Show Notes
Human rights may seem like an obvious thing to advocate for. After all, we are all human and want the best for ourselves and others. But where does our notion of rights really come from? Who is the “human” of human rights? Imam Tom Facchine invites Dr. Zara Khan to discuss the history of human rights movements, the underlying assumptions of what it means to be human, as well as how human rights discourse is politicized and weaponized against Islam and Muslims.
More from Imam Tom Weekly, a Yaqeen podcast
The words we use to understand the world shape what we see and what we overlook, and how we make sense of the problems around us. But what happens when the concepts we rely on fail to capture the reality of what we’re trying to understand? In this Focal Point, Imam Tom Facchine examines how the language we use to describe oppression, identity, and social change influences how we understand and respond to them. From the limitations of concepts like genocide and Islamophobia to the frame...
What does it take for a minority community in the West to live with dignity? In this episode of Focal Point, Imam Tom Facchine examines the Nation of Islam within the broader history of state surveillance and the struggle for communal self-determination in America. The episode does not present the NOI as a model of orthodox Islam. Instead, it distinguishes its theological errors from the serious historical questions it raised: how communities build institutions, resist criminalization, prot...
How did a leaked, Israel-commissioned poll end up calling Israel a “genocidal, apartheid country” in the eyes of the world? Why are billion-dollar media empires, Big Tech cloud contracts, and paid influencer networks all converging to sell you one story on Gaza? Who really pushed for the detention of Sami Hamdi—and what does that tell us about the future of dissent and citizenship in the West? In his latest Focal Point, Imam Tom maps the money, the media, and the smear machine—and what it mea...
Islam offers guidance for every aspect of our lives, but where does it fit in a political world shaped by capitalism and socialism? Can we navigate politics as Muslims when neither system reflects our values? Imam Tom takes a deep dive into both ideologies and explains Islam’s stance on them.
Scholars who defend order over justice don’t emerge by accident. They are products of Western philosophy that have conditioned generations to prize compliance over courage. Imam Tom breaks down how colonial and modern powers molded Muslim scholarship to value control over truth and highlights how we can move beyond these ideologies to revive integrity and prophetic justice in our ummah.