assalamu alaikum, peace be upon you and welcome to i and islam, the show we look at current affairs through an islamic lens each week we evaluate a trending news. story and

we break it down from an islamic perspective. of the holy month of shaban is upon us and for millions of muslims it is a 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 of 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 be 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 of messiah, often called king messiah, or in hebrew "melek" 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 truthful from birth and continue. 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, and righteous judge who will assist the poor and oppressed. 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 of zionists in the last century. to justify the displacement, occupation and genocide 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. but 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 of 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 famine 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 ahmed al hanif. sheikh alhanif is one of our honorable scholars who is unapologetic in his islamic duty of condemming the oppression in palestine. he graduated from the islamic seminary in qom and lectures in in the uk and

on skype we're honored to welcome said am kazmi who is a political and legal analyst who helps run the left legal fighting for 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 uh islamic seminary so perhaps your best uh suited to tell us uh exactly what is this concept or this notion of mahtawiya for our audience? um bismillahirrahmanirrahim salam alaikum so nice to be here, um, well mahdawiya uh, first and foremost is very common theme in um, all of the major religions in the world, you know, and i'm

talking not only in the within the abrahamic traditions, but also the non abrahamic traditions, okay, like hinduism, uh, and buddhism, for example, just... mentioned two the most important ones, um, all of them um uh 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. 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? well, as you say, i mean si of course both agree that there will be

this messianic figure from the lineage of prophet muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family who will appear on earth before the day of judgment and just building on what the... sheikh was mentioning that of course you will fill the world with justice, there's also a consensus that isa, prophet jesus, peace of blessings be upon him, will pray behind imamdi, there are some you small theological differences there about the role 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. 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 know the understand standing 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 a debate that's long been ongoing uh 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 imamdi 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, 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, because it is not. essential a belief to be a muslim right, you can be a muslim and not believe in the imam, 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 uh such figure you know um

the uh 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 nevertheless 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 um 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 the divine promise. allah for the upprise 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 you're sunni or shia 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. is the savior that we're waiting for, we all want to serve the ah, but

we were not in, we all wish that if we were there we would have served to serve the ah, but we weren't, now if comes we can serve the ah, we need to the imam mahdi for he when he come inshallah he gna regule everything and the palestine he come and the to us again, so imam mahdi symbolizes justice obviously as we know he's supposed to be doing. 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 sayid if i could come back to you, earlier in the show you discussed of course those who say you should be actively. preparing for the imam's return, others saying, we should just wait and be quietest

if you will, there are many who look at the prophets and the past imams and the narrations about imam and mahdi, they say that he will be socially active, you will be like an activist as well, what will the world look like in the event of imamdi emerging on earth? what is building on something that sheikh 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 hasen his appearance is a sign uh that the day of judgment is very very near and of course the day of judgment is going to appear in circumstances when the world is in you know very very bad state and of course you know 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 you know best known 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 theology, the imam is already on earth, he is present with us, he sees the injustice that is happening for example in aghaza, 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, what have you been doing, while i have been in occultation, what have you been doing while you've had the opportunity to at least say

something verbally if not, literally take action, what is our response going to be, we have to be thinking. that the arrival of our imam is imminent and working towards that and so we have to be uh 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 i 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 abramic eschatology 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 them around the world, the probably more christian zianis than the raw jewish zianis who want to see the destruction of baituldis,

masjid alaqsa and the creation of the third temple of solomon as a prerequisite for the return of uh jesus for the second coming of jesus, now we have number of narrations ourselves about the land of palestine, not just al quds but ghalan, 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 the himself, 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 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, samar. sheikh hanif one of the things that's always interested me is that argument about do we sit by passively or do we actively move forward as muslims to try to prepare for the coming of imam mahti

which could be in any era. muslims for thousands of years or thousand years at least have had this uh thought one of the things that interests me as well is post revolution in 1979 in iran is the constitution actually the islamic republic of iran says that this state is actually belongs to imam al mahdi. it's fundamentally a gift, a idea, and this was one of the driving forces behind imam khumeini's revolution, which is that fundamentally at the end of everything what we are doing is a gift, hadia, a preparation for imamdi, how important is that, what should believers be doing in anticipation of the coming of? the imam, yeah, um, that's very a very, very interesting and very great idea, conversation, right, i 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 upon 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, i'm 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's talking about the people of shaib, you know, and it's the town where it's let's say i think about hundred, h thousand inhabitants, and allah is

going to said he's going to destroy this town, um, which had um... "40,00 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 why are you going to destroy the whole town? the majority of 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, following the imam." um, there are two types of followers, you know, there's one follower who does not take initiative, right, and another, one, one follow who's just waiting to get to get to get the order, they carry the order, then the... sit 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 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, you know from a shia point of view or why he's not yet born sent to this world from a sini point. point of view, you know, and the usual reason is because uh, 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 um, 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 mahdis in a in a certain limited sense in order to prepare the way for his coming. um, the other thing about what should be done, um, i think, i mean it goes back to

the the the very beautiful hadith by the holy prophet sallallah where he says when a muslim is confronted with wrongdoing, they should change it with their hands, if they can't do that, then they should speak about it with their tongues and if they can't do this, hate it in the heart, and hating in the heart is the least, the sign of the least demand that you out." 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 in, 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, the parts of the societies that we live in as a majority, especially in the west, you know, where we could have influence. upon um uh uh 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 rse types of

programs, you know what i mean, because you know muslims control the board of education etc etc. this is what we need, you find that muslims are always spread all over the place, it it it minimizes our effect, you know, um, you things like this, um, uh, you know uh with respect to gaza, it's very important how gazza opens up you know to us the the uh the lying of the society of the governments that we are in, the 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 mean so i think these are lot of challenges that we have to to tose 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 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 saidmy as well, thank you for joining us 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 alaikum warahmatullah.

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 hadway, chilean mayor of palestinian origin, opens a window to palestine, to understand in depth the present cause of the palestinian people

exploring. history and future prospects. do not miss a window to palestine. this week on expose, although aaron bishnell explicitly stated that his actions were a protest. against the zionist entities genocide of palestinians, western media misreports his motivation as a protest against the israeli hamas war. a debunked article claiming that hamas sexually assaulted palestinian women during the al-aqsa flood operation causes contraversy for the new york times, and pro-palestinian activists praised bushnell as a hero who succeeded in bringing attention to the calamity and genocide suffered by the palestinian people. right here on expose a.

"the truth is just a revelation away. in late 2023, south africa filed case at the end national court of justice, icj over the israeli apart regime's genocidal war against palestinians in the besieg gaza strip. south africa stated that the televive regime has failed to uphold its commitments under the 1948." convention south africa filed the laws against the israeli regime at the end of december, noting that israel's actions in gaza that started last october are genaling character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part the palestinian national, racial and ethnic group. we have a special guest to discuss the topic today. he's none other than south african ambassador to iran, his excellency dr. francis moloy. thank you, mr. ambassador for your time today. thank you very much for

inviting me, mubarak. it's a pleasure. first to be headlines as the west israeli genesided in gaza continues for the 155th day, the death don nears 31,000 mostly women and children. the military wing of hamas says his main priority in a potential prisoner swap deal with israel is a complete end to the aggression on the gaza strap. and yemen's army announces conducting two naval operations against american ships and destroyers in the red sea and the gulf of aiden.