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Monday, 11 November 2024   Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6   “Blessed – those famishing and thirsting righteousness, For they – they will be filled” (CG).   In the previous verse, Jesus spoke of the benignant inheriting the land. Now His words continue with, “Blessed – those famishing and thirsting righteousness.”   Despite most translations simply following one after the other with “hunger and thirst,” the verbs are present participles – “famishing and thirsting.” The word peinaó means to famish. To crave or hunger are only figurative meanings which cannot be the intent here.   Jesus is speaking of those who truly long for righteousness in a situation where it is obviously lacking. There is wickedness from above, and it comes from all sides. There is no place where it is not practiced. Like a man in a desert, he may hunger during the first days of his lack, but he eventually famishes over what he desires.   The thought is like that of Noah, who preached to a world of wickedness, longing for it to wake up from its slumber, but it was not realized. He was famished from the lack of it and his soul cried out to God over the state of the world. To supplement this and intensify it, the word dipsaó, to thirst, is added.   When facing hunger, it can be quelled temporarily with swallows of water. But when that is lacking, there is nothing to take away the agony of the human body. Jesus combines the two to show what a truly devout person longs for concerning such things. It is a hungering and thirsting with a fervent intensity.   This is something He was fully aware of, having come out of forty days and forty nights where He was deprived of the needs of the body. As it said after that time, “He was hungry.” However, despite His hunger, He craved righteousness even more than food. He wanted nothing more than to please His heavenly father and to fulfill all righteousness. Of such people, He next says, “For they – they will be filled.”   The word translated as filled, chortazó, is a word that actually signifies “to fodder,” as in grazing animals. It is used with a degree of contempt by Plato. Eventually, it came to generally signify satisfying a hunger. However, the earlier connotation would still exist in the minds of the people.   For example, we might say somewhat contemptuously of a large gathering, “Look at all those people grazing in the dining hall.” However, eventually, the word might be taken with a less sarcastic tone. And yet, we would still know the earlier meaning of what the word conveyed. This would be the thought conveyed with this word.   Jesus is saying that as a cow is fed in the stalls or is taken to the open field to dine, so would the people of God be fed with a continuous supply of righteousness. The lack they faced (again, think of Noah) will someday be replaced with an enormous abundance that will never cease as God leads His people, filling their true desire for His glorification.   The reason for this is that one can only truly hunger and thirst after these things when one has faith that God exists. Without that, any righteousness that fills the mind of the person is one that extends from himself and his idea of what righteousness means.   Life application: Depending on where you are in the world today, you will face varying degrees of unrighteousness. In Islamic countries, those who are not Muslims are forced to adhere to nutty laws that are derived from the Koran to some extent or another.   For those who live in Catholic nations, there is often a great tolerance for the allowance of other religions, and quite often, they synchronize with the Catholic doctrine, forming religions like Santa Ria. However, the overarching rule of Catholicism will take place. As its fundamental teachings are not in line with Scripture, those who hold to a truly literal interpretation of the Bible are actually outcasts.   In Western countries, moral perversion has almost completely taken over the thoughts of those in power. Those who speak against it are almost considered enemies of their own states. However, in hungering after what God's word says, and in thirsting after what it proclaims, they will someday be filled to overflowing with the goodness of what God has in store for them. As it says in Revelation. 7:16, “They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore.”   Hold on to the Lord and stand fast on His word. The time when wickedness shall be eliminated from this world is coming. Jesus will set all things right on that day.   Lord God, You have promised a better world to Your people. It will be a world where righteousness rules and where You alone will be exalted as the true and glorious leader of mankind. May that day be soon. Amen.

We're talking about something that more and more muslims are experiencing yet don't know how to navigate.Let's get one thing clear off the bat: Women having access to their own money is new only in the western world.In Islamic traditions, women had access to and authority over their own assets and money for many centuries. However in our current society, we've lost touch with that. In this episode we're doing into the deep dark corners that no one is talking about but that impacts our aakhirah profoundly.Let's get into it.Want to work with me:Here's how:jJoin Beh Sharam Money to align your marriage and money goals to your aakhirah:click here to get 70% off:https://zaahidamahomedy.com/behsharamJoin My 12 month live support group coaching programClick here to join:https://zaahidamahomedy.com/reclamation

A recent Barna pole shows that only 51% of all faith voters are likely to vote in November. That means 104 million faith voters are unlikely to vote this election—including 32 million regular Christian church attenders. How can a Christian be indifferent to one of the most critical elections of our lifetime? Some believers spiritualize the election and refrain from voting saying, “the gospel is more important than politics.” Guess what? Christians may lose the freedom and privilege we have to preach the gospel depending on which candidate becomes president. In Communist China, they are prohibited from teaching the Bible. In Islamic countries, they will receive the death penalty if caught preaching the gospel. Will you rise up and vote to protect our religious freedoms if nothing else?   Thousands of people have died for us to have the right to vote. We must do our part and vote for the candidate whose track record most aligns with biblical values. If you don't vote, your silence equals consent. “The Bible says in Proverbs 29:2, ‘when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan."   Listen as Bill and Annette share more on the political positions held by the two presidential candidates. There is a clear difference believers must recognize in choosing the next president of the United States. For more information about Bill Wiese and Soul Choice Ministries please visit us at: https://soulchoiceministries.org/  You can find more of Bill's teachings at: BillWieseTV-YouTube

Idolatry, known as "shirk" in Islam, refers to the act of associating partners or objects with Allah (God). It is considered a major sin and a violation of the fundamental principle of monotheism in Islam. Muslims believe in the oneness of Allah and consider any form of worship or reverence towards anything other than Allah as idolatrous. In Islamic teachings, idolatry is seen as a grave offense that goes against the core principles of Islam. The Quran explicitly prohibits idol worship and emphasizes the importance of worshipping Allah alone. Muslims are required to have faith in the unseen and to submit themselves completely to Allah's will. Idolatry can take various forms, including worshipping statues, images, or symbols as divine beings or intermediaries between humans and God. It can also involve attributing divine qualities to natural elements such as trees, rivers, or celestial bodies. Islam encourages believers to focus their devotion solely on Allah and to avoid any association with partners or objects. Muslims are urged to engage in acts of worship that strengthen their connection with Allah through prayer, fasting, charity, pilgrimage (Hajj), recitation of the Quran, and living a righteous life. The concept of shirk is not limited to physical idols but also extends to internal beliefs and attitudes that undermine pure monotheism. This includes seeking help from anyone other than Allah for matters that only He has control over. In summary, idolatry in Islam refers to associating partners or objects with Allah through acts of worship or reverence. It is considered a major sin that goes against the fundamental principle of monotheism in Islam. Muslims are encouraged to have faith solely in Allah and engage in acts of devotion that strengthen their connection with Him.

The royal and imperial courts of Asia had complex systems of female hierarchy. The ruler's wives and female relatives were at the top, and a great many other ladies were there to serve them. Similar to the ladies in waiting of European royal courts, these women cared for the rooms and wardrobes of higher ranking women, assist them in hygiene and grooming; and entertain them, keep them company, act as their secretaries and pass on all the latest gossip, crucial to palace intrigue. In Islamic empires, these women were collectively known as the harem. Anglo-phonic historians also use the term Harem or Palace Women to refer to the ladies of the Imperial courts of East Asia. In Christian Europe, Kings were supposed to be faithful to their Queens, but they still got up to plenty of hanky-panky with the court ladies. But in Asia, where polygamy was common practice, all court ladies were available to the monarch for sexual services, and if they took the Emperor's fancy, even the lowest born woman could be promoted to concubine, consort or even Empress. Let's take a look at the evolution, duties, ranks and lives of the Harem and Palace women of the imperial courts of China, Japan and the Ottoman Empire. Join me every Tuesday when I'm Spilling the Tea on History! Check out my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/lindsayholiday Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091781568503 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyteatimelindsayholiday/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@historyteatime Please consider supporting me at https://www.patreon.com/LindsayHoliday and help me make more fascinating episodes! Intro Music: Baroque Coffee House by Doug Maxwell Music: "Bellissimo" by Doug Maxwell #womenshistory #HistoryTeaTime #LindsayHoliday Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on this podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The fifth pillar of Islam is Hajj, which translates to mean "the pilgrimage to the Holy city of Makkah." The Arabic word, Hajj, linguistically, means "heading to a place for the sake of visiting." In Islamic terminology, the term describes the act of heading to Makkah to observe specific actions and rituals. Hajj, or the pilgrimage, is a 5-6-day journey to this sacred place between the 8th and 13th day of the last month of the Islamic lunar calendar, Dhul-Hijjah. The Hajj journey is obligatory for every Muslim, male or female, to complete at least once in a lifetime, provided they are mentally, physically, and financially capable of making the trip. God states:"...And due to Allah from the people is a pilgrimage to the House - for whoever is able to find thereto a way..." (Quran 3:97) The Hajj includes detailed reenactments of certain symbolic rituals performed by great Prophets and righteous individuals in the past. The Hajj Pilgrimage and its symbolic rituals commemorate the legacy of Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him; this is why one needs to learn about Prophet Abraham to understand the reasoning behind individual acts performed as a part of Hajj.Integral to Hajj is the Kaaba, a holy shrine - a black silk-clad cube stone structure at the heart of the Grand Mosque in the modern-day city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The Kaaba is at the center of the Earth, built by Prophet Abraham and his son Ismael, peace be upon them. Upon completion, God the Almighty commanded Prophet Abraham to relay a single Message to the people: that they would be required to make a pilgrimage to this House. May your journey to the answer and the truth be pleasant and successful.

The Quran is a treasure trove of wisdom and knowledge, and one of its most intriguing stories can be found in Surah Al-Baqarah, where Allah mentions the story of Harut and Marut. In Islamic tradition, Harut and Marut are known to be two Angels who were sent down to Earth. This article will delve into the mystery surrounding their story and the impact it had on the world. Verse 102 of Surah Al-Baqarah reads: "And they followed [instead] what the devils had recited during the reign of Solomon. It was not Solomon who disbelieved, but the devils disbelieved, teaching people magic and that which was revealed to the two angels at Babylon, Hārūt and Mārūt. But they [i.e., the two angels] do not teach anyone unless they say, "We are a trial, so do not disbelieve [by practicing magic]."1 And [yet] they learn from them that by which they cause separation between a man and his wife. But they do not harm anyone through it except by permission of Allāh. And they [i.e., people] learn what harms them and does not benefit them. But they [i.e., the Children of Israel] certainly knew that whoever purchased it [i.e., magic] would not have in the Hereafter any share. And wretched is that for which they sold themselves, if they only knew. ." (Al-Baqarah 2:102) The story of Harut and Marut is a cautionary tale of the dangers of magic and how it can lead to division and harm. Allah mentions that when the people learned magic from Harut and Marut, they started dividing families. However, it's important to note that they could only do so with Allah's permission. This raises the question of why Allah would allow magic to cause harm and create division. One explanation could be that Harut and Marut were sent as a test to see who would follow the right path and who would be misled by the false promises of magic. It's also possible that magic was needed at that time to counter something else, and Harut and Marut were sent to teach the people about its dangers. Another aspect to consider is the relationship between Shaitan and magic. In the verse, it mentions that the majority of those who followed the teachings of Harut and Marut were Shaitans. Shaitan is the source of evil and deception, and it's not surprising that he would be associated with magic. However, it's important to remember that even with magic, Shaitan and those who follow him can only cause harm with Allah's permission. In conclusion, the story of Harut and Marut is a reminder of the dangers of magic and how it can lead to division and harm. It raises questions about the relationship between Shaitan and magic, as well as the reasons behind why Allah would allow magic to cause harm. This article serves as a setup for further exploration into these questions and the wisdom that can be gleaned from this fascinating story.

Grace to you and peace from God our parent, Jesus our Savior, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Ahh yes, the Beatitudes, one of the passages of the Gospel that everyone seems to have heard and many love it. A nice passage providing hope for the future, even possibly for after we die and are joined with the saints in the heavenly kin-dom. A passage letting us know that even if things aren't all that great here on Earth, that they will be much better once we are with God. Or is it?  Is this what it is about?  I think there is a lot more here. Just like much of Jesus's life and preaching, Jesus was being counter-cultural here. He was going against everything that society, religion, and government was telling people. Wealth, religious piety in high positions in the church, power, strength, fighting for what they thought was right, forcing people into their ways, happiness - were all things society, then, and still today, values as a whole. In other parts of the Gospel, John the Baptist and others tell people to repent, which means to turn around. They were being told - “Hey - you are going the wrong way - you are on the wrong path - turn around!” They were being told that they were living their lives not as God intended. In today's Gospel, the message changes to tell us which people are blessed. As Pastor Ellen very nicely explains in her study guide for today's readings, “Jesus begins his message, the inaugural address of his ministry, by saying, “Blessed.”  Now, the Jewish people really knew their Hebrew scripture and they knew the Psalms. They knew that the great Law Psalm, Psalm 1, begins with exactly the same word, blessed.  You see, Psalm 1 begins like this, “Blessed is the one who walks not in the way of the wicked but in the way of the Lord.”  And ashar, the Hebrew word for blessed, really means something like ‘You are on the right road.'” So we are switching from telling people that they are on the wrong road - to telling us who is on the right road, the right path, headed in the right direction - and it isn't anything like what society is telling people. The ones on the right path are those who are poor in spirit - maybe they feel like they aren't worshiping correctly, or don't have the resources to worship as society tells them they should. Those who want righteousness and peace, not war and violence. Those who are truly pure in heart - not just putting on a show for others. The ones who were probably shunned or outcast from society because of who they were and what they believed in or had the means to do, were now being told that they are on the right path, they are blessed. Also to note is that who is described as blessed tends to be based on who they are, not what they do.  “Blessed are the merciful”, not “blessed are those who show or act with mercy”. “Blessed are the pure in heart” not “blessed are those who act correctly”. This is showing that we are on the right path, blessed, by being true to who God created us to be, not because of doing what we think are the right things to please God. As noted in today's Micah reading, the people of God often had it wrong as to what would please the Lord - they think that offerings of a calf, or thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil would please the Lord. However, they are told that isn't what the Lord wants - all that is required is “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Also, the promises for us, are for us now - not for some far off future. We often think of the kin-dom of God or the kin-dom of Heaven as where we'll go when we die, but as we pray in the Lord's Prayer “your kin-dom come”, we are calling for the kin-dom to come to us here, in our lives today, as has been promised to us. It may be hard to see the comfort or mercy or inheritance we receive now when we are on the right path because it is often hidden by society and the ways of the world, but the promise is there for us now, and if we open our hearts and minds to receive it, we'll start seeing it amidst the turmoil of the world. So the Gospel is telling people that they are blessed, on the right path, because of who God created them to be, even though society says otherwise. We have all been called blessed in our baptism, not through our actions. We are all God's children because of who we are since we were created whole as a child of God. So how does this pertain to us today? Before we get there - a brief story about me. You all know me as “Rich”.  However, that isn't my only name.  My legal name is “Richard” and that is what I use when signing legal documents and in more formal situations. Although I don't remember it, I'm sure I was baptized as “Richard” as well. When I was a baby and infant - up until I started kindergarten, I was called “Ricky”. Then, and this is one of the strange things I remember from my childhood, after church one Sunday, by the coat rack, my dad talked to me and said that I'd be starting school soon and if I had thoughts about what I wanted to be called in school - and I decided on “Richard.”  So in elementary, middle, and part of high school, I was “Richard.”  Then somehow in high school my friends started calling me “Rich,” even though I still used “Richard” for everything.  Well, “Rich” stuck around and I eventually started using it myself, and that is who I am today.  Except for my family.  My family still calls me “Rick.” Oh yeah, and occasionally growing up when I wasn't behaving the right way, my name became a very stern “Richard Dale”.  So here I am, one person, the exact same person God created me to be, with a handful of names over the years. And God is like that. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity, Creator, Holy Ghost, Jesus, Savior, Abba, Teacher, Servant, Holy Wisdom, and so many more names - all referring to our one God. In Islamic scripture it says they have 99 names for God, but when they list out the names, there are more than that.  So while God has many names, each name looking at a different aspect of God, there is still one God. Different names don't change who God is, God is still God. During the transfiguration of Jesus we are told, “And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.” [Luke 9:29] yet even with his drastic change in appearance, the disciples knew who Jesus was. The appearance of Jesus was just that - his appearance, who Jesus is, didn't change. Just like me - I didn't always have a beard and I used to have more hair on the top of my head, that has changed. I wear different clothing. None of that changes who I am, a child of God. I was created whole, and that stays the same. So, names and appearances don't change who we are or who God is. The nature of who we are is always the same - a child of God, exactly how we were created whole. Many things about us may change, a little bit or drastically, over the years, but the very nature of “self” remains the same. So, the beatitudes today. Just as Jesus was counter-cultural and declared people to be on the right path, declare them blessed, for who they are, against what society said of them - that is the call of us as proclaimers of Christ today. To be counter-cultural today and proclaim God's unconditional love for all, to proclaim that people are created whole as a child of God, and are on the right path, are blessed. We live in a society that wants to call gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as groomers and proclaim they are corrupting our youth. That transgender people are perverts and against God's nature and that they shouldn't exist or participate in society. That our black and brown siblings should go back where they came from, they aren't welcome here, and that they are criminals and their lives don't matter. That our Asian American siblings are also not welcome here, that they come from countries that bring disease, and do nothing but cause problems. That Native Americans should adopt “our ways” and be happy with small pieces of land we “give” to them. Our society constantly vilifies these people, declares they are all on the wrong path and need to repent. Society is often against these people so much that society will often murder them either directly or indirectly by not providing the care they need. This is where we, as proclaimers of Christ, come in - we must proclaim to these people the true message, the counter-cultural message, that they are loved, they are children of God, not because of anything they do, but simply because they are God's children. They are created whole in God's image and they are blessed. Living into the person God created us to be is what puts us on the right path with God. In case my message wasn't clear before when stating that names and appearances don't change who we truly are, I am talking about our transgender siblings here. God loves our transgender siblings for exactly who they are, who they were created to be, a beloved child of God. From before birth and continuing forever, God loves them for who they are. No matter what appearance they have today, yesterday, or tomorrow; no matter what name or pronouns they use, and no matter how often they might change - God loves them, and all of us, for our very being. Declaring God's truth of God's unconditional love and proclaiming it to the world, shouting “You are blessed” to everyone that society calls “other” or  “unwanted” is hard work. As Jesus showed, very hard work - to the point that going against society, religious leaders, and the government got him murdered.  Yes - to fully live into God's call to us can be risky. Fully living into our call is what is needed if we are going to stick to the truth of our call as stated in Micah 6:8, to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. No doubt this is hard work, no doubt we are going to get it wrong, but that is where the good news comes in - we have been given grace by God, through our faith in Jesus, so that we can do this work.  As my friend Pastor Rachel Laughlin mentioned in a comment on Facebook recently, “Grace isn't a pass for not trying. ‘Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means!' writes Paul in Romans 6:1-2. Grace is freedom to boldly strive to do justice and mercy and love our neighbors even when we aren't sure how to do those things well. It is freedom to fail at all of it, then try again and again and again as we learn and grow.” We have been created whole by God, every single one of us, we are blessed by being God's children and living fully into who God created us to be, let us go and boldly strive to continue to proclaim that to all. Amen.

David Icke - SATURN ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS EITHER!Sheriff in the ancient Egyptian was a law-giver and his badge was always a six-pointed star which is a symbol of Saturn. US Sheriffs in the wild west up to today still wear the six-pointed star. It is interesting that Saturn's symbol is the 6-pointed star, Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun, Saturn-day is the 6th day of the week, and now NASA is receiving images of “the Saturn Hexagon” (6-sided) atmospheric formation at Saturn's poles. The 6th chakra of the human energy system is the 3rd eye/pineal gland (6, 3 times = 666). When your 3rd eye chakra opens you develop your 6th sense of intuition and spirituality. From a consciousness perspective, the 6th sense, your intuitions/hunches, are messengers of god, your guardian angels. Isn't it interesting that angels have haloes/rings around their heads and Saturn is the only planet with a halo/ring around it?“That is why today, when you get married, you get married before God. And the symbol of that God is the ring that is put on each other's fingers. The ring of Saturn. In the marriage phrases, one also begins to see what that has to do with Saturn. So when you get married, you get married with a ring and the symbol of that God is the ring, the ring of Saturn. You're wearing God's ring. And the yarmulke was the round ring that you wear on your head, for Saturn your God. Even in the middle ages, in the temples, Catholic monks would shave their heads in a round circle, and the Hebrews, instead of doing that, would wear the yarmulke. But it all had to do with the round rings of Saturn.” -Jordan Maxwell, “Matrix of Power”“The ancient name of Saturn was, as mentioned, EL. It is the reason why those that were chosen by EL, were called Elites. In fact the words, Elect, Elder, Elevated, Elohim, Temple, Circle, Gospel, Apostle, Disciple, Evangelists, etc., all derive from the Cult of EL. Angels are messengers of god. But god was EL, which is why we have the names of the Archangels bearing the ‘el,' suffix – Raphael, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, etc,.” -Michael Tsarion, “Astrotheology and Sidereal Mythology”The plural term Elohim appears over 2500 times in the Old Testament but is falsely translated in most versions. This fact of plurality explains why in Genesis ‘Gods' said, ‘Let us make man in our image.' As stated, Elohim refers to both ‘gods' and ‘goddesses,' and its singular form, El, served as a prefix or suffix to names of gods, people and places, whence Emmanu-El, Gabri-El, Beth-El, etc. Even ‘Satan' was one of the Elohim.” -Acharya S., “The Christ Conspiracy” (67)The gods of EL-o-him are ang-EL-s, the messengers of god. When witches cast a spe-EL, they put the “Hex” (6) on someone, and when chefs deep fry something, they “Deep 6” it. It is the EL-ites who run the world today. El-ite comes from the “Isra-El-ites” which came from the Egyptian worship of the Moon (Isis), the Sun, (Ra), and Saturn (Elohim), hence Is-Ra-El.In Islamic tradition, the “Rock” is where Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the ang-el Gabri-el. The Dome of the “Rock” was built in the 600 AD era and was won back by the Israelites on 06/07/67 after the “6 day war.” The Dome's outer walls measure 60 (6×10) feet wide and 36 (6×6) feet high. The Knights Templar claimed the Dome of the Rock was the site of the Temple of Solomon and set up their “Templum Domini” adjacent to it during the 12th century.“Saturn is an important key to understanding the long heritage this conspiracy has back to antiquity. The city of Rome was originally known as Saturnia or City of Saturn. The Roman Catholic church retains much of the Saturn worship in its ritual. Saturn also relates to Lucifer. In various occult dictionaries Saturn is associated with evil. Saturn was important to the religion of Mithra, and also the Druids.” –Fritz Springmeier, “Bloodlines of the Illuminati”Rome was known to the “Romans” as Saturnia, not Rome, and Saturn was one of their gods. Black is both Saturn's color and Satan's color. The black holy bible tells us Satan is 666. Saturn is the 6th planet, its symbol is a 6-pointed star, it supposedly has hexagon weather formations, and Saturn-day, the 6th day, is Ozzy Osbourne's “Black Sabbath.”Is this all just divine coincidence or is our perception of Saturn and the other planets being manipulated by the Masonic magicians at NASA?

Hosted by Jonathan Sayre & Logan Sayre New episodes every week! Donate at: patreon.com/accidentaldads or go to paypal.com and use our email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com Go to www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com for all things related to the train!   When you die and are brought back as a cowboy, call that reintarnation. That's right folks, we are gonna get pun-iful in today's episode as we dive deep into the life and times of Reincarnation. We've all heard about the tales, myths, pseudo-science factuals, testimonials, and first hand accounts of reincarnation. Is it real? Is this tabloid conjecture? Are we stuck in an everlasting cycle until we break free and reach enlightenment? Do we need to join the Flatliners in order to find out? Well, let's go over everything we know and maybe, some things you don't know.   For those of you who don't know what Reincarnation is, or maybe, just don't understand what it is; the Latin root of the word "reincarnation" literally translates to "entering the flesh again." Reincarnation is the idea that a part of every person—or, in certain cultures, every living thing—continues to exist after death. The transmigration belief varies by culture and is imagined to take the form of a newly born human being, animal, plant, spirit, or as a being in some other non-human realm of existence. This aspect may be the soul, mind, consciousness, or something transcendent that is reborn in an interconnected cycle of existence.   So reincarnation is the transfer of the soul, right? What is your soul? I feel that not everyone has a soul, or at the very least deserves one, but what is your soul? Where does it reside? Is it just an idea we give to help us cope with the nothingness that happens after the lights go out? Or is there more to the equation?   According to the religion of the ancient Egyptians, a person is composed of both bodily and spiritual components. Ancient Assyrian and Babylonian religion both contained concepts that are similar. The Kuttamuwa stele, a funeral stele for a royal official from Sam'al who died in the eighth century BCE, records Kuttamuwa asking his mourners to celebrate his life and his death with feasts "for my spirit that is in this stele." One of the oldest mentions of the soul existing independently of the body can be found here. The basalt stele, which weighs 800 pounds (360 kg), is 2 feet (0.61 m) wide and 3 feet (0.91 m) tall. It was found during the third season of excavations by the Oriental Institute's Neubauer Expedition in Chicago, Illinois.   The Baháʼí Faith affirms that "the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel". Bahá'u'lláh stated that the soul not only continues to live after the physical death of the human body, but is, in fact, immortal. Heaven can be seen partly as the soul's state of nearness to God; and hell as a state of remoteness from God. Each state follows as a natural consequence of individual efforts, or the lack thereof, to develop spiritually. Bahá'u'lláh taught that individuals have no existence prior to their life here on earth and the soul's evolution is always towards God and away from the material world.   Christian eschatology holds that after death, God will evaluate each person's soul and determine whether they will spend eternity in Heaven or Hell before being raised to life. This viewpoint is shared by the majority of Protestant denominations as well as the oldest branches of Christianity, including the Catholic Church and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches. Some Protestant Christians think the soul is just "life," and they think the dead don't have conscious existence until the resurrection (Christian conditionalism). Some Protestant Christians think that rather than suffering for all eternity, the sinful' souls and bodies will be destroyed in Hell (annihilationism). Either in Heaven or in a Kingdom of God on earth, believers will receive eternal life and experience everlasting communion with God.   The present Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the term soul   “refers to the innermost aspect of [persons], that which is of greatest value in [them], that by which [they are] most especially in God's image: ‘soul' signifies the spiritual principle in [humanity]”. All souls living and dead will be judged by Jesus Christ when he comes back to earth. The Catholic Church teaches that the existence of each individual soul is dependent wholly upon God:   "The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God."   Protestants usually hold to the idea that the soul is real and eternal, but there are two main schools of thought regarding what this implies in terms of a hereafter. Some, following Jean Calvin, believe that the soul persists as consciousness after death. Some people, including those who follow Martin Luther, think that the soul passes away with the body and remains asleep (or "sleeps") until the time of the dead.   Various new religious movements deriving from Adventism(Adventism is a branch of Protestant Christianity that believes in the imminent Second Coming (or the "Second Advent") of Jesus Christ.) — including Christadelphians, Seventh-day Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses — similarly believe that the dead do not possess a soul separate from the body and are unconscious until the resurrection.   The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the spirit and body together constitute the Soul of Man (Mankind). "The spirit and the body are the soul of man." Latter-day Saints believe that the soul is the union of a pre-existing, God-made spirit and a temporal body, which is formed by physical conception on earth. After death, the spirit continues to live and progress in the Spirit world until the resurrection, when it is reunited with the body that once housed it. This reuniting of body and spirit results in a perfect soul that is immortal, and eternal, and capable of receiving a fulness of joy. Latter-day Saint cosmology also describes "intelligences" as the essence of consciousness or agency. These are co-eternal with God, and animate the spirits. The union of a newly-created spirit body with an eternally-existing intelligence constitutes a "spirit birth"[citation needed] and justifies God's title "Father of our spirits".   Some Confucian traditions draw a distinction between a spiritual soul and a physical soul. Ātman is a Sanskrit word that means inner self or soul. In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism, Ātman is the first principle, the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual. In order to attain liberation (moksha), a human being must acquire self-knowledge (atma jnana), which is to realize that one's true self (Ātman) is identical with the transcendent self.   The Quran, the holy book of Islam, uses two words to refer to the soul: rūḥ (translated as spirit, consciousness, pneuma or "soul") and nafs (translated as self, ego, psyche or "soul"), cognates of the Hebrew nefesh and ruach. The two terms are frequently used interchangeably, though rūḥ is more often used to denote the divine spirit or "the breath of life", while nafs designates one's disposition or characteristics. In Islamic philosophy, the immortal rūḥ "drives" the mortal nafs, which comprises temporal desires and perceptions necessary for living.   In Jainism, every living being, from plant or bacterium to human, has a soul and the concept forms the very basis of Jainism. According to Jainism, there is no beginning or end to the existence of the soul. It is eternal in nature and changes its form until it attains liberation.   Jiva is the immortal essence or soul of a living organism (human, animal, fish or plant etc.) which survives physical death. The concept of Ajiva in Jainism means "not soul", and represents matter (including body), time, space, non-motion and motion. In Jainism, a Jiva is either samsari (mundane, caught in cycle of rebirths) or mukta (liberated).   According to this belief until the time the soul is liberated from the saṃsāra (cycle of repeated birth and death), it gets attached to one of these bodies based on the karma (actions) of the individual soul. Irrespective of which state the soul is in, it has got the same attributes and qualities. The difference between the liberated and non-liberated souls is that the qualities and attributes are manifested completely in case of siddha (liberated soul) as they have overcome all the karmic bondages whereas in case of non-liberated souls they are partially exhibited. Souls who rise victorious over wicked emotions while still remaining within physical bodies are referred to as arihants.   Judaism relates the quality of one's soul to one's performance of the commandments (mitzvot) and reaching higher levels of understanding, and thus closeness to God.   The Scientology view is that a person does not have a soul, it is a soul. It is the belief of the religion that they do not have the power to force adherents' conclusions. Therefore, a person is immortal, and may be reincarnated if they wish. Scientologists view that one's future happiness and immortality, as guided by their spirituality, is influenced by how they live and act during their time on earth. The Scientology term for the soul is "thetan", derived from the Greek word "theta", symbolizing thought. Scientology counselling (called auditing) addresses the soul to improve abilities, both worldly and spiritual. The ideologies surrounding this understanding align with those of the five major world religions.   A popular belief in Shamanism is soul dualism, which is also known as "many souls" or "dualistic pluralism" and is crucial to the fundamental and vital idea of "soul flight" (also called "soul journey", "out-of-body experience", "ecstasy", or "astral projection"). The idea that there are two or more souls in each human being is known as the dualistic theory of the "free soul" and the "body soul." While awake, the former is connected to physiological processes and awareness, but the latter is free to roam when asleep or in trance states. There are numerous soul types with various purposes in some circumstances.   Shinto distinguishes between the souls of living persons (tamashii) and those of dead persons (mitama), each of which may have different aspects or sub-souls.   Sikhism considers the soul (atma) to be part of God (Waheguru). Various hymns are cited from the holy book Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS) that suggests this belief. "God is in the Soul and the Soul is in the God."   According to Chinese traditions, every person has two types of soul called hun and po, which are respectively yang and yin. Taoism believes in ten souls, sanhunqipo "three hun and seven po". A living being that loses any of them is said to have mental illness or unconsciousness, while a dead soul may reincarnate to a disability, lower desire realms, or may even be unable to reincarnate.   Damn, we're getting deep here on the Train! Well, we did say we wanted to do this episode and to do it right, well, this is “da wey”.   Now it seems as though the soul is prevalent in just about every religion. Why? Is this just a way of putting a forced answer to a question that we cant solve? Like the creation of our existence or the so-called plan laid before us? Too deep? Anyways, in everything we hear there is usually some truth to what is said. The real strategy is finding out what is true and what is not.   While there has been no scientific confirmation of the physical reality of reincarnation, where the subject has been discussed, there are questions of whether and how such beliefs may be justified within the discourse of science and religion. Some champions of academic parapsychology have argued that they have scientific evidence even while their detractors have accused them of practicing a form of pseudoscience. Skeptic Carl Sagan asked the Dalai Lama what he would do if a fundamental tenet of his religion (reincarnation) were definitively disproved by science. The Dalai Lama answered, "If science can disprove reincarnation, Tibetan Buddhism would abandon reincarnation…but it's going to be mighty hard to disprove reincarnation." Sagan considered claims of memories of past lives to be worthy of research, although he considered reincarnation to be an unlikely explanation for these.   Over the course of 40 years, University of Virginia psychiatrist Ian Stevenson studied more than 2,500 cases of young children who claimed to remember previous lives. Twelve volumes were written by him, including Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects, and Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. He documented the child's statements and the evidence of family members and other witnesses in his instances, frequently coupled with what he thought to be connections to a deceased person who in some ways seemed to match the child's memories. Stevenson also looked at instances in which he believed that birthmarks and birth abnormalities matched the wounds and scars on the deceased. Medical records, such as images from an autopsy, were occasionally included in his documentation. Stevenson anticipated criticism and mistrust of his beliefs since claims of former life memories are always open to accusations of fraudulent recollections and the simplicity with which such claims can be faked. He did look for contradictory information and other reasons for the claims, but as the Washington Post wrote, he frequently came to the conclusion that no regular explanation was enough.   Jim B. Tucker, Antonia Mills, Satwant Pasricha, Godwin Samararatne, and Erlendur Haraldsson are a few other academic scholars who have engaged in comparable study, although Stevenson's works continue to be the most well-known. Carl Sagan found Stevenson's work in this area to be so impressive that he used what were apparently Stevenson's investigations as an example of meticulously gathered empirical data in his book The Demon-Haunted World. Though he rejected reincarnation as a reasonable explanation for the stories, he wrote that the phenomenon of purported past-life memories should be further studied. In his book The End of Faith, Sam Harris mentioned Stevenson's writings as a component of a collection of evidence that appears to support the reality of psychic phenomena but only draws on arbitrary human experience.   Paul Edwards, a philosopher, called Ian Stevenson's reincarnation tales "purely anecdotal and cherry-picked," refuting Stevenson's assertions. The stories, according to Edwards, are the products of selective thinking, suggestion, and false recollections that arise from the researcher's or the family's belief systems and cannot be taken into account as empirical proof. The philosopher Keith Augustine wrote in critique that the fact that "the vast majority of Stevenson's cases come from countries where a religious belief in reincarnation is strong, and rarely elsewhere, seems to indicate that cultural conditioning (rather than reincarnation) generates claims of spontaneous past-life memories." Further, Ian Wilson pointed out that a large number of Stevenson's cases consisted of poor children remembering wealthy lives or belonging to a higher caste. In these societies, claims of reincarnation are sometimes used as schemes to obtain money from the richer families of alleged former incarnations. Later, Stevenson wrote a book titled European Cases of the Reincarnation Type that collected cases from societies where reincarnation is not widely accepted. Robert Baker said that despite this, all of the past-life experiences examined by Stevenson and other parapsychologists are explicable in terms of well-known psychological characteristics, such as a combination of confabulation and cryptomnesia. Reincarnation conjures assumptions, according to Edwards, that are at odds with contemporary science. Reincarnation is subject to the rule that "extraordinary claims deserve extraordinary evidence" due to the fact that the vast majority of individuals have no memory of former lifetimes and that no mechanism has been empirically proven to allow a personality to escape death and move to another body. Researchers like Stevenson were aware of these restrictions.    Confabulation is a memory error in psychology that is described as the creation of false, distorted, or misconstrued memories about oneself or the outside environment. It is typically linked to a particular subset of dementias or certain types of brain injury, particularly aneurysms in the anterior communicating artery. Confabulation is a behavior that the basal forebrain is thought to be involved with, while research into this topic is currently ongoing. When someone confabulates, their memories are distorted or confused in terms of their temporal framing (such as timing, sequence, or duration), and these distortions can range from small mistakes to outright fabrications. They generally have a high degree of confidence in their memories, even when they are contradicted by other pieces of information.   When a forgotten memory resurfaces but is not recognized by the person as such, they think it to be something brand-new and unique. This condition is known as cryptomnesia. A person could mistakenly believe they came up with a joke, a music, a name, or a thought when they didn't mean to copy anything; instead, they were simply experiencing a memory as if it were a fresh source of inspiration. This is a memory bias.   Stevenson also asserted that there were a few instances that might have provided proof of xenoglossy, including two in which a subject was said to have engaged in conversation with speakers of the other language rather than just memorizing its terms. Reexamining these cases, University of Michigan linguist and skeptic Sarah Thomason came to the conclusion that "the linguistic evidence is too poor to provide support for the assertions of xenoglossy."   The paranormal phenomena of a person being able to speak, write, or understand a foreign language that they could not have learned naturally is called xenoglossy, also known as xenolalia. French parapsychologist Charles Richet coined the term "xenoglossy" in 1905. In addition to modern assertions made by parapsychologists and reincarnation researchers like Ian Stevenson, the New Testament contains claims of xenoglossy. The existence of xenoglossy as a real phenomenon is not supported by science. In xenoglossy, there are two distinct categories. Incomprehensible use of an unlearned language is known as repetitious xenoglossy, while comprehensively using an unlearned language as if it had already been learnt is known as responsive xenoglossy.   Some reincarnationists—Stevenson notoriously not included—place great emphasis on purported past-life memories that are regained while hypnotized during past-life regressions. The technique, which was made popular by psychiatrist Brian Weiss, who claims to have taken patients back in time more than 4,000 times since 1980, is sometimes referred to as a form of pseudoscience. These so-called memories have been shown to include historical mistakes derived from historical texts, popular historical myths, or contemporary popular culture. Studies on people who had past-life regressions found that the two most significant influences on the reported details of recollections were the individuals' reincarnation beliefs and the hypnotist's suggestions. The use of hypnosis and provocative inquiries may make a subject more prone to have false or distorted recollections. The source of the recollections is most likely cryptomnesia and confabulations, which mix experiences, knowledge, imagination, and suggestion or instruction from the hypnotist, as opposed to recall of a prior existence. Once they are formed, the memories become identical to memories based on actual life occurrences for the person.   Because it offers no proof for its assertions and makes people more susceptible to false recollections, past-life regression has been criticized as immoral. According to Luis Cordón, this can be harmful because it breeds delusions while passing itself off as therapy. Due to the fact that the memories are perceived as being equally vivid and impossible to distinguish from authentic recollections of actual occurrences, any damage may be challenging to repair.   The use of past-life regressions as a treatment technique has been contested by APA recognized groups as unethical. Furthermore, the hypnotic technique used to support past-life regression has come under fire for leaving the subject open to the implantation of false memories. Gabriel Andrade contends that past-life regression violates the Hippocratic Oath's first, do no harm (non-maleficence) tenet since the implantation of false memories may be damaging.   Now that we have a phenomenal understanding of reincarnation and the simplified version of the soul, we would like to share some examples of first hand accounts where reincarnation shows itself. All we ask of you, the listeners, is to give us your honest opinions and maybe share your own stories or beliefs.    Thank you to Listverse.com for some of the first hand accounts of reincarnation   Edward Austrian A four-year-old boy called Edward Austrian had been complaining of a sore throat since his mother can remember. He also can't stand grey, drizzly days, apparently. Around this time, the little boy began referring to his sore throat as his “shot”. His mother thought nothing of it. After all, kids mix up their words all the time. Doctor after doctor led to an unnecessary tonsil removal, which then led to an unexplained cyst developing in Edward's throat. His parents were understandably worried. But then something strange happened. Edward started telling his mum detailed stories from WWI – things a four-year-old wouldn't be able to absorb and remember from a TV show or movie. He spoke of life on the trenches and the day-to-day goings on of the war. And then… one day… he told his mother a graphic story of being shot in the throat and killed. “My name was James. I was 18 years old, in France,” he told his parents. “We were walking along through the mud. It was damp. It was cold. My rifle is heavy. I remember looking out and seeing trees and then there was desolation. I heard a shot come from behind. It went through someone else, hit me square in the back of the neck and I felt my throat fill with blood.” Let's remember this kid is FOUR YEARS OLD. So that's not the kind of thing he would learn from the Wiggles, right?   Bruce Whittier   Bruce Whittier had recurring dreams of being a Jewish man hiding in a house with his family. His name had been Stefan Horowitz, a Dutch Jew who was discovered in his hiding place along with his family and taken to Auschwitz, where he died. During and after the dreams, he felt panicked and restless. He began to record his dreams, and one night he dreamed about a clock, which he was able to draw in great detail upon waking.Whittier dreamed about the location of the clock in an antiques shop and went to look. The clock was visible in the shop window and looked exactly like the one in his dreams. Whittier asked the dealer where it had come from. It transpired that the dealer had bought the clock from among the property of a retired German major in The Netherlands. This convinced Whittier that he really had led a past life.   Peter Hume   Peter Hume, a bingo caller from Birmingham, England, started having very specific dreams about life on guard duty at the Scottish border in 1646. He was a foot soldier of Cromwell's army and his name was John Raphael. When put under hypnosis, Hume remembered more details and locations. He started to visit places he remembered with his brother and even found small items that appeared to have come from the era in which he had lived, such as horse spurs.With the help of a village historian in Culmstock, South England, he even managed to positively identify details about a church that he had known—he was able to tell her that the church used to have a tower with a yew tree growing from it. This was not a published fact, and it startled her that Hume knew it—the church tower had been taken down in 1676. In local registers, John Raphael was discovered to have been married in the church. A civil war historian, Ronald Hutton, investigated the case and asked Hume very era-specific questions while under hypnosis. Hutton was not satisfied that Hume was totally in tune with the era of his past life, as he could not answer all his questions in a satisfactory way.   Gus Taylor   Gus Taylor was 18 months old when he started to say that he was his own grandfather. Young children can be confused about their own identity and those of their family members, but this was different. His grandfather had died a year before Gus was born and the boy totally believed they were the same person. When shown some family photographs, Gus identified “Grandpa Augie” when he was four years old.There was a family secret that nobody had ever spoken about in front of or around Gus—Augie's sister had been murdered and dumped in the San Francisco Bay. The family were perplexed when the four-year-old child started to talk about his dead sister. According to Gus, God gave him a ticket after he died. With this ticket he was able to travel through a hole, after which he came back to life as Gus.   Imad Elawar   Five-year-old Imad Elawar from Lebanon started talking about his life in a nearby village. The first two words he spoke as a child were the names “Jamileh” and “Mahmoud,” and at the age of two he stopped a stranger outside and told him they had been neighbors. The child and his parents were investigated by Dr Ian Stevenson. Imad made over 55 different claims about his previous life.The family visited the village that the boy had been spoken of, together with Stevenson, and found the house where he claimed he had lived. Imad and his family were able to positively identify thirteen facts and memories that were confirmed as being accurate. Imad recognized his previous uncle, Mahmoud, and his mistress from a former life, Jamileh, from photographs. He was able to remember where he had kept his gun, a fact verified by others, and was able to have a chat with a stranger about their experiences during their army days. In total, 51 out of 57 of the experiences and places mentioned by Imad were verified during the visit.   James Leininger   At a very young age, James Leininger started to remember his life as a navy fighter pilot. Airplanes were the only toys he would play with, and after a time his plane obsession turned into a nightmare. He lost a lot of sleep and kept talking about flying planes, about the weapons, and the scary accident with his plane. James, who only watched kids' programs on TV, showed his mother what a fighter plane drop tank was, and was able to check a plane over as a pilot would during a preflight check when he was just three years old.The child was able to tell his father that he used to take off from a boat called the Natoma and knew the name of a co-pilot, Jack Larson. The Natoma was indeed a Pacific ship and Larson was still alive. After James told his father that he had been killed in his plane at Iwo Jima, his father discovered a pilot called James M. Huston Jr. who had died there. This was especially strange, as James had started to sign his drawings “ ‘James 3' ”. James' family contacted Huston's sister, and she sent James a bust and a model airplane that had been returned to her by the navy after her brother's death.   Ruth Simmons   One of the best-known reincarnation stories is that of Ruth Simmons. In 1952, she underwent a series of hypnosis sessions during which her therapist, Morey Bernstein, regressed her back to her birth. She suddenly started to speak with a heavy Irish accent and remembered many specific details from her life as Bridey Murphy, who had lived in Belfast, Ireland in the 19th century. Not many of the things she mentioned could be verified. However, she recalled two people from whom she used to buy her food—a Mr. John Carrigan and a Mr. Farr. The town directory for 1865–66 lists the two individuals as grocers. The story is shown in a film from 1956 called The Search for Bridey Murphy.   Cameron Macauley   Cameron Macauley was born in Glasgow, Scotland. Since the age of two he told his mother he was from an island called Barra, off the west coast of Scotland. He talked about a white house and a beach on which planes landed. He had a black-and-white dog and his dad's name was Shane Robertson—he was killed by a car. He drew the white house by the beach and complained of missing his other mother. As the child got more and more upset about missing Barra, his mother took him on a visit the the island, which was an hour-long flight away. The plane landed on the beach.The family found a white house owned by the Robertsons, and the black-and-white dog was in one of their family photographs, along with a car that Cameron had remembered. However, nobody recalled Shane. Cameron knew his way around the white house and was able to point out all its peculiarities.As he grew older, Cameron slowly lost his memories, but he is still convinced that death is not the end. Like Gus Taylor, he stated that he ended up in his mother's tummy after he fell through a hole. The story was picked up by British television, making the Barra case one of the best-documented reincarnation stories.   Parmod Sharma   Parmod Sharma was born in India in 1944. When he reached the age of two, he told his mother that his wife in Moradabad could cook for him, so she did not have to. Morabad was 145 kilometers (90 mi) away from his birthplace, Bisauli. Between the ages of three and four, Parmod described a business venture called “Mohan Brothers,” where he had worked with family members, selling cookies and water. He built miniature shops and served his family mud cookies and water. He had been a well-off tradesman and complained about the financially less rosy situation of his current family. He advised his parents against eating curd, and would not touch it himself. He said that he had become very ill after eating it in his old life. Parmod hated being submerged in a bath and told his parents that he had died in a bathtub. Pramod's parents promised to take him to Moradabad once he had learned to read. It turned out that there was a family by the name of Mehra that had run a soda and cookie shop called “Mohan Brothers.” Manager Parmanand Mehra had died in 1943 after gorging on curd and suffering from a gastrointestinal illness and peritonitis, from which he had eventually died. Parmanand had tried medicinal baths as a cure and had been given a bath very shortly before his death.   Steve Jobs A software engineer called Tony Tseung, an employee of Apple, sent an email to a Buddhist group in Thailand, asking if they could tell him what had happened to Apple founder Steve Jobs after he died. The answer was that Jobs is now a celestial philosopher, in a glass palace that hovers over the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California.In Malaysia, a group of Jobs' admirers performed a religious ceremony after his funeral. During the ceremony, the group each took a bite from an apple before throwing it into the sea to speed up the process of reincarnation. Phra Chaibul Dhammajayo, one of the abbots at the Dhammakaya Temple, is convinced that Jobs has already been reborn. He is now a divine presence with a specific interest in science and art. Followers have received this information through a special message that was broadcast worldwide. Apparently, more specific details will be communicated when Jobs feels the need to pass on any knowledge or messages.   Ok… one last person who claims they were reincarnated! Born on Dec. 11, 1926, Shanti Devi appeared to be a perfectly normal baby, until around the age of four when she began to ramble on about a past life in a town called Mathura, nearly 75 miles away.. Shortly after she learned to speak, Devi regaled her parents with stories of her past life in a town neither she nor her parents had ever been to. Simple events would trigger memories of this life, like eating a meal that reminded her of foods she used to enjoy in her old days, or while getting dressed she'd tell her mother about the clothes she used to wear. Devi eventually informed her parents that her previous name was Lugdi and that she died shortly after bearing a son in October of 1925. She added uncanny details about her labor pains and the surgical procedures she underwent. Such facts, it seemed, couldn't have been conjured up by even the most imaginative child. When she revealed the name of her former husband, Devi's family was shocked to discover that he was still alive and lived precisely where Devi had said she was from. A historic meeting was arranged between them ⏤ that not even science could quite explain. Devi recalled in startling detail all the shops and streets in the town. She also began to speak of her husband, a merchant whose name she refused to reveal until she was about nine years old. But she did tell her parents that he was fair, had a wart on his left cheek, and wore reading glasses. Despite the unusual specificity of her memories, Devi's parents dismissed her recollections as mere childishness. But when Devi revealed that her husband's name was Pandit Kedarnath Chaube, sometimes referred to as Kedar Nath, a friend of the family decided to find out if there was any truth to what she'd been saying. The friend sent a letter to a merchant named Kedar Nath in Mathura to inquire about Devi's unusual memories. To the friend's surprise, Nath wrote back confirming all the details. Nath also agreed to send a relative to Devi's home to gauge the situation. In an effort to test her knowledge, the relative was brought before Devi first and introduced as her husband. Devi was not fooled and said that no, this was her husband's cousin. Shocked, Nath and the child he had with Lugdi, now ten years old, entered the home themselves. Upon seeing them, Devi reportedly burst into tears. Nath requested to speak with Devi on his own, and by his own admission, claimed that each response she gave to his questions was entirely accurate. “He found the replies to be quite correct and was moved to tears!” Read an account by an investigator on the case in 1937. “It was as though his dead wife was speaking.” Shanti spent several days with Kedar Nath and his son before they had to return to Mathura. Saddened by their departure, she pleaded with her parents to let her take a trip to her former home. She promised she could lead them directly to her old house and, perhaps to persuade them further, explained that she had a box of money buried there. Devi's parents relented — though considering the story had captured the attention of Mahatma Gandhi, they hardly had a choice. The famed Indian leader set up a commission to investigate the astonishing case, and in November of 1935, a dozen researchers joined Devi and her parents on the three-hour train ride to Mathura. As one of the investigators recounted, “Once getting out of the railway station… the girl was put in the front seat and our carriage went ahead of all others. Necessary precautions were taken that no pedestrians should be allowed to lead the way. The driver was instructed to follow the route indicated only by the girl, without caring as to where he went.” Sure enough, Devi had no problem directing the group to what she claimed was her former home. Along the way, she noted various streets that hadn't been paved earlier and buildings that weren't there during her previous life. The driver confirmed these observations were correct. While exploring the house with Kedar Nath, a member of the commission asked about the buried treasure she mentioned. Shanti Devi promptly ran upstairs and headed straight to a corner of a room, declaring the box was hidden beneath the floorboard. Kedar Nath opened up the flooring and indeed found a small coffer. It was empty. Shocked, Shanti Devi began looking inside the hole, certain the money was there. Kedar Nath then admitted that he had taken the cash after his wife's death. Devi's reunion tour of Mathura continued to her former parents' house. “She not only recognized it but was also able to identify her old ‘father' and ‘mother' in a crowd of more than 50 persons,” one of the investigators wrote. “The girl embraced her ‘parents' who wept bitterly at her sight.” Though she wished to stay in Mathura longer, Devi's current parents and the investigators were soon headed back to Delhi. In their report, the commission found “no rational explanation” for what they witnessed. Not only was Devi able to recall her life before, it seemed, but she also had an explanation for the afterlife. In 1936 and 1939, she relayed her experience in death to skeptics and hypnotists alike. She claimed that at the time of her death, she felt dizzy and enveloped in a “profound darkness” before a flash of light revealed four men in yellow underwear before her. “All the four seemed to be in their teens and their appearance and dress were very bright,” she once said while under hypnosis. “They put me in a cup and carried me.” Devi said she saw the Hindu god Krishna showing each person a record of their good and bad activities on earth and telling them what would happen to them next. Then, Devi said she was taken to a golden staircase from which she could see a river as “clean and pure as milk.” She said she saw souls there and they appeared like flames in lamps. Years later, a 1958 newspaper interview followed up with her. At the time, Shanti Devi was 32 years old and had never married. She was living a quiet, spiritual life in Delhi. She also said she'd planned to form an organization “devoted to the idea of living our lives according to the dictates of the inner voice.” Shanti Devi passed away in 1987 at the age of 61. However, her story lives on courtesy of a book written by Swedish author Sture Lonnerstrand in 1994, which was translated to English in 1998. Okay so that last one definitely seems a little… off kilter to say the least. One recurring theme with a lot of these stories though, is that the prior life that's experienced was cut short during a traumatic event. Now as we all know, most hauntings seem to be along the same lines. So are hauntings just reincarnation of the life lost with unfinished business? Stuck in Purgatory? I guess after this long ass episode we still don't have any answers. Hopefully, though, we have put you closer on the track to figuring it out for yourselves. Hey! If you figure something out, make sure to drop a line. After all, if we can't figure it out in this life, maybe we will be around to talk about it in  the next.   The Best Movies About Reincarnation And Coming Back To Life (ranker.com) Why isn't The Mummy on this list?!?!?!

This series of podcast episodes will focus on Decolonising Research, and feature talks from the Decolonising Research Festival held at the University of Exeter in June and July 2022. The fourth epsiode of the series will feature Professor Raewyn Connell from the University of Syndey and her talk 'Decolonising the work of research'. Music credit: Happy Boy Theme Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/   Transcription 00:09 Hello, and welcome to rd in the in betweens. I'm your host Kelly Preece. And every fortnight I talk to a different guest about researchers development, and everything in between. Hello, and welcome to the fourth in our series on decolonizing research. In this episode we hear from Professor Raewyn Connell from the University of Sydney on decolonizing, the work of research   00:44 greetings from Sydney in Australia, I'm Raven, Carnell, and I'm speaking to you on the subject of decolonizing, the work of research, and the significance of the word work will come through. I'm pleased to send you best wishes for this very interesting and imaginative idea of a festival of decolonization in, in, in relation to research. Which event of a kind, I haven't come across the form. I'm interested, of course, because I am a researcher, I've been working for going on around 50 years, as a researcher still trying to learn about it. And there is always much to learn. But I do have some experience then. And that tells me that research is above all else, as a practical matter, matter of things you actually do forms of labor, and, and communication. And that's basically the approach that I want to take in in discussing decolonization. And I wanted to start with a couple of images of the country that I'm speaking from, which illustrates something about knowledge and coloniality. So at this point, I will attempt the great technological feat of sharing my screen choosing my PowerPoint presentation, go you share. And then attempting even to go full screen. So is that successful? Is that come through? Yes, yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Okay, we're underway then. Let me show you a couple of pictures of Australia, not the tourist version. But one from Australian history Australia is a settler colonial country. Its modern society has taken a form shaped by that 230 years of colonization, emigration, and forcible occupation of the land that had previously been occupied by indigenous people who have been here for according to the archaeologists, something like 70,000 years, this is one of the oldest, continuously existing cultures in the world, if not the oldest. But what I'm showing you here is a picture from the late 19th century. A picture drawn by one of the colonizers and published in a local magazine in Melbourne, showing the kind of settlement that moved British occupation out across the land. This is what we in Australia have, for a long time called a station. Perhaps what the Americans understand is backed by a wrench that's in the Western District of Victoria place called Hopkins Hill. And it shows the house that was built by the family to whom this land was granted under colonial rule by the colonial government. And I like this picture because not only does it show how basically European style of art architecture was brought here with perhaps a touch of Indian experience, Imperial experience in it in the wide veranda. But also something about the people who did it because if you look closely   05:15 at the picture, you'll see four people in the middle of the picture standing in front of the house. They are white, they are men, and they're all carrying guns. And somehow that encapsulates a certain relationship to the land. And this has been processed, of taking land that has been characteristic of the whole Imperial story. The second image I want to show you is a modern one, it's contemporary. It's now can I cause? No, why? There we are, that's what I do. This is a painting by a woman of an Aboriginal community indigenous community from the central desert of the continent. In a style, which some of you will recognize, because this is now the most famous art style in Australia known as Dark painting, central desert painting. It's a woman's image, painted by a woman and embodying knowledge, embedding knowledge, which belongs to the women of that particular community. It's called Honey and dreaming. And it's not only an image of the land, the circular parts of the drawing represent water holes and sources of water in order is a very dry landscape. And places where groups of women may gather at a particular time of year. And the U shaped. Symbols in a painting represent people sitting in a sandy place. There's also a representation of water, the lines connecting the water holes show flows of water across the land. And also embedded in the pictures knowledge of when a particular food source. The honey ants, which are the species of ant that gather honey from flowers, and from the plants of the area, are available to be to be harvested by the community. So what you've got here is not just an image, but also a body of knowledge, what we might think of as multidisciplinary knowledge, about geography, about hydrography, about social relations as to who's entitled to have this knowledge and also about biology. And that is something I'd like you to bear in mind. When I talk about the different patterns of knowledge that we come across in thinking about coloniality and decolonization. I want to move from that immediately to territory that's more familiar to most of us here, and that is the disciplinary knowledge system, more knowledge formation, that is characteristic of universities in all parts of the world that produces the mainstream curriculum that I have taught and some of you have taught and all of you have studied. That's a pattern of knowledge, which has been analyzed in this topologies, sociology, knowledge and so on and so forth. Great deal. It's something that I've written about, in if you'll excuse the advertisement in my most recent book, known as the good university, the first chapter of that book, discusses the research what I call the research based knowledge formation and discusses the nature of the labor that goes into research and the different kinds of labor actually that combine to produce   10:01 research based knowledge. As I say in in that book, there are multiple forms of labor in research, five principal ones that I identify. One is consultation with the archive. That is the body of knowledge already existing in interdisciplinary field. When graduate students write their review of the literature in chapter one of the PhD thesis, that's basically what they're doing. Then there's the labor of encounter, which may be data gathering in the field, it may be experimentation, maybe the study of literary texts in the humanities, or artistic images, all of that, but the encounter of the researcher or researchers with their materials is interesting form of labor. And what they've encountered or as they're encountering, they're also concerned with what it means. And this involves a kind of labor that I call patenting, which involves theorization, it involves data analysis, a statistical data analysis, involves interpretation of texts, and the like. And that also is required in the overall movement of disciplinary knowledge. And then this one I call labor of critique, when you got your materials when you've done your patenting, or you want to know what you've got, it's different from what was there before. So you have to relate it back to the archive, that you knew at the beginning of the process, and revise the archive in the light of the new knowledge that you've generated. That's the labor that I call Critique. And in that sense, critique is the growth point of disciplinary knowledge. And then finally, and important is this all the rest is the broadcasting of the results of the labor. Because what we're talking about is a collective form of knowledge produced by a workforce. And the circulation of the results of research labor, is absolutely essential to the to the process as a whole. Hence, the whole apparatus of journals, online communication conferences, and of course teach to as well as part of the broadcasting. Okay, so you can see that there's a very active labor process got a complex labor process that's involved in the production, if we think of knowledge as as produced, there is a production process and that's it. And this is very much collective labor and collective labor requires a workforce, you know, knowledge doesn't drop from the sky, people have to work and there has to be a group working and organization of that group. And this is quite different knowledge formations differ. So indigenous knowledge of the kind that you saw in Narnia and dreaming painting. The knowledge bears the workforce are traditionally known in Aboriginal communities as the eldest. In Islamic base knowledge such as Islamic jurisprudence and as Islamic theology. The workforce is known as the llama. The Islamic scholars, who are not a priesthood are respected as scholars is knowledge parents. In the knowledge in the cert in the research base knowledge formation, it is researchers, popularly known as scientists, of course, we know to include humanist researchers, social scientists, as well as natural scientists. Now, this workforce has existed for considerable time. And the research base knowledge formation has a history of about 500 years. This is also the lifespan of imperialism of overseas imperialism from Europe. And that is not a coincidence because the two are, in fact very closely related.   14:53 So closely related that I don't think we can think of disciplinary knowledge really, outside On a global economy of knowledge, which it has its roots in the story of imperial expansion, colonial encounters, and what we might call the knowledge dividend of empire. Because it wasn't just the gold or the slaves that float back under the control of the colonizers. There's also knowledge and knowledge in many forms. You know, social scientific knowledge about the societies that are encountered natural science, knowledge, and so on. Here is an example of the knowledge that was brought back from the colonized world. This is an important document in the history of biological science, specifically by geography. It's the practice of oppression, aristocratic, called Alexander fondly. It may be known as name may be known to you, who went as a young man to the colonial areas of North Northern and West Coast, South America, then under Spanish control, and studied the plants, animals, geography, atmosphere, he was one of the pioneers of atmospheric science, as well as biogeography. And this is a kind of map that he had drawn on his return to Europe, which synthesized a huge amount of data about the distribution of particular species of plants. According to height, from sea level up to the Andes Mountains, and across the continent from east to west. And that is a typical kind of process of going to the colonies and bringing back data which is in process to metropole. Actually, Humboldt is not the most famous person who did that. The most famous person, undoubtedly, is Charles Darwin. It's been three years sailing around the colonial and postcolonial world, in the famous royal navy ships, the eagle, and brought back that geological and biological data that was so important in the creation of the theory of evolution, and modern biology. And the data that came back in all these different fields of knowledge, were then accumulated in the institutions of the global north, the Botanic Gardens, the universities, the scientific societies, the journals, what we now think of data bases, data archives, and so on, and theorized and turned into organized knowledge in those kinds of institutions. That's applied to so for those of you who are social scientists, this applies in the social sciences to and here's a fascinating example. So book by some Australian colleagues, about if about a famous 19th century book of anthropology called Camilo, Roy and Kurenai, about kinship systems, which was the big concern of anthropology throughout its history. Now, what our colleagues uncovered when they went back into the archives of this book and the 19th century authors of this work on on Aboriginal kinship is the discovery that they, they if this wasn't, if you like the experimental research or just observation, one, like by going and looking at a tree, you can't do that with a kinship system, you have to ask about it. So in effect, the colonizers, in this case, the authors of the anthropological   19:21 treatise, were engaging with in a sense, employing the elders of a local Aboriginal communities as the knowledge sources, and that's extended the knowledge workforce of the empire of the Imperial knowledge system, to the colonized people, intellectual workers of the colonized people, as well as the colonizers. And in that sense, I would never say that the research based knowledge formation is Western knowledge or Western science? I don't think that's right. It is, if anything, you've got to use a phrase like that it's Imperial science because it embeds an enormous amount of knowledge and know how from the colonized and colonized regions, as well as the knowledge of the colonizers. So the as the the economy of knowledge on the Empire evolved, it developed a very significant division of labor. And this is something I learned, particularly from the work of West African philosopher Pauline tungee. Who's writing if you want to follow these issues up, I very strongly recommend his work to most of them is available in English, also available in French. And he pointed out that fields, the familiar fields of knowledge that we we teach in universities in those fields, the colonized and post colonial world so contemporary Africa, mainly functions as a data mine, which produces raw materials that have been organized some process by theoretical labor, in the global metropole, in the Imperial center. So there's kind of division of labor, built into the structure of the global economy of knowledge, where there's mainly a flow of data from the colonized and post colonial world to the Imperial center, and a flow of theory and methodology the other way, which frame the collection of data. And that is the principal role in the whole global economy of knowledge of academics, searches, knowledge workers in the colonized and postcolonial world. And there's one more thing that has to be said about this economy of knowledge, but it was also based on certain exclusions, it excluded the kind of knowledge that we saw in the honey and creaming painting, that is indigenous knowledge formations of the colonized. The the interdisciplinary, multi, non disciplinary knowledge that you saw in that case, also excluded was alternative universalism, like Chinese organization of men's medical knowledge, like Islamic jurisprudence, and those forms of knowledge that were not so place based this indigenous knowledge usually is also competed, if you like for the interest of the world as a whole, but had roots in a different cultural formation. And then there's the knowledge that I call southern theory, which is basically knowledge produced in the colonial encounter itself, by the colonized, and sometimes by colonizers in Lockhart, in the colonial context. These two have mostly been, if not dramatically, excluded, then strongly marginalized. As you see, when you look at the statistics on the leading journals, in almost every university discipline, the leading journals, the ones that are most heavily cited, the most respected, almost all come from the club or north.   24:06 Okay, that's, that's what we're up against. That's why the decolonization project is truly important. For university teaching, university based research, all university disciplines are affected by this. Which then leads me to the question, how do we do it? How do we contest the inequality inequalities, the geographical exclusions and so forth that has shaped the knowledge that is taught and circulated in in the universe, a global university system? Well, there are many if you like democratic knowledge projects in the world. Let me show you a few. Here's one from Sweden. It's I'm sorry, this book has never been translated into English, which I think is a great pity because it's a lovely book. Its title means dig where you stand. And it's about a workers education self education project, of researching their own jobs researching the history of their own jobs. It was taken up by the unions in Sweden, it became a popular knowledge movement like you know, popular on a photography, bird watching popular astronomy, this became popular social science. Who better to understand the history of their job than the person who has the job now, but that led outwards to the industry and industry, the industry history in the community? It led outwards to the economy as a whole and ultimately it goes to questions about globalization. So fascinating stuff. Let me show you another. This is from Central America. The work of Nassim Martin Barro, a Jesuit psychologist, no longer with us as a result of of repressive violence in in that region, but who tried to create a new pattern new kinds of psychology that was his teaching discipline in this university teacher which would be produced knowledge that was actually useful to the oppressed, indigenous and working classes of the Central America region where he worked. He developed the it came to be called liberation psychology on the model of liberation theology. It never became popular in mainstream academic psychology. But if any of you are psychologists, I can recommend Martine borrow as a fascinating, interesting example of other ways to think about your discipline. Let me show you another. This is another university. This is a picture taken almost exactly 100 years ago, when the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, many of you will know who had been working to create a relevant form of schools in Bengal decided that a good school system needed a college top, if you like a tertiary education top, he looked at the Colonial universities that have been set up by the colonizers in India, quite relatively large university system was created in colonial India. But he wasn't satisfied with it, because it was controlled by the colonial colonial power. So he created his own This is it. This is the launch ceremony of the college that he called this variety, which he understood as which he intended to be what he called a meeting place of civilization.   28:33 We might call a genuinely multicultural curriculum on a global scale. So in their knowledge from indigenous traditions in India was taught knowledge from Europe, Western academics, unquote from Europe to knowledge from China was taught monitoring Tibet. It was intended to be a meeting place for different knowledge formations, to create a unique curriculum, hopefully not unique. Now, it was a struggle. It ran into financial trouble. But it's hard it's still a day in a somewhat different forms now public university in the Indian university system. But they are very proud of this history and it is a fascinating personal story. So we have from below projects, knowledge projects, we have new workforces and institutions as part of the contestation. And we also have contestation that takes the form of shifting the logic of a given methodology a given set of research methods. Those of you who are interested in decolonizing knowledge very possibly I come across this book and I can strongly recommend it indeed to everyone. Linda to you, I Smith is a teacher in Maori communities in our own New Zealand where who that is those communities in the last generation who have developed a number of higher educational institutions based on Maori cultural principles of teaching and learning, and research. And this book is gives a whole stack of examples of forms of research that treat the indigenous people in New Zealand not as the objects of research but as subjects as participants and designers in the research process, where the intention is to study Maori situations, Maori experience Maori contemporary life. Okay, now, those of you who've read this book will know that it's some of its procedures, relatively familiar in qualitative methods in the social sciences, and some people have drawn the, I think, mistaken conclusion that indigenous knowledge is necessarily qualitative. In contrast to quantitative that is. And this, in fact, is not the case. And his the demonstration, a book called indigenous statistics by Maggie Walter, the Australian Indigenous colleague of mine, sociology, Chris Anderson, from North America from from Canada, indigenous scholar there who've taken up the techniques of quantitative research, as for instance, in censuses and surveys, that have historically been used by the colonial power by the colonial state to study and manage indigenous communities indigenous lives. The book mounts an argument for what the author's called data sovereignty, for changing the power relations that are involved in the collection of data and control over the process of crunching the numbers and turning them to the purposes of the indigenous communities rather than the purposes of colonial government. So there's a range of ways in which logics can be shifted in decolonisation connections can be made. Which brings me back to the question of the workforce, how if we want a workforce in the future, in universities that have capacities for this kind of decolonial work? How do we teach? How do we, for instance, teach them new rules for disciplines?   33:34 Well, I would argue that indigenous knowledge in fact, all forms of decolonize knowledge tend to move across genres and across disciplines. So the simple disciplinary agenda is not adequate. Let me illustrate this from one of my great books list in sociology. A book published a bit over 100 years ago, called native life in South Africa. It sounds like the name of so many anthropological monograph, but it's not. It's a highly politicized book, contesting the seizure of indigenous land in South Africa by the new color independent. Color in colonial state that had been set up following what in Britain is known as the Boer War. That is quite controlled state which was the ancestor then of the apartheid regime. The author of this book, this you see in this picture, Solomon Platt chip was the secretary of the organizations later became the African National Congress. And he determined that a knowledge project was needed to gather the information about how this horrendous legislation which was expropriating indigenous land on a huge scale, how that had come about and what its effects were. Well, black people in South Africa at that time couldn't afford a horse. So he went around the country on a bike interview, the displaced families have been moved off as a result of the seizure of land, in this phase of the colonizing project in South Africa and wrote it up in this book, it's an amazing book, it's not only sort of engaged survey research, and interview based social science, it's also historical analysis of the legislation, cultural critique of the political agenda involved. And so it's amazing book. Multidisciplinary, absolutely, you could not confine it within a single discipline. Okay, do we teach our workforce by teaching them new canons, you know, new famous men's mod, I think, as a systematic business, I don't think we need you know, to displace our Darwin's or Max Weber's or Karl Marx is with with alternative, Darwin's Marxism favors. What we need is a much richer archive for that first stage in the research based knowledge process of consulting the archive. Well, I'm a feminist and feminist researcher, I've been also researching the history of feminism to some extent. And, in the course of that, trying to apply a decolonizing agenda, I've been coming across kind of histories that I didn't know the word in the familiar histories that I have read. And here's a couple of people who might figure well, at least one of them Sorry, I thought I had another before that. In if that history, were told, from a decolonizing perspective, we might see this woman being an OG of idol, development economist, environmental thinker, socialist feminist from India, as perhaps the most significant feminist theorist in our generation, done amazing work. And much of what I've been saying raises issues about land. She wrote the book on gender and land, it's called a field of one's own, it should be in your library, if it's not going by the librarians here until they get it an amazing, truly amazing book and an example of the power of the social knowledge that come out of the post colonial context. Okay, and then we come to the question of how we think all things.   38:36 If we recognize the plurality of knowledge formations, do we then wind up with a kind of epistemology, a theory of knowledge, which is like a mosaic a whole lot of different colored tiles, each completing itself, but not speaking to each other? That's queer, some decolonizing arguments head. And I can respect them. Because that involves respect for all the separate all the different knowledge projects and different communities who might be producing knowledge in distinctive ways. But I also think that the decolonization process or the process now of equalizing resources on a global scale, including the results of knowledge, this needs the practices of connection, as well as separateness, connection and mutual learning. And this is an example of an attempt to make that argument for the importance of South South links and South North links as well as the north south flow of theory and methodology that we're so familiar with. Chilean bobek another story? A colleague of mine makes this argument for global feminism's attempting to break the likes of Northern hegemony in global feminist discourse, and develop an understanding of what it would be to give full recognition to the experience and theories and knowledge of feminist communities in the different parts of the post colonial world. It's a fascinating story, fascinating argument. She talks about the processes what she calls braiding at the borders, rather than an imposition of hegemony, which is an image that suggests the kind of respect that might be lead needed for into the community into regional connections in the future. So if I'm right, that we do need a practice of connection, then we can speak of knowledge on a world scale as the future of knowledge without northern hegemony, saying that, as the goal of my argument, doesn't mean that the North doesn't matter. In this process. I think the decolonization concerns the global north, as as intimately an important is concerns urgent in the Global South. And that's the reason I'm very pleased with what you're doing it excellent. There are resistances to decolonization, which I've certainly frequently run into, in the 20 years, or more than I've been making these kinds of arguments around the traps. Some of them are rooted in in racism, some of them are rooted some of the objections that is, and resistances originate in, in class privilege, but somehow more respect worthy. They may reflect, for instance, some of the resistance to decolonization, that I have encountered reflects a fear on the part of academic workers have losing the skills and knowledge they already have, or being unable to pass them on to the next generation in the way that they expect to. And therefore, I think it's important to, to argue for these processes is an expansion of knowledge, not not a contraction. I think we, as a practical matter, we cannot escape, we cannot just jump out of the global economy of knowledge. It's here. It's links the university system around the world now, this is what we've got, where we are confronting every day,   43:29 on campuses. Some decolonial arguments say that the correct response to this is to D link from it. It's a term from decolonial. Economics actually, but it works for decolonial epistemology as well. I would rather say we should be trying to transform rather than simply separate from the existing global economy of knowledge, partly because setting. Knowledge already embeds so much knowledge from the global south that we don't want to abandon. We need certainly to link existing disciplinary knowledge with new perspectives and local practices in different ways. But I don't think we need a radical abandonment of forms of knowledge are already able to be used. So I see that the decolonizing projects they're not as radically displacing existing knowledge formation, but basically is the cutting edge of projects for the for the democratization of knowledge. That project which we've seen before in local forms, like the degrees then project in Sweden. or liberation psychology in Central America. We can now imagine on a world scale, and that is what the decolonization of, of research now I think has to be about.   45:16 And that's it for this episode. Don't forget to like, rate and subscribe and join me next time where I'll be talking to somebody else about researchers development and everything in

In Islamic art, representations of women and the female figure are controversial. Hend Al Mansour, from Saudi Arabia, currently residing in the United States, examines Islamic social practices. Her multi-media works celebrate and critiques Islamic Arab culture. The artist, through Islamic aesthetic addresses gender equality, sexual independence and role of women. This episode includes a conversation with Hend..Hend Al Mansour website: https://www.hendalmansour.com/Artist Statement: https://www.hendalmansour.com/artist-statement.htmlA.I.R. Gallery: https://www.airgallery.org/.Description credit: Hend Al MansourImage Cover credit: "Facebook 1".Special thanks to Nine90 Group sponsoring this episode. www.nine90.com

David Icke - SATURN ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS EITHER!Sheriff in the ancient Egyptian was a law-giver and his badge was always a six-pointed star which is a symbol of Saturn. US Sheriffs in the wild west up to today still wear the six-pointed star. It is interesting that Saturn's symbol is the 6-pointed star, Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun, Saturn-day is the 6th day of the week, and now NASA is receiving images of “the Saturn Hexagon” (6-sided) atmospheric formation at Saturn's poles. The 6th chakra of the human energy system is the 3rd eye/pineal gland (6, 3 times = 666). When your 3rd eye chakra opens you develop your 6th sense of intuition and spirituality. From a consciousness perspective, the 6th sense, your intuitions/hunches, are messengers of god, your guardian angels. Isn't it interesting that angels have haloes/rings around their heads and Saturn is the only planet with a halo/ring around it?“That is why today, when you get married, you get married before God. And the symbol of that God is the ring that is put on each other's fingers. The ring of Saturn. In the marriage phrases, one also begins to see what that has to do with Saturn. So when you get married, you get married with a ring and the symbol of that God is the ring, the ring of Saturn. You're wearing God's ring. And the yarmulke was the round ring that you wear on your head, for Saturn your God. Even in the middle ages, in the temples, Catholic monks would shave their heads in a round circle, and the Hebrews, instead of doing that, would wear the yarmulke. But it all had to do with the round rings of Saturn.” -Jordan Maxwell, “Matrix of Power”“The ancient name of Saturn was, as mentioned, EL. It is the reason why those that were chosen by EL, were called Elites. In fact the words, Elect, Elder, Elevated, Elohim, Temple, Circle, Gospel, Apostle, Disciple, Evangelists, etc., all derive from the Cult of EL. Angels are messengers of god. But god was EL, which is why we have the names of the Archangels bearing the ‘el,' suffix – Raphael, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, etc,.” -Michael Tsarion, “Astrotheology and Sidereal Mythology”The plural term Elohim appears over 2500 times in the Old Testament but is falsely translated in most versions. This fact of plurality explains why in Genesis ‘Gods' said, ‘Let us make man in our image.' As stated, Elohim refers to both ‘gods' and ‘goddesses,' and its singular form, El, served as a prefix or suffix to names of gods, people and places, whence Emmanu-El, Gabri-El, Beth-El, etc. Even ‘Satan' was one of the Elohim.” -Acharya S., “The Christ Conspiracy” (67)The gods of EL-o-him are ang-EL-s, the messengers of god. When witches cast a spe-EL, they put the “Hex” (6) on someone, and when chefs deep fry something, they “Deep 6” it. It is the EL-ites who run the world today. El-ite comes from the “Isra-El-ites” which came from the Egyptian worship of the Moon (Isis), the Sun, (Ra), and Saturn (Elohim), hence Is-Ra-El.In Islamic tradition, the “Rock” is where Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the ang-el Gabri-el. The Dome of the “Rock” was built in the 600 AD era and was won back by the Israelites on 06/07/67 after the “6 day war.” The Dome's outer walls measure 60 (6×10) feet wide and 36 (6×6) feet high. The Knights Templar claimed the Dome of the Rock was the site of the Temple of Solomon and set up their “Templum Domini” adjacent to it during the 12th century.“Saturn is an important key to understanding the long heritage this conspiracy has back to antiquity. The city of Rome was originally known as Saturnia or City of Saturn. The Roman Catholic church retains much of the Saturn worship in its ritual. Saturn also relates to Lucifer. In various occult dictionaries Saturn is associated with evil. Saturn was important to the religion of Mithra, and also the Druids.” –Fritz Springmeier, “Bloodlines of the Illuminati”Rome was known to the “Romans” as Saturnia, not Rome, and Saturn was one of their gods. Black is both Saturn's color and Satan's color. The black holy bible tells us Satan is 666. Saturn is the 6th planet, its symbol is a 6-pointed star, it supposedly has hexagon weather formations, and Saturn-day, the 6th day, is Ozzy Osbourne's “Black Sabbath.”Is this all just divine coincidence or is our perception of Saturn and the other planets being manipulated by the Masonic magicians at NASA?

David Icke - SATURN ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS EITHER!Sheriff in the ancient Egyptian was a law-giver and his badge was always a six-pointed star which is a symbol of Saturn. US Sheriffs in the wild west up to today still wear the six-pointed star. It is interesting that Saturn's symbol is the 6-pointed star, Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun, Saturn-day is the 6th day of the week, and now NASA is receiving images of “the Saturn Hexagon” (6-sided) atmospheric formation at Saturn's poles. The 6th chakra of the human energy system is the 3rd eye/pineal gland (6, 3 times = 666). When your 3rd eye chakra opens you develop your 6th sense of intuition and spirituality. From a consciousness perspective, the 6th sense, your intuitions/hunches, are messengers of god, your guardian angels. Isn't it interesting that angels have haloes/rings around their heads and Saturn is the only planet with a halo/ring around it?“That is why today, when you get married, you get married before God. And the symbol of that God is the ring that is put on each other's fingers. The ring of Saturn. In the marriage phrases, one also begins to see what that has to do with Saturn. So when you get married, you get married with a ring and the symbol of that God is the ring, the ring of Saturn. You're wearing God's ring. And the yarmulke was the round ring that you wear on your head, for Saturn your God. Even in the middle ages, in the temples, Catholic monks would shave their heads in a round circle, and the Hebrews, instead of doing that, would wear the yarmulke. But it all had to do with the round rings of Saturn.” -Jordan Maxwell, “Matrix of Power”“The ancient name of Saturn was, as mentioned, EL. It is the reason why those that were chosen by EL, were called Elites. In fact the words, Elect, Elder, Elevated, Elohim, Temple, Circle, Gospel, Apostle, Disciple, Evangelists, etc., all derive from the Cult of EL. Angels are messengers of god. But god was EL, which is why we have the names of the Archangels bearing the ‘el,' suffix – Raphael, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, etc,.” -Michael Tsarion, “Astrotheology and Sidereal Mythology”The plural term Elohim appears over 2500 times in the Old Testament but is falsely translated in most versions. This fact of plurality explains why in Genesis ‘Gods' said, ‘Let us make man in our image.' As stated, Elohim refers to both ‘gods' and ‘goddesses,' and its singular form, El, served as a prefix or suffix to names of gods, people and places, whence Emmanu-El, Gabri-El, Beth-El, etc. Even ‘Satan' was one of the Elohim.” -Acharya S., “The Christ Conspiracy” (67)The gods of EL-o-him are ang-EL-s, the messengers of god. When witches cast a spe-EL, they put the “Hex” (6) on someone, and when chefs deep fry something, they “Deep 6” it. It is the EL-ites who run the world today. El-ite comes from the “Isra-El-ites” which came from the Egyptian worship of the Moon (Isis), the Sun, (Ra), and Saturn (Elohim), hence Is-Ra-El.In Islamic tradition, the “Rock” is where Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the ang-el Gabri-el. The Dome of the “Rock” was built in the 600 AD era and was won back by the Israelites on 06/07/67 after the “6 day war.” The Dome's outer walls measure 60 (6×10) feet wide and 36 (6×6) feet high. The Knights Templar claimed the Dome of the Rock was the site of the Temple of Solomon and set up their “Templum Domini” adjacent to it during the 12th century.“Saturn is an important key to understanding the long heritage this conspiracy has back to antiquity. The city of Rome was originally known as Saturnia or City of Saturn. The Roman Catholic church retains much of the Saturn worship in its ritual. Saturn also relates to Lucifer. In various occult dictionaries Saturn is associated with evil. Saturn was important to the religion of Mithra, and also the Druids.” –Fritz Springmeier, “Bloodlines of the Illuminati”Rome was known to the “Romans” as Saturnia, not Rome, and Saturn was one of their gods. Black is both Saturn's color and Satan's color. The black holy bible tells us Satan is 666. Saturn is the 6th planet, its symbol is a 6-pointed star, it supposedly has hexagon weather formations, and Saturn-day, the 6th day, is Ozzy Osbourne's “Black Sabbath.”Is this all just divine coincidence or is our perception of Saturn and the other planets being manipulated by the Masonic magicians at NASA?

Hello Everyone,In this episode I have talked about :Hajj 2022 news update today english -June 30 2022.The Hajj (/hɑːdʒ/;[1] Arabic: حَجّ Ḥajj; sometimes also spelled Hadj, Hadji or Haj in English) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia,[2] the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and of supporting their family during their absence from home.[3][4][5]In Islamic terminology, Hajj is a pilgrimage made to the Kaaba, the "House of God", in the sacred city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. It is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, alongside Shahadah (oath to God), Salat (prayer), Zakat (almsgiving) and Sawm (fasting of Ramadan). The Hajj is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people, and their submission to God (Allah).[6][7] The word Hajj means "to attend a journey", which connotes both the outward act of a journey and the inward act of intentions.[8]The rites of pilgrimage are performed over five to six days, extending from the 8th to the 12th or 13th[9] of Dhu al-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar.[10] Because the Islamic calendar is lunar and the Islamic year is about eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year, the Gregorian date of Hajj changes from year to year. In 2022 AD (1443 AH), Dhu al-Hijjah extends from 30 June to 29 July.The Hajj is associated with the life of Islamic prophet Muhammad from the 7th century AD, but the ritual of pilgrimage to Mecca is considered by Muslims to stretch back thousands of years to the time of Abraham. During Hajj, pilgrims join processions of millions of people, who simultaneously converge on Mecca for the week of the Hajj, and perform a series of rituals: each person walks counter-clockwise seven times around the Kaaba (a cube-shaped building and the direction of prayer for Muslims), walks briskly back and forth between the hills of Safa and Marwah seven times, then drinks from the Zamzam Well, goes to the plains of Mount Arafat to stand in vigil, spends a night in the plain of Muzdalifa, and performs symbolic Stoning of the Devil by throwing stones at three pillars. After the sacrifice of an animal (which can be accomplished by using a voucher), the Pilgrims then are required to either shave or trim their heads (if male) or trim the ends of their hair (if female). A celebration of the four-day global festival of Eid al-Adha proceeds afterwards.[11][12][13]Muslims may also undertake an Umrah (Arabic: عُمرَة), or "lesser pilgrimage" to Mecca at other times of the year. However, the Umrah is not a substitute for the Hajj and Muslims are still obligated to perform the Hajj at some other point in their lifetime if they have the means to do so.[14]According to the official published statistics between 2000 and 2019,[15][16][17] the average number of attendees is 2,269,145 per year, of which 1,564,710 come from outside Saudi Arabia and 671,983 are local. The year 2012 marks the highest number of participants with 3,161,573.[18]In June 2020, while not cancelling the Hajj outright, the Saudi Government announced that they would only welcome "very limited numbers" of pilgrims who are residents of Saudi Arabia due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.[19] Similar restrictions applied in 2021, but women were permitted to attend without a male guardian (mehrem) provided they went in a trustworthy group.Dr. Afshan Hashmi's Radio & TV Show is broadcast live Wednesdays at 7PM ET.Dr. Afshan Hashmi's TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).Dr. Afshan Hashmi's Radio Show is broadcast on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Dr. Afshan Hashmi's Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.

David Icke - SATURN ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS EITHER!Sheriff in the ancient Egyptian was a law-giver and his badge was always a six-pointed star which is a symbol of Saturn. US Sheriffs in the wild west up to today still wear the six-pointed star. It is interesting that Saturn's symbol is the 6-pointed star, Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun, Saturn-day is the 6th day of the week, and now NASA is receiving images of “the Saturn Hexagon” (6-sided) atmospheric formation at Saturn's poles. The 6th chakra of the human energy system is the 3rd eye/pineal gland (6, 3 times = 666). When your 3rd eye chakra opens you develop your 6th sense of intuition and spirituality. From a consciousness perspective, the 6th sense, your intuitions/hunches, are messengers of god, your guardian angels. Isn't it interesting that angels have haloes/rings around their heads and Saturn is the only planet with a halo/ring around it?“That is why today, when you get married, you get married before God. And the symbol of that God is the ring that is put on each other's fingers. The ring of Saturn. In the marriage phrases, one also begins to see what that has to do with Saturn. So when you get married, you get married with a ring and the symbol of that God is the ring, the ring of Saturn. You're wearing God's ring. And the yarmulke was the round ring that you wear on your head, for Saturn your God. Even in the middle ages, in the temples, Catholic monks would shave their heads in a round circle, and the Hebrews, instead of doing that, would wear the yarmulke. But it all had to do with the round rings of Saturn.” -Jordan Maxwell, “Matrix of Power”“The ancient name of Saturn was, as mentioned, EL. It is the reason why those that were chosen by EL, were called Elites. In fact the words, Elect, Elder, Elevated, Elohim, Temple, Circle, Gospel, Apostle, Disciple, Evangelists, etc., all derive from the Cult of EL. Angels are messengers of god. But god was EL, which is why we have the names of the Archangels bearing the ‘el,' suffix – Raphael, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, etc,.” -Michael Tsarion, “Astrotheology and Sidereal Mythology”The plural term Elohim appears over 2500 times in the Old Testament but is falsely translated in most versions. This fact of plurality explains why in Genesis ‘Gods' said, ‘Let us make man in our image.' As stated, Elohim refers to both ‘gods' and ‘goddesses,' and its singular form, El, served as a prefix or suffix to names of gods, people and places, whence Emmanu-El, Gabri-El, Beth-El, etc. Even ‘Satan' was one of the Elohim.” -Acharya S., “The Christ Conspiracy” (67)The gods of EL-o-him are ang-EL-s, the messengers of god. When witches cast a spe-EL, they put the “Hex” (6) on someone, and when chefs deep fry something, they “Deep 6” it. It is the EL-ites who run the world today. El-ite comes from the “Isra-El-ites” which came from the Egyptian worship of the Moon (Isis), the Sun, (Ra), and Saturn (Elohim), hence Is-Ra-El.In Islamic tradition, the “Rock” is where Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the ang-el Gabri-el. The Dome of the “Rock” was built in the 600 AD era and was won back by the Israelites on 06/07/67 after the “6 day war.” The Dome's outer walls measure 60 (6×10) feet wide and 36 (6×6) feet high. The Knights Templar claimed the Dome of the Rock was the site of the Temple of Solomon and set up their “Templum Domini” adjacent to it during the 12th century.“Saturn is an important key to understanding the long heritage this conspiracy has back to antiquity. The city of Rome was originally known as Saturnia or City of Saturn. The Roman Catholic church retains much of the Saturn worship in its ritual. Saturn also relates to Lucifer. In various occult dictionaries Saturn is associated with evil. Saturn was important to the religion of Mithra, and also the Druids.” –Fritz Springmeier, “Bloodlines of the Illuminati”Rome was known to the “Romans” as Saturnia, not Rome, and Saturn was one of their gods. Black is both Saturn's color and Satan's color. The black holy bible tells us Satan is 666. Saturn is the 6th planet, its symbol is a 6-pointed star, it supposedly has hexagon weather formations, and Saturn-day, the 6th day, is Ozzy Osbourne's “Black Sabbath.”Is this all just divine coincidence or is our perception of Saturn and the other planets being manipulated by the Masonic magicians at NASA?

David Icke - SATURN ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS EITHER!Sheriff in the ancient Egyptian was a law-giver and his badge was always a six-pointed star which is a symbol of Saturn. US Sheriffs in the wild west up to today still wear the six-pointed star. It is interesting that Saturn's symbol is the 6-pointed star, Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun, Saturn-day is the 6th day of the week, and now NASA is receiving images of “the Saturn Hexagon” (6-sided) atmospheric formation at Saturn's poles. The 6th chakra of the human energy system is the 3rd eye/pineal gland (6, 3 times = 666). When your 3rd eye chakra opens you develop your 6th sense of intuition and spirituality. From a consciousness perspective, the 6th sense, your intuitions/hunches, are messengers of god, your guardian angels. Isn't it interesting that angels have haloes/rings around their heads and Saturn is the only planet with a halo/ring around it?“That is why today, when you get married, you get married before God. And the symbol of that God is the ring that is put on each other's fingers. The ring of Saturn. In the marriage phrases, one also begins to see what that has to do with Saturn. So when you get married, you get married with a ring and the symbol of that God is the ring, the ring of Saturn. You're wearing God's ring. And the yarmulke was the round ring that you wear on your head, for Saturn your God. Even in the middle ages, in the temples, Catholic monks would shave their heads in a round circle, and the Hebrews, instead of doing that, would wear the yarmulke. But it all had to do with the round rings of Saturn.” -Jordan Maxwell, “Matrix of Power”“The ancient name of Saturn was, as mentioned, EL. It is the reason why those that were chosen by EL, were called Elites. In fact the words, Elect, Elder, Elevated, Elohim, Temple, Circle, Gospel, Apostle, Disciple, Evangelists, etc., all derive from the Cult of EL. Angels are messengers of god. But god was EL, which is why we have the names of the Archangels bearing the ‘el,' suffix – Raphael, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, etc,.” -Michael Tsarion, “Astrotheology and Sidereal Mythology”The plural term Elohim appears over 2500 times in the Old Testament but is falsely translated in most versions. This fact of plurality explains why in Genesis ‘Gods' said, ‘Let us make man in our image.' As stated, Elohim refers to both ‘gods' and ‘goddesses,' and its singular form, El, served as a prefix or suffix to names of gods, people and places, whence Emmanu-El, Gabri-El, Beth-El, etc. Even ‘Satan' was one of the Elohim.” -Acharya S., “The Christ Conspiracy” (67)The gods of EL-o-him are ang-EL-s, the messengers of god. When witches cast a spe-EL, they put the “Hex” (6) on someone, and when chefs deep fry something, they “Deep 6” it. It is the EL-ites who run the world today. El-ite comes from the “Isra-El-ites” which came from the Egyptian worship of the Moon (Isis), the Sun, (Ra), and Saturn (Elohim), hence Is-Ra-El.In Islamic tradition, the “Rock” is where Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the ang-el Gabri-el. The Dome of the “Rock” was built in the 600 AD era and was won back by the Israelites on 06/07/67 after the “6 day war.” The Dome's outer walls measure 60 (6×10) feet wide and 36 (6×6) feet high. The Knights Templar claimed the Dome of the Rock was the site of the Temple of Solomon and set up their “Templum Domini” adjacent to it during the 12th century.“Saturn is an important key to understanding the long heritage this conspiracy has back to antiquity. The city of Rome was originally known as Saturnia or City of Saturn. The Roman Catholic church retains much of the Saturn worship in its ritual. Saturn also relates to Lucifer. In various occult dictionaries Saturn is associated with evil. Saturn was important to the religion of Mithra, and also the Druids.” –Fritz Springmeier, “Bloodlines of the Illuminati”Rome was known to the “Romans” as Saturnia, not Rome, and Saturn was one of their gods. Black is both Saturn's color and Satan's color. The black holy bible tells us Satan is 666. Saturn is the 6th planet, its symbol is a 6-pointed star, it supposedly has hexagon weather formations, and Saturn-day, the 6th day, is Ozzy Osbourne's “Black Sabbath.”Is this all just divine coincidence or is our perception of Saturn and the other planets being manipulated by the Masonic magicians at NASA?

BECOME A PRODUCER! http://www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast   Find The Midnight Train Podcast: www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com www.facebook.com/themidnighttrainpodcast www.twitter.com/themidnighttrainpc www.instagram.com/themidnighttrainpodcast www.discord.com/themidnighttrainpodcast www.tiktok.com/themidnighttrainp   And wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.   Subscribe to our official YouTube channel: OUR YOUTUBE   Support our sponsors www.themidnighttraintrainpodcast.com/sponsors     "Once, in a time before time, God breathed life into the universe. And the light gave birth to Angels. And the earth gave birth to Man. And the fire gave birth to the Djinn, creatures condemned to dwell in the void between the worlds. One who wakes a Djinn will be given three wishes. Upon the granting of the third, the unholy legions of the Djinn will be freed to rule the earth. Fear one thing in all there is... FEAR THE DJINN."   Full disclosure… I need to preface this episode by saying that I'm going to SUPER FUCK UP a butt ton of words in this episode. If you're new, yeah this is what Moody does to me. If you're a long time listener, then you're used to my idiocy and you find it endearing. Ok, with that being said, Dear friends, today we bring you an episode that your esteemed host (that would be me) has been wanting to do for a while. If you didn't get it from the previous quote…and the name of the episode… well you're an idiot… But it's the djinn… We're talking about the djinn. Djinn you ask? Like a genie? Well kind of, let's get into what they are, what they do, and hear stories of djinn encounters.        So what exactly are djinn you ask? Djinn are believed to be powerful, invisible beings, capable of possessing people and even inflicting suffering on them. Stories of human encounters with djinn are very common across cultures and history.       Djinn originated in the Muslim world. Muslims  believe that the djinn are real as the Quran explicitly confirms their existence and considers them an independent nation. There is a whole chapter in the Qur'an named “the Chapter of Djinn,'” where detailed information about these beings is revealed.    Al-Jinn is the 72nd chapter of the Quran and contains 28 verses. According to Al-islam.org, The designation of the Chapter reflects that it mainly treats of invisible creatures, the jinn, their belief in the Noble Prophet of the Islamic faith (S), the Holy Qur'an, and Resurrection, and the groups of believers and disbelievers amongst them. The closing Verses concern the knowledge of the unseen unknown to all beings besides God Almighty. It is narrated from the Noble Imam Sadiq (as) as saying:   "One who recites Surah al-Jinn many a time will never suffer from the evil eye, magic, and ploys of the Jinn and magicians but will accompany Muhammad (S). O Lord! I believe in none besides him and I will never turn toward anyone but him.   Reciting the blessed Chapter would be a prelude to the awareness of its contextual meaning and applying it to one's life.        AboutIslam.net describes the chapter and says God revealed to Prophet Muhammad that a group of jinn listened to his recitation of the Quran.  They returned to their own society and described the recitation as wondrous, saying that it called to what is true and sensible by distinguishing between right and wrong.  Those who listened believed in it and reported such to the others of their kind.  They declared that they would never again associate anything with God.This chapter puts this response to the unbelievers of Makkah who also listened to the recitation of Quran yet failed to believe in it.  Those of the jinn who listened immediately embraced a true untainted faith.  They said that the recitation exalted God and further stated that He had neither partner nor offspring.  At the time many Arabs believed that the angels were God's daughters through marriage to the jinn but the jinn emphatically denied this.   The jinn declare that some of their number said shocking things about God even though they believed no one would ever have the audacity to tell lies about God.  But now that they had heard the Quran for themselves they realized that those ideas were false.   In the past some people had sought protection with some of the jinn but this only led them further away from the truth and increased them in sin.  Some humans and some jinn thought that God would never send a messenger to guide and warn them.  God, however, is generous and kind and does indeed send messengers to guide to the right way.         The jinn disclaim any knowledge of the unseen, stating that it remains beyond their reach.  We tried to reach the heavens, they say, but found it to be fortified by stern guards and shooting stars.  Before Prophet Muhammad, the jinn were able to collect information by eavesdropping on the angels.  They then passed it on to astrologers, fortune-tellers and others of that ilk.  This is no longer possible and if they try they will find a celestial deterrent lying in wait for them.  They do not know what is in store for those on earth.  God's intentions (misfortune or guidance) remain unseen.    The jinn then describe their own situation and their attitude towards guidance.  Some of the jinn are righteous, others are not.  They follow many different paths and hold many different opinions and beliefs.  They understand that they can never damage God's plans for earth and its inhabitants and they can never escape God's will.  When we heard this recitation of the Quran we believed in it and those who believe in God need not fear loss, injustice or an unbearable burden.  Some (jinn) submit to God and are guided; others refuse to accept the truth.  Those who accept the truth have found their way to salvation; the others are fuel for the Hellfire.  This applies to humans as well, some accept guidance others plough a course towards Hell.   God tells Prophet Muhammad that if the Makkans had remained on the straight path, He would have provided them with abundant rain (water, and assuring their provision).  This is also a means by which God tests people.  The Quran tells us that having plenty is as great a test as having little.  The person who pays no attention to God's warnings will face an arduous punishment, spiraling down into Hell.   The mosques are built for God alone; they make worship easy but a Muslim can pray anywhere (with very few exceptions).  Worship is for God alone so do not call on anyone but Him.  When Prophet Muhammad stood up to make supplication the crowd pressed in around him, the unbelievers ready to attack him.  God protected him on this and on many other occasions.    This chapter now addresses Prophet Muhammad in a decisive tone making it clear to him that once he has delivered the message he has no say over how people respond.  He is told to tell the people that he prays to God alone and he does not set up partners or associates with Him.   He tells them that he cannot cause harm and he cannot force them to go in the right direction.   Prophet Muhammad says that if he were to disobey God no one could protect him and he could never find a place to hide from Him.   His mission is only to deliver the message.  Whoever disobeys God and His messenger will find themselves in the Hellfire.  The disbelievers think they have the strength in numbers but they will soon come to understand that Prophet Muhammad has God's power and strength behind him.      Prophet Muhammad informs the disbelievers that he does not know when the threatened punishment will take place.  He has no part in that decision, it is God alone who decides.  The promised punishments in this life, and in the life to come, are matters of the unseen and God does not reveal such matters to anybody.   However there is one exception, God may reveal unseen matters to one of His messengers if necessary. Guardian angels protect both the messenger and the message.  God knows everything about His messengers, there is nothing that escapes His knowledge.  Everything is counted and measured.  The message is carefully monitored.   So that's a breakdown of the chapter of the jinn as described in the Quran. So what exactly do the jinn do and what are they about?    There are different types of jinn in Islam. Some have wings and fly in the air, some exist as snakes and dogs, and some Jinn are Earthbound beings who live and attach themselves to people and objects in our world. Disbelieving Jinn (Shayateen) whispers evil thoughts into people's minds and constantly try to divert man from the path of righteousness. Some Jinn constantly instill doubts in human minds. Jinn can make humans think certain thoughts, leading them to misidentify these thoughts as their own notions. Jinn can make us dream about certain things. The strongest, evilest variety of Jinn is called Ifrit, and they are rare. Jinn delight in punishing humans for any harm done to them, intentionally or unintentionally, and are said to be responsible for many diseases and all kinds of accidents; however, those human beings knowing the proper magical procedure can exploit the jinn to their advantage. The appearance of jinn can be divided into three major categories:   zoomorphic storms and shadows anthropomorphic. Jinn are assumed to be able to appear in shapes of various animals such as cats, owls and onagers (which are just wild asses, or “Moody's” in the scientific world). Serpents are the animals most associated with jinn; in Islamic tradition, many narratives concern a serpent who was actually a jinn. Dogs are another animal often associated with jinn, especially black dogs. Gazelles, foxes, and ostriches are also associated with jinn, though not necessarily thought to be the embodiment of jinn but rather their mounts or hosts (i.e. mythical vehicle or vessel). The jinn are also related to the wind, and may even appear in mists or sandstorms. Although sandstorms are believed to be caused by jinn, others, such as Abu Yahya Zakariya' ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini and Ghazali attribute them to natural causes. Otherwise sandstorms are thought to be caused by a battle between different groups of jinn. Though a common characteristic of the jinn is their lack of individuality, they may gain individuality by materializing in human forms, such as Sakhr and several jinn known from magical writings.   In their anthropomorphic shape, however, they are said to stay partly animal and are not fully human. Therefore, individual jinn are commonly depicted as monstrous and anthropomorphized creatures with body parts from different animals or humans with animal traits.   The following is a list of the different jinn.  Jann, a type of jinn Marid, a powerful rebellious demon Ifrit, a powerful type of demon in Islamic mythology associated with the underworld Ghoul, associated with graveyards and consuming human flesh Si'lat, talented shapeshifters often appearing in human form and female or male Nasnas, a creature mentioned as Shaqq in One Thousand and One Nights Hatif, a voice that can be heard without one's discovering the body that made it Qareen, a spiritual double of human with a ghostly nature Hinn, supernatural creatures, besides jinn and demons Shaitan, also known as demons who make humans and other jinns sin Malak, pure creatures that are created by light at the service of God/an angel.   Jinn are said to inhabit caves, deserted places, graveyards and darkness. According to Sakr (pr: “soccer”) they marry, produce children, eat, drink and die but unlike human beings have the power to take on different shapes and are capable of moving heavy objects almost instantly from one place to another. The Qur'an mentions how the Prophet Solomon contrived to subjugate the jinn and get them to perform tasks that required strength, intelligence and skill.    The lines between devils and jinn are often blurred. Especially in folklore, jinn share many characteristics usually associated with devils, as both are held responsible for mental illness, diseases and possession. The jinn share many characteristics with humans, whereas devils lack them. Folklore differentiates both types of creatures as well. Since the term shaitan is also used as an epithet to describe the taqalan (humans and jinn), naming malevolent jinn also as shayāṭīn in some sources, it is sometimes difficult to hold them apart. Satan and his hosts of devils (shayatin) generally appear in traditions associated with Jewish and Christian narratives, while jinn represent entities of polytheistic background.   According to the website from the journal of the royal society of medicine...One Islamic concept that has entered into western mythology is that of the jinn or genies, as in the story of Aladdin. However, according to Islamic belief, jinn are real creatures that form a world other than that of mankind, capable of causing physical and mental harm to human beings. An example of such harm is possession. As defined by Littlewood, possession is the belief that an individual has been entered by an alien spirit or other parahuman force, which then controls the person or alters that person's actions and identity. To the observer, this would be manifested as an altered state of consciousness. In the UK, jinn possession is most likely to be seen among people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Middle East or North Africa. Some commentators claim that possession is a culture-bound syndrome but others argue that, although the manifestations may differ according to culture, the underlying theme is always the same. In Islamic writings true jinn possession can cause a person to have seizures and to speak in an incomprehensible language. The possessed is unable to think or speak from his own will.  In cases of real possession the task of the therapist, who must have strong faith in Allah, is to expel the jinn. This is usually done in one of three ways—remembrance of God and recitation of the Qur'an (dhikr); blowing into the person's mouth, cursing and commanding the jinn to leave; and seeking refuge with Allah by calling upon Allah, remembering him, and addressing his creatures (ruqyah). Some faith healers strike the possessed person, claiming that it is the jinn that suffer the pain. This practice, however, is deplored by Muslim scholars as being far from the principles of Islam and the instructions of the Prophet.    We found a couple case files of suspected possession by jinn. We'll go through one for ya!   A 25-year-old woman from Iraq with no previous psychiatric history gradually withdrew from other people, became uncommunicative and stopped eating and drinking. Investigations revealed no organic disease and severe depressive illness was diagnosed. She underwent electro-convulsive therapy without much improvement. Her family, believing her to be possessed by jinn but not wanting to say so to the doctors for fear of being labelled as superstitious, took her to a local faith healer, who offered to treat her in the traditional Islamic way. After a few sessions of combined dhikr and ruqyah her condition improved and she resumed eating and drinking. On recovery she had no explanation for what had happened, though she remembered the sequence of events. She stated that she had been aware of her surroundings, but had been unable to initiate anything. She denied feeling low in mood at the time. 5 years later she remains well and without medication.   So was it a jinn? Maybe… Probably… Most likely… The crazy thing is it's not only humans which are possessed, but also animals, trees and other objects.  By doing this, the evil Jinn hope to make people worship others aside from God.  The possession of idols is one way to do this.  Not so long ago the world-wide phenomenon of Hindu idols drinking milk, shocked the world.  From Bombay to London, Delhi to California, countless idols were lapping up milk.  Ganesh the elephant god, Hanuman the monkey god and even Shiva lingam, the male private organ (!), all seemed to guzzle down the milk as if there was no tomorrow! Unfortunately people were taken in by this and many flocked to feed the Hindu gods.  This feat was undoubtedly done by the Jinn as a classic attempt to make people worship false gods.   Another one of the powers of the Jinn, is that they are able to take on any physical form they like.  Thus, they can appear as humans, animals, trees and anything else.  Thousands of people have sighted strange looking creatures all over the world - and it seems more plausible all the sightings of such creatures may have been Jinns parading in different forms. The average Jinn is stronger than the average man, although specific men can be stronger than certain Jinn. Jinn can teleport from one place to another and travel at the speed of light. Whereas Jinn have several powers that humans do not possess, mankind possesses more wisdom overall. Jinn also have their own varieties of animals and beasts.    The jinn had an indirect impact on Islamic art through the creation of talismans that were alleged to guard the bearer from the jinn and were enclosed in leather and included Qur'anic verses. It was not unusual for those talismans to be inscribed with separated Arabic letters, because the separation of those letters was thought to positively affect the potency of the talisman overall. An object that was inscribed with the word of Allah was thought to have the power to ward off evil from the person who obtained the object, though many of these objects also had astrological signs, depictions of prophets, or religious narratives.    a sorcerer may summon a jinn and force him to perform orders. Summoned jinn may be sent to the chosen victim to cause demonic possession. Such summonings were done by invocation, by aid of talismans or by satisfying the jinn, thus to make a contract.   Jinn are also regarded as assistants of soothsayers. Soothsayers reveal information from the past and present; the jinn can be a source of this information because their lifespans exceed those of humans. Another way to subjugate them is by inserting a needle to their skin or dress. Since jinn are afraid of iron, they are unable to remove it with their own power.   Another interesting thing is that During the Rwandan genocide, both Hutus and Tutsis avoided searching local Rwandan Muslim neighborhoods because they widely believed the myth that local Muslims and mosques were protected by the power of Islamic magic and the efficacious jinn. In the Rwandan city of Cyangugu, arsonists ran away instead of destroying the mosque because they feared the wrath of the jinn, whom they believed were guarding the mosque.   Ok so that was a lot to take in. There is a ton of stuff out there on the jinn. Since the jinn are rooted in religion some of the readings can get a bit tedious and honestly if you're not familiar with the Islamic religion it can be hard to follow some of the stuff and put it together. Hopefully we did a decent job, up to this point. The real jinn are quite different from the jinn that have been westernized for entertainment, which is another thing that can make it difficult to figure out what is real and what is just westernized stories.  That being said, other religions have comparable spirits to the jinn.   The ancient Sumerians believed in Pazuzu, a wind demon, who was shown with "a rather canine face with abnormally bulging eyes, a scaly body, a snake-headed penis, the talons of a bird and usually wings." So basically, it's chainsaw.   The ancient Babylonians believed in utukku, a class of demons which were believed to haunt remote wildernesses, graveyards, mountains, and the sea, all locations where jinn were later thought to reside.   The Assyrians believed in the Alû, sometimes described as a wind demon residing in desolate ruins who would sneak into people's houses at night and steal their sleep.    The description of jinn is almost identical with that of the shedim from Jewish mythology. As with the jinn, some of whom follow the law brought by Muhammad, some of the shedim are believed to be followers of the law of Moses and consequently good.   As in Islam, the idea of spiritual entities converting to one's own religion can be found in Buddhism. According to lore, Buddha preached to Devas and Asura, spiritual entities who, like humans, are subject to the cycle of life, and who resemble the Islamic notion of jinn, who are also ontologically placed among humans in regard to eschatological destiny.   Some scholars evaluated whether the jinn might be compared to fallen angels in Christian traditions. Comparable to Augustine's descriptions of fallen angels as ethereal, jinn seem to be considered as the same substance. Although the concept of fallen angels is not absent in the Quran, the jinn nevertheless differ in their major characteristics from that of fallen angels: While fallen angels fell from heaven, the jinn did not, but try to climb up to it in order to receive the news of the angels. Jinn are closer to daemons.   How about we leave you with a few spooky stories of jinn! These are copied word for word and we tried to correct mistakes but we may have missed some!       I was staying in Makkah one summer and living in an apartment under King Fahd Mosque (we were studying with the imam of the masjid). We were sleeping with about 7 of us in one room. I was lying down staring at the ceiling with my leg bent up and something came and shook me real hard. everybody was sleeping so i woke one of the dudes up and he was like just go and sleep in the other room. When i went into the other room everybody was sleeping too (3 ppl) but the light was flickering and the ceiling fan was shaking back and forth and it wasn't on (the blades werent spinning) so i was like weird and went to sleep.. bout 5 minutes later the dude that told me to go to the other room came running in and said something had grabbed him and covered his mouth as he was lying down... and he couldn't breathe but somehow managed to say "audhu billahi...'' So we were freaked out and phoned the imam in the middle of the night and he came and slept in the ap that night. Also in the same apartment at night you could hear people running and jumping in the mosque above in the middle of the night but no one was up there (we checked many times) and in one corner of the apt you could always hear someone reciting Quran.. and it was the most beautiful recitation i ever heard (better than sudais and all the rest)   Creepy!! How about another   there was this 9 year old kid that lived in the village and he went missing one night, which was strange because all the doors were locked to go outside the house and there was no other possible way to go out of the house. They woke up in the morning and he wasnt in his bed so they got everyone they knew and did a search for him everywhere, they didnt find him the village but in the middle of the night the next they found him in a nearby graveyard. Thankfully he was safe. But everyone didnt know how he could of possibly got out of the house. Then everyone thought it has to be a jinn. This is a true story and happened while i was in pakistan!    Someone posted a story about how when his maternal grandmother was on her deathbed, a cat started to appear in their home. The cat would even appear in the home when all the doors and windows were closed. It had a really bad smell and a very dirty coat. And whenever someone recited a holy verse from the Quran, it would vanish. After the grandmother passed away, the cat would still appear and the few times that it did, everyone in the house fell sick.    Another?… Ok      So apparently, in Saudi, my aunt lived in a house that was always being visited by a particular jinn who used to annoy her family. Once, she was laying in bed at night with her husband. She felt that something was off and when she left the room, she found her husband watching TV on the couch. When they went back to the bedroom to confront the jinn, it just laughed and went away.   Ok one more:   My great uncle went to visit his cousins in India. His cousins told him that since it was summertime they would all sleep in the courtyard together. However, they told him he wasn't allowed to place his bedding in a particular corner. Apparently, a jinn slept there and strange things happened if any one disturbs that corner. My great uncle said it was nonsense and decided to sleep there anyway.   One night, he woke up on the other side of the court. He laughed at first and thought it was his cousins who were pranking him and decided to sleep there again. The following night, the same thing happened, so he left a note next to his pillow saying, ”Stop pranking me. I know there is no jinn.” That night, he said he was pushed off his bed, and his bedding was thrown on the other side. A note was thrown into his lap which said, ‘I sleep here.” The scary part is, it wasn't that dark and there was no one there.  So we're not gonna lie, religion is not really our forte. But hopefully we were able to get some of it right! The history and depictions of the jinn are pretty cool when you get into it. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it as well.    Top horror movies about djinn https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=djinn   https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=jinn    

Ash-Shūrā (Arabic: الشورى‎, al shūrā, "Council, Consultation") is the 42nd chapter of the Qur'an (Q42) with 53 verses. Its title derives from the question of "shūrā" (consultation) referred to in Verse 38. The term appears only once in the Quranic text (at Q42:38). It has no pre-Quranic antecedent.[1] Regarding the timing and contextual background of the revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl), it is an earlier "Meccan surah", which means it has been revealed in Mecca, instead of later in Medina Summary 1-2 The Almighty reveals his will to Muhammad 3 Angels intercede with God on behalf of sinful man 4 Muhammad not a steward over the idolaters 5 The Quran revealed in the Arabic language to warn Makkah 6-10 God the only helper, creator, and preserver, the all-knowing 11-13 Islam the religion of all the former prophets 14 Muhammad commanded to declare his faith in the Bible 15 Disputers with God shall be severely punished 16-17 God only knows the hour of the judgment 18-19 The Almighty will reward the righteous and the wicked according to their deeds 20 Sinners only spared through God's forbearance 21-22 Rewards of the just and of the unjust 23 Muhammad charged with imposture 24-27 The sovereign God forgives and blesses whom he will 28-33 God's power manifested in his works 34-41 A true believer's character decided 42-45 The miserable fate of those whom God causes to err 46 Sinners exhorted to repent before it is too late 47 Muhammad only a preacher 48-49 God controls all things 50-51 Why God reveals himself by inspiration and through apostles 52-53 Muhammad himself ignorant of Islam until he had received the revelation of the Quran [2] In Islamic tradition, Quran 42:51 serves as the basis of understanding for Revelation in Islam (waḥy). "It is not fitting for a man that Allah should speak to him except by inspiration, or from behind a veil, or by the sending of a messenger to reveal, with Allah's permission, what Allah wills"[3]

Nightly Ramadan Reflections 11: Solitude vs. Community For some, being alone during the holy month serves an opportunity for spiritual development, while for others they prefer a sense of community. In Islamic tradition, luckily, there's an emphasis on both. 

Nightly Ramadan Reflections 11: Solitude vs. Community For some, being alone during the holy month serves an opportunity for spiritual development, while for others they prefer a sense of community. In Islamic tradition, luckily, there's an emphasis on both. 

In communist countries, Muslims are persecuted. In Islamic countries, non-Muslims don’t hold power. So if the end-goal of both ideologies are incompatible, why are they WORKING TOGETHER here in America? Learn this VITAL information and then SHARE it!

In Islamic tradition, the Prophet plays a central role as someone that we seek to emulate. In this episode, we reflect on some of the obstacles and hurdles he endured, and how we seek to walk in his sacred footsteps.

In Islamic tradition, the Prophet plays a central role as someone that we seek to emulate. In this episode, we reflect on some of the obstacles and hurdles he endured, and how we seek to walk in his sacred footsteps.

This Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of the Christchurch mosque attacks.A memorial honouring the 51 who died will be hosted in the city's Horncastle Arena.Aliya Danzeisen of the Islamic Women's Council told Andrew Dickens Muslims don't usually mark anniversaries of death."In Islamic culture, we are meant to be living the legacy of a person everyday, so if they have a positive legacy you should carry that on."The memorial will feature local Muslim leaders, Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel, and the Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy.LISTEN ABOVE

Thursday night event in Loppiano—June 27, 2019 Introduction by Luce: Dr. Mohammad Shomali is the director of the Islamic Center of England and the International Institute of Islamic Studies in Qum, Iran. He has many titles; I won’t mention all of them; but what strikes us the most is that he is at the vanguard of interreligious dialogue with the Christian world. As you understood, he is a great friend and brother of the Focolare movement. In fact, as Mahnaz said, we began this journey of dialogue and we feel with him and with the entire group a very deep unity, as he himself says, “Among us there is no longer dialogue; we are already in unity to bear witness to the world God.” Dr Shomali: In the Name of God Good evening. I am very happy to be here. God is manifest everywhere and in everything I am deeply grateful to God for showing Himself to us in each of our lives. But I want to especially thank God for showing Himself in our relations. In Islamic tradition, we believe that everything is a sign and manifestation of God. If we look carefully, God’s signature is on everything. So, a person who really believes in God and looks at everything as a sign of God is very respectful to everyone and everything. God is more manifest in good relations than good individuals ...

Click here to get James' new book, What the Quran Really Teaches About Jesus. Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers. Joe Fontenot: And I am Joe Fontenot. Gary: We're the hosts of the Answering the Call Podcast. Joe: This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Gary: Today our guest is James Walker. Joe Fontenot: James has a new book out on the Quran but specifically on using the Quran to show that Jesus is who Jesus is- Gary: Wow. Joe: Yeah, it's very interesting. Marilyn interviewed him in this one and I sat in and listened and I really can't wait to read this book because the Quran essentially says Jesus is God without saying Jesus is God, and if you read carefully you can use it as its own apologetic for Christianity. Gary: That's great. I caught his evening session at Defend and he spoke about the book there and it's an exciting book. Can't wait to read it. Joe: Yeah. And he's also got an atheist Christian book club which he talks about, which I thought was pretty interesting as well. Gary: Very interesting. Well, let's hear from James. Marilyn Stewart: James, you are involved in some very interesting ministries and I want to talk to you about two of those. You do spend a lot of time talking to Muslims and also to atheists, but you have a brand new book What the Quran Really Teaches about Jesus prophet of Allah or Savior of the world. So, I want to start there and give you a chance to tell us a little bit about that book. But the title says the Quran Teaches about Jesus. I suspect that many Christians don't realize this. So, what does it say about Jesus? James Walker: Well, it is a surprise that the Quran has a lot to say about Jesus even more than Mohammed, and there are some things that actually that we would agree with that it agrees with the Bible in some places. Now, I think it's important to understand that it's not the same Jesus that we're talking about. But for one thing, the Quran affirms that Jesus was born of a virgin and no other Prophet, according to Islam was ever born of a virgin. Marilyn: And there are a lot of profits that Islam recognizes. James: They recognize any prophet of God. So, the prophets mentioned in the Bible, Isaiah, Ezekiel, talk about King David and Abraham. Yeah, all these are prophets, and Jesus also was one of the prophets. That's another affirmation that you have. In the book I have the transcript of a debate I did with a Muslim apologist Khalil Meek, and that's where the subtitle of the book comes from Prophet of Allah or Savior of the World. So, basically we started off in the debate with the point of agreement. We're both religions, both scriptures, the Bible and the Quran, both affirm Jesus as being a prophet. Now, we're I took it from there is you have to ask the question, what did Jesus prophesy? There is not one prophecy of Jesus recorded in the Quran. Marilyn: I believe you mentioned this when you were speaking at Defend about a Muslim who went to other authorities to check. Tell us a little bit about that. James: Yeah, one of the things that I'm trying to do in the book is encourage Christians to just engage. You'd be surprised most Christians if they think about it a while, they know a Muslim. It could be their doctor, or it could be a pharmacist, it could be a classmate at the university, it could be a convenience store clerk, a neighbor, but they know someone who's a Muslim. And there's, I think we have this kind of built in fear. I don't maybe want to start a conversation. What if they ask a difficult question, or maybe they would be offended if I ask a question about that. So, What I'm trying to do and what the Quran really teaches about Jesus is in the book, be able to have some great questions to ask or a verse in the Quran that you can ask them to explain to you and kind of start this gospel conversation. So, this particular example I gave, I was at a coffee shop and this guy comes in and I had seen him before but not really talked with him anything, but I noticed this time when he came in he actually had an Islamic dictionary in his hand. And I thought, "Okay, I know ... he's Muslim, but he also, I noticed there was only one seat open in the entire coffee shop. So, basically when I saw him headed toward my seat, I had been reading on my tablet, I'd been reading the Bible, but I just switched to the Quran. So, he sat down next to me and I didn't say anything but I thought this might happen. He must have looked over because he taps me on the shoulder he's big smile and he says, "Oh, you're reading Quran?" I said, "Yes I am." He said, "Oh, you must be Muslim." And I said, No, I'm actually Christian. He said, "huh." And it was like, it was a little bit disorienting to him. He didn't know what to make of it, but I said, "Listen, I'm a Christian, but I want to understand other religions and I want to know what the differences are, and I recognize if 1.8 billion people believe the Quran, this is an important book that I should be able to know. And I was reading in the Quran and I was having difficulty understanding a passage." He said, "I'm Muslim, let me help you." And so I showed him Surah 350 where the Quran ... Jesus is speaking actually. Here's another thing you have the saying of Jesus and Jesus says that you must fear Allah and obey me. So, you fear God, but you also have to obey Jesus. And he said, "But that's true, my friend, you must obey Jesus." I said, "Well, here's my question. I cannot anywhere in the Quran, find the commands of Jesus. If we're to obey Him, where can we find His commands?" Well, that ended up being like several conversations like that one and like two more times were talking about this and he was unable to find any of the commands of Jesus and so I said, "Well, this obviously you can only find them in the gospels like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." He was a little bit hesitant to go that way but I finally convinced him if he would read Matthew's Gospel with me and see if we can find anything. He would say, "Oh, but the Gospels have been corrupted." I said, "But is there anything remaining of value there?" Well, he hadn't thought. "Well, there could still be something good let's go look and see." So, this is again, a way that just knowing a little bit about the Quran maybe a good verse, know the right kind of questions to ask. Yeah. And it ended up being for better part of probably six or eight months, we had off and on conversations. Marilyn: Now, so, he didn't know any commands in the Quran from Jesus and also prophecies? There were no prophesies in the Quran? James: Yeah, you can take the same approach with the prophecies. Nowhere in the New Testament. In my debate with Khalil Meek, when we both agreed at the very outset, okay premise one, is Jesus a prophet of God? Both affirm. So, my question which is a good question to ask any Muslim, what did Jesus prophesy? Marilyn: What do they say when- James: Well, they assume he must have prophesied what the Quran teachers. There's the idea that in Jesus' original writings that may be he must have taught Islam. Now, we don't have any of these writings because you don't find any of that in the four gospels or in the New Testament or anything like that, but there's this assumption, well, he must have taught the five pillars of Islam. Like any good Muslim and so I asked Khalil on that, "Can you show me the documents?" Now, when I'm going to say that Jesus made a prophecy I'm going to point to ancient documents very close to the time that Jesus lived. The best he could do was to say that those were corrupted and need to be superseded by the Quran. Marilyn: ... Now, that's interesting. So, let me make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Because the Quran does not list any commands or prophecies of Jesus, that presents a problem, but they can't feel comfortable accepting the Bible because they feel the New Testament is corrupted. James: Well, it's what Jesus prophesied. He prophesied that He would be crucified, that He would die, that He would rise three days later from the grave. These are things that not only are not in the Quran, the Quran mentions them and says that they're not true. Marilyn: Yes. Okay. James: But you don't have a prophecy of Jesus saying this. So, if someone is going to be a prophet, is he a true prophet or a false prophet? Of course, I mentioned in the book that, and the Muslim apologist Shabir Ally complains that the New Testament is not trustworthy because the Gospels may have been written several decades after the events they describe. Well, that doesn't mean they're not true, but ironically he's complaining about several decades when the Quran is trying to comment on something 600 years later, 800 miles away. Marilyn: Interesting. So, they then do say some at least that this corruption that took place with the New Testament they assume that these five pillars that's what's been taken out. James: Right. So, he must have taught Shahada, he must have taught everything that we find. So, it's kind of like the ultimate conspiracy theory is the idea that all of Jesus' original disciples were all Muslim, Jesus was Muslim, all his disciples are Muslim. They believe Islam, they believe what you now can find in the Quran and they wrote them down in what they call the Injil, the gospel, but none of the copies remain. Every copy that we have, very early copies that we have match what we have in our New Testament. So, one of the examples was that in the, there's a fragment of John's gospel, the Ryland P52 fragment, which is the oldest extent part of the New Testament that we have. It dates traditionally between 100 and 150 AD. Way before Mohammed. Ironically that little piece of fragment is actually citing a prophecy where Jesus speaks of his death and his resurrection. Marilyn: Yeah, the manuscript evidence for the New Testament just in Greek is around 5,000 manuscripts. And then of course we have other copies and other languages. So, we do have good evidence how the New Testament came to us. James: Right, and if you want to claim that there was another earlier uncorrupted New Testament, I mean, that's an interesting theory but I'd like to see some documents. Where's any proof on this? Marilyn: Sure. Let's go back to where else the Quran says some things about Jesus that we could affirm that do match up with what the New Testament says. James: Well, that Jesus was a prophet of God. We mentioned that His birth, His coming was predicted by the other prophets. They even say in the Quran that Jesus is Messiah. Now, they mean something very different by that than what we do. So, they're not trying to say Jesus was Christ or savior. That is not what they believe. But they do have the title Messiah. So, that would be something that we would affirm. To me, one of the most remarkable affirmations though is that the Quran teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. And there's a whole chapter about Mary and about the virgin birth of Jesus in the Quran. I'd like to say, in fact, it's kind of the opposite of the Gospels. The Gospels is, 80% of it deals with Jesus' life and then rather, 20%, 25% and then the vast majority deals with those last two weeks. While in the Quran it talks a lot about Jesus but the vast majority talks about His birth and the early years and not so much about the later part of his ministry. But yeah, there's a passage in the Quran where it says that we honor and believe all of the prophets of God. And it lists several, including Jesus, and we make no differentiation between them. A great question to ask a Muslim is, "Hey, we have something in common. You believe in the virgin birth and that's what our scripture says, that Jesus was born of a virgin. Here's the question, tell me what other prophets were born of a virgin?" Marilyn: That's a good question. James: Well, there has been no other prophet. Not Abraham, not Ishmael or Isaac, or they would talk a lot about King David, none of them. So, even Mohammed. Mohammed was not born of a virgin. Marilyn: So, Jesus had this miraculous birth that no other prophet in the Quran has had. James: Yes. And would you have to agree with me then that Jesus is unique among the prophets if no other prophet has this kind of birth. Marilyn: Now, how is it that they see Jesus differently? Where do we disagree on Jesus? James: Well, unfortunately the disagreement on the essentials of Christian faith and the very core of the gospel. So, they're first of all going to say that while Jesus was a prophet He was not the Son of God. In Islamic thinking, and in the Quran actually, is pretty clear on this. The idea of God having a son is reprehensible to them because it implies if you're the Son of God that ... and I would agree it does. Some level, there's a quality there. You're the same type of being the father and the son. And in Islamic monotheism, only one person can be God, Allah and not any other person. If you ascribe the attributes of God to any other person, even Jesus, it is tantamount to the unpardonable sin. It's what they call the sin of shirk. Marilyn: And this is unforgivable, unpardonable, it is a major problem for Muslims. James: Yeah there's some Muslim folklore that's not explicitly said certainly in the Quran and not even really explicitly taught in the Hadith, but the idea is if you're a Muslim on the day of judgment and your bad deeds outweigh your good deeds, the Muslims all agree, you go to hell. But there's a caveat there, this idea that if you did not commit shirk and you were Muslim, that you potentially can get out of hell later. Marilyn: Okay. So, there's a way out. James: Again, that's not in the Quran. I asked a friend, one of my Muslim friends I was talking to, "I cannot find anywhere in the Quran where you get out of hell tell me where this comes from." And he, "Oh, it's not in the Quran it's in the Hadith." And I say, "Well, you know my Imam friend told me that Hadith is not totally reliable." And he's, "Well, it's not totally reliable." What if the part about getting out of hell is in the unreliable part? Marilyn: Gosh, that would be a bad situation. James: It would. Marilyn: Now, the Hadith, explain what that is and how it's different from the Quran. Just a brief explanation. James: Well, when Mohammed dies, and this is actually like a century or two after the death of Mohammed. The collection of the Hadith begins. And this is where you're trying to gather together a corpus of data on what Mohammed did and said, is extremely important in Islam because Islam is very much focused on orthopraxy, doing things the right way. I mean, everything. Every aspect of life, there's a right way to do it. It's based on the pattern of what Mohammed did. Well, that's based on Hadith. So in Hadith what they're doing is, they're trying to gather these statements, these sayings or deeds and they're trying to build a chain of custody on them. So, you have this saying, the story, and how do we know it happened? Well, this particular person said that he talked with someone who was one of the Friends of a companion of Mohammed. And so, they they connect the dots, try to get it back to the life of Mohammed, and there are several collections of Hadith. Many, many volumes of work. So, the idea is the Muslims will try to weigh how reliable that Hadith is. Is it highly reliable, is it somewhat reliable, and they base that on that chain of Custody. But I would say in a practical sense that what Islam is today is based at least as much if not more on Hadith than it is on Quran. Marilyn: Oh, is that right? James: Yes. Marilyn: And so, this shows some, it shows how important their thinking is on following a certain, I don't know if works is the right way to say it, but there is a path laid out for them that they must follow. James: Yeah, even the five pillars you don't find it at all clearly in the Quran. There's implication and stuff, but that you're to pray five times not six or seven, that's Hadith, you don't get that in the Quran. Marilyn: Very precise. James: Exactly. And so that's, on a practical level, extremely important in day to day Islamic life. Marilyn: So, it lays out a step by step thing that they must do in order to be right with Allah. James: Yes. Marilyn: So, there is no savior in Islam, is that correct? James: Yeah, and that was, we included as a chapter the entire transcript of my most recent debate with Khalil Meek and the title Jesus Christ prophet of Allah our Savior of the World, and Khalil is adamant that Jesus is not the Savior. But one of the debate issues that came up, if Jesus is not the Savior, who is? Who's the Savior then? And the tragic part of Islamic theology is, it's not just that Jesus isn't the Savior, there is no savior. Marilyn: Do they realize that they need a savior? Do you find that longing in their heart to this understanding that they are not quite good enough, that they haven't followed that path as closely as they need to? Do you get the sense that they have that desire to have a savior? James: I think not so much initially. Part of what I'm trying to do is get that Muslim friend with me into the Bible. So, I'm going to start with the Quran, but I'm trying to shift over, "Can we see what the gospel say about this." And try to get them to hear the stories of Jesus and you get a very different picture of God in the New Testament. You get a God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Well, in Islam Jesus can't be the begotten son. It says in the Quran, "Allah neither begets nor has he begotten, but even more disturbing you don't have a God that's love. You have a God, Allah is merciful, but there's a big difference between merciful and loving. In the same way the God in Islam cannot partner with or share His attributes with, He can't have a son or He can't be a son. This idea imply that He can't have that love relationship either because he's separate and distinct and totally apart from creation. Marilyn: And so, they do not think of God as a heavenly father as Christians see Him? James: Not father at all that's anathema to call Jesus father. And even in the doctrine of the Trinity, there are several places in the Quran where it says, stop saying, seize saying God is three. And in parentheses Trinity, sometimes they'll put the parenthetical in case you don't know what we're talking about. We don't believe in the Trinity doctrine. So, technically, is a monotheistic religion and it does cause confusion with Christians. We hear from our news media, we hear from some of our politicians even. Oh well, Christianity and Islam they're both monotheistic religions, they are both religions of Abraham, they put their roots back in Abraham. So, they believe in one God, they believe in the same God. Well, I would beg to differ on that. The believe in one God doesn't mean that we're talking about the same God. I've never met any Muslim, any Imam, any cleric, any even rank-and-file Muslim who would ever say that God is the father of Jesus Christ, you can't say that. Marilyn: So, we do worship different gods. James: I would say so. Marilyn: And we can start with the things that we do affirm about Jesus but it is important to lead them to the Gospels and finding out who Jesus really is. James: I do find some parallels ain how the Apostle Paul dealt with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. So, the Areopagus, and Athens, and Mars Hill. When He is talking to them and when he's confronted by them and he's trying to explain the gospel, it's interesting he never quotes any scripture. If he had quoted it, those guys wouldn't have known what he was talking about anyway. He does elsewhere quote their philosophers. And so what he does is he finds a point in common. There was a shrine to this unknown God. And I think, Paul, thinks, "Hey, I don't believe in Greek mythology, but this is too easy to use. Even they've acknowledged there might be a God they don't know about. This is the one I want to tell them about." Marilyn: And this is why your book is so helpful because you pull out some passages from the Quran that is a great place for Christians to start as they're talking to a Muslim. Some of those passages about Jesus and how He is, the things they agree with about Jesus and where it is different. So, your book came out this year? James: Well, late last year, it's already a new year now. Marilyn: Well, that's true. We're in 2019. James: Less than a year ago. We can say it that way. It seems like, and I tell you, I do not really embrace and enjoy the writing process. I do it. I am not happy to write, I'm happy to have written. Marilyn: And you are a good writer. It's very clear. James: Well, thanks. But it's, sometimes I think that writing a book is the closest a man can ever know to what it's like to give birth. So, it's like the labor pain. Marilyn: No, giving birth is worse. James: You've done both so you would know, but yeah, I don't enjoy the process but I'm glad that it's done. I like the product, had a lot of people helping me. I had our editor at Watchman Fellowship at my ministry did a lot of work to help, and then at Harvest House, the senior editor there, Steve, he's just so good at what he does. Marilyn: Excellent. Before we leave Islam, I want to give you a chance to talk about tips. You've mentioned a couple of things, but for Christians that want to make a friend of a Muslim and lead that Muslim to Jesus, to a loving God, you mentioned several tips at Defend, and I know you use the word task that this is our task, I just wanted to give you a chance to explain that to us, give us any other tips for getting to know Muslims, how we get to know them, how we approach them, anything like that you'd like to say. James: Yeah, I would just say just in general, and this is not just Muslim, this is really trying to build relationship with anyone for the gospel. I have a Mormon back, I used to be Mormon before I became a Christian, and when I first became a Christian I kind of did it all wrong with my Mormon friends. I could prove them wrong and I have all this evidence I want to hit them over the head with and looking back on it I should have known better because nobody responds well to when somebody says, I can prove you're wrong 10 different ways or something like that. So, over time, what I, here's what I've learned. It's really all about relationship. What did they say. No one cares what you know till they know that you care. And so, on the building on the back of relationship, you earn the right ... first of all, you know the person and you spent time with them that they can see that there's something different about you. They can see Christ in you, hopefully. And also you earn the right to ask the question. And there's a feeling of safety that, they know that I'm going to be their friend whether they're Muslim or not. And so it's not about if you convert to Christianity, then we can be friends. No, we're friends. If you convert to Christianity, I'd be thrilled. But we're friends either way. Marilyn: That's a good point. James: And building that relationship. So, it's all about that and asking the right questions. At the end of most of the chapters, we have a series of good questions that would help further that gospel conversation and gospel discussion. The other thing I would encourage people to do, I thought, many, many years ago, I had been dealing with reaching Jehovah's Witnesses, reaching people involved in the occult and I'll put in this Muslim thing. It's just like, I have this kind of fear. If I start talking to the Muslim, they're going to say, "I'm Muslim, I'm not interested" or something. And I found the exact opposite. What I found was, "I'm Muslim. I'm very interested." Marilyn: And this is fascinating. I think a lot of Americans felt that way, still feel that way. A little afraid to speak to a Muslim. James: Well, you know, we were the generation that lived through 911 and we see the terrorism and it's connected with radical Islam and sometimes there's an actual fear, every Muslim that you see, is there a bomb involved or something like that. I'm not going to minimize that that's not a bad problem. The vast majority of Muslims do not interpret the sword versus, when the Quran says that you're to smite the infidel and strike their necks and stuff, my friend Khalil that I did the debate with, he would tell me, "James, when it says to kill the infidel it's about the infidels on the Arabian Peninsula during the time of Mohammed and the warfare that was going on. It doesn't mean kill all infidels everywhere all times. It's a specific." He'd make a comparison to the Canaanites and the Exodus. Marilyn: In the old testament. James: It doesn't mean we're to go conquer every land and kill all the inhabitants and drive them out. So, if that's what most Muslims believe it's probably not my best strategy to talk them out of that. "Oh, no, right here you're supposed to smite infidel, that's me, you're supposed." No. If that's what they interpreted, it is what it is. There are Muslims that do interpreted it in a terroristic fashion. So, I'm so appreciative of our military, our first responders, and those politicians who make the right decisions to help protect us from all dangers, foreign and domestic, including religious terrorism, but my job as a Christian, I'm not the Air Force or the army, I'm not Homeland Defense, I'm part of the church. So, I feel like my job is the gospel, not so much to be involved in military or political solution. I really kind of feel we may be beyond, on the case of radical Islam, we may be beyond a political or military solution at this point. The only real solution I think might be the gospel of Jesus Christ. Marilyn: And it is a great opportunity. We say we are people of the Great Commission and God does seem to be bringing the nation's to us even from nations that we can't get into as missionaries. So, this is great. James: I've noticed a lot of pushback from people who, they're disturbed by there's so many Muslims moved to America in a 10 year period according to our most recent census, Islam is growing by 160% in just 10 years in America. But we have to say, well, you look at the other side, these people, a lot of them are coming from countries where it is illegal to share the gospel. Now that the Muslim is your next door neighbor or is your classmate at school at the college or something, you don't have to get on an airplane, you don't have to go through the red tape, is a mission field that comes to us let's see if we can take advantage of that. Marilyn: So, what are the things that we have in common with Muslims in terms of, they are people that love their families, love their children. And in terms of developing relationships, surely they are things like that, that we can connect to. What would you say to that? James: Well, one of the things, you're dealing a little differently if you're dealing with a Muslim, from Saudi Arabia, or even from Pakistan or Indonesia, Muslim country, Sharia law, you're dealing with a little bit different mindset when they come to America versus an American Muslim, but just understand that a lot of Muslims are confused when they get here because they assume that America is a Christian nation and everything that they see, everything that they see on the internet, everything that they see on TV and the movies, they think, "Oh,, this is Christianity." And to help them to see that not everything American means Christian. A great question to ask is, when you've built that relationship with the Muslim is say, "Let me ask you my friend, have you ever came to the place where I share with you how I became a Christian?" And sometimes there's this confused look, "Well, you were born in America." Marilyn: Sure. James: "Well, yes I was, but to be born in America makes you an American, but to become a Christian you have to be born a second time." And it's almost like John chapter three. Is usually like, "What do you mean to be born again?" It's just like, they've never heard this before. Marilyn: That's great. James: And this was my life before you should be able to do this in 90 seconds, but I wanted to please God, but I was concerned that perhaps I had sinned against God and there may be a day of judgment where I would stand before God and what if I fail what would happen to me? and I realized at a point in my life I needed help, I needed a savior. And that's when I realized that Jesus was more than a prophet. That He actually came to be my substitute, to offer me eternal life. Just that little kind of communication and it's almost you can see, I can remember vividly seeing it's like childlike like, this is they've never heard this story before. Marilyn: Interesting. Well, the gospel of course is a great message and He is a God of love so I could see where this could draw Muslim very easily if we are genuine in our faith and in our walk. I do want to change the subject now and kind of shift gears and go to something that you do that is also very fascinating. That's the Atheist Book Club. So, how in the world did you get into an Atheistic Book Club? What does that look like? And whose idea was that? James: Not mine. The actual title is the Atheist Christian Book Club. So, it's atheistschristianbookclub.com, and this is something an atheist friend of mine kept bugging me to do. It's a long story how I got invited to this atheist gathering that they have like a fellowship. And just out of curiosity I went and they were actually kind of really nice and had a lot of questions. And I would try to go at least maybe once a month or something. And we got into all kinds of great discussions about everything from, Big Bang cosmology to the source of ethics, and intelligent design, and the Dallas Cowboys and I mean, all kinds of things, but over time I-

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), Hüseyin Yılmaz uses the Ottoman notion of the caliphate to push back against that assumption: he demonstrates how a new understanding of the caliphate was developed by Ottoman thinkers, by engaging with those that came before them as well as their own lived present. But Yılmaz goes beyond simply addressing the caliphate and political thought. Caliphate Redefined represents one of the first major studies of pre-modern Ottoman thought, mapping out the field for the benefit for all of those who engage with it. Furthermore, Yilmaz pushes implicitly and forcefully for recognition of Turkish as a critical language in Islamic intellectual history, acknowledging its contribution to the Islamic thought canon. Finally, Caliphate Redefined is a stunning study of Sufism in the Turkish-speaking context, allowing us a glimpse of Sufism's intellectual history and how it intersects and encompasses different aspects of Muslim life. Huseyin Yilmaz is associate professor at George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. His research interests focus on the early modern Middle East including political thought, geographic imageries, social movements, and cultural history. He is also the Director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. Prior to his appointment at George Mason, he taught for the Introduction to the Humanities Program and Department of History at Stanford University and the Department of History at University of South Florida. His new book, the subject of our interview, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), is the first comprehensive study of pre-modern Ottoman political thought and focuses on the intersection of mysticism and the definition of authority. Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University's Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), Hüseyin Yılmaz uses the Ottoman notion of the caliphate to push back against that assumption: he demonstrates how a new understanding of the caliphate was developed by Ottoman thinkers, by engaging with those that came before them as well as their own lived present.  But Yılmaz goes beyond simply addressing the caliphate and political thought. Caliphate Redefined represents one of the first major studies of pre-modern Ottoman thought, mapping out the field for the benefit for all of those who engage with it. Furthermore, Yilmaz pushes implicitly and forcefully for recognition of Turkish as a critical language in Islamic intellectual history, acknowledging its contribution to the Islamic thought canon.  Finally, Caliphate Redefined is a stunning study of Sufism in the Turkish-speaking context, allowing us a glimpse of Sufism’s intellectual history and how it intersects and encompasses different aspects of Muslim life. Huseyin Yilmaz is associate professor at George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. His research interests focus on the early modern Middle East including political thought, geographic imageries, social movements, and cultural history. He is also the Director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. Prior to his appointment at George Mason, he taught for the Introduction to the Humanities Program and Department of History at Stanford University and the Department of History at University of South Florida. His new book, the subject of our interview, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), is the first comprehensive study of pre-modern Ottoman political thought and focuses on the intersection of mysticism and the definition of authority. Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), Hüseyin Yılmaz uses the Ottoman notion of the caliphate to push back against that assumption: he demonstrates how a new understanding...

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), Hüseyin Yılmaz uses the Ottoman notion of the caliphate to push back against that assumption: he demonstrates how a new understanding of the caliphate was developed by Ottoman thinkers, by engaging with those that came before them as well as their own lived present.  But Yılmaz goes beyond simply addressing the caliphate and political thought. Caliphate Redefined represents one of the first major studies of pre-modern Ottoman thought, mapping out the field for the benefit for all of those who engage with it. Furthermore, Yilmaz pushes implicitly and forcefully for recognition of Turkish as a critical language in Islamic intellectual history, acknowledging its contribution to the Islamic thought canon.  Finally, Caliphate Redefined is a stunning study of Sufism in the Turkish-speaking context, allowing us a glimpse of Sufism’s intellectual history and how it intersects and encompasses different aspects of Muslim life. Huseyin Yilmaz is associate professor at George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. His research interests focus on the early modern Middle East including political thought, geographic imageries, social movements, and cultural history. He is also the Director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. Prior to his appointment at George Mason, he taught for the Introduction to the Humanities Program and Department of History at Stanford University and the Department of History at University of South Florida. His new book, the subject of our interview, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), is the first comprehensive study of pre-modern Ottoman political thought and focuses on the intersection of mysticism and the definition of authority. Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), Hüseyin Yılmaz uses the Ottoman notion of the caliphate to push back against that assumption: he demonstrates how a new understanding of the caliphate was developed by Ottoman thinkers, by engaging with those that came before them as well as their own lived present.  But Yılmaz goes beyond simply addressing the caliphate and political thought. Caliphate Redefined represents one of the first major studies of pre-modern Ottoman thought, mapping out the field for the benefit for all of those who engage with it. Furthermore, Yilmaz pushes implicitly and forcefully for recognition of Turkish as a critical language in Islamic intellectual history, acknowledging its contribution to the Islamic thought canon.  Finally, Caliphate Redefined is a stunning study of Sufism in the Turkish-speaking context, allowing us a glimpse of Sufism’s intellectual history and how it intersects and encompasses different aspects of Muslim life. Huseyin Yilmaz is associate professor at George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. His research interests focus on the early modern Middle East including political thought, geographic imageries, social movements, and cultural history. He is also the Director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. Prior to his appointment at George Mason, he taught for the Introduction to the Humanities Program and Department of History at Stanford University and the Department of History at University of South Florida. His new book, the subject of our interview, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), is the first comprehensive study of pre-modern Ottoman political thought and focuses on the intersection of mysticism and the definition of authority. Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), Hüseyin Yılmaz uses the Ottoman notion of the caliphate to push back against that assumption: he demonstrates how a new understanding of the caliphate was developed by Ottoman thinkers, by engaging with those that came before them as well as their own lived present.  But Yılmaz goes beyond simply addressing the caliphate and political thought. Caliphate Redefined represents one of the first major studies of pre-modern Ottoman thought, mapping out the field for the benefit for all of those who engage with it. Furthermore, Yilmaz pushes implicitly and forcefully for recognition of Turkish as a critical language in Islamic intellectual history, acknowledging its contribution to the Islamic thought canon.  Finally, Caliphate Redefined is a stunning study of Sufism in the Turkish-speaking context, allowing us a glimpse of Sufism’s intellectual history and how it intersects and encompasses different aspects of Muslim life. Huseyin Yilmaz is associate professor at George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. His research interests focus on the early modern Middle East including political thought, geographic imageries, social movements, and cultural history. He is also the Director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. Prior to his appointment at George Mason, he taught for the Introduction to the Humanities Program and Department of History at Stanford University and the Department of History at University of South Florida. His new book, the subject of our interview, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), is the first comprehensive study of pre-modern Ottoman political thought and focuses on the intersection of mysticism and the definition of authority. Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), Hüseyin Yılmaz uses the Ottoman notion of the caliphate to push back against that assumption: he demonstrates how a new understanding of the caliphate was developed by Ottoman thinkers, by engaging with those that came before them as well as their own lived present.  But Yılmaz goes beyond simply addressing the caliphate and political thought. Caliphate Redefined represents one of the first major studies of pre-modern Ottoman thought, mapping out the field for the benefit for all of those who engage with it. Furthermore, Yilmaz pushes implicitly and forcefully for recognition of Turkish as a critical language in Islamic intellectual history, acknowledging its contribution to the Islamic thought canon.  Finally, Caliphate Redefined is a stunning study of Sufism in the Turkish-speaking context, allowing us a glimpse of Sufism’s intellectual history and how it intersects and encompasses different aspects of Muslim life. Huseyin Yilmaz is associate professor at George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. His research interests focus on the early modern Middle East including political thought, geographic imageries, social movements, and cultural history. He is also the Director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. Prior to his appointment at George Mason, he taught for the Introduction to the Humanities Program and Department of History at Stanford University and the Department of History at University of South Florida. His new book, the subject of our interview, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), is the first comprehensive study of pre-modern Ottoman political thought and focuses on the intersection of mysticism and the definition of authority. Nadirah Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Saadia Faruqi: A Voice for Islam Saadia Faruqi is a mother of two. She is also a Muslim. In this episode, we talk about being a Muslim mom, and some of the unique challenges she faces, as well as things we can all do to be more inclusive and understanding. Show Notes   Saadia Faruqi-unintentionally became a voice for Islam. She was volunteering for her mosque. She was part of a community that wanted to do something but didn’t know what to do (this was after 9/11). She started going throughout her community and speaking to other groups about Islam, writing for a newspaper and a blog online. That led to her being asked by the Houston police department to train the officers on Islam.   People always ask her where she’s from. She was born in Pakistan and immigrated to the US in her early 20s, 20 years ago. Came here as an adult and everything was interesting and different to her.   United States is thought of as a melting pot   Chanelle: Sometimes the US is not as much of a melting pot as we think because we all stay separated. There is a group of Muslim moms at school pickup that I always noticed and was intrigued by, but never found a way to break into their group   Saadia: Muslims are from all over the world. When you see a Muslim you may not even recognize them until they tell you they are Muslim. If women are from different places, we may not be able to speak the same language. I think that’s one of the biggest questions I get. When I speak, I mostly answer questions. The questions I get commonly are why do you wear the hijab, what’s it like to be a Muslim mom and a Muslim woman. My goal is to show the shared humanity. I’m a woman, just like you. I’m a mom, just like you. I have the same worries about my kids…when we can get that across, you forget what somebody’s wearing or how they’re praying, or what language they speak.   Chanelle: Those things don’t matter that much. Tell us a little bit about what it’s like to be a Muslim woman, because we can’t always ask questions like that in a brief conversations.   Saadia: you would be surprised by how much I get asked questions like that by total strangers.   She tells an experience of a man asking her details about her religion while she was buying her lunch at Subway. Her daughter didn’t like how she presented it, but Saadia felt like it wasn’t the time or place.   Chanelle: My husband gets questions all the time because of his height- he is 6’10”.   Saadia: Sometimes you are the only person who can answer a question that might have been bothering another person. You have a choice, you can answer or you can walk away… For me, every conversation becomes this thing that I have to debate within myself: do I want to be the persons who satisfy his curiosity, or walk away and her might ask someone else or go to a website and get incorrect information. Most of the time I give information.   Being a Muslim wife and mother is the same, except that other people treat me differently than they would another mom. Interactions are a little heavier, my children don’t necessarily want me involved because of their perceptions.   Her daughter didn’t want her to volunteer because of her hijab and that made her different.   I hope my children will look at me and see that I’m strong in the face of whatever I get. It’s presenting myself in a way that shows my kids that I am strong and I can take whatever comes my way.   Chanelle: I can see that I’m not as inclusive as I could be. In the news, we see terrorism linked to Muslims. There is a lot of fear. Media portrayal plays on that fear. What would you say to people who are feeling that fear?   Saadia: My answer has evolved because I have grown and I have children. Muslims stereotypes are that they are terrorists. The only way you that can get rid of those types of reactions is if you get to know the people. That is true for whatever group we belong to. I always encourage people to get to know people from that group and you will get over the fear. Then you will see that the stereotypes aren’t really that accurate. People that fear Islam mostly don’t know any Muslims.   When you have kids, I think that it’s a different worry. I don’t want my kids growing up with this fear. My son got bullied, and my kids are facing this at school. Keep your opinions to yourself, because when our kids are listening, they aren’t really understanding all of it. Get to know other people, but don’t share all your loud opinions, don’t just let kids hear things.   Chanelle: we need to educate ourselves and get to know other people, so we aren’t playing into the stereotypes. We need to be careful in our words. And to make sure that we are not perpetuating any kind of stereotypes, because even if we’re not trying to say anything like that it comes through in our words and our actions. We need to be aware of that in ourselves and sometimes our kids will call us out and notice things like that. It hurts us as moms to think of any kids being bullied, but it’s important to recognize that a lot of our opinions are passed on to our kids.   Saadia: I can hear the comments from these kids that are coming from parents or from the television and they don’t even know what they’re talking about it. It’s heartbreaking that the kids who bully do it because they hear something and they don’t know what it is. That lies on the parents, when you hear things, be critical and try to get information from a lot of sources. I teach people how to get information from a lot of sources so you get a more rounded view of what happens.   Chanelle: I’m a Mormon, and I agree, you want to get your information from a good source. For people who are scared, help us understand some misconceptions, particularly about jihad, which I have heard means holy war, but you say is something different.   Saadia: Jihad means struggle, typically an internal struggle for the sake of God. Teaching people about Islam is my jihad. When my kids are sick, that could be jihad; education is often a jihad. A person who has violence on his mind, could think that hurting someone is jihad. That is in their mind, it doesn’t mean that that is what jihad means. In Islamic theology, this is what jihad means. Allah-Akbar means God is the greatest. These terrorists use these terms, and they get amplified in the media.   The rest of us are like, What? How can this be his jihad? That’s not what it means.   Chanelle: I love how you described that, and helped us understand how this means.   Saadia: These are beautiful terms that are close to the heart of all Muslims. They are very important to us religiously and culturally. Evil people have changed the meaning to suit their needs.   Chanelle: I have appreciated this conversation so much. You’re just a normal mom! I hope this has given us a broader view that we’re all just people and all just normal moms and we don’t have to have this fear. Thanks for listening to moms who know. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.