Ep 248. - Are Modern Cities Killing Our Souls? With Dr.Heba Raouf Ezzat
Are modern cities killing our souls? Dr Heba Raouf Ezzat argues we are at risk of suffocating ourselves behind concrete jungles. Urban planning must, she argues, reflect our civilisational markers and not capitalist standards. Dr Heba teaches in the Departments of Political Science and Sociology at Ibn Haldun University and was formerly a professor at Cairo University and at the LSE. You can find
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Transcript - This is an AI generated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation
Introduction
0:00
Cities are not just physical constructs but also moral and ideological ones. It's a genocide of places and spaces and communities. You put on it the label of development. Are we
0:11
closely aligned now to western standards of urban development? It's not only that we produce places,
0:17
but we also consume places. The Hajj costs a million and 700,000 Egyptian pounds and this is
0:23
something like $35,000. from the Egyptian scene. 2.9 million have been displaced because of urban
0:29
planning. Once you have urban segregation, we are not brothers and sisters anymore in Muslim cities. Fik is away from that. You can write a post or a tweet, but it's not the same active participation
0:40
that it used to be in many of the Muslim capitals. Are modern cities killing our souls? Dr. Hebra
0:46
Azert teaches in the department of political science and sociology at Iben Haldun University and was formerly a professor at Cairo University and at the LSE. [Music] Dr. Heb razalamlayum and
1:02
welcome to the thinking Muslim. Thank you. Well, it's great to have you with us. Now, today we're
1:08
going to have I think a fascinating conversation about cities. I I suspect uh a lot of our viewers
1:13
will think um why we're taking a sociological turn here because normally we stick to politics and
1:20
intellectual ideas on this program and uh I think that I heard you talk about this subject uh at the
1:26
umatics conference here in Istanbul and I found it absolutely fascinating. So I want to start with
1:32
um what you argued your central argument I felt anyway at uh in your presentation and that was
1:39
that you argued that cities are not just physical constructs uh but also moral and ideological ones.
1:45
Now I've always believed cities are bricks and mortar uh and so value neutral. So you could
1:50
have you know a city that looks like London in the Muslim world and and it wouldn't be odd in the in
1:56
the Muslim world. But you argued something quite fundamentally different like how do modern cities
Modern cities and civilisation
2:01
reflect dominant civilizations and values of our time. It's not only actually about modern cities.
2:08
It's about any city. Um yeah we I originally come from political theory background. So I
2:15
was not interested in space and place and I was more interested in ideas the history of ideas and
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uh also the the different notions uh conceptual analysis of power sovereignty nation um uh these
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concepts here and I was doing my PhD in the topic of uh uh citizenship the notion of citizenship in
2:36
Anglo-American liberal assault really uh and then I started realizing that uh all those
2:41
who are talking about cities even in the language language itself coming from the Greek and then the Latin and and so on that citizenship is related to living in the city right so when you talk about
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citizens they are the members of the political community in a city and then uh starting from
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the uh Greek thought that we uh study and teach uh you have the direct democracy where people come
3:06
together so we we take it as as a phenomena but we don't realize the theater you know that they came
3:13
together in a place and hence whoever designed the city uh however it developed it allowed
3:20
space for people to come together thousands of people you know so there is this big space where
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they come and then there are the institutions and organizations of uh political management of everyday governance here so I started giving more attention to spaces and cities and then I
3:37
uh became very interested in urban sociology uh at Kai University uh uh where I originally studied
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the as an Egyptian and where I also taught for a long time. U political science is very classic
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in a way. So study of urban sociology is not uh very common. Uh but I tried to introduce it to
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political theory classes etc. And then I started realizing that u every uh phenomena we study um
4:05
it's important to add the uh bit of the urban and material and the spatial. So the picture
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as it's as if the picture is a puzzle and this is the missing piece of the puzzle in our political
4:19
and sociological analysis generally in political sociology generally. So uh I think that uh this
4:25
sociological turn towards space and place and also in social uh uh other social sciences like
4:31
political theory um the space and place started uh getting more attention and that it's not only
4:37
that we produce places but we also consume places and the place is consumed by different classes. So
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it starts with a a specific class and then other classes consume the place and change completely
4:50
the landscape etc. whether it's like uh a place for the rich and then the rich like for example in
4:56
the case of some western city moves move outside to the suburbs. So the city is left the texture of
5:01
the city is left to the middle classes and lower classes and then at one point the uh the those who
5:08
are living in the suburbs want to move back to the center of the city instead of commuting. So they encourage those who are in the city to move out and make the suburb life very romanticized
5:18
you know but then they move they gentrify and then they uh um take uh the space again in the
5:25
middle of the city over 50 years the the the swap of positions takes place in a way and through that
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you can analyze lot of phenomenas. Yeah. Uh I was just actually uh because we are living in the time
5:38
of Gaza. Yeah. I was just uh explaining to some of my students a few days ago that when you say
5:44
why aren't some people moving and acting as u forcefully and as emotionally as they used to
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do 10 years ago. Of course because of political tyranny and because of um authoritarian regimes
5:59
curbing the ability of people to demonstrate and act and lobby etc. But also because of some sociological, urban and economic reasons, right? uh the everyday life uh is actually changing in
6:12
a way that makes people's habits in their everyday life change and hence some of the issues that used
6:18
to be very central seem as if they are bit very far. You can sympathize, you can write a a post
6:24
or a tweet, you know, but uh but it's not the same active participation that it used to be in
6:30
many of the Muslim uh capitals. What's changing uh the everyday life in the city that over 50
6:38
60 years in some economies and in some societies basically introduced patterns and introduced uh
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u uh different ways of life. Uh because in urban sociology for example uh there is this very famous
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um uh idea that urbanism is a way of life right? So uh when you see that cities are looking more
7:00
and more alike in a global age uh the way you move uh the way our bodies move in the city
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and the way the city is planned to control and and or curb our movement is actually related to
7:12
urban planning. You don't choose how to move in the city. You are either allowed to this space or not. Yeah. Walkability is getting in some cities more and more difficult because you have to either
7:21
use the public transportation or use your own car. But uh uh less and less spaces are uh given
7:27
to public uh uh like parks etc. In some cities like Cairo for example uh the the space is very
7:34
minimal compared to the number of inhabitants of the city that is uh estimated between 20 million
7:40
and 25 millions during the day definitely more than that because it's like greater Cairo now.
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Yeah. Uh so uh our habits of everyday life change and hence our mentality changes. What we can add
7:52
to that is also the economy. I belong belong to a generation where we actually uh um experienced the
8:00
socialist uh regime. I was born in 65. I remember that till I was 10 or 12 uh our uh clothes and our
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even shoes were bought from uh public um sort of stores. Uh and uh you had no many choices,
8:17
Yanni. We didn't have brands, you know. Uh which was fine. I we were happy with our life.
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uh you would have a black shoe uh for the school and a white shoe for the sports uh classes and
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then a shoe for celebrations or events or whatever birthdays or whatever. But now if you look at our
8:37
way of consumption uh and then the big trap of debt that more and more uh we had the national
8:45
banks and then more and more we started having the the other uh banks and then people started getting
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uh offers uh the credit card the loans and your life is very much uh anchored in consumption in
8:59
a way from the lower middle classes to the upper classes. Yeah. And this is the lifestyle that the
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more uh unprivileged classes look up to. Uh they want to uh imitate that as well. Uh and I think
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that uh the idea of the of the debt and making people burdened in their own uh life with the
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debt they uh owe to the banks and to the different uh uh different entities. and you're thinking all
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the time about how I am I going to survive and pay my bills for example or pay my debt. Um the the
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mindset of the people makes the other big issues very looks looks very remote looks very distant.
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Yes, ideology helps of course we had different uh uh different waves of ideology socialism,
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Marxism, Islamism etc. Yes, but with the age of the decline of ideologies and rise of populism for
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example that takes away the attention from more global causes and focuses on the very ultraational
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uh it becomes actually difficult for us to uh uh to imagine um the same interest,
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the same energy to support and to sacrifice for causes that are more automatic.
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11:00
[Music] Are you saying that um since 2011, because I know you were very much invested in in the
Construction to prevent revolution?
11:08
revolution in Egypt and you know, our viewers can can Google your history and and and see how
11:14
central you were or how you were. um uh involved in in that period, a very important period I think
11:20
in Muslim Mummma history as well as Egyptian history. But are you saying that autocratic regimes can uh can construct cities in a way uh to prevent revolution to prevent uh um uh you know a
11:36
uh rebellion or to prevent u uh demonstrations and protest over issues like Gaza? a way to do
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that and and are you saying maybe that's what's happened in Egypt? It's not only about Gaza,
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it's also about uh um sort of protesting for your own agenda, for your own so let alone Gaza and let
11:56
alone Sudan and Yemen and other issues that people should be interested in and uh following. Uh yes,
12:03
of course, definitely if you rearrange the space and place, you can obstruct the movement of masses. You can disperse the mass. Yes. And uh I have a paper that I wrote when I looked
12:13
at Taher Square at one point. This was 2019 and uh a picture taken for the square on a Thursday.
12:22
You know our day off is Friday and Saturdays. These are our weekend. So uh Thursday is a very
12:29
busy day like Friday in Istanbul for example. It's like try to avoid the streets in the rush hour afternoon because it's going to be any crazy. Yeah. So uh I looked to the picture. It was taken
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uh uh midday uh on a Thursday and the square was uh was very empty. A few cars here and there, few
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people walking. And this is not the Taher Square I know. Uh all my life really a Thursday at that
12:54
time it's usually very busy. Yeah. 2:00 it was like 2:00 and that is the time of the school buses
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you know and people coming out of the bureaucratic uh um institutions that are centered in downtown
13:07
K. So I asked myself a very simple question from the observation where did the mass disappear you
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know it's like where are the people and then it's easy to say because of the security measures taken
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so that people don't meet in Taher Square you know so uh or that the city developed habits because of
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what happened 2011 till 2013 people automatically started uh in their system thinking that Tahir
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Square is an area of you know uh troubled uh uh demonstrations and attacks by the security
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etc. So let's just avoid it. If you're driving you you start developing a habit of driving taking the long way but avoiding the center of the city because of what happens there all the time.
13:49
So this is one explanation and then I started exploring more about that and it was for the
13:55
first time as a political theorist floating with the ideas in the ivory tower that I
14:00
started realizing that uh traffic and the way the roots are designed affects very much the density.
14:08
Right? So there were two high roads that were built in the in the wider downtown area of Cairo
14:17
that actually took the cars from one side of the Nile to the other because Cairo is split by uh
14:23
by the Nile. Uh so that no traffic is needed to go through Tahir Square. Okay. What about the people?
14:30
Many of the ministries that were located in Tahir Square, including the big administrative building
14:35
in the middle of the square where actually thousands of people would go to get a stamp, to make a petition, to apply for something, to fill forms etc were moved outside. So here also the uh
14:47
individual uh sort of pedestrian density was very much uh uh changed. Yes. The third thing is that
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many dense areas that are poor areas that are a walking distance away from Tahir Square 20 minutes
15:03
to 25 minutes walking distance which is not much were completely demolished really. And these were
15:10
areas where actually uh people came to protest in the square with the middle class and with the
15:18
uh different uh um members of the syndicates that are located in downtown area etc. uh they
15:23
could come and join and and and create a mass. So these areas were completely demolished under the
15:30
banner of urban development. Interesting. So let let's let's zoom out a little bit and and
Historical vs Modern cities
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sort of I want to understand how uh spaces were conceptualized in classical Islamic period if that
15:44
is a right way to phrase it and how spaces are are conceptualized in the modern secular period
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or the modern liberal period or however we want to phrase or a capitalist world. What's the what are the tangible differences between the way we historically as an ummah conceptualized our cities
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and how cities are constructed today? Any city is constructed along the the lines of the nature of
16:08
the social bond. Right? So if it's if the social bond is tribal then you'll find that the city is
16:15
basically divided amongst the different tribes. Ah uh many people don't realize that actually the
16:21
the uh Greek democracy the direct democracy of Greece of Athens uh Athen had 10 tribes.
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It was a tribal this this very famous direct democracy was actually a tribal democracy.
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10 tribes basically were settled around Athens and they were represented in the council right by 50
16:45
from each tribe and the power in the council was rotated between the different tribes okay so there
16:51
is a very strong tribal foundation of the Greek direct democracy and this is the bit that we don't
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give attention to we focus on the direct democracy and the democracy and the history of democracy but
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not on the tribal nature and also the role of religion is very important in any city. So if
17:09
we go back to the Greek again and then I will move to the Islamic. Uh in the beginning of the uh of
17:15
the republic the book book of Plato he mentions that Socrates was going to attend a religious
17:22
uh celebration outside the city and then he came across uh this uh group of people that started
17:29
asking him to come and visit their home friends and then the discussion started about justice and
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this is how the book starts you know. So here you have religion and also you have the celebrations outside the city where the tribes are centered uh not necessarily in the very um uh location
17:46
of the of the city itself. Uh cities grow some cities grow but in our modern times as well and
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also in ancient times some cities are built from scratch. They don't they are not villages or small
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uh communities that grew into a city and then there was a dynasty and then a wall was uh built and then we had uh uh invasions around and then we had an empire being built
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etc. No, they actually are built from scratch. St. Petersburg for example was built from scratch.
18:15
It was designed as a city in order to serve a specific political era. When we go to the time
18:20
of prophet Muhammad again the uh um the the city was very much tribal divided between the
18:28
different tribes. So each tribe took a a side of the city more or less and then you have the center
18:34
where there are the practices or the trade or or whatever. Yeah the there was a difference between
18:40
uh Mecca and Medina. Medina had this element of the Jewish communities and there were two tribes
18:48
that were the major tribes in in Medina and then we had the new um uh the new um
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uh change that took place which is the hij. So you have uh new people coming to the city that were
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not seen as what we call today migrants you know they were the muhajiun more than just migrants you
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know the migrants that share the same faith in a moment where the prophet himself is from outside
19:16
that community and they invited him to come and to provide him safe space uh and hence the the fabric
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uh of the text the texture of the city started changing uh uh to a great extent and the bond
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started becoming institutionalized to accommodate this diversity in the city and to manage it by
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good governance in a way and then we have all these agreements that have been done between prophet Muhammad and the different it was not enough to say I'm a prophet they will follow me
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and I will rule no it was not enough it there needed to be some agreement and some consensus
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uh on which uh um the city would be um sort of reestablished in a way as as a community
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not in terms of places and spaces Uh and then if you cannot understand it and it was striking for
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me that we always read S and the S is in the text describing and in this area the southeastern part
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of the Medina there were these groups and then these groups and this is why for for example the
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Jewish community was very important and crucial in protecting the city and when they betrayed
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uh the the punishment was so severe etc. But no one puts a map. And looking at maps actually the
20:29
the word of map is not only about the geographical uh ctographic map. It's also about the social map,
20:36
the economic map, you know, but the physical map. It's very important for you to understand
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the sequence of the s and how things uh happen this way in different circumstances. And then
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we have uh also a very important uh note that actually I I learned from uh from Sardar. Yeah.
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It was eye opening when I read uh his analysis of the history of Mecca. For example, when he
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um uh he was drawing my attention or our attention as readers to the fact that Prophet Muhammad did
21:09
not move back to Mecca. Yes. After the fat. Yeah. And uh if you if you dig into the SA you'll find
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that he promised the people of Medina in one very famous occasion that he will not leave when they came together the two big tribes and they said to him now we are supporting
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you what if you win and your da'wah spreads etc uh and then you go back to your people victorious
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uh leader and then we are left behind what happens to us and he said uh this will not happen you are
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my people and he started making dua for the ansar etc and actually he fulfilled the promise when he
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went back to Mecca for fat he arranged whatever was needed to be arranged and then he went back to Medina and also he was buried in Medina. So uh the the fact also that Medina never became the center
21:57
of the Islamic empire the kilafa moved from Mecca to uh uh to other places Baghdad and Damascus and
22:06
historically speaking and then it was divided between different dynasties etc. So you can look
22:11
at Kufa, you can look at Baghdad, you can look at the different cities of Andalusia, you can look at
22:16
Cairo and how it developed. So the history of the cities can be actually the window through which you look at the history of civilization. Recently uh Dr. Ahmed Audu a very famous uh Turkish scholar
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um between brackets politician as well but I looked more at his scholarship
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uh he published few years ago a book on cities uh the the pivotal cities that played very important
22:43
role and it was very striking that he didn't only focus on the Islamic cities he looked at cities uh stretching from uh China to uh America uh and there is always that tension between the image of
22:56
the city that many thinkers not only from Islam uh from Islamic background but across history and
23:02
different philosophers how they looked at the cities as the hub of civility. Yeah. And the
23:07
values and what is the not only the political uh uh uh contract but also the social contract in the
23:15
wider sense. the sociological contract between the people, the habits, the expectations, the norms,
23:21
the codes of ethics that are in the city that actually give the city its own uh nature. Uh
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recently also an Egyptian scholar Dr. Ali Abd Ra uh wrote a very interesting book titled from Mecca
23:34
to Las Vegas. It it's a very striking title. Yeah. And he was critically uh uh very harshly
23:41
criticizing the urban development of Mecca. And he said all these skyscrapers, you know,
23:46
and then the big hotels around the cabba, etc., it actually stripped the uh the city from its
23:52
spiritual nature, right? How did you do that? Yeah. Because the the the answer would be what
23:57
could we do? We wanted to accommodate more and more uh uh pilgrims, you know. Uh but also this
24:03
accommodation of more and more pilgrims had its economic reasons. So it was not only a spiritual
24:09
cause, right? There is also the economy of the pilgrimage that became a very central economy
24:14
uh and and an important income as well. Uh but you are trying to turn it in order under the slogan of
24:21
facilitating uh Hajj because those who made Hajj quite early uh many decades ago know how hard and
24:27
difficult it was and sometimes people would be uh suffering a lot and sometimes we had casualties uh
24:33
during the Hajj etc. So there is a good excuse to develop and uh uh do the urban development
24:39
etc and the development of the haram itself to expand it and to be able to accommodate more and more people but but the plan itself had to be informed by the nature that this is a spiritual
24:49
space. Yeah. And uh and in his book on Mecca Dr. Professor Sardar was mentioning that there were
24:57
attempts to guide this urban uh development in Mecca towards understanding this but
25:03
um uh it became a very important project for many firms and at one point the decision makers wanted
25:09
to have international firms participating and of course they look at the city as any other city they don't take in mind the spiritual aspect of it and uh and the city itself the owned by the
25:21
meccans away a bit if you if If you drive away from the center of the the the haram of Mecca,
25:28
you'll find that the the neighborhoods are uh very underdeveloped uh to a great extent. So uh
25:35
how do we look at spaces and places and how we do see through the space and place the history
25:41
um place cities have been called in sociology different names. So sometimes they are called
25:47
theater especially in some uh cities uh in modern cities who people as if they are playing a role uh
25:55
they have to be uh u u wearing specific clothing or wearing clothes that challenge the dominant
26:03
uh uh way of life if they want to uh prove that their their ethnicity or their religion etc. And
26:09
then also the city as a palimpest. Palimpyest is something uh uh either its leather or its paper
26:16
upon which uh on which there were so many writings and then washed away and then a new text was
26:21
written and then washed away because previously we there was no industry for paperi. So they used different uh um material and then on the same material would have more than one text on top of
26:32
each other. So the city is like that you know you have the original uh uh um the the origin of the
26:40
city how it was written how it was uh built how it was constructed and then whether the city is a hub
26:46
of power or it's a city of religious practices or it's a city uh of uh of importance like Florence
26:52
for example in Europe if you go this is the hub of the enlightenment the the renaissance etc. So
26:58
uh it's not Rome but it's also a place to visit where you can see the impact of the different
27:03
thinkers and the arts and the music and the you know what happened here and led to change later
27:09
in a specific direction. So when we when we see our cities today they are like a paleist. Yeah.
27:16
And if you go to Cairo for example, uh you'll find the uh ancient Egyptian layer and you'll find the
27:24
uh Coptic uh Christian layer and then you'll find the Islamic layer and then you'll find the modern layer and the city has so many faces and sometimes the layers are overlapping and there is a
27:35
hybridity. you sit in a place uh you can uh uh you can realize that this place is out of context you
27:41
know it's a it's a place where you can listen to American music you know jazz or something where you are actually in a in a local local in in Cairo that is very much in downtown if you walk
27:52
for 10 minutes you'll be sitting and listening toum the most famous Egyptian singer you know
27:57
uh and uh finding people acting in a completely different way and the city becomes more and more cosmopolitan but at the same time to which extent cosmopolitan ism comes with more freedom for
28:07
everyone or social justice for all the uh people who are living in the city so that they feel the ownership. Yeah. Uh spaces and places make difference and and how how they are um structured
28:20
and uh constructed affects very much our mobility, our walkability uh in the city and uh our
28:28
uh our relations. Not only the urban planning but also the architecture. Yeah. In a city like
28:35
Istanbul or Cairo, you can have old neighborhoods but actually people know each other. In some neighborhoods, especially the more disadvantaged neighborhoods, you cannot go without someone from
28:44
the neighborhood. Yeah. Because usually the there are some legal issues with the government. So,
28:50
they are afraid that you're someone coming to spy on them in order for them to pay fines or something. So, you have to enter with someone from the neighborhood. They know each other very
28:58
well. In other neighborhoods, people just park their cars, you know, they go into the buildings.
29:03
uh the is new buildings are like skyscrapers and they there is no notion of neighborhood and hence
29:10
the the social texture and the urban texture also create the moral texture right and and I
29:17
wrote maybe the year 2000 or so a small text that was titled cities against Islam okay that you can
29:23
live in a city that every corner of the city is built on non-Islamic values and the city itself is
29:30
against you no matter how you try to practice your religion and dean it's not allowing you to become
29:35
more moral it's how how is the city doing that yeah and if you are living in a place where there
29:41
are no spaces for people to come together you know you go and vote and that's it thank you very much
29:47
you are a very good citizen and then uh the local uh uh councils are not functional but you have big
29:54
parks so you can take your family uh during the weekend and be go to the park have a barbecue you
30:00
know good relations uh with your family members who come from other places but you don't have a
30:05
a neighborhood that sense of neighborhood that we can come together and decide for our neighborhood
30:10
and I was asking around when I found that a new big building was built in the middle of a neighborhood that was very traditional in U is for example uh a very big uh building and then a big
30:21
mall uh below it and you can visually realize that the texture is changing uh the urban texture the
30:28
the nature of buildings and design and I asked the people around did anyone consult you, you know,
30:33
did anyone take your opinion? Because this is going to affect very much the way people gather,
30:39
the way people shop, the way people deal with each other. And of course, it's going to affect the
30:44
rent in the flats that are overlooking this area. And people were ready to sell their uh homes uh
30:52
because now they they they can get more money for the home because it's just facing the mall or this
30:57
Badia building or whatever and move outside the city. Yeah. And some people didn't because they
31:03
realize the the the social texture and there is a deconstruction that happens in the neighborhoods once you introduce a new design that is not matching. It's reordered around this modern type
31:14
of architecture and then you have the economic market etc. So to which extent people keep the
31:21
relations and then you can for example again examples in Cairo and examples in Istanbul where
31:27
you gentrify street that was an old street where there were shops you can go to buy something for
31:33
your uh home or you know you can find these shops that have the plumbing uh uh tools and things
31:39
etc. So it's just an average street um a shop to sell coffee, a shop uh to sell meat, you know,
31:46
it's like normal street. And then you take that street and you gentrify it, especially if it's in a historical area and you turn it into cafes. Once you turn it into cafes, people come from outside
31:57
the neighborhood to spend good time. The nature of the people in the area changes and then you
32:04
have tourists coming as well because it it's put on the list of tourism, you know. So we are going
32:10
to have dinner in this street that is on the other side of the city for example and and more and more
32:16
the price of flats and the rent gets higher either to sell or to rent and then people who are living
32:23
there change. So after 20 years the nature of the neighborhood completely changes. Yeah. And this
32:31
happens for different reasons sometimes economic and sometimes political. Yeah. In countries where
32:36
there are tensions between uh the conservative forces that prefer to live in neighborhoods where
32:43
they have strong uh bond and strong uh social texture uh is invaded bit by bit by secular uh
32:52
uh people uh to make projects and then to change the face of the neighborhood to become much more
32:57
secularized. So there are actually cultural wars on the space and place in different cities today.
33:05
Mhm. Uh, and I'm sure that you can have more examples about how Muslims live and how they took
33:11
some neighborhoods and how they expanded, how they declined, their presence declined in some areas
33:16
because of things that have not nothing to do with their intentions, but rather with wider plans of
33:22
urbanization, gentrification, urban planning, etc. And we think that the moral person is a
33:29
person that can decide for his own ethics and way of behavior. But actually space and place affects
33:35
very much the way we can do so. So do you think that the modern Islamic world and Muslim world has
Ceded to western urbanisation?
33:41
seeded uh too much of its spatial imagination to western paradigms of urban planning? Yes.
33:48
Um not only that because it's also economic the prices of land. Yeah. you know how they how the
33:55
market changes the nature of the people who are living there and how there is internal migration
34:00
in the city from one place to the other that goes unnoticed you know we don't see it as
34:07
displacement but it's actually called displacement in some writings because people are forced to move
34:12
if someone knocks at your door and say well your house falls into the plan of our gentrification or
34:20
urban planning of the new new area to to to develop in and then uh we are going to have
34:25
a street here. You have to move. No one takes your opinion and you have nothing to say. The sovereign
34:31
uh uh authorities decided that your your house is an obstacle and we have to build something here.
34:36
And in the case of Egypt, for example, recently we had these uh bridges and roads built in the center
34:42
of the city. But also uh a very historical area was demolished that we used to call
34:48
uh the the the desert of the Mluks. But there are so many um so many um uh um historical sites uh
34:58
and also uh graveyards that are that date back 200 years ago that have so many arts and you know they
35:05
are they are a heritage and they were completely demolished. uh and it was not on the political
35:11
agenda and it's only the architects and urban planners that were very concerned about it that have more uh awareness about the importance of the social texture and taking it into consideration in
35:21
planning and we lost lot of uh a lot of historical um um and aesthetic uh spaces because of the
35:29
uh traffic uh u sort of development of the city. M so uh there are so many things related to
35:38
um urbanization and space and place that fall into the rights of uh human rights as well.
35:44
But we have over politicized our Islamic agenda across the different decades because of obvious
35:49
reasons Yani but it's also very important for us to look into the sociological anthropological texture of our societies and how it's more and more becoming secularized without secularization
36:00
being only political. Yeah. when it comes to politics, but the spaces are secularized in a
36:05
way that would recreate the relation against your own Islamic ethics. Yeah. So, I haven't understand
Mecca
36:12
that because going back to your example of Mecca, you you said that uh corporates and international
36:19
hotelers came in and and and effectively designed the the city of Mecca as we see it today. And
36:25
it is a bit of a monstrosity. I mean, you know, you've got these steel buildings around the car and you don't feel quite right about it. But you mentioned a very interesting point I felt that you
36:35
know there there was a way to build that city reflect in its spiritual core. How would that
36:40
be done? Like if you were planning uh Mecca you know from scratch like how would you uh what would
36:48
Mecca look like and how would it differ to where it I think that you you have a challenge if you
36:54
are a policy maker between space and density and function. So why accommodate more and more people?
37:03
We all want to go. Yeah. Fine. Okay. But the focus is on Hajj. This is the pillar. True. Okay. And
37:14
whoever finds a way to go to Hajj. So this is not a touristic site. Yes. This is a spiritual
37:21
site. And to keep its spiritual nature, it should have specific structures that are respecting the
37:29
centrality of the cabba. And if you have uh this hu huge building, you know, the the the
37:36
clock tower, okay, I once was sitting with the um previous um minister of education in the UK and
37:43
we were sitting and discussing something about heritage etc. and he was at the time he had he
37:49
he's not anymore in his position and he went to um uh play a role in Cambridge. So he was
37:55
talking about how they are trying to preserve the heritage of Cambridge etc. And of course we know the very famous uh story of Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. Uh the first uh design for the
38:06
new uh um uh buildings of the center were rejected by the council because they were too Islamic and
38:12
then came uh Dr. Abdhakim and he is an Egyptian architect as well and introduced something that
38:19
blends the Oxonian architecture design with the uh with the Islamic one and and it's what is today
38:26
Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. So um it's it's I showed him the the the picture of Mecca
38:34
uh because he was talking about heritage and he looked at it with the big uh buildings around
38:39
and the clock tower etc. And he said to me this is graphic. Yes. This is like a madeup yi as if they
38:48
wanted to blend Mecca with modernity or something. So I said no to him no this is a picture. Yeah.
38:54
I said you're joking. I said to him no I'm not joking. I said this is horrible. Yeah. I said
38:59
to him exactly. I mean this is someone who is not a Muslim. But he could realize there is something wrong here. Yeah. You know, you could have designed differently, accommodated less people,
39:10
but the experience that what people have is still a spiritual experience and then set regulations
39:16
to allow people only to have Hajj once and Omrah once and then you limit the number. But you put
39:26
a bet on having more and more people, but you change the nature of the place. Yeah. And the
39:31
spiritual uh nature of it. Yeah. As well. And it's a challenge. I know it's a challenge. But to which
39:38
extent was it taken into consideration from an Islamic perspective? Were invited to say join us,
39:44
we the urban planners to think about the spiritual and the material in this space when we are trying
39:51
to develop it. You know, how can we manage it? Especially that Mecca is surrounded by mountains.
39:56
So it's very difficult to expand. It's not like enlarging it is is not as easy as it uh as it
40:03
seems. So uh but no one is looking at that and I think that uh there were attempts by some Saudi
40:11
uh urban planners and architects to sort of say you have to slow down a bit and we have to take
40:17
into consideration that the enlargement of the of the haram and more and more people coming needs
40:22
also facilities needs housing etc. What happened also because what you mentioned tourism and hotels
40:28
and chains of hotels etc that uh that the class distinction became very important uh in so now
40:35
you have what we call seven stars Hajj. Yeah. Uh we have Hajj uh tours or what whatever you call it
40:43
Hajj uh uh groups going to Hajj from Egypt. Yeah. uh some of those groups uh Hajj costs a million
40:52
and 700,000 Egyptian pounds and this is something like 30 35,000 uh and this is much the problem is
41:03
once you have that level the ceiling goes higher but also the bottom goes high so the poor cannot
41:10
afford anymore to go even if you have small hotels you know three stars, two stars, one star but at
41:16
the end of the day there is a transformation information of the place to accommodate the upper class. Some people go to Arafa with golf cars. This is facility. I have a friend who went
41:28
with this 1,700,000 uh trip of Hajj and she said she is a scholar and she she needed the maham her
41:37
brother and her brother is a businessman. She's a socialist interestingly any but she had to go with him and she said that I traveled west and east. She said in the open buffet there was food that
41:49
I never saw before. So the nature of Hajj itself transforms and I still remember when they built
41:56
the new the big hotels they some of the those hotels offer time share. Yeah. So that you can
42:03
own time in these uh places and you can sort of you know the time share system you set when the
42:09
dates are for you to go etc. uh and they were making the marketing uh with this uh moto um
42:18
uh have a gaze on the cabba. It's like yeah this is exactly what uh Dr. Ali Abdov mentioned when
42:25
he said from Mecca to Las Vegas. It's it's a bit harsh you know the title of the book but it's it's
42:31
also the reality is very harsh as well. So there is also the economic aspect and the e economic
42:37
aspect not only of producing the space but also of consuming the space. So less and less poor people
42:44
in the Muslim um now can actually afford Hajj because the rich are taking more and more space
42:50
and there is no control over this division. Uh so and also in our own cities y across time uh even
43:00
till recently in big cities in the Muslim world the neighborhoods the rich neighborhoods were
43:06
close to the poor neighborhoods and the poor would benefit from the rich you know they would work uh
43:11
somehow uh with them they would provide them with services with with the with the food with whatever
43:19
uh but now there is that urban segregation that is taking place and once you have urban segregation
43:24
We are not brothers and sisters anymore in the city. It's the bond becomes much more there
43:30
is a stratification. Mhm. And one of the uh the little stories matter by the way because they they
43:37
indicate what the change that is going on and I remember that uh it was shared on the on Facebook
43:43
Yani between Egyptian friends uh a picture of a of a conversation that was taking place on
43:49
the WhatsApp group of a compound and the person there it was a very very expensive compound uh
43:55
and the person was saying uh this is a sensitive issue but I have to talk about it frankly Uh it's
44:02
unacceptable that the drivers of our cars and the security people are praying next to us in the mosque. Yes. Subhan Allah. But you can you can see it coming. If people are segregated,
44:13
you can see it coming. You know, the poor become black, you know, it's like the race. So, so uh so
44:21
we we should provide them with a good nice place, you know, we're we're ready to donate for that, you know, but that they have their own place to pray. So actually what is happening is in Hajj is
44:31
also the same. The rich have their place, the poor have their place and little tricks taking place
44:37
for the for the rich to go into specific moments and there is a space booked for them somehow in
44:43
the rituals etc. It's subtle but it's there. So if this is happening uh uh in the case for
44:50
example of Egyptian companies that are providing very expensive Hajj for those who want so and also
44:55
it's very limited in time. you don't have to spend more than 1 week, 9 days or something like because you have your business to go back to you know so you're not uh taking the full experience and
45:05
um and there is so much going on in our cities and we and one of the things that are actually
45:11
very interesting to remember is that when when catastrophes happen people think that it's their
45:18
own fate they don't think that this is a phenomena changing in their society you know they think that
45:24
something this person coming from the council knocking on your door and saying your house you
45:30
have to leave because we are going to build a road here think that this is his problem but actually so many people in other cities face the same problem and they were not consulted are there any
45:39
options to that plan can we discuss it can we talk about it to which extent did you really compensate
45:46
me if you pay that amount of money can I have actually more because I need to rearrange my life accordingly and this what one can call urban activism is not there we only move on the streets
45:57
and demonstrate for big causes. But we don't defend our spaces because we feel that our spaces
46:04
are not our own that we are just you know um part of a wider uh map or um a plan and actually we
46:15
have little uh little to say and I think this is why urban activism is very important. how
46:21
the city is divided, how the city is uh is uh planned, uh the construction in the city,
46:28
the gentrification in in specific neighborhoods etc. It should be a a a wider participatory
46:34
process or actually people have a say. But what we have is the rule of experts. If you protest,
46:41
they say experts very important firms made that plan. Do you understand more than those important
46:47
urbanists and architects? Yeah. you're just a citizen, a lay person. So, you have to give in.
46:54
And uh uh I don't know about statistics from other countries, but one of the statistics that I can
47:01
give from the Egyptian scene is that in the last 10 years, 2.9 million have been displaced because
47:06
of urban planning. So, uh this is a number and you're talking about a huge number. It's
47:15
uh uh so uh how do you see our spaces and places and the right of people to place and space and how
47:22
this right to place and space is Islamic from the neighborhood where gentrification or urban planning is taking place to because it's it's the macro level of displacement and here of course
47:34
because it's global war and violence against the civilians is used and uh and the international
47:42
system is incapable of protecting those people and sometimes even blaming the victims you know
47:47
uh and those who wanted to protect those victims and defend them. Uh there is a link uh if we look
47:54
at the space and place and the production and consumption and violation and the herbicide that
48:01
is taking place in cities without considering it to be herbicide. Yeah, it's a genocide of places
48:06
and spaces and communities but you look at it you you put on it the label of development.
48:14
But people are displaced as well, right? And the texture is ruptured. So this is a
Maps
48:20
very western centric view of what development means and progress is. And and that's quite
48:25
quite radically different to maybe the way we because the calculation is economic, right? Yeah. Now those people live if you put the map and and there are two categories of people that
48:34
use maps. Urbanists and military. The military, right? You know, they look at maps, but they don't
48:41
see the walking people, the little woman who is the woman who is living in this little place and
48:47
cooking food for her children so that they find lunch when they come back from school. I mean, they look at the building and say, "What is this neighborhood?" Oh, its position is very strategic,
48:56
you know. And who's living there? Lower class. No, no, no. It's okay. This was old time, you know,
49:02
when this was the margin of the city. Now, this is the center of the city. You have to move this community to another place. we will build them good nice new uh neighborhoods but they have
49:11
to move from here and sometimes the governments actually gives the people new buildings for good
49:16
uh uh with good conditions you know it's like you can own it over 30 years you can pay the mortgage
49:22
it will be facilitated etc but do you know how much how much this costs and for how much it
49:28
will be sold the new neighborhood that is being developed billions and you are paying them pennies
49:35
so who looks at that and says no those people should not move. Yeah, sadly in many of our Muslim
49:43
communities in Muslim cities, majority Muslim cities, not other cities, uh is away from that.
49:52
The and the do not make fatwas about that, right? They can make statements about they can make
49:59
statements about the war in Yemen, the the famine in uh in u in Sudan. But there is little written
50:07
about fatwas to stop the taking of the property of people because of urban development due to
50:13
capitalist calculation of economy. It's not a topic that people are interested in. And sometimes
50:19
when you go back to our Islamic heritage, you find a lot of fatwas that were actually addressing
50:24
issues of Omran, issues of urban planning. Really? Of course. Yeah. We have a lot such as
50:32
what sort of issues were they would how the city was actually planned, the rights of people, how to
50:38
uh divide the the right to the road, the right to the areas that are common common areas. You know,
50:43
a lot has been written by Fuka about that. It came in fatwas. It came also in books
50:49
uh not only in fatwa addressing a specific dispute between two people and then setting a rule that
50:54
would continue in the madhab for example or in the f regarding this and that but seeing the city as
51:00
like a platform for a Muslim community and you could not even if it's your property add another
51:07
uh uh level add another floor if it uh overlooks the yard of your neighbor you can't say this is
51:14
my property if I even if I build it to the sky. It's none of your business. No, it's our business because it will affect your neighbor because you can see his yard where actually the privacy of his
51:26
family is. So, you can't actually go higher or if you build like a building, the the window should
51:32
not be facing the window. M you uh design it in a way that the window is facing a wall so that
51:38
you don't open a window and your neighbor opens a window and then his privacy because there is that sense of the privacy the sense of the uh Muslim adab you know the the spaces between the different
51:50
uh uh members of the family women and children and men etc. But now you go into uh small flats
51:57
where actually the kitchen is in the uh in the living room. It's American kitchen they call it.
52:03
And there is like either you're going to serve your uh guests or your wife has to do the effort
52:09
and sometimes in some families they don't feel comfortable about that. But this is what you can afford because you can only afford oneplus 1 and there is an American kitchen in the living room.
52:18
Right? The design itself does not allow in the building itself the flow of the air which was
52:24
written in many of the books of uh architecture uh uh in classic texts for example. So we have
52:30
a heritage we're not aware of and we focus more on the political and I think that they are very
52:36
much interwoven. If we lose the social and if we lose the social and uh urban fabric that allows
52:44
the moral to be um uh to be practiced in everyday life, we will definitely lose the battle of the
Muslim cities
52:51
pulit. And are we losing that battle do you think in the Muslim world? Are we too closely
52:56
aligned now to capitalism, to western standards of of architecture, of urban development? I mean,
53:03
we're in Istanbul at the moment and um you know, I think I think it's fair to say that Istanbul looks like any other city now around the world. Yes, it's punctuated with some really amazing
53:14
mosques that that date back hundreds and hundreds of years, but generally speaking, the city now
53:20
looks very similar to London, looks very similar to New York. come in. Are we losing that fight? Do
53:25
you think you would lose it if you're not aware? Right. Because the there is a standardization.
53:31
Where do our uh children go to study architecture and urban planning? Yeah. Uh to be influential in
53:37
the governments or in the big businesses etc. They go to the west and this is what they study. the
53:42
function, the economic aspect, the moral aspect is not very much into the the calculations and
53:49
also the empowerment of people that they are taught and educated about the impact of place
53:55
and space on their own character. It's not only that if you wish you can become ethical. No,
54:00
actually there are obstacles you know I want to reach out to my neighbors but I live in a building not me but I'm giving an example. Someone lives in a building where actually you have 30 floors and
54:11
more and more people are moving to these areas. Yi and more and less and less people are living in the the the old areas. Uh especially the young people. Um if I give example with London Yi uh
54:24
Canary Warf was starting to emerge when I was in London in the 1990s for example and now you have
54:30
uh many neighborhoods where actually people live in isolated units. Yeah. So you just go back home
54:36
and you don't know anything about your neighbors and there is a company taking care of the building and you just pay a monthly amount but you don't come together to discuss a problem. There is a an
54:46
expert there is a a company that is taking taking care of the problems etc. And uh people don't
54:53
cross the the boundaries or the borders of race faith you know to join because they are facing
54:59
a problem together and they want to solve it. uh less and less Muslim countries I know have this uh
55:05
uh cooperative system of building together that I found for for example in the Nordic countries in
55:11
Sweden in Norway people come together they build in a cooperative way and live together and once
55:17
you come together you buy the land together you decide for the design together it creates a bond
55:23
and some some practices are actually more Islamic in in at at the core than some of the uh some of
55:32
the examples that we see in the Muslim world where Muslims practice faith but actually the relations
55:37
and the the the way of constructing their material environment is very unislamic and what's the
55:44
reason for that I mean I was uh recently reading I think it was an economist there was a piece about Jeda and Jeda a large part of it maybe a third even more has been demolished yes uh repossessed
55:55
you could see it if you go and and visit I mean full areas have been demolished demolished and they've been replaced with skyscrapers like why why is this uh you know why is there reverse
56:05
sort of because of the def definition of progress explain that yeah yeah you want to say I'm doing a
56:11
lot of progress in the country see I went once to a gulf country and uh I don't have to uh mention
56:18
the name it will be understood from the context and uh the the ruler of that city very famous city
56:25
said uh alhamdulillah we managed to uh um make the dream of Kaldun come true uh by having this
56:34
uh Omran and I looked at him and I just said yeah and he doesn't realize difference between
56:41
and Omran is a building Omran is something else what's Omran is the ethical and moral foundation
56:49
and religious foundation of a specific mode of urbanization right so Almran Islami is how you
56:57
structure and build a city where actually the Isl Islamic norms are dominant and where people can
57:03
live in the spaces and places Islamically where you actually have the mosque not necessarily in
57:08
the center by the way but the mosque is serving the community but it also has a place for some
57:14
other site services in the case of Istanbul every mosque has got a hamam next to it you know and
57:20
next to it is usually a madrasa as well so you have these complexes you have and you have all
57:26
these colleges around but also a big building that was dar to serve food for the poor for example
57:33
etc. where you were serving the person. There is a small window in the side of the kitchen where
57:42
you can actually serve the the soup but you don't see the face of the person taking the soup from
57:47
you. Maybe he's your neighbor and he doesn't want preserve the dignity etc. So this understanding of
57:54
the functions of a society and how the buildings are reflecting it and allowing people to practice
58:00
their life in a dignified manner next to each other and caring for each other. If the space
58:06
expands, you split it so that the units become in a size where people can do so. And this is
58:12
something that not only in Islamic heritage but also in in western heritage we find Aristo for
58:18
example said that uh a city should not be more than 40,000 people because after that you lose
58:23
the contact with the others. You don't know who this person is and uh and even if you want to
58:29
take the moral and apply it in imagining the material. Prophet Muhammad for example said
58:39
to the person whom you meet on the street whether you know him or not I can't do that in New York
58:46
I can't do that in London I can't do that in Cairo anymore people will think you're stupid or something crazy you know if you walk around and sayamlaykum salamkum so the the we can have big
58:56
entities but you have to divide them in a way that would create this ability of communities to emerge
59:01
and people to actually have the right to the space and place and help each other become better
59:07
uh human beings but uh people are living this individualistic life and it's becoming
59:12
more and more the way of life many Muslims are experiencing in big cities. So are we saying that
Class and urbanisation
59:18
skyscrapers in particular and and these sort of uh projects of gated communities and and
59:25
um uh having very exclusive places for the rich and and it's you know far away from everyone
59:31
else the these are intrinsically unislamic when we think about is that what we're saying yes I think
59:37
so really yes that's interesting because of course yeah as you said it isolates you and that you will end up like that man saying we don't want the those even who are serving us in the community in
59:47
in the gated community to actually uh pray with us, right? Yeah. The prayer itself becomes class
59:54
oriented. Wow. Because their distance, you know, he's not like me. I'm rich. You know how much I paid for this place and now this poor guy is just standing in the mosque next to me. It's like from
1:00:04
his perspective, it doesn't make any sense. You know, Islam for him is that I pay my my
1:00:10
uh my zakat and I go for this million and 700,000 Egyptian pounds Hajj and fine. and I'm a very good
1:00:16
practicing Muslim. I don't blame him because no one explained to him that this is wrong actually
1:00:22
you know uh they don't want to uh quote unquote sit with the smelly people you know it's like
1:00:28
the whole point is that you sit with the smelly people in h that you you see the person who's coming from Nigeria and the person who's coming from Burma and the person who's coming from South
1:00:36
Africa and maybe Latin America and people have different habits and you have to have subur and
1:00:41
you have to stay away from argumentation and you have to tame yourself and you have to stand next
1:00:47
to a very poor person who came via a very tough road you know and the route was very long for him
1:00:54
to stand next to you. I remember I was in Omrah and then this very very he looked very old Indian
1:01:01
uh man maybe 80 or something. He was very slim, very, you know, his bones, you can see his bone.
1:01:07
And it seems that I was standing on his way. I was moving for the taw, but yan, it seems that I
1:01:14
was a bit slow. And he simply pushed me aside. Yeah. I jumped one meter, you know. It's like
1:01:20
he pushed me like this. Some people are very old but very strong, you know. And I looked at
1:01:26
what's the matter, you know. And he looked at me angrily and then he kept doing his taw, you know.
1:01:32
I looked at him and said, "This poor guy came all the way probably from India or from Bangladesh or
1:01:40
something and he wants to finish his Omrah before he passes away." This is his mentality, you know.
1:01:46
And he waited for long and he paid a lot. Get out of my way, you know. This is his thinking. So I
1:01:54
just was at the beginning I was like, "What?" And then I said, "Okay, okay, Tama." Alhamdulillah.
1:02:00
Okay, you're very kind. This is the experience that you have to go through. Not sit in sterilized
1:02:06
spaces and uh posh hotels and as if you are going to Monaco. Uh is this too communist or socialist
1:02:13
or Marxist or whatever? No, it's just you have to have a a limit. You have to have a boundary. You
1:02:21
know, people can enjoy more facilities if they can afford it. You can't deny people because we
1:02:26
believe in communities. There are the rich and the poor. But don't push the ceiling of the luxury to
1:02:32
the extent that the poor can't afford the minimum level of uh uh going to Hajj and and also you have
1:02:40
to see those people around you. You can't just separate and segregate like this. So people go to Hajj in different routes almost the are made for people to mix and to see each other. Yeah.
1:02:50
Not to be served as classes. A couple of years ago I was at a conference where you presented.
Nature
1:02:56
It was a different topic but you uh in between you mentioned something about the organization
1:03:02
of the conference was an Islamic conference and you said why are we having this conference in the center of a city um you know does that really reflect our Islamic ethos and then you
1:03:12
propose you know that the conference should take place in the countryside and we should have walks
1:03:18
and we should have greenery around us and yeah explain that to me like you know because in a
1:03:23
sense you were showing there was a a disconnect between the heavy Islamic topics that were being
1:03:29
uh discussed and the place within which those topics were discussed like explain your the
1:03:35
thinking there. Cities historically speaking are setting boundaries between humans and nature.
1:03:44
You build a city, you build a wall to protect the community and this is something that has to do with historical development. The paradox is it's essentially necessary right for you to build
1:03:54
dynasties and civilization quote unquote and this is what everyone says in philosophy from the Greek
1:04:01
philosophy to Kaldun to alabi to whoever you name but the paradox is once you separate yourself from
1:04:09
the nature to build the civilization you start the start the the clock starts ticking because this is
1:04:17
the beginning of rise and fall of civilizations and once you separate yourself from nature you
1:04:23
keep losing a connection and you are behind the walls. So interestingly now in our postmodern
1:04:32
times people pay a lot of money to go for safari to go back to nature. Yeah. The generation of my
1:04:39
father was the generation that moved from the he was born 1920 for example. He was
1:04:44
urban. He was born into the city but the his generation many of them were born in in rural
1:04:50
areas and they moved to the city for education and social mobility etc. And they wanted to stay
1:04:56
in the city because it's a development that they were told is more progressive.
1:05:03
My generation and my children's generation the dream is to retire in countryside. Yes. So it's
1:05:10
like the city is attracting you but you realize people become disenchanted. Now I end up in the
1:05:16
city alone. My children go to different places in the world because of the global economy. I don't want to stay in the middle of my uh sort of cement uh building. I want if I'm going to end up alone,
1:05:28
let me end up alone in in the nature. Yeah, in a small uh town where people are still keeping
1:05:35
the social habits and where I can have like chitchats with different friends around and
1:05:41
neighbors and then I can go for a walk and I can see the greenery etc. So the the paradox
1:05:47
of the human history is that we have to establish cities where actually services are provided bigger
1:05:53
number wealth etc. But once you do that, you lose the connection with the nature. And uh I think
1:06:00
that if we are thinking about the future for our Islamic cities, they should be open to uh nature
1:06:06
and also schooling should be open to nature. Yeah. The fact that we are locking the kids for 12 years
1:06:13
in their lives in schools that have walls that have uh classes with density and a small window
1:06:21
and then electricity and as if you are having like uh chicks in this uh plant where you have
1:06:28
a chicken bringing up chicken or breeding chicken. um needs this connection with the universe, this
1:06:36
connection with the world around you, uh seeing the plants, seeing the mountains. Uh so why are we
1:06:43
holding our conferences in hotels? Yeah. And the notion of the hotel itself is a very Yeah. We had
1:06:49
the Han the Han you know where people can eat and but also it's in the middle of the market in the
1:06:55
bazars you know and there was a different texture where also you are hospitalized I'm sorry you are
1:07:02
you receive the hospitality of the people around you can go to the mosque uh first place you go to
1:07:07
when you go to a new city you go to the mosque and there is that description of the sufi tarikas they were not only uh in in specific cities they were crossing the Muslim um so you you go to
1:07:19
a city and you ask for the nakshaba te or for the maawi te and and once you go there they will
1:07:25
receive you or you go to the mosque and someone next to you realizes you are a stranger you come to my home you stay with me at least for 3 days this is your right as a Muslim etc so the texture
1:07:34
of the society is different and it's open to the nature around in most of the time so I think that
1:07:40
we have to have a different imagination about two things uh what is uh success and what is happiness
1:07:49
And I think that part of the definition of success of our modern times is property that
1:07:54
you have more and more property. It doesn't mean that property is not important. But the fact that
1:07:59
you're successful by having property and by living in a separate uh place in a gated community where
1:08:06
only the poor uh where only the rich live and the poor cannot enter and you have the gates and the security and the cameras and the surveys and everything. And happiness is that this is
1:08:16
happiness. This is the ultimate goal that I should look up to if I am a young person and I want to
1:08:23
establish my career to reach that point when I can provide my family with such luxurious way of life. This is not actually what we are looking for. How do we want to build our schools just like
1:08:33
any other school but with the uh with the u sort of Islamic name on the wall or our schools are
1:08:41
different. They have fountains in the middle. You listen to the sound of water. The classrooms have big windows so that you can see nature around you. It's surrounded. It's at the edge of the city. Uh
1:08:51
and then there are forests around where children are taken in the breaks to explore nature around
1:08:57
etc. Maybe have a deer one day jumping into your uh uh school and then everyone is looking at that
1:09:03
creature. Uh so um how do we imagine the good life? Yeah. And I think that this is the the
1:09:11
core problem that we are having today. What is a good life? And how we defi how we can define it. Yeah. Are we are we more inclined to is our fra more in our human nature does it incline us
Tribal mindset
1:09:23
to settle in a single place or are we more inclined to be nomadic in our and this is
1:09:30
a big issue now in sociology and anthropology. Uh it's not only about the movement, it's also about
1:09:36
the mentality. Right. There is a very nice book titled the tribal imagination. Yeah. And it was
1:09:41
written by a professor in Harvard and he said and he himself is the son of modernity and he is the
1:09:48
person who likes individualization etc. But he said from my research I found out that actually
1:09:54
humans don't think in individual way. Yeah we all share a tribal imagination. You always have these
1:10:01
calculations. I have this offer in Japan but my mother lives in Pakistan and my brother lives
1:10:07
in Cairo and the sister in London. how how am I going to sort of travel and leave my mother? how
1:10:14
can we organize together that someone takes off my care of my uh the elderly in the family and
1:10:19
and then you might end up refusing you might end up declining simply because and people would say
1:10:24
are you crazy this is the your way to become a CEO you know but you have different priorities what do
1:10:29
I want from life etc so people have to think about this their own definition of a good life and what
1:10:36
it means it doesn't definitely mean that I would die alone yeah Yeah, we are by nature both nomadic
1:10:46
but we need to settle. And Allah described in the Quran the creation of the human. He said
1:10:55
Allahh created you like plants. You have to have roots. And if you move, you have to move
1:11:02
with your roots. You go to a different soil but you can't cut the roots and expect that when you
1:11:08
move to the new soil and give be given some water that the roots would grow necessarily that you
1:11:14
might die die in terms as as a plant you know and just stay there like something on the surface. So
1:11:24
though people travel and we have communities that have three four generations outside their country of origin but what is so great especially the Pakistanis and Indians and Bangladeshes etc that
1:11:34
they care very much for bringing their children to the roots. The Palestinians for example they still teach their children they eat the same food they sing the songs they wear the same uh things
1:11:45
they they keep the memories and the pictures of the uh grandfathers they they have a family
1:11:50
archive. You know it's important to root yourself in a community and then if you want to change the
1:11:56
habits of the community this is a good struggle as well. You know you don't have to live like your grandfather and you don't have to encapsulate your identity in one uh in one uh part but uh but you
1:12:08
have to have roots. You have to think of yourself as a person who belongs and being is important.
1:12:15
this being in philosophy, you know, we're not only as we are born, we become all the time
1:12:20
different things and we change fine, but you also have to have some constant elements in your life
1:12:26
that ident through which you identify who you are and I think that it has to do with the religion
1:12:31
and culture because also in the world of Islam, we are different. We have different cultures.
1:12:37
I'm Egyptian. You come from Indian background. If you go to Indonesia, people act in their everyday
1:12:43
life a bit differently. What is going to unite us sadly is not Islam. What is going to unite us is
1:12:50
the way of life of urban life. And we have to be aware that it's very standardized and it cuts the
1:12:58
relations with the localities and the vernacular uh in a way and we have to think of preserving
1:13:04
that as part of preserving the texture in which a good community can grow. Yeah. And uh there is a
1:13:13
challenge urbanization is a challenge. Yeah. Um as we wrap up I want to reflect on Gaza. I mean
Gaza
1:13:19
um you know it's horrific what has happened to to Gaza and and the place has been destroyed
1:13:26
and majority of its buildings are now rubble and various there's conversation about two versions
1:13:32
of Gaza. You've got the Trump Riviera Gaza right which again will look very much like Dubai or one of these sort of Gulf states. Um uh but there's very little discussion obviously so
1:13:44
because with the the people of Gaza are still facing this horrific reality but there's very
1:13:49
little discussion about what Gaza would look like like if we had a situation where we were able
1:13:56
to claim Gaza back and inshallah you know u this would not be in in any distant future and the the
1:14:03
Muslims of Gaza were able to to live and flourish in that in that place. What would it look like
1:14:09
spiritually? What would it look like from an urban perspective that you would satisfy, you know,
1:14:16
this conversation we've had today uh um uh satisfy the conditions of the type of communities we want
1:14:23
to establish. Sometimes the the division of big families is a target, right? So if you suggest of
1:14:32
course put aside the Trump Riviera thing here, which is possible by the way, they might just do it. But if you are planning for the people if they want to come go back, if they they have
1:14:42
the right to go back, the right of return to their land as well, uh then you have to take
1:14:48
into consideration the social texture of Gaza. People have big families. Yeah. The plans that
1:14:54
I saw recently are offering big buildings. You know, these like 60s type buildings that it's the
1:15:01
building is like a long building, not skyscraper, but long building. And then you have two plus one
1:15:06
flats. One plus one flats. 1 plus one flats in Gaza. No. Seriously. Yeah. Where people have
1:15:12
usually average of six to eight children. Through that planning you are doing actually family uh
1:15:20
control really in the Yeah. Because if people live there is no way that they can have more children,
1:15:27
you know. So you force by the structure a way of life. I have a flat of 2 plus one and I am
1:15:34
a person who survived. I have only one member of my family living with me and then how if I
1:15:41
if it's my mother if if it's my father and I need to marry and this is what I have I can get a wife
1:15:47
and my father can live with me or my mother but yeah practically speaking I can only have one
1:15:53
child and there will be a decline in the number of people in the coming three 30 years. Yeah. So you
1:15:59
are if you if you save them now you are basically killing them in a way that is very subtle for the
1:16:06
coming 30 30 years of the future and the number of the people of Gaza will decline and the lifestyle
1:16:12
will be different. Look at how China for example completely different example controlled birth by
1:16:19
imposing this policy of only one child and it led to the killing of girls. Yeah. Yeah. There was a
1:16:26
a a genocide for girl female babies because they want boys and it it it went under the carpet you
1:16:34
know that so many girls when they were born they were killed because they want they have only one chance. Yes. And then the the the the structure of the family became very uh u u vertical. Yes. If
1:16:48
you have one child in one generation there are no cousins. It's just vertical. It's not horizontal.
1:16:58
So the society itself completely changed within 30 years by this policy. So either by controlling
1:17:03
birth or by limiting the space that people have for their homes. Uh there is there is a there must
1:17:11
be a way to design for the people of Gaza to keep the way of life people have having many children
1:17:18
in the families. But at the same time the land of Gaza is very limited. This is a challenge for the
1:17:24
urban planners. How can we keep this society as it is serving its own causes and having its own
1:17:32
practices and without and and facing the challenge of the small because it's the most dense place in
1:17:39
the world by the way at one point before the genocide it was very dense. How are we going to solve this problem? This is a challenge for the for the for the Muslim architects and urbanists,
1:17:49
you know, but it's not by building buildings that are basically changing and transforming
1:17:55
the nature of the society and hence its ability to defend itself. So the the spatial and the the
1:18:02
place and the architecture and the urban are challenges for our Muslim way of life that
1:18:08
we need to discuss. There is no single answer for the question but at least it should be put on the
1:18:15
uh agenda of how do we live and what are what is our material environment and how it's affecting
1:18:21
us as Muslims. Dr. Heakar, thank you so much. I found that a fascinating conversation. Thank you
1:18:27
so much for your time. Thank you very much for hosting me and uh I wish your project
1:18:33
of the thinking Muslim all the luck because all Muslims should be thinking. Thank you.
1:18:43
Please remember to subscribe to our social media and YouTube channels and head over to our website thinkingmuslim.com to sign up to my weekly newsletter. Okay.