arguing in miss declaration center, sit sentencing virus back on full council course convictions handed down here. earlier this month, under the insolvency act related to hiding his assets off to his bankruptcy in june, 2017. as you said, that hiding the fact that the property in germany shares in a tech company and hundreds of thousands in cash being put into the accounts of his ex wife and his estranged wife for respect is here. of course, in court to hear his sentence, he amassed in total a $50000000.00 fortune as a tennis player winning wimbledon 3 times among 6 grand slam titles. all of that money square witted away rather as the result of a famously lavish lifestyle. a famously messy and expensive divorce and financial mismanagement with india and pakistan with temperature as well above average for this time of year, temperatures have gone past 45 degrees celsius causing power outages and straining

health services come out high. there has more from islam about did the law mang because bog, hassan did not receive the kind of rain that it normally gets in the winter months . and then the spring, which den heads fill all the red, the wide which are needed for agricultural broad youth. so dad was 100 and 26th friday night and a garden greg for any long duration of explored yard. the dead kind of temperature can lead to all good failure. that happened that the honey facade had mosque around 2 p. m. local time. the un secretary general antonio terrace is described. ukraine is an epicenter of unbearable pain. after meeting me, the president zalinski says, an operation will begin on friday to get civilians out of the hours of star steel plant and besieged mar your pole. an estimated 1000 people are trapped there, along with 2000 ukrainian soldiers. russia has kept up air strikes despite an

agreement in principle, to provide safe corridors for evacuations. war than 12000000 people in the chinese city of shanghai can finally leave their homes. after nearly a month, a flock downs restrictions have been lifted in areas where there has been no coven, 19 infection. for 2 weeks. you're up to date with the latest headlines on al jazeera up. next, it's the stream. thanks for watching bye. for now. on counting the cost, the world's richest man is buying twitter. so what will ala moss game warnings of a huge build up of death in the world forest countries? we should foot the bill. and paul is running low on foreign currency. reserve is an economic crisis. moving company, the cost on al jazeera i i have the okay down the street. we have a special episode with the author harun merkle. he's also

a commentator about muslims and islam affairs. and he has been a guest on the stream way back to the days when we used to have an orange. so. busy in the studio, his latest book is called 2000000000 caliphs, and that is why we want him to be in the studio with us today part of our conversation. i roon, welcome back. so good to see you. as you describe yourself sometimes as making muslim this your trade. when did that start? how did that start started? when i went to where i grew up, i grew up in small town in massachusetts, then in connecticut, and i was pretty much the only brown good. certainly the only balsam, didn't everyone wanted an explanation about anything and everything we did that was a little bit different and that just became kind of 2nd nature. i think for a lot of american muslims and folks were minorities. that's just something we do all the time. and then unfortunately, after september 11th, that became something we had to do all to do. and really it's, it's been the passion of my life and the focus of so much my work for pretty much

the last 20 something years. and i, i, the way i, i often see hearing is because she talk about issues around muslims and islam. and you're accessible and you break things down fil a little bit. like when a doctor goes to party, people that like go back, you go somewhere and people start asking about, is rob and who, what do you think about this? what are you think about that? are you comfortable having that ro? well, my favorite part about that analogy is that i grew up in a south asian community in the united states where pretty much everybody other than me or the doctor know me quite you what to do with. and the upside to that is that nobody ever looks at you during a fundraiser, that kind of look the other way to figure out that the writer probably are going to be donating anything here. but it is something i think that we should be comfortable with. i know there is a narrative out there that it's, it's incumbent as an obligation on people to go find information. but i think when you're a minority, it's really a privilege and an honor and a responsibility to try to tell the story that people may not have access to and,

and change the narrative and change the story. so glad you said that because we have a chip audience right now. the online, the comment section is available for our audience to talk to you directly. they've got thoughts, questions for you. comment sections right here, hurry, i will bring some of their thoughts to you. you, you will have a journey and i fill in 2000000000 callous that i, i take that journey with you from where you, where was a kid to where you are now and credible maturity. when you a youngster, you practice islam and you did what you were told. and now in this book, you're understanding what it was that you were told and putting in a contemporary setting. tell me about that, jenny, why you want to share it. i heard a lecture a few weeks back by professor an educator who said that in this day and age we have this obsession with cramming information to the kids that we want them to know all

these facts and all these dates and all these timelines. when we ourselves don't even know where the world's going to be in 10 years or 15 years, and we don't even know if any of that information can be relevant. and what we should be doing is we should be giving them resilience confident. i feel like they can figure things out for themselves. and i think what i really feel blessed by in my upbringing is that my parents really tried to make me feel like i could handle the obligations of being a muslim in america on my own. and it took me a long time and there were a lot of failures and mistake along the way. but i feel like i've reached a point where i am comfortable contributing on my own terms and in my own ways to communities, our faith and our traditions. and our values to go on beyond us and to advance ahead of us than the people who carry them have to be able to survive without us, with the actual has rachel, but it came out in a force. he's one of the earliest readers. and he has a question for you. i'm going to play that question at a soon as you see the video video finished please. immediately,

he's missed. i really love this book to build in kayla by her removal to delight to read really. besides all the information and all the history, it's just a great pros and cons into her own. you use a term caleb's 2000000000 keyless which may shock people because they may think of caliphate as a whole goal is to sion. but you're referring to most muslim individuals as keyless . so what do you mean by that? like, are you trying to transform political vision into a more individualistic vision of islam that i'll be sympathetic to that, but i'm really happy to learn what you exactly mean by that. so i think it was the absolutely hit the nail on the head caliphate and the use of the term kayla from the title was a little bit intended because i knew it would stop people in a bookstore and potentially browsing and say, wait a minute. what does that mean? it's a term that, unfortunately, but understandably,

has some really negative residences given, especially the events of the last 10 years or so in california is associated with not just a political institution, but a really violent and authoritarian from a political institution by digging into the history of islam and the source text. i found that the 1st mention of kayla and kayla faith is actually in the story of adam and eve. and to put it really succinctly and really simply, basically the most of the conception is that every single human being male and female from the beginning of our species to be under a species regardless of religion, regardless of wealth or class to create or color. every single individual is a keyless which is just an arabic word that originally means something like a steward, someone who acts on someone else's behalf. and so we're all tasked by god to live out and to build a better world. and so, yeah, it is a kind of political vision, but it's a d, stabilizing one and a democratic one. it, lets take power away from hierarchies and dynasty isn't authorities that enrich and

empower themselves that everyone else's expense. and let's say no authority, morally and ethically, actually belongs to every single person. and that's the kind of world we should be constructing as muslims, and with people of other faith or no size. me heard in your work and how you talk about islam is how much you respect women, how important they are in the muslim faith. and you basically right as a feminist. so into building callis, you rethink the stories of some key women in islam whose stories seem to be, was pushed to the background. what do you think? hedge i was think about this. what do you think it was like to have to leave your baby in the desert and go look for water and get thinking about it? not from the man's perspective, but from the woman's perspective, that is quite radical. you questioning the whole way islam is framed from

a patriarchal perspective and making it more feminist. yeah, it's, and it's something that it was beautifully enough. and fittingly enough, in the time since the book was finished and went into publication, i got married and became a step father. and there's 3 kids in my life to home are teenage girls. and it becomes apparent to me in a very intense and visceral way on a daily basis. what are the ways in which we exclude and include people. and when we say we want every single person in our community to feel like they have a stake in the community, does that include everyone regardless of how they identify? again, gender, obviously you pointed out is immensely significant in terms of how much community organize themselves and include and exclude people. and not only that res class, at necessity worldview. so nisha, all those sort of things. and so one of my hopes with this book is yes, let's look at these stories from those perspective. but let's encourage everyone to

try to look at stories and be themselves in the different actors and narrative in those stories so that we find more meaning and more applicability and more relevant in those stories. not just in terms of what happened 1400 years ago, which of course is very important, but terms of what's happening right now. how did the story speak to one of the mean for us and our future? i mean, would you mind telling us one of those stories just briefly because i did a very in elegant summary, but i was drawn into thinking about this is classic islam where, where the face cross actually do days and is, and christianity. so there are lots of characters i already knew, but you rethink the story from a female perspective. give us an example. so the story that you alluded to, i think is a perfect one. hagar was the wife of abraham. and abraham, of course, is the sort of founding figure of judaism christianity, and farm, and n. he's pretty well known among those faith traditions, but hagar now lives and one of the most famous stories,

informative stories in the army tradition, is that hagar is abandoned by abraham with their infant, fun ishmael or mile. and airbag p. c on them all. and she's left in the valley that later becomes mecca with basically no food, no shelter, no resources of any kind. and. and essentially because god believe that she is up to the task of handling this moment. and i found 2 things particularly poignant and beautiful by that story. the 1st is that, that really, that chapter the founding story of islam begin with abraham leaving and hagar having responsibility for ishmael and for what happens next. and, and not only making sure that they're rescued, but making sure that a civilization grows up around that, incubate them and protect them and honor their value. and so she goes from a person who, you know, very much on the margins to a person is basically deciding that they of a civilization. and the final part of the story that i particularly beautiful is

that actually hagar is buried outside the car about which is the black cubicle shrine that muslims pray to words, which is the center of the great mosque and mecca, which probably many people have seen when when, for example, use the video clips of the hodge pilgrimage, so on and so forth, she's actually buried there. and i thought that story was so beautiful because when i was growing up, we were often told or saw around us. women are not allowed in cemeteries or funeral for various patriarchal reasons, so on and so forth. and they were entirely excluded from probably one of the most meaningful moments in any person's life, almost painful, but, but meaningful moment that any person's life. and yet here in mecca, at the heart of islam, at the very feet of every single pilgrim columns and we're talking about millions and millions of people is buried hagar and ishmael. and that i think it's such a powerful vision of the story of what's going from to people alone in the desert, to millions and millions and millions of people inspired by their journey and

motivated by their faith and trying to retrace their footsteps time and time again . we got in touch with my lawyer and he has a question for you. this is what he sent to us a few hours ago. well, most book, i really enjoyed it. it's part of a growing body of literature from wilson's in america discussing the most and experience, particularly the 2nd generation coming of age to it was touching, it was authentic. it was honest. and i recommend this book. um, particularly how he was authentic in the struggles of religion and family, which is something people need to open up. so the question i have is are for how long is the jew right? it's with the chit opening up the dialogue from motions in the west to discuss family issues and struggles with a well 1st out that it's really nice hearing from homer and one of the,

one of the things i love most about is writing. among many things is honest and fearless, and he just says exactly what needs to be said, and maybe it makes people uncomfortable, but we're much better off for the fact that we have people like him in our communities who are willing to challenge us on our received stereotypes and i think he's exactly right. i feel like in my own life, i made a lot of mistake and i struggled with a lot of received wisdom about phase and about my own role as, as a man, as a muslim, as a community leader, as a religious authority in some ways. and never really was able to figure that out because there weren't really enough resources and spaces where people talk about stuff like that. so my hope is, yeah, let's have some, some difficult conversations. and if you believe something is true and beautiful and valuable, then people will come back to it. maybe not in the way that i did it or that my parents did it, but they will come back to it. they will find inspiration in it. because ultimately these are the stories that nurture and inspire us and connect us. and if we have

space to have those conversations, we also take away one of the greatest challenges that young people have faith faith, which is sometimes they feel like they are. challenges are so unique that there's something wrong with that, that, that it's simply can't be possible that anyone else might share the same doubts or frustration that they share. and if you inhabit that kind of place internally, it's really psychologically damaging and devastating. and if instead you see like, hey, actually, you know, a lot of people are struggling with this. then you know, you realize you're just a human being and maybe if i could write another book, if you're a person, not a robot, right? we're not, we're not designed to simply inhabit a religious routine and do everything right. every single step of the way you can just ask me about those mother ramadan and how many ways i fell flat on my face. and i'm sure how anyway, let's count the ways if i can be honest here, so the muslims will immediately understand that but last night was the 27th night and it was many muslims,

especially sunday muslims considered the most sacred night, not only of ramadan, but of the entire year, it's called the night of power, and i was actually traveling, promoting the boat the last few days and didn't go to the mosque where i was, where i was based lots few days because i wanted to get my rest. and i wanted to make sure i could spend the whole night at the moss and you know, among the many things that went wrong, i mean one was actually just absolutely comic that i finally made it to the mosque far later than i want it to get there and i enter the prayer and there's a special supplication that's at the end of that or where, where services, where are the mom and the whole congregation? we really just open up our, our heart and soul and just beg god for forgiveness. and for all the things we need and we want, and i'm sitting there and i'm in the middle of this incredible moment. and then one, the microphone goes off and no one can hear anything anymore. and nobody knows what to do because we're all frozen in prayer. and i'm like, well this is not what i expected and then out of nowhere because this is how my brain works. i was like, wait, did i do like, did i do my absolution before i got here? like is my prayer even valid?

and there's probably 700 people here and there's probably 50 people in line to get to the bathroom. so does that mean my prayer doesn't count, and i mean that basically my 27th and i was spend to like, i realize that's life, right. just yeah. a different times in your life, you're a different places and there's different realities. and that's the messiness and beauty of picking up on the message of you wrestle and you share some of the biggest most controversial hot topics in islam which started in catholic islam and then trying to make it work for contemporary islam. war human sexuality, slavery weiss, one of my favorite chapters in your book is called adam and eve and eve and eve and eve. i laughed a lot, but i know where you were going with that. how are people reacting to you taking some of the tricky as topics in islam and trying to make them make sense in 2022 people liking it, or pushing back?

well, one of the most interesting responses i got was someone who read the book and concluded that i had come down hard on conservative positions on as mom. it's actually when i thought that i actually attempted a very nuanced balance attempt to saying, look, there are different ways of looking at these issues. and as the world moves into the 21st century and progressive ideas become more common and proliferate across a local basis, what we really need to do is come to terms with the fact that we will have different interpretations. and we have to learn how to coexist with those different interpretations. i tried very hard to be respectful of the immense sensitivities involved and the immense complexities involved. and i think i was so successful that i basically argued myself into both position in the minds of many readers who i think sometimes you will see what they want to see. what i'm trying to say instead is that actually the most important thing muslims can do is be honest about

what their text do and do not say for the fact is yes and early atomic history. muslim, did practice slavery. although, as i argue their understanding of what it was supposed to be with a radical revision of how the institution had been understood, of course, over time, tragically and inexcusably, that revision was entirely lost and the institution not only resurfaced, but became even more violent and vieno and more of an enormity, and so that was a failure on the part of last year when it comes to sexuality, i think in the last few decades, muslim communities has seen themselves in many respects, moving in a different direction from a lot of mainstream western society as well as other current and other cultures across the world. and that's going to present a major challenge. and i don't have a solution to that. because the problem as i laid out is that on the one hand we are dealing with people's most intense needs. basic human needs for intimacy,

companionship and partnership. they understand it and desire it. and on the other hand, at the heart of the muslim tradition, is this idea that god and the prophet muhammad peace be upon him. define what is and is not acceptable morally within where there is space or interpretation in re interpretation, phone and so forth. but broadly speaking, that's what it is. and if you challenge that, you're not just challenging a specific issue. you're basically saying that the founding principal with mom is no longer an operation. and what you're doing is you're d, stabilizing the entire faith. is it possible that someone may find a way out of that can under me? certainly, i don't think i'm that intelligent, but i have imagined every single possible interpretation or approach to an issue. what i'm trying to do is lay out the stakes in the spirit, ultimately saying, if we understand how intense the emotions and commitments involved are, we can at the very least respond to each other with sensitivity, with respect, with dignity. and this is another reason why in the book,

over and over again. i say that we need political, secular, not cultural, secular, political. we cannot impose interpretations of faith on people who don't share those interpretation. we can create room for different interpretations. we can acknowledge that we want always agree, but we certainly should never allow ourselves to be in a position where we are circumscribed in people's life choices. because they don't correlate how we understand. i have a look at my laptop, see what's on it. hello, hello. we anyway with now, i'll tell t, i feel like this is appropriate for the tone of your book because you go deep, you go seriously into classic islam. you're doing analysis, your understanding the text of the koran, and then up pops popular culture. explain, explain what is going on here more. the 1st thing when you brought up in skywalker the future. darth vader. i was just jealous of his hair and his eyes. i nodded back

a while. it was pretty good by his hair. definitely got my hair b. i what i really wanted to do with i've been fascinated by the fact that we've in american culture and probably around the world. we found heroes and, and super heroes and comic book characters and science fiction. so compelling. and i think it's because actually a bottom and this is a very, i think, a very universalist reading of religion. but i think it emerges from something consistent with it. at the end of the day, if i believe that every single human being with defended from adam and eve. and i believe that adam and eve were created to be kayla of god. then i have to believe that every human being has the same baseline, internal impulses for spirituality, for a connection to the divine for a desire for a meaningful place in the universe that truth transcends the biological material. and so star wars on the one hand, maybe to some people just seem silly, but i actually think that one of the reasons it's so popular is that it picked up

on these, these really deep human impulses at a time when belief in traditional religion was fading and so people were looking for another way to translate their desire for seeing good and evil and heroism and, and saga epics in the world. and i actually argue that in some ways, star wars helps us understand the story of adam and even the caliphate. because in a can skywalker, this kind of tragic hero goes from the promised chosen one into the embedded me of darkness embodied and then has for its oil or alert. but i'm sure everyone already knows you'll find some kind of redemption in the last moments in life. you ruined the syrian value, or i read the theories, but george lucas did too. and with those pre qual doesn't get started now because we have to have a whole show for what happens install was one of my favorite lines from, from your book was the most dangerous. if flaws often start out as the most promising jet, i, if you know star was that will make

a lot of sense to you. one more, one more comment for you and this is from a sad, has saying and simple question once the art. so here is most of the writing so far have been autobiographical memoirs. so what's next for you? what's your vision for your next book? your next piece. i was at mount holyoke college yesterday and i was giving a presentation at our dinner at the dinner that the meal, but most of them when they break their fast, immediately after sundown or shortly after sundown. depending on the type of muslim and decent presentation bad considering about 700 miles of air travel under my belt, and i was pretty hydrated and tired and. and then it came time to q and a and a woman in the back. and i can't remember her name, she raised her hand. it's a great question. she said, when things are tough, what gives you hope? and i don't know if this is a book project per se, but i do think there's something there. what are ideas and stories and

beliefs and commitments that give people strengthen tough time? because i do think that of course, on an individual level, we all go through really, really, really difficult times. but on a collective level, we, as a species are facing some enormous challenges from the pandemic, which, you know, is very much with us in many places of the world to the terrible reality of climate change, racism violence. we've got war in ukraine that threatens to spell out of there. and how do we keep ourselves going in such a way that we can commit to tackling the really tough stuff without losing faith in each other and, and ourselves. and i would like to explore muslim answer. so it's question not because other answers don't matter, but because those are answers that i think we don't hear enough. and i certainly don't think most of them here. oh, it sounds like you got that book already ready to go. let me show you where you can see her in the current book and also follow him online on facebook. 2000000000

tallies by her room, uncle, and south title. here is a vision of a muslim future. i remember always a pleasure having you on the street. many thanks for joining us today. take care. ah, [000:00:00;00] ah . name on the out is era frontline reporting an in depth analysis. we bring you the latest on ukraine war on the unfolding humanitarian crisis. documentaries that inspire whitney springs world issues into focus through compelling human stories

almost 6 decades after fidel castro's proclamation of the communist republic of cuba. we explore the issues shaping the country's future out 0 is investigative program, fault lines were times with a special series on abuse in the boy scouts of america, lebanon goes to the polls, but will political change help the country find its way out of its quickly economic crisis may on al jazeera actually can story from african perspective. i'm the marine biologist, a business when a short documentary from african kill me. i'm going to do that from south africa. ethiopia, paint nigeria, we been to go over some stuff in this class. she saw this, as my name's bible bond africa direct on al jazeera

ah al jazeera. when ever you actual capital, his chapter to which nature created rush, when nature is transformed into a commodity big business, takes a new interest by landscapes protecting landscapes. it's a phenomenal opportunity to be able to use a business model to achieve sustainability of major. but at what's risk, banks of course don't do that because they have at the heart protection of nature. they do that because to see a business in pricing the planets on al jazeera. ah, this is al jazeera ah,