Ep.100 - Why Are Western Muslims Moving to Turkey? with Thomas Abdul Qadir
Theres a growing movement in Europe and North America to reconsider where the future of Muslim communities lie. In recent years, a host of security and social concerns have brought to question just how much Muslims can maintain their commitments to Islam and leave peacefully in a society that constantly looks for opportunities to marginalise Islamic practice. The Liberal state is intent on secularising and liberalising Muslims. This has led to a call for Hijra, or migration away from the west and back to the Muslim world.
Thomas Abdul Qadir is the former president of the Majlis of Istanbul Muslims, an organisation that caters for foreign Muslims living in istanbul. They organise talks and activities to foster a community. He has a masters in civilisational studies from Ibn Haldun University – and is currently pursuing traditional Islamic education.
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Transcript:
Why are Western Muslims Moving to Turkey? With Thomas Abdul Qadir.
This transcript was computer generated. Please check the transcript against the programme for accuracy.
There's a growing movement in Europe and North America to reconsider where the future of Muslim communities lies, in recent years a host of security and social concerns have brought to question just how much Muslims can maintain their commitments to Islam and live peacefully in a society that constantly looks for opportunities to marginalize Islamic practice. The liberal state is intent on secularizing and liberalizing Muslims, this has led to a call for Hijra or migration away from the west and back to the Muslim world. But this is fraught with many difficulties many Muslims have little connection with the Muslim world and may in fact have acquired implicit Western tastes but alienate them from the country of destination. Today we explore these issues surrounding Hijra from the West my guest today is Thomas Abdul Qadir who is the former president of the Majlis of Istanbul Muslims, an organization that caters for foreign Muslims living in Istanbul. They organize talks and activities to foster a community in this huge city. He has a master’s in civilizational studies from Ibn Haldoun University and is currently pursuing traditional Islamic education. Thomas Abdul Qadir assalamualaikum wa rahmatulah and welcome to The Thinking Muslim here in Istanbul.
Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatulah.
Well, it's great to have you with us and I know we're going to have a very interesting discussion today about the concept of Hijra as well as Hijra and what it means to many Muslims who live in this city. I've noticed in my Journeys from various parts of Istanbul there are a large number of Muslim let's call them expats that live in this city, but I come from the west and maybe even come from further afield so I want to explore their motivations today but let's talk about yourself first you’ve been in Istanbul for a number of years. I mean what brought you here what brought you to this city?
So, ironically when I first came here was not actually for the sake of Hijra and sort of, I was studying Arabic in Egypt and I guess this is 2014, right. And I came here to Turkey for a visit it was the last week of Ramadan and Eid, yeah. I stayed here maybe about two weeks and I just fell in love with the country, and I said I want to live here I'm going to come back here okay so I went back to the States; I finished my undergrad and then as soon as I finished my bachelor's I decided to move here to Turkey. So, I came here and originally, I was only planning to do a gap here as they call it so I was planning to do one year, and then Allah had other plans for me so Allah’s Qadr it's been nine years now.
It's been nine years you've been in Istanbul and for most of that time you've been pursuing education in this city what's been your…
So, when I first came here, I was working so I taught English which is a… It's a very common job for foreigners in in Turkey yeah. So, I taught English at first and then I went I pursued my masters. so, I started a masters at Boğaziçi University, actually which is probably the most prestigious University in Turkey, but it's quite secular. So, I was disenchanted with the environment and the university, and I left that, and then I went to Ibn Haldun where I finished my masters and then ever since finishing my masters I've just been working and trying to be all thought about it.
Great, I mean I've noticed that Istanbul and Turkey maybe unlike most countries in a Muslim world, there is not a people do not speak English on a very large scale I mean I think I heard a statistic that almost 80 percent of Turkish Muslims, Turks do not speak a second language. I mean, how much has that affected your ability to integrate let's call it that into Turkish Society well it hasn't affected me personally because when I came here, I came with the attention of learning Turkish. I basically just landed I stayed with some friends, and I started hitting the books like right away yeah. Because I had that intention of learning Turkish but it is it is definitely one of the practicalities about thinking about Hitler to Turkey is like you know maybe you can find a bubble where you can just speak English or Arabic for the first year, but at some point if you're serious about staying here yeah maybe not even over the long term but even over the short term I would suggest learning Turkish and why not, at the end of the day it so for a lot of people they are maybe not as enthusiastic about learning Turkish because it's not the language of the Quran so for a lot of Muslims they're like I would rather learn Arabic at least I could learn more Quran but Turkish at the end of the day is also; my opinion is it's an Islamic language Islamic hit language it allows you to communicate with other Muslims so yeah.
I mean I I've noticed that there are a number of Western expats here Western migrants who've come to the city and they haven't necessarily picked up Turkish and I think they use the excuse that it's a difficult language to learn, but of course on a daily basis just from going to the restaurant or you know meeting Muslims in your community you probably need Turkish right to interact right, that’s essential.
I mean and also you don't need a super advanced level of Turkish, you just need a level where you can communicate with people right. And that's also I think Turkish is actually a very easy language okay. There's an old orientalist joke that Turkish starts off that Persian starts off easy to learn and then it becomes hard and that Turkish is hard to learn in the beginning and then it becomes easy right. But, Arabic is hard to learn in the beginning and it's hard to learn at the end this day is hard yes. So, definitely I think that you know if you compare Turkish to Arabic it's much easier right definitely.
So you would say I mean you're a proficient in Turkish I've noticed and I’ve walked with you in this city and you're able to interact at a pretty high proficiency it seems to me with the locals in in Turkish you can even joke with the locals it's…
A little bit Alhamdulillah. I don't know.
Well okay so let's talk about the wider pitch a paint a picture of migrant life here in Istanbul for me please right. So when we talk about Western Muslims migrating or making Hijra to Istanbul or to Turkey we're actually, we need to realize that that's part of two larger phenomena and one of those is just is migration to Turkey in general; so it's not all just Hijra or Muslims that are migrating to Istanbul there's also wider migration to Turkey in general so for example a lot of people are aware, of for example Arabs who are fleeing from political repression in the countries following you know post-Arab spring but there's also for example there's people from Balkans who are coming okay; there's a lot of people from Central Asia, and some of that is economic some of that it can also be termed Hijra a lot of the Tulab al’ilm in the city are actually from Kazakhstan center from Uzbekistan right. And they're unable to study Islam in their countries and so they come here to study Islam and so when we when we conceptualize of Hijra I think we should conceptualize it in a wider sense and it's not just it shouldn't become a synonym for Muslim expats right yeah. Which I actually want to I want to challenge that term I really don't like the word expat.
What do you prefer?
Migration, okay. Migrants, why should we have a separate category for when westerners migrate then when brown or black people or people from the third world migrate right it's all migration yes this is Allah's Earth and everybody is migrating props for different reasons yeah but at the end of the day it's the same phenomenon it's migration yeah.
I mean let's separate out then the different types of migration I mean I do want to focus on Western Migration, because for you know most of myself listeners come from the west and they are contemplating I would suggest especially a lot of young Muslims are contemplating moving to the Muslim world. But you suggest that there's migration from everywhere so let's start with maybe The Fallout from the Arab Spring I mean where are these migrants coming from Syria of course lives here and we've got what Iraqis, Egyptians is that right are these are free top?
Yeah. So, we can put it into a couple other categories, so the first one that you just mentioned would be political oppression, fleeing from political oppression and usually we would think of those people as refugees yeah of course from an Islamic perspective they're also mahajirs right. That is literally exactly how we conceptualize of Hijrah in the Islamic tradition yeah. So, the largest the single largest group is the Syrians which is about 4 million less now it's about it's less than four million yeah but yeah there's there's much wider and many of them also are not legally categorized as refugees right. But if you look at it there are fleeing political repression yeah so you have Iraqis which you're completely right that's a very large group, you have Iraqis; you have Egyptians a lot of Egyptians; you have Libyans right so for example when I was teaching English my first year teaching English here most of my students were actually the Libyans, really. And a lot of them were actually on tourists residence permits yeah so they were technically listed as tourists but if you would talk to them a lot of them were from the east of Libya this was at the time of haftar's offensive yeah and. So, a lot of them were going to Malaysia because they could get visas there and they were coming to Turkey because they could also basically these were the only two options for them right. So, most of those have now gone back to Libya but that's that's something interesting where how do we to think perhaps Beyond just categories of refugee or you know we need to think beyond these categories, I think. So, one is political repression, another one is economic migration which is a very big one right so I mentioned Africans obviously a lot of them are Muslims I see them we pray in the mosque we pray together but then I also see Africans who walk around Istanbul and they literally have a cross as a necklace so obviously they're not Muslims yeah, and they're just coming here for economic opportunities okay just fair enough right. So, economic migrants and that under that you also have Central Asia and you have the Balkans for example as well, so that's the second category and then maybe the third category which I guess is our main focus today yeah is what you could term religious migration okay. So, that's what we think of as digital usually yeah and so obviously for us as Western Muslims it's very interesting that we have what Muslims from the West who are migrating to Turkey yeah right. But then as I said there's a wider there's a wider phenomenon going on here of Muslims coming to Turkey and Istanbul in particular for religious reasons right such as the Kazakhs and Uzbeks and so on. So, when you're on the ground it's a much more mixed and diverse picture than you might get from the outside.
Someone said to me I was at a dinner yesterday and someone pointed out that Istanbul is very quickly becoming an Ummatic City and that's a new buzzword a new term, but I suppose what they meant by that is you've just got this rich tapestry of Muslims from all over the world who are coming to converging on this one city and you know his point was this could be a place for genuine discussions about the future of the Muslim Ummah I mean how much of that is exaggerated I mean do you feel that when you interact with Muslims as you said from all over the world who converge onto in into this city.
I mean, you definitely fill it on the ground yeah right. If you're if you're in those circles you know you definitely feel it where you're in a circle of friends and you're meeting people Muslims from all over the world and you're discussing your common problems as Muslims, no matter where you're from and that you can connect with other Muslims right. Just the other day we both attended the Ummatics conference yes right. And that's not the only one that was the first one from Ummatics, but then you also have for example Zaim University yeah has been hosting conferences on Ummah; they have an annual conference on islamophobia there's people here who do activism for the sake of Kashmir, for the Uyghurs, for Syrians, Palestine so on. And so forth right. So, it's definitely there I think it's also part of all is also part of globalization where as I and I don't think this was necessarily government policies a lot of people think it is, and so when you read articles in Russian media yeah they'll talk about it as sort of like an Ak Party project or something like that and I don't I don't think that's very accurate. I think a lot of it was you know build it and they will come but then the people who came are maybe not exactly who you thought was going to come right. So, I think a lot of is actually Muslims themselves making that choice.
Why choose Turkey, what is it about Turkey or Istanbul in particular that allows, that makes it a magnet for these migrants from around the world.
So, we should have mentioned that Turkey is not the only option okay so if you're thinking seriously about Hijra, there's other options out there; there's you know maybe Qatar some people are going there you have Malaysia as we mentioned; some people are currently making history to Saudi Arabia which a lot of people might not think, but is actually happening right now on the ground. But I think Turkey is I would argue probably the best option right now really yeah I think so.
For religious-minded Muslim?
Yeah, for a couple of reasons, so one is simply geography right so if you look Turkey's geographical location is right at the center of everything yeah. Is right at the center of Europe Asia, sorry. Europe Africa and Asia right it's right in the middle so part of it is ease of access right part of it is Turkey has a decent economy it's had an economic downturn as of late yes but when you compare it to the other options it's still it's still quite attractive okay in terms of the standard of living that's possible, and I think I think maybe we should have that discussion about how standard of living is perhaps I think decreasing in the west right now yeah and is increasing in other places, one of those is Turkey. And then the third factor is a more conservative life right and so it's the combination of those three.
People may be surprised to hear that you can live a more conservative by conservative you know we effectively mean a more religious life right. But right people will be surprised to hear that because of course often our first exposure to Turkey is the tourist areas that we visit when we're younger and we go to and you know around Sultan Ahmed Masjid and Aya Sofia and they tend those areas tend not to be very conservative, in fact they also attract a lot of Western holiday makers for precisely the reason that they will go to say Spain or Italy, because they can have a good time they can revel in into the party in time and cheaper and cheaper than a lot of places cheaper than a lot of places the currency at the moment is very advantageous for European Muslims and American Muslims, or Americans in general anyway but… So, why do you do you argue that Turkey is is a better place for religious-minded Muslims yeah.
No, I think you hit it on the no a lot of people when they come. So one thing you have to realize is that Istanbul other than Izmir is probably the most secular place in Turkey okay and it's the place most people come right and then on top of that one of the first places I go to is Sultan Ahmed which you know I've been here nine years so I've seen the difference in in who is coming over the past few years has become more Ummatic in that sense it's become there's more Muslims that are making up that percentage of people that are coming whereas before it was basically pretty much only Germans, Russians and Brits basically. And so the demographics of that aren't changing right so that's one thing where unfortunately you know a lot of these it is quite ironic that you know you can get a view of a really beautiful view of Aya Sofia and have a beer you know while you yeah that's just how that neighborhood was and a lot of people also don't realize that they're sort of an interesting system in Istanbul where it's understood, it's just understood that certain neighborhoods are more secular in certain neighborhoods are more conservative and then of course there's places that are somewhere in the middle like that's a very it's not that binary right. But if you don't understand that system you could maybe be shocked right and I think a lot of Muslims come from backgrounds where they're sort of very sheltered they sort of made a bubble for themselves in the west, an ethnic enclave really. And so, when they come here and Istanbul is a city of officially 16 million more than that right if you consider non-permanent residence it's probably like 18 million people yeah so that's just 18 million people are not all going to be conservative Muslims right obviously.
So, you suggest that it is the most secular city in…
Yeah, after Izmir maybe, and maybe Ankara as well. Okay yeah.
Right, so, it tends to attract more liberal-minded people…
No, there's other there's other, maybe I should amend that. There's other obviously quite secular cities in Turkey it's just where most people come, fine. But yeah I mean the thing is, there's a reason why Erdogan always wins yeah, and a lot of people part of why the Western media always get this wrong is because they just, they stay in Istanbul and then there are surrounded by people and then most of them don't speak very good Turkish so they talk to people who know English, and so just they start getting the impression oh wow everyone hates Erdogan, I was like no go to Anatolia it looks very different right. So, you know you will have a very different picture of Turkey if you go to Bursa or if you go to Konya or you go to anywhere in the Black Sea for example or even the Kurdish areas, even though recently they voted for the opposition candidate they're still quite socially conservative right. Yeah.
Okay, so if someone then wanted to make the move so you know I came across Muslims who live in France and of course France is, I think the repression against the Muslim Community is it is at a very acute level, you know, some Muslims can't even practice their Deen in a in a very basic way in France because of the restrictions from the state. So, if a French Muslim wanted to come to Turkey, are you suggesting that Istanbul would not be a good place for them and maybe they should be thinking about other cities like, how should they navigate this, a potential problem that they may face in with a secular neighborhood in Istanbul.
Well, I think part of it is just doing your research before you come.
So, there are different neighborhoods.
Yeah, there's different neighborhoods yeah, and so it used to be a lot of people were going to Fatih and Basaksehir, those are not really options anymore because of the change of laws, yeah. So, now I would say that if you're if you want to come to Istanbul there's still Uskudar, Umrania and Eyup are good options yes. But yeah I think on the Istanbul versus not Istanbul question it's a lot of what do you want what are you personally interested in yeah so a lot of people may not be interested in Istanbul just because it's a big city, and you have the big city life and some people want to get away from that in that case then there's other options out there. You can look at Bursa, you can look at Konya yeah, if you have enough money to buy a car and a house and you're interested in that you can look into Yalova and Zakariyakoy which are smaller cities that are sort of within the orbit of Istanbul right and you know it's a drive away from Istanbul okay so you could sort of live in a small city but then drive to Istanbul if you know you wanted to meet people or go to a conference or whatever it may be.
Right, now going back to the initial Focus I suppose of today and I'm interested in the number of the growing number of Muslims from the West who have decided to move to Istanbul and other cities in in Turkey yeah. What's the scale of that I mean I know I'm not sure if there have been any research studies into this or if we've got an accurate picture but at least anecdotally it just seems like more and more westerners seem to be moving here is that you know. Is that fair to say that from your end is that a similar picture?
Yeah, I think that's very fair to say right I mean part of it is not only are there not numbers on this it's like how would you even have numbers on this okay right because there's such a specific demographic right like how do you how do you have statistics on that. I think there's a couple of things so I would mention, and I would mention there's also the Western Muslims who already live here is to realize you're still just a drop in the bucket in terms of migration to Turkey in general as we mentioned before yeah right. And like I said Central Asians, Africans, Eastern Europeans, you're still just a drop in the bucket right, but even with that said I would say that the scale I think would surprise a lot of people the scale of people who have already moved here and also the scale of people in the west who want to move here right. And I think that there is actually a disconnect between the imams and the intelligencia of Muslims in the west and a lot of the lay people in the west who actually really do have this desire, and you can see it increasing right. And I think there's even now discussions on Hijra that are actually increasing whereas before it was sort of a very niche conversation yeah. I think for a while us as Muslims, because of the war on terror there was a real attempt to sort of divorce us from the rest of the Ummah and we, as Muslims we were just trying to survive really, we were trying to tread water yeah and so we were always so busy proving that we're loyal to our nation-state you know where a lot of people naturally in that environment just said you know what I'm gonna prove I'm not just an American Muslim I can be an even better American than Americans right. And that was the focus for a while I think, and so I'm actually happy to see maybe not it's not so much about Hijra as much as it is about connecting back to the Ummah and re-establishing those links right.
Yeah no no, I think that's a really interesting, you meet through your activities with Istanbul Majlis you meet a number of Western Muslims or a number of Muslims from Britain and France and United States. What are they telling you, why are they so alienated from Western communities or Western life that they've decided to pack up and move to Turkey.
Right, so I think there's two things one is the war on terror as I mentioned…
Okay, so security and security.
Right, Prevent in the case of the UK yeah or what French Muslims are facing. So that's one it's just sort of the overwhelming pressure that existed as Muslim minorities in US right and the second one you know when you talk to people especially anybody who's like over the age of let's say 27 or 30 yeah. Even some of the younger guys I'll talk to and they'll just say I don't want to raise kids in the west anymore; they say I don't think it's an appropriate environment to raise children in anymore right. I'll meet I'll meet sometimes even young guys who are in their 20s you know 23.
Not married yet.
He's not even married yet right, but mashallah he's got a plan he's thinking ahead you know. So he's saying I don't want to raise kids there anymore so I'm gonna come here I'm going to start a base and then when I get married I can inshallah have a more appropriate environment to raise a family in. That's the number one thing I'm hearing.
So, let me unpack that so what is it about the environment in the west that makes it hostile to bring it up an Islamic family.
So, there's two things one I think in general when you look at popular media in the west I think it's become much more blatant in a lot of things in terms of just the level to which of nudity or partial nudity where it's just… It's crazy when you can when you consider even with what I grew up with which obviously from an Islamic perspective yeah right where we weren't okay with but even when you compare that to what is out there today it's just such a huge gap yeah and the second one is obviously the LGBTIQI issue is a very pertinent one in the west and is very much the topic of the town right now. And I think for even for a lot of Muslims they were saying listen we had sort of an agreement where we said okay we understand that we live in the west and we understand that there are going to be people who live a certain lifestyle that we don't that we don't even agree with right, and because we have liberalism we can just sort of live together we can just accept our differences, but I think, I think most Muslims or let's say a lot of Muslims today would find the way things are going out to be a blatant form of social engineering. Is the way they view it, yeah. Some people may not agree with that they think it's uncharitable but this is sort of the Zeitgeist this is just what the animus right now in the era is that they went too far.
Right, yeah. So, these are Muslims who fear that the trans agenda the LGBTIQ agenda the social liberal agenda is going to impact the lives of their children and you know divert them away from the Deen and lead them astray.
Right, and a lot of people maybe view this almost as sort of like a gateway drug right is sort of like if you agree on this issue you start to adopt a more liberal philosophy and then that starts to undermine certain let's say your Islamic worldview very clearly right yeah. I think a very interesting shift is currently happening right now where because, of because it was Republican presidents basically that were doing The War on Terror, Muslims in America even though historically a lot of us voted for Republicans or were split evenly yeah. During that period basically there was just a near Ijima’ among American Muslims that just had a practical necessity we're all going to vote for Democrats because you know they don't want to kick us all out or they don't want to throw us all in prison right even though a lot of people understood that there was a bargain there was a there was a trade-off happening there yeah and I think a lot of people did understand that, but I think there's a shift happening right now. I mentioned to you before this that Fox News ran a segment about Muslim parents that were protesting the issue of LGBTIQI, and it was I don't I would be interested to see when the last time Fox News had a positive segment about Muslim was right and to be to be very clear I'm not a fan of Fox News so I'm not necessarily saying oh this is a wonderful thing let's all ally with the right. I don't I think… that Muslims should have an independent stance between the two parties but what I'm saying is I think there's a shift that's happening there yeah. Also, recently Hamtramck, yeah, which is the only Muslim majority city in the U.S yeah. I think it was the day before yesterday yeah released a decision to they basically banned all political flags on city property but that was widely understood to be a mechanism to basically ban the LGBTIQI on City Council right, right. And then, of course the…If you read the article on it, was you know they said oh we supported you when you were in a press minority why are you oppressing another minority yeah so that's going to be the framing so and especially with the presidential elections. I think they're next year right yeah with elections next year I think this is going to be one of the central issues and how that's going to fit in with Muslims and with islamophobia I don't know it's not very clear yet. So, things are shifting very quickly yeah and you saw this also with Tate converting to Islam right whether you agree with him or disagree with him right so this is part of a wider shift that is happening right now with Western Muslims, I think.
So, I think what you're saying is that life has become very complicated in the west. There's a, there are a number of challenges that Muslims have to navigate on a daily basis sometimes they're going to have to make some compromises sometimes they're going to have to take a stand and it just it's becoming very tiresome for some Muslims that you know they have to put a lot of bandwidth into the most mundane issues, the most basic issues about bringing up their kids right. Does that level of complex complexity non-exist here amongst you know in in the Muslim Community.
I mean there's obviously a certain level of complexity in politics anywhere right. But there's not sort of that that level of complexity and how to navigate your daily life as a Muslim here okay for sure really that does not exist, no. I'm so happy you mentioned it just being tiresome being exhausted yeah. So, part of very interestingly when I first came to Turkey I think there was almost a there was almost a healing process for me, where I just needed to get out of the West and it took me a good three four years of just sort of reflecting to sort of really heal from that, from the pressures of just constantly being under that pressure it's a lot of psychological pressure right so for me that was that was a transformative experience to sort of be away from the pressures of being a minority in America or anywhere in the west, and just sort of really reflect; and to be honest for me those were you know what is colloquially referred to as Jahilya days or the J days right. Where to be honest, I had a reckoning where I said what do I actually believe do I just believe this because it's important for me to be an oppressed minority or do I believe in Islam yes. And so I went through a process and to be honest I wasn't as practicing and so for me it's very interesting I actually almost had an internal Hijra inside Istanbul, where I decided to move from a more secular neighborhood to a more religious one as I said you know what I do believe in Islam yes it's not just a language of resistance for me it's it's something deeper than that yeah and I want to live my lifestyle in accordance with Islam.
And do you feel that you couldn't have reached those sorts of conclusions where you were in in the United States.
I mean obviously lots of people do yeah but that was just that's just how it worked for me.
For you, yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, I do think there's something to be said about just stepping out of that boiler pressure yeah that that we live in in the west.
Now you know again I want to come back to a point early I made, earlier because if I…
Can interrupt you?
Yeah, I do think it's important to mention that when we talk about Hijra as Muslims to Turkey or to anywhere else obviously we realize that the level of repression that we face in the west is not the same as other Muslims.
So, let's talk about that well let's talk about so Hijra as we understand it as Muslims is what the Prophet sws went through of a journey between Mecca to Medina where he was fleeing immense persecution, he saw and the Sahaba were fleeing immense persecution and they made a home in Medina right and they established a community, and yeah, arguably Muslim Britain do not face that level of persecution they can fast they can you know it's not like China they can pray they have got masajids…
In France…
Or even France, okay. France maybe is an exception that we need to discuss but what level of persecution does a Muslim need to face before we can from a Shari’i perspective called that Hijra.
Right, so I think I don't want to say that's an individual decision, but it more or less is okay because you as an individual will be tested on the day of judgment you will stand before Allah and he will hold you to account for the degree to which you protected your religion, and to the degree to which you protected the religion of your family okay. So obviously not all communities in the west or even all communities in America are the exact same, it changes and they face different challenges so for me you know it's not feasible for everyone to make Hijra to Turkey yeah. Maybe it's just moving to a better city in the US where there's a better community and that's totally fine, I respect that I respect that. For me at the end of the day it is you are responsible for your religion and for protecting it and for protecting the religion of your children. So, obviously the Quran is littered with verses; there's just a plethora of verses talking about Hijra specifically because of the Hijra from Mecca to Medina. One of the most interesting verses is about Hijra “the Angels…” this is Surah An-nisa, I think it's verse 97 okay. So, the angels are basically taking the souls of people who were wrongdoers,” ٱلْمَلَـٰٓئِكَةُ ظَالِمِىٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ” they had they had wronged themselves, so the angel say to them فِيمَ كُنتُمْ ۖ, they say What state were you in. So then the people they basically offer an excuse and they say “ قَالُوا۟ كُنَّا مُسْتَضْعَفِينَ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۚ”. They say we were oppressed in the land, and then the angels say “ وَٰسِعَةًۭ فَتُهَاجِرُوا۟ فِيهَا ۚ قَالُوٓا۟ أَلَمْ تَكُنْ أَرْضُ ٱللَّهِ” . So, the angels will reply they say: was not Allah's Earth wide enough spacious enough for you to immigrate therein, and then it says you know and then they will be sent to the Hellfire right. So, this is this is if you read this verse, it's telling you specifically you have no excuse on the day of judgment that, oh I lost my religion because I was oppressed that's not an excuse of course the next verse is very interesting because then it says: “ إِلَّا ٱلْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ ٱلرِّجَالِ وَٱلنِّسَآءِ وَٱلْوِلْدَٰنِ”. I don’t remember the exact words it was “لَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ حِيلَةًۭ وَلَا يَهْتَدُونَ سَبِيلًۭا” So, except for those oppressed sorry: “إِلَّا ٱلْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ ٱلرِّجَالِ وَٱلنِّسَآءِ وَٱلْوِلْدَٰنِ لَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ حِيلَةًۭ وَلَا يَهْتَدُونَ سَبِيلًۭا”
So, except for those oppressed men women and children who basically weren't able to find a way. So, all the fatawa that even the ones that are pro-Hijra, all will say if you can't make Hijra then you're not necessarily responsible for that, and that's part of a larger the Sharia makes always exceptions if you're unable to do so just like if you know people with diabetes who can't fast for example right.
This is the rule.
And, then verse 100 which is the two verses later is very interesting because it says: “۞ وَمَن يُهَاجِرْ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ يَجِدْ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ مُرَٰغَمًۭا كَثِيرًۭا وَسَعَةًۭ ۚ”. So it says and whoever immigrates in the path of Allah will find therein many safe havens we'll find many refuges and abundance and resources so Allah is telling you in the Quran if you make this intention to make Hijrah you will find safe havens on Earth you will find a resources right. But you have to make that intention right and sometimes you have to be creative yeah.
I mean that that's very interesting. So, a Muslim in France and again it's about specific realities we can't make very broad generalizations, but a Muslim in France finds that they can no longer teach their child at home because it's now an obligation to send your child to a state school, the local mosques are being shut down and their imams have been sacked for quoting…
Sweden, for example, where they're you know many children are taken through social services and are taken away from their families yeah. Oftentimes for very at the very least you can say reasons in which there's not a lot of legal impunity right. So yeah definitely, and not only so I'm not necessarily saying oh they should make Israel yeah actually they already are making Hijra and a lot of people don't realize that. So a lot of French Muslims actually not many are coming here to Turkey a lot of them went other places, so a lot of French Muslims are going to the UK or Algeria, Morocco a lot of them went to Canada for example into Quebec because they speak French there and that's easy yeah and that's totally fine you know you. So, for me it's like this you are responsible for Allah everyone has different situations yeah maybe it's not possible for you if it is possible for you it doesn't have to be Turkey it can be it can be Canada, maybe.
So, can I ask a question of knowledge of ilm. Okay, so in Britain we don't face that intensity of repression as Muslims say in Sweden or in in France too, but of course we do have this latent you know assertive liberal muscular liberalism that's trying to take our children away from us not a in one quick blow, but over a period of time right a Muslim escaping that sincerely because he or she wants to bring their family up according to the tenets of Islam. Is that Muslim cannot must be qualified as a migrant in the charity sense committing the action of Hijra right so this is something I actually wanted to mention earlier when we were talking about the Israel from Medina so it's very interesting most of our effect discussions obviously be just because of the context discuss Hijra within the context of Islam and yeah right and that was of course, there's a little bit of difference between the mother who's on this so three of the Mad Libs were basically said you do have to make kids at all with some nuance and then the chef Rays actually had the fatwa that you shouldn't make Hijra or in some cases what they said is they said if you are the last Muslim in a place and you migrate from it is actually Haram because then then nobody is calling to Islam then nobody is saying you know is spreading God's good word right as he Christians were there yeah. So, there is some variance on this but I think there is actually there is in our tradition there is an example of Muslims who made Hijrah not necessarily because this state was applying to Sharia which is when the Muslims migrated from from Mecca it was partially because of Oppression but it was also partially to establish a political Community right that's why our calendar as Muslims starts from the Israel it's when it's when the political community of Muslims was established but before that the first Hijrah was not to Medina it was actually to habasha it was to Abyssinia and that they were actually non-muslims right but they were assured certain rights and this is maybe only somewhat tangently related but something that's interesting to think about here is especially in the 2000s there was there was a lot of rhetoric that oh America is the daughter salaam now it is it gives us all of our rights, but I think there's an interesting question to think about here so when those people are using that rhetoric they were using a lot of the fatawa and our tradition that were against Hijra but part of the reasoning there was they said if the the condition they basically put was literally manifesting the religion now it's a little bit ambiguous but basically the idea of manifesting there's an idea there of being able to publicly Express Islam right and I also think that just because they lived in the pre-obandi era, it wasn't a nation-state system so you could have multiple legal systems so I think when they're talking about Muslims having rights and they're talking about they're actually talking about Collective rights right not about individual rights which is what liberalism gives us as Muslims in the west it says okay you as an individual have religious freedoms but at no point are they saying you as a religious community have certain freedoms so for example if we as Muslims in the west say you know what I want to be able to have that then because that's of religious freedom that we have as a collective which is true that's part of our Sharia it's very clear yeah right that would not be a persuasive argument in American Court I don't think so no you know of course a lot of the politics there happens about city ordinances about noise levels blah blah blah blah yeah but if you try to use the argument of okay well we have Collective rights that I don't think that would fly so that's an interesting question somewhat separately but it's something for us to think about us Muslims to perhaps start thinking of ourselves as collectives and as a larger collector as the Ummah right now that's very interesting I mean I suppose as you said liberalism focuses on the individual and any attempt at this stage after 9 11 for Muslims to solicit these Collective rights will be probably attempting in vain I mean maybe the United States is slightly different I you know because they do have the strong constitutional rights to that that protect religions but as we can see the Muslim Community is an exception even in the United States for many lawmakers we're in the UK for example Jews do actually they apply their Sharia to a certain extent right they have the halaka right they're allowed to apply to a certain extent yeah in the United States you of course you have the Amish and whatnot they don't necessarily have a legal a different legal system but they have their own sort of communities absolutely but let's be honest that's not going to happen for Muslims anytime soon right yeah so can I turn now to the challenges Muslims face when they make the move from the West to a country like Turkey or to a city like Istanbul because we can sometimes have an over romanticized notion of what it means to live in in these countries so paint a picture of the challenges that a Muslim May face if they move to Turkey for example well I think one of the reasons why people up until now have been maybe reluctant to discuss Hijra is because it's often seen as like this naive romantic idea and to be honest a lot of the proponents of Hijra for a while were very naive in the way they approach the Muslim World, so one of the things I want to get out of this podcast is to say no actually you can have a very intellectual discussion about this problem right and you can be very practical in how you talk about it doesn't have to be naive or over romanticized yeah but at the same time in The Other Extreme is that we say oh well sort of the inherent secularism and social sciences where people say in migration studies for example where they say oh people never migrate for religious reasons it's always just economic political reasons no people do actually decide to change their entire lives simply for the sake of religion and there's also you know the Other Extreme of you know we as Muslims should only be loyal to our nation today why are you talking about this just focus on being a good citizen yeah right for me it's like you know you can be you can contribute if we're talking about civic contribution you can, you can make a positive contribution wherever you are right that should be a wider ethos that's not just linked to America or linked to the UK it's just wherever I am I want to give back to people right I want to give back to humankind, I want to get back to you the Ummah right. So going back to talking about you know over romanticizing Hijra I think that's definitely true and so you know I once I met this I met this woman who had immigrated from the UK and she said oh I made Hijra here and then she asked me it was just such a simple question it was like how do I use the Metro or something and it wasn't like how do I use the metro in Turkey it was literally like how does one use the metro, and I thought to myself you know I tried my best I explained and then I just thought to myself I said this lady is gonna have, just gonna have a hard time here she's either going to leave very soon or she's going to have a rough time of it for the next year before it she lives before she learns how to live in the world outside of wherever she was right.
So are you saying that some Muslims in the West can be quite snobbish about you know about the Muslim world and…
Yeah so there's two separate things right one is yeah there’s snobbish maybe yeah part of that and I think you know you could just say Western exceptionalism or American exceptionalism it still exists it exists even among people who make Hijra yeah unfortunately yeah, and that's actually one of the reasons why I want more Muslims to make Hijra it's because when you're here eventually at some point you're gonna have to drop the Western exceptionalism right yeah. It's just I think so…
Give me give me an example of that of where you've seen that Western exceptionalism right. And don't say that you know I take taxis everywhere and you take buses.
No, that's not necessarily a question exceptionalism yeah. No, I it's just a wider way of hey, there's an Adab that we should have as Muslims when we talk about our Muslim brothers and sisters because when we talk about Muslim countries right. So for example some of some Sufi texts for example mention that it's from the Adab of a Muslim for someone who goes on the Sufi path to not say anything about a country that would make the inhabitants of that country that they wouldn't like hearing it even behind their back it's not saying it to their faces like even saying it behind the back the food is not so good right. Which I mean many of us you know we do make this sort of remarks sometimes in public sometimes in private but that's not that's not from our Adab, for sure. That's maybe a separate thing but I think listen, the West definitely I think a lot of Muslims are still living in 1989, and the Berlin Wall is falling or they're still living in 1992 and Fukiyama was declaring the end of History, you know. Well, history has come back and actually when we talk for example when we talk about standards of living a lot of Muslims in the west, one of the reasons why they're reluctant to make Hijra is they think that oh it's just so much better here right, and that might be true for the country where they come from, but it's not true of the entire world so for example much of East Asia, so Japan South Korea Taiwan even China and the Gulf I argue have a better standard of living than we do in the west yeah we don't realize that yeah. And then I would argue that places like Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia are nearly approaching it right and then it becomes a question of okay so there's a little bit of trade-off in your standard of living but is that what makes you happy, if you think it is look at the depression rates in the west right now it's a serious issue we spend, I heard the statistic for this the other day it's in the billions of dollars that we spend per year on Mental Health; it's actually crazy right whereas this may no longer be the case but at least for one year the happiest country in the world was Pakistan right wow yeah. So I'm not necessarily saying oh everyone…
It’s the food.
Yeah it's the Biryani I'm sure, but so there's also so there is a material aspect to it but I think the immaterial aspects is even more important so the other day I was walking home from a cafe where I was working, and I said you know I said salaam I said how are you doing kolay gelsin, and I hope it comes well I basically just said Salam and I counted it out I said it to about maybe seven or eight people on the way home you know some of them were beggars some of them were shopkeepers but they're just people you see every single day yeah. In my neighborhood there's a fat dog and I know exactly where that fat dog lies down every single day, and that might sound silly but it's actually important for you as a human being to have to have a neighborhood right. So part of what is happening in the west is we haven't just lost we've lost communities we've lost neighborhoods because of Urban Design so on and so forth, and we've lost families in a lot of cases right outside of the Muslim Community even the Muslim Community to a certain degree. So human beings are not meant to you know live in a box drive to work sit in front of a laptop drive back home in a box and then re repeat rents just live for the weekend for two days yeah enjoy your weekend and then go back to the same routine yeah. It's not how we're meant to live we're meant to live in communities we're meant to live in neighborhoods we're meant to live in families.
Let's talk about other challenges you know elections have just come around and we know that a sizable number of Turks have voted for nationalist parties, and many not all, but many of these nationalists do have a very problematic or unislamic view let's pray like that towards migration and towards foreigners and we saw you know I don't know how typical it is but we saw clips on social media of Turkish exceptionalism and you know the idea that those from Africa and Asia are somehow lesser yeah to those from Turkey. Now, how do we how well what are… Is there a challenge with certain a certain mindset in these countries which really hate migrants and Muslims from other parts of the world right no.
So, there's definitely a challenge it's not it's not worth denying it definitely existed right it affected me even me on like a I don't know if I would say daily life, but it was definitely something that was part of my life for a bit really but yeah definitely.
Explain that, what do you mean sorry it was just the general animus in the air right where the opposition and interestingly this didn't meet a lot of Western opposition or a lot of Western cries about human rights so on and so forth. But the opposition was basically running on a very xenophobic platform and it worked right to a certain degree, I mean it didn't work enough to get them in power but it worked in the sense that people felt more empowered to… And you're entirely right that there is an Islamophobic aspect to specifically to certain forms of nationalism here right. I don't want to say that all nationalists are the same, we have to remember it Turkey is a very complicated country yeah not all Turkish nationalists think the exact same right actually some Turkish nationalists are totally fine with Muslims, even foreign Muslims to a certain degree right. So, it's definitely more complicated than that but there is part of it is the Kamali’s legacy, specifically you know so in in the neighborhood where I live this might be a bit silly because we're talking about food, but on one street there's literally five burger places and one pizza joint yeah and then one person opens up a Falafel shop and everyone's losing their mind no way right yeah of course. I mean there wasn't protests in front of the Falafel Shop but you get my point yeah where for some reason you know somebody opens up a Falafel shop and now it's a threat to Turkish identity, but somehow and this this burger place literally says Turkish Burger it says Turk burger right it's like wait so Burgers can become Turkish but Falafel can't right. It's very interesting and of course there's a lot of history there. So, listen I'm not going to sweep that into the rug but here's my perspective: it's like listen we as Western Muslims are very familiar with xenophobia leaving leading up to elections that's not anything different right than what we have in the west some people might use that as an argument against Hijra, I don't because for me it's like okay would I rather face xenophobia from fellow Muslims or from non-Muslims and to me, to a certain, degree I realized listen after colonialism after the collapse of the caliphate after nation states came we were separated it's not going to be easy if you have a process of re-ummatization, whatever you want to term it, that's not going to be a pretty process like any human process yeah. And so, there's going to be contestation along the way but the way I think of it is this I don't care if you don't like me, I'm part of the Ummah so my legal legitimacy to live in this country comes from Turkish State, comes from having a residence permit, from paying taxes., etc. But my moral legitimacy of being here whether you agree with it or not is from Allah SWT, it's not from you because like in the Quranic verse I said earlier it's ardAllah, it's not your earth it's Allah's earth. So, I'm so, for me even though to be honest it affected even me you know to a certain degree during that period I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it, and a lot of listen a lot of Muslims in the West think it's worth it as well right they think it's worth it to go through what they go through every single election cycle and that's their decision, but if it's worth it to remain in America if it's worth it to remain in the UK why isn't it worth it in the case of Turkey or why isn't it worth it in the case of the Muslim world yeah. And in the case of deepening ties between Muslims.
So, okay let's take aside the nationalists the secularists who may have some level of animus and I agree we can't tarnish we can't say everyone is the same and it's a very complex political landscape, but let's talk about the religious Muslims for now I mean how back to that word how ummatic, how embracing, are the religious Muslims towards Muslims from around the world.
It's interesting, it's not necessarily an easy question to answer so for example if you look even the majority of AK party voters for example are not entirely in favor of some of the government policies that doesn't necessarily mean they're saying oh send all the Syrians back, they think and some of its misinformation they think the government gave too much for example, or they think because there's an economic crisis the government should focus more on Turks at the time right. So, you have that, but then you know you also do on sort of like on a on so it's interesting so when you talk about nationalism in Turkey, is nationalism… Is there a possibility that nationalism in Turkey is actually increasing because Turkey is becoming less of a nation-state so to say that it's changing on the ground and certain people don't like that and so there's a blow back to that right so is that a short-term thing or is that a long-term thing, and then there's also Parts where listen nationalism is on is on the rise everywhere in the world, globally right it the rise at the far right is a global phenomenon that's not limited to Turkey even limited to Europe yeah. So part of its economics part of it is migration and level of migration here, but perhaps this is just because of the circles I'm in, when on the ground I see I see Turks that I'm marrying Syrians, I see Turks that are marrying Egyptians, I see on the ground for example, in Fatih which is maybe the epicenter of Syrians, or Syrian life here in Istanbul arguably yeah. I would see Syrians who would make their Turkish wasn't very good but they would make jokes with their Turkish friends and the Turks would also you know make jokes in Arabic right; and you could see that sort of daily life interaction yeah. Which interestingly enough if you look at the people who voted for the most far-right party here which is SAADET party right so these are the people that, it's literally their party platform where they run buses that say send all the send the refugees back right that's like, or it's literally the refugees will go that's literally like the campaign. If you look at where they got the highest rates it wasn't actually where there were lots of Syrians it was other places right which is you know sort of a universal phenomenon of people hating, or people not understanding people that they don't actually interact with sure right yeah. So, I'm perhaps a bit more optimistic about that future than a lot of people are.
It's a point I could have made earlier but is Turkish Society secularizing or is it becoming more Islamic right it's actually it's not very clear I think it's not as clear-cut as a lot of people think it is. So, if you look throughout the Middle East, mosque attendance has been going up for a very long time. So, for example there's a statistic that shows that one of the critiques of the AK party government has been oh they're just building mosques these people just love building mosques yeah but when you look at the mosque ratio is actually more or less the same as it was even in the 80s okay. It's been very consistently one mosques for every 1 000 people, and that's more or less the same, it's been I think it was a change from 1.8 mosque to like 1.3, or 1.2 that's not a huge difference right. So, and when you at, when you pull people whether or not they pray numbers show that people are it's going up and that's all across the Middle East actually but then at the same time you do, Turkey does exist in the world there's globalization there's a westernization, there's specifically Americanization that's happening in Turkey, and so you also have that so it's a very it's a mix it's a very complicated picture and part of the problem is you know you can run a statistic saying oh, Turks say they are becoming less religious well they say they're becoming less religious, but what if that's how you define religious what if they're wrong what if the person is self-reporting that they're becoming less religious but in some ways they're becoming more religious in other ways right. So, that's something that's it's a very difficult thing to keep statistics on right in some ways it may be easier to just say, you know how many times do you pray a day how many do you wear the head scarf, do you not wear the head scarf right just like sort of very quantifiable indicators yeah. So, I once again this is just me on the ground, I think it's actually more complicated and I've noticed, that so you have a slight decrease maybe in in Muslims among Turks, but also that the people who are religious are actually becoming more religious right. So, what do you do with that.
Yeah I mean, I think many would attempt to translate the election results and draw some broader analysis about the status of Muslims or Islam versus secularism.
No, that's not right, that's not entirely accurate because there are also there are people who are not necessarily overtly religious who do vote for who vote for Erdogan, and they vote for him based on economic performance, based on political so on and so forth right. So, not every person who votes for AK party or voted for Erdogan is necessarily in quote unquote Islamist or a religious Muslim even if that is the majority of the constituency on top of that you actually also had Muslims who were voting against other one in the last election yeah for certain reasons a lot of his economic even though that number was not as high as people thought it was going to be and then you also have the Kurdish issue, where so the Kurds and, or Kurdish people I don't like it when people say the Kurds right. So, Kurdish people basically mostly voted for the opposition candidate but the majority of Kurds are actually very religious people okay and historically many of them voted for AK party. So, you shouldn't just look at you know the was it red versus yellow or red versus blue yeah you can't just look at where is red and say oh they're all secularists not necessarily, it's more complicated.
Now, there was a discussion on social media a few years back and maybe a few maybe a year back and it was a Turkish person venting frustration, or frustration against Western Muslims who come to Istanbul and sort of disturb the cultural balance, or at least disturb what she saw as sort of the ethics of Istanbul; and I think she went as fast to call them colonialists they were they were colonizing Istanbul, and exploiting the country because of the relative weakness of the Turkish lira right. I don't know if you saw that discussion, what was your reflection on that.
So, I mean I have a couple of reflections; first off we should acknowledge as I said earlier I think even Muslims who make Hijra here sometimes, do have a certain amount of Western exceptionalism, or can act in a very privileged manner; that's not very respectful to the native population I have I have an issue with that, but I think it's maybe not as prevalent as some people might think right I think it's certain communities certain right yeah. So, that's one thing but I think it's actually if anything is kind of ironic because if anything is the opposite of colonialism already if anything is decolonialism, because colonialism what is colonialism? Colonism is a process by which a more powerful country will basically take the resources of another country they will occupy it in some sense and then use that to extract resources that's one form of colonialism; another form of colonialism which is probably the one that's more maybe what they're going for is settler colonialism right. Is that the home country sends out people and then they have you know they basically just take over the entire country, well that's complete exaggeration right. I mean this isn't like Australia with the British. This isn't like you know Zionism occupying Palestine, or something right and B. On an economic level what you're doing is actually the exact opposite you're taking wealth, you're taking resources Human Resources as well from the west and you're putting it here and a lot of Muslim countries for a very long time suffered from brain drain, and in some sense there's a little bit of brain drain that's happening in Turkey but there's also brain gain that's happening at the same time yeah of other people who are coming lots of the Muslims who are coming to Turkey. So, if anything is the exact opposite of colonialism right. A lot of this is politics over housing prices, and housing prices have shot through the roof recently that's not the fall of foreigners that's larger economic processes that's if anything that's happening globally because we live in a global capitalist world right and that's just how housing markets are a commodity right yeah. But at the end of the day, I would argue that Muslims coming here is actually exactly what you should encourage because this is exact opposite of colonialism, and it could have. You have no idea where that will lead it can have very positive influences can have very positive contributions to Turkish Society right to Turkish Academia for example.
Okay, now let's talk about Turkey as a place to build one's Islamic knowledge and Islamic capacity; it used to be the case that Muslims would go to say Egypt or go to Syria was a very favorite destination, especially for young Muslims who wanted to learn the Islamic Sciences in greater depth to learn Ulum; to learn you know the various Islamic disciplines of course Syria now is a problem Egypt is becoming more, and more repressive and so people favor not to go there sometimes and you know there are issues there. Is Turkey a place where one can find good quality Islamic education, of all levels?
Definitely, really. It’s I think, it's becoming a more popular destination for Tulub’ilm, that's partially human ancient Syria most of the Syrian Ulama are actually here in Turkey now; interestingly, most of the students of knowledge who study with Syrian Scholars are not Syrian, they're not even westerners right; a lot of them are Central Asian you go to any Syrian ma’d in Istanbul you will see the majority of students are from Kazakhstan, from Uzbekistan right. So, this goes back to the previous point about you know expanding our map of how we visualize migration to Turkey right. So, yeah, you have Syrian Ulama who are top class are now; here and there's also many Turkish and Kurdish Scholars that are very underrated that you can also study with here, so, I think it's definitely increasing and is also increasing specifically because as you mentioned it's becoming more difficult to go to other countries right, and unfortunately one of the considerations for Hijra for Tulub’ilm which has a long historic present in our tradition one of the problems with that is it doesn't really fit into most visas so you know we don't have a special visa for Tulub’ilm for today, and most countries in the Muslim world do not consider that under an education Visa all right.
So how does one then navigate the bureaucracy?
Oh, well I mean historically in in Turkey it was very easy you just came here and you applied for a tourist residence permit that's become more difficult as of late because of the rate of migration yeah and so historically the Tulub’ilm that we're here were just on tourist residence permits which are more difficult to get now right so then one has to think about other options.
What about day to day you know, I not… you know to the, to the degree by which someone develops you know a a very close a very granular understanding of Islam but just on a very basic you know, because I came across Muslims who for example migrated to the Gulf States, and I actually found that the level of General Islamic learning in society was quite low, and they couldn't go to classes and they couldn't really some Gulf States maybe more than others were like this like Dubai for example. It became very difficult to just go to simple classes to get it you know as we can do in the west. Are there Islamic activities there Islamic activities here in in Istanbul for the ordinary person to attend.
Oh, definitely but then the question becomes in what language.
In English.
Let's so, it's developing. this is part of one of the things we wanted to do to at the majlis of Istanbul Muslim as I mentioned earlier at the very beginning, so we wanted to offer these sort of things and there's other initiatives as well but English is the least obviously right. Arabic there's a lot more okay because of the level of Arabs that are here and also because it's the language of Islamic scholarship yeah, but obviously the number one is Turkish I mean obviously right. So, then it becomes a question of you know, what language do you speak, what are you looking for.
Okay, and finally Thomas, we spoke earlier about how many Muslims who come to places like Turkey want to escape the die situation where the liberal state is really asserting its values upon Muslim kids. But can we really Escape that we do live in a globalized world and there is a global monoculture you walk into the standard you know Starbucks sort of McDonald's, and you will find everything you see in London or in New York. So, you know is it a Panacea is coming to Turkey or any Muslim country an absolute solution because you know because of the I suppose the impact this Americanization of this culture is having on the world.
Yeah, no definitely, the global monoculture is… It's inescapable right, it's everywhere yeah so if you're making Hijra solely because you think there's no Starbucks in this country you're clearly you are clearly mistaken there are Starbucks here there are McDonald's here there's Americanization that's happening for sure yeah. But I think some there's not a lot of the pressures talking about earlier yeah right, and so and also we should say this: part of us reconnecting as an Uma is actually happening within globalization yes. So, you have both that is happening as part of globalization right so I think a unless if you want to move to like the deserts or mountains of Mauritania or wherever you're not going to escape it. So, for me it's like how do we as an Ummah start reconnecting and let's start thinking about alternatives. And that alternative you can think about from the UK you can think about from the US but maybe you should also think about it here and you should build a connection with your brothers here; you should have you should engage in a dialogue with your Muslim Brothers even if you don't want to leave the West at least engage in a dialogue with us and start talking about alternatives and start talking about what it means to be part of this Ummah.
Thomas Abdul Qadir, it's been a pleasure speaking to you today here in Istanbul. JazzakAllah khayr for your time.
Well, yeah, the pleasure was all mine.
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