asalamu alaikum, peace be upon you and welcome to eye and islam, the show we look at current affairs through an islamic lens. each week we evaluate a trending new story and we break it down from an islamic perspective. the holy month of shaban is upon us and for in millions of muslims, it is deeply spiritual time of fasting and prayer in anticipation and preparation for the holy month of.

ramadan. for many muslims too, it's the time to remember the birth of imam al-mahdi, the awaited savior for humanity, whom, it is prophesized, will return at the end of times with jesus. may allah hasten their reappearences both in order to bring justice on earth, themes that are especially being brought into focus in light of the genocide being carried out by israel against the people of palestine. first, we take a closer look at the concept of a messiah in islam and other world religions. the idea of the messiah, often called king messiah, or in hebrew, malek messiah, is found in the old testament, as per the jewish belief, he is human being, not a divine creature, and comes from the lineage of david and solomon. he is in truthful from birth and continues until he reaches the highest levels of human perfection. he will be a great political leader, well versed in jewish law, observant of the commandments, a charismatic leader who will win battles for the people of israel in a right. judge who will assist the poor and

depressed. according to jewish belief, the individuals who can become the messiah are born in every era. it depends on that individual to fulfill that potential. jerusalem has long been embedded into jewish religious consciousness and linked to the coming of the messiah. however, orthodox judaism's belief in the building of the third temple has been hijacked and weaponized by zionists in the last century. to justify the displace. occupation and genocide of of palestinians. zionists have, in the name of the jewish faith, enforced militarily the idea that jews must rebuild the temple themselves, whenever possible. orthodox jews reject the idea of returning to or forming a jewish state, though orthodox scholars and rabayanic authorities generally believe that rebuilding should occur in the era of the jewish messiah at the hand of divine providence. christianity started as a

messianic jewish sect, and arguably, without the belief in his position as the savior, the role of jesus is empty. the gospel brings the good news of the savior and declared that from the lineage of david, the king of the jews, that his mission, through his teachings death and resurrection will be fulfilled at the second coming. similarly to islamic belief, prophecies of the messiah's reappearance are preceded by great signs in nature, as well as man-made disasters like famon and war. the concept of a savior is also prevalent in islam. imam mahdi is figure who appears in both sunni and shia traditions. the quran speaks of the messiah with verses referring to universal government, that god will make this religion powerful over all others. that truth has come and falsehood has perished, that god will revive the earth through justice, and the oppressed will rule the world one day. mentions of events that sunni scholars have connected to the upcoming of the mahdi are evil army. being swallowed by the earth in

medina, that prophet isa will pray behind an imam from the muslim ummah and that there will come a khalifa who will distribute wealth without counting it. some believe that prior to the reappearance of imam al mahdi, the world and humanity will try and experiment with every system and way of living until there is a global consensus that islam is the way that humanity wants to live, and it is at that point that humanity is ready to receive him. joining me in the studio to discuss this key topic is sheikh of ahmed al hanif. sheikh alhanif is one of our honorable scholars who is unapologetic in his islamic duty of condemning the oppression in palestine. he graduated from the islamic seminary in kam and lectures in the uk. and on skype we're honored to welcome said ammar khasmi who is a political and legal analyst who helps run the left legal fighting fund. a legal defense fund which focuses on assisting anti-racist. anti-fascist and anti-zionist

individuals and groups who need legal support, salam alaikum to you both, inshallah we start here with yourself, sheikh hanif and uh you of course... as we mentioned in the introduction there have studied at the islamic seminary, so perhaps your best uh suited to tell us uh exactly what is this concept or this notion of mahawia for our audience? um bismillah rahim salam alaikum so nice to be here um well mahdawiya uh first and foremost is very common theme in uh um all of the major religions in the world, you know, and i'm talking not only in the within the abrahamamic traditions, but also the non abrahamic traditions, okay, like hinduism, and buddhism, for example, just to mention

two of the most important ones, um, all of them, um, talk about first of all, the idea of humanity. devolving, you know, not evolving, not progressing, but regressing, you know, so uh, when that state of disorder and chaos and oppression has reached a crucial stage, um, people will be crying out for a leader, by that point, um, many different strategies would have been. tried, many different political applications would have been tried for justice, but to no avail. um, later on, we we talk about how it applies to our society as well, where we are approaching this type of a crisis as well, at that point when people have lost hope in in

in in in human attempts to make the world better place, at that point then that uh reformer. which has different names according to the tradition that mentions this um will will arrive and will will and will usher in a new era absolutely and also something that we've been talking off camera about as well. sayid if i can come to you, sunnis and shiah muslims both agree that at the end of times there will be figure by the name of imam al mahdi who will emerge and will bring peace on earth. who is imam mahdi exactly? as you say, i mean si both agree that there will be this messianic figure from the lineage of prophet muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, he will appear on earth before the day of judgment and just building on what the esteam sheikh was mentioning that of

course you will fill the world with justice, there's also a consensus that nabi isa, prophet jesus, peace of blessings be upon him, will pray... behind imamdi, there are some smaller theological differences there about the role of the imam and who he is, but broadly this is where the consensus lies between the two schools of thought, but there is essentially this idea that the mahdi will have divine authority, he will fight against the oppressors and will extinguish their oppression, so he is figure who will essentially be the culmination of... justice and that sort of divine justice that we as human beings can't hope to achieve by ourselves, but there is a misconception, there is an idea that we should just be passively waiting for imam mahadi to arrive. actually, you the understanding that we

should have is that we should have an active waiting for our imam because we prepare for his arrival, we try to better our condition as much as we can, and so that when he arrives we are prepared to work. with him as our leader to establish justice across the whole world. yeah, absolutely. debate that's long being ongoing between muslims as well as to whether we should just be sitting uh passively or whether we should be actively engaging in preparation for the imam which guess sheikh hanif leads me to my next question because there are many who may point to the fact that imam al mahdi is not specifically mentioned in the quran uh does he really exist and does the quran maybe allude to his coming or to his presence? yes, um, the quran, there are many, many, many verses in the holy quran that allude to this, this, his presence, and i think um, it is allusion um, because it is not essential a

belief to be a muslim, right, you could be a muslim and not believe in the imam, you know, um, personally, i think it might make you a little weaker, you know, but um, uh, you know it is there, you know, for example, you think in um surah 25 verse 5 or four or five, you talks about um, you know um... those who have been abased in the earth, you know, allah would make them imams, you know, um, and it talks about in another verse that those who do righteousness and so on, allah would make them successors in the earth, you know, and these things tend to allude to the the the the idea of the of the imam being um, such figure, you know, um, the imam mahadi is um from these verses uh basically one of a

group, one of a class of people, the only difference is that he comes at the end of time of this cycle of humanity, you know um and that um at the end of that particular cycle you have this uh this this reign of justice that is taking place and truth, you know never... less there's always a worm in the apple you know, because eventually he himself is going to get martered, yeah, you know, and then you know the the the the the descent of human beings will continue downwards until the day of judgment, so he becomes very, very important sign for the coming of the day of judgment, absolutely, and an important sign and also uh, somebody who is giving lot of hope to humanity as well, and that's something that i and islam did, we went to the streets of london to ask muslims about the significance of a messiah

in terms of giving hope to their lives a personal level and with events happening a global level. imam mahdi is a divine promise by allah for the uprise of good over evil and to eradicate all oppression in the world. i think that imam mahdi is important because obviously he's a religious figure to all of the muslims whether your sunny. or sha, it doesn't really matter, and i think that you, as my sister said, he's someone that's going to bring the world justice, and someone very important because i feel like the world is very corrupt at the moment, like we need someone to come and lead us together as like an ummah, to me imam al-mahdi is the savior that we're waiting for, we all want to serve the ahlabaits, but we were not in karbala, we all wish that if we were there we would have served in karbala to serve the ah, but we weren't. now inshallah if imam al mahdi comes we can serve the imam al mahdi we need to the

imam mahdi for he when he come inshallah he gna regule everything and the palestine he come and there to us again so imam mahdi symbolizes justice obviously as we know he is supposed to being supposed to be bringing justice to all people so with the current situation that's going on in gazza and other parts of the world for us to have him come now would be the step that we need. to take forward, sorry, the step forward that we need to um to start making change. now said, if i could come back to you, earlier in the show you discussed of course those who say we should be actively preparing for the imam's return, others saying you know we should just wait and be quietest if you will, there were many who uh look at the prophets and the past imams and the narrations about imam and mahdi, they say that he will be so...

was mentioning earlier in the program that the world is going to be in quite a bad state, at the end of the day we have to remember that the appearance of our imam and may allah hasten his appearance is a sign that the day of judgement is very very near and of course the day of judgment is going to appear in. stances when the world is in a very very bad state, and of course, when i was talking about the idea that we should be active, we have to look at all of the prophets in history, all of the imams, all of our righteous leaders even, our, best known a, they were people who were active in their communities, they were people who took a stand against depression who enjoined the good and forbade the evil, and we have to remember that, at least in shi um theology, the imam is already on earth, he is present

with us, he sees the injustice that is happening, for example in gaza, he sees all of this that's happening around the world, and so he is already um with us in our struggles, so when we are looking at these struggles, and our imam is there, but he is he is an occultation, the responsibility on should be thinking. what can we be doing to work for the appearance of our imam? it's not that we're just waiting for him and because we have to then think is our imam, if our imam came tomorrow and questioned. us now what have you been doing while i have been in occultation, what have you been doing while you know um you've had the opportunity to at least say something verbally if not you know literally take action, what is our response going to be? you know we have to be thinking that the arrival of our imam is imminent and working towards that and so we have to be constantly in the back of our minds thinking

what more can we be doing actively because our imam sees everything that we're doing, well that mean that is interesting you say that. because of course with palestine on everyone's minds at the moment attention has turned for many people to whether we are approaching the end times, what's the relevance just saying with you am of palestine in these end times? you in abrahamic escatology, escatology being that part of theology that deals with the end times, the land of palestine is very, very important, it's very important for jews, for christians, for muslims, such that, we have these... fanatical christian zionists, millions of them around the world, are probably more christian zionists than the raw jewish zionists who want to see the destruction of baituldis, masjid al aqsa and the creation of the third temple of solomon as a prerequisite for the return of jesus, for the second coming of jesus. now we have number of narrations ourselves about the land

of palestine, not just al-quds but gazzalan, different parts of what we now call palestine, and we believe that "imamdi will actually go to those lands that there will be ships sent to those lands he is not physically going by himself uh to you know bring justice to that part of the world so the land of palestine is very very important for all three abrahamic religions and um you know certainly in islam we do believe that jerusalem and the lands of palestine will feature very heavily in the imam's mission for justice. thank you, i said i'm..." sheikh hanif, one of the things that's always interested me is that argument about uh do we sit by passively or do we actively move forward as muslims to try to prepare for uh the coming of imam al mahi, which could be in any era, muslims for thousands of years or a thousand years at least have had this uh thought. one other things that interests me as well is post revolution in 1979 in iran is the constitution actually of the islamic

republic of iran says that this state is actually belongs to imam mehdi, it's fundamentally a gift a idea and this was one the driving forces behind imam khumaini's revolution which is that fundamentally at the end of everything what we are doing is a gift, hadia, a preparation for imam al mahdi, how important is that, what should believers be doing anticipation of the coming of the imam? yeah, that's very a very very interesting and very great idea conversation right, mean just to get more extreme, you know there are some people who think that um they welcome injustice, they welcome oppression, because that means it will hasten the coming of the imam, so not only are they not doing anything, okay, they are positively encouraging it, you know, um, but i think you know uh, this type of attitude um, goes against reason, okay, in the sense that when we look at oppression, um, to a certain

extent oppression is based up. on an agreement between the oppressor and the oppressed in the sense that if the oppressed doesn't do anything, the oppressed is agreeing with the oppressor that they should be oppressed, you know, it's like somebody in a society who says, um, not going to vote, okay, not voting actually is a political statement, is kind of vote, yeah, you see, um, you, there's a very beautiful hadith by the holy prophet sallallahu alaihi where he is talking about the people of shuaib, you know, and uh, it's the town where it's let's say i think about 100, 100 thousand inhabitants, and allah is going to just said he's going to destroy this town, um, which had um, 40 thousand of those people were

evil, and 60,000 of them were good, and allah says, i'm going to destroy the whole town, and and i ask him. why are you going to destroy destroy the whole town? the majority the people are good. he says, because the majority of people did not stop the the minority of people. you see, so that attitude is a unmahdi like attitude. the second point is in terms of followship, fell following the imam. um, there are two types of followers, there's one follower who does not take initiative, right? another one one follower who is just waiting to give to get to get the order, they carry out the order, then the... and they wait for another one and there's another follower who is a sort of a reflection of the leader right, follower who could take initiative, follower who could anticipate you know what? the leader wants and so forth, this is the kind of leadership the imam wants, this is the kind of leadership that will be following the imam, and the final point is we have to ask the question, why is he in occultation, from a

shia point of view, or why he's not yet born sent to this world from sony point of view, you know, and the usual reason is because the the muslims themselves are not going to support him, you see um, and and so he's not coming until that... point is reached where they reach a certain desperation, you know, of course, assuming that they are the ones who are struggling, you know, for him to come, so i think it was very important for many of our massaged and so for to let us know that we need to sort of be maddis in a a certain limited sense in order to prepare the way first coming, um, the other thing about what should be done, um, i think, i mean it goes back to the the... the the very beautiful hadith by the holy prophet sallallahu alaihi where he says when a muslim is confronted with wrong doing um they should change it with their hands if they can't do that then they shoulduh speak about with

their tongues and if they can't do this hate it in their heart and hating in the heart is the least the sign of the least eman that you would have or the least sign of iman you know um so um direct action okay could mean for example muslims trying to seek political power or social power in the environment in which they have which they are. so that would maximize their ability to make an effort among our communities for example what we should be thinking about is let's say settling into different parts of the city as majority parts of the societies that we live as a majority especially in the west where we could have influence upon um the voting process and that type of thing for example um in birmingham you know you you you can't easily get away with um rsc of programs, what i mean, because you muslims control the board of education, etc. etc. this is what we need, you know, you find that muslims are always spread all over the place, it it it minimizes

our effect, you know, you things like this, um, you know, with respect to gaza, it's very important how gazza opens up, to us the the the lying of the society, the governments that we are in, fact that they are bribed that they are they are they are actually being paid off you know that is an undermining of democracy and things like this you know what i mean so i think these are lot of challenges that we have to to to pose to the system to the environment you know to be able to bring that type of empowerment for us yeah and and i think one thing that's uh maybe is key in these types of times is things that have run their course if you will i think we're getting to point where people are losing faith in democracy right? they understand that maybe in the western model democracy doesn't actually exist because both parties, if you have two-party system are controlled by the same kind of banking influences in the background, so maybe all of

these things need to run their course until humanity gets to the point where they realize okay we need a divine intervention now and that's what we need to be preparing for sheikh, i would love to have this conversation with you for lot longer, unfortunately we are out of time and likewise said kazmy as well, thank you for joining us uh with your fantastic contributions. i'd like to also thank you at home for watching this very special episode, inshallah you can join us again next week for another edition of iron islam.

it seems the israeli occupation will conclude the ground operation in the city of khan unis in southern gaza within days withdrawing thereafter to the newly established security zone along the... border with gaza, just as it did weeks ago in the city of gaza and its surroundings to the north. does this mean that the next step is to begin the ground operation in rafah? it appears that the decision regarding the operation is still pending, not only for field related reasons, but lot of regional players prefer the negotiating path to end designist aggression against gaza, hence all eyes are now a possible improved prisoner exchange deal both in form and content compared to the first paris formula reached between qatar, egypt. the united states and design israeli entity last january. gaza talks underway this week on the media stream.

information about palestine abounds on social networks, many times without context. they do not allow us to go deeper and understand all the dimensions of a catastrophe that is dragging on for centuries. daniel hardway, chilean mayor of palestinian origin, opens a window to palestine to understand in depth the present cause of the palestinian people, exploring its history and future prospects. do not miss a window to palestine.

palestine has risen from the ashes, the nation has gone a long way in its struggle against the occupation regime of israel, from throwing stone to flying drones. but who can deny iran's decades long support in this arduous journey.

it speaks with me, the saint of the soil. from the blood and the ashes, it speaks with me the sound of the rain, from the battle,

and the victory, victory, victory, victory. oh palestine, i free you, oh palestine, i feel you, oh palestine. i free you, oh palestine, i free you, my every prayer is a cry to my enemy, and i cry out, cry out, cry

out to the evil enemy, the flame within my heart will burn you. i cry out and the thunder in my voice will deafen you. i cry out and the tornado within my soul will will you away. my bleeding wound once felt those on forgotten but the aching sorrow in me never gone i raise it will my

anger and love love of my land anger at your deeds i raise it with my anger and love, love of my land, anger at your dead, wounded by hatred, i'm breathing, breathing, breathing, the magic person. if you mark my homeland palestine, wounded in love, my hands turn around the branches of the olive tree, seeking peace, seeking peace, but as long as

the pillows of our children are drenching blood, as long as you have. the thorn crown of evil force, i'm a flaming thunder and tornado, and i cry out, i cry out, oh my god, i pray you, i missed you, oh my son, i pray you,

how designists come from across the world to palestine to occupy a land belonging. to another nation, how do they form their secret army, hagana? how do they grab lands belonging to palestinians? how did they build and expand their illegal settlements? israel's former prime minister goldomir answers these and more questions in this documentary.