Left or Right? The Straight Path Please

MISK Women
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Left or Right? The Straight Path Please

This podcast is based on a series of face-to-face and online lectures presented to Muslim women with the goal of developing competence in understanding and navigating our way through the social, cultural and political challenges of our contemporary times. By looking at the world through the Straight Path metaphor, we engage with contemporary right wing (status quo) and left wing (conflict theory) ideologies to understand, analyse and critique them from their origins and development into their current forms. We take a critical approach to BOTH conservative and Marxist-based theories, with a particular focus on neo-conservatism, neo-colonialism, feminism and gender-related issues, the impact these ideologies are having on Muslim women and societies today and how to overcome the many challenges we face personally, in our families and in the wider community. We also present a complementary podcast on textual competency - Imam al-Ghazali's Beginning of Guidance (Bidayat al-Hidayat) for Muslim women, where we study the text via the commentary of Imam al-Jawi entitled "Maraqi al-'Ubudiyyah". The entire text with commentary has been completed in 34 episodes and is available on the following link: https://beginning-of-guidance.captivate.fm *Please note: MISK Women has a fascinating new podcast called Women on the Straight Path, in which the lives and legacies of a wide range of women from our sacred Islamic history are studied and discussed in light of contemporary times. Please join us on https://women-on-the-straight-path.captivate.fm Subscription to all three podcasts is available from your preferred podcast distribution platform. Links are provided on the website for each show. If you wish to contact us for questions, comments, discussion or anything else, please find us on the following: Instagram: @miskwomen Email: miskwomen@gmail.com Facebook: Our private, women only group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/miskwomenhalaqa Telegram: Please contact for the private group link. Jazakum Allahu khairan.

  1. 07/13/2020

    First Wave Feminism and The Suffrage Movement: How Is It Relevant to Muslim women??

    We embark on our study of Western feminism by examining its historical development through the first wave of women's struggle for equality: The suffrage movement. We focus on England as a case study to see how bitterly women fought a decades long battle to be granted voting and other very basic social rights. Throughout our overview and analysis of this period at the end of the 19th century and up to the years between the two world wars, we compare how the revelation of Islam granted women the same and more rights than British women were fighting for, without even asking for them! We propose a shift in thinking about ourselves as Muslim women and our rights enshrined in the Divine law (Shari'ah), and question the authority and validity of a western feminist paradigm through which it is assumed that we will understand and theorize ourselves both currently and historically.

    58 min

  2. 07/03/2020

    The Straight Path: A Sociological Perspective

    After exploring the sociological theories of the Right and Left, we turn now to the Islamic scholarly and spiritual tradition to see how our own scholars have observee and theorized society. In this episode, we briefly mention the main concepts of the theories of both Imam Raghib al-Asfahani (d.1108 CE) and Ibn Khaldoun (1332-1406 C.E), before embarking on a fairly detailed explanation of Imam al-Ghazali's Book 26 of the Ihya 'Ulum al-Din. Book 26 is called Dhamm al-Dunya, The Condemnation of Worldy Life. In it, he outlines the physical needs of the human, the skills and trades that developed to make the tools and implements required to process natural resources into fulfilling human needs, and the states of the heart that a human must seek to endow him/herself with in order to live in this world, without losing sight of the real purpose of life - the worship of Allah Ta'ala and the ultimate meeting with Him that awaits in the next life.

    52 min

  3. 06/25/2020

    MISK Women Facebook Live #1 Recording

    MISK Women presented our first FB Live on June 23, 2020 on our private group MISK Women Halaqa. This is an unedited recording of the session, uploaded for those who were unable to attend. The topics covered included the development of MISK, women in Islamic scholarship and Surah Ibrahim, ayats 24-27 about the parable of the goodly tree and the rotten tree. Most questions and answers were about contextual competence, how to protect ourselves and our children from the trials of the times we live in and looking to the pious for stability and guidance. Beginning to 6:05 mins: Reading of Surah al-Waqi'ah 6:05 - 40 mins: Presentation 40 mins to end: Questions and Answers.

    1h 19m

  4. 06/18/2020

    Marxism: Origins, Impacts and Influences

    Join us in this episode as we explore Marxism, the fundamental ideology of leftist thinking in the contemporary world. Due to the prevalence of Marxist thought in all spheres of political, economic, social and cultural life, it is essential that we develop a firm understanding of the basics of the philosophy, as we will be exploring in greater depth how Marxist ideas inform our global reality today. Some of the questions addressed in this episode include: Who was the famous 19th century German philosopher and economist Karl Marx? What were his ideas and what impact did they have in his lifetime? How have his ideas been developed since 1848 and where do we find them today? By the end of the episode, you should have an awareness of the origins of this ideology, and the many branches of thinking that it itself is the origin of.

    50 min

  5. 06/10/2020

    The Genealogy of Conservatism: From the Magna Carta to Modernity

    This episode introduces an historical overview of the political, economic and social philosophies of the Right. We look at the development of 'reason' and the 'reasonable' man who sought freedom, the pursuit of wealth and happiness. How was the Muslim world impacted by these philosophical and political developments imposed on it through colonialism? How do we understand these phenomena from the Islamic scholarly and spiritual tradition? ** For further reading, please refer to the works of the following conservative thinkers: John Locke (political theory) Immanuel Kant (enlightenment) John Stuart Mill (social philosophy) Edmund Burke and Adam Smith (economics) The online services of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Stanford University and Wikipedia also provide very good summaries and analyses.

    40 min

  6. 05/26/2020

    European Colonialism And The Status Quo: From A Surah al-Fatihah Perspective

    We take a brief overview and analysis of the most significant events in the last 500 years of European history, in order to understand the basis and foundations of modern Western society. What was the dominant vision, mission and method enacted in this epoch, and how does it compare to the vision, mission and method outlined in Surah al-Fatihah? We introduce the core values of the status quo and mention the origins of conflict theory, in the form of Marx and Engles observations of the working class in England in the 19th Century.

    38 min

  7. 05/18/2020

    Bonus Episode: A Summary of the Surah al-Fatihah Worldview in Six Questions

    Join us for an overview and roundup of the key concepts in Surah al-Fatihah in six short questions. We are reminded to check ourselves by the question asked of us in the Quran: "Where are you going?" What's your answer?

    11 min

  8. 05/18/2020

    Part 2 - The Voluntary Journey: Surah al-Fatihah and The Choices We Make in Our Daily Life

    The Voluntary Journey means the choices that we make in our daily life. What informs our choices and to what extent do our choices reflect our al-Fatihah informed understanding of being on an involuntary journey? In this episode, we look at the second part of Surah al-Fatihah and what it tells us about who we are and the choices we make. We also look at the vastness of the knowledge that it contains by mentioning the 8 Quranic themes and the 14 branches of philosophy in it. However...perhaps the greatest statement about Surah al-Fatihah is reflected in what is often the most overlooked aspect of it. Tune in to find out what that is.

    36 min
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About

This podcast is based on a series of face-to-face and online lectures presented to Muslim women with the goal of developing competence in understanding and navigating our way through the social, cultural and political challenges of our contemporary times. By looking at the world through the Straight Path metaphor, we engage with contemporary right wing (status quo) and left wing (conflict theory) ideologies to understand, analyse and critique them from their origins and development into their current forms. We take a critical approach to BOTH conservative and Marxist-based theories, with a particular focus on neo-conservatism, neo-colonialism, feminism and gender-related issues, the impact these ideologies are having on Muslim women and societies today and how to overcome the many challenges we face personally, in our families and in the wider community. We also present a complementary podcast on textual competency - Imam al-Ghazali's Beginning of Guidance (Bidayat al-Hidayat) for Muslim women, where we study the text via the commentary of Imam al-Jawi entitled "Maraqi al-'Ubudiyyah". The entire text with commentary has been completed in 34 episodes and is available on the following link: https://beginning-of-guidance.captivate.fm *Please note: MISK Women has a fascinating new podcast called Women on the Straight Path, in which the lives and legacies of a wide range of women from our sacred Islamic history are studied and discussed in light of contemporary times. Please join us on https://women-on-the-straight-path.captivate.fm Subscription to all three podcasts is available from your preferred podcast distribution platform. Links are provided on the website for each show. If you wish to contact us for questions, comments, discussion or anything else, please find us on the following: Instagram: @miskwomen Email: miskwomen@gmail.com Facebook: Our private, women only group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/miskwomenhalaqa Telegram: Please contact for the private group link. Jazakum Allahu khairan.

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  • Creator
    MISK Women
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    14
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    Clean
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    © The content of this podcast series is copyright Umm Abdullah, 2020. For use of content please reference this website or contact via email for permission.
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    Left or Right? The Straight Path Please

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