“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” You’ve probably seen those words plastered across a thousand sunset photos. What you certainly haven’t seen is the Islamic world that gave birth to them.
Rumi is the best-selling poet in America. Yet the Rumi embraced by the West is a very different figure from the Muslim mystic who wrote the poetry a Rumi detached from Islam and the Quran, stripped of the faith that shaped his work.
This week on The Tea, we’re joined by leading Islamic scholar Omid Safi to reclaim the Rumi behind the Instagram quotes. We also explore what this erasure tells us about the West’s relationship with Islam—and the rising Islamophobia that shapes it.
Also in the show:
⚡ Rising Islamophobia: the double standards applied to Muslims and Islam
⚡ The self-help industrial complex: when ancient spirituality becomes a wellness commodity
⚡ The Filton 4: what happens when corporate property is treated as sacred, but human life is not?
⚡ Gen Z and the crisis of hope: is the future still salvageable?
⚡ Trump and Hegseth: when religion serves power
⚡ Radical love: when spirituality becomes a force for social justice
As Omid argues, the question is bigger than any one politician. If we don’t confront the systems that produce them, there will always be another Trump, another charlatan.
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AUDIO CREDITS
Presenter–Producer: Dr. Myriam François
Guest: Omid Safi
Senior Producer: Sara Farolfi
Producer: Nadège Bizimungu
Assistant Producer: Poppy Jacobs
Research: Constance Creswell
Video Editor: Max Bubnov
An MPWR Productions show.
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