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Peter Sanders: Searching for Light – A Retrospective · explore words discover worlds

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_06: And hello and welcome to Peter Saunders Searching for Light, a Retrospective.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_06: I'm journalist Ramona Ali and I've been chairing here at the festival for about 10 years now.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_06: And it never feels like the festival has landed until I've introduced a Peter Saunders event.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_06: And I'm just so privileged and honored to be a chair for all of your events.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_06: Peter Saunders is an integral part of Bradford Literature Festival, and he's also an integral part of so many lives, particularly mine.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_06: I have grown up, and so many of us have been privy to his compelling and timeless images.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_06: They are images that tell many stories of our collective journey, the journey of people in the UK and across the globe.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_06: His photos capture stories of change, of yearning, of beauty, and of the complexity of the human experience.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_06: Peter has captured over half a million photographs for over half a century.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_06: He began by photographing the rock and roll legends like Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_06: And he went on to become one of the first Westerners to photograph Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_06: And he's also continued his journey to photograph Muslim communities across the world.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_06: And he's bringing all of that experience and richness into the room today.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_06: So I'd like for all of us to welcome Peter Sanders to the stage to take us on this visual odyssey.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um this is uh a project that came about um a few years ago I was asked by the uh Turkish government to uh do an exhibition in Istanbul.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I said to them, what do you want?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in the in the shade of the tree, Muslims in China.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: He said, no, no, no, we want a retrospective.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: I said, but do you know a retrospective includes Bob Dylan and Jimi Henriks?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: They said, yeah, yeah, that's what we want.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: So this I had to rethink about my life a little little bit differently, and uh this is this is kind of the end result of it, and uh inshallah you'll find some benefit from it somehow.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: When we were documenting the expansion of the mosque in the 1990s, uh this used to be my favorite place to sit in Medina.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was a tea shop in the Oberoi Hotel where I could sit and drink tea quietly, looking out at the mosque and the visitors, and it always was a time for reflection away from the busy periods of photography.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: As you can see, it's called Searching for Light, the Art of Seeing.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: There's uh an ayat in the the Quran that says, We shall show them our signs upon the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that this is the truth.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there's a famous uh Chinese calligrapher, uh Haji Nur-Din, who I traveled with on all my journeys to China, and we've become very good friends.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I always like to set him challenges, so I said to him, Um, could you draw a simple camera using the divine name Al-Musawir?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Thinking he'd do a simple kind of square with a circle.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh this is what he produced.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um Al-Mussawir is one of the many Arabic names of God, and some of its meanings are the fashioner, the shaper of unique beauty, and the most perfect artist who gives everything the most unique and beautiful form.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: All the major traditions confirm the temporary nature of this life.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, describing himself in relation to the world, the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, said, I am in this world like a traveller who takes shade under a tree only to resume his journey.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: The famous scholar Ibn al-Jalzi divides the human lifespan into five periods childhood, youth, maturity, seniority, and finally decline, coupled with delicateness as we prepare for death in the next stage of life.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Stage one, my childhood, beginning signs in a new era.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: My journey as a photographer back began in the 1960s.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: I found myself in a spiritual fog, a grey fog that had enshrouded this country since the end of World War II.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: It was an England suffering post-war shortages, rationing, and the inevitable loss of an empire that had once spanned the world.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: My formative years in the 1950s and the early 60s were marked by the memory of that war and the spectre of nuclear holocaust that cast a shadow over a society that had started to embrace materialism as never before, yet was haunted by the pervasive sense of an impending doom.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: But this fog began to clear for the youth as we were led into the cultural revolution of peace and love as the 1960s progressed.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: The youth became free spirits.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Someone termed it the youthquake.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: It was definitely a youth-led revolution.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Close friends, even those who were members of the British aristocracy, began to drop out and embrace a more natural way of living.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Away from London there was room to breathe.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Horses and gypsy caravans were suddenly popular as friends returned to a more nomadic lifestyle.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: The traditional life was much more attractive.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: Martin lived in a 500-year-old stone cottage in North Wales with no electricity and sheep for neighbours.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: He was able to relax and be free to be creative.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: The leaders of this movement were called the beautiful people.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone was searching for their own light.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: I pursued my career as a photographer and persuaded friends to become my models.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: This young woman accepted Islam later in the early 1970s.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: Along with this movement came the use of recreational drugs, recreational drugs, and there were tragic casualties along the way, not only musicians, but some close friends.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: And some just from keeping bad company.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: These were beautiful souls we were unable to protect.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: The voice of a generation, the poets of a new age.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: More than any other medium, music became the voice of our generation, and the songwriters and the musicians became the poets of the new age.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: I became an eyewitness to the energy and creativity of these artists and future icons.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: As early as 1963, at the age of 21, Bob Dylan freely addressed the profiteers of war.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: He spoke to the youth of that time and reflected how we felt.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: He sang, Come you masters of war, you that build the big guns, you that build the death planes, you that build all the bombs, you you that hide behind walls, you that hide behind desks.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: I just want you to know I can see through your masks.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he continued, like Judas of old, you lie and deceive, a world war can be one you want me to believe, but there is one thing I know, though I am younger than you, that Jesus would never forgive what you do.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: He continued.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: He became like a modern day sage warning us of what was coming.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: His famous song, It's a Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, was like a sorry, it was like a swan song before the end of the world.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: He sang, What did you hear, my blue eyed son?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: And what did you hear, my darling young one?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warning.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were ablazing.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: I heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: I heard one person starve and I heard many people laughing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: He said afterwards that each line is the beginning of a separate song.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: But when I wrote it, confided Dylan, I thought I wouldn't have enough time alive to write all those songs, so I put all this into this one.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Although the Beatles and others sang about peace and love, others continued to remind us of the urgency of the time.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: The Rolling Stones sang, Give Me Shelter, War, Children, it's just a shot away.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Give me shelter.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much of this that reminds me of what's happening now.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Every day we just don't know what's going to happen.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's very similar in so many ways.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: The Who sang in talking about their desperate sorry, the Who Sanging talking about their generation, things do look awfully cold.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: I hope I die before I get old.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: This was the state of desperation that people were going to.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Eric Clapton was gifted by a Muslim friend, Nizami's beautiful allegoric love story titled Layla and Majnoon, in which Layla represents God, the beloved, and Majnoon, unrequited love.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Sometime after Eric Clapton experienced a similar situation, the master guitarist wrote his hit song, Layla.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Layla, you've got me on my knees.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Layla, I'm begging, won't you ease my worried mind?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: As we searched for light and meaning in our lives, some began to realize it came from within ourselves.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: James Taylor sang, We're bound together in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Shed a little light, O Lord, so we can see.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: The poets were springing up everywhere.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Mark Boland sang Light up your face with all the love within you.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: The incredible string band reminded us.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's the old forgotten question.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: What is it that we are part of?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: What it is what is it that we are?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Joni Mitchell put things in perspective as she sang We are Stardust, billion year old carbon, we are golden, caught in the devil's bargain, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to leave England and travel, but I had no money.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: At the Isla White Festival in 1970, Jimi Henrix performed a Bob Dylan song all along the watchtower.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: He sang, There are many here among us who feel life is but a joke.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: So let us not talk falsely now.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: The hour is getting late.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was his last performance, and he died two weeks later.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: The money I earned from these photos enabled me to travel to India.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: Living in Notting Hill Gate in London, I started meditating in my one room attic flat, which was painted bright sunshine yellow.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: One grey morning in search of inspiration, I ventured out, camera in hand, to take some photos.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: I wandered around through the nearby streets and I discovered a series of derelict houses which had been painted black for a film set, and someone had come and graffited, We teach all hearts to break.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: As I took this photograph, I wondered what it meant.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Within a few weeks of taking it, I left for India and spent seven months photographing different religions and searching for a teacher.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Then on to Morocco, where I spent the fasting month of Ramadan in the Zawiya and institution of the great sage and saint and Quranic scholar Siddhimn Hambib.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Three months later, I performed the pilgrimage to Mecca Medina.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: All this took place within two years of taking this photograph.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Stage two, a spiritual search amongst the ancient traditions.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: In 1969 I'd set out on a search to find a faith and a spirituality that I found so absent from the society around me.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I traveled to India, which for my generation seemed to hold out hope for spiritual realization.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: I found at the core of every religion there is the same goal to know the divine reality.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Wherever I've travelled since that time, I've found beauty and faith and devotion.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: In India, I made my way along this cobbled path to the beautiful retreat of Ramanana Maharishi.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: He was a Hindu sage who had found enlightenment by asking himself continually the all-important question, who am I?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: After six months in India, this was a question I had begun to ask myself.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: In India I was confronted with extreme poverty, but I found a moving faith and deep spirituality within the people there.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: In Hindu ashtrams around India, I found myself in large crowds of disciples, including many Westerners, all searching to find meaning in their lives and spiritual enlightenment.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: When I look at this picture now, I identify with this young boy sitting with his wise, respected elders.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: I was drawn to this unique looking character, sitting alone from the others.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: I climbed a mountain to meet this hermit who chosen to withdraw from society and live in a cave.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: I asked him, what's it like living in a cave?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: He replied that his isolation was continually interrupted by visitors curious about his life.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Within Buddhism I found a great calm and stillness.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: This stillness, coupled with doing without, was in stark contrast to the new frenetic pace and materialism of modern Japan.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: At the Barak War, commonly known as the Wailing War, I captured this orthodox Jew in reflection.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Islamic tradition says an hour of contemplation is better than a year of prayer.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: In Senegal, in a remote monastery, I captured the sincere devotions of Christian monks.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then the world of Islam appeared on my horizon.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: In the early 1970s, before the advent of extremism, it was easy for me to knock on that door.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Stage three, a lape a leap of faith into the world of Islam.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: Securing permission to photograph the Hajj proved difficult.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: For two weeks I navigated a maze of offices and officials, moving from one authority to another in search of approval.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Eventually I met a man who listened carefully.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: His response was simple.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: I will give you permission, and I will give you, I will assign a soldier to a company and a protect you, and this he did.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: The powerful presence of the house of God, built by the Prophet Abraham and his son Ismail, left me speechless.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: The experience was overwhelming in every sense.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: The deep spirituality of that place, the diversity of the people, the intensity of the atmosphere, it was a world both ancient and alive.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Fifty-five years later, I treasure those precious aging codachrome transparencies from that first journey.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: As an encompany witness, those slides sparked a lasting curiosity to document the visual historical development of Mecca and Medina.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: I have continued to visit and document these sacred spaces.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: One afternoon, as I gazed upon the sacred house, the pilgrims encircling the Kaaba appeared as a beautiful necklace draped around the house of God.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: The first time I saw the sacred house of Mecca in 1971, it completely filled my vision.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: This gave me the idea for this particular image, which I took many years later.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: During the 1990s, we had an idea to create an architectural, correct, high-quality image of the embroidered Kiswa.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: It began by me undertaking a one-week course in Switzerland to understand how to use the impressive Sinar 10x8 film camera.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Then I needed a special permission to take 30 boxes of camera equipment into the sanctuary, and all the equipment had to be assembled by 8 a.m.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: so as to capture the one hour of sunlight on the gold door.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: But the actual image took one sixtieth of a second to capture it on film.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: The icon of the beloved green dome of the Prophet's mosque became a visual passion for me, always trying to find an unusual perspective.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's beneath this dome, which is where the the Prophet Muhammad now, peace and blessings be upon him, lies, buried.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: And is why it's a source of so many people to visit there.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: This image took me five years to take permission to take this specific image.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Every year I would ask the officials if I could go up the minaret by the Green Dome to take pictures.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: Each time they found some excuse why I couldn't.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: They had lost the keys, it was one of my favourite.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: But I can be very persistent.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Eventually they ran out of excuses and granted me permission, adding, but don't take any pictures of the Green Dome.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: As I climbed the stairs, I've reflected as to what else would I photograph.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: The air conditioning, the loudspeakers.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, it was a great honor and privilege for me to take this photo from this great unique viewpoint, with the mosque spread out in front of me.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because all the modern images had the green dome as very small, uh, in far in the distance of the great mosque, which is an impressive building, but we shouldn't forget that everything started from its very humble beginnings from this point and grew from this place.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessing, said, Even if my mosque spread as far as Syria.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: It would still be my mosque.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: In 1992, I was photographing the Hajj, I was given the opportunity to go up in a helicopter and take a very different perspective of the pilgrimage.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: By contrast, in the remoteness and stillness of the Mauritanian desert, I watched Yaqab the Rahman pray quietly outside his tent.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was an image I'd only ever seen on old postcards.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: I searched out sacred spaces around the world.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: This is the mud mosque built by the great traditional architect Hassan Fati.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: From the simple to the grand, the Hassan second mosque complex in Casablanca is considered one of the highest and largest mosques in Africa.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Surrounded by sea, it can accommodate 105,000 worshippers.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: This architecturally correct image took us two weeks to organize and photograph.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: From the vast to the intimate, an expression of humility.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: In a place like that, the human being becomes very small.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Be careful what you wish for.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: I always had dreamed of doing a bird's eye view from Sultan Ahmed.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: But uh I never knew quite how to get permission.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was introduced to somebody that worked there, and uh they said, Oh, I'll try and get you permission.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: But Friday came and I didn't hear from him, so I put all my white clothes on and got ready to go to the mosque.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: And suddenly he calls me and said, You have to come right now, because if you're gonna climb up into the eaves, the imam needs to know that it's you and not somebody who's gonna try and assassinate him.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I rushed to the mosque.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: I met the I met the Imam.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then my friend just directed me to the stairs, which should have been a warning.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: I couldn't understand why he wasn't coming up with me.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I started to climb these stairs, and as I started to go up, I realized no one had been up there for about a hundred years, and it was covered in bird poo, and you know, it was filthy, and I'm all in my white clothes.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then it gets worse.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: I get up there, and there's there's a ledge about this big with one small rail, and I'm I thought I was gonna set up my tripod comfortably and just do this amazing shots, and and then I started worrying if I drop a lens, I'm gonna kill someone from this height.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: All these thoughts.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, as you can see, I did eventually get a shot.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: There's always been something mysterious about gazing up into domes of beauty.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Domes have long been associated with the sky, the heavens, and the infinite.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: So these uh are six of my favorite.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um the one on the top left is uh Masjidiman in Isfahan.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um the the next one in the top is and the middle one is the one of the domes of the mosque in Medina.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um the one on the far right is uh King Ablazee's mosque in Kuala Lumpa.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Then going to the bottom left, that's uh a newer mosque in western China, and uh the middle one is the dome that is above the dome of the rock, and they gave me permission to actually climb on the rock because this for this picture to be perfect, I have to be directly from the center of the dome, and everything has to be aligned up square, otherwise the image doesn't work.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm pleased because all these were shot on film, and I never had a way of checking that the images were right.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so as I said, the middle one on the bottom is from the Dome of the Rock, and the far one is a very beautiful mosque in Rabat.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of my favorite mosques in Rabat.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: The gardens of the Alhambra Palace in Spain were created to hint at what paradise is like, based on the descriptions within the Quran where it speaks about gardens with rivers flowing beneath.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: During the final moments before the sun sets, there is a spectrum of of unors that are unworldly.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: As the colours intensified, coupled with the sounds of the soothing water and the evening chorus of the birds, my heart and mind became still.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: My children, not seeing what I was seeing and experiencing through my lens, kept asking, what's dad looking at?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: We've been here ages, can we go?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Following in the footsteps of the ancient prophets, pilgrimage is part of every faith.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: To walk on the land in the footsteps of the prophets and messengers is an unmeasurable gift.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Not an easy easy climb.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is the blessed cave where the beloved Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, withdrew into so that he might know his creator.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: During the last twelve years, I've been extremely fortunate to work closely with Dr.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Abdullah al-Qadi and his work documenting the prophetic and hijraots.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: This is called the Harsha Pass, and the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, described in detail many of the ancient prophets who had travelled through this valley.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very deeply auspicious uh place.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: And all the ancient prophets from southern Arabia travelled along this route to visit Jerusalem.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: And he explained, seeing them in a vision, each one of them, and described them.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: At times the beauty of these places would take your breath away.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: This looks like an ordinary desert image, but it holds a deep significance.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: This is the meeting place of Umarbad with the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, when he was on his migration.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Although at the time she was unaware of who he was, but she wrote the most eloquent description of him.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Part of it was a man of evident cleanliness, fine in character, his face handsome, slim in form, elegant and good looking, his eyes large and black.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: He gave an impression of dignity when silent, and of high intelligence when he talked.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: And on the journey there, Dr.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Abdullah had told to me in detail this story of uh what had happened at this place.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I got there and saw the location, there's nothing for anyone to ever know that that's what took place in this um location.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then I asked him, why is it considered the best description?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, because it's written by a woman and women notice everything.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: Here on the route to Tabuk, the blessed Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings, rested and placed his back against the white marble.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: During this visit, God revealed to him the surah of forgiveness.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: In the late 1990s, during the extension of the mosque, they discovered the house of Sayyid Adaja, where she had lived with her husband, the Prophet Muhammad.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Peace and blessings be upon him.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Only exposed for three weeks before it was reburied and covered with purified earth.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was at the just I was about to leave Saudi Arabia.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'd been working there, and I got this message, you need to come back.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: They found this very important location, and you need to photograph it.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I drove back to Mecca and saw what was going on, and they told me they had three days to excavate this site before the bulldozers were come in.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I managed to persuade one of these diggers, let me in the digger section of it and lift me up high so I could do this image from a high position.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: But you can see where that small group of people uh are standing.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's that's the house, sorry, that's the room of um the Prophet and and his wife Karaja.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then the small room in front of that was the Prophet ⁇ 's own private room.' And then, if I remember rightly, the kitchen is by the side, and I think the minza where he received people is the furthest bit.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: But you see what a small place he lived in, not a humble dwelling.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's believed that the Burgundy pillar on the left, far left, signified the place where our beloved Prophet was laying when he was transported from Mecca to Jerusalem, and from there he experienced the night journey through the heavens to meet God.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: What I also like about this picture is in the Quran it says, remember God standing, sitting and reclining, and in this image you can see people doing each of those positions.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: A very unique panoramic film camera which can actually do 360 degrees we used, and which enabled me to get this unusual perspective.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: I visited Jerusalem twice with full permission to photograph the noble sanctuary.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: The importance of Jerusalem is that it spiritually links Islam with all the ancient prophets, including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Peace be upon them.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: I long for a time when all the politics governing this sacred space are removed, and it can be experienced without the fear and tension that surrounds it.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: I sat quietly at the foot of the stairs as the sun began its descent, and then the scholar began his ascent to pray his sunset prayer.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Don't know if you can see him, he's in the far left corner.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: In a space beneath this rock is where all the great prophets prayed together, and uh I was allowed permission to have to climb up onto the roof, and there's a small little uh I can't say it's a door, it's more like a window where you can climb in and get to this position to do this image.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: My quest as a photographer has always been for beauty, but God's majesty is part of the manifestation of his beauty.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: They are both attributes of God and therefore inseparable.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Human tragedy and beauty are deeply interconnected through the duality of the human experience, where suffering often acts as a catalyst for profound empathy and resilience.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: In all the decades I have travelled throughout the Islamic world, I've been an eyewitness to the upheavals, conflicts, tragedies, and traumas that have beset their societies.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: What I've seen and photographed is often heartbreaking, but I've also seen the beauty and resilience of the human spirit shine through every adversity.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: In the 1980s, I witnessed the upheaval of the Iranian revolution.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: But despite the anger, I also witnessed a lot of smiles.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: In Sudan, seven years of drought and seven years of famine had reduced the Dafore nomads of Sudan to heartbreaking conditions.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: When people hide their faces, you know they cannot face the world anymore.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Something struck me about the aura of this orphan, this child standing alone while the others queued for their food.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: In Sudan, I witnessed a hundred thousand volunteers.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: Men, women and children, an ocean of people all the way to the horizon, ready to fight the war in the south.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: As a child of the sixties, I asked myself, why was war seen as the only solution?
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: For them, it was a small source of income, but they could have lost, or they many of them did probably lose their lives.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: In Kosovo, I witnessed young children having to be taught not to play ball games because of the landmines buried around many of the roads and pathways there during the war.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because children they're playing, they don't think about it.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: The ball goes off the pathway, they go running after it, and they step on a landmine.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a whole program to teach children of the dangers.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: When I visited Syria in 2011, a great thunderstorm washed, clean, cleaned, and emptied the Umayyad Mosque, and the war began the following year in 2012.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: Beautifully and idyllic, the simple and traditional life is hard work, but it moves at a pace that allows you to enjoy it.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: Here in the rose-growing region in the Dadis Valley, I was taken to a mud palace where four brothers lived.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: This one, Sidi Hussein, was the local Imam.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: He owned an old Cadillac which was covered in dust, as he preferred to ride his white horse to the mosque.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: The place of purification.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: Fatima al-Firiyah al-Khorasia was a scholar, a refugee, wife, widow, architect, and patron.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: She founded the venerable Karawian Mosque and University in 1445.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: Overseeing the building of the complex, it said she fasted the entire 18 months of construction.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: Sitting in a cafe opposite, I saw this perfect frame with the gate on one side and the lamppost on the other.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: I just had to wait until the perfect person completed the image and made it timeless.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because up to that it was people in modern shellsuits, you know, and it didn't seem to work, and then finally this man stepped in and then I got the image I wanted.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: In a small Berber village in the Atlas Mountains with strict social norms around courtship and marriage is held the annual Ilmulchi Marriage Festival.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's a three-day celebration where men and women have the opportunity to meet publicly and hopefully get engaged and marry.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: So the young uh young girls and young boys would come maybe with their grandmother or parents, and so they would, you know, sit start talking to the young girls.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's all held in the public square.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's very beautiful, and it goes on for three days.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, it's uh it was really inspiring.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes the negotiations went on for the full three days.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: In Mauritania, I watched these noble desert nomads live in severe hardship and going without with great dignity and contentment.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: In Senegal, I watched this young girl run and collect water for the people who came to pray at this beautiful mosque built next to the ocean.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: I watched these young boys gazing out toward the ocean.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: I imagined, with my romantic sense of mind, that they were reflecting on what their future held, but maybe not.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they were just waiting for their supper to come.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: Given ten minutes by the Imam, I attempted to do justice to the beauty of the blue mosque, when suddenly a man making supplication stepped into my frame, bottom right, giving the image proportion and scale.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: Sheltering from the storm, every day Muhammad, who came from outside of Jerusalem, sat from dawn to midday reading the Quran, and this he did every day until he died.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: On a visit to Hadramut, this beautiful soul permitted me to take his portrait.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: Never photographed before, I felt truly honored.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: And his name is Farid, which means unique.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: Heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things, I've traveled to China four times documenting the lives of Muslims from east to west and north to south, finding the fusion of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Islam was truly educational and inspiring.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: This Chinese mosque was built in Xi'an 60 years after the Muslims had migrated to Medina.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: So you can see how quickly they traveled far and wide.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: In this 1,000-year-old mosque in Beijing, I witnessed two different cultures coming together in peace.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is a village portrait I did in a very small village, and this uh lady in lady in the middle, who was a very virtuous, blind grandmother, she headed the photo session.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: The Imam Sun, China still has a long legacy of Chinese Muslim excellence in martial arts and medicine.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: I call these glasses of wisdom.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: They're not made from glass or plastic, they're made from very high highly polished pieces of crystal which actually heal your eyes.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they really do work.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: I somebody gave me a pair and they must take hours, they have to grind them for hours to make them uh possible to to look through.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: If cla if sorry, if God blesses you with blesses you with age, it it comes with it a certain dignity and a presence, which which I found amongst many of the elderly Muslims I've met around the world.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: The Zen of Islam.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Two Japanese Muslims sat for my camera in Kyoto, Japan.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is called the flags of the United Kingdom.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: An African scholar, Sheikh Ba described Islam as a crystal clear river, pure, sweet, and unpolluted, reflecting the colour of the riverbed.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore, if the rocks are yellow, the water looks yellow.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: If the rocks are black, the water looks black.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thus it is that Islam in China is Chinese, in Africa it's African, and in Britain it's British, which is what gave me the idea to uh photograph all the flags of the saints.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: So you have uh St.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: George, St.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: Patrick's St.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Andrew and St.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: David.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: This was a project called The Art of Integration, which we did about 20 years ago to sh to kind of to kind of normalize Islam because uh the media was really stereotyping Muslims at that time, and I really wanted to open up the conversation, really.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I just looked at every profession and tried to find uh a Muslim.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: From that profession.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: But it wasn't just a Muslim by name, but it had to be somebody that had faith and belief.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so this I'm just showing you a couple of images from the from that project.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: We call this when worlds meet.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: She's an English girl.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: And uh she had been a model before she accepted Islam.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I met her at uh some event, she was completely covered up like this.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: And she gave me her card, and when I got home, I realized she was at like a a makeup artist, uh a beautician.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I said to her, I I really need to take your picture.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we did we did this photo shoot.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then some years later, this lady came up to me and said, Oh, like she knew me, and I said, Sorry, who is this?
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: She said, It's Karima, don't you recognize me?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, last time I saw you, I couldn't only see your eyes.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Gat Stevens, returned to singing and performing with a greater message of peace and encourages us all to join in the peace train.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: A mosque with a difference.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: Prayer is not always confined just to the mosques.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: The Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, said the whole world is a mosque.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: This this exhibition was in Malaysia and I met there was a young boy sitting standing in front of this image saying, he said, I never knew I could pray outside the mosque.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: No one had ever told him that uh told him that you can pray anywhere.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: When this sacred space of St.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: Anne's Convent in North London was purchased to be used as a mosque and Islamic centre, a building was built in the grounds for the remaining five nuns so that they could continue to live in the grounds of the mosque.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: We are told that we should always pray for our rulers, otherwise you may end up with worst.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: One of the King Charles' many charities is Mosaic, established to help mentor and empower 11 to 18-year-olds reach their full potential by connecting them with diverse and relatable role models from the world of business.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: Many disadvantaged Muslim youth have benefited from this inspiring project.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Meetings with mountains, encounters with saints and sages of the Islamic world.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: My journey has been nourished by the company of the saints and sages and scholars that I've been fortunate enough to meet along the way.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: Meetings with the mountains was a project that took me over fifty years to complete.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to put a human face to these spiritual figures, of whom historically much was written and much was spoken about.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: As I traveled the world I looked for them.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: They are not public figures.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: Many had never been photographed before, but for some reason they allowed me to take their pictures.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: I do believe this book is a unique historical document with their portraits accompanied with the stories of what happened when I met.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: These people do not talk about peace.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: They are peace itself.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: They have zero egos and zero judgment.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: In Mauritania in 1996, I drove for 24 hours from Nwagshat, the capital, to visit Sheikh Marabat al-Hajj.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: In 1937, he had walked across Africa from Mauritania to Sudan.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: Then he took a boat to Saudi Arabia to perform the pilgrimage and visit God's messenger in Medina.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: When he finished, he walked back across Africa and returned to Mauritania.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: When we met, he was over 90 years of age.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: He slept for just two hours a night and he drank only camel's milk.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: When he wasn't teaching, he prayed.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: The sacred monotony of his life was his daily practice, a constant working on being conscious of God, because if one is conscious of God, one is conscious of his creation.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: Muhammad Ali lived in the desert with Sheikh Marabat al-Haj.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: As a memorizer of the entire Quran, one of his roles was to calculate the time of the five daily prayers without any device other than a stick and the length of a shadow.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: He could also tell which day of the year it was just by the movement of stars.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: When I asked if I could photograph him, he immediately adopted this pose, a superstar reflected in my eyes.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: The very first time I laid eyes on Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bea was at a barbecue in California.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: He sat peacefully wrapped in his Mauritanian robes, a sea of tranquility into the middle of a noisy, crowded gathering.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: On a visit to this hidden anonymous, virtuous sage in the desert of South Morocco, a party of seekers asked if he would be their teacher and guide.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: His response was not what was expected.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I'm not a sheikh, I'm not a deputy sheikh, I'm nothing.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: He removed himself from our presence, but behind the scenes he began to make food and prepare beds for us, with rose scented sheets under a star-filled night sky.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: He kept out of view and he took care of our every need.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: His reply and response secretly indicated his lofty spiritual station and vast humility.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: When I met the great sage and scholar Habi Bakhmed al-Hadad with his sons and grandsons in his home in Jeddah, their spiritual good manners, the care and attention, the love I experienced was unique.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: No one ever left his company without being truly affected after meeting him.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_02: He became known as his ancestor Imam Hadad was known as Hadad al Kulub.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: Hadad in Arabic, as you some of you may know, means an ironsmith.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: Consequently, Hadad al-Khulub is the ironsmith who smelts your heart in the spiritual furnace to purify it of the rust and make it glow.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_02: Thank God if you should meet someone like this.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_02: They are rare and hidden away from public life.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: Habib Abu Rahman al Atas, this 106-year-old man ran his house like a man of twenty five years serving us with food and drinks.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: During the meeting he secretly confessed to me that he would live to be 111.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'd never met anyone who knew who could predict when he would die.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: I thought only God knew this fact.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: Five years later in Jedra I met a friend who told me of his recent passing.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: What he had predicted to me had become a reality.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: In 1999, and I have a dear friend here in the audience who did this incredible journey with us, we set off from Istanbul in an old Volkswagen van to drive along the old silk route to Uzbekistan, which is about four and a half thousand kilometers.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: When we reached the ancient city of Merv in Turkmenistan, I met or we met this virtuous elderly lady at the tombs of two Sahaba or companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, who were buried in this remote place.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: She had served for sixty years at the local tomb of the spiritual master Yusuf Hamadari, who is said walked from Merv to Mecca thirty-eight times.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: We spoke for some time and then she studied my face and hands.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: She then predicted many things about my life, and over time all have come true.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: Final stage, thank you for your patience.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: Now as I enter this later stage of my life, I continued to search for images that inspire, make me smile, and celebrate the gift of presence that surrounds us.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: While exhibiting this retrospective at the Ithra Museum in Saudi Arabia two years ago, I searched Aramco's iconic futuristic building for an inspirational image.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: Faced with this illuminated escalator, I felt it lacked the human form when suddenly a dear friend of mine danced into the light, making the image complete.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: In Tisna in South Morocco, I witnessed traditional dress backlit by street graffiti.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: In Casablaka, I witnessed this young boy turn the marble area outside the main mosque into his own skating rink.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: In India on Delhi Railway Station, I witnessed a young boy jump down amongst the railway lines and have a makeshift shower from a water faucet used to clean the trains.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: In Gambia, I witnessed in a school for orphans these young girls spontaneously begin to sing and dance out of joy.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_02: In the Comoris Islands, I witnessed the yearly celebration of one of their greatest teachers and saints, Habib al Ma'asameate.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: His face even appears on the island stamps and banknotes.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: It is said that when some of his students sneak off to a club, they remove those banknotes from their pockets, so his face doesn't remind them that maybe they shouldn't be there.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: In Sudan, I lifted my camera and all the schoolgirls tried to squeeze into the frame.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: A decisive moment can catch you by surprise.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: Seconds before, these girls in Lamu Island were just standing together.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: The moment I lifted my camera, they adopted this unique expression.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: I don't speak Swahili, and I was probably probably better off not knowing what the one on the left said to me.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_02: At this woman's mosque in central China, the children's laughter was medicine to the heart.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: Lao Tzu said, wise men hear and see as little children do.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sami Yusuf reminds us that everything is in this moment.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: Be in the here and now to find the key to all existence.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: The ways to remember God are varied.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: Turning away from life is essential to living.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: There is great benefit in spending time quietly contemplating God's vast creation.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: And finally, in this small madrasa in Xi'an, the ancient capital of China, I witnessed these children recite Quran and sing songs about Islam, swaying from one side to the other.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: I like to think that this was the spirit of Islam during the early years in Medina, and I called it TikTok to the rhythm of life.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: Their faces are incredible.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: Each one of them would be a shot by itself.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: I want to conclude with this uh couplets from the D1 of Siddhimn Habib.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_02: He said, For if a person truly knew the worth of his heart, he would give all he had without hesitation.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: And if a person came to know the bliss within his own soul, he would shed a tear of joy with every breath he took.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you allow me just a couple of minutes, because uh uh any of you that have been before, this is the first time I'm presenting um the Peter Sanders Foundation.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: I would just like just to give you just a couple of words about it.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: We've we've spent three years planning the vision for it, and God willing, the legal legal structure will be completed later this year.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: The foundation is dedicated to the preservation and documentation and celebration of Islamic and spiritual heritage, past and present, through photography and visual storytelling to inspire and educate future generations.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_02: Our archive is more than a collection of photographs, it's become a cultural treasure reflecting the interconnectedness of human experiences, and preserving and showcasing this collection is an urgent priority, especially as many as you know, much of this world now is being destroyed through these useless wars.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_02: Our vision is to create a unique global digital platform, collating past, present, and future for serious young creatives to participate in.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_02: And also I want it to become an umbrella in which we can talk about projects and things that need to be done.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, uh Dr.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_02: Omar Farugh Abdullah says, although we live in an information age, our knowledge of ourselves and others tends to be ill-informed and superficial.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_02: We too must cultivate knowledge within and without the Abrahamic box.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: Please join us in preserving humanity's legacy.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your support over all these years.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: Truly appreciated.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_06: After that incredible presentation, I f it was breathtaking.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_06: Um I had to remind myself to breathe sometimes.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_06: It was so extraordinary.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_06: You've lived so many lives, and you've brought all of those lives to to all of us as well.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_06: Um we don't have a huge amount of time, so I'm going to just only probably ask one question and then share you with the audience.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_06: But as we've said, like you've you've lived so many lives, and the and there's that that feeling that that of yearning that goes throughout all of your images and that search for yearning during the time of the cultural kind of awakening in the 60s and the 70s is really significant.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_06: And the way you talked about you know Bob Dylan and um and Jimi Hendrix and everyone who were they were there was a spiritual fog and yet there was they were reaching out for something.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_06: So I I found that thread go throughout your work, and I'd love for you to start by talking about that time.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, as you as you as as you get older, you s you start you start to see your life slightly differently.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Rumi talks about what does the ant know of the larger pattern of the carpet as he walks across it, but the bird sees the whole shape and the pattern, and I think it happens to you as you get older, you see to you see your life in a different perspective.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I've sort of been doing that more recently, and I really that time was a very interesting time, and I'm you know, and I have very friends here who live through that period.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was character-changing.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_02: It made you really align what your priorities were in life.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for us, it helped us send us in the direction it did.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, I could talk about for ages because it was such an interesting time, and you know, and Bob Din was a was the poet really, you know, reflecting back what was happening at that time, and I think it's kind of it's similar now, and I'm sad that very few creatives have really been talking about what's been happening.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's what Dr.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: Umar Suleiman talks about, the the elephant in the room, the thing that happened in the last two years.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how many times does this have to have to happen?
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we feel so helpless in this in this p process.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um but if it changes you inwardly and you reflect on it differently, then maybe that's the beginning of a journal journey of you finding out who you are.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm having very interesting conversations with my neighbors that I didn't have two years ago because of what they've witnessed and felt helpless to change.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_02: So do we want that for the rest of the world?
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think we do.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: Was that the reason we were cre created?
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's like since the time of Cain and Abel we learned nothing, really.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's crazy.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: How how bad does it have to get?
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Roger Waters just did a revived one of his songs called um was it numb and sorry comfortably numb talking about how he feels right now.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of people do.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's where we're at.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_02: But we have to keep positive.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_02: We can't can't fall into despair.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: Despair is the worst thing a human being can do.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: You always have to have hope because this isn't this isn't the only part of your life.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_02: This journey carries on after this life.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're part of a long journey as I taught before.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it began before this world, it carries on after this world.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: So this is just a small part.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: But this is an important part.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_06: And it feels like the antidote to to all of that is seeing your your images and the journey that you've been on as well.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_06: And one of the ones that actually there are so many that I love, but the one that uh really speaks to me was the one of the great um with the we teach all hearts to break.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_06: And uh you know, looking at it superficially, you might think, Oh, that's sad.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_06: You know, that's a sad thing, but actually there's a spiritual resonance within it.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_06: That's like a troopy wisdom within it, because we sometimes we do need the pain to bring out well to break it out.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_06: The crow is a very good thing.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_02: The crow is a human being.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_06: So yeah, it's it's um it's an extraordinary journey of the inward journey of the soul.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_06: And I I was wondering whether your do you feel like your camera, because this is a that was taken at a time when you were not Muslim.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_06: Do you feel like your camera brought you to Islam before you arrived there?
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's an interesting question.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, my camera's always followed my own journey.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it was it was never about making money.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_02: I just I'm not a it's kind of strange because I hid behind my camera for 45 years.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_02: Now I'm forced into this position of uh communicating with words, which is not my uh best qualities.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: I feel my images say a lot more than what I can say from from my heart.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I just documented everything that I was interested in, you know, whether it was gypsies or tramps on the street, or you know, and you've just seen my whole journey looking, going, find trying to find saints and sages as a way of kind of understanding who I am and our journey and everything.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I it's just followed me along, really, and it's been a great tool, you know.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_02: It helps me a lot.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you take pictures, you forget forget about them, then I go into the archive like we did for the Talk we did yesterday for the American project.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm looking at pictures I took in the 1970s and I'm going, wow, I you know, I experienced that.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's like that was part of my life, you know, and had so much enthusiasm to travel the world and see the world.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a great teacher traveling, I have to say.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: Teaches you a lot.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_06: And I disagree that you're not good with words because during the presentation, everything you said, it was like a sage, you know, when you hear those wisdoms, and that really brought out the meaning behind the the images as well.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_06: So um I th we so sadly we don't have lots of time, even though we could really speak all day.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_06: So I would love to open it up to the audience now for QA.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_06: There is a roaming mic, can we have a hand up already?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_02: I need the mic because I can't hear.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_04: I have a request for you.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you just mentioned at the end of the 1970s.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_04: And I think in your life, in the life of many of us here, that was the oven in which the cake was made.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_04: And that there was the experience that we had in the oeil Bristol Garden that was something which was quite uh unique.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I haven't seen the images of that uh uh experience, which I think I I supposing because it was a core experience for me, it was also the core experience for you in sort of making sense of all these things that have happened.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_04: Are you going to give a a retrospective of of that period of your life?
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we wish you were here yesterday, because we started it yesterday.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was we we uh dealt with the American side, but I am I will do the counter part of Bristol Gardens, definitely it needs to be done and it needs to be known.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm one person, that's why I'm trying to create this foundation.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_02: I need a team of people, you know, time is running out, inshallah God will give me long enough life to complete these things, but I want to do all these things, and I feel that period is very important to know.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's more of a compliment really, because I think you look at what's happening nationally now, particularly within the United Kingdom.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was born in 1969, just across the border in Lancashire.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always felt myself being a British Muslim, but with what's happening with the politics and the political landscape all changing, you start to visualize and question yourself.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I worked for a local authority, I worked 30 years for a local authority over in Lancashire.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think every form you look at, people try to the way the system's designed, people try to comportmentalize, yeah.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_00: What are you?
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, growing up it was Pakistani, Indian, you know, put your ethnic origins there, and you can see how the kind of division start to happen.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think listening to Peter yesterday and today, and having been to your events over the last few years, I think there's hope and there's a glimmer of hope there with how you know what you've shown there that Islam isn't doesn't comportmentalise here, but you know, I see people in Africa, I see people in China, and I think last year when Haji Nudin and yourself presented that book, I've I I I've got a copy of that book at home, and when my children look at it, you you you never told about you know Muslims existed in China.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't personally know myself, you know, until the Bosnian effect that there were Muslims in Bosnia, you know, and I think this somehow this foundation and you know that they are the dots and that connectivity and how do we connect all of that together because the world as it is tries to divide, to look at other commonalities, what brings us together rather than what divides us.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think I think as I said yesterday, this this is a time of so much separation, and we need to come together just as human beings that stand for good and you know honourable things that most human beings stand for.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it is it's time for change, and I don't mean go out in the streets and destroy everything.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean we need to get together, come together, you know, just talk about all these things and find ways that we can begin.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I one of the most hopeful things is that I always used to think that the tipping point happens at 50%, it's not at 35%, because there's momentum at 35%, and that's when things start to change.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_06: Go ahead.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh first of all, I'd just like to say thank you so much for all of the work you've done over the whole corpus.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's truly inspiring.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's from Allah, it's not from me.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Allah guys, people to do, you know.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_02: I just have to see I see it as a job, you know, but it's brought so many rewards, really.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_03: I think my uh I know this was a retrospective, but my question or my request is really just to probe to find out if you have any reflections or prognostications on uh the use of artificial intelligence production of imagery.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Very good question.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I I spoke to one of my teachers recently.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_02: He said there's no such thing as artifici artificial intelligence.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_02: There's only intelligence.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: So why are they creating an artificial intelligence?
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_02: It means that we're not using our own intelligence.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_02: They're just stealing everything from us.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_02: We have all the int God gave us all the intelligence we need.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: We just forget to use it.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I d do you want a world full of robots doing everything?
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_02: It can't take pictures like I do, I know that.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_02: It it can't it can't sing songs like Bob Dylan.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: It could try and copy him, but it won't have the soul.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have a soul.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_02: If it doesn't have a soul, it can't do it.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_02: Doing what?
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't mind the iron, yeah.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great yeah.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_02: For those things, that's fine.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_02: But running the world and making serious decisions, we need the human aspect.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_02: I have had friends come to me and show me pictures of some our teachers.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because they passed away, they've restored them in AI, and I said, please don't do it.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've met those people, those peaches don't look like them.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's lacking their soul, their soul's not in that picture.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Someone suggested if you take a picture of someone when they're dead, they look dead.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_02: If you take a picture of someone when they're alive, they look alive.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_02: You can't manipulate it with AI and make it look something different.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, so I do photography as a hobby.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was wondering, do you ever film on digital or just film on film?
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what's your favorite lens and camera to use?
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_02: This is a conversation for outside.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure everyone else wants this conversation.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I do use digital because it's like I mean, you have to go with the technology, it's fine.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um whether there'll be photographers like myself and other greater people than me, I don't know.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_02: It takes a lot of dedication.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's really it has to be a passion, you can't do it part-time.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah, that's it's it's kind of it's like all these things, you know.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Creative arts is really a it's a it's a life and it's a it's a passion and and don't worry about money.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you worry about money, you won't be able to do it.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the money comes after you're dead and gone.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_06: So I do love that you you turned down the Rolling Stones, didn't you?
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean when I was trying to get the money to go to um India, I was really desperate.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I really I just had enough of it all, and I just wanted to go.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so one of the jobs I got offered was to go on tour with the Rolling Stones for three months.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I was thinking, Brian Jones just died, and like they're really into drugs.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I could spend three months locked up with these guys all on drugs.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_02: So so I turned it down.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, I went and photographed Jimi Hendrix just on an impulse, and then suddenly those pictures that gave me all the money I needed to go to go to India.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_02: So again, it's you have to trust your own instincts.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Don't put yourself in situations you don't want to be in.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_06: Jimi Hendrix led you to India, led you to Morocco.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was he was I mean, God is the means, but he was the means that God used to get me to.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_05: Sorry.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um you've touched upon spirituality a lot um through these discussions.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_05: What struck me the most was you mentioned that you were stood on top of the rock at Al-Aqsa.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_05: I'm quite intrigued in the spiritual moment, the how your soul felt in that moment, please.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is an embarrassing question.
• 1:16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Before I did that picture, I was standing by the side looking at the rock, thinking, what lens shall I use?
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like camera, head on, what lens should I use?
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And a lady came up to me, she was a Spanish lady, she wasn't a Muslim, she said, excuse me, is this the place where the Prophet Muhammad ascended through, you know, ascended through the heavens to meet God?
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Yes.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_02: She said, This actual place, I said, Yes.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_02: She said, it gives you goosebumps, thinking about it.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I did like a like this woman isn't a Muslim.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm supposed to like really un and I'm just thinking about what lens am I using?
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's a protection.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, maybe if I really thought about this life I wouldn't be able to do the work I have to do.
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it's, you know, there's there's a great moment we do in the workshops where I show this um clip from the secret life of Walter Mitty.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Have any of you ever seen this film?
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, right at the end, I'll talk about very briefly, but it's about the closing of Life magazine, and then Walter Mitty is the picture researcher for that magazine, and he has been given the job to find the picture for the last cover, and it's to come from this photographer who's played by Sean Penn.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_02: And Sean Penn is whizzing all over the world, and uh Walter Mitty is chasing after him, trying to find him on the trail of him, and he eventually finds him in Afghanistan up a mountain, and Sean Penn is sitting there with the with the long lens strained on a uh white uh sorry, a snow leopard, a white snow leopard.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And he's finally got to him and he wants to have this conversation, and Waltermitty just says, Look, and the and the what and the snow leopard comes into the lens.
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_02: He says, Look, look.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then Walter Sean Penn is just kind of looking there, and so Waltermitty says, When are you gonna take the picture?
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's gonna walk out of the shop.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_02: He says, Sometimes I don't, I just want to enjoy the moment.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Just this moment now, like this moment.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what I show my students because sometimes you have to just put the camera down and just joy the experience.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_02: I have to keep telling myself that.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_06: We'd miss out on all the photos if you enjoy the moment too much.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_06: Um, are there any other questions?
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_06: I think oh we're not allowed anymore.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, so sorry.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_06: Um well that was just so wonderful, such a wonderful question.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can carry on outside, um be signing books.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much, Peter, for the wonderful gallery of images that you brought together.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you, everybody, for coming, and thank you so much uh for this conversation.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you.