandon zakat until they resign. Abandon Jum until they resign.
51:58
Abandon abandon Hajj until something. Abandon abandon abandon. Yeah, if you do that, I think
52:06
the question we have to think about is is that better for what we're trying to create together
52:11
or not. And so healthy protest is a part of this culture and it's that overarching duty called
52:22
which is embedded into again I'm stressing everyone has a power in this. Everyone has
52:29
it embedded in them. The old woman can challenge Omar in the mosque because they have it. It's part
52:34
of the education. All of us, it's like it's like family. I might not be the dad of the family. I
52:41
might be the son and I might be the youngest son. But if things are going arai, I still have a job to bring family together. And so in this larger community, part of the education and
52:51
culture is it's a shared project. It's ours. If we don't care for it, who's going to care for it?
52:58
And so we have to find the right ways to bring it together. And in that normally we divide. There
53:05
will be the podcasts that criticize. There'll be the podcast that blame. There'll be the thinking
53:10
podcast in the middle that kind of So what I'm trying to say is what we already have is is what
53:16
happens. But we have to understand at the core of all of that critique uh criticism mobilizing
53:23
uh protest at its core we are committed to the success of this project that's what we have to
53:30
again intentions things stay safe I I think that's important so you know there there is a
Women in society
53:35
there is a there is a a higher order concept here which is that we want our communities to flourish
53:42
and want it to work okay but you know just on this cultural topic uh as well. Okay, fine. I get the
53:48
point about meritocracies and intentionally you know seeking a utopia or an ideal which we may not
53:54
reach but at the same time we are seeking the best people to do the jobs uh and and we recognize that
54:03
that's not always going to be met. uh a lot of sisters in our community would argue that they are
54:09
you know marginalized and when it comes to mosque committees when it comes to even like the most
54:14
basic community groups uh there is no voice for for for sisters I mean again how do does one deal
54:21
with that reflecting on the the Medina society uh idea is there a role for for some comm community
54:30
some people more than others you like are men going to be inevitably because they have a more
54:35
conspicuous public role maybe are there going to be uh far more numerous in these institutions and
54:43
and these community groups. Yeah, that that that's really fascinating. So first of all, if you go back to this early community and in all communities, the more what can I say, the less
54:56
technology in a community, the more patriarchal just because of the difficulties of life,
55:01
right? and the challenges of life and the need for defense and there's just there's just a a a matter that that takes place and in these early societies you'll find surprisingly there were some quite
55:13
prominent roles uh uh and even in the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam two different
55:18
ladies were in charge of the market which is a very big job right imagine a woman going around
55:24
saying hey you man with your cup you're cheating get out of here it's a it's like a violent role I
55:31
in the sense that it's power, it's policing, uh depending on the what the roles were,
55:38
it can involve small hitting of people in this uh different kind of culture. Hey,
55:43
what are you doing? Fix this. And women had that right at this early uh community. It was quite fascinating. Doesn't sound like a woman's job if you have a gender, you know,
55:52
uh stereotype. uh the uh a number of our scholars the Hanafi scholars said woman can be a judge
56:00
which is one of the most fundamental roles in this and the judge used to sit in the mosque as well but so so no I would not say uh there's no there's any sort of intrinsic role that a lady
56:13
cannot have and yes as society has developed its technologies you'll find uh women's the
56:22
mode of participation ation changing what I'd say today a number of things. First of all,
56:29
it's always funny when we talk about Muslims don't have women leaders when I think Muslim countries
56:35
have had more women leaders than countries like the United States which have yet to have one. So
56:41
the stereotype is not correct anyway. Stereotype of our families aren't correct. I think most of us
56:46
in our family life have very vocal female members and moms and grandmoms and so it's just it's not
56:55
lived experience actually that we have a we have a negative stereotype of ourselves that I don't think is lived experience. Yeah. to look in our community. Okay, Muslim MPs, forget the policies
57:07
for a second. How many of them are women? And so I just don't feel it's representative of what we
57:12
are to say that we actually have that we have a sort of negative stereotype about ourselves. But
57:18
now we move on. uh another negative stereotype actually if I can go back to your previous
57:25
question I'll come back to this point again which was just the old god and the mosques and I sidestepped that I went into zakat you see but if you just go to that in my mind the mood
57:35
has shift has shifted already you know cultures and patterns they change every 5 years every 10
57:42
years you get seismic changes actually so our analysis I think is still a little bit in the past actually cuz I do a lot of movement in the country. I talk to a lot of community leaders
57:53
around zakat and zakat projects and I find that people really want to think about how they can
58:00
do more in their communities and they come to a common table whether they are bravi so you'll
58:08
get the preachers preaching a thing but then you get the people who do the work and they want to
58:14
do the work together and you'll be surprised how much people who be classified as old god
58:21
They know that the time has come when people really want more out of their mosques and they
58:26
know the time has come when these calamities which shouldn't have been the thing that move us people
58:32
are really thinking hard. So I'll say I think the community has moved on. Yeah. I think even people
58:38
we call old god are empowering a next layer of leadership. They're listening to them. They're
58:44
advisers or they've empowered them. And this next group, next generation of leaders, they want to
58:50
do more uh podcasts like this internationally. People are really thinking about the sharing of
58:56
ideas. I think women and men are equally very very very active in community projects. They're keen
59:05
to understand how to build this thing together. I just think people are looking for what comes next.
59:11
I think they're looking for leadership. You'll be surprised. I did this uh tour of Canada uh last
59:16
month. I went to Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. I did some public talks and I did some closed
59:24
dinners. The closed dinners were with community leaders, mosque leaders, charity leaders,
59:30
uh um advocacy people and and a few people and I presented this vision to them and I said,
59:37
"Do you guys feel we should be working towards a city leadership structure i.e.
59:43
some sort of Muslim leadership of Montreal and all the Muslim projects in Montreal. And it was really
59:49
fascinating that at the end of this discussion, a couple of things came out. People wanted to know
59:55
what should we do next? Yeah. People regular say I run this mosque. What what can I do next? People just need to hear the narrative. That's where culture is actually everything. No one's hearing
1:00:06
the narrative. No one's hearing what comes next. No one is hearing why is the next step
1:00:11
so important and they so I feel even the old god they want people giving them the step where is the
1:00:19
leadership now a communal leadership a faithbased leadership a leadership with a narrative coming
1:00:26
right out of what we believe not out of a panicful reaction to something uh and the last thing I'll
1:00:33
say I'll hand back to you this idea now which I'm saying explicitly for the first time cuz my
1:00:40
reading of Islamic sacred law implies what I call a city-based vision that within a space which is
1:00:47
real and palpable with streets you might walk in there is a set of institutions like mosques
1:00:55
uh and other spaces. Uh when I use the mosque historically the mosque seeded other institutions,
1:01:02
mosques seeded universities because they education started in the mosque. Mosques seeded courouses.
1:01:08
Justice used to be in the mosque. Mosque seeded even I think Sufi lodges otherwise people would
1:01:14
gather and eat meals within the mosque is my uh is my sense. And so when we think about mosque
1:01:19
think of public physical institutions. uh in Istanbul you will see all types of madrasers
1:01:25
and khas that's where Islamic civilization went to. So the vision is in a city or town where you
1:01:33
actually live you can come across a whole host of physical spaces. Some for men, some for women,
1:01:41
uh some as mosques, some for education, but the point is they are present and they have
1:01:46
a leadership and they are connected to a broader leadership and you have welfare structures. Zakat
1:01:53
is the most important because it creates the greatest leadership structures. But zakat seeded
1:01:59
a welfare culture again a place like Istanbul full of public institutions. I think zakat seeded them
1:02:07
public uh public schooling. There was no idea of tax and statebased education. It was welfare
1:02:13
based. So zakat seeded a new imagination of a welfare society run by the community.
1:02:20
And so we're thinking about a town or a vision with spaces, a whole host of different types,
1:02:27
with welfare projects, a whole host of different types. With a business community thriving,
1:02:34
with no barriers to entry, that was the prophetic market. No barriers to entry, no taxes, just come
1:02:41
and trade. Very friendly to small businesses, very friendly for you to come and join a culture
1:02:46
of businesses. uh you had a place where family life was sacred. You had the justice the pillar of
1:02:54
uh justice and arbitration but at the top you had governance. So when we talk about building Medina
1:03:02
with a set of really interesting institutions at the skeleton of our community, yes,
1:03:08
it's held together by leadership structure at the top which coordinates, overseas, and represents
1:03:16
interests and that allows all of this to be a base for a much larger piece of representation. I mean,
City base governance?
1:03:24
you're not calling for a nationbased model of governance. you're basically calling for
1:03:29
a city-based uh form of governance. So you'd have in each and every major place where Muslims live,
1:03:36
Paris or London or New York, uh there would be a a a council that orchestrates these institutions
1:03:45
that are emulating the prophetic Medina model. Is that is that right? I'm saying if you reflect on
1:03:51
the sacred law Yeah. and reflect on the prophetic experience. Yes. I'm saying yes. Okay. Now,
1:03:59
one point I'll give back to you. Yeah. When you say that to people, people have different
1:04:05
reactions. Between impossible, unrealistic, yes. Problematic. Three things. Impossible. We can't
1:04:14
unite over anything. Unrealistic, similar. I guess unrealistic is just another version of impossible.
1:04:20
Yeah. Uh the other one is problematic because it seems anti-diverse. It seems one head which could
1:04:29
be controlled, corrupted, uh you know, you kind of lost the the power you get from diversity. But
1:04:36
one thing I found again I I give the example of my recent tour in Canada was when I was in Montreal,
1:04:42
they said this. I said, "So what do you guys think about this a leader a leadership structure for Muslims of Montreal?" I call it leadership structure cuz even that's culturally you can
1:04:51
swallow that. I say leader of Montreal like what backwards thing is this? Yes. So you kind
1:04:57
of coach it leadership structure or council and then someone said that's that exactly this not
1:05:02
practical problematic but then what it did was it shifted the conversation that's the advantage
1:05:09
of direction. It doesn't look practical now, but suddenly it shifted the conversation around the
1:05:16
mosques that we can't do that yet, but maybe the mosques and collaborate and we can build
1:05:22
a better structure together. Right in that room, there was some welfare projects. A few different
1:05:28
uh people were involved in they said, "Oh, we can actually coordinate and build a better network
1:05:33
together." That's the advantage of setting direction conversations like the caliphate. I
1:05:39
think you mentioned that a little bit earlier. The caliphate has been in the imagination,
1:05:44
the political imagination from the beginning of our community, but a strong centralized single
1:05:50
uh leadership of all. Probably it's demonstrable in the first 100 years and then you get negotiated
1:05:56
power. It's not the same anymore. But as something to set direction for a political imagination,
1:06:03
it drives decisions all the way down to the grassroots. And so just to make it clear,
1:06:08
I believe that is what the sacred law calls to. I believe it transforms what
1:06:15
we can do as a community internally and what we can offer the countries in which we live.
1:06:21
I believe it is the prophetic model which was not a central Medina governing in the details
1:06:28
of others but a scalable movement building up leadership and structures for communities to
1:06:34
govern and find life together. I think towns and cities are the regions in which we live and part
1:06:41
of being a Muslim is to feel responsible really responsible for the places where we are. So that
1:06:46
um is not abstraction it's real responsibility. So I think everything points to this one point
1:06:53
but that's where people have to deal with this question impossible uh uh problematic or is it
1:07:00
actually a direction which now can loosen our hand of what we're holding and set a new culture. So
Denunciation of modernity
1:07:07
Dr. say how so far we've uh understood this Medina model as a scalable model as a way by
1:07:14
which Muslims can find flourishing through uh these coherent communities. Um how much of what
1:07:22
you're saying uh today is a like a denunciation of modernity of maybe capitalism even the idea that
1:07:32
um capitalism pushes us into these dislocated societies. is I think it's what Durkheim calls
1:07:38
enemy. You know, the idea that we're we're we're so disconnected from those social orders that kept
1:07:46
human societies together for centuries. We have a Muslim and non-Muslim societies. In fact, we're
1:07:52
now living these individualistic uh lives. I mean, I suppose there's two parts of this question. Is
1:07:58
there a an explicit critique of modernity here? But also, do you fear that if the Muslims in the
1:08:06
West do not think like this, then somehow we're going to falter in our in our basics of Islam
1:08:13
because we're stripping away communal living from our practice of the sacred law. Yeah, thank you
1:08:20
very much. There's quite a lot uh in that. First of all, yes, this is a critique and an alternative
1:08:28
to the modern state and to modern living and to modernity. And it's because of this that
1:08:35
again while halak has claimed an Islamic Sharia governance in a modern state is impossible. He's
1:08:42
not giving a fick ruling. He's not saying haram halal. Yeah. All he's saying is if you do it, it
1:08:48
won't be what it was originally conceived to be. It'll be some sort of hybrid. And I want to give
1:08:55
some credence to that because that's the I think the response to your comment. I gave a lecture
1:09:00
to the Cambridge Law Society, Islamic Society Law Society about I don't know uh 8 9 10 months
1:09:08
ago and when doing this contrast between Islamic sacred law and modern law at its heart I felt was
1:09:16
that there was this thing called community that Islamic law gave a lot of weight to like lots of
1:09:24
weight in authority right a Islamic law discourse force actually limits the power of government to
1:09:34
overly control people and it part of how it does that is it invests a lot of power in this middle
1:09:41
layer called community right I'm not an expert in modern politician science so I'm speaking just in in general terms but the the modern nation state and modern structures in general they have
1:09:52
this narrative of allencompassing control of the citizenry Yeah. And in order to arrive at that,
1:10:00
they've set into motion systems and cultures and institutions to break up all other forms
1:10:09
of solidarity. Authority is all with the state and its bureaucracy and its wings. Authority is not in
1:10:17
the citizenry. Authority is not in communal structures. Let me do a contrast so I can
1:10:23
illustrate what I'm saying. Very simple contrast. First of all, let's look at family life. The
1:10:28
modern welfare state, which I feel is on its one-way downfall now, and I want to come to that
1:10:34
as well before we sign off. The modern welfare state is founded on a kind of on a premise. On the
1:10:41
surface, it's good. We're here for you. Pay us the taxes. We'll look after you. Yeah. But implicit in
1:10:47
that is you don't need to ask your family. We have all of it. Mhm. And so what you see this notion of
1:10:55
the state is actually your family not your blood family along with other institutions we could
1:11:01
talk about like the financial system which also actually corres um increases this idea financial system. Why does increase the idea uh you are born and you must the the ideal citizen lives
1:11:12
a life under debt and your basic living requires both parents to be earning. It leads to atomized
1:11:21
life and small family. So the economic system is breaking down small family atomized life and the
1:11:27
relationship of state and individual is saying don't worry about family you got the individual
1:11:32
life. Jonathan Saxs the previous chief rabbi he had a book in the 80s I found he had a very small chapter in it about family and he was making some reflections how the old testament is all about a
1:11:42
family but he made a remark where he said family is the basic unit of resistance and that's the
1:11:49
truth of it look at this model which almost is engineered over time that family it's not my job
1:11:58
to look after you and you're my sibling then even more so it's not my job to look after that person.
1:12:03
It's just a homeless person. Doesn't matter. They live in my neighborhood. That's the culture coming out of systems. Look at a sacred law system. If I'm struggling and uh you're my blood brother,
1:12:18
the kadi will say you have to look after me. And so it's a system which enforces family life,
1:12:25
right? It's a system that tells people family is a unit of solidarity. The modern state is
1:12:31
afraid of that because wherever you get strong family ties, states struggle to to exert lots
1:12:38
of control because you have a basic unit says who are you? Sorry, you can't interfere with with you
1:12:44
know this idea of a limit on state control. It's a very basic example you see where a
1:12:49
sacred law encourages family solidarity in its basic systems. So that it's my job as a family
1:12:57
member to look after you. Uh and that's why zakat includes neighborly solidarity. It's my
1:13:04
job to look after this person who is homeless. So it's a completely different culture. It sets out a
1:13:11
layer of protection in family. If you look at other institutions like law,
1:13:17
the madhabs is a community of experts who will determine the sphere of power of the government
1:13:26
and they do not represent the government. That's why all of Islamic history was a negotiation
1:13:32
between people in power and community leaders and these were religious leaders. In that negotiation,
1:13:40
community was protected. And so um we can come up with other examples but oh let me give you one
1:13:47
more very important example and people find this quite odd if they haven't come across this before.
1:13:54
The vision of Islamic sacred law is that Sharia is for the community that believes in it. It's
1:14:01
not for others. And so when Muslims were governing other faith communities, there was no idea that
1:14:10
you must uh live as we live and pay as we pay and etc. None of that. Or dress as we dress or eat as
1:14:18
we eat or sell what we sell. It was none of that. The idea of a sacred law society was that every
1:14:26
single faith community was encouraged and expected to live the Sharia that they believed in. That's
1:14:34
why when Islam came to the near east uh you know Christianity like other faith group have so much
1:14:41
infighting at the time of the rise of Islam the biggest thing was does Christ have one nature or two natures? lots of debates. Whichever group was in charge was oppressing the other Christian
1:14:51
groups from practicing what they believe or from being equal. When Islam came in the near east,
1:14:56
it said, "We don't mind what you believe about the nature of Christ. We're not interfering. If
1:15:02
you believe in that church, follow it. Let them govern your marriages, your divorces, your ethics, your whatever you need, and you go to that church and you go to that temple." So,
1:15:10
how is this possible? A modern nation state in its current formulation is incapable of this level of
1:15:19
plurality. Yeah. Uh I don't chat with Chachi a lot. I feel over time I don't know I find
1:15:24
it unreliable. But at the time I asked Sachik is there such a thing as a pluralistic theocracy cuz
1:15:32
theocracy normally means you know I represent God. Everyone shut up and you listen to me. But this is not that. It's coming out of communities. Let every faith community follow what they believe.
1:15:42
And the Islamic governance only offered a thin layer of public law which returned back to the
1:15:48
protection really of life and property. And other than that, everyone follow what you believe. Even
1:15:53
if it's the opposite of what we would do, we want we we we just follow it. It's for you know we will
1:15:58
support you in following what your faith community believes. And so it said yeah said yeah you can
1:16:04
call this pluristic theocracy. So I said give me examples of pluralistic theocracy. And every time I pushed it for an example, they were either uh Islamic history examples or it was modern nation
1:16:16
states built on old Ottoman lands. It didn't give me a single example of a land outside of
1:16:22
an Islamic culture, present or past. And so this is almost a uniquely Islamic feature,
1:16:29
a sacred law that preserves the rights of people to follow what they believe in their
1:16:35
rules and their laws and their customs. A modern state is incapable because a modern because this
1:16:40
system only works because the locus of law is in community. It's not in government. That's why it's
1:16:47
a communal power and whenever you create communal power, you're protecting people from government
1:16:53
cuz there's a there's a system above them that you are creating. So that was just the point that it's it's a different and distinct. Yeah. Uh was there another angle to what you said? Well, just just a
Government and communal lives
1:17:05
follow on from that. Um uh because of course lots of Muslim communities in western states
1:17:11
uh we sort of desire uh government to intervene and to protect us and to pass legislation to to
1:17:18
make for example zaka easier or to make prayer you know easier. Uh and and from what you're saying
1:17:25
uh it's probably better that we don't have that level of intrusion of the government upon upon our
1:17:32
communal lives because inevitably with those even if there are additional protections uh with those
1:17:39
intrusions will come um you know a certain type of polity that wants to interfere in the nature
1:17:45
of these religious practices. I mean where do you stand on that? It's very tricky. Reason why it's tricky is I've laid out an ideal. Yeah. Which is not the way that we are living right now.
1:17:56
Right. Reason why I want us to know the ideal is I believe the way we are living is already collapsing. Right. And I I'd like us to talk about what that looks like and means. Yeah. But in the
1:18:06
moment we are living in these structures. Yeah. In the moment we are paying high very high taxes.
1:18:14
In this moment we are expecting government to give us healthcare and road and schools.
1:18:19
uh we're not yet in a place to say we have an alternative political structure. Let's unplug and we don't want any of this from you. So what I'm trying to say is when you set a direction,
1:18:30
it's about informing our next steps. Currently we are in the modern state, the allervasive
1:18:36
state which can which literally controls how we educate our children. It controls the lifespan of
1:18:43
those children more than we control actually. It controls it has the ability to be aware of what
1:18:51
we're you know discuss there's just a lot we're already in it though and because you're already
1:18:56
in it our strategies have to take that in mind so I will not actually I'm I'm going to sidestep
1:19:02
your question it's not for us to just say we are dissociating right from a setup that's completely
1:19:08
surrounding us and surrounding the world so so Dr. So, um, so far you've talked about building these
1:19:14
cellular, these sort of city town-based cohesive Muslim communities that emulate the the Medina
1:19:21
model, but is there room for more national-based organization in your in your thinking? Uh, and
1:19:28
the answer, yeah, thank thank you for that. This is the thing I actually forgot to say earlier. It is there there's very much a room for that and it's exactly what what comes next because it's not
1:19:39
the vision is not again cities and towns on their own trajectories but it's the idea that that's a
1:19:45
unit and it's a unit we often do not speak about we talk about whether it's caliphates or whether
1:19:51
it's like national strategies and that's where we lose out on what I call the sacred law vision it's
1:19:56
a unit and the way I think of as the metaphor if you make like a building with cards So you kind
1:20:02
of lean two cards together then two then two then you can now you're able to put a base then you can
1:20:08
put two and two then you can do a base and then you've got your little um pyramid. So similarly
1:20:14
as we negotiate and understand how to build our leadership together in localized areas I use the
1:20:20
word city but region locality however you wish to say it then you've got a base upon which to
1:20:28
lay another layer of foundation. So for example, we're trying to national zakat Foundation. We believe there's a great job for a national body to oversee standards, procedures,
1:20:41
systems, training, uh due diligence if you like, and then an advocacy to represent the whole in the
1:20:49
national conversation because there is a national entity that we're dealing with. But then the the
1:20:55
power of that national body is commensurate to the viable local bodies that are feeding into it
1:21:02
with real expertise on on the ground. So I think there's a necessity to think nationally but why
1:21:09
stop at nationally? This is the whole idea. We're in this sort of modern political order
1:21:14
which is already negotiating its next stage. So as a community, we don't need to stop our
1:21:21
aspirations even within the nation. It makes sense as the political unit that we're in. But why can't
1:21:27
we build our pack of cards and then take that learning into Republic of Ireland? It's just,
1:21:33
you see, they're so artificial. Why is it should be Northern Ireland, not Republic of Ireland? Why can't we take a community model we're developing and attach it to uh uh Muslim
1:21:43
communities in Europe or further a further a field which leads to one micro point as well which is uh
1:21:52
I believe Muslims in the west especially they have a most tremendous opportunity and that opportunity
1:22:01
is to really flesh out these systems that we believe in. Yeah. They're part of our sacred past
1:22:09
with an agency and freedom. Muslim communities don't always have uh for a number of reasons.
1:22:16
If I'm trying to coordinate mosques, well, that's the job. I'm trying to do zakat. What am I trying to do by challenging the government? It's just these are intrinsically political statements if
1:22:26
you like. But if we build something where we are, I think we are modeling something for communities
1:22:34
in the world. M and so I just wanted to say that I think this is a global conversation but the
1:22:40
power of the global is when you do build out your very regional structures otherwise it just stays
1:22:46
theory. Yeah. Uh that's uh what I think and and do you see a distinction between uh Muslims in
Muslims in the West
1:22:52
the west as minorities and Muslims in uh Muslim majority countries? Yeah, it's very tricky. Uh
1:23:02
because I believe Muslims in the west, we are we are fully in what I call politics bottom up and we
1:23:10
have the freedom to create institutions on a black canvas. really when you're in a Muslim majority
1:23:17
world like I've just hinted at, you are within Muslim political structures, your job is to sort
1:23:24
of challenge them from within, but it's you're still in a sort of top- down structure. There are
1:23:32
which are ministry of religious affairs. So your job is to see how can you improve it. It might
1:23:38
not be to build your own. You might not have that agency. you you are not a government ministry. So
1:23:44
you're dealing with the top down in the very faith institutions that we've been talking about. In the
1:23:50
west those faith institutions don't exist. So I think the negotiation of power is a little bit
1:23:56
different but the goal is still the same that we as individuals as a citizenry have a duty to feel
1:24:03
responsible for the whole and to work with it. But I think sometimes the direction of travel will be different. But as I keep saying when I go to Canada and I speak to Muslim communities,
1:24:14
I feel even in the west, I feel the various Muslim communities, I feel they're holding different
1:24:19
pieces of the puzzle. Uh we were discussing that earlier before we started. American mosques have
1:24:25
some things our mosques don't have. Uh I found a Canadian advocacy group uh NCCM. I felt when I
1:24:32
taught recently, they have an acceptance in the community and they have a particular ability to engage government. I felt our ones don't have. I feel even in the west we're holding different
1:24:42
pieces of the puzzle which is why we should not just limit our horizons nationally but do share
1:24:47
in global conversations like the ones that you're facilitating and I think in the east as well. So
1:24:53
I just think we're part of this interesting moment of what they call glo I've been emphasizing local
1:25:00
has a structure but it really thrives when you're now connecting it globally. You got the nation,
1:25:08
you got the continent, you got the west, you got the east. I think everyone's got a piece of the puzzle. And that's why again I'll stop and say what I found to be the success of your
1:25:16
podcast cuz I've been trapped. People ask me about our last conversation is just that it really is
1:25:23
driving a global conversation of people thinking the the same things. Uh so I think we all have
1:25:28
something to learn from each other. Exactly. So far we've we've uh you've very eloquently talked
Flourishing communities
1:25:35
about this Medina model and and the idea of Muslim communities in particular in the west flourishing
1:25:41
uh as as units that are cohesive and that uh see the sacred law as as beyond sort of these sort
1:25:47
of very dislocated ideas but actually these connect together and and they uh they lead to
1:25:53
something. Um uh apart from flourishing, apart from having great communities where there is
1:26:00
uh you know where our young people are maintaining identities, their identity as Muslims uh but
1:26:07
also flourishing and and moving forward like is there a greater objective that you have in mind
1:26:14
uh when it comes to uh discussing these medabased model communities? Okay. So there's two parts
1:26:22
here I want to say. One is the inward facing. What does it offer its members? Yeah. And one is I keep
1:26:28
hinting at what's the outward narrative. Yeah. Uh to wider community. When it comes to the inward
1:26:34
members, we have to obviously start from from the very beginning. Why? How does someone join
1:26:40
this community? It's not ethnicity. And that's a mistake that we've made that we've tied too much
1:26:45
to the appearance that uh this is an ethnic group. Islam is an ethnic group. Uh one shake
1:26:55
I spoke to three weeks ago, he said he said if uh if people hate Islam or they have this narrative,
1:27:04
it's never because Muslims pray and they hate Islam or Muslims fast and they hate Islam. He said it's because of these cultural thing that goes on top of it. So I'll come back
1:27:14
to this again if you'd like to. But all I wish to say is let's go back to the absolute basics.
1:27:19
Joining this community is not an ethnic fact. It's not even a cultural fact. It's not a fact
1:27:26
of your class. And it's very important that our narrative is not class-based as well or
1:27:31
middle class or upper class. That's where rules like zakat and prayer, they protect us from that
1:27:37
cuz we can be very comfortable speaking to our own. Yeah. But zakat, prayer and the institutions
1:27:42
make sure we realize no, we are for everyone. It great equalizes. Exactly. Yeah. That's why
1:27:47
the sacred law, there's no strategy that will be better than what we're discussing cuz we always create a strategy in our own image. It's very hard to step out and cast the what I call the widest
1:27:58
possible net of belonging. So things like zakat, they cast the widest possible net of belonging.
1:28:03
What do I mean? You might not uh you uh you might not um come to the mosque. You might never have
1:28:10
been to an Islamic school. You might not really dress as Muslims should be dressed. You might not really do all of your prayers. You might have a lot of really bad habits, but you believe in
1:28:21
Islam. What has Islam got for you? The sacred law casts the widest possible net of belonging. You
1:28:29
might be such a person. You've never had a single good experience with the Muslim community because
1:28:34
your life has been so tough on the streets and broken family and all of that. Zakat is saying you
1:28:42
are still from this community and it's our duty to make sure you have a roof over your head and you have food on your belly. Just come. Yeah. When you create the widest possible net of belonging,
1:28:53
you are preserving souls. That's why this was what I called the prophetic da at the end of the
1:28:59
prophet's life sallallahu alaihi wasallam. It's the civilizational dawa. There is no better way
1:29:05
to preserve souls than to give them access points to a community that will care for them. And so it
1:29:13
is about the souls of individuals. It has to start from there before we go anywhere else.
1:29:18
Souls of individuals are protected in community. The prophet said sallallahu alaihi wasallam
1:29:29
that when a person is by themselves the devil is the interfering party. Yeah. If there are
1:29:35
two people the devil is one step removed. The devil is further away. And that's why the whole
1:29:40
communal vision and we always feel it when you're in a mosque or you're in a you just feel this ease
1:29:48
because faith is ease. Faith is comfort. Faith is light. Faith is going a bit higher than your
1:29:55
day-to-day problems. And when you're with a group of believers, that energy, that thing you can't
1:30:01
put your finger on, it just transfers. And so at its core, at its most basic element, we cannot
1:30:10
save all souls through lectures and schools because again, these get whether we like it or
1:30:15
not, they get stuck in classes or ethnicities or groups. But this vision is a vision for all and we
1:30:23
have to do it. The widest possible net for people to find belonging. As I always say to people,
1:30:29
eman is an Arabic word that really means to enter safety. Ammon says he's a Quranic dictionary. He
1:30:39
says means you found peace. You found safety. And we say yes, it gives you safety in the next life.
1:30:48
And the sacred law says it gives you safety in this life. You were hungry, now you're
1:30:53
not. You were lonely, now you're not. You were alienated, you have a community. You were wronged,
1:31:00
we have an arbitration method, etc., etc. That is faith. Faith is preserved by making life work for
1:31:08
people. It's not a narrative of once you die. It's a narrative of let's make it work. That's
1:31:14
the Sharia. It's a system in this life. So we have to start from there. The end is preserving
1:31:20
and saving souls. You and me, we are Muslims and we're honored by that fact. And it wasn't
1:31:27
because of books we read. It was a transmission through community. And then we read books and
1:31:33
found scholars and we started a journey. Always there's no beat. There's no way to beat community
1:31:39
when it comes to preserving faith. And if you look at the the dawa or the spread of Islam, structured
1:31:46
community is the thing that spreads Islam. If you look at the conversion around Medina,
1:31:53
it's comparison. It's way greater than conversion that happened in the time of Mecca. Cuz people
1:31:59
want to belong. Not again if you break class out not everyone is educated not everyone does this
1:32:05
not everyone does that but they all want to belong to something that that works and nurtures their
1:32:11
their core the power of Islam is it's spiritual it's psychological it's social it's economic it's
1:32:17
structured and we know how to move so that's the starting block and I've hinted at part two
1:32:24
what is part two these are systems that work the sacred law of Islam across our various theological
1:32:31
divides. Really scholars all agreed. It wasn't just given as a test to see if we listen to God,
1:32:39
Allahhaala. It was a code to bring about our own advantages. It protects family life. It protects
1:32:49
trade. It saves us from exploitation. All the disasters of ongoing wars and the disaster of
1:32:56
the environment. It's shocking how much of that is tied to an economic exploitative system. We try
1:33:02
to live innocent lives, but we are under systems only created to control us. This is the truth of
1:33:08
it. I was with my niece uh a few weeks ago, and it was a really odd. We don't normally have the
1:33:14
most deepest of conversations, but she just said all of her friend group, you know, after Gaza and
1:33:20
after genocide and the war on Iran was just going on. And you just realize that these laws that we
1:33:28
are told to abide by. You almost feel like they're just there to control us. And the people who sit
1:33:35
over them will break them willy-nilly. Then you're like wondering, is all of my life real? Is it like
1:33:42
a real thing I'm living or am I just sort of in this control system while others do what they
1:33:49
like and I'm sort of powering their whims? And she said her whole friend group was having these sort
1:33:55
of existential questions like are our lives worth anything? Are these systems worth anything? Like
1:34:01
it's really sad actually if you just when you see these breakages bomb willy-nilly,
1:34:06
kill willy-nilly do and you think well then there is no there is nothing. It's just control. And so
1:34:13
all I'd say is human beings are protected through systems. This sacred law is to protect us. Yeah.
1:34:22
Protect our most basic interests, allow us to live fulfilled lives. Uh how much is there this
1:34:29
whole explosion in depression and anxiety? And these are engineered by a system that takes out
1:34:36
of your soul a connection to what is higher and puts you in a system that really is like I said,
1:34:42
it's very strange control systems is what all I would say. So it's flourishing souls and systems
1:34:49
that work, systems that allow people to actually live fulfilled lives. And there's the last part
1:34:55
I'll say for now, which is the outward-looking part. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
1:35:02
was sent as a mercy to the worlds. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is the prophet who
1:35:10
was sent to England. That's what we believe. He was sent to America. He was sent to New Zealand.
1:35:16
And where is he in those countries? He is in his community. If we don't coordinate as a community,
1:35:26
if we don't represent his mercy and his justice and his wisdom and his teaching, we are letting
1:35:34
him down. You could even go far and say we are betraying him. So that the people of those lands
1:35:42
all they see is bad parking and bad this and bad that and demands then they'll say oh is that what
1:35:48
the prophet brought we don't need him and so we are part of that bad image why is structured
1:35:56
um representing him because in structured um we have solutions for welfare we have solutions for
1:36:08
communities solidarity and I'm going to blend into another question now I kept putting it as a place
1:36:14
mark which was I believe we are at the downfall of the welfare state and what do I mean by that
1:36:22
wherever you go on the planet it's like a unitary conversation life is getting very expensive it's
1:36:28
very hard to get by you can't do what you could do and no one knows where this is going
1:36:37
I do not believe and The people I've spoken to do not believe that we'll ever successfully
1:36:43
wind back that clock. Now, it was an idea about centralized control and various things
1:36:49
that we've been hinting at. This idea is breaking now. So, what does that mean? A
1:36:56
new future is coming. What is the new future? There will be contested narratives about it.
1:37:05
I believe that if we do absolutely nothing and stay as atomized selfserving communities no
1:37:15
different than any other community as if we don't have a sacred trust as if we don't have a sacred
1:37:20
message as if we don't have another way that people could live what is going to be happening is as follows as as this downfall continues people will have to find someone to blame.
1:37:33
Who do you blame? The most usual blame, and that's happening all over the world, Muslim and non-Muslim countries really, you blame the strangers, the aliens, the migrants. Uh,
1:37:45
and what does that lead to? A couple of things. First of all, yes, if you are from that migrant
1:37:51
community, difficult times ahead. That's what it looks like. But secondly, of all,
1:37:56
you're not solving any of the problems. Uh, did Brexit help the UK economically? It was driven by
1:38:03
this exact concern. Did driving out uh uh you know non-ethnic indigenous doctors improve the health
1:38:12
care system or do we have So you're not solving a problem. You're fermenting hatred. What comes
1:38:18
next? Yeah. It's a very scary future for all migrant and non-migrant, ethnic and non-thnic.
1:38:28
If we start this journey to building structured community, politics bottom up internal first of
1:38:37
all coalition building learning the difficult task of bringing people together in creating
1:38:45
institutions to invest our authority in to represent us. If we succeed at that,
1:38:52
we are creating a model of community leadership. the welfare state, the systems. They might not
1:39:00
know that's what they want, but I believe that's what they need. I believe even systems like zakat,
1:39:07
even as we're running it today, cuz we're in these conversations, uh even if it's wealth being circulated amongst Birmingham's Muslims. Birmingham is a bankrupt
1:39:20
council. All these councils on the verge of bankruptcy. I believe just zakat working in
1:39:27
communities like that it will be maybe one of the most important collaborators in setting
1:39:35
up allowing communities to continue. So what does that mean then? What does that look like? It means
1:39:43
you've created collaborators with anyone who's trying to solve in our case Britain's problems.
1:39:51
Is it welfare? Is it education? Is it young people? Is it spaces? We have lots of spaces.
1:39:58
Yeah. All the time. Mosques and educa. These spaces are going to be the most important thing
1:40:04
in our future. Spaces for public use. So what I'm trying to get at is our prophet sallallahu alaihi
1:40:13
wasallam was a mercy to the world. He's a mercy to the United Kingdom. He's present in his community.
1:40:21
his community have to build a way of living in alignment with what he brought. And if they
1:40:29
succeed at that, they will be, I believe, one of the most important collaborators in charting a
1:40:37
course forward for our country. Now, uh, and what does that mean? Because like I said, if if I feel
1:40:46
the welfare state is collapsing, if these power systems are already shifting, if we don't start a
1:40:52
movement of community structures, community power, can you see already then you're changing power
1:40:58
in the nation state. Remember I said earlier, you can't change it overnight. But it's filling a gap
1:41:05
and solving a problem. It's not fighting for it. It's coordinating and solving a problem. As you
1:41:13
do that, there's a negotiation of power. Power is now sitting in these community structures. As we
1:41:20
do that, we can collaborate with other community projects. Uh if we do that, I think it sounds
1:41:28
quite crazy. I think we save the country. I think we give it a healthier way forward with faith,
1:41:36
with solidarity and with the most important thing we are transforming what it means to be a citizen,
1:41:43
what it means to be a human in society. Because for the last 150 years, education was designed
1:41:50
to make you a particular kind of subject. You're not responsible for the welfare of others. You
1:41:56
just have to work and pay off your debts. You just have to do XY Z. Whereas all old models,
1:42:02
all of them, Muslim and non-Muslim, were about you are responsible in community. As we create
1:42:08
our own narrative of you are responsible for where you live, a sacred task of caretaking
1:42:15
with sacred injunctions that already guide you. It's not just a culture change in our community
1:42:20
now. Can you see that? Yeah. It's a culture change in the Christian community. It's a culture change in the atheist community. It's culture change in other community. And I think I think that's
1:42:30
what saves the country. However, how however mad some people might think what I'm saying, you have to look at what's coming. Like I said, whenever we analyze ourselves, we sometimes are
1:42:40
10 years late. Yeah. The community is always moving. Politics is always moving. And so all
1:42:45
I'll say in short, I gave a long comment, but at the heart it's always about preserving souls in
1:42:51
the widest possible net. It's systems which solve actual human questions in ways that are timeless
1:42:58
and needed. And it's a culture and systems that I think other communities will want to tap into. Tap
1:43:08
into our expertise and tap into the culture that I think we are going to be creating. Um so however
1:43:16
odd this might sound what I'm saying I think it is the future. I think it's the mercy of the prophet
1:43:22
in the UK sallallahu alaihi wasallam because if you don't step up with a solution all you
1:43:27
have that fills that void that I can see is hatred and and populism and not only does it harm you as
1:43:33
our community it doesn't benefit anybody. Uh I'll say that for short and there's a lot more because
1:43:41
our scholars say you can't limit and restrict the wisdoms of Allah subhanana wa ta'ala. Maybe others
1:43:46
other than me can have better articulations. Yeah, of why this is important. But it's
1:43:52
really important to stress this. It's not about control for control sake, power for power sake,
1:43:57
might for might sake. It is his mercy sallallahu alaihi wasallam. We just have to deliver it and
1:44:04
it gets delivered in the vessel of um and um is a structured way of living. I think that's been
1:44:12
a fabulous conversation. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you very much.
1:44:21
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