A History of the Witch

In this episode, we explore Solomon as an occult authority in the Islamicate world: from the Quranic stories of Sulayman commanding the jinn and the winds, to the legendary Seal of Solomon, to his role in Islamic magic, talismans, letter science (ʿilm al-ḥurūf), and grimoires. We ...  Show more

Iblis (Satan) refused to bow to Adam, and the Qur’an condemns him for it. But some of the most daring Sufi mystics read that refusal very differently: as the act of a perfect monotheist and a tragic lover who would not bow to anything but God, even at the cost of eternal separati ...  Show more

Did God create us or did we create God? Listen to this episode as Muhammad Sami discusses his journey through religion, and how it is deeply embedded in his thirst for knowledge, spirituality and philosophy. We discuss the core elements of religion and how it governs elements of ...  Show more

In this episode we discuss the formation of Shia orthodoxy. Picking up from our earlier episode on early Shi’ism we explore how the experience of persecution under the Umayyads and Abbasid shaped Shia thought and doctrine. We discuss the Muhammad al Baqir and Jaffar as Sadiq and ...  Show more

We're excited to start Season 3 of Sacred Text Messages, with an analysis of the nature of the nafs (lower self or ego) and its devilish inclinations. Shaykh Hamza navigates us through the core tenets of Imam al-Ghazali's brilliant text Mizan al-Amal (The Measure of Actions), fro ...  Show more