asalamualaikum, peace be upon you and welcome to eye on islam, the show where we look at current affairs through an islamic lens. one of the biggest responsibilities that muslims have been endowed with has been to propagate islam and spread awareness about the causes that are most important to the muslims. it's also amplified. by the fact that the world is

under the spell of the zionist owned and controlled media empire which is uniquely hostile to muslims and islam, evidence by their shameful coverage of the genocide in gazza and other issues related to islam. in this week's episode we will explore what the responsibilities of muslims are in propagating the religion, defending the muslims and islam with the tongue, and clarifying the falsehoods of the global media. first we take a look at what the religion of islam says about these matters in the holy texts of the religion. the religion of islam is and has been from its conception fast growing religion. one of the reasons for that has been the focus on propagating the religion or performing dower, literally calling others to the straight path. it is also a religion that calls its followers to correct misconceptions and falsehoods as well as enjoying the good and forbidding the evil. first we can go to the holy quran to learn what islam says about propagating the religion to others. in surah 41, ayah 33,

allah ta'ala says, who is better in speech than one who calls to allah, does righteous deeds and says, indeed, i am amongst the muslims. in surah 16, ayah 125, allah also says, call to the way of your lord with wisdom and good preaching. thus it is a direct command from god, that believers must propagate the religion of islam wherever they are, and must do so with the best of man. and etiquet allah taala also instructs the believers to enjoin the good and forbid the evil. you are the best nation raised up for humankind. you enjoy in righteousness, forbid corruption, and you believe in allah. this concept of calling others to the right path and calling out wrong behavior or ideas is also found in a famous hadith of the prophet muhammad. who says, "whoever of you sees wrong being committed, let him rectify. it

with his hand, if he is unable, then with his tongue, and if he is unable, then with his heart, and this is the weakest of faith, and this is a theme which has been explored in a recent book released by the leader of the islamic republic of iran, ayatullah khamanai, entitled. this means the struggle against misconceptions, which, as he points out, is even more important a duty on muslims in an age where social media and the mainstream media, spread such damaging lies about muslims as well as others who find themselves in the firing line of the global zionism and its western government puppets. to discuss this important topic are two very special guests. we're honored to welcome dr. razza john vedadi, who is a multiple award winning filmmaker based in london. over the past 12 years, dr. vadadi has directed, produced and filmed over 50 documentaries that delve into the west asian, muslim identity and culture and has also presented academic papers at

numerous institutions across the world. also joining us is the esteemed sister sahar jabar. sahar has an honors degree in sociology and communication studies from mcmarsy university. she resides in lebanon where she studies at the islamic seminary. she co-founded figs and olives publications and islamic publishing house aiming to provide reliable and impactful resources for parents, institutions and children in english. asalamuam alaikum to you both. thank you for. joining us on the show uh sister jab but if i could begin with you, we just saw in the video at the top of the show some of the verses that allah has revealed uh for the muslims to understand their duties in propagating the religion of islam, what are your thoughts first of all on some of those verses that allah has revealed? i think those verses stress on the idea in fact that the prophets themself, their main role in this world uh was to propagate islam, that's the very essence in the... purpose of a prophet

himself, and so what allah does is he does not stop at the prophet, it is not possible that the prophet was the last one to propagate islam, and then we should continue in our ways. what allah asks from us is for us ourselves to propagate islam, and so understanding this verse is that we have a responsibility in ourselves to be a representation for allah, to be a representation on this earth, in the way of god, lot of individuals in this day, especially because of the society we're in, the feminine society we're in, they're very afraid to put on their what their beliefs or what they actually uh think would be true to others. because they don't want to enforce anything, they don't want to enforce any religion, but islam itself says you need to propagate in the way of your actions, propagate islam, because that's the very essence of your purpose, what's to be a khalifa, what's to be a representation of god? absolutely, and um, there was another uh, well hadith actually that we touched upon

in that video, which is the prophet sallallah saying uh that muslims if they see a wrong, they should correct it by their hand if they can and if not by their tongue, and if not then at least opposed. in their hearts, which of course is the lowest form of belief. what do you think are the duties of muslims when it comes to enjoining the good and forbidding the evil? when we talk about forbidding the evil and and joining the good, the reason why there's different levels is because if you can do it by tong, it's the best of course to speak, but however we know in this day and age sometimes someone cannot accept and maybe even they will put some force on you in a way in which is unacceptable, and so at that manner uh enjoining good and forbidding evil will even go towards your eyesight and so in a way in which you do not s them um that you uh are smiling or that you excell or accept what they're saying. even says, call the people towards islam without using your tongue to the point in which your very representation in the workforce um in the community, it's a representation of what it means to be a muslim and in force people are

then questioning about islam. we see for instance uh in gazah right now what's happening so many are converting to islam because they are seeing not by words, not by the tongue, but by the actions, what it means to be a muslim, and they are being introduced to it in a beautiful way, absolutely, and dr. vadadi as well, i would maybe pick up the same point with yourself, anything to add on that? i think also one one thing i always thought about is those people who are muslims from the muslim ummah, from the muslim community, and they don't havetion to what we're discussing in the sense that sometimes they accept injustice, um, i think sometimes we have to remember that, justice starts in the heart and so we need to reevaluate, that's why it goes if you can it by tongue, by hand, by tongue, then the heart, cuz it initiating the heart, if your heart is not purely against oppression, doesn't matter what your tongue says, it eliminates from the heart, so that's why it's important that we go back to the root being the heart, and

those who are not eminating the against oppression, they need to reevaluate their connection with islam and allah, that something is not correct in their heart, and if i can say with you, doctor um, you know, you're a media professional, you're somebody who has vast experience over decades, i want to get your thoughts in terms of the global media, how, uh, we know that they are controlled by zionists or those are sympathetic to zionists or funded by zionist capital, um, how do they use that media to defein muslims and islam? so there's various tactics used by media to defame any any group, if we look at the muslim, they use lot of uh tactics, for example, stereotyping and generalizing muslim activities and lumping it with small number of people that may be doing something that's uh wrong or or inaccurate towards islam, then they start one thing they use is framing, so they frame muslims in a specific way, they use a military language

when they describe muslims, so it's a jihad when um terrorist act happens and it happens to be a muslim, but it's a lone wolf or or or or a crime when... "it's a non-muslim, the they use a divisive between them and us, they don't accept our values, they don't, they come to this country, they don't, they want to impose their shariah onto us, it's them and us, so um, and there's also political motivations behind this, it's not, so people always say just sionism, i think sianism is one of the one of the puzzles and the jigsaw of anti-muslim, so capitalism is also part of that, because what islam says is promote justice." 'm and justice is everyone having a fair share in the society they live in, but capitalism is about capitalism is about enriching a small number of people, and the concept of zinanism falls into that, it's it's used to uh bring a certain group of people down, unfortunately palestine, but

also used outside, and it's interesting because you know in the recent years we have got even more amplified buse you got social media now so there's people receiving their news or the information in their phones'. but we see the same pattern repeating in terms of the social media companies, big tech companies kind of uh closing down on people or or clamping down on uh censoring voices, would you agree so? "this concept goes back to for example what noem chamski, the professor from america said that they manufacture consent, so before social media in the last 15 years became really popular, they would use it through newspapers and then tv, cinema, radio, and now we have those, but then top of that we have social media, which is the one people more engage with more, and we know from many um articles and uh news that came out that the american government is directly in contact with all the major." tech companies so facebook, instagram to the point where fbi would give them requests to remove these accounts or shut down people who use

these hashtags and so forth and so on, and we know all of us, i think all of us who watch this program would have realized now since what happened from september the 7th, lot of accounts have become shadow band, so you go in, you see a post that they've put on and you want to share it, you can't, the option of sharing that account is not possible because the enforcement by anti um, anti-muslim uh groups has become so powerful that lot of accounts have been impacted by now so social media may be supposed to be democratic uh it's definitely more decentralized people have more yeah and especially as you said between since october the 7th it has been the case where um we've seen the media companies try to control it more but still the pro- palestinian element does uh get through now i and islam spoke to people in london to ask them their thoughts on the... responsibilities that believers have when it comes to these matters. okay,

it's important and you can practice it in your day-to-day life, and uh, you will do it by the people you speak to, through your actions, through your behavior, how you present yourself, obviously as for myself as a muslim, i wear the hijab, and how i carry myself in public, how i speak to my colleagues, my friends, even strangers in public, even people on the tube might be watching what i do, all of that is a part of that. and it will show um it's combatting how others might see us and i think it is important, it's done that and that were little bit by bit every day. yes, during this time it's really important to do jihad tabin and to speak up, especially with what's happening in gaza and the genocide and everything that's being committed, so yes we do have to speak up more than ever. i think arguably is more important for the everyday muslim, even more so than... say the important figures or the influential figures, because those people, the everyday person is

the one whom the non-muslims get their impression of islam from, and they form their idea of this is what the typical muslim is. arguably that's one of our most important duties as muslims in the west, um, and it's a very important opportunity we have is to to bridge that gap to the non-muslims, and historically this was one of the most important forms of data, for example, the thing is... since 911 we thought we'd made lot of inroads in terms of the media, in terms of representation, in terms of the media understanding our point of view and putting it forward. what we're recently seen with gaza is that either that was fasad or it's been tirely rolled back, and there's been incredibly islamophobic outporing in the media, very one-sided view, a barely any sort of muslim or arab or middle eastern or global south voices being expressed except for example in al-jazera and for handful of other places, lot of journalists have been removed from their positions like mahdi hassan famously. so it's been an incredibly difficult time, but it's also a time where we are where we must fight back, where we must

assert ourselves, assert our point of view, assert our narrative and champion our course, 100% sour islamic duty, whether it's on the microscale by informing your friends and family and by people that you know in your workplace or whether it's on the political on the macro level, whether we're joining political parties or joining political movements and joining protest movements and joining you know direct action causes where we're shutting down um and blocking. uh what's it called weapons factories and so forth, it is definitely our duty, especially because i believe there's a hadith the prophet forgive me if i must quote it, it is the duty of every believer he sees injustice to act upon it with their hands and if they cannot do so with their mouths and the lowest form of jihad is with their hearts, so certainly if we're able to we must insert ourselves in all these spaces to push forward our points of view and to stand up for justice and human rights. so it's just a job we had the opinions of some of the muslim community. there in terms of their responsibilities, but in terms of yourself, what do you think are our responsibilities in

terms of clarifying, misconceptions and lies that are pushed out by the global hegemony? i think first and foremost we have to understand that we have a responsibility in the first place, many maybe assume that a sheich or someone that's uh active on social media, they can take on this role, but in reality it comes down to god chose for you a position in which you are in a geographic, a cultural... systematic area for a reason, because you can have influence in a way in which someone else cannot, they are not equal, and so to have and recognize that you have influence in the first place is necessary, then to understand that you have the language. "and the ability and the mechanism to do a form of uh in which other people cannot uh is necessary, and so in the media right now with the misconsumptions are happening, this is no different than the time of sayab in which she was going and fixing the misconceptions that were happening against her son, against her brother imam hussain, and we need to take on the misconceptions that are happening against us

and be a leader and be a representative towards them, and so it is obligation of every muslim, um, it is necessary for us to be..." active role to to recognize our abilities, what we have to offer, um, and then on that basis actually be an active member in society in dealing with it, and um, brother, yourself, uh, what do you think are the responsibilities of muslims, and also i'll go to the next question as part of that, do you think muslims are doing enough to fulfill those responsibilities? um, i think there's always space to improve, uh, we have started in the last 10, 20 years for muslims to be active in various fields, so if we can break. it down into let's say five engaging within media, being part participating in media, creating media content, we have lot of muslims who are active on social media, but we have some muslims are active in uh the mainstream media, so you have momar who did a show and he's proud to be a palestinian in it, we had someone like rami, fortunately some of the shows like rami's one had some problematic elements to it, but you see more

engagement, but there's it's not enough, there's still a need for it, there's the utilization of media, so we need people... active positive influences on social media, who don't sell out, if you know what i mean, that's very important, so if i if i can name a person for example, i would uh say uh said hussein miki, he's a very good influence on social media, he sticks to his values and it tries to avoid sending out to uh mainstream concepts, community outreach, we used to do lot of programs like love muhammad which engaged with inter faith and intra faith, there's also the uh mosks opening up. up during uh ramadan, maybe that could be something that happens more often, not just once year for example, and also education and media literacy, i personally participate in a love media literacy for our community so then they can engage with their children, i think that's important because we always think media is entertainment, we don't realize that ideology is embedded in media, so unless we can dissect it and take it apart, how do we

explain it to our to our children, to our youth and to others, so it's very important that we have media literacy as part. i think one thing i always notice is especially in the uk but maybe in other parts of the west as well is while the media is hostile the culture especially somewhere like london is actually very pro muslim because there are a lot of muslims here and a micro level there's a lot of micro influencing so you'll see you know non-muslims who all of their friends are muslim in school and they'll ever accept the religion or they'll be fasting in ramadan in solidarity with their brothers and sisters or their friends. and so i think that's also as important as like the higher level kind of media work is literally influencing your own yeah your own people around your own communities a very like modular level um and sister sah just a maybe slightly related topic as as obviously a sister and a student of knowledge as well in in the houser what do you think is a responsibility for sisters for women especially in in these kind of

responsibilities so i would take it upon myself i i never intended to be an active member on social media yeah. i never wanted it, it wasn't something i was aiming for, um, but my husband and i, who is also an islamic islamic seminary, we both felt like it was responsibility upon us to actually talk, take this role, be active members, speak on truth and actually represent islam and the hijab in a way in which suits uh us. right now, lot of, as the brother said, lot of muslim influencers are saluts, especially when it comes to females, they think that their role, they've lost purpose of the hijab and they think their role as an influencer. is to be someone that advertises uh clothing, but you have a bigger role to advertise what it means uh to be woman in society, what it means to be member of uh zainabiah, fatimiyah with women specifically, the reason in which uh their role in responsibility through the tongue is more important is because that's soly the role in which woman can perform, she does not have the right to go by arms and so

her form ofin is to go by tongue and to speak and to propagate especially. since woman has the ability to uh speak eloquently um in a way in which she can actually impact society more so um than others and so whether or not she's influencing uh those around her and her family members or in society every woman has an active responsibility yeah absolutely um and just to stay with you as well um what would you say are some of the projects that you involved in or some of the kind of uh movements that you're involved in? on this front, so specifically on social media, on instagram, that's definitely where i work the most in order to fix lot of misconceptions that we have uh towards islam uh towards the hijab, towards femininity, our book publication is was literally created and manifested just for that reason, it was manifested because i was afraid if i were to have daughter, how would i teach her about

the hijab in in a society in which will call woman a towel head or anything like that? so what's important for us is to actually understand that we have the ability to influence um through our work in media, and that's a figs and olive publications, okay we have to get that plug in there and yourself dr. vidadi, you're somebody that i've known for. uh many years and you've always been at the forefront, what are just very quickly some of the uh kind of projects and the work that you've done or are doing to this and things that i like to promote would be uh media literacy, so if anyone watch this and is interested in the community to engage in media literacy so we can empower parents, we can empower individuals and they can empower their children, which i think is always best the parents educate their children, i'm happy to work with them uh, we have some events happening in april, i'm happy to do more, people interested in publishing as sister sah said, also i'm thinking about uh bringing authors who've written interesting content, different world view from uh the east,

bringing it to the west, and also people who may be interested in films, film festivals, organizing al-quds, we can have al-quds international film festival that promotes the concepts of resistance to what's happening in imperialism, so these are things that i'm happy to engage with anyone who wants to reach out, they can use my name in social media, they'll find me email me and i'm happy to work with them and it's interesting that you say uh or you talk about the importance of educating people about the media, i had very young education, my older sister when we were kids used to tell me and point things out in movies, so for example we watched back to the future and there was a very negative perception of libyans and arabs in the film, and very young, we must have been, i was seven, she was nine and she said look how they portray the arabs in the film, so i had the education growing up, not everyone might have that in the home, so it's good that you are doing. uh that work for people to understand the agendas behind some of this mass media, and before we leave, i know that both of you have prepared small pieces of poetry, so i'll start with you, dr. vadadi,

this to read perhaps a bit of poetry that is relevant to this topic, so my my poem is from famous iranian poet, persian poet from the 13th century called sati, and it touches on the heart that we discussed and caring about the umah in general, and he starts with, and this is top of the un building, human beings are member of a whole increed. creation of one essence and soul. if one member is afflicted with pain, other members uneasy will remain. if you have no sympathy for human pain, the name of human you cannot retain. thank you so much and sister. so this poetry is off of who is the sister of shahed. if it is said old fashioned you are, care not and steadfastly continue to be. say i am the daughter of the message from it's light, i get guidance, my shyness has not prevented me from the highs, it has not shackled my hands, no, and this veil hinders me not from my aim, oh sister, the morrow is ours, go on your

path upwards, oh sister, the truth rises above, the cunning of the aggressors, and in in short, this poetry really touches upon the idea that woman, her shyness, her hayat, her modesty, these are all representation of propagation for a greater truth, she is capable to do more than to follow what the western forces are to believe she is. thank you so much for that poetry, sister, and dr. fadadi, and thank you for your contributions to the show, sadly that is all that we have at time for this week, and thank you at home for watching as well, we will uh be joined by yourselves and other guests next week for another edition of eye on islam.

ramadan in iran where ancient traditions. blend with modern celebrations to create a truly unforgettable spiritual journey, where everything comes alive with the spirit of the holy month, a unique experience like other. these and more on this edition of iran today.

you press tv headlines eran's consulat building in syria's capital damas damascus comes under attack, several people have been confirmed dead and commander of iran's irgc goods core in syria. iran and hamos called for international investigation of crimes committed in gaza's al shifa hospital which was under iof attack for over two weeks. the islamic resistance in iraq says a stage fresh attacks on israeli targets in the port city of ialat in response to regime's genocide in gaza.