040 – Extremism in Pakistan with Ghalib Kamal
Ghalib Kamal left Pakistan in 2017. He is going to share his reflections on the country of his birth and the troubles it is facing.
His website: http://www.ghalibkamal.com/
YouTube version of this podcast can be found here: https://youtu.be/_QiovQ7KvTk
Here are the timestamps for this podcast:
0:00 Introductions
2:05 Ghalib’s background and work – blogging in Urdu, online activism.
3:42 Was Pakistan more liberal in the past? What started the trend towards ultra-conservatism?
8:35 Is alcohol generally bad for society? Is Islam a cult?
13:50 Leaving Islam or religion is a process that takes time and effort.
17:10 What is a cult? Cult-like characteristics of fundamentalist Muslims.
19:15 Alcohol ban leading more people into even harder drugs in Pakistan.
29:30 Why is Pakistan more conservative than any other Muslim majority states? Impact of Wahhabism in Pakistan.
35:47 Pakistan parents get more worried when their kids are taking alcohol but don’t mind them taking hard drugs?
41:01 Political elites using Jihad to recruit young fighters while promising the Jannah and to justify wars in the middle east. Are jihadist victims of trauma from extreme demands for perfection in Islam?
58:45 For a majority of people, Islam is whatever traditions that have been passed down to them without any understanding of the fundamental texts and apologetics.
1:3:35 Problematic ideas within Islam – Jihad, blasphemy laws, martyrdom.
1:07:20 Quran is incomplete and needs hadiths for Muslims to understand Islam. This creates even more confusion in the Muslim community.
1:11:00 Contradictions in the bible.
1:13:20 Quranism. Can you get the core message of Islam by just relying on the Quran?
1:15:30 Did Muhammad exist in the past? If yes, did he exist as he is being portrayed by modern Islam?
1:25:21 Problems with the history and origins of the Quran. Missing verses in the Quran and missing Hadiths
1:32:31 Channel announcements
1:34:26 What motivates believers to become devout.
1:38:00 Blasphemy laws in Pakistan and how they evolved from the vestiges of the British colonial blasphemy law into the modern harsh laws.
1:51:00 Targeting activists and academics with blasphemy laws. Mullahs pressurizing people to commit extrajudicial killings of blasphemers.
1:55:05 Final remarks.
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