Lecturer and academic Mohammed Hannini joins us this week to discuss the elections in the United States, the chaotic state of politics in the country, and how American Muslims engage with it all. Brother Mohammed has a B.A. in Islamic History and a Masters in Islamic Studies with a focus in Fiqh.

Palestinian academic, author and activist Dr. Azzam Tamimi joins us this week to discuss the future for the Arab world. Has the Arab spring turned into a deep winter? Have the autocrats won? Do we now see a failure of Islamic movements across the world and if so, what will replace it?

Speaker and commentator Dr. Osman Bakhach joins us to discuss the tenth anniversary of the Arab Spring. How did the widespread uprising that reverberated across Muslim capitals go so horribly wrong? And what lessons can we learn from the mistakes made?

Public Interest Law Scholar and co-founder of the Black Dawah Network Hakeem Muhammad joins us again this week to discuss Malcolm X, distilling the real man from the fiction created after his death. Today what he stood for has become unclear, as his image and message is co-opted into political agendas that, if Malcolm were alive today, he would likely find questionable.

Author, campaigner, ex-Guantanamo prisoner and Director of Outreach at CAGE, Moazzam Begg joins us this week. We discuss the 20 year anniversary of terrorism legislation introduced by Tony Blair, it’s impact on the Muslim community and how it has refashioned our relationship with institutions of government and the way we are perceived by wider society.

Professor and expert in comparative economics from Jerusalem, Dr Abul Izz Abdul Salam joins us this week to continue our Islamic Economics series. In this episode we discuss property ownership from the Capitalist, Socialist and Islamic viewpoints.

Scholar, public speaker, founder of Safina Society Dr. Shadee Elmasry joins us again to discuss division within the Muslim community. How does Islam help us to navigate our differences? What makes a valid shari’ opinion? How do we know whether a scholar or commentator is sincere to sources of Islam? How do we forbid wrong while transmitting respect and not exacerbating divisions? What does it mean to be smart in conveying Islam?

Co-host of the Mind Heist podcast and creator of Seera Masters, Ameen joins us this week to discuss “the crisis of masculinity” and what Islam expects from a man. He is in the process of writing a book on the subject, and his conclusions have challenged his own preconceptions.

Writer, commentator and director at the Religious Freedom Institute Ismail Royer joins us to discuss Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option from an Islamic viewpoint. The Benedict Option was named after the 6th-century monk Benedict of Nursia, who after witnessing the depravity of the dying days of Rome, opted to flee the city to maintain his commitment to God.

Professor in the Department of International Relations at the International University of Sarajevo Dr. Joseph Kaminski joins us this week to discuss the 25 year anniversary of the genocide of over 8000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia - a “sacrifice” by the EU, UN and USA for a greater goal of peace.

Executive Director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Imam Dawud Walid argues that our community needs to tread carefully when developing lines of collaboration with progressive movements, lest we are utilised for problematic political and cultural aims. We discuss how activism has to be rooted in an Islamic notion of justice and using means that accord with the prophetic sunnah.

We have two guests on the show this week. Sister Farhat Amin is writing a book addressing the rights of women in Islam and the reality of feminism. Author and Imam from the United States Ustadh Iyad Hilal also joins us to discuss the long colonial history behind the politicisation of women's dress and how to view the hijab from the shari’ah.

Human Rights advocate and researcher Eeman Abbasi joins Sister Farhat Amin this week to discuss her brilliant piece for the online magazine Traversing Tradition, “Hijab: Not my Body, Not my Choice”. This is an episode from our sister podcast, Smart Muslima.

Public Interest Law Scholar and co-founder of the Black Dawah Network Hakeem Muhammad joins us this week to discuss the structural conditions that enable and safeguard those that treat their fellow man as subhuman. He argues that the structural racism that plagues American life comes from a broader ideology of Liberalism that shows disdain for non-European cultures and creeds.

Justin Parrot holds an MRes in Islamic Studies from the University of Wales and is currently Research Librarian for Middle East Studies at NYU in Abu Dhabi, where he is also a volunteer Imam for the Muslim Students Association. He runs an amazing website with a unique, accessible hadith repository, available at www.abuaminaelias.com

Joining us this week are: Dilly Hussain, the editor of the online independent news platform 5Pillars, and Imran Muneer (A.K.A. Sim), host of the popular Mad Mamluks podcast. We discuss the show’s central themes, the popularity of Dirilis Ertugrul in the Muslim world, and how it fits into Turkey’s geopolitical aims.

Joining us this week is Kamal Abu Zahra, a lecturer in Islamic Studies, currently completing his PhD in looking at minority fiqh and its compatibility with classical notions of scholarship. I ask Kamal some searching questions about death and how we should view it, how we should confront it’s claims upon us, and how we should react when death falls on someone close to us.

This week we speak to the esteemed author of ‘Studies in Usul Ul Fiqh’, Ustadh Iyad Hilal, of the Al Arqam Institute of California. We discuss the ahadith related to plagues and quarantines, the prophetic medicines, the value of conventional medicine and the current public health advice that runs contrary to our religious instincts and ceremonies, most notably the cessation of Salahtul Jumuah and regular prayers in the masjids.

This week I speak to Fadl Hejazi, a Muslim academic from India, about the crisis facing the Muslims of India. To cover its obvious failures, key Indian politicians and its RSS supporters opted to turn the country on its Muslim citizens, blaming the mounting cases of COVID-19 on the Tablighi Jamat Ijtima (gathering) in Nizamuddin. We discuss this and the maliciously false idea of ‘Corona Jihad’.

Joining us this week are Dr Naveed Syed, senior public health specialist at Public Health England, and Dr Imran Waheed, psychiatrist and medical doctor. We discuss the origins of COVID-19, transmission, herd immunity, flu statistics, verification of news, Facebook 'experts', annual death rates, government failures, mental health implications, 5G conspiracies and prophetic treatments.