Monem Salam:
Welcome to this episode of Halal Money Matters, sponsored by, Saturna Capital. I’m Monem Salam. And in today's episode, it's an interesting one. Over the past few years, there's been a lot of talk, in the investment industry and also amongst retail investors about what's called BDS: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. You know, it's interesting because we talk a lot, a lot about that. And a lot of people, you know, do know, what BDS is. But when I was actually looking for a guest to come on, come on and actually speak on this topic, I asked, I've probably about 7 or 8 people if they would like to speak to me about BDS, just BDS, I think nothing explain anything at all. And about 5 to 6 of them actually said, can you please explain to me what BDS is? So what I guess what I'm getting at is, is that it's really important for us to be able to understand what is it exactly meant by boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, how it actually impacts investing, and how does that impact, maybe returns on those investments that you actually have?

Today we have a guest, with us, Ibrahim Khan, really good friend of mine, lives in the UK. He is actually the co-founder of Islamic Finance Guru, and also the sister investment company called Cur8 Capital. He holds a bachelor's in philosophy from Oxfor, and has also has his Alinea degree. So he is a, you know, a aspiring scholar by right. And, currently, you know, traveling the world and, and really getting to meet people, and making investments on the private equity side, but has a lot of knowledge on this area of boycott, divestment and sanctions. So we get into it pretty heavy. And I hope you enjoy the episode.

Ibrahim, thanks for being on the show.

Ibrahim Khan:
No, it's an absolute pleasure.

Monem Salam:
You know, I've really wanted to do this, this particular segment, for a long time. It's so it's one of those things that's come up very recently, called BDS right boycott and divest and sanction. And it's been around for quite a long time. I mean, I think some people say that it was during even the divestment from South Africa that actually started. And then recently we served again with after October 7, with Palestine. And I just wanted to get, you know, a better sense of, you know, from a perspective, what's effective, what's not ethically, what's our responsibility versus the Sharia compliance part of it. And I couldn't think of any anybody better than you.

Ibrahim Khan:
Well, let's do this. I feel like I've drawn the short straw this particular emotive subject. But, yeah, let's do it.

Monem Salam:
So, I mean, let's So let's kind of break it down a little bit more, so define a little bit further what BDS is, and not just the name, but the actual what is it?

Ibrahim Khan:
Yeah. So the idea is, what was popularized by a Palestinian, I guess, civil rights movement, and particularly, I forget the name of the person, but particular people within that movement. And the idea here is that ultimately, we want the apartheid that is existing in Israel, Palestine, and the human rights abuses and the illegal occupation. These are all, you know, just according to standard international law. This is how it's described. We want that to end, and how we think that's going to end is that Western countries in particular, but major countries across the world, are going to put sanctions on people that are breaking the law. And sanctions is the last bit of BDS. And in order for us to get to the point of sanctions, which we got to the point of when it came to countries like South Africa, for example, you need to actually build up to that point. And so the boycotting is the first of those, and then divestment is a second of those. And that ultimately creates the space for sanctions to become politically acceptable. And an approach, you know, something that you'd actually want to do, boycotting is something that the individual does. Divestment, are you pulling your investments out of certain companies, is something that individuals can do. But also actually a lot of the time pension funds and institutions can do and then finally, you've got sanctions, and that's what only governments can do, right? So it's going up the chain of command, of influence.

Monem Salam:
So let's, let's break that zone for us. Let's talk about boycott for the first part. I mean, you know, I've seen strategy being very effective, and let's supposing if it's Muslims that are boycotting a certain brand, those type of things. I feel that it's much more powerful when when, for example, in Malaysia, they had a boycott against McDonald's or Starbucks, for them to be effective, then maybe a minority community, for example, in the UK, where you're from, or in the US or where we are. And so what you know is there an effective channel to be able to do that, or is it really, you know, you start with the most effective being sanctions, than the diversement, than than the actual boycott.

Ibrahim Khan:
Yeah, I think with boycotting, the power of it is not necessarily in the economic harm that you can do to a particular company, right? So let's say you've got a company like booking.com, or Barclays, or someone like that who has very clearly been documented in human rights documentation, human rights, the UN Human Rights Commissions, the documentations around supporting, either directly or indirectly, illegal occupation in occupied territories. Now, boycotting them would, in principle, be a good thing, but the challenge is that economically, you're highly, highly unlikely to have any material impact on that entity, right? Especially because if you think about Israel, the majority of its trade actually happens with Japan, Germany and the USA, and the majority of the Muslim countries, they don't actually trade with Israel, so you're not actually going to have that much of a direct impact. So actually, it's much more of a PR focus. That's what boycotting, the real power of boycotting is PR. And so therefore, if PR is the real power of it, then it doesn't make sense to boycott thousands of things. What makes sense is to boycott a few key things, and everyone boycotts them, but not just boycott, but then actually go one step further and actually talk to the companies and make people aware and kick up a bit of a stink. This is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Monem Salam:
Kind of similar to like, if you can make it effective in one or two companies, other companies might get a little bit nervous and kind of preempt any kind of a boycott that they might have exactly right,

Ibrahim Khan:
Exactly.

Monem Salam:
Have you, have you come across any examples of effective boycotts that have happened in the past?

Ibrahim Khan:
I think there's been quite a few successful examples. Even in this recent, last few years, right where I think Puma war was sponsoring the Israeli national team, or something along those lines. And after a lot of pressure, they they, they pulled out from that. I think you've you hear the companies like Starbucks have taken a very significant hit as a result of this cost of coffee. I think are another one that have reported some, you know, pretty poor numbers, and a lot of it is being traced back down to this. You're seeing how the owners of a number of these American franchises in the Middle East, they recently came out a few days ago, and they said that we look, we're actively looking to try and buy franchises now in the Middle East, rather than the American you know, KFC, for example, franchises that we have and, and it's a weird one, right? Because KFC is, if you think about it, KFC is probably not directly supporting Israel in any way, shape or form, bizarrely, right? I'm sure there may be some like indirect support at some point, by some, you know, franchisee, right? But actually direct support, yeah, there really isn't any.

Monem Salam:
So, in fact, you can go so far say that even if there was a franchisee that was doing it, contractually, KFC is limited in what they can do correct and to effectively do anything about whatever the person is doing.

Ibrahim Khan:
Correct. And it's so so to some extent, I think people need to be careful about, you know, who they're boycotting in the sense of, is it actually a fair target, A and B? Is, is it actually going to have any impact? I think with companies like, let's say Starbucks, for example, where there are ties, and you know, whether you know, there could be said to be stuff that they're doing that is supportive of Israel, and there is a movement behind it, right? And it's, there's a significant amount of, you know, media attention around it. I actually think getting behind a boycott like that can make sense, because then it achieves the purpose of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It achieves the purpose of creating a bit of a hoo ha around it, because that actually is the goal that, you know, smaller minority communities in a country can can have an outsized impact with, as opposed to, you know, any kind of economic harm.

Monem Salam:
So the other one would be like, for example, if you look at Muslim countries, a lot of the people who are working at Starbucks and the people working at these these places, are going to be Muslims. And interestingly enough, this particularly happened in Malaysia, where this the actual holding company for McDonald's and Starbucks, which is happens to be the same, they actually came out and made this argument is like, why are you boycotting us? All you're doing is hurting your fellow Muslim malaise, who are working there for that. So any comments?

Ibrahim Khan:
Yeah, I mean, look, I would be very sympathetic to that. I think that there is a there is a fine line though, as well, you know, and I can understand why, you know, people behave in a certain way around, particularly large corporates, where you know, senior leaders, or you know, some of the major shareholders have expressed support for Israel, or, you know, have been very supportive of Israel historically. So I can sympathize with that, and, you know, and I don't think, especially when you're dealing with huge corporates where there will be many good guys right in this chain, you know, I don't think that alone is a reason to not boycott, but at the same time, you need to be careful that you're principled in your approach to the boycott. It can't be just, you know, scattergun approach. You know, firing left, right and center, that person you know, looked at the map and saw Israel one day on it. And that alone is good enough for us to start boycott. It has to be material support for, in my view, illegal activities, because if, if you don't have that principle line, then everything goes which, which means it's not useful.

Monem Salam:
True. And then also the other part of the boycott, which is, I feel, is very important is, I mean, I can stop, you know, purchasing my coffee or whatever, my burgers for McDonald's, but unless corporate finds out about it, that boycott means nothing. We're just a little blip on there, maybe like a rounding error for them. So it's really more a matter of doing it and then making your voice known by making phone calls or emails or something along those lines, that's letting people know that you're actually doing it. And that's where I think a lot of people fail. It's like they think it's enough to be able to just, you know, not do it, but it has to be one, one step further than that,

Ibrahim Khan:
100% Yep.

Monem Salam:
Okay, great. So now let's move on to the second one, which is divestment. Right? The BDS or so, boy, we got boycott. Now we got divestment. So divestment basically looks at and says, you know, what am I holding in my, in my, in my, in my, in my investments. And then, what can I, you know, realistically sell out of to be able to make an influence on on on these, on on the on these companies. And the same, same kind of argument could be made, like, arm, what kind of impact are you able to make from there.

Ibrahim Khan:
I think it's actually the same impact here again, because as as a, as a Muslim, or as a, I don't know, somewhat Palestine activist, you probably won't be a huge number relative to the mass majority of people. So again, your pressure should be focused on looking to get larger pension funds, endowments, etc, to make their moves right. So when I think the Norwegian pension fund, or certain funds from the Nordic countries, they started actively divesting from companies that are, you know, active in Israel, or, you know, supporting the Israeli military complex that was reported on by the Financial Times, and that then starts ratcheting up the pressure further on other companies and other funds and other pension funds, and you start seeing that cascade happening. I think that's the ultimate goal of where we want to get to, and and that needs to be really borne in mind. Because sometimes people think, oh, as an individual, I might be divesting from, you know, this, that, and the other, and, and frankly, I think, you know, from an economic perspective, it doesn't do very much. It makes us feel good. And I actually think we should do it because, you know, that's the least that we can do. But we should also be very clear minded as to what's the point of this? The point of this is ultimately create pressure on governments to put sanctions on illegal actors. And the thing before that is you want to get through to them by getting pension funds and larger corporates and big endowments to divest out, because that sends a far greater signal to governments than anything that we would say so so I think that's the goal now, in terms of, you know, specific individuals and the investments that they're making, I think it's absolutely vital that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water, and we have, again, a principled approach to boycotting and divestments in particular, because if we don't, then this time, we are actually just going to hurt ourselves and no one else in doing, so.

Monem Salam:
Yeah. So we can talk about the hurting part, just from a returns perspective, those type of things. But before we do that, I mean, I think there's also this idea, and we hear this a lot in the Muslim communities, like, you know, do we follow the Sharia compliance part of it, or is it something more than that that we have to look at when it comes to ethics and those type of things? I think the jury is still out right on exactly what is? Because you can easily argue that, you know, there's one thing to be, you know, halal or haram, right? And then the other thing is, within the halal, what are you actually doing, whether it be, you know, permissible or recommended those type of things. I don't think the scholars are there yet to be able to say whatever these these things are, are from a Sharia compliance perspective, non -Sharia compliant or haram. But I think definitely nobody will argue with you. On the, on the within the halal, what, where are you in regards to that?

Ibrahim Khan:
Yeah, agreed. And I think on the, on the ethics side of things. I do think we should be trying to move in that direction, for sure, but it's a little bit more of, you know, an individual type thing, and it's a bit more of a thing that depends on taste, because you're not comparing between impermissible, evil versus good, you know, permissible. You're comparing between something that's okay but not impermissible, versus something that's good versus something that's even better. And and that, I think, is a qualitative judgment that is very, you know, down to the individual's moral compass, and we should strive in that direction, but it's much harder to do.

Monem Salam:
And, you know, in this regard, also, like kind of looking at it from principles. One thing I did want to mention we talked about the BDS movement. It was interesting that when, when October 7th happened, when we looked at the BDS list, their information was extremely stale, right? I mean, I remember at certain companies, they had information back from the early 2000s and so there was a catch up period that was going on, and then what? Now, they're pretty up to date as to what they're doing, you know, I hope this is not something that's just a fad, and they'll kind of continue to even after, you know, after this conflict is over. But which brings up an important point is that, you know, I think it's important for not only an individual, but also fund manager companies to have, you know, like exposing policies in place that go beyond certain incidences, and really look at it from a perspective of, okay, what do we boy, what do we not invest in, generally speaking? So, for example, defense is an area, right? So defense an area. The scholars have said it's not, although it's technically permissible in Islam, right? It's not something that we want to be able to advocate, so we're going to keep that in the in the Haram list, or the or the non-Sharia compliance list, but even the definition of defense changes, or there are nuances within it when this guidelines came out, or even, for example, prior to October 7th, you know, AI and defense was never an issue. It's a very, very new, new topic, and there's a lot of emotions involved in been doing that. So. So trying to balance between the two become, becomes quite, quite a big of an issue. You know, do we do it on policy? Do we do on emotion? And then what if those emotions lead to divestiture that actually ends up hurting your returns? Yeah, then what do you do? So all of those things have to be kind of thought about.

Ibrahim Khan:
So I'm to be honest, I'm not that worried about the return. I think it has to be a principle and ethical argument and and if it means less returns, then so be it right. But then I think the it has to also be practical for me. I think the practical aspect of it is vital because the Islamic law, the Sharia, the way of life that we have it, it promotes practicality, and it promotes the the ability to be able to live, you know, life in an easy and, like, you know, practical way. And I think that's where the, you know, some people who so, you know, for example, boycotting or divesting from Elbit Systems, which is a Israeli military company, is a complete no brainer, right? You should do that or investing in booking.com which is a company that hosts a whole bunch of sites across occupied territories. That, you know, seems to me like a no brainer. But then you get into more murkier territory, where, instead of clearly going after illegal activities or support for illegal activities, you are going after any semblance of historic support or transacting with Israel, right? Which is a much higher bar. And suddenly you're, you're, you know, making impermissible large swathes of, you know, the US corporate landscape, and and so that. And so for me, that's where, you know, you start having a question mark, which is, and it's not because, oh, we need to have enough of a universe to invest into, but it's more a question of, well, let's dig into why you think transacting with Israel is something that would be worthy of divesting from. Well, it's because it supports Israel, and Israel ultimately is committing these acts. If that was the case, then there's a whole bunch of Palestinians who are transacting with Israelis every single day. They work there, and they want you to transact with them, right? So that's okay. So that doesn't quite work. And and actually, if, if support for Israel is the key thing, then, you know, the US government, you know, the UK Government, Western governments. They're actually probably the biggest supporters economically, and, you know, politically, militarily, all sorts of ways for for Israel, far more than some random company that might have once sell, sold, you know, some Israeli company, some, you know, nuts, or some, you know, something and and so do we stop paying our taxes? Do we move from these countries and move to somewhere else? Where do we go? Because I don't think it's straightforward to go to someone like the Middle East, even right, because that then comes with its own saggage. So where exactly do we go? And so it's following, pinpointing exactly what it is that we're trying to get at, and then, and then, you know, applying that fully and seeing is that actually a reasonable stance, a realistic stance to have, because let's kind of boil it all the way back, right? Why are we making this position is, are we doing this because it makes us feel better, or are we doing this because we want to enact change? Because if it's make us feel better, then obviously go ahead and knock yourself out, but if it's the enact change, then I think it needs to be very targeted and very principled.

Monem Salam:
And I think that's where the policies come and kind of come into play and and you can look at it, one thing is to look at it from an individual perspective, individual investor who they can actually choose to buy something or sell something or not invest in. One thing, it's a whole another level. When you're looking at it from a fund perspective, right funds, whether it be conventional or even Islamic, because a lot of Islamic funds you might find not from a halal and haram perspective, but maybe from a perspective questionable as to what they're holding. For example, if you look at Microsoft or Google or alphabet, those kind of companies. So what I find is that having that policies in place actually helps mitigate some of that what you're talking about over the long run. Yeah, right. It kind of smoothens out what is it that you are willing to do and what it is even not willing to do so, for example, if you're looking at defense as an industry, right? So I traditionally used to always use the example of a tire company, a tire companies out there making tires for cars and for everything, they just have to be making also tires for an F-16 or F-35 right? So are you going to now divest from there because of a small component? So having a policy in place, actually, that says, what is it that you're going to do actually helps to be able to answer a lot of the questions. And we, you know, using that to be able to now apply to software for AI, helps quite a bit as well. Yeah, and, and really, it's kind of tied together the boycott and the divestment part of it, because I might, a lot of people might be thinking, you know, I really don't want to be owning Microsoft or owning alphabet, however, they might be listening to this podcast on Microsoft Windows operating system or on YouTube, which is owned by alphabet. So where do you actually kind of go on and.

Ibrahim Khan:
I think in this day and age where we've got these larger companies that I think are essentially part of the fabric of our life at the moment, right to the point where we can't, realistically, you know, pull out from them and and you might be like, Okay, well, you know, I'm going to divest from them, but I've already bought this Tesla, or I've already bought this Apple phone or this, you know, I'm forced to use YouTube, and therefore I'm just going to have to do it. But the thing is that actually directly, if we go under the hood, that actually directly gives money to these companies in a way that's, you know, that they want, right? It brings in revenue. The stock market price is only indirectly affecting them, really, right? Because that's just shares that someone else owns, that they are buying and selling. So sure, it does affect them, you know, through maybe bonus schemes and what have you, over a period of 3, 4, 5, years, spread out, but actually in the in today's day and today, the thing that really helps Microsoft or Google is you sat there watching a YouTube video, or you buying their, their, you know, their software, so, you know, you this person is actually supporting the these same companies in a much more proximate, in a much more direct way than any divestment or investment would do, right and and I think that then hopefully brings home the message that there are certain there are certain companies that are so particularly large that I actually think we should think of them really conceptually as as governments, right, has own, their own sovereign entities. 
Monem Salam:
They're multinational corporations.

Ibrahim Khan:
Because they've got so much money and so much power, and they're so deeply embedded into our daily lives that I don't think it's realistic for us to say that, Oh, just like we're not realistic to say, Oh, we're going to leave the USA, or we're going to leave paying taxes, we're going to give up our nationality. I don't think it's just like that. I don't think it's realistic to say we're going to say we're going to give up Microsoft or Google. But do we? Do we then use our other means available to us to try and influence these companies? If you think about, I think I was looking at, was it Microsoft or Google, the pressure that some people are putting on to Islamic funds such as, you know, Saturna’s to divest from someone like Microsoft. I was working it out, and I think it came to something like 200 billion out of Microsoft's total, sorry, 600 million out of Microsoft's total. You know, market cap of several trillion or over 4 trillion. Yeah, and it's like naught point, naught, 2% or, I can't remember exact number, but it was a tiny number, and that's not going to affect Microsoft in any way, shape or form. What will be much more impactful is this same group of people who, rather than divesting, actually use their influence as shareholders or use that influence as individuals and write to Microsoft or campaign for Microsoft, and actually use the voice, as opposed to, you know, divestment, necessarily, in this instance, tactically, as the best mechanism to influence Microsoft in a certain direction.

Monem Salam:
Yeah, now and now, arguably, you can. You can argue that, you know, it's like even sometimes, you know, shareholder votes and those type of things for the board of directors and shareholders, those are annoyances. I think what what does is very effective, um, that will be seen as in our investor meetings with these companies, right? You're asking the questions that need to be asked, whether you're not going to get an answer or not, you might not get an answer, but at least you're asking the question so the investor relations is aware, and they will bring it up to the higher C suite individuals, because these are, we're talking about shareholders at a certain point. So and ownership is there. So I think there's, there's, there's different methods of being able to, kind of, where does your voice stand to benefit more than just simply just saying, I'm not going to do anything at all.

Ibrahim Khan:
Absolutely. And I think the other thing on him that people, someone might listening to this might think, you know what, a bunch of sellouts, right? This is, you know, you're, you're kind of whitewashing all of this, and you're, this is such a compromised position to which I would say that we are living in a casino is how I put it right. We're living in a casino, and there is a prayer room within this casino, and the question that we are debating right now is, what carpet should this prayer room have? And I really care about this particular color, and I really care about this particular color, and, you know, let's, you know, think about the decor in this room. What we are not if we take a step back and we think, why are we getting so upset and het up about this, when the real goal should be, let's deal with the fact that we're living in a casino, right? And we have to accept the economic system that we have today, and the way that the entire world, you know, macro economics is set up, is fundamentally run on, you know, an interest bearing system and a whole bunch of other things that make it, you know, not necessarily the ideal economic system that any of us want to live in. And once we accept that as a fact, then we realize that there will be some level of compromise that we are going to be, you know, involved in at some point in in our economic lives, it might be the bank account that you are forced to use that is propping up an interest bearing debt system, right? That same bank may well be then lending to the very same corporates that you are divesting from. So it's, this is not about whitewashing. Is not about, you know, trying to justify things post hoc. This actually about saying, let's be very, very tactical and clear minded about what is it that we care about, and then really tactically figure out, how are we going to go about achieving that in the most impactful way possible within the you know, the parameters of, you know, what we have available to us, as you know, leave us to pull in today's day and age.

Monem Salam:
Yeah. And also the other part of it, and it's more, and it's, you know, if you as, like, as an individual owner, if you wanted to, you know, do, do your sell your stock perfectly fine, but there are also in the United States, for sure, anti BDS laws, right? So, for example, you know, if Microsoft one day decides they're not going to sell them to Israel, that's illegal for them to do that. They're not allowed to do it. And so again, there's very, very nuanced. It's, you know, people want to think it's black and white, and the emotions come out when it's black and white, but I think it's a lot more complicated than more complicated than that. I think that's, you know, we all try our best to be able to do what's right for for as a fund, because we're not individuals, we're trying there for maximizing shareholder value. We have to do what's best from an Islamic perspective, but across all the different shareholders are there. That's, it's a very fine line that we have to, we have to.

Ibrahim Khan:
Totally, totally. I think the if, if people really want to make change, then, you know, ideally, we want to create companies that are fully Sharia compliant, full stack, right top to bottom. And that looks like create helping founders that are deeply ethical Muslim founders, they don't have to be Muslim, but founders who are deeply ethical and will align with, you know, values such as, we don't want to deal with interest, or, you know, we want to have a lot more of an equal society, or we don't want to, you know, the whole bunch of things that you know the Islamic tradition believes in. And if we are building companies and funding companies like that, often from the ground up, because there's not that many companies like that. That's when, over a period of 20 to 30, 40 years, we could even have an Amana Fund that doesn't have any, you know, interest bearing debt allowed in it. 30% or otherwise. There's no haram income allowed in it, you know, 5% or otherwise, because these are, you know, compromised positions that Islamic scholars have allowed and have have done for the last two decades because of the absence of anything else.

Monem Salam:
Yeah, and I really want to emphasize that, because that this in the long run, let's was in the next 50 years, 100 years, this was a stop gap measure. It wasn't, you know, this is not like these companies are halal because we're there's nothing else that's available, right? It was based on the concept of Haja that they actually allowed it. It wasn't just generally speaking, they said, this is, this is allowed. And so really building those companies like Malaysia has a has a term, they like to distinguish between Sharia compliant and Islamic, right? So Islamic means, like your your your pension fund, your your bank accounts, everything from top to down, bottom is actually, from an Islamic perspective, interesting. And then you have Sharia compliance, which is, yes, you can be within 33% or or, you know, not, not be involved with more than 5% a certain area, that type of thing. And those are Sharia compliant, I think, more and more companies, you know, eventually, as we kind of assist them growing and those type of things, hopefully we'll have a diversified portfolio of companies we can invest in that are all Islamic.

Ibrahim Khan:
100%. And I think this is where the, you know, private markets comes in, right? So, investing in private equity, investing in venture capital, setting up your own business, right? If you've got entrepreneur. Us in your family or your community, support them and give them that encouragement to be really ambitious, so that they are then the next big, publicly listed companies.

Monem Salam:
And learn the rules to how you keep it Islamic, absolutely, same time, absolutely there are yes, absolutely. I mean, just to be making sure that from the beginning, from the get go, you're trying to do things Islamically. So you're not trying to do it after you have the 20, 30 $50 million company, because it's a lot harder to change at the end 100% rather than beginning. So thanks for that. So now we talked about, you know, the boycott. We talked a little bit about, well, a lot about the divestment part. So let's come to the last one, which is sanctions. And from from a, I think, from an impact perspective, I do think that sanctions are probably the most impactful when it comes to changing policies in other countries. I mean, that's why, for example, the US puts sanctions on, let's say Russia or China, those type of things. But they are also the ones that take the longest time to be able to to implement just because of setting you have to change voter sentiment, and that's the government itself.

Ibrahim Khan:
Yeah, I think the US with its sanctions against certain countries like Iran, for example, has been deeply damaging for Iran. And I think any sanctions that the US puts on countries have been deeply damaging for them. I think for a country like Israel, I don't think it would just be damaging. I think immediately that you will see changes, because Russia is a huge country, and it's got lots of trading allies, right? But Israel is so dependent on America that if the US were to implement sanctions overnight, I think they would immediately jump to the tune of whatever it is that the US government asked them to do. And I think that's the and they may not even have to go particularly far in the sanctions, just the threat of them, the fact that they've now been implemented this first of them have been implemented. I think that's all it will take for this to go away.

Monem Salam:
That’s true. And I know, and just a general area, I know we've been talking about the specifically Israel, but in this case, you can talk about it from even the Chinese, what they do with the Uyghurs, or anything along those lines of it will take time for that to happen, but it is a constant effort. Because I do remember, prior to October 7, the China and the Uyghur issue was important, and then all of a sudden it dropped off. And so now there's no, no pressure on the US to do anything at all. So now I think it has to be something that's more sustained over a longer period of time, but you have to put in the time and the patience to be able to to see it through. Yeah, right, it wasn't, you know, even in South Africa, didn't happen overnight. Agree, it took years upon years of kind of convincing a lot of people.

Ibrahim Khan:
And I know, I think you make a great point about the Uyghurs, because I think, I know the Palestinian cause is particularly emotional, emotive and sensitive for us all right, and myself alone. Everyone felt impelled and moved to do stuff after October 7, 2023 but if we take a cold, hard look at things, why is Uyghur suffering, or why is the ring you're suffering any less or why is the Sudanese suffering any less than the Palestinian suffering and and why is it that we really focus on in on this? And sure, it is one of the third hole is the third holiest site for Muslims, so that, clearly will have something to do with it, and there's a lot of history associated with it. I get all of that. But we, we should. We should be led not just by our emotions, in fact, perhaps not at all by our emotions, but just be led by what does Allah, what does God want us to do? And does he distinguish between these four or five or six different ethnicities or nationalities? He doesn't right. We're all equal in the sight of God and and therefore it actually comes back down to, rather than back solving for this particular conflict, it comes back down to the point where you were making, which is, let's come up with principles that we can stand behind in all conflicts or in all scenarios, because this will blow away, Inshallah, right? Or hopefully very quickly, but there will always be something, and so let's be principled about it.

Monem Salam:
And then just one, one last thing on this, on this idea, BDS, what are your thoughts? And you know, not asking for scholar opinion, but what are your thoughts about why scholars haven't touched this issue? If you have, if you have a thought on that?

Ibrahim Khan:
As in coming up with their with the criteria? I think it's a deeply political issue, right? And you've got these Sharia standards that are, you know, located in the mid in the Middle East, in Gulf countries, and there's a whole bunch of politics around that already, right? Right? Because, you know, you've got very strong ties between America, the Europe and Middle Eastern countries, and there's a lot at stake. And I think that that naturally has, you know, either subconsciously or perhaps even consciously, I would suspect subconsciously has a bearing on how the you know, the standards, perhaps.

Monem Salam:
That's interesting. You're taking it from, I was actually thinking from a practical perspective, not interesting. So, for example, you know, like you cannot, like no scholar will come up. Because, as you know, from an Islamic perspective, labeling something Haram is a very, very big thing. It's not not to be taken lightly, right? So if you look at something like you mentioned, Elbit Systems or Palantir technologies in the US, those have a clear tie to some type of defense, some type of weaponry, yeah, some something offensive, right? Illegal action, illegal actions. Clearly, you can say this is wrong, but when it comes to something like a Google or Microsoft, it's much more complicated. And to label something as haram, I don't think scholars are willing to do it, because it's such a heavy thing to be able to do. And I think so, that's why they've, they've kind of said, well, we have these defense, you know, parameters that we have in the Sharia compliance. We have these other parameters. As long as you stick to these, you should be able to navigate through whatever it is that you're doing, yeah? Because, you know, for example, very early on in days Malaysia actually, you know, they could have easily come up with the, with the with the list for medias, because they have no political ties to to Israel or that type of thing, but they didn't, and I think that's one of the, as I talked to scholars, that's interesting, that's, that's what, what they've told me is, like, we don't want to label something haram, you know, to speak in God's name, in something that's this serious, rather than saying, You know what, maybe macro right is, is detested. Yeah, it's the farthest they'll ever go to be able to say that you should stay away from it. Yeah. So, any final thoughts before we close on the session? This has been great.

Ibrahim Khan:
No, I think it's, it's honestly a very tough, I think landscape to navigate and, and I think everyone who has these feelings, it shows that you know their heart's in the right place because they want to do something and, and I think the the strange thing about this particular conflict is how it seems that we can basically do nothing. Everything that we do, try and do it doesn't seem to have an effect. And it is like, you know, shouting at an Ill avoid and it doesn't seem to be making an impact. But I think that shouldn't then lead us to start shouting in the direction of things or going down into actions that ultimately are not principled and possibly even harmful to ourselves.

Monem Salam:
Yeah, and I think what I would just add to that is that, you know, we all have this inner desire to do something, but let that do something be something you do with wisdom. And the wisdom comes through patience. It comes through, you know, thought out policies of what you're going to be doing, what the end result is, those type of things, rather than just picking up the latest trend that somebody else is doing and saying, This is what, what I want to follow.

Ibrahim Khan:
And I know you want to end this. But one, one thing that I think really nicely captures this is Musa, Moses. When he was growing up in the house of the pharaoh the Quran, Allah, alaihi salam, he wanted that to happen. He actually, you know, he got Musa to be in the house of the biggest bad guy in the Quran, right? The biggest bad guy in the Quran actually brought up and looked after, and, you know, nurtured Musa alaihi salam and and so would, if you go back in time, would these same people be then protesting Musa and saying, Musa, what you doing? Why are you in the house of the Pharaoh? What? Like, what's this all about? So, but everything in its right place and at the right time?

Monem Salam:
Yeah, it's interesting. You just brought up a really interesting and again, I know we were trying to end this, but it's really interesting to note, you brought it, brought some that you know you could easily make the argument. Well, the people Bin Israel didn't know Musa was there, but they actually did, because he was having interactions with his brother. He was actually having interacts with the mom and the community itself, because they knew who he was. If you look at the story of when he actually killed that other it was from, it says in the Quran, that was from his tribe, and the person who was actually leading him on was from his tribe. He knew that. So there was a constant back and forth Musa had between Ben Israel, right, and the Israelites and the people of Faroun, which is an interesting dynamic, if you think about it, because he was in both worlds. And there's no no there was no comment by Allah, smart Allah to criticize it, or people, the people criticize anything along those lines. It was just a very fluid situation. Yeah, interesting. Well, thank you so much, Ibrahim, for your for your time. I know, like you mentioned, some very, very heated and controversial subject but I appreciate having to spend some time talking about it from a very non emotional but yet effective way of being able to tackle the show. So thank you for your time.

Ibrahim Khan:
It's been a pleasure. Bye.

Monem Salam:
As-salam alaikum.

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