Episode 8 The Big Questions


Episode 8

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Today on The Big Questions: Misrepresenting Islam,

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reincarnation, and marriage - is it what you make it?

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Today we're live from Heartlands Academy in Birmingham.

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Welcome, everybody, to The Big Questions.

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The activities of Islamist extremism across the globe have killed many

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more Muslims than people from other faiths, as we saw yet again

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earlier this month, when 80 worshippers were killed and 250

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injured by an Islamist suicide bomber at the Sufi Muslim shrine,

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Last week Pope Francis declared that Muslim

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Just as no-one puts the blame on Christianity when Christians

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engage in violent or criminal activities, so neither

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should Islam be blamed for the crimes of Islamists.

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Good morning, everyone. Sammy Yacoub, who is guilty of

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misrepresenting Islam? -- Salma Yaqoob. Who does it? I think right

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now it is a bit of an industry. Research done by a Californian

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university found that millions of dollars a year are paid out to

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people paying them to run these kind of stories. What kind of stories?

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Saying negative things about Muslims. The issue you referred to

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was a reality. The people that carry out these atrocities, it is their

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responsibility and of course it is right to talk about it. Can I stop

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you there? You are immediately blaming the west. But you asked me a

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question. Shouldn't you say that the people who misrepresent Islam are

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the people that join Isis? The people who slaughtered the

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cartoonists... You are actually interrupting me halfway through that

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very sentence. I was talking about that very issue. The people that

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carry out these atrocities they first, primarily and mainly

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responsible. For me as a that is very important. Here in Birmingham

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we have organised protests in Muslim communities, saying not in our name,

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and we reject these people who carry out this kind of violence. But the

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Pope has a point. When violent activities occur, we shouldn't blame

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a whole religion. That was an atrocity in Pakistan and my family's

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roots are in Pakistan and of course I feel strongly about what is

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happening there, but you haven't mentioned that this very weak

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hundreds of Muslims in Burma have been killed by Buddhists. I wouldn't

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say this about Buddhism, of course I wouldn't. There are people around

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the globe, in a Iraqi and Afghanistan, where millions of

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Moslems were killed, but they still would not blame Christianity. The

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soldiers themselves may have claimed that faith, many of them. It is

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wrong to blame a whole religion. Does it mean that all religions are

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progressive? No. It doesn't mean they are all reactionary? No. It is

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a spectrum. You will see extremist and all backgrounds, atheists and

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religious, and it is important to say that. Sadia Hameed, is it

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important people say they are doing it in the name of a faith? Yes. I do

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think we need to start talking about some of harmful elements of Islam.

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In the Koran it does advocate violence and rape even. And we are

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not addressing that. We are doing Muslim is a disservice, really. We

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do misrepresent Muslims, but Islam is not misrepresented. There are

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very violent and harmful passages within the Koran. Talking about

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slavery? Yes, and social and sexual and domestic violence. But the study

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has shown there is a two to one ratio of Ireland versus peaceful...

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Did Muhammad have sex slaves? Yes, and his followers, and it is still

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advocated today. I think last week of the week before Doctor Jonathan

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Brown was talking about slavery within Islam and he was talking

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about how they feed their slaves and they sheltered them. There is sex

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trafficking in the modern day. We don't excuse it. I think for Sadia

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Hameed to quote the Koran without knowing it at all is unfair. I

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didn't interrupt you. There are verses that talk about war and

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peace. It also that marriage and relationship. In the life of the

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Prophet, it is not true that he had sex slaves. He had been married to

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many women. Most of his wives were divorcees, and elderly people, and

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at that time, in those days, people were not given protection in that

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way in the patriarchal society they lived in. The grant is very explicit

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about relationships. -- the Koran. When we confuse the verses of

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warfare, which of course appear in the Koran, against our notion of

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peas and justice of violence, of course it creates confusion. It

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requires interpretation, doesn't it? But who says your interpretation is

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right and somebody else's is wrong? I am not saying mine is right. I am

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saying it is very simple. In the Arabic language there is a common

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dictionary you can pick up and understand and it is about common

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sense. It is a language that is very rich with a long history. There is a

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science of interpretation so you cannot interpret willy-nilly the

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sayings of the Prophet. Refer to the part, contextualise it in the time

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you live, and back it up with science most importantly. If your

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God wants peace in the world and he gives you a book, I would expect it

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to say very explicitly be peaceful. It does. It shouldn't take any

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interpretation to pick those bits out. The points you raise is very

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important, Nicky. Do we misrepresent? And we do by giving

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the wrong understanding. The word Islam means peace, and the entire

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lifestyle is one who submits to peace. I think we have got to make a

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very important distinction between Islamist extremism and Muslim people

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in general. The two are very different. We need to focus on the

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extremists, who as you rightly said her primarily targeted fellow

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Muslims, who don't conform to their particular interpretation of Islam.

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With regard to whether atrocities and outrages should be labelled as

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Islamic or not, when it came to the Crusades, it would be absurd to say

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they had nothing to do with Christianity. Christianity was the

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motivation of those crusades and those atrocities against the Muslim

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world, and likewise a very small minority of Muslims are misusing and

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abusing, or in some places they would be following interpretation of

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the Koran, and doing things in the name of Islam, and we should not

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deny the connection. Let's not deny the cultural here. Islam is not just

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one thing. It is hundreds of thousands of different types and too

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often it is put in one box and that this incredibly similar stick. An

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ICM poll shocked people. The theories about 9/11, that Jewish

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people did it, and some people think it is a creditable poll, but 50% of

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Muslims thought that homosexuality should be illegal. Illegal? But I

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would contend that is not necessarily to do with Islam but to

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do with cultures within Islam. Cultures that practice Islam from

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less socially progressive societies, no? They don't tolerate

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homosexuality within Islam. A lot of religions don't tolerate

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homosexuality. Right from a very young age, being told it is not

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acceptable within Islam, they are going to grow up into adults

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thinking it is not an acceptable lifestyle. Now we do have, as the

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Council of ex-Muslims, we do have people who come to us who are

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homosexual, who have had to leave the faith, because the entire

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community, their entire families have turned their backs on them.

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What about people who abandon their faith? If Islam was so peaceful, we

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wouldn't have people coming to us telling us their lives were at risk

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and we wouldn't have honour killings and forced marriages and those

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things still happen. Let's hear from Salma Yaqoob on that. Is there a

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problem in Islam within apostasy? I think there is a problem in all

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religions and belief systems when it comes to orthodoxy, who claims the

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mainstream and who claims the fringes. We have talked about

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homosexuality. But can we not leave other religions with less bother and

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threat? No, because an exception is being made, and it is important to

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contextualise. Your whole life you have been campaigning for gay rights

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and you are not given in an Islamic country campaigning for gay rights,

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and we see Donald Trump using right conservatism is backed by the

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right-wing Christian churches in America, attacking the progressive

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rights of gay and lesbian people. This is not a uniquely Muslim

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cultural issue and that is what I take exception to. Peter? On this

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point, most Muslims get it fundamentally wrong. The Koran has

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no explicit condemnation of demisexuality and it prescribes no

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punishments. That is based on an interpretation that leads many

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Muslims to condemn homosexuality. If you believe in the Koran, the Koran

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itself says this is the word of Allah and it requires no

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interpretation and no perdition. It is not in the Koran that

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homosexuality is explicitly wrong and it prescribes no punishments,

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and so Muslim south no authority to condemn LGBT people. Sacred texts

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are being interpreted by different people through their own cultural

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prison. Or prism. Some thoughts from the audience. Apostasy, what are

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your thoughts on that? There are many examples historically during

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the time of the Prophet where people did decide to leave the faith and

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said it wasn't part of them and they lived in absolute harmony with the

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Muslim is at that time. What I think is happening... Can I ask you a

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question? You obviously have great knowledge and faith. You can

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understand somebody in the so-called Islamic State being fed the line

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from the Koran on apostates if they turn back, take hold of them and

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kill them wherever you find them. They might say that means what it

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says. That has been taken out of its historical essence and context. That

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is the problem, isn't it? What Islamic State are doing is taking

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Koranic interpretation in a literal and puritanical sense. Arabic has

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many layers. When you interpret Arabic. I work in counter extremism

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in Birmingham and I run an organisation where we tackle

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radicalisation and we provide the evidence to show where

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contextualisation of the Koran can cause more damage. What we are not

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seeing today is the fact that cultural infiltration within the

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faith has caused a huge amount of problems when it comes to

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interpretation and the actual expressions of faith as we are

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seeing it today. That needs to be removed. People need to go down and

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understand what is representative of the faith and what is not. Thank

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you. A couple more points. David and then at the back. Ajmal, always

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wanting to take part, but we have two more good ones coming up. About

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cultural issues, when you look at Islam, every part of the world you

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look at, you have Muslims in all part of the world, including white

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English. It is about the culture. Islam is opposed to supersede

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culture. If you go to Africa, Gambia, Senegal, you see Muslims

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openly practising witchcraft and voodoo which violate Islam and then

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you go to Pakistan and you see people who practice on a killing and

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stuff. But that is not Islamic. We Muslims here are struggling to fight

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and explain to our co-workers and friends that these are not Islamic.

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They are cultural issues. Every point that has been made here, Islam

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is not the problem. It is Muslims misrepresenting Islam.

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I have got a list of people who want to talk. That point leads us quite

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nicely onto this because we are talking about specific cultural

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influences and how that influences how people practice a religion and

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it muddies the water. Look at countries like Iran and Turkey, they

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used to be secular, not in the irreligious sense, but secular

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countries where women used to go about, they did not have to cover

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their faces, many people find it obscene and dehumanising, they were

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very different societies from how they are now. Turkey, led by a man

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who is a creationist, he thinks all creatures were created just as they

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appear now on the earth, clamping down on human rights. What went

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wrong? To be honest, I am personally tired of this dichotomy of culture

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versus authentic interpretation. We have been talking about this for the

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last ten minutes. Almost every single contribute talked about the

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importance and significance of culture and the ways in which our

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cultural particularities determine our interpretive strategies but not

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its single person talked about the importance of the political

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structure. I do not think the Muslim world right now requires a

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theological revolution. The Muslim world requires political reform.

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Some of the ideas you are talking about, we may waste many weeks

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talking about narrative, this is the correct interpretation, that is an

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incorrect interpretation, but it is irrelevant. The question we need to

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ask is why in 2017 some of the ideas that the vast majority of Muslims

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regard as problematic, why they managed to find political agency?

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Why do they manage to be effective? What paved the way for them to

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become transformative politically? It is not about competing

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perspectives. It is not about competing interpretations. It is

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about the prevailing political structure which unfortunately

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unleashed these ideas. I compare it with anti-Semitism in Europe. It

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unfortunately has been part and parcel of European history for a

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very long time. But you have seen different manifestations of

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anti-Semitism in different historical phases. Europe did not

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all of a sudden become more anti-Semitic in the 30s when we saw

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the atrocities of the horror Holocaust. -- the Holocaust will

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stop it was a political problem. Political institutionalisation of

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it. It set the stage for the atrocities. That is what is

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happening right now. Political distortions. This is completely

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ignored and we waste our time about it being a wrong interpretation and

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correct, and we are not paying attention actually to the cause of

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the problem and we are obsessively only looking at the symptoms.

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APPLAUSE Excellent point. Christopher, your

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book sounds fascinating. You have not paid me to say that. The author

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of The Islamic Enlightenment. When we look back, we see great

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scientists, we saw great scientists in Islam 1000 years ago who predated

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Darwin's fairy of evolution. It was called by Charles Draper at the

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time, the Mohammed theory. -- theory of evolution. Fantastic geometric

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art and actual art representation of people and of animals which is

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frowned on now. The great mathematicians. Is this question

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legitimate? What went wrong? It is a question that comes up again and

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again, it is a legitimate question and I agree that we have to look at

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the political and historical reasons behind it and we should not obsess

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over what the Koran says. For the individual believer, that is

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important, but in the grander scheme of things, history is what counts

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will stop history tells us that not only 1000 years ago in Baghdad and

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Persia and across the Middle East, there was a great efflorescence,

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upsurge, of knowledge, and the contribution made by Islamic

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cultures to human knowledge, not Islamic knowledge, it is beyond

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question. The other thing that the great black hole is in our

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historical understanding comes in the 19th century and early 20th

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which is when modern ideas entered the Middle East and wired to an

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extraordinary extent absorbed and taken on board -- were too. We have

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discussed slavery this morning, it disappeared within a matter of

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decades in the Middle East. The venerable old Islamic institution

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effectively disappeared. The segregation of men and women ...

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1964, slavery disappeared in Saudi Arabia. That is an aberration and

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Saudi Arabia did not exist in the time I am talking about. The

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advances in the 19th century in the Middle East were immense. There were

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two revolutions, both of which, no one knows about them in the West, a

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revolution in Turkey and in Iran, they brought in parliamentary

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systems of government, before the First World War, the first Turkish

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constitution, 1876. What went wrong? To my mind, a lot of what went wrong

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is in instead -- is external stimulus. The Brits invaded Egypt, a

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very nasty revolution going on which would have meant the British control

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and British influence over Egypt would have been greatly reduced. In

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1914, it came to a head with the First World War which obliterated

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the region physically. We do not talk about the number of dead in the

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Middle East in the First World War, but it was absolutely extraordinary.

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It left behind famine and the complete obliteration of borders.

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After that, Britain and France carved up part of the region and the

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other part of the region, in order to avoid being swallowed up Colonial

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league, it found these very strong secularising regime is... --

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Colonial leaf. Can I borrow this down as a jumping point? There has

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been based of the cetacean and because of the external geopolitical

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influences, the Islamic world has stopped generating and is merely

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reacting? Would that be fair? I think the default mould of catch-up

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and how we react to things entry from the West has taken over. --

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mode. There was a strong sense that what comes in from the West does not

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necessarily mean it is Western or anti-testicle to Islamic culture, it

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is perfectly possible it is the human heritage of humankind --

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antithetical. It was much easier to advocate Darwinism at the turn of

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the 20th century in Cairo than it is today. Something has seriously gone

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wrong. I agree. But I think we need to look to our 20th century for the

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reasons and they are mostly political. How interesting.

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APPLAUSE Which country, Salma, you nodding

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through that, which country do you believe, Muslim majority country,

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which shows Islam at its best in the world? That is a really difficult

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one. I do not think that there is an Islamic State and nor do I think

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there should be an Islamic State. There are countries where people

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happen to be majority Muslim. If you were to ask me the same question,

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for example, which is the best Christian country? There might be

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majority Christian countries, but I would not necessarily think like

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that. You can say which country is the best secular country, you can

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easily say that. The most religiously tolerant. That places

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like Indonesia which are the most populous Muslim countries but most

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people would think of Saudi Arabia. The politics, it is countries like

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Saudi Arabia who are propped up by our country and by the US and they

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actually do export violent extremist interpretations of religion. That

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has been used as a political way to control their own population as well

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as legitimising their existence. There is a dangerous mix of politics

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and theology in countries like Saudi Arabia which I totally accept and I

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am totally opposed to. Which... In Bosnia, majority Muslim country, in

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Europe, people lived side-by-side with their Christian neighbours.

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This has been going on for five centuries, 500 years, native

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people... Slobodan Milosevic. He carried out a Christian crusade but

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even now we should say, we should not blame Christianity. There was a

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genocide of Muslims in the heart of Europe. These are important

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political issues. Palestine and Israel, land or resource, people use

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the excuse of identity politics in the guise of religion to carry out

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those atrocities. A last question and a quick thought and answer,

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which is the best country in the world today to be a Muslim? I would

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say the UK. There we are. APPLAUSE

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England or Scotland or Wales. If you have something to say about that

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debate, log ... to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions,

:24:44.:24:47.

and follow the link to where you can join in the discussion online

:24:48.:24:50.

or contribute on Twitter. We're also debating live this

:24:51.:24:52.

morning from Heartlands Academy in Birmingham -

:24:53.:24:54.

have we all been here before? So get tweeting or emailing on those

:24:55.:24:56.

topics now or send us any other ideas or thoughts you may

:24:57.:25:01.

have about the show. Friday was the Great Night of Shiva,

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or Maha Shivaratri, commemorating when the Hindu god Shiva

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is believed to have saved It's a festival dedicated

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to overcoming darkness and ignorance But it's also a moment when Hindus

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believe their worship of Lord Shiva might help them attain moksha,

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their release from reincarnation, the eternal cycle

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of death and rebirth. Not to this school, we haven't!

:25:30.:25:42.

Seriously, Suraj, George Harrison would have been 74 this week and he

:25:43.:25:50.

was a devout follower of Krishna and in one of his songs, keep me free

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from birth, is that the ultimate aim, to stop the cycle of

:25:57.:25:59.

reincarnation? I think it is important to look at it from the

:26:00.:26:06.

Hindu angle because people's interpretation of Hinduism or their

:26:07.:26:11.

recognition of it is that it is reincarnation and we have hundreds

:26:12.:26:14.

of gods and thousands of gods, it is a very mature religion in the sense

:26:15.:26:21.

that we have monotheism, people of non-religion, people who do... It is

:26:22.:26:28.

a broad church. That is entirely the wrong term! What is universal is

:26:29.:26:36.

they believe in the end of the knowledge and they all have their

:26:37.:26:40.

interpretation, reincarnation is central and the theme is that we are

:26:41.:26:43.

spiritual beings on a material existence and in that sense, it

:26:44.:26:49.

chimes across all of the major religions. Have you been here

:26:50.:26:55.

before? We have. The purpose is to end the cycle of birth and death by

:26:56.:27:01.

getting moksha. We have been here before from the Hindu angle, we have

:27:02.:27:04.

been around and around through different beings. Do you have any

:27:05.:27:08.

sense of the beings? I read that maybe you fell out with Krishna.

:27:09.:27:13.

Tell me about that, that sense you have of why you are here.

:27:14.:27:22.

Personally, I followed the Harry Krishna movement. I am on earth, I

:27:23.:27:30.

am not with Krishna, where I should be, which is a translation... Why

:27:31.:27:36.

are you not with him? Because I wanted my own independence and free

:27:37.:27:41.

will and I was granted that by God out of his kindness and I have come

:27:42.:27:47.

here now to come out of the cycle of rebirth and re-death. The importance

:27:48.:27:56.

is on the human body. Reincarnation again, people have interpretation it

:27:57.:28:01.

is just human reincarnations. Spiritual being is eternal. The

:28:02.:28:08.

dinosaurs were here for 170 million years on our planet. When there were

:28:09.:28:13.

no people here, why dinosaurs being reincarnated as dinosaurs? What was

:28:14.:28:20.

going on then? It is a very complex issue and essentially that is the

:28:21.:28:27.

theory of evolution... Believe you me, the dinosaurs were here and

:28:28.:28:33.

there were no people. Before there were people, what happened? We can

:28:34.:28:38.

only go back 5000 years because Hinduism has been around 5000 years.

:28:39.:28:48.

They do have everything written, it means the end of knowledge and we

:28:49.:28:52.

have all of the information. We have added to the knowledge. We have. We

:28:53.:28:58.

have information on pregnancy and things like that. You have looked

:28:59.:29:02.

into this, what do you think of it? I wanted to say two things. There is

:29:03.:29:09.

no reference to reincarnation. People, when they die, there are

:29:10.:29:14.

various interpretations of where they go in these beautiful poems, in

:29:15.:29:20.

some of them, your eyes go to the sun, your breath goes to the wind

:29:21.:29:25.

and you disperse. Basically, when you die, you followed the first man

:29:26.:29:32.

to die who then went to this heaven where it was very pleasant and there

:29:33.:29:37.

were lovely trees and music and water running. The greatest God,

:29:38.:29:46.

they ruled the heavens. Subsequently, the death poems about

:29:47.:29:52.

what happens at death, how you cremate or there is a very beautiful

:29:53.:30:01.

burial hymn. There is no reference to health. There is a deep dark hole

:30:02.:30:07.

where you get sent. Is this a cultural... We have to move on. Is

:30:08.:30:13.

it a cultural belief? It grew historically, this idea. People

:30:14.:30:19.

thought, if we are going to live on the Earth, we will die again,

:30:20.:30:24.

re-death. We had a whole lot of changes occurring in the tradition

:30:25.:30:30.

and the development of very strong mystical traditions.

:30:31.:30:38.

David, you are past life regression therapist. You were an Irish boy who

:30:39.:30:49.

drowned on a boat on the way to Atlantic. That was one of my lives.

:30:50.:30:54.

And you were a smuggler in Devon. How did this come out? I went into a

:30:55.:30:58.

regression and I explored what happened will stop the smuggler was

:30:59.:31:05.

one where people feared me. I was part of a gang in the West Country

:31:06.:31:16.

in England. People feared me. You have still got the beard! It is

:31:17.:31:24.

interesting. Maybe you are here as a reaction to that, as part of your

:31:25.:31:30.

learning process. What made you realise that they feared you or made

:31:31.:31:34.

you think that? During the regression I was aware of myself

:31:35.:31:39.

sneering at people around me a lot. I was aware of how they behaved.

:31:40.:31:44.

Eventually I was captured by soldiers and I was eventually

:31:45.:31:51.

killed. In another life, I was a general in a Persian army, where I

:31:52.:31:58.

was one of those going over the top first personalities. I inspired

:31:59.:32:04.

people and empowered people. When was this? Probably over 1000 years

:32:05.:32:08.

ago. I didn't follow the dates. I don't particularly because my motive

:32:09.:32:11.

is for therapy. You know roughly when. Excuse me. A general in the

:32:12.:32:20.

Persian army. We offer here I was Cleopatra, I was an Egyptian slave

:32:21.:32:24.

girl, the French revolution is popular. But you were a boy on a

:32:25.:32:31.

boat drowning. A normal, common person. Most regressions are normal,

:32:32.:32:36.

common things, where there is a particular issue they are working

:32:37.:32:42.

on. Alison, come in on this from the humanist society. Your thoughts?

:32:43.:32:48.

This is a very real experience. For David it is a very real experience

:32:49.:32:56.

and Pussy Riot Sam as well. -- and for surround some aren't... Those

:32:57.:33:07.

images are incredibly real for these people. If you can picture your

:33:08.:33:10.

front door, you can beat it imperfect reality. It isn't there in

:33:11.:33:18.

front of you. -- you can picture it in perfect reality. The human brain

:33:19.:33:25.

is very powerful. I can see why these people think these experiences

:33:26.:33:28.

are very real but I would argue that they are not. There is no evidence.

:33:29.:33:34.

There is evidence? Yes. I want to hear from the audience in a minute.

:33:35.:33:39.

University of the junior has done field cases for 50 years. This is

:33:40.:33:45.

peer reviewed scientific evidence? Going round the world talking to

:33:46.:33:49.

children who have spontaneous recall of what appears to be past life, and

:33:50.:33:54.

they verify the details. Children talk about their other mummies, the

:33:55.:34:00.

house they lived in, whatever, they goes and they check it. This is

:34:01.:34:09.

revolutionary stuff. With science and mounting evidence, there would

:34:10.:34:12.

be a possibility of a Nobel Prize because it would change all of our

:34:13.:34:17.

thinking. The gentleman there. Let's get some more thoughts on this about

:34:18.:34:21.

whether we have been here before. Good morning. Let's take an example,

:34:22.:34:37.

as humans, we can bite everyone. A snake can only bike two people but

:34:38.:34:41.

humans can bike in such a way that we destroy the whole body. -- bite.

:34:42.:34:49.

We have the intensity of lots and lots of animals inside us. As

:34:50.:34:59.

humans, we tend to bark as dogs. That person is bad, all that stuff.

:35:00.:35:12.

And how shall I say? Without meditating in. 'S name, we are like

:35:13.:35:17.

the snake, biting other people. This life is an amalgamation of loads and

:35:18.:35:24.

loads of lives. I have got you. The accumulation of knowledge. The lady

:35:25.:35:28.

in the blue shirt? Do you think we have been here before? No, I don't

:35:29.:35:34.

think so. There is a reason why we associate reincarnation with

:35:35.:35:37.

religion. With religion, we need to believe in something. And I think

:35:38.:35:42.

believing that we can come back and we have been here before gives us a

:35:43.:35:45.

purpose, a justification for some actions. It might be memories, it

:35:46.:35:51.

might be dreams, something we are thinking about, but we haven't been

:35:52.:35:54.

here before. Almost wishful thinking. Justifying our actions,

:35:55.:36:04.

justifying our memories, but I don't think it is anything greater. Bishop

:36:05.:36:13.

David, good morning. The thing is sometimes people speak in different

:36:14.:36:17.

accents and different voices and even different languages. What is

:36:18.:36:23.

going on? The Christian viewpoint generally speaking, and the Islamic

:36:24.:36:27.

and the Jewish one, is that we are here in this life, we sort out our

:36:28.:36:31.

future in this life, our spirit leads to a future life, not a

:36:32.:36:38.

comeback. From my experience of people doing this, there is a

:36:39.:36:41.

psychological effect but we would say there is a spiritual deception.

:36:42.:36:47.

That is a demonic lie, where spirits are speaking to their spirits. That

:36:48.:36:53.

is where you get spiritualism from. Even though they speak in these

:36:54.:36:58.

languages, it doesn't mean it is genuine. It is the devil's work. If

:36:59.:37:04.

you want to see it like that. But there is evidence. How can you

:37:05.:37:07.

explain that a child who barely talks is talking about their other

:37:08.:37:11.

mummy and you can check it out? It is called the imagination. But when

:37:12.:37:16.

there are facts that check it out it is more than imagination. I am very

:37:17.:37:22.

open minded. I accept that there are aspects of life that we don't yet

:37:23.:37:27.

have scientific understanding. But I don't believe in reincarnation or

:37:28.:37:32.

past life regression and I don't believe there is any scientific

:37:33.:37:37.

evidence bases. There is no credible, corroborated scientific

:37:38.:37:41.

evidence to say that reincarnation or past life regression exists. Is

:37:42.:37:47.

there any evidence at all? There is very interesting work done with

:37:48.:37:50.

children, especially people like Stevenson who did a lot of work with

:37:51.:37:54.

children in India particularly, who remembered other families, and they

:37:55.:37:57.

have actually met each other. There is a certain amount of evidence of

:37:58.:38:02.

that sort. The other thing we haven't touched on in this

:38:03.:38:09.

discussion is the ethical thing. This has been described as the

:38:10.:38:15.

world's most logical way of looking at the problem of suffering.

:38:16.:38:19.

Absolutely logical. If you behave in a certain way, then you are going to

:38:20.:38:25.

have to pay back. There is an automatic cause and effect system,

:38:26.:38:29.

just as if you put your hand in a hot stove, you will get burned. I

:38:30.:38:37.

think it is a very logical thing. One woman told me that the reason

:38:38.:38:42.

she had had polio and was lame was because she had done something wrong

:38:43.:38:46.

in a previous life and a mystical person told exactly what it was.

:38:47.:38:50.

That got Glenn Hoddle the sacked as England manager when he tried to

:38:51.:38:58.

articulate that. That was seen as terribly shocking at the time,

:38:59.:39:01.

blaming things on a previous life. Do we get another chance in hell?

:39:02.:39:08.

You have worked in therapy, haven't you? I am a psychotherapist. For me,

:39:09.:39:13.

what is interesting is a belief system that helps you to be more

:39:14.:39:16.

conscientious and conscious of what you do and don't do in this life...

:39:17.:39:21.

If you feel there will be a consequence, and it is not just

:39:22.:39:24.

about the number of years that you are here. Yes, as a Muslim, I

:39:25.:39:28.

believe in an afterlife and I am not going to look to science to justify

:39:29.:39:33.

that. There are some things that are not measurable and they are unseen.

:39:34.:39:37.

Things described in the Bible, the Koran, other religious scripture is,

:39:38.:39:43.

there is a leap of faith involved. And we have a choice in that. We

:39:44.:39:47.

have a choice to believe and not to believe. The test is whether it

:39:48.:39:52.

makes you a better human being, not whether you believe in God or not.

:39:53.:39:55.

If you believe we are here not just to serve ourselves but for the

:39:56.:39:59.

people. It makes society better. Yes. And if you believe in that, all

:40:00.:40:08.

power to you, good. And if you have a desire to be in heaven or a desire

:40:09.:40:14.

to be reborn in a better state, my only issue with the idea of

:40:15.:40:17.

reincarnation is the victim blaming element. If you are poor, disabled,

:40:18.:40:24.

suffering... Because you don't have a memory of what you did, so how can

:40:25.:40:30.

you learn? I agree with you in terms of bringing about a better society.

:40:31.:40:36.

But when you look at it in terms of reincarnation, it is not the end

:40:37.:40:39.

goal. We need to look at the purpose of reincarnation. It is to break out

:40:40.:40:44.

of the cycle of life and death. We don't want another life. We want to

:40:45.:40:48.

go back to God and achieve self-realisation. It is about being

:40:49.:40:50.

better people and being compassionate to other people. If we

:40:51.:40:57.

are not creating more compassionate society is then we failing. I really

:40:58.:41:01.

respect that. Where it is constructive, fantastic.

:41:02.:41:07.

Unfortunately ideas like this can be used to justify institutionalised

:41:08.:41:10.

hierarchies. Every religion can. Yes, that is why it is important to

:41:11.:41:14.

unpack that and contextualise it. The caste system, it is not

:41:15.:41:25.

referenced in any Hindu, any Hindu scripture, it is like comparing the

:41:26.:41:29.

idea of a gently to crusades and Islam and terrorism. The caste

:41:30.:41:34.

system has no justification in any of our texts. Thank you very much.

:41:35.:41:39.

You can join in all this morning's debates by logging

:41:40.:41:42.

on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions and following the link

:41:43.:41:43.

Or you can tweet using the hashtag bbctbq.

:41:44.:41:47.

Tell us what you think about our last big question too.

:41:48.:41:49.

And if you'd like to apply to be in the audience at a future show you

:41:50.:41:54.

We're in Newcastle-upon-Tyne next week, Canterbury on March 12th,

:41:55.:41:57.

On Tuesday, a heterosexual couple lost the latest

:41:58.:42:05.

round in their battle with the courts to be allowed

:42:06.:42:07.

Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan said they wanted to formalise

:42:08.:42:14.

their relationship in a social institution "which is modern,

:42:15.:42:17.

which is symmetrical and that focuses on equality,

:42:18.:42:19.

which is exactly what a civil partnership is".

:42:20.:42:23.

They're now taking their case to the Supreme Court.

:42:24.:42:26.

But is marriage still the patriarchal institution it once was?

:42:27.:42:29.

Or is marriage today what you make it?

:42:30.:42:34.

Peter, what is your problem with this? Well, right from the get go...

:42:35.:42:44.

I have asked him that many times! When the Labour government in 2003

:42:45.:42:49.

proposed civil partnerships for same-sex couples, it was to block

:42:50.:42:52.

the growing demand for same-sex marriage. It was to buy off the LGBT

:42:53.:42:57.

community but I stood with my colleagues from the Outrage group,

:42:58.:43:04.

the LGBT campaign group, against the prohibition of opposite sex civil

:43:05.:43:07.

partnerships. From the beginning, we said if there are going to be civil

:43:08.:43:11.

partnerships, they have got to be open to everyone. And in those days,

:43:12.:43:17.

ironically, it was only a gay organisation that stood for equal

:43:18.:43:20.

civil partnerships and we have been fighting that cause ever since. I am

:43:21.:43:25.

so glad that this latest court judgment narrowly lost. It came very

:43:26.:43:29.

close to winning. All the judges accept that it was discrimination

:43:30.:43:33.

and it was not sustainable. The government has got to end this

:43:34.:43:36.

discrimination in the near future. I am just sad that the majority was

:43:37.:43:40.

two to one against rather than in favour. Since gay people can get

:43:41.:43:46.

married, why not end civil partnerships for gay people? Have

:43:47.:43:51.

the full shilling. Why not? Because there are some gay and straight

:43:52.:43:54.

people who don't like the institution of marriage. Why not?

:43:55.:43:59.

Some people feel it has a sexist, patriarchal history. They think that

:44:00.:44:03.

civil partnerships are more modern, egalitarian, more suited to the

:44:04.:44:07.

modern age. Whether you agree with them or not, I think people should

:44:08.:44:12.

have the right to make that choice. If civil partnerships exist, as a

:44:13.:44:14.

democratic principle of all being equal before the law, they should be

:44:15.:44:15.

open to everyone, I think. Marriage itself, as a humanist

:44:16.:44:31.

celebrant, it is what you make it. It is not off-the-shelf, it is

:44:32.:44:36.

tailor-made. Made to suit you. Yes. I think I would want to answer the

:44:37.:44:41.

question to say yes and no. The no part of it is very much in line with

:44:42.:44:45.

what Peter has been talking about, the patriarchy of the history of

:44:46.:44:53.

marriage, barnacles on human relationships, it emerged

:44:54.:44:56.

historically under conditions where the subjugation of part of the

:44:57.:45:00.

population, broadly women, was brought about by broadly men. Women

:45:01.:45:04.

became like chattels to be owned by another human being. The answer, is

:45:05.:45:10.

marriage what you make it, in relation to that aspect of the

:45:11.:45:15.

definition of marriage, definitely the answer is no, you cannot make it

:45:16.:45:19.

what you want to make it because it is an institution. If we take

:45:20.:45:23.

marriage in the common-sense understanding of human beings

:45:24.:45:26.

choosing to make a relationship with each other, to bond with each other,

:45:27.:45:30.

the answer is most definitely, yes, marriage is what you make it. All of

:45:31.:45:35.

those antiquated laws have been thrown out of the window. Even with

:45:36.:45:40.

a formal religious marriage, you are to each other what you want to be to

:45:41.:45:45.

each other. No, I don't think so. It is not free for you to choose. No.

:45:46.:45:52.

We are living with each other by consent, civil partnership which is

:45:53.:46:01.

a legality, secular wedding which is a foul and faith which is a

:46:02.:46:06.

covenant. The whole of the concept of our law, even today, and the

:46:07.:46:10.

marriage act, it is marriage is only marriage where there is consummation

:46:11.:46:14.

of sexual intercourse between two and so the civil partnership

:46:15.:46:20.

actually excludes that because... Marriage can be about cherishing

:46:21.:46:24.

each other, mutual comfort, it does not have to be about six. The law of

:46:25.:46:27.

the land, you're not married if you cannot consummate the marriage if

:46:28.:46:39.

there are no sexual relations, the marriage can be annulled. You cannot

:46:40.:46:43.

say there are just four aspects to marriage. Bonding between human

:46:44.:46:48.

beings, committing publicly in front of your community, friends family,

:46:49.:46:51.

it goes back way beyond any religion. In the Bible, he went in

:46:52.:47:01.

and knew her, had intercourse. That was the marriage. I want to talk

:47:02.:47:05.

about briefly if I can talking about marriage before it was a social and

:47:06.:47:09.

state contract, looking at it in terms of the human species. This

:47:10.:47:13.

business of humans relating to each other, striving and yearning for the

:47:14.:47:17.

best possible human relationships they can build, witnessed by public

:47:18.:47:22.

community, their families, it goes back, there is evidence for it in

:47:23.:47:27.

prehistory, those types of ceremonies, those rituals, they are

:47:28.:47:31.

very deep. They make covenants with each other, not just illegal

:47:32.:47:36.

agreement, you get the car and I get the television. They make them.

:47:37.:47:42.

Isn't marriage legitimate if there has never been sexual relations?

:47:43.:47:47.

Under British law, no. Under biblical law... Compassion comes in,

:47:48.:47:54.

two disabled people, compassion comes in. Compassion? You say, you

:47:55.:48:02.

do not fulfil the law. The law is marriage must be consummated. I am

:48:03.:48:10.

on about the law. You have a disabled couple who cannot

:48:11.:48:12.

physically consummate their marriage, you out of compassion with

:48:13.:48:18.

a...? Why does the compassion fail when it is a same-sex couple? Your

:48:19.:48:23.

faith will tell you if you can do that. Same-sex people cannot

:48:24.:48:30.

consummate a marriage. Neither can two disabled people. Why is it

:48:31.:48:36.

different? Ajmal Masroor, are there certain obligations within an

:48:37.:48:40.

Islamic marriage, clearly defined roles? Daesh it is defined by a

:48:41.:48:48.

partnership between man and woman, consensually, of course, partnership

:48:49.:48:52.

in the sense of partners of two equals, to create a safe space for

:48:53.:48:56.

people to grow, emotionally, spiritually, most of us concentrate

:48:57.:49:01.

on physically and the other two are missed out. Creating a space where

:49:02.:49:05.

love and compassion and mercy can flourish. It is a space where you

:49:06.:49:09.

can be reflective. You can be who you want to be. You make the

:49:10.:49:13.

marriage work or fail. People fail marriages because they do not invest

:49:14.:49:18.

time. There is this amazing idea that marriage will be completely

:49:19.:49:21.

formed in the heavens and dropped on your lap. Do you believe in falling

:49:22.:49:25.

in love? Of course. You may not fall in love. Full out of love? You may

:49:26.:49:32.

not be in love and be married. It is not all about love. Is it better to

:49:33.:49:37.

have a few relationships before you get married? Is that fornication? In

:49:38.:49:42.

Islam, you're not allowed to have sexual relations outside of

:49:43.:49:47.

marriage. You should get married to settle down and start a family. The

:49:48.:49:51.

most important principle is that it creates a safe space in which

:49:52.:49:57.

tranquillity, peace, happiness and partnership can grow, children can

:49:58.:50:01.

grow, the future progeny can grow, but more importantly, in marriage,

:50:02.:50:05.

where we fail is we do not communicate well, we do not evaluate

:50:06.:50:09.

our marriage well and we do not look at one another, we look at what we

:50:10.:50:13.

need rather than what we want to offer. Speak for yourself! One of

:50:14.:50:18.

the most important thing is young people fail, they want, me, me, me.

:50:19.:50:28.

The selfish culture is destroying marriage. Marriage is about

:50:29.:50:31.

spiritual connection between two people. Love is not material, it is

:50:32.:50:36.

not tangible. If you cannot spiritually connect, there is a

:50:37.:50:39.

problem. Love should grow with time. What does spiritually connect mean?

:50:40.:50:45.

Can you quantify love for me? It is spiritual. I love my wife every day,

:50:46.:50:50.

more. Some days I may feel rotten and I don't love anybody. I'm

:50:51.:50:55.

allowed to do that. There is also a false dichotomy within our own

:50:56.:50:58.

understanding of marriage and that is you marry to take -- you married

:50:59.:51:04.

to stay together for ever. Rolling contract, every ten years. Maybe,

:51:05.:51:09.

you should renew it. Would you like to renew yours? I don't know. Yes!

:51:10.:51:17.

What are you saying? You can indeed do that. With humanist ceremonies,

:51:18.:51:23.

you can organise to renew your vows. You can make a choice to say, I want

:51:24.:51:28.

now to have a public ceremony with friends and family where we come

:51:29.:51:31.

together at the end of ten years and we renew... I have been to a couple

:51:32.:51:38.

of those and it is sometimes a bit of a sticking plaster. Let us renew

:51:39.:51:44.

our vows. Very shortly after that, am I speaking out of turn? I am

:51:45.:51:48.

sorry if those friends are watching the programme this morning! We say

:51:49.:51:57.

that in our discipline, every seven years, ask your husband or wife, how

:51:58.:52:03.

are we doing? Can we do things better? If you do not talk and you

:52:04.:52:07.

get stagnant, you are made for disaster and misery. Going back to

:52:08.:52:12.

what you said, in Islam, husband and wife are not equal. They are. In

:52:13.:52:19.

Muslim societies, maybe they are not. Are you like that at home? Very

:52:20.:52:28.

happy with my wife! If you have a falling out with your wife, you can

:52:29.:52:34.

admonish her, stop having sexual relations with her, beat her. A wife

:52:35.:52:38.

is not allowed to beat her husband. They treat the wife as if she is in

:52:39.:52:43.

the area and as though she is a child. You admonish a child if they

:52:44.:52:47.

have done something wrong. Rather than advocating a healthy adult

:52:48.:52:53.

discussion, if you are having some kind of disagreement, they advocate

:52:54.:52:56.

violence. Not only that, they also say... Back to the first debate, the

:52:57.:53:02.

cultural reasons, you are only allowed to hit your wife with a

:53:03.:53:07.

toothpick. There is a very clear... Bus in the Koran that says, it is a

:53:08.:53:16.

metaphor, garment is a metaphor for partnership, not fights. -- there is

:53:17.:53:24.

a very clear verse. The lady there. A couple of points. First, I find it

:53:25.:53:30.

really hard but we cannot get behind the idea that we can progress from

:53:31.:53:35.

something. Marriage is a patriarchal institution. I do not understand why

:53:36.:53:39.

in a day that we are striving towards equality of all

:53:40.:53:44.

descriptions, between men and women, between different sexualities,

:53:45.:53:49.

different religions, different skin colours, all of that, why can't we

:53:50.:53:53.

understand that marriage can progress? It can be a more equal

:53:54.:53:58.

institution. Personally, I do not necessarily feel that marriage would

:53:59.:54:02.

be anything other than equal. I certainly do not subscribe to the

:54:03.:54:07.

patriarchal institution. The other point I want to make is that in

:54:08.:54:15.

terms of disabled people being able to be married but not apparently

:54:16.:54:18.

able to consummate, in legality, there are lots of different things

:54:19.:54:25.

that come to mean some sort of sexual practice. Lots of different

:54:26.:54:29.

things mean consummation? Not just one particular... It is all about

:54:30.:54:34.

legally and spiritually. We not condemning. You may say the law is

:54:35.:54:40.

an as. What is the definition of consummation? Penetrating six. That

:54:41.:54:47.

is what it is under the law. Can I suggest we might think about

:54:48.:54:52.

starting all over again? For those who want marriage or civil

:54:53.:54:56.

partnerships... The first debate, you mean?

:54:57.:54:59.

LAUGHTER Do the whole show again? The Daily

:55:00.:55:05.

Politics... Start again. Wipe the slate clean. For those who are happy

:55:06.:55:10.

with marriage and civil partnerships, fine, but they are the

:55:11.:55:16.

same model, marriage by a different name. Let us start again with a new

:55:17.:55:21.

framework. I would say that there should be an alternative to marriage

:55:22.:55:24.

and civil partnerships for those who want it, namely that a person cannot

:55:25.:55:29.

make any significant other in their life as next of kin or beneficiary

:55:30.:55:33.

and it might be a partner, but if they are single, it might be a

:55:34.:55:40.

lifelong best friend. Packs dodge? No. -- tax dodge. When it comes to

:55:41.:55:45.

loving relationships, people should be able to pick and mix from a menu

:55:46.:55:50.

of rights and responsible at ease to make a partnership agreement

:55:51.:55:53.

tailor-made to their needs. That is to try to take into account that

:55:54.:55:57.

nowadays people live in many different types of relationships.

:55:58.:56:03.

Some partners live together, some think paying independence, some have

:56:04.:56:06.

kids, some do not. Let people make their tailor-made partnership

:56:07.:56:12.

agreements and if they have to go through a check list point by point,

:56:13.:56:15.

I think they would think more seriously about their obligations

:56:16.:56:17.

and commitments. APPLAUSE

:56:18.:56:24.

Blue jumper, hello. I would like to ask, when somebody proposes to get

:56:25.:56:29.

married in a church, the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church or the

:56:30.:56:32.

Quakers, where I have come from, they have to have a discussion with

:56:33.:56:38.

the Minister or vector, I really do find it hard to understand what type

:56:39.:56:42.

of discussion they might have to have before they get married. --

:56:43.:56:54.

Victor. We do a nine week preparation course, talking about

:56:55.:56:59.

sexuality, covenants... Sexuality is none of your business? It is. I am

:57:00.:57:06.

very good at it. I don't doubt it, David. Sexuality is part of our

:57:07.:57:13.

spirituality, if you do not hold it in your spirituality, it is secular.

:57:14.:57:20.

It is not. Do you want to come in here, Salma? Defer to your learned

:57:21.:57:27.

colleague. I have been through marriage and divorce and it was not

:57:28.:57:34.

an easy thing to do. I believe in love. I believe in commitment. I am

:57:35.:57:39.

a mum. It was the most difficult thing I have been through, I would

:57:40.:57:45.

say. Reflecting on it, for me, marriage yes, it is about what to

:57:46.:57:49.

people make it and what goes on in your house, but the real test is

:57:50.:57:55.

what happens when things do not work, what rights are you left with?

:57:56.:57:59.

That is why it is important about how we as a society do it. I think

:58:00.:58:03.

the UK is fantastic for that. At least if you have a registered

:58:04.:58:11.

marriage, your rights are clear. No one party gets discriminated against

:58:12.:58:16.

and it reflects an Islamic approach. As a woman, I can enter the contract

:58:17.:58:20.

with whatever condition I want to put. It is not about you have to be

:58:21.:58:26.

this or that. But if someone does not adhere to that, what happens? If

:58:27.:58:32.

someone is abusive? That is why it as a society is important to have

:58:33.:58:36.

rules. We have to leave it there. Thank you for your participation. We

:58:37.:58:43.

must leave each other there. Debates continue on Twitter. Next week we

:58:44.:58:49.

are in Newcastle upon Tyne. See you then.

:58:50.:58:52.

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