Latest / Infidels / "You're Not an Infidel, You're My Brother": A Conversation on Islam and Pluralism | Iqbal Akhtar
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- Richard Landes: All right. We're here today with Iqbal Akhtar. Is that pronounced correctly? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Is correct, yeah. Richard Landes: Okay. We're here today with Iqbal Akhtar, who is a professor of religious studies at Florida International University, and the author of a recent book called Covenantal Pluralism: The Geopolitics of Interfaith Religious Freedom. Welcome, Iqbal. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Thank thank you for having me. Richard Landes: All right. So part of what attracted me to your book was the idea which I have been playing with as well, maybe not in the same sense, we'll find out, of civil society as a covenantal society. That it's a society in which it's able to do quite extraordinary things because people choose to trust each other. As opposed to societies that are based on you know default mistrust and therefore what Eli Sagan calls the dominating imperative, which is either I rule over you or you rule over me, there's no other choice. So so can you explain because in the context of religious dialogue, particularly with Islam. I it seems to me that covenantal model runs into problems because at least in one reading of Islam it's pretty much impossible to form a covenant with another religion unless it's one of subordination. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Thank you so much, Rich Richard. so I think the you know, I am drawing upon I think one of the oldest traditions sort of in Islam. so there when we look at the Quran especially, the idea of the people of the book, right? Ahul Kitab is important and that I would say from a theological perspective is the idea of a covenantal relationship, right? So these people, other religious communities have had revelation and they have a covenantal relationship with God. And then the idea is also that Muslims then continue that covenantal relationship. And the idea is also seen in the first in the series of migrations, right? So the during the Meccan period, the first Muslims leave, they're persecuted and about to be killed, and they take refuge in Ethiopia and Abyssinia. And that is a covenantal relationship in terms of being a minority religious community within a a dominant Christian majority community and living and thriving, for 14 centuries. there I think gives us an example of a covenantal relationship, in which people are able to keep their faith, stay, you know, as a minority community and have a relationship in terms of respecting each other, and then the dominant community respecting them as well. So the Negus then sort of accepts the the nascent Muslim community. And I think that migration is a very important model. to try to recover. So I think that's something that was lost in s in many ways as Islam i g gained sort of territorial expansion and became an empire. but there are aspects in the early period that really show this idea of the covenantal relationship that I'm trying to talk about. I think that could be operative and very, very helpful for us to think about you know the Muslim American experience in the United Richard Landes: By the right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: States. Yeah. Richard Landes: By the early period are you referring to the Meccan period before the what's also Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Precisely. Richard Landes: considered a migration to Medina, but where Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Exactly. Richard Landes: in fact it didn't work out that way, the migration actually proved to be a stepping stone to Muslim dominion, no? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: I think what you have is you have an expansion. so I think of the community and I think it initially begins as kind of when you look at sort of historiographers, kind an expansion of a pan s Arab solidarity that hadn't really existed in the past. And then eventually over time that because initially in the early period of Islam, you actually had to be adopted into an Arab tribe in order to become a Muslim. So it wasn't something that was this universalistic faith that we understand now. That took about more than a hundred and fifty years or so until it became an expansive sort of tradition. So I think initially in that period you see this sort of d this different sort of development. Yeah. so a lot of Richard Landes: Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: it is religious id yeah I think it's like religious identity as a way of being able to expand beyond sort of the borders, right? So I think fundamentally with Christianity, Buddhism, Islam as e is religions that are missionary, right? You're trying to overcome the limitations, at least in the sociological perspective, you're trying to un overcome the limitations of caste. You're trying to over overcome the limitations of tribe in order to create a larger solidarity. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Richard Landes: Right. All right, but so in a sense ecumenical, but also but also in another sense with a strong tendency towards imperialism. even in Buddhism, but definitely in monotheism, Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Mm. Richard Landes: both Christianity and Islam, part of their sense of their mission is that the entire world should at least in the Christian version, be exposed to Christianity. In the Muslim version and s particularly the one that we're seeing today, one gets the impression that it needs to be a realized empire. And that go ahead. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah. Right. so I I work with the history of different religious communities and one of the things that I think so I come from a background where the community that I come from is a minority religious community, right? Within sort of the Muslim Richard Landes: the Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: world. my mother's family is from Zanzibar, I grew up in Tanzania. it was a minor it's you know, real Islam is kind of a min Not necessarily minority religion, but equal to Christianity and and animistic religious tradition. So it's about third Muslim as a whole, Tanzania, a third Christian, a third animist. Richard Landes: Mm-hmm. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: and so, you know, I think there's a there are exceptional examples of pluralism for minority communities that are that do not want dominion, right? And I think that that is an example. I think those those examples, Islam Muslims in China have always been a minority for more than a thousand years. Richard Landes: Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Amazing religious and spiritual flourishing. So I think there are ways of thinking about religion outside of politics. And I think that's the larger challenge that we have in the modern period is since colonization, the focus has been resistance and politics, right? Islam as politics and being able to recover Richard Landes: Well Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: the covenantal tradition and also the mystical tradition, which I think helps to be able to provide the the emotional, the intellectual connection to other religious traditions. Spiritual. Absolutely. Which is critical. Yeah. Yeah. Richard Landes: Spiritual. Right. Absolutely. Right. Right. So but but I I'm not sure what you're referring to when you invoke the notion of imperial colonial. Is that the Western imperial colonial? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: yeah, so I think two two things, right? So you actually do have Muslim imperialism, of course. There are empires that begin with the Umayyads sort of onwards, right? so I think that gives you a sense of like the you know politics as sort of an imperial project. so that's one example of it. And then the second is Western imperialism. So I think really seventeen ninety eight, Napoleon goes into Egypt, and that really Richard Landes: Yeah. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: sets a a very new trajectory. And I think it it also becomes something that unfortunately, rather than engaging with messr Western modernity, it ends up sort of defining itself against that. And so that really then sets us up for kind of what we've seen the last, you know, fifty years or so of conflict, yeah. Richard Landes: Right. Okay, so yeah, so So the the at least the way it appears to me, and I'm open to correction, is that Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Mm-hmm. Sure. Richard Landes: for I'm a medieval historian, I work on the Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Uh-huh. Richard Landes: eleventh century, the birth of the crusades, and so on, but also on millennial movements, including you know, most famously for my period, 1009, which was the year four hundred. the caliph of Cairo Al Hakim destroys Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Richard Landes: the Holy Sepulchre. Pretty clear millenarian Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Mm-hmm. Richard Landes: material going on actually believes that he is the divinity incarnate, which is more common in Christianity than it is in Islam, quite rare in Islam, but in any case, So from from the perspective of a medieval historian, what we're dealing with is Christian imperialism and Muslim imperialism have been budding their heads both in the Balkans and in Spain, in the Iberian Peninsula for hundreds of years, almost a se let's say a century. So from from the seventh century to the seventeenth century. And then in the eighteenth century, the West Western imperialism, through a kind of secular movement within the West, develops technology that permits it to conquer the rest of the world. If not conquer at all, certainly penetrate deep into other cultures and Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Mm-hmm. Richard Landes: assert power. And so the the response to that on the part of the Muslims was not to invent something new, it was a reawakening of the spirit of in some senses the most extravagant vision of and this seems to come out in the years and decades after the caliphate is is disestablished in in the nineteen twenties, you get this this millenarian vision of where there was Dar al Harb, there shall be Dar al Islam. So you know in that sense I I I I wouldn't I wouldn't think that that what's generally called Islamism reflects a new response to the West It's definitely a response to the West, but it's mobilizing v very old and very deeply embedded dreams. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Right. so I'm not gonna disagree that there are Richard Landes: I'm losing I don't hear you. No, I still don't hear you. Hmm. All right. Now I now I hear you. Yeah. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: okay. Is that helpful? Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah, so I think yeah, I think what ends up happening is that there is of course, so there are two things. One is that there is a desire t there is a copying, of course, right? You have this kind of war essentially w between i the Islamic and and the Christian world, right? So that is that is Richard Landes: Christian, right? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: one conflict that's happening. But when you're looking at it at it holistically, right, you're seeing different sort of trends. So I you know study South Asia, I study Southeast Asia, I studied the Swahili coast of East Africa. that there, like for instance, the Ibadi tradition of Zanzibar and sort of East and the Swahili coast, that is, you know, that's not that's not the dominant operative. Indonesia is not it does not become Muslim that way. So the mystical is also part of it. So you have the political project that's happening, you have the mystical spiritual project that's happening. Richard Landes: Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Mughals, right? Like India is not converted to Islam. They're parts of it, like where people come to Islam. And when one of the really interesting things is the scholar, Richard Eaton, who's done remarkable work on Islam. And it's really r interesting because the majority of places that are non-Muslim, Bangladesh, Pakistan, are not places where Muslim dominion has. Right. So Muslim dominion was in Delhi and other places. So the peop these people in the peripheral areas were connected to types of spiritual technologies that allowed them to be able to bridge Hinduism to Islam and create new spiritual language and and traditions. Right. So I think that that is a whole nother operative tradition that that exists in the Asian versions of Islam that can be connected. Richard Landes: and that we haven't and that we haven't heard about in the West. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Unfortunately, yeah. I think that's and that's one of the challenges I think with the with the type of Islam that exists in the West and the ones that are are fighting against in very horribly violent ways, right? And when we're looking at at Israel, we're looking at, Iraq and Afghanistan. just horrible atrocities in the name of religion. today it's October seventh and the horrible things that happened on October seventh in Israel, it's really I don't believe that that is From my perspective, true Islam. And I think that there is historical evidence to show that compassion and mercy and sort of the remarkable s spiritual technologies of our tradition allow us to be able to have this sort of covenantal relationship with people of difference. Yeah. Richard Landes: All right, so all right, so then let's distinguish between what I would call supremacist Islam, which is incapable of covenantal relations, which views alliances with infidels as at best temporary, even better to avoid them entirely. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yes, yeah. Richard Landes: and I'm not sure what you call it, covenantal Islam, I'd call it neighborly Islam, or neighborly Muslims. so i in in distinguishing the two, one of the problems for outsiders, infidels like me, is when we look at it, that not only does the supremacist teaching hold for many centuries. At the center of Islam, the empires. And if I understand you correctly, it operates differently at the margins, but at the center of the religion and at the center of the legal tradition, at the center of the interpretation of the Quran, with the principle that earlier Meccan, more tolerant verses are. cancelled, abrogated by subsequent, much more belligerent passages. when we look at it we say, you know The people you're describing are the people we want as our neighbors, but that doesn't seem to be what we have. What we have is people who seem to be quite willing to look at October seventh and say, I'm proud. So how do we how do we deal with this? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: So yeah, all right. So there are two things that I would like to highlight. I think one is you know, I'd I'd like to say that I I don't think that you're an infidel. I think there's a tradition in in Islam, very, very famous by Imam Ali, right, who's the fourth caliph. he writes a letter to Malik Ashtar, who is the governor in the Levant and he says that all people, right, you're either brothers in faith or brothers in humanity. So you're my brother, right? You're not an infidel. in the Islamic Richard Landes: Okay. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: tradition. This is that's what I would say. in Richard Landes: In this Islamic tradition. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: in the in this Islamic tradition, which I think is is you know the one of the ones that I'm really trying to show and recover. And the second thing is that even in the heart of the Imperium, right? So in Istanbul, other places, right, you had the Tekke, the the Sufi lodges that were very, very important. And Sufism was everywhere. So the spiritual tradition existed, you know, in Istanbul, in Damascus, all over the place. And that was central to Islamic religious life, right? And so I think that's something that's also very, very important to understand is that we've lost so much of that through Wahhabism, through a lot Richard Landes: Right. Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: of these sorts of ideologies that have really shorn the mystical and sort of the spiritual away from that. And so I think it Richard Landes: Okay. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: that goes hand in hand and it's critical to the way that you're able to live in peace with other people. Yeah. Richard Landes: All right. I I would agree entirely with you and you know, like I'm dating myself, but you know, I was a youth in the sixties, and certainly Sufism was one of the very attractive options, along with Buddhism. I mean, it was it was a real time for mixing spiritualities. on the other hand, as a student of millennial movements, and particularly And you'll help me with my pronunciation here the tradition in Islam of the Mujahdid every century, the renewer. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Right. Richard Landes: So one of them was Al Hakim in 400. Another in 1300, which is our 1890 1882, was the the the Mahdi of Khartoum. And he was a Sufi. So Even Sufis can be mobilized to apocalyptic warfare. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: yeah, yeah. No, just the same thing like you have Buddhist warrior kings, right? Just because you're Buddhist doesn't necessarily mean that you're a pacifist, right? Richard Landes: Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: so yeah, so yeah, I I mean I agree. Every tradition has that. and so the question then what's operative for us is so in the Islamic tradition, there's this idea of mithak, right? So covenant in Islam, like in Hebrew it's Brit, right? in the Arabic tradition it's called Mithak. and so it's important, so generally communities would have some sort of covenant, right? With so for instance, you have you have it until today, right? In the sixteenth century, the Mughal emperor wrote a covenant with the Jain community, right? So I work on Jainism and sort of as a religious tradition. And this was Richard Landes: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: kind of the covenant that establishes the relationship between the Mughals and and the Jains until the British British colonization, right? So there are this idea that there's a representative of truth. See, okay, this is the I think at the theological level what's happening, right? Richard Landes: Okay. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Is that as a Muslim, right, God we're challenged by this issue. We're finite beings, God is infinite. We're not able to fully know God. And sometimes whatever vo even vocabulary we use to understand God is not really God, right? This is one of the traditions Richard Landes: Great. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: within Islam. And so we understand God's truth and nature through engaging with other people. So there is some aspect of truth in the divine in you. that allows us to be able to truly connect to God in in the Islamic tradition. And so I think that is what I'm trying to that is an important part of our our tradition and I think that that has a history. And you know, that's kind of what I'm trying to recover historically and being able to at the same time also you know, live in in my own life and try to preach as well. Richard Landes: So I there are a number of books. the one that I read most recently was by Ayan Hirsi Ali, in which he distinguished the Meccan period and the Medinan period and certainly as a historian of apocalyptic expectations, the Meccan period seems to be a period where in fact Islam did not have power. It was only the power of its preaching. That gave it any influence. and that preaching was apocalyptic, that the day of judgment was imminent, and that in the shadow of that judgment it was time to repent. And that that was one of the main threads that com connected the early believers with both Jews and Christians, because they all shared this notion. of a last judgment, where God would come and judge people according to their deeds. So not necessarily, although for Christians already, denominational, but really what I call moral eschatology. But then the Medinan period seems to be the period in which Muhammad and his followers ceased to be ceased to await God's punishment of the unbelievers, of the mockers, of the people who humiliated him, and to take on that that task themselves, to punish, not to wait for God to punish these people, but to punish them themselves in this world. and so there are some people I just interviewed, a a cop, who basically said, Look, you know, if you want to say Islamism is the problem, Muhammad was an Islamist, certainly from the Medinan period on. So how does how does the tradition you're Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: So I think all right. Richard Landes: dealing with deal with the Medinan verses and the Medinan Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah, so I think Richard Landes: Shift. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: yeah, so I mean you have to deal with like every religious figure is is complex, right? So everyone all every religious figure has had issues and problems, and has a comp you know, a complex sort of relationship. So, you know, the Buddha wasn't perfect, right? Even the Buddha abandons his family, right? He abandons his hi you know, so that's a that's not necessarily a good thing to leave your family kind of, you know, to and then just to try to find enlightenment on your own, right? So the ev Richard Landes: Actually Jesus Jesus goes even farther and says if you don't hate your family you can't follow me so Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Right, right. So exactly, right? And so even within Christianity, when we think about the Christian tradition, what is Christianity what is the the tradition as it's a minority tradition? What it what does it become once it becomes Constantinian, right? So once it becomes state religion, it transforms in radically different ways, right? And I think the same the same thing we can think Richard Landes: Right. Right. Yes. and and not a very pretty picture. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: right, right, exactly. So I think the same thing it we can think about, The tradition, we also know that when the Prophet then eventually conquers Mecca, that he doesn't take retribution against the people that are there. So I think it's a complicated relation. So if there is violence, I'm not gonna disagree with that. but I think what we you know, as we go through, you know, revelation has ended, right? So in the Islamic tradition. And so all we can do now is to is commentary and thinking about how does this ancient tradition How do we make it relevant to our daily life? And I think that there are really important lessons that Muhammad and the tradition teach us that we can apply Richard Landes: Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: to our condition because not all of it is going to be useful for us. And not all of it's Richard Landes: Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: operative and can also not even agree with all of it as well, right? I I Richard Landes: okay. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: don't agree with all some of the things that unfortunately happened during the time of the prophet. And that's, you know, that I I you know, like this sort of killing of the Jewish tribes and stuff like that. I I denounce that. I think that's that was very unfortunate that that happened, right? and that's not part of what I plan to I emphasize in my own tradition and practice. Yeah. Richard Landes: I I I understand that, but what I'm trying to understand or f what I'm trying to get you to help me to understand is Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah, sure. Richard Landes: what do we do with the people who have the supremacist reading, for whom Islam is so vastly superior to religion that Muhammad is perfect and that whatever he did is a model for how we should behave. and that anybody like you who has the nerve to say, I don't like this. Part of the Quran is a blasphemer. What do we do with them? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Right. So I think that there's something that you can separate the prophet as a man embedded in history and the revelation and the truth that he was able to sort of explain, right? And then again I think that the the mystical tradition believes in the prophet as a perfect man in the primordial sense, right? So one of the texts that I work on is the idea of Nurnama. And so Muhammad is perfect as the first of creation, right? So it's a prim he's primordial. It's not actually born in history. it's a diff it's a very, very different and much more complex way of thinking about Muhammad than just this guy who lives in sort of the seventh century and all he does all these sorts of things. It has vastly more it it's infinite in its understanding of sort of who that is. And that's the same thing in Buddhism, right? The idea of of Treya Buddha and sort of All the different types of Buddhas that exist throughout history, not just Shakyamuni in in you know, the the the fifth century BC, right? Yeah. Yeah. Richard Landes: Right. but but that a that that belief in the primordial Muhammad also Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah. Richard Landes: feeds the supremacist reading that Adam was a Muslim and that both Christianity and Judaism are deceptive derivatives of the original Muslim truth. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: So I think what you can say is I wouldn't necessarily say Muslim, I would say obedient to God, right? Because we believe also, most Muslims would believe that even animals are obedient to God, right? So the idea is that the natural the creation of the of the universe, the natural world is itself obedient to God, right? Richard Landes: Okay. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: yeah, so everything is is fundamentally obedient to God and that there are traditions, right? When we look at the Mughals and other places where look, I mean, think the Mughals are a very good example. Right, Akbar, some of these sort literally everywhere is idolatry, right? From a from a traditional Arab perspective. You would say everything's idolatry. And they reinterpret the Quran, basically saying, This is not idolatry. These people also had this idea of believing in one God in many manifestations. They have books like the Vedas, the Upanishads, which resonate very deeply with the with the Quran. And so, you know, for for centuries they lived in peace essentially for most of there were conflicts, but those conflicts weren't inherently religious, right? there were conflicts over power. And so I think that's something that's important to also see is that there is a history of covenantal relationships in India, in Indonesia, in other places. And I think those are way there are intel intellectual, spiritual tools that can be used to live in peace with others. Yeah. Richard Landes: All right. I'm still you you're telling me what we can do. I'm asking you I Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: How do you do it? Richard Landes: Yeah, and how to deal with the profound and I least from from the outside, the dominant strain in Islam which is profoundly hostile to this kind of covenantal thinking and that insists that Islam is so superior that it should be ruling. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah. I'm not gonna disagree. There that is a strain, in modern Islam and it it is in many parts of the world dominant. I'm not gonna disagree with that. Richard Landes: Including the West. Or is it? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: I I don't know. I don't think so, but I am not, I don't know enough about Muslims generally. I think generally in the West, Muslims, the ones the Muslims that I engage with and I work with and I live with, most Muslim communities want to live in peace, I think, with with their neighbors, right? Now, do they want Richard Landes: Neighboring Muslims. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: never Muslims, but you know, I think the majority, you know, millions of Muslims live in America generally almost all Muslims, I think that's the covenantal pluralism. People live on their day-to-day life, they they hang they hang out with each other, they go to work together. People are can can live in peace with each other, right? there are extremists for sure. And I think we see that with like these antisemitic attacks against synagogues and things like that. there's this you know, there's this guy who who was the Fort Hood shooter, right? So there are exceptions, I think. my you know, what I'm trying I think which we what needs to happen though is that we is the development of a of this older covenantal theology in which violence is not acceptable, right? And sort of then make articulating in Islam. And that's a much longer larger large larger project in America at least. That's that is in a many ways if I don't know if you've studied a little bit of reform Judaism, but Judaism went through a massive transformation in the United States in the American context. And it it begins from the Germans in the 18th and 19th century that come over and then it you know takes over in sort of the reform tradition in the 19th and 20th centuries, right? So I think that is a larger intellectual theological project and it needs intellectual institutions to be able to develop that. So I think that is that's a that I would say, at least in a in the American context, is a century-long project that we're just on the beginning of. Yeah. Yeah. Richard Landes: So all right. All right. And if I understand correctly, I'm telling me if I'm putting words in your mouth, the mistake of the last twenty five years is that America has been taking supremacist Muslims as their partners in dialogue, in legal issues, definitions of things like Islamophobia and so on. And as a result, they have systematically empowered exactly the wrong people. They should have been talking with you. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: I think what w part of what we're trying I think I'm trying to do, at least in the work that I'm I'm trying to figure out, is you know, how do we empower yeah, empower a cup the people who are interested in a long term covenantal relationship, absolutely, within our tradition. and that we Yeah. Richard Landes: Right. And yeah, I I actually let me take it one step further, not not just long term but permanent. That a covenantal right covenants are for good. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Permanent, absolutely, permanent permanent. Absolutely. It's a it's a permanent it's a permanent bond. And it's also how do we, at least in America, how do we contribute to American flourishing, right? So America's going through lots of challenges right now. And I feel that the best of the Islamic tradition can help to provide answers and solutions to how do we flourish together? How do we live a better life together? and I I feel that it has the intellectual and spiritual tools to contribute to that conversation. And so how do we develop that conversation rather than just saying, Okay, Islamophobia, people hate Muslims, that's our entire Richard Landes: Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: narrative. That cannot be our entire narrative. We have to be in in we have a shared future and we have something that we can contribute to that shared future. Richard Landes: Right, right. so somebody n a number of people have said to me that the problem with Islam is that the more devout a Muslim gets, the more likely he is to be a supremacist. Now you're offering depth, you're offering devotion without supremacism. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Absolutely, absolutely. Because look, God is eternal and God exists everywhere and God created all of us. So there's no way that you can think that you're better than someone else or that your tradition is better than someone else. Yeah. Richard Landes: Well, I I I agree with you, or at least I I'm actually a little more tolerant and I say, look, if you want to believe that your religion is the cat's meow and everybody else's religion is not gonna save them, as long as that's your private opinion, that's fine. But when you try and institutionalize it, when you try and make sure that your religion is visibly superior to reflect what you believe is its inherent superiority, then there's a problem. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: No, I would disagree with that. I d I don't think you can I Richard Landes: okay. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: would say that you can't even believe that because I think what it does is it fundamentally you can never do justice to another person if you believe they're damned to hell. And I learned that going up in Louisiana, right? In Louisiana where people Richard Landes: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: are racist as as heck and they believe that I was going to hell and they told me that when I was six years old. And they treated me very badly in that sense. So i even if it's just a private belief, you fundamentally cannot do justice to another person if you you believe that they're going to hell. So I don't think that's acceptable either. In a c in in a Richard Landes: I see. No, no, no, no. That's interesting. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah. Richard Landes: first of all, I would say telling people they're going to hell is a form i it's a supremacist deed. I mean you can think they're going to hell, but telling them is something Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah. Richard Landes: else. I you know, I mean if they're doing something evil, okay. But if you it's just that Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: No, but it I mean i it's the attitude, it's the perception, it's it's policies. There are many different ways that that that Richard Landes: Yeah. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: you you can you can treat people in a unfair way, even if you're not like literally attacking them. Richard Landes: So you have a line in here, and I'm trying to find it, I'm having trouble. but Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah. Richard Landes: you have a very good line in there about a kind of theological humility. Yeah. So Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yes, absolutely. Richard Landes: so yes, and in fact, I I have a friend who talks about exegetical humility, Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yes. Richard Landes: which is which is, you know, cuts at the heart of the literal-mindedness of various fundamentalist traditions. Again, let me come back to the problem because i i if I understand you correctly, you're developing a a Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: You Richard Landes: form of Islam which is compatible with a society that believes in freedom of religion. And that Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Absolutely. I think it Richard Landes: and that unlike the supremacists, you will exist in that society without planning to take it over. Okay. Okay, so how how do Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Absolutely. I think it's critical. I think yes. Richard Landes: you read the passage? again, correct me if my pronunciation Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah. Richard Landes: is wrong, but Al Walla Walbara? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Look, I Richard Landes: 'Cause that's a supremacist favorite. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Sure, sure. I'm sorry I have to go in a few minutes. But yeah, no, I th Richard Landes: Okay. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: I think there it of course there's supremacism. The question is like what is the context of that, of what is being you know, of the verses, of what is the occasions of revelation, and is it applicable to us? And if it's not applicable to us, there are things that are not applicable to us in the modern period. And you know, that is you know, that we don't we don't emphasize that. So the question is like it's a the Quran is a a big complex text, right? And it's yeah. Richard Landes: So what do we what do we do with people who do emphasize it? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: I think you have to develop institutions, you have to deal networks of people who are able to s from my perspective, steer the conversation and the perspective in a very different direction. So I think that that is what you that I mean that that's a project, right? That's a that's kind of what fundamentally we're s Islam is trying to deal with modernity in a very, very challenging way. And I think figuring out how to do that in a way that engages positively and contributes to the world. So many societies have had to deal with it. The Japanese had to deal with it, the Koreans, the Chinese, right? And Richard Landes: Right, right, right, right, right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: they've done exceptional ways of engaging with we might not n necessarily agree with everything, but they engage with with moder Western modernity in challenging and also now positive ways. Richard Landes: Productive works. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: And so I think that Islam has the same sort of capacity to be able to do that, you know? So that that's kind of the work that I'm trying to do. Yeah. And I think that, that think about if we would had this conversation during World War Two, we could have said the same Richard Landes: Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: thing about the Japanese, right? That it's completely incompatible. the type of violence that we yeah. Richard Landes: Right, okay. Okay. I I I know you have to leave, so I'm gonna leave you with a a a question. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Sure. Richard Landes: One of the issues that came up most recently all right, hold on one second. We'll we'll cut this part. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Mm. Okay. Richard Landes: I don't Okay. Okay, an io ci bod št'ot besenda. uhni Bemtsa Tsicha ni Yotse lì pagishitra. Mitsuyan. Tov, Tov, as Leito. Okay. Somebody w warning me long before necessary. Okay, end of cut. All right, so here's here's the question for you. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Okay, no problem. Okay, okay. Sure. Richard Landes: this came up most recently in terms of this fly Dubai pilot, which was Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah, it's very sad. Richard Landes: right, which was in some senses a repetition of October 7th. And which was a reaction to normalization. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Mm. Richard Landes: Rumors that my god, Saudi Arabia might make peace with Israel provokes the most violent reactions because that's an unbearable situation. And so again, we get back to this question, and we can come back and carry on the conversation in the future. But my question to you is. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Yeah, yeah. I love that, yeah. Richard Landes: How how do we deal with that and and this will also be for our second conversation, how do we deal with what, at least from my point of view, are the useful i i useful idiotic infidels in the West who not just empower the Jihad, the supremacists, but actually in some cases make their work possible in the West? Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Well, one is I I yeah, I again I don't think that that is it's inherent in see, I think one of the advantages that Islam has from my perspective over Christianity, right? Is that in terms of antisemitism, for instance, is that we don't use the the Tanakh, right, as our religious text, right? So we don't need to be able to Islam is it not inherent see, this is I think the this is the ch the difference and the challenge, I think, is that the patterning after Christianity assumed a type of supremacism. And I would say that Islam is not supremacist. that's Richard Landes: Course did Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: not successionist, right? it it doesn't say okay like we've fulfilled and so these people are no longer important or useful. In fact it actually says that you know they're harmful. And that's kind of you have this whole history of anti Semitism, right, as part of that. Richard Landes: Right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: so I would say that you know in that sense Islam doesn't need Judaism in order to define itself, right? And I think that gives you intellectual space to be able to define a new relationship. Yeah. And yeah, and I Richard Landes: Room to maneuver. All right. All right. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: think that Maimonides is a very good example of that. He's the best of the c the engagement of both of these traditions. So that's that's yeah that's Richard Landes: Right, and and in general the philosophical tradition, but it's literally in the generations after Maimonides that the Muslim world turned Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Right. Right. Richard Landes: against this philosophical tradition. So okay. I understand. I understand. So Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Right, right, yeah. So it's there though and it's it can be recaptured in I think their institution. Yeah. Richard Landes: thank you for this conversation. Let's consider it the beginning, and I'm Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Thank you for having me. Yes. Richard Landes: gonna come back at you again on how do we deal with the supremacists and with their from my point of view insane allies in the West who are out there yelling globalise the antifada thinking that that means globalizing liberation. Dr. Iqbal Akhtar: Right, right. Well Richard, for me you're not infidel, you're my brother. and so I really appreciate this opportunity and definitely look forward to continuing the conversation. All right, take care. Richard Landes: All right. Thank you very much,