Iftikar Ali - Understanding Islam

Full transcript: Iftikar Ali on London Real

0:12 This is London Real. My name is Brian. This is Nick Gabriel, and joining us today is Iftikar Ali, who’s a hedge fund trader in the City of London, and also a Muslim. Welcome. Hello, Brian.

0:39 Thank you very much for having me on the show. Thank you for being here, man. You know, I wanted to talk today about Islam, and it’s something that I know something about from knowing you for 15 years. But it’s something I don’t think any of us knows enough about, and I know it’s quite a big ask to get you to kind of talk about a religion that’s been around for 2,000 years and is practiced by 1.8 billion people, I believe, but I appreciate you coming on to give it a try, and I was wondering, what would you tell people who’ve never heard of Islam?

1:08 What would you tell them what it is that’s a very broad question and I will do my best. Okay. Islam, the word Islam means submission of will, and a Muslim has to arrive at a belief that there is a creator that has created man and the universe, and Islam is submitting the free will that he has back to the Creator, and thereby living his life according to the rules of the Creator. Okay. And what is the history?

1:36 How long has this religion been here? Is it older or younger than Christianity? It started in the 6th century AD and has been around for 1,400 years. Okay. And that’s a lag from well, I know Christ died, I guess, in zero BC or AD.

1:49 Was that a religion that came after Christianity? Yes, it came after Christianity. It’s one of the major religions from the Middle East, and the teachings are not dissimilar to Christianity or Judaism. Okay. And they acknowledge a lot of the same people that are talked about in the Bible.

2:06 Absolutely. So it’s an Abrahamic religion. Yes, it is. Jesus is a prophet of God in Islam, as is Moses, and David, and so forth. In fact, Ibrahim as well, and so all the, all the prophets mentioned in the Bible.

2:20 I find it fascinating that that part of the world has been the hotbed for so much religious discovery and the creation of new religions. I guess it’s just so much comes from that little tiny region. Well, I mean, I guess it’s the start of human civilization, the Tigris and Euphrates River, so everything is there, and well, there’s been so much going on there. I mean, the Crusades happened there, didn’t they? The Crusades came much later, but yes, absolutely, they were focused on the holy lands.

2:50 Right. When were the Crusades? The first ones, it’s like a thousand, the first Crusades happened after the Battle of Clermont, I think, in the 10th or 11th century, when Pope Urban declared that the holy lands need to be seized back from the evil Turks, and the whole of Christianity and the whole of Europe united to lead Crusades into the holy lands to reclaim them, and they lasted for several hundred years. Wow, that’s incredible. What’s the biggest mistake people make when they think about Islam in your opinion?

3:26 Oh, that’s a very broad question. I think there’s lots of misconceptions of Islam in terms of the religion, its meaning, the practices of Muslims, Muslims’ roles in society. There’s lots and lots of misconceptions, and I hope that I can dispel some of those today. You know, I was in New York City after 9/11, and a lot of Sikhs were like, their restaurants and stuff were vandalized afterwards, and it was like, these are Indian Sikhs that have a completely different religion than, say, I’m Muslim, and even then this is not really appropriate behavior, but it was surprising to me, the ignorance that was in, you know, 2001 in a major metropolitan city like New York, and people were having a real disconnect between what was going on.

4:08 Mm, probably because they were too busy watching Jersey Shore too. I think it was on them, or whatever the equivalent was at the time. You know, but I also find my friends in America, they don’t, they don’t seem to have a day-to-day exposure with lots of different religions like I have here in London. I go to Knightsbridge, and a woman, she’s not wearing the burka. What’s the full, what’s the full outfit called?

4:26 Niqab. Niqab. Yeah, and they’re shocked to see that I’m like, this is just normal, dude. This is just people. But equally, I would argue that if you have a half-naked woman getting to sell a pop record that might be considered as completely alien to some other cultures.

4:41 Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. I guess I’m looking at it from kind of a Western-centric. I think, you know, xenophobia has been around since the dawn of time, and it’s not just a Western or an Eastern thing. People are always going to be afraid of something that is going to be different from what they’re used to.

4:56 They almost need something to be xenophobic about. Do they need an enemy? Perhaps they have comfort in the familiarity of their own culture, and then they see something that’s different, and the first reaction is fear, and therefore, you know, xenophobia derives from that. I think the example of the Sikhs being targeted or attacked after 9/11 shows an ignorance, firstly, that they were not able to differentiate between a Sikh and a Muslim, and so forth, but by and large, that these things are driven by xenophobia in general.

5:25 I’m wondering if America always needs an enemy. We had Russia for the longest time, and now it’s like, oh, we need those guys in Afghanistan or Iraq, although most people now in America would really seriously question why we’re there in the first place. I think in terms of the weapons of mass destruction and those arguments, those have been subsequently disproved, but I would agree with you that, you know, in the grab for global resources, from a geopolitical perspective, it’s always good to have a bogeyman, so you can then propagate your political ideas in the search for global dominance, resources, wealth, whichever you want to call it.

6:00 Yeah, it is. You know, recently in the news we’ve seen this film that came out of the States. I don’t know, with some kind of crazy independent filmmaker that incited a lot of unrest, you know, in some, in a variety of Muslim countries, in Pakistan and other places, and we had these cartoons that were reprinted in the French press, you know, with depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, and us as Westerners, I know, I see that, and I’m like, wow, why are they getting so mad?

6:25 Why are they getting violent? It’s just a picture. You hear all the arguments, and I was wondering if you could explain your perspective of that. I think that there’s a number of perspectives, and it also depends on which culture you view these perspectives from. When something deeply offensive is said to a person, you know, they have different reactions.

6:45 Some people will react by talking and speaking and trying to educate the offender. In other cases, people have much more emotional or violent reactions, for example, you know, the people say the Latinos are hot-blooded, they tend to get much more angry very fast, that kind of, but if, for example, you look at the pop group p***y Riot and what they did in Russia, surely they knew the consequences of doing that in the middle of a cathedral in Moscow? They must have been pretty aware of what was going to be the public reaction.

7:15 They said some anti-Putin things, right? Anti-Putin things, and also to behave in such a way inside a holy place such as the cathedral. They had to be aware of the consequences, and when you’re going to do an act of provocation, you have to expect some kind of reaction. Now, how extreme that reaction depends on place to place, culture to culture. I’m not going to sit here and condone any form of violence in reaction to cartoons or a movie.

7:42 And, you know, I’ve been brought up in a Western culture, and I can understand the process of making protest in a uniform, civilized, organized way, or writing something in protest. But if you went to India, or if you go down to some of these places, the people, they don’t have the tools to be able to object in the form of media coverage or in the form of something else, so they make some kind of protest in the street. But even in protests, when we had the protest in London recently, one young man died.

8:14 He was pushed over by a police officer. There’s always going to be those kind of situations that will occur, but I would argue that if you were to go out and make a video tomorrow that was anti-Semitic, you would expect a reaction. You would expect a reaction. Maybe you would not expect people saying, you know, we will go and put a bounty on your head or something like that, but make no mistake, you would have a reaction, right? We wouldn’t expect that reaction, and yet you have begun to expect that reaction when you put out anti-Muslim things.

8:41 I think if you went out into some of the Hindu states in India and put out, you know, derogatory images of some of their gods locally, you would get the same reaction. Okay, I think so. You know, I think if you went into Japan, and, you know, into regional Japan, and insulted one of their gods, you’d get a probably violent reaction. Equally, if I went to the Deep South and I started, you know, saying anti-Christian things, I would get lynched. That’s true.

9:09 Yeah, maybe not lynched, but you would get a backlash. I would get a damn good kicking. Backlash. What’s your background, Iftikar? I mean, you know, I always want to know where you’re from and what it was like.

9:19 I think you’re from the UK. What was it like growing up as a, as a person, or as a Muslim, or as anyone? I, I was born in Kashmir, and Kashmir is a hotbed. It’s a disputed territory between India and Pakistan, and I came to England at a very young age, and I, I grew up in the North of England, which was very much the industrial heartland of Britain, especially the steel industries, and I grew up in the North of England. I have a Northern accent.

9:42 So, barely, by and large, my my, you know, childhood was in the North of England, and subsequently I went to university and I’ve GRE. I spent the last 20 years in London, so the majority of my life has been in England, and I think I’m British. I think like a British person. I speak English, and, you know, we were talking earlier about English breakfast tea, that that’s my choice of drink. Mhm.

10:05 That’s crazy, interesting. Did you ever have any negative reactions or prejudices when you were growing up in the North of England because you were not a white person, or you were from Kashmir? Absolutely. Plus, it’s a long time ago, 35 years ago, when people were less educated. Maybe a lot, a lot of things have happened.

10:24 I mean, a story my father told me, when my father arrived in the UK in 1957, he took a plane to London, and then he got a coach up to Sheffield, and he had an address written on a piece of paper and he showed it to the guy at the bus station, who then put him on another bus, and then an old lady walked him to the door of the house where his uncle was living, and people were so nice and so welcoming and friendly, and, you know, there was an abundance of work. He said that when he used to go to the factory to work, he would leave the factory when the klaxon went, and on his way to the bus stop, two other factory owners would offer him a job. That was the abundance of work.

11:02 In fact, there was more work than there was labor and, you know, that kind of imbalance makes people welcoming of foreigners. Of course it does, right? You know, push the clock forward 20 years, in the ’70s, when I was in Sheffield, and suddenly you had a decline in industry. Britain was in recession, and all these problems, you know, the, the Winter of Discontent, as they called it, at that point, attitudes towards foreigners had changed dramatically, and as a young kid growing up I used to be scared of skin heads and so forth.

11:34 I recall a story. I was walking home from school one day, and I was carrying my little bag on the way home from school, and just as I arrived towards our road, there was a guy who was probably 6′ stockily built, to turn and spat on my ear, and just walk straight past, and I remember going home and scrubbing my ear, and the fury I felt in my mind of how I much I wanted to beat this guy and get him back, but the helplessness at the same time, and, you know, things like that, they either make you very bitter or they make you stronger. And, you know, there’s many, many other occasions where, for example, you know, the bus driver wouldn’t let me off at the, my bus stop, and would let me off one bus stop later, and I’d have to walk the distance home.

12:13 But again, all those things, I must say, those incidents were isolated. It’s not everyday occurrences, but then, on the other hand, when I went to the mosque to, to read Arabic, we’d find a pig’s head on the door, or somebody would throw a brick through the window. In fact, the mosque that I attended in Sheffield at first was burnt down. Wow. So, you know, those are the kind of things we grew up with in the ’80s.

12:34 As things started to pick up, we had less and less, and I think it’s as much about opportunity, or lack of that, that drives people to blame others or blame people that have come in as an influx. Yeah. That’s a, such as, it’s, it’s, it’s not always a religious question. It’s a socioeconomic question, isn’t it? I think that that’s the bigger question.

12:51 Yes, in this case Wow. Do you pray five times a day, and if so, why? Okay, you put me on the spot. My, my mom’s going to be very angry. I try and pray as many times in the day as I can, and I’ll be honest, when I was younger, probably had more time on my hands.

13:05 I, I prayed more, and then as I got into my working life, it, it was more difficult to do so, and since I’ve been on the Hajj, I endeavor to pray as much as I can. The, the obligation on the Muslim is to pray five times a day. Okay. I’m, I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, so I try and pray as often as I can. Wow, it’s interesting, cuz you know, Nick and I try to meditate once or twice a day, and I always wonder if there’s a parallel at all between prayer, where you’re obviously suspending your consciousness to a certain extent, and meditation.

13:34 I know it’s different, but I’m just curious, what is the process like for you? That’s a personal question. The, the actual process is, it, you know, not dissimilar to meditation in that it is a peaceful process, and it’s a very quiet time. There’s a set routine of prayers that you have to do, and they involve physical movement, so, you know, you, you get the stretches, you get the actual recitation of the Quranic verses, and you, there’s five different prayers of varying length.

13:59 There’s the prayer in the morning which is at the dawn. There’s one in the middle of the day, in the afternoon, the sunset, and the night, and each one of them is of varying lengths, but they are all obligations, and it’s not easy being a Muslim because you have to, you have to do all those prayers. Yeah, it’s, I mean, that’s, that’s quite a task. And then the Ramadan feast, sorry, the Ramadan fast as well, is quite a task. 30 days of fasting every year, 30 days every year from sunrise to sunset.

14:29 But you know, equally, in the Christian calendar, there’s Lent, and Jesus himself fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. That’s interesting. There are parallels there. Absolutely. Jesus fasted.

14:40 It’s documented, and we fast as Jesus fasted, as Muhammad fasted. And you know, tomorrow is Yom Kippur. My Jewish brothers will be fasting from tomorrow evening. And one thing I like about Iftikar is, in the city, he was, like, best friends with an Irish Catholic guy on the desk that if he wasn’t drinking, he had been drinking an hour earlier. And, uh, I’ll just say his name.

15:01 The McMan knows who I’m talking about, but it was funny, cuz you had Iftikar Ali who’s, you know, I, I guess, what if I call you a devout Muslim? Is that the right, you say, you can use the word devout? Very serious practitioner, one, and then you would have Mick Mahand, who grew up in Belfast and was, you know, crazy as you like, but they were I mean, you very good friends, and it was just always interesting to see such two different personalities, two different religions, and yet I think it’s an interesting point you make, because there’s MC Molland and Ivor UL both from pretty strong Catholic Irish families.

15:30 Yeah, and the connection I made with their families because of the religious beliefs that they carried was very strong because they took their religion seriously, and you took yours seriously. Abely, Michael Mallen’s mother and I had many conversations about Pakistan about Islam, about these kind of things, because, because of these things and the values that, you know, Michael carried or Iva carried you know, made, made me feel like there was a strong bond because they believed in, in right and wrong, in God, truth, all these kind of things. Man, wow, that is fascinating, isn’t it?

16:00 I think it, more, that’s about as big a cultural divide as you’ll be able to find. I think probably speaks more about the types of people you and Michael’s mother are than your respective religions, because I guess you could probably find, and you definitely have found throughout history a Catholic and a Muslim who’ve been at war over their religion. Next neighbors. I, you, you found that less than let’s say a Western European person and a Mongolian over territory.

16:34 Interesting. What do you mean by that? I think more of the wars have been fought over resources and land than religion. Power. Mhm.

16:40 You know what? There’s a question I want to ask you about Islam. I mean, would it originated and for the period afterwards, wasn’t it, was it not used as a power tool to kind of take, not take over, but all of, like, Northern Arabia? Was it used as kind of like a reason we have to kind of purify these other people? Was that a good description or not?

16:57 My history is very bad. I think, I think, yes, there was some sort of power consolidation within the Arabian Peninsula. I think it was inevitable. It had to be done, but Islam, as much as a religion, was an ideology and was propagated across the world. I mean, Islam spread to North Africa.

17:13 Islam went to Spain. Islam went to Turkey. In fact, the capital of the Islamic empire was in, in Istanbul. It wasn’t in Arabia. So the power struggle from that you talk about in Arabia became somewhat secondary.

17:24 Okay. And you had the Persian Empire, and you had, you know, into the Far East, into India, the Mughals. So Islam propagated and spread across the globe, and it wasn’t just an Arabian struggle. One thing you forget with the religions, I mean, the Catholic church has been a huge power play for the last, you know, 500,000 years. I mean, look at, look at England.

17:42 You know, I mean, the Church of England was built as a, as a, basically to fight, you know, the Catholic church, right? The Vatican. It was a protest within religions. You have disagreements and conflicts, right? You know, you, you have so many things you have to do.

17:57 Obviously, the prayer, the Ramadan. Do you ever think to yourself, is it necessary to do all those things for me to have, to be a religious and moral person? I mean, do you ever think, can we make it three times a day? I mean, I know it’s a weird question, but it’s, it’s a good question. It is not easy being a Muslim.

18:12 Hence, the crux of being a Muslim is how do you arrive at the belief at the point where you decide that you want to be a Muslim? There is no compulsion in Islam. No one has to be a Muslim. You know, you don’t have to be a Muslim, Brian. You don’t have to be a Muslim, Nick, and it’s not my job to make either of you Muslims.

18:30 Once you arrive at the belief that you are going to submit your will to Allah, at that point you will follow what he said. Now, the Prophet Muhammad, when the, the number of prayers was sent to mankind, the number was much higher. He pleaded with Allah to get a reduced number okay. And we have five, and even at five he asked for less, but Allah said, five is what you have to do. Okay.

18:56 And then the, the Ramadan, that’s something that you have to do. There are, there are five compulsions which is the Shahada, which is the acceptance of Allah and Muhammad as His Messenger. Right. The Salah, which is the prayer, the fasting of Ramadan, the giving of charity, zakat, and the Hajj. Okay.

19:14 You know, I was on a hike several years ago with a friend, and we were debating religion, and he said to me, Nick, look at this. We’re in nature we’re in a forest, on the side of a mountain, and he said, look around you, and he said, this is my church, and he said, I don’t need to go to a building and sing songs or pray or congregate with people. He said, this is how I worship God in my everyday life, doing things like this. And what would you say to that?

19:46 I will say Allah is everywhere. God is everywhere. In the Quran it says, behold, in the creations of the heavens and the Earth, in the disparity of night and day, in the water which we sent down from the skies for the benefit of mankind, in the beasts of all kinds we scattered therein, in the change of the winds and the subjected clouds between the heavens and the Earth. Here are signs for people who are wise. Interesting.

20:07 So that, what does that mean? It means look around you. It’s, God is everywhere, is what you’re saying? Absolutely. You know, there, there was like before the US went into Afghanistan, there was the Taliban that were there, and they seemed to kind of embody to a lot of people all the bad things about Islam, because they were firing rocket-propelled grenades into old statues of Buddha.

20:28 They were, movies from being shown, and it was just like everyone was pointing to, this is the bad thing about Islam. And what, what do you, how does that make you feel when you might dissociate yourself from them, and, and what do you say to people when they’re like, look at these guys, look at these bombers, look at these people, they’re all associated with your religion. What do you say? How can you ask me that question with the amount of destruction that US bombing has done everywhere all over the world?

20:53 I can ask any question. What I, if you want to ask me that question, that’s fair. What, what, what I, what I can say is that, you know, when the Mongols ransacked Baghdad, they destroyed everything. When they, when they attacked the libraries at Alamut, the most extensive libraries in the world at the time, they burned all the books. When the Christians went into Jerusalem the first time, the first Crusades, they burned all the books and so much knowledge and wisdom was destroyed.

21:18 Now, invariably, when there’s attacks and there’s wars, people do, you know, destroy what do they call artifacts. They destroy land. They destroy property. Lots of those things happen. Now, you know, if, if the US is attacking Afghanistan, and the Afghan guys going out and destroying Buddhist statues and temples and things like that, that’s not a good thing, but it’s an inevitability of war.

21:41 This was before war. This was just them, you know, conducting their, their society as they saw it, according to strict Islamic law in their opinion, and they didn’t want idol worship, so they destroyed the idols. I did, I did read an article a while back. I think this took place in Afghanistan. There was a remote village, and 10 people were beheaded for dancing and singing and playing music.

22:06 It was some very the transgression was against the Wahhabism sect of Islam, and when I hear something like that, it’s kind of concerning to be. I think any act of extremism is kind of concerning. I mean, when Anders Breivik goes onto an island and kills a load of people, at the end of all of that, the trial is whether he’s sane or insane, not whether he’s an extremist or not. I mean, I could argue the same thing about those people. I’d say they’re insane, and his religion doesn’t come up either.

22:36 No, that’s the funny thing. They don’t say, oh, he was a Catholic, so we should watch out for those Catholics. He’s not a Catholic or Christian extremist. He’s sane or insane. That’s what the argument hinges on.

22:46 So you’re saying that the West can be a bit unfair when they serve up these little morsels, this woman was stoned to death for looking at another man, and it’s just, sometimes it does seem like it’s served up for Western media consumption? I think so. It’s, I know it’s an interesting point. I know a lot of people think that, for people that don’t know what is the difference between a Sunni and a Shia Muslim, and what’s the beef? Cuz we saw that divide in Iraq, and we hear about it a lot of the times, but I know some people don’t understand the Sunni and Shia dispute goes back to succession after the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam.

23:20 After the death of the Prophet, the majority of the Muslims wanted to go with the most capable and learned man. They felt to become the Khalif, which was Abu Bakr, but some section of Muslims wanted to go with his son-in-law and nephew Ali, and they argued that the bloodline of the Prophet was important, and subsequently they, Ali, did become the fourth Khalif, but they have a series of imams which traces a bloodline back to the Prophet, and they’re called Ahl al-Bayt, the people of the household. The religious beliefs in terms of you know, the Five Pillars that I have mentioned to you are the same, and by and large the practices are the same, but that’s the first division, and that division has lasted centuries.

24:04 Although I would argue in the last few hundred years it has become more territorial and more about dynasties, so it’s almost become more like a power play. It’s almost East versus West, geographic as well, right? To some extent, yes. So it’s, it’s like Iraq and Iran, or more of the Shia and the Sunni, or more of the Saudi? Yes, although the Saudis, you know, you might say the Saudis or Wahhabis, or anything else, the Saudis will call themselves Sunni Muslims.

24:29 Well, Sunni means Sunnah, the followers of the Prophet. Okay, and you are Shia, I am Sunni? Oh, you’re Sunni? Yes. Okay.

24:36 Is that, is, although my name Ali is a popular name in Persia, in Iran, hence people do assume that I might be Shia. And when you meet another Muslim, do you find out sooner or later which one he is? I’m just curious. How, sooner or later? Yes.

24:50 But even if you went and asked a Shia or a Sunni first and foremost, they will tell you they are Muslim. Okay, and then you have to dig a little bit deeper for them to reveal whether they are Shia or whether they are Sunni. Okay, interesting. Is it more of a power struggle more than anything? Is it?

25:05 I think so. Not necessarily the religious issue. It’s a, in in recent history. Yes, I think in Iraq, when we see, when you see this, the strife continuing, it’s just a big power struggle between the Sunni and Shia powers, and some are influenced by Iran, some aren’t. Look at the protest in Bahrain, or you look at what’s happening in Syria, and it, it is more of a power struggle than anything else, but it just goes along that religious line, cuz it’s like Team A.

25:29 The division is already there. Okay, wow, that’s interesting. If you weren’t Muslim, is there any other religion that you feel drawn towards that you feel you respect some of the tenets of? I think the Abrahamic religions. If I wasn’t a Muslim, I would be the following one of those religions, I think.

25:47 Okay. Because, if the Prophet Muhammad hadn’t come, we would have been the people of the Book, and that the message that spread from that land would have been the same message. In fact, I, I don’t think there’s any difference in the message that Jesus, Son of Mary, brought, or the message that Mo Moses brought, or Ibrahim, or Isa, or Yahya, or any of these, or Muhammad. So it’s all the same message. The final message was from Muhammad, of just a moral code, a completion.

26:16 What do you mean by that? It was the complete message and the complete guidelines for people to live. Okay, in a new, in a new moral way. The morals were, were the same, but all the, the rules were in place at that point, and it was a completion. Okay, see, I haven’t heard that perspective before.

26:33 Neither. You mentioned the Hajj earlier, and I was wondering if you could tell people what it is and your experiences with it. Okay, firstly, the Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca it dates back to Abrahamic times. Ibrahim, alayhi salam, he used to make the pilgrimage. You guys have 10 times the amount of work that normal religions have.

26:50 I mean, come on, this is a lot to do. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime obligation for those people that have the ability and the means to do it. Okay. Historically, Hajj was very, very difficult because the journey had to be made. The long journey to Mecca had to be made, and nowadays, with, you know, modern airline travel it’s a reasonably easy journey, and things are much more organized.

27:10 But it dates back to Ibrahim’s times, and the pilgrimage to Mecca to do circumambulations around the Kaaba. Now there’s a series of rituals which involve doing the circumambulations which is part of umrah. What are they circling around? It’s a big stone. It’s the house of Okay, the house of God, the Kaaba.

27:30 You do the circumambulations around there. You drink from the Zamzam well. You spend a day in the plains of Arafat asking for forgiveness, praying to Allah. The plain of Arafat is where Muslims believe mankind will gather on the Day of Judgment, and I say mankind, meaning everybody. Okay, and then after that, there is the stoning of the devil, and then more circumambulations, and then the Hajj is complete, and the sacrifice is also made.

27:56 During the period of Hajj, those are, I guess, the things that you have to complete to complete your Hajj. But in terms of my journey, when I arrived at Hajj, the personal journey, it’s that there are many things that a person feels, and I can only tell you my own experiences. Hajj, I was always told, was a test of patience, and it really is, when there are three million people trying to do the same rituals all at the same time. It really does require. There are three million people there.

28:25 Three million people the year I was there. Can you imagine that, man? You know, there’s a film I’ve been trying to get Brian to watch for a long time called Samsara, and in it there’s a scene. Don’t spoil it. I’ll go ahead.

28:36 Yeah, they’ve placed, they’ve placed the camera high over the Kaaba, looking down on that whole square in which the Kaaba resides, and they’ve done a time lapse sequence of the circumambulations and also the people bowing and praying. I mean, I personally don’t follow Islam or believe in it, but after watching that scene, I mean, there’s got to be something to it. There has, there is something going on there, bro, in that little part of the world. There’s some energy or some spirit or something happening there in Mecca.

29:11 You believe, really, when you see the scene you’ll understand. Potential convert here. Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting, because one of the things that I personally witnessed was when that the around around the Kaaba by itself there’s a point at which you join, and a point at which you, which you leave, once you’ve done your seven circum ambulations, and it’s in a counterclockwise fashion. There is, you can do it at the ground level or at the higher levels, and one of the higher levels I was doing the circumambulations, and I stopped to look down, and what I saw was a vortex, one of the most naturally occurring phenomenon, and I had to stop back, and this is, I guess exactly.

29:48 Yeah, it was the swirl of the vortex. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Just like it’s a human vortex. So it was back to nature.

29:54 Something, well, if you look, the counterclockwise, it’s the rotation of the Earth, counterclockwise rotation of the Earth around the Sun counterclockwise. The Kaaba counterclockwise. It’s just all so fitting, and for me that was a moment of, of perhaps if you want to call it revelation or peace, but I thought it was a wonderful moment. PE experience. What, what else was that?

30:13 Was the Hajj like, on the ground? What was it like? Well, on the ground, I, I had made super preparations for Hajj, thinking you know, I’m going to take two ihrams, which are the robes that you wear, and you know, when you’re in the state of ihram, which is the four days of actual Hajj, you are not allowed to to wash using perfume, so only water. You have to wear ihram. It’s, it’s a state of body and mind, and so I, I tried.

30:37 You shave your head or not. You, you shave your head, or you just cut your hair at the end to complete the Hajj or the umrah. One of the last things you do is cut your hair. Not necessarily a shave. People tend to shave their heads, but it’s cutting off the hair is one of the things, and so I had made super preparations.

30:53 You know, being from the UK, I’d got a rucksack, I’d got perfume-free soap and I’d got perfume for, I just, see if doing this, and you know, and I’d got these super soft sandals that were very comfortable, that were going to be for my walks in Mina, that would be very supportive, and you know, orthopedic and all these kind of things, and I really packed up very, very well, and when I landed in Medina my luggage went missing, only to return to me the day after I got back from Hajj. I’m guessing the Medina airport isn’t exactly the place you’re going to find your luggage. No.

31:26 So I literally had to beg and borrow bits and pieces and go and buy things and do my Hajj effectively on a shoestring, but the real eye-opener was when I saw people that were sleeping rough and had children with them, and probably come from you know, poor parts of Africa to complete their Hajj, but in the House of God all were equal. No one was wearing anything other than the white robes, and no one had, you know, greater or lesser wealth, and for me it was the great equalizer from a personal perspective. It was peaceful.

32:00 It’s, you know, absolving for your, for your sins, but the one thing that stood out above anything else was, Hajj was the great equalizer of mankind. Wow, that must be really powerful to see. And was there any other struggles while you were there, or any other difficult parts of that journey? Oh, there were, there were many difficult parts. I mean, you know, having to queue up for a bathroom at 4:00 a.m.

32:23 With 200 people. I hate queues, but I had to do it. These, you know, that there are no privileges for anybody everyone is equal. Wow, that must be. I’m sure you’d figure out some way, Brian, the spirit, man.

32:34 I could, of course, the Saudi king has a palace, you know, just to one side, where he does his Hajj. It was weird. I mean, I know this is not a real comparison, but I, I think about a Jiu-Jitsu mat, where everyone’s just wearing a gi and you can’t tell who’s the hedge fund guy. You can’t tell who’s the, the broke guy. You can’t tell who’s the famous guy, and all it matters is your ability to roll, and you’re going to get tapped out regardless.

32:55 And I, it’s not a direct comparison, but it’s interesting, pretty smart. Where there’s no watches, there’s no even subtext of who’s important, there’s no VIP line. There’s no, because it’s everywhere around us. When you see someone, you see their clothes, you see, and then you make a decision about. Absolutely.

33:08 And, you know, when you are born you have nothing, when you die you have nothing True. And the hard is you are wearing the, the loincloths that you would be buried in. That’s heavy. You mentioned a judgment day. I personally don’t believe that there will be a judgment day, but obviously it’s, it’s part of your religion where you said there, everyone will attend, arrive on this plane for a judgment.

33:28 I know a lot of religions believe in them. I guess all the Abrahamic religions believe, but what do you think when you think of the Judgment Day? The, the teaching of the Judgment Day, you know, whether it’s a day and there’s a gathering and there’s a judge and a jury, the what you have to understand is that the teaching in Islam is that Allah is the most just, he’s the most merciful. He redresses the balance, and so whatever you have done in your life is between you and Allah, and there will come a time when that will be basically your actions.

34:05 You’ll be take responsibility for your actions on this Earth and that is Judgment Day, whether it takes in, you know, the form of a day in a plain standing, and you know how it physically manifests itself. I can’t really tell you, but what I do believe is that ultimately for all your actions, all your good deeds, all your bad deeds, you will be held accountable and responsible. Hm. My question for you. Do you think religion is outdated?

34:31 I mean, we see a lot of the backlash now with the with the Catholic community, with the priests, and you know, I’m not particularly religious. I find a moral code I think I have to follow, but I mean, do you think, yeah, I mean, do you think religion is is is how is it at place in the modern world? Yeah, you do. I think that we, you mentioned something in our previous conversation about one of the founding fathers saying noest you not that you are gods and I think things, I think we have God inside us, and God is outside us.

35:07 I think there’s no real separation, and I think that, um, Abrahamic religions have done a very good job on focusing on the God outside, and more Eastern-style religions, such as Buddhism, have focused on the God that’s within, and I think the time has come for us to just all accept that everything is God, and if we want to communicate with the Divine, we don’t need these layers and structures and systems. We can just go directly to it. That’s my own personal belief.

35:35 You don’t think we need formalized religion? I don’t. I think some, some, I don’t think I need it anymore. I think some people might need that framework in order to get to God, but personally, I, I don’t anymore. So, well, you’re a very open-minded person.

35:50 I know that. And what would you say, whether I said Islam is an anachronistic religion, or just any religion is in somewhat an anachronism? I think, if you take the point that you’re saying, is it antiquated? Are the ideas outdated? I think you have to look at where in the time frame of history you’re looking.

36:08 For example, if you look at Western Europe, for example, in the times of the Romans, was very advanced and suddenly went backwards through the Dark Ages, medieval times, and then there was a Renaissance. So would you say that, you know, there was almost a reversion, and there was a time of advancement and a time of less advancement, and then a time of progression, but also at what point, and what is your reference point when you say something is progressive or not? You know, is it antiquated?

36:35 In 50 years time you might say, wow, that was progressive, or in fact is more progressive than the current time? And I think human beings are constantly learning. They are limited and finite creatures, and they have a finite amount of wisdom and knowledge, and only as they discover more and more wisdom and knowledge do they suddenly realize what was there all the time. And I will say something to you: the truth is never antiquated. Hm.

37:01 So you’re saying no. This is, you’re saying Islam is not antiquated? Absolutely not. I have a question for you, Iftikar. You have young children?

37:10 Yes, and I’m guessing that you’re teaching them about Islam. I’m teaching them all sorts of things. All sorts of, of course you are I’m teaching them about Islam. I’m teaching them about politics. I’m teaching them about economics.

37:20 I’m teaching them history. I’m teaching sports. I’m going to educate them in as many things as I possibly can, and hope that they make intelligent choices in their life. I find that when I’m explaining things to, to young children, I find that I have to almost justify them to myself all over again, because I had made assumptions, but then when I try to explain it, they’re like, what about that? And I’m like, you can’t fool kids.

37:40 Hey, you know, you can’t. And I was just wondering if you’ve had any any new realizations about Islam, and, in the process of explaining it to your children? No, I think generally the questions are very straightforward and easy to answer. I mean, kids just say, why, why, why, why, and you, you just keep answering, but in, in the context of Islam, I think it’s been reasonably straightforward. Okay, interesting.

38:05 I wanted to ask about the common thought, and then maybe it’s true or not, about people assimilating in all cultures, and maybe it’s more obvious when it comes to, say, the UK, where you’ve got an Islamic group that doesn’t seem to assimilate, or you’ve got in France, in North Africa, that doesn’t assimilate, and is that because of socioeconomic reasons or religion or what do you say to that? I think the answer I can make in two parts. The first answer I will give you is that, you know, can Muslims assimilate into cultures?

38:34 And I think I will answer that by saying Pakistan India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria. You see what I’m saying? The number of cultures that Muslims have assimilated to in centuries gone by is vast and diverse, so of course they can assimilate. And, by the way, the customs of somebody in Tunisia are vastly different to the customs of somebody in Bangladesh, and cultural differences are huge, but they’ve still been able to assimilate.

39:04 The next question you say is, can they assimilate into cultures such as Britain or France? And I would say yes, absolutely they can, and any tensions that exist are more a result of socioeconomic factors that you say, because the, this question of assimilation, or Muslims fitting into British society, or the word British Muslims did exist when I was a kid. That’s such a point. That is such a good point. Like, no one would care if you were wearing, like, a, a burka or whatever, if there were jobs and everything, if there was abundance for everyone.

39:37 Just no one would care. That is a point. That’s one of the things that actually frightens me or bothers me, given that we are in the middle of an economic crisis, and given that we have a fully fiat currency system, which I believe it will, will collapse. Every single fiat currency system in history, without exception, has failed. This one will be no different.

39:58 The Euro. Not, not the Euro. I’m talking about every single fiat currency, the US dollar, sterling, Euro, all the currencies in the world with the exception of the Swiss franc are all fully fiat, as in backed by nothing. The Romans said in Latin, fiat, so let it be done. Okay, backed by nothing.

40:12 So you already think they’re all going to fail? Absolutely, without any doubt. Are you storing your wealth in gold? I have some of my wealth stored in gold. Yes.

40:20 Interesting. My arguments are historic. Every single fiat currency in history has failed. 900 BC, the Chinese didn’t experiment with fiat currency and led to hyperinflation and collapse. Nero, the Roman emperor, reduced the silver in coinage to increase the coins in circulation.

40:36 Hyperinflation and collapse. Napoleon went from gold to fiat, back to gold, saying it was the devil’s work. So what was your point about the currency? And in recent times we’ve gone to a fully fiat currency. Now, we’ll discount the Weimar Republic as a short-lived phenomenon.

40:49 What most historians don’t tell you is that every fiat currency prior to collapse has a period of unparalleled prosperity first, where there’s an abundance of money and spending money. People spend money that they don’t have. Wealth is created, and I think we’ve seen that in the credit boom, and ultimately the collapse will come. What the authorities are doing, which I don’t blame them for doing, is printing more currency to try and perpetuate the existing status quo.

41:15 Ultimately, if you have a real crisis, a genuine hardship on people, then I think we’re going to see a reaction and the reaction will be to blame someone else, and I fear that they will blame Muslims. They will blame Pakistanis. They will blame people who have stolen their jobs, and so forth, and those kind of things, and so at that point you start seeing dividers in society, and that aspect of it frightens me. Okay. You know, you’re just thinking no one watching this and listening to Iftikar could see him as anything other than a very educated, balanced person.

41:47 You know what I mean? It’s just, or would they just say, oh, he’s a Muslim, and I’m going to listen to so many things he says I guess, yeah, if they were a total douchebag, people will always have their prejudices, I guess. So it’s, it’s inevitable. I mean, you know, from the food that you like to what your opinion is on a political subject, you have a prejudice That’s true. What were, what were your thoughts the day of the bombings in London?

42:12 My, my honest thoughts was, please God, don’t let it be Muslims that did this. Wow. That’s, that’s intense. Wow. You know why?

42:22 Because first of all, it, it’s a horrible thing, and I, you know, first of all, it’s a horrible thing, and secondly, I knew that the backlash on the Muslims would be very strong, and you know, you honestly, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m cracking up a little bit here. My first reaction was, please God, don’t let it be a Muslim that did this, because it was going to be such a, such a blowback and such a big reaction. But ultimately it was, and they were, I mean, I could be wrong here, but they were a Pakistani, not origin, but been born here, and yet they were from this culture that you could argue hasn’t assimilated.

43:00 And so when you heard that, what did you think? I, I thought you know, you have, you have minorities in every group, whether it be Muslims, whether it be Christians, whether it be, you know, UK people. You have minorities in every group that, no matter how much is, is put in front of them, they will always do extreme acts, and I mean, I’m going to use a pretty pathetic example, to be honest. This weekend’s football match. Liverpool versus Manchester United have an animosity of 100 years, and both have tragedies in their history.

43:32 Manchester United have the Munich air disaster, and Liverpool have Hillsborough and the Heysel stadium. And the Hillsborough, I, I suppose you’ve been reading the press about the Hillsborough cover-up and the justice for the 96, and so forth, that came. People were crushed to death at one of the football stadiums, and the Liverpool fans were blamed en masse, and the police did a cover-up and so forth. And then the recent inquiry, which the families had been campaigning for 20 years, finally came to light, and it came to light that the Liverpool fans were not to blame, and all those 96 that had lost their lives, in fact, had been crushed due to errors by the police and so forth, and it was kind of a closure for the families, and this was the first match at the Liverpool Stadium since the revelations of Hillsborough and Alex Ferguson had called for calm, and all the people associated with Manchester had called for calm, and all the Liverpool fans had called for calm, and none of these chants about Hillsborough or Munich would take place in the stadium, and sure enough it was impeccable behavior, except at the end there was some Manchester United fans that started singing, “Always the victims, it’s not your fault, always the victims, it’s not your fault, murderers, murderers,” and they sang things like, where’s your famous Munich song, and when they turned around to the Liverpool management, they said, what did you think of those?

44:48 They said, we didn’t hear them. And, you know, even, it’s embarrassing. 99% of the people in that stadium did not want to have any, anything to do with those songs, but there’s always the minority. Okay, that’s not such a pathetic example. It’s a pretty good example.

45:03 Yeah, and that’s something as trivial as a football match, but where people have lost their lives it’s a very, very sensitive subject, but you always have the small minority on even such a sensitive subject that will cross the line. Wow. You know, we’re all on camera now, and we’re being recorded and listened to potentially for everyone around the world. And, you know, Nick and I have approached some subjects in the past. One of them was iasa, and we’ve basically admitted to taking a class A drug in London, so we’re basically breaking the law, and there’s probably people that I don’t know, ultimately, might do something for us, but you’re sitting here in front of us talking about your religion and topics that are really sensitive, and in some way, do you have to be careful what you say as well?

45:44 I think so. I think so. I have, that makes me sad when you say that. I, I have to carry, carry a fear, not necessarily of what I think and believe, because I think I’m a normal, rational person. I’m educated.

45:56 Did I pay my taxes? I live within the rules of the law and so forth. You know, I might speed around in my car now and again, but I generally don’t break the law, and I follow all the rules of society. However, I’m often concerned that what I say may be perceived in such a manner that people will form a view that this guy is an extremist, and nowadays I have to worry that, you know, you see the adverts on the TV saying, if you see suspicious activity at a, at a neighbor’s house, you know, phone this hotline for the intelligence, and I honestly think you know, if, if I threw some orange peel on my neighbor’s lawn, maybe he’s going to call the cops and say there’s a terrorist living there, and then, you know, with incarceration without charge, all these kind of things happening, and if you couple that with my experiences in immigration, I genuinely get concerned that, you know, this could have repercussions.

46:41 What are your experiences in immigration? I, I always get stopped in, in immigration all over the world. In fact, it started off in the US but I would get pulled aside for an hour, and, you have a UK passport, but it says birthplace Pakistan. Yes, I have a UK, and, you know, to some extent I understand, because there’s, you know, people of Pakistani origin have been involved in certain acts and crimes, and so forth, but there’s also basic human rights, and there’s civil rights, and I, I I, I think, you know, in this case I would go as far as saying that my human rights have been violated.

47:10 Yes. I landed in Hong Kong two weeks ago. I was pulled to one side. I was asked questions about, you know, if I had brothers in Hong Kong, which I said no. Uh, do I have brothers?

47:18 Yes. Can you write their names? and I listed the names of my brothers in the UK, and, you know, after a little bit of humiliation, I was allowed to go, but it was totally unnecessary. Wow. You know, what is the full, the full-body-length burka equivalent called?

47:33 You mentioned it earlier in the show. There’s niqab, which covers the face, and then there’s hijab, which just covers the head. Okay. Well, I saw, this is about 3 years ago. I was at a tube station, and there was a woman wearing one of the full-body ones in a CB, and a man was walking with his two kids, and he pointed at her and said, look, look at the terrorist there, goes a terrorist, and he was saying it loud enough so that everyone would hear him.

48:02 So he was, I mean, indoctrinating his kids on the spot there and then, and that made me sick to my stomach. So I can only imagine what it must be like for someone. I mean, in England, you said earlier, there’s always going to be douchebags, right? Crazy. There was the Australian cricket commentator that got fired for calling Hashim Amla a terrorist.

48:20 Hashim Amla plays for South Africa. You should know Hashim Amla after the abundance of runs he scored against England in the summer, and he has a long beard, and he was called a terrorist. I can’t remember which Aussie commentator, but he was fired afterwards. Mhm. I just want to ask a couple more general questions, because I know people want me to ask.

48:38 So, do Muslims hate Jews? Absolutely not. Why is that a common perception? I remember I had a Moroccan friend one time that said, Brian, he’s like, we’ve all lived together for thousands of years. He’s like, so you know, this is crazy.

48:54 When I hear this, but I think there, there’s, there’s a long history between Muslims and Jews, and it goes back to Abrahamic times. The two tribes came out of, you know, the children of Abraham, and they are brethren. Their customs are the same, their foods are the same, their languages are practically the same. The animosity is really only 50 to 70 years old, since the creation of Israel, and you know, the oppression of Palestine. If you look at Jews living with Muslims in Spain, for example, it was a golden age for Jewish culture in Spain, in Europe, in fact, and even at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he was invited to Yathrib to mediate between the Jews, to unite the tribes, and in fact the first place that he built, the first Islamic state, was in Medina, which was where the Jews lived.

49:43 So it, you know, the animosity wasn’t there over the centuries. It’s more a recent phenomenon, and, you know, I would go as far as saying, for myself, you know, from a personal perspective, some of my best friends are Jewish, and you know, I’ve lived and worked in London, especially. I worked in Salomon Brothers, and so I had so many Jewish friends. And in fact there’s a, there’s a young guy who’s a good friend of mine that works in one of the hedge funds.

50:06 He’s a Moroccan Jew, and we quite often speak about Morocco, and, you know, there’s a, there’s a secondhand anecdote that I, that I got from him, saying that, you know, during the time of the Holocaust, Hitler said to various leaders, send me your Jews, and he said the same to the King of Morocco, and the King of Morocco said there’s no Jews only Moroccans here. Oh, that’s cool. So, you know, and if, if you go to Marrakesh, there is, you know, a thriving Jewish quarter.

50:35 So I think, you know, again these are more territorial and more recent, I guess, you know, and and the media coverage of it doesn’t help, right? Because it’s always, it’s always in our face pretty much every day, and you know, I wouldn’t say Muslims are anti-Semitic. In fact, they are from the Semites themselves. I wonder if that situation will ever resolve itself, because I mean, my whole life I’ve heard about it. You know what I mean?

50:59 It’s a strange little geopolitical structure over there, and I, the more I learn about it, the more it becomes fascinating to me, but it’s, it’s very political and very power struggle, and I don’t know, I, I could just throw my opinions out there, but I mean a lot of, you could argue, that a lot of the lines of division in the Middle East have been drawn by the British and the Americans over time. Well, and then it also is almost like a power structure, like you know, Egypt originally did a peace treaty with Israel, I think, because it had to. It was the most, it was basically the most intelligent political decision at the time, and then they’ve had to live with that.

51:32 You know, the Saudis might put money into Palestine, but they probably ultimately don’t really want. They, like, it’s a necessary player in the region. This is my limited knowledge. The Saudis have the strongest and closest relationship with the US of any country, I would say. Right.

51:45 So, you know, if, if, if you make an argument that saying that the Saudis do this or the Saudis do that, I think you have to argue that the link with the US is so strong that the US has most influence over them anyway. Yeah. Well, the US has all sorts of interests in that region, and it gets it gets even more complicated as you get to Syria. And everything. US only has one interest in not region, and you know what that is?

52:07 The US has interests, that every other sovereign country has their own interests. Yeah, but then FDI could talk about that for a long time. Is it, should we talk about the USA? We’ve got a few minutes left. Sure.

52:17 Yeah, what are your thoughts on, how is the USA perceived in that region in your opinion? I think you know, speaking as a Pakistani, or speaking as a UK citizen, or a Northerner, whichever group you want to put me in. I think the perception of the USA has changed from, from when, 50 years ago 20 years ago, I say, I would say, since the, since the 70s and ’80s, and even the ’90s, the The USA had a fantastic image abroad. It was very, very good at exporting its own culture.

52:51 You know, as kids we grew up watching US television, US movies, US music, Coca-Cola. It was the land of the free, the land of opportunity, a place that people dreamed about, wanted to go to. And I think that has been really tarnished, you know, more so than by the Bush administration, than anyone else. I think, you know, and the neocons and all the things that have happened, you know, with the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War, the attitude towards Muslim countries, and just generally, you know, I guess the feeling that Muslims feel they’ve been demonized by the US, but you have to understand that all of us grew up really, really wanting to go to the US, and you know, liking, loving the US.

53:34 They’ve lost a lot of their own political capital. I think so. Yes, and I think you, you, you could make that same argument for the US’s image in South America, you know, and I think some some of the things in Central America, some of the things in South America, and the change in perception of the United States over, you know, the last 20 or 30 years. Yeah. I guess that’s a whole other show, I guess but if, if people are listening to this and they want to honestly educate themselves more about Islam, what would you tell them to do?

54:05 I think, read, read what, read anything. I mean, the internet has everything that, you know, you could possibly want to read about anything on there, and find an opinion, find a counter opinion, and discuss, again and again and again. For example, you know, I, I say to you that, you know, there are people that have blind faith and so forth, but if you sit and you question and question and question, that is something that’s encouraged strongly within Islam.

54:31 Question everything. I don’t think people know that. Question, learn, you know, seek knowledge. The Prophet Muhammad said seek knowledge and question everything. One learned man is better than a thousand ignorant worshippers.

54:43 Wow, that’s power. That is power, dude. Wow, if droing sign, I would go, I would go further, and I’d say the best way is to make friends with a Muslim and then talk to them, because the best way is to talk to them and ask them questions like, why do you do this and why do you that? And they can say, well, why do you do that? And I, I just found that that’s the most I’ve learned about this religion.

55:05 I read books before, but I found just knowing someone like Gifty, I’d be like, why this and why that and then you’re like, then you realize, guess what? They’re just like you, only not as extremely good-looking. Well, you know, oh, he has a little bit more salt on his chips, right? Yeah. You, these are the things.

55:21 If it’s like, you know, when I grew up in Sheffield, I, I knew no Jewish guys. I came to London, and I mixed with Jewish people. I make friends with them. I speak to them, and, you know, you, you, you will never have better knowledge than firsthand meeting and mixing with people, and this is what the Prophet Muhammad said to his people. He said, I am your example.

55:40 You know, and then you have to live your life as a Muslim. It is your duty to live your life as an example, so when people see you, this is the example that you want to set to them. That is a way of propagating a religion. You’ve said, a, you’ve said a pretty good example here today. If, yeah, no, very much so.

55:59 Thank you so much for coming on. It’s a, it’s a lot to ask of anyone. I can’t imagine inviting someone on to kind of represent an entire global religion, so, you know, thank you for coming on. It’s not an easy task, because it’s such a wide, you know, varied field. I know.

56:13 I think you did a very good job. So, yeah, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate it. I hope people get a lot out of this. Thank you so much.

56:20 This show, cool, and until then, it’s about the journey. All right, boys. Peace. Welcome. Very, very intelligent, and I, I loved talking to him, and I definitely got high on the, well, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation because time has flown.

56:37 It reminded me of my discussion with Joe, actually. Nice, relaxing, positive, enjoyable feel that’s cuz, Brian, I popped a couple of PS before