New Lines Magazine

The question of how the past is remembered will always be unavoidable. But in recent years, it has loomed particularly large and proved particularly contested. These “memory wars” are fought so hard and argued so passionately because, ultimately, they're battles for control of the narrative. How we remember the past determines who we believe ourselves to be. “There is actually no way to understand who we are and how we think about each other and how we think about our relationship to the world without thinking about history,” says author and academic Priyamvada Gopal. In this conversation with New Lines' Lydia Wilson, she argues that we never really leave the past. “I tend to use the word ‘afterlife' rather than ‘the past,' because I think that things that have happened in history have a life in the present. It's ongoing.” Such disputes over history are shaping politics the world over. In the U.K., the death of Queen Elizabeth II has brought to the surface fierce disputes over the darker chapters of British history. Likewise, many of the Commonwealth countries for whom the British monarch is still head of state are now reassessing their relationships with the crown. Conversely, in India, the Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi has promoted a belligerent and exclusionary reinterpretation of India's past — and wielded the power of the state to suppress competing narratives. "Muslims are a deeply endangered community in India because of this mythology," Gopal explains. "Myths are not innocent." Produced by Joshua Martin

Seven months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin's mobilization order has sent shockwaves through a society that had previously still been able to ignore the fighting. “If you were in Moscow this past summer, you wouldn't know that Russia was fighting a costly, bloody and totally unnecessary war in Ukraine,” Russian-American journalist and author Julia Ioffe tells New Lines' Amie Ferris-Rotman. “It was easy for Russians to push it off to the edge of their minds, but now it has come home to them.” As security forces battle protests across Russia, about 700,000 Russians are estimated to have fled the country. Traffic jams at border checkpoints, Ioffe explains, have been visible from space. “When they're asked to actively participate in the war and asked to go into the trenches themselves, they don't want to take part in it.” For Ioffe, watching Russia's civil society implode since the invasion has been particularly painful because of her ties to the country — and to Moscow especially. “It was my favorite city in the world,” she says. But now, its once-vibrant society has been driven into exile by the regime. “How long will it take to rebuild a new Moscow, a new Russia, after this one collapses?” But, she adds, it's nothing compared with what was done to Mariupol and other cities across Ukraine. Produced by Joshua Martin

For thousands of years, most humans were nomads, living their lives on the move. They were raiders and traders, herder and hunters — and conquerors. From Genghis Khan to Osman I, nomads changed the course of history on countless occasions. And yet, says historian and travel writer Anthony Sattin, we still tend to underestimate their influence on history. “Our histories glorify people who build monuments,” he tells New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai. “We don't tend to value tribes in the Amazon, for instance, who didn't chop down their forests, who maintained an equilibrium and flourished without disturbing the ecological balance in their world.” Plenty of nomad cultures have been literate, but on the whole, most of the societies keeping substantial written records were sedentary societies. Traditionally confined by historians to anecdotes and afterthoughts, oral histories recently have been recognized as just as useful as written histories for reconstructing the past. “The stories are still being told, but the research hasn't been done,” says Sattin. Those past biases come at a huge cost to our understanding of history, Sattin says: “I don't think we can know who we're going to become unless we know who we were, and half of our story is missing, because for most human history nomads have been half of our story, and yet they're not in our books.” Produced by Joshua Martin and Christin El-Kholy

For two years, Ethiopia has been caught in the grip of a war between government forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), who control the country's northernmost state. As the power struggle polarized the country along ethnic lines, the number of mass killings and other atrocities led one Ethiopian general to dub it a “very dirty war.” An agreement in March led to a truce, but after five months, fighting was reignited on Aug. 24. Yet hope for a lasting peace may not yet be lost. “Initially, the Tigrayans insisted that they were not going to be part of the peace process,” Dr. Adeoye Akinola tells New Lines' Kwangu Liwewe. But thanks to the diplomatic efforts of the African Union (AU), both the federal government and the TPLF have agreed to allow the international organization to mediate negotiations between the warring factions. As the United Nations convenes in New York, Ethiopians are watching closely in the hope that diplomacy can triumph. “We cannot hide from this,” says Tedla Asfaw. “We have to face it.” But with neighboring Eritrea, a government ally, launching a new offensive into Tigray, the conflict looks as if it may descend once more into total war. “Whether it's the AU or the United Nations,” says analyst Chris Maroleng, “It's quite clear that what is actually required is a reformation of not just the institutions, but the manner in which politics is carried out in Ethiopia.” Produced by Joshua Martin

Producer and screenwriter Hayat Aljowaily joins New Lines' Ola Salem and Anthony Elghossain to talk about cinema, identity and the making of Marvel's “Moon Knight.” The Emmy-nominated show stars Oscar Isaac as the titular protagonist, a man with dissociative identity disorder who finds himself sharing a body with a mercenary battling Egyptian gods. “Portraying Egypt accurately was really at the core of what we were trying to achieve,” explains Aljowaily. With much of the action taking place in the country, the creators were determined to avoid the usual cliches. “That meant not going to shoot in Morocco and pretend that it's Egypt, because then it's not going to look like Egypt. And so we built Egypt.” The crew started with a vast empty set in Budapest and set to work. “And within two weeks, it was Cairo.” But perhaps the biggest responsibility of all was the portrayal of the protagonist's love interest, Layla, the first female Arab superhero to appear on television. “It was a big responsibility to create Layla, because we knew how important it was to young Arab women — to Arab women, period.” “Having her was such a game changer,” adds Ola. “Just having someone with curly hair, that kind of resembles you, and you kind of can see yourself in, is such a big deal.”

Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, has died. For 70 years, the queen was a fixture in the national life of Britain and indeed the wider world. The world changed immeasurably in the decades since she came to the throne in 1952. The country when she first ruled was quite unlike the one she died in. She inherited not merely a country but an empire and presided over its dissolution. Although her death was expected, as the ritual of its declaration demonstrated, it still leaves the country in a deeply uncertain state — an uncertainty that extends to the 14 other countries in which she was the head of state as well as the wider Commonwealth. As the crown passes to her son, Charles III, New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai speaks to Lydia Wilson outside Buckingham Palace and talks to Amie Ferris Rotman and Kwangu Liwewe about what the passing of such a consequential figure may mean for the world. Produced by Joshua Martin and Christin El-Kholy

Since October 2021, Iraq's politics have been deadlocked in a showdown between two of its most powerful political factions. The rivalry between the Coordination Framework, a pro-Iranian Shiite bloc, and the supporters of populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has left the country's Parliament paralyzed since last October's elections, unable to form a government or elect a new president. But after Sadr announced his withdrawal from politics at the end of August, the rivalry turned deadly as protesters from his movement marched into the heavily fortified Green Zone and paramilitaries battled each other in the heart of Baghdad. Only after Sadr called for the violence to end and for his supporters to withdraw did the fighting die down. New Lines' Rasha Al Aqeedi joins host Faisal Al Yafai to talk about what this latest escalation may mean for Iraq's future. Produced by Joshua Martin

In May 1948, at the onset of the Arab-Israeli War, Egyptian soldiers crossed into Palestine at Rafah as military leaders promised a swift victory. Yet despite their defeat by the year's end, this war would give way to military rule less than four years later. “A military loss was not what Egyptians expected,” historian Chloe Bordewich tells New Lines' Lydia Wilson in The Lede. Egyptian media carried images and footage of successful operations, helping to reinforce pronouncements of imminent victory. But victory never materialized. In the face of official obfuscation, alternative explanations for why the war had been lost began to circulate among the public and in the press. One rumor in particular began to take on a life of its own — “that Egypt had lost the war in Palestine because political leaders had procured, profited from and knowingly supplied their own troops with dysfunctional weapons.” The rumor tapped into something that resonated deeply with the Egyptian public. As time went on, it migrated from page to screen and into popular memory. The government's reputation never recovered, and in 1952, a group of mid-ranking officers overthrew the king. Produced by Christin El-Kholy

Tunisia was the cradle of the Arab Spring, and had been hailed as its biggest success story. But President Kais Saied's new constitution, narrowly approved in a controversial referendum last July, has changed that. “Kais Saied has unchecked power,” Mohamed-Dhia Hammami tells New Lines' Lydia Wilson in The Lede. “Even under Ben Ali, we used to have some sort of balances and checks. There are some people who even compare his power to the North Korean leader's.” Saied ran for president as a political outsider in 2019, vowing to tackle ‘moral and financial corruption'. The country's continuing economic crisis left many Tunisians disenchanted with the status quo, and Saied's populist platform won him the election. Even as he suspended parliament and began ruling by decree in 2021, he continued to attract support. But, Hammami says, his latest move may have been a step too far. “Saied is having serious problems consolidating his power.” Produced by Joshua Martin

One year after the fall of Kabul, this special anniversary episode of The Lede looks back on the momentous events of Aug. 15, 2021, and explores how Afghanistan has fared in the aftermath. New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai talks to Afghanistan correspondent Fazelminallah Qazizai, who was in Kabul the day it fell, about what the first year of Taliban rule has looked like from the ground. He also speaks to human rights specialist Nazila Jamshidi about how the millions of Afghans in the diaspora have been affected. Finally, Rasha Elass catches up with Chris Sands, the magazine's South Asia editor, about ISIS's plan to weaken the Taliban and plunge Afghanistan back into war. Produced by Joshua Martin

What if you woke up one morning to discover everything you knew about the world was wrong? That all the truths you'd been taught to take for granted were actually lies? For author and political philosopher Lea Ypi, that's not a hypothetical question. In her recent memoir “Free: Coming of Age at the End of History,” she tells the story of growing up in communist Albania only for the regime to collapse during her teenage years. “It really was like being taught a new language,” she tells New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai on The Lede. “Almost overnight, you're told that all of these names that you had for things are now different—you have different names and different categories and different ways of making sense of the world.” They talk about how to see the gap between ideology and reality, where people look for certainty in uncertain times and what it actually means to be free. Produced by Joshua Martin & Christin El Kholy

Selma Dabbagh is a British-Palestinian writer and the editor of the 2021 anthology “We Wrote in Symbols: Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers.” Through poetry and short stories, novel excerpts and letters, the collection pulls from more than 1,000 years of Arab women's writing — from pre-Islamic poetry to contemporary fiction. “There seemed to be something so modern and pithy and frank and refreshing about their voices,” Dabbagh tells New Lines' Lydia Wilson in the first episode of the magazine's new podcast, “The Lede.” “My interest was really in looking at how these voices had changed over time.” They talk about the difficulty of writing about love and intimacy, Orientalism and the male gaze, as well as why Arab women writers are expected to be “political.” Produced by Joshua Martin & Christin El Kholy

The Ottoman sultans reigned for more than 600 years. In that time, they conquered almost all of what we consider to be the Middle East today, as well as North Africa, parts of East Africa and Southeastern Europe. But over the course of the 19th century, their power waned, and the beleaguered empire finally collapsed after a bitter defeat in World War I. Their fall created the Middle East as we know it today: It opened the region to European colonialism, invigorated nationalism and ended the spiritual leadership of the caliphate. But one cannot understand why the empire's fall was so consequential — why an Ottomanless Middle East was such a big deal — without understanding how the Ottomans made their mark in the first place. Professor Marc David Baer is a historian at the London School of Economics and the author of “The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs.” For this third installment of our series on the empire's fall, he joins New Lines's Faisal Al Yafai to explore the Ottoman world that was lost, for better or for worse, 100 years ago. Produced by Joshua Martin

Maz Jobrani is a comedian, actor and writer who lives in Los Angeles. In this podcast, he joins New Lines' Anthony Elghossain for a conversation on comedy and life. He talks about how he got started in comedy, what it was like playing terrorists on TV and how he broke out of the box as a comic observer on issues great and small—from the geopolitics of the so-called War on Terror to the Lebanese sense of militant hospitality. Produced by Joshua Martin

Lebanese poet Zeina Hashem Beck has been publishing poetry in Arabic and English for over a decade. Her latest collection of bilingual poems, titled “O,” was published at the beginning of July. In this episode she joins New Lines' Rasha Elass to share her thoughts on what inspires her bilingual verses and how they intertwine over themes of language, country and womanhood. They talk about abortion, leaving Lebanon and why she can't live without the sea. Produced by Joshua Martin

Since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, there has been a renewed interest in the wealth and influence of Russian oligarchs in the U.K. Moscow's elites have bought mansions in London's ultra-exclusive neighborhoods and send their children to British private schools. But Russians are not the only ones taking advantage of Britain's willingness to turn a blind eye to overseas corruption. Investigative journalist Oliver Bullough is the author of “Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals.” In this podcast, he talks to New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai about how London has grown into the world's kleptocracy capital — by providing the world's wealthiest not only a place to hide their stolen money but also to spend it with no questions asked. Produced by Joshua Martin & Christine El Kholy

Ibn Arabi was a 12th-century philosopher, poet and “one of the great spiritual teachers of the Muslim world.” Both his philosophical works and his poetry have been translated countless times, most recently by Yasmine Seale and Robin Moger in their highly experimental 2022 collection “Agitated Air: Poems After Ibn Arabi.” In this podcast, the two join New Lines' Lydia Wilson to talk about the subtle yet significant differences between English and Arabic poetry, how they developed their innovative approach to co-translation and how that approach reflected the themes and ideas already present in Ibn Arabi's original text. Produced by Joshua Martin

The First World War put an end to 600 years of Ottoman rule. Buoyed by promises of self-determination on the part of the victorious powers, the region's peoples prepared for a future free of imperial rule. They were to be bitterly disappointed. European rhetoric about self-rule had never been sincerely intended to apply to non-Europeans — which was made brutally clear by Britain and France as they divided the post-Ottoman Middle East between themselves in the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement. “It was a secret deal to carve up the Levantine part of the Ottoman Empire between France and Britain,” explains historian James Barr, author of “A Line in the Sand and Lords of the Desert.” “There was a diagonal line drawn, in Sykes' infamous words, from the ‘E' in Acre to the last ‘K' in Kirkuk.” In this follow-up to our episode with Eugene Rogan on the Ottoman collapse, Barr joins New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai to talk about how European colonial powers attempted to take their place, why the region seems to be so attractive to foreign imperial powers and why their efforts to control it are almost always doomed. Produced by Joshua Martin

The bishop of Toledo, Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada, wrote “Historia Arabum” in the 13th century. The book is one of the earliest accounts of Arabic history written by a Western author. It was translated from the original Latin into Arabic by Aymenn Al-Tamimi, a nonresident fellow at the New Lines Institute and a Ph.D. student at the University of Swansea in Wales. In this podcast, he joins New Lines' Lydia Wilson to discuss why he decided to take on such a difficult translation, what the text says about Christian-Muslim relations in medieval Spain and why it remains relevant today. Produced by Joshua Martin

At a moment when it seems as if Americans can't agree on anything — when political divisions seem to run deeper than they have since the Civil Rights Movement — political scientist, professor and pundit Yascha Mounk of Johns Hopkins University remains optimistic that an answer can be found. His latest book, “The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure,” combs through history, psychology and personal experience in search of that answer. In this podcast with New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai, he shares his thoughts on how to make a diverse, democratic America work. They discuss whether diverse democracies pose unique challenges, what the United States can learn from Lebanon and whether U.S. government reparations for slavery could ever work. Produced by Joshua Martin

When Amjad Youssef met “Anna,” a young Alawite Syrian who was studying abroad, the military man was skeptical at first. But as the months unfolded, he began to open up to his fellow pro-regime partisan over Facebook. What he didn't know was that Anna had been created by genocide researchers Annsar Shahhoud and Uğur Ümit Üngör. In this podcast with New Lines' Rasha Elass, they talk about how they used Anna to expose Amjad's participation in the 2013 Tadamon massacre, carried out by the Syrian regime. They explain how they set about luring Amjad through social media, dark humor as a coping mechanism in a line of work which few can relate to, and what to do with the knowledge of such atrocities when facing the families of the victims. Produced by Joshua Martin and Christin El Kholy

Marcel Kurpershoek is a former Dutch ambassador and accomplished scholar at NYU Abu Dhabi. His most recent work is “Love, Death, Fame,” a translation of poems by al-Mayidi ibn Zahir, a 17th-century poet from what is now the United Arab Emirates. In this podcast, he catches up with New Lines' Kevin Blankinship to talk about Nabati poetry, the thousand-year-old oral poetic tradition of the Arabian Peninsula. They discuss Marcel's decades of fieldwork in Central Arabia recording oral poems among Bedouin tribes, why the ancient tradition continues to be such a central part of Khaleeji culture and identity, and how it has found a worldwide audience through the United Arab Emirates' answer to “American Idol”: the smash-hit competitive poetry show “Million's Poet.” Produced by Joshua Martin

For six centuries, the Ottoman Sultans held dominion across most of the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Europe. But by the eve of the First World War in 1914, the empire was already in steep decline. It is at this moment of crisis that the preeminent historian Eugene Rogan begins his bestselling book “The Fall of the Ottomans.” In this podcast, he talks to New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai about those decisive final years. They discuss the Ottoman experience of the Great War, whether the empire's ultimate collapse was inevitable and how the Middle East of today emerged from the ashes of its defeat. Produced by Joshua Martin

William Maynard Hutchins is a professor emeritus at Appalachian State University and an award-winning translator of Arabic literature, most famous for his work on “The Cairo Trilogy” by Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. In this podcast, he joins New Lines' Kevin Blankinship to discuss his long and storied career. They discuss how he began his career, what it was like working with figures like Mahfouz and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and why, even after retirement, he continues to translate new novels. Produced by Joshua Martin

Ahmed El Shamsy is an associate professor of Islamic thought at the University of Chicago. As part of a new series from New Lines exploring big ideas from history, El Shamsy joins culture editor Lydia Wilson to talk about how the Middle East changed in the age of printing. They discuss how the “European book drain” induced the Arab world's adoption of the printing press, why printing enabled a revival of Islamic classical tradition, and how that revival led to the creation of the modern Middle East. Produced by Joshua Martin

Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton has circled the globe three times in pursuit of the Earth's rarest sounds. His sound portraits record quickly vanishing natural soundscapes. In this episode he joins New Lines' Rasha Elass to talk about the quiet he found during the pandemic, when human noise pollution subsided, and what that brief but profound period of respite can teach us about our world. Produced by Joshua Martin

Author and historian Haris Durrani speaks to New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai about representation and religion in the classic sci-fi novel “Dune” and its recent film adaptation. They discuss how the book's Islamic themes are ignored or missed by non-Muslim audiences, why Hollywood fails at representing the Middle East on screen and how a new generation of Muslim authors is changing science fiction. Produced by Joshua Martin

Pakistani writer and novelist Fatima Bhutto speaks to New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai for this podcast about what we mean when we talk about political fiction — and how the stories we are most attracted to reflect not just the world we live in but what we think that world should be. They discuss why she decided to be a writer, rather than a politician like her aunt Benazir Bhutto, why the CIA has a department for script writers and why people increasingly identify more with stories from outside the West like “Squid Game” than with “Friends.” Produced by Joshua Martin. Photo courtesy of Allegra Donn.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shattered the precarious geopolitical balance in Eastern Europe. Yet the ripple effects from the conflict extend far beyond that region. In this podcast presented by New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai, Lydia Wilson reports from Amman where she speaks to freelance journalist Suha Ma'ayeh and international relations expert Amer Al Sabaileh about the impact the war is having on the Middle East. They discuss how the public have reacted, why the war is such a threat to the region's food security, and why many Arab governments have been reluctant to condemn Russia — despite pressure from the U.S. Produced by Joshua Martin

The Arab world has a rich literary heritage and a vibrant contemporary literary scene which has attracted many English speaking readers – Arabic is one of the top-ten most translated languages for American audiences. But the process of translation is complex and often politically fraught. In this podcast, Reem Bassiouney, sociolinguistics professor and award-winning author of Sons of the People: The Mamluk Trilogy, and M Lynx Qualey, editor of ArabLit.org, join New Lines' Lydia Wilson and Faisal Al Yafai to discuss the many challenges of translating Arabic literature.They talk about why a translation is never finished, the power that translators have as a bridge between cultures, and what it means to be a ‘victim' of translation.

As Ukraine braces for a fourth week of war, Syria marks 11 years of brutal fighting. The same Russian bombs pounding Kharkiv have been continually used against Syrian cities like Idlib and Aleppo since Vladimir Putin intervened in 2015. In this podcast, Anand Gopal, award-winning journalist and author of “No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes,” joins New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai to discuss Russia's wars. They talk about how the intervention in Syria may be a blueprint for the war in Ukraine, why the anti-war movement has struggled to adapt to a multipolar world and why Ukraine will not be Russia's Afghanistan. Produced by Joshua Martin

Eight years before the recent Russian invasion, a popular uprising in Kyiv overthrew the old Moscow-backed government in favor of moving toward the European Union — an act for which Russia has been punishing Ukraine ever since. It is those events that inspired Kalani Pickhart's recent novel, “I Will Die in a Foreign Land.” Hailed as one of the best books of 2021, it has found renewed relevance in the aftermath of the invasion. In this podcast, she joins New Lines' Lydia Wilson to discuss what first drew her to the story, the relationship between fiction and journalism, and how the long history of Russian aggression against Ukraine led to the current crisis. (Produced by Joshua Martin)

In the new age of counter-insurgency, civil conflict and proxy wars, Russia's invasion of Ukraine stands out as a rare modern example of so-called ‘“conventional'” warfare fought between the armed forces of two nation-states. In this podcast, New Lines' Lydia Wilson talks to Mary Kaldor, author of the pioneering 1999 book ‘“New and Old Wars,”', to discuss what Russia's goals are, why the invasion is a departure from their usual strategy — and whether Putin has miscalculated. Produced by Joshua Martin

The war in Afghanistan may be over, but a humanitarian crisis threatens to be even deadlier than the 20 years of fighting. In a follow-up to our podcast episode from September, New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai talks to Fazelminallah Qazizai, Pashtana Durrani and Emran Feroz to explore how the country's situation has changed over six months of Taliban rule. They discuss how U.S. sanctions have left Afghans without money or food, how the Taliban govern and what will happen to their regime if the crisis continues into the spring. (Produced by Joshua Martin)

Few topics evoke as much passion as food; recipes have become political battlegrounds. In this podcast, New Lines editor and hummus-opinion-haver Kareem Shaheen is joined by Dr. Suna Çağaptay of Bahçeşehir University and contributing editor Riada Asimovic Akyol to talk about what food means to them. They discuss what we mean when we call food “authentic,” the problem with pesto hummus and why you should never ask for a Turkish coffee in Greece. (Produced by Joshua Martin)

For this special crossover episode with the podcast “The Fire These Times,” its host, Joey Ayoub, joins New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai and Lydia Wilson to talk about Lebanon's civil war, which ended in the 1990s but was never truly resolved. They discuss how the absence of public memorialization has intensified sectarian divides, why there can be no peace without accountability and what Syria can learn from Lebanon's warning. Find more episodes of "The Fire These Times" at https://thefirethisti.me. Produced by Joshua Martin

More than a year into Ethiopia's brutal civil war, the country stands on the brink. The conflict has seen widespread violence against civilians and left millions at urgent risk of starvation. But a recent lull in the fighting has been hailed as an “opportunity for peace.” In this episode, New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai asks what comes next. He talks to journalist Zecharias Zelalem, VICE News' Julia Steers and Biniam, a civilian from the Tigray region who lost several of his best friends to one of the war's most notorious massacres. They discuss how the war started, why reporters have struggled to get it right and what it will take to end the bloodshed. (Produced by Joshua Martin)

Not only is the Middle East one of the world's most urbanized regions, but it's also where the story of the city began. In this podcast, New Lines' Lydia Wilson is joined by Yasser Elsheshtawy, adjunct professor of architecture at Columbia University, and Mona Fawaz, professor of urban studies and planning at the American University of Beirut, to talk about cities in the modern Middle East — and explore what opportunities and challenges the next chapter in this 10,000-year story might hold for the millions of Middle Easterners who call cities their home. [Produced by Joshua Martin]

In her latest book, The Vanishing, celebrated war reporter Janine di Giovanni reports from some of the Middle East's most ancient Christian communities — communities she argues may be at risk of disappearing. In this podcast, she joins New Lines' Lydia Wilson to talk about a career reporting conflict, what drew her to the subject of the book, the complex reasons why Christians are leaving the Middle East, and how the experiences of minorities in Iraq, Syria and Palestine differ. Produced by Joshua Martin

Veteran foreign correspondent Luke Harding has reported from all over the world, but there's one subject he keeps returning to: Russia. His latest book, “Shadow State,” offers a glimpse into the country's ruthless intelligence services. In this podcast, he speaks to New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai about how he uncovered their activities, from social media trolling campaigns to mercenary black ops in Syria and Sudan. They discuss the challenges of reporting on such a secretive world — and the heroism of the Russian citizens working to expose it. Produced by Joshua Martin.

Kamran Bokhari is a foreign policy specialist and director of analytical development at the New Lines Institute. In this episode, he joins host Rasha Elass to talk about his essay in New Lines Magazine on Deobandism, a major fundamentalist Islamic movement with influence across South Asia and beyond. They discuss how it emerged from one of the Sunni tradition's most liberal schools of jurisprudence - and why so few in the West have heard of it.

REBROADCAST: In a special podcast on the fall of Kabul and its aftermath, New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai speaks to three reporters who were on the ground in Afghanistan before, during and after the takeover by the Taliban. Emran Feroz, Fazelminallah Qazizai and Shelly Kittleson discuss reporting from around the country, firsthand testimony of what it felt like to see the Taliban walk unopposed into a city they were exiled from 20 years ago — and what the Taliban might do in the next weeks and months. [This episode originally aired August 27 2021]

In this festive special, New Lines' Ola Salem is joined by colleagues Riada Asimovic Akyol and Kareem Shaheen for a wide-ranging conversation about all things Christmas. They discuss what the holiday means for Muslims, share Christmas traditions—and try their luck playing Ola's Christmas quiz.

James Barnett is a Fulbright scholar and a researcher at the Center for Democracy and Development in Nigeria. In this podcast he joins New Lines' Rasha Elass to talk about how he became interested in the underreported crisis of Nigeria's bandits, how he managed to convince the warlords to talk to him, and what it was like to sit down with such dangerous men.

Earlier this year, the Syrian journalist Asser Khattab stopped writing about Syria. A week ago, in a viral essay for New Lines magazine, he finally explained why - and sparked a much-needed conversation in the media about how international outlets treat the local reporters who make their coverage possible. In our latest podcast, Asser Khattab and New Lines' Kareem Shaheen continue that vital conversation, talking about why his employers never let him be a full member of the team; how he realized he would never be given a Syria correspondent job despite his contacts, experience and expertise; and how being granted asylum in France forced him to make a choice between his job and his safety.

Rising authoritarianism, social atomization and looming climate change — the world feels like it is falling apart. In this wide-ranging podcast, the acclaimed Turkish novelist and journalist Ece Temelkuran speaks to New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai about her book, “Together: 10 Choices for a Better Now,” and the urgent issues that compelled her to write it. They talk about what it felt like to watch democracy die in Turkey, why she refuses to play the exile — and why, no matter how bad it gets, we can't afford to lose faith in each other.

Award-winning investigative journalist Tam Hussein's latest article for New Lines explores the mythologization of Afghanistan by Islamists in Europe and America. In this episode, he talks to New Lines' Lydia Wilson about how his experiences growing up in London informed his essay, how pro-jihadist propaganda spread before the internet, and why the far-right admire the Taliban.

Art and archaeology have always been used to tell stories about the present. In this new podcast, author and journalist Olivia Snaije and contributing editor Lydia Wilson talk to New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai about how the Middle East's ancient heritage continues to shape modern politics. They discuss why Lebanon's heritage took on new importance after the Beirut port blast last year, why Iraq's Saddam Hussein styled himself after a Babylonian king — and how the story of a nation depends on who's telling it.

Days after a drone was used in an assassination attempt on Iraq's prime minister, military tech journalist Kelsey D. Atherton spoke to New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai about their use in the wars of the past, present and future. They discuss how drones changed modern warfare, how emerging technologies will affect future conflicts — and why we worry about the wrong thing when we talk about killer robots.

In this special episode on the Oct. 25 military takeover in Sudan, Sudanese American journalist Isma'il Kushkush and Khartoum-based activist Dallia Abdelmoniem talk New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai through the chaotic events of the past two weeks — and the two years leading up to them. They explain why the coup has deep roots in Sudan's troubled political past, what it feels like to be back out on the streets — and why the generals may have overplayed their hand.

Jonathan Powell is CEO of the conflict resolution charity Inter Mediate and has made a career talking to some of the world's most dangerous people. He was U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief of staff, chief negotiator in the Northern Ireland peace process, and the author of “Talking to Terrorists: How to End Armed Conflicts.” In a frank, thoughtful and occasionally tense conversation with New Lines' Faisal Al Yafai, they discuss why he advocated talking to the Taliban 10 years ago; the missed opportunities of the war on terror; what it was like negotiating with the IRA; how history will remember Tony Blair — and whether he has sleepless nights over the invasion of Iraq.