An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.
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An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.
Islam is often treated as a civilisation apart — self-contained, resistant to modernity, and fundamentally at odds with the West. In this episode, Thomas speaks to Oxford professor James McDougall about why that framing is misleading, and how Islamic history is inseparable from the making of the modern world itself.
Drawing on his new book Worlds of Islam: A Global History, McDougall explains:
Why Islamic and Western histories are deeply intertwined rather than civilisationally opposed
The extent to which Islam is an imperial and political project
Islam’s role in shaping global modernity before European dominance
What made European power different in the nineteenth century
How the Mongol sack of Baghdad reshaped the geography of the Islamic world
The importance of Central Asia, Indonesia, and West Africa to Islamic history
The debate over early Islamic sources and why scholarly scepticism has softened
Whether today’s tensions reflect a clash of civilizations — or a clash of perspectives
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
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CONFLICTED
An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.
