The AMI Podcast

Focusing on the work of Romano Guardini, this talk examines how modern technology reshapes human power, faith, and social structures. Professor Vila-Chã reflects on the loss of authentic human experience and considers how religious thought can help address the dehumanising tendencies of modern technological systems.

Professor Campbell analyses how internet memes shape public perceptions of religious communities. She explores how humour, stereotypes, and digital culture can reinforce religious bias, while also highlighting how faith communities can critically engage and respond.

Professor Fatemi introduces the concept of the “Cyber-Leviathan” to describe the totalising power of digital surveillance and algorithmic governance. From an Islamic ethical and theological perspective, he argues for rethinking human rights and moral responsibility in order to protect human agency in the digital age.

Professor Reed addresses the ethical challenges of weapons control through Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. She explores how shared moral resources can contribute to contemporary debates on warfare, accountability, and emerging military technologies.

Dr Rahimi explores Muharram rituals as embodied, technical practices that shape religious experience and communal life. By examining devotional performance, material culture, and sensory engagement, he shows how religious traditions adapt and endure through specific technologies of practice.

This presentation challenges instrumental views of technology by drawing on Sikh philosophy and global traditions of thought. Professor Mandair explores how alternative models of individuation and spirituality can reshape our relationship with technology beyond modern Western frameworks.

In this Research Seminar, Dr Zairu Nisha (University of Delhi) explores infertility among Muslim women in India through feminist bioethics and phenomenology. She introduces the concept of the body as a site of moral injury, showing how reproductive expectations, religious belief, and assisted reproductive technologies shape women’s moral identities and lived experiences.Drawing on thinkers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beauvoir, Dr Nisha challenges mind–body dualism and argues that the body is not separate from the self, but a moral subject formed through relationships with others. When infertility disrupts social and religious expectations of womanhood and motherhood, women experience guilt, shame, and alienation — not because of moral failure, but because they are caught between conflicting moral worlds.Read more or watch the full seminar:Audio Chapters:0:00 - Introduction2:40 - Self and Body Dichotomy04:53 - The Lived-Body in a Lived World07:35 - Embodiment and Moral Injury 12:27 - Female Body and Reproduction15:30 - Infertility and Moral Problem17:55 - Technology and Motherhood22:24 - Muslim Women and Reproduction25:26 - Conclusion: Towards Moral Repair

How do stories create political power? Why do narratives matter in shaping legitimacy, justice, and belonging? In this Research Seminar, Dr Fatemeh Sadeghi (University College London – Institute for Global Prosperity) examines the powerful role of narratives and storytelling in legitimising political authority. Drawing on examples from Islamism, nationalism, and contemporary far-right populism, she shows how political stories do not merely reflect power but actively produce it. The seminar explores how movements mobilise ideas of moral renewal, nostalgia, and collective identity to justify authority, and how these same narratives can both inspire emancipation and reproduce exclusion or authoritarianism. Dr Sadeghi also situates these dynamics within an “age of crisis,” marked by inequality, political disillusionment, and declining trust in institutions, where emotional resonance increasingly replaces ideology as the basis of legitimacy.Read more, or watch the full seminar:https://ami.is/sadeghi-seminarAudio Chapters:0:10 - Introduction01:29 - What is Narrative? 04:02 - Types of Narrative in Islamic Culture08:46 - Storytellers & Storytelling15:10 - Significance of Narratives in Politics17:45 - Examples of Political Narratives 31:49 - The Age of Crisis and the Future of Politics

If God is everywhere, why can't God be in an image? If devotion dissolves the self before the Beloved, what remains to draw the line between Hindu and Muslim? And can we ever find an answer to suffering that satisfies both the heart and the mind? Drawing from his acclaimed book, "The Hindu Self and Its Muslim Neighbors," Dr Barua guides us through the shared devotional languages of Bhakti and Sufi traditions. He reveals how figures like Kabir, Tagore, Nazrul Islam, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan inhabited spaces of “creative ambiguity” that transcended rigid boundaries. This episode explores Dr Barua’s journey from physics to metaphysics, delving into the theology behind “idol worship” and the intersection of quantum mechanics and religious truth. It invites us to discover profound resonances and honest tensions between two great spiritual traditions. Dr Ankur Barua is a Senior Lecturer in Hindu Studies at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. He researches the conceptual constellations and the social structures of the Hindu traditions, both in premodern contexts in South Asia and in colonial milieus where multiple ideas of Hindu identity were configured along transnational circuits between India, Britain, Europe, and USA. In recent years, his research focus has moved to an exploration of the intersections between the idioms of bhakti, yoga, tawḥīd, and taṣawwuf on the multiply-stratified postcolonial landscapes of South Asia.Audio Chapters: 0:00 – Highlights 1:23 – From Physics to Metaphysics 12:30 – Language of Science vs Language of Religion 19:10 – Are There Revelations in Hinduism?24:50 – On Infallibility of the Vedas 28:28 – Revelation in Hinduism and Abrahamic Traditions 33:16 – Between Monotheism and Idol Worship in Hinduism 45:07 – Idol Worship and Muslims 47:15 – Why Muslim Neighbours? 55:52 – Muslims as Foreigners 1:04:45 – Bhakti and Sufi Love 1:17:01 – Quantum Mechanics and Truth of Religion 1:23:10 – Religion and Meaning for Modern Individuals 1:28:46 – Thinking Islam QuestionMentioned in This Episode: "Images of the Unimaginable God" by Dr Ankur Barua: https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/images-of-the-unimaginable-god "The Hindu Self and Its Muslim Neighbors" by Dr Ankur Barua: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/hindu-self-and-its-muslim-neighbors-9781793642585/ "Form and Essence" by Shaykh Arif: https://www.shaykharif.com/blog/impurity?categoryId=24615

In this episode, Dr Attar explores how two major theologians — al-Ghazālī and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī — challenged the idea that miracles serve as proof of prophethood. Drawing on their engagement with the occult sciences, Dr Attar shows how both thinkers believed that extraordinary acts could be imitated by magicians and thaumaturges, raising new questions about what truly verifies a prophet. He concludes by proposing an Avicennian reinterpretation of miracles as signs of an elevated prophetic soul rather than evidentiary proofs.