The Adnan Husain Show

Adnan and Marc continue their conversation about the Names of God in the Sufi Muslim mystical tradition and its wider resonances for spiritual experience and self-examination. In particular we observe some of the challenges of beginning such an ambitious project and the preparation required by discussing the openings to two major medieval Arabic commentaries on the divine names introduced in episode 1, al-Ghazali's treatise on the "beautiful names" and al-Tilimsani's commentary on the names and attributes as they appear in the Qur'an, the scriptural text of Islam. We also give a brief overview of the names to comment on the contrasts among the "jamali" and "jalali" or "beautiful" and "majestic" attributes as facets of the divine and the nature of apparent synonyms among the traditional 99 names. What does it mean that God self-describes in the Qur'an as both "the Just" and "the Merciful", "the Punisher" and the "Forgiving"? How do these contrasting qualities, like "the First and the Last" or "the Hidden and the Manifest," often paired in the devotional tradition of reciting the names, relate to the human encounter with these dimensions? We also respond to an interesting comment from a listener about our preference to translate as "the Complete Human" rather than "the Perfect Man" the concept the great mystic Ibn al-Arabi developed and we discussed in the first episode of the Insan al-Kamil. Marc has a new companion video on "Relating to God: the God image in Sufism." https://youtu.be/b4ILWhKHN2A?si=wk8la4b_xqAAlC-z You can follow his work: https://phenomenologyblog.com/?author=1 Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)! www.patreon.com/adnanhusain Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available in video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org

An excerpt from a very exciting and inspiring Office Hours livestream Friday Aug 29, 5pmET. For the full conversation and full audio of all livestreams (Office Hours and Struggle Sessions), join patreon.com/adnanhusain. In this edition of Office Hourse, I talked with Calla Walsh about taking action against genocide and empire. Calla is a brilliant analyst and courageous anti-imperialist activist. She discussed her experience in Cuba solidarity, direct action against the Israeli genocide in Gaza with comrades following the example of Palestine Action (UK), about her recent trip to Iran, and her analysis of and thoughts about moving from spectatorship to action in resisting ZioAmerican empire and its genocidal violence in Gaza, Palestine, and beyond. Do not miss this edition of Office Hours w/Prof Adnan Husain. Again, you can hear the full audio version on patreon.com/adnanhusain and also watch for free on YT. These Office Hours and Struggle Session livestreams are meant for interaction and engagement. You can post questions to social media announcements ahead of time or join the YT livestream comments to post your questions and comments and also discuss with other members of the audience community. But, by becoming a patron and supporter, you will have priority for your questions, suggested topics and comments for livestream guests and panels. So join patreon.com/adnanhusain You can also support with a one-time donation via buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain You can support Calla's work on Substack: https://calla.substack.com/ In particular, support our political prisoners, notably T. Hoxha and now Casey Goonan on hunger strike. Calla calls for your action here: https://calla.substack.com/p/casey-hoxha It has a toolkit for calling the prison administration to support political prisoners! Read her account of her trip to Iran: https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/08/16/753182/tehran-ruins-found-resistance-us-journalist-activist-postwar-firsthand-account?ht-comment-id=27431626 Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)! www.patreon.com/adnanhusain Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available in video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org

Adnan discusses recent developments in Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria with journalist, media activist and geopolitical commentator Laith Marouf of Free Palestine TV. Referring to recent reports on the platform as a basis for further analysis of ZioAmerican imperialism, its regional agents, and popular resistance to it. Support this media platform on the front lines by donating at freepalestine.video Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)! www.patreon.com/adnanhusain Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available in video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org

Drs. Rabab Abdulhadi (San Francisco State) and Salman Sayyid (Leeds), join Adnan to discuss the geopolitically important Afro-Asian Conference of 1955, seventy years ago, that brought leaders of states newly freed from colonial rule together to advocate an agenda of peace and development that would give rise to the Non-Aligned Movement, the Tri-Continental and UNCTAD. Our panel engages in a critical discussion of that history and its relevance today for people's movements not only across the Global South but globally. Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)! www.patreon.com/adnanhusain Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available in video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org

The second half of Dr. Isa Blumi's brilliant exposition of the history of Yemen. Our conversation reviews how the earlier history continued to inform the fierce resistance to imperialism and its agents through the 2010's with the Saudi/Gulf/ZioAmerican attack and siege upon Yemen. Isa analyzes how Ansarullah's diverse coalition has combated the destruction of the country while forging new paths in the annals of the history of solidarity and resistance against genocide. Do not miss this episode! For further readings and links to Dr. Isa Blumi's recent scholarship, see the description to part 1. Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)! www.patreon.com/adnanhusain Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available in video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org

Adnan discusses with Dr. Laleh Khalili her article in Jewish Currents "History Lesson" (https://jewishcurrents.org/history-lesson) on settler colonialism in response to an awful (and politically pernicious) book by Adam Kirsch "On Settler Colonialism". This excellent conversation is also great preparation for Office Hours when we will discuss the topic of settler colonialism further with Dr. Max Ajl. See the post and resources there to prepare further for an important discussion with you all. Dr. Laleh Khalili, Professor at University of Exeter, is the author or editor of seven books including Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (2007). Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)! www.patreon.com/adnanhusain Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available in video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org

In this first part of a two part series, Adnan has an epic conversation with Dr. Isa Blumi, historian and Professor of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Stockholm University, about Yemen's modern history of resisting colonialism geopolitically and global capitalism. Author of Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us about the World, Dr. Blumi masterfully analyzes and integrates the geographic, social, economic, cultural, political and religious dimensions of Yemen's distinctive historical experience. If you want to understand why Ansarullah as a popular movement has taken leadership of active solidarity with the people of Gaza in confronting ZioAmerican empire, this episode will be indispensable. To consult more of Dr. Isa Blumi's recent work on Yemen and the Gulf region: Blumi, Isa. Destroying Yemen: What chaos in Arabia tells us about the world. Univ of California Press, 2018. Blumi, Isa. Chaos in Yemen: Societal collapse and the new authoritarianism. Routledge, 2010. Blumi, Isa. "The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)." In Government and Politics of the Contemporary Middle East, pp. 545-652. Routledge, 2023. Blumi, Isa, and Jaafar Alloul. "Guest-Editors' Introduction: Re-Worlding the Gulf: Anomaly as Geopolitical Function." Middle East Critique 34, no. 2 (2025): 181-202. Blumi, Isa. "Imperial Equivocations Britain's Temperamental Mobilization of the Caliphate, 1912-1924." Rivista italiana di storia internazionale 4, no. 1 (2021): 149-173. Blumi, Isa. "Iraqi ties to Yemen's demise: Complicating the 'Arab Cold War'in South Arabia." Journal of Contemporary Iraq & the Arab World 16, no. 3 (2022): 235-254. Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)! www.patreon.com/adnanhusain Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available in video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org

Part 8 of Palestine and the World: History in a Time of Genocide (Denial). In this update episode covering the developments in the continuing Israeli genocide in Gaza from December 2024 (when Part 7 was recorded), Dr. Ariel Salzmann and Adnan discuss the Trump administration's policies, the displacement of UNRWA with the so-called "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation" mercenary force, starvation as a weapon of genocide, the attack on Iran, the suppression of Palestine solidarity and the advance in the weaponization of antisemitism, and prospects for a countervailing the politics of solidarity. The recording platform cut off a few mins at the end, but this update is a prelude to a live Q&A session with Adnan and Ariel about not only the history covered in the series but the political stakes of our present moment and the actions or objectives to organize around. So we will have a chance to cover all this material and more. Listen to this episode and join the live stream Office Hours for Fri Aug 8, 5-7pm ET. https://www.youtube.com/live/2arwdSUn2_Q?si=gPbOewDpQu5j0JCr Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)! www.patreon.com/adnanhusain Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available in video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org

Adnan introduces a new series on the spiritual and devotional tradition of the Divine Names. A collaboration with phenomenological psychologist and student of Sufism, the mystical dimension of Islam, Dr. Marc Applebaum, the series explores each of the 99 "Beautiful Names" through Sufi mystical theosophy, Qur'anic commentaries, and spiritual experience and meaning. Drawing inspiration from medieval as well as modern spiritual texts within Islamic theology and Sufi writings as well as in other Abrahamic traditions and psychological and pheomenological scholarship, Adnan and Marc embark on an examination of the Names of God in the context of spiritual fulfillment and development as a path for realizing the full potential of what it means to be human, a complete human, in the world. Therefore, we hope this will be a valuable series for not only Muslims interested in the Islamic tradition on the 99 Names in Sufism or adherents of Judaism or Christianity, but also to those seeking nourishment and pathways for self-knowledge and growth of all varieties in or outside of religious traitions. In this introduction to the series, Marc and Adnan talk about: their interest in the Names; the Names' place in Sufi mysticism, particularly the "Akbarian" theosophical school based on the insights and writings of influential Sufi Shaykh Muhyiddin ibn al-Arabi; phenomenology as a philosophical approach grounding experience; and relevance to psychological and spiritual interpretations of the Names of God. For two short companion videos Marc made that elaborate more on his background as well as understanding of phenomenology and its relevance as an approach, see: https://youtu.be/yBSO172xrqs https://youtu.be/CvADk1oDvfo More of Marc's work: https://phenomenologyblog.com/?page_id=198. Itlaq Foundation: http://www.itlaqfoundation.com/staff.html Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)! www.patreon.com/adnanhusain Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share! Also available in video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com www.adnanhusain.org

**Adnan recently did an episode of Psychlib over at Resistance is Fertile.** The Intersection of Islam, Marxism, and the roots of racism and Resistance: A Conversation with Adnan Husain. Welcome to a thought-provoking episode of PsychLib featuring Adnan Husain, an associate history professor from Queens University, Ontario. In this deep conversation, we explore topics such as the historical roots of Islamophobia, the integration of Islam and Marxism in resistance movements, and the psychological impact of living in settler colonies. Adnan offers a unique take on how religious and cultural resources can support long-term resistance and liberation efforts from a Marxist perspective. Join us to understand how deep histories and individual experiences intersect to create resilient movements for justice. Like, share, subscribe, comment and don't give us any money! Find Adnan: X @adnanahusain. YT Adnan Husain Show / @adnanhusainshow also on all the podcast platforms. Adnan is also co-host Guerrilla History Podcast on all the podcast platforms. Support the Adnan Husain Show: patreon.com/adnanhusain If you are on Twitter, please tell @teamyoutube to reinstate the "benjischoendorff" channel! Don't give us any money! Give instead toward Gaza reconstruction, for example, https://x.com/munigaza Help Gazans provide essential services to Gazans with the Sameer Project: https://chuffed.org/project/113327-re... or https://doctorsagainstgenocide.org/ Or contribute to Benji's chuffed appeal for Omar and his family of seven in Gaza: https://chuffed.org/project/133857-he... And for Ibrahim, his pregnant wife, 6 mo baby and extended family! https://chuffed.org/project/134655-he... Palestine Trauma Centre UK https://www.palestinetraumacentre.uk RIF Linktree https://linktr.ee/resistanceisfertile