Electromagnetic

I just watched a video [linked below] of Abdal-Hakim Murad’s lecture at the recent Radical Middle Way project event “Globalised Before Globalisation: The Forgotten History of the Muslim Trader” delivered at Canary Wharf, London, on May 7, 2008 [Khan Dera Films, approx. 20 minutes].

Murad discusses economic dimensions of the sirah or life of Nabi Muhammad (peace be upon him). He conceives of the sirah as a tale of two cities: Mecca and Medina and explores how the hijra or migration of the Nabi from Mecca to Medina can be understood not only in terms of a theological and political shift but an economic shift as well. I think Murad’s talk is an insightful comment on a much neglected aspect of the biography of the Nabi. The way he links his point to the greater consequences of modern economics is creative. One of the most difficult aspects of this lecture for me is Murad’s observation about why more relatively wealthy white people do not become Muslim as frequently as poor black and brown people in Europe and other parts of the world, especially North America. Acknowledging factors like racism as barriers, he goes further to suggest that since God is with the broken-hearted, people who tend to come from socio-economic backgrounds that encourage complacency and maintenance of the status-quo of the establishment are less receptive to embracing the transformative path that Islam represents because doing so would threaten to burst their bubbles of advantage: economic, intellectual, and otherwise. This lecture also features one of Murad’s lighter moments as he mischievously imitates the accent of an Indian telemarketer before a crowd of predominantly younger British professionals (many of South Asian heritage), evoking laughter as he tries to drive home the point that we live in a society in which the evidence of the great (and increasing) socio-economic disparity between the wealthy north and poor south is often thinly concealed but just enough so that we do not bother to examine it or actually do anything about it.

Watch the lecture at the Radical Middle Way website here.