I briefly explain how welcoming Britain has been to immigrants from Pakistan and elsewhere, and the importance of religious, political and economic freedom.
Summary
Transmitted 9 July 2020. Posted 27 July 2020.
Modern technology makes it very easy for strangers to approach you electronically. Personally I am willing to have an initial electronic conversation with anyone, unless there is some reason to the contrary.
On 7 July someone called Syed Muniem Hassan Rizvi (who uses the nickname Muniem Batoni for media activities) contacted me using Facebook Messenger. His initial message is reproduced below.
My name is Syed Muniem Hassan Rizvi. I am from Pakistan and live here. I work with Mr Rehan Allahwala in Rehan’s Foundation and we do a show called Connecting the World, where we interview different people, and in this way, we can learn from each other’s culture, food, beliefs, and understand what makes each other happy.
You can see our past shows on below links.
Please let me know what time suits you in next 02 days to interview you? Click on the link below and schedule online interview with me.
I met Rehan Allahwala of the Rehan Foundation and the Institute of Peace in July 2019 at an event in Manchester and have been connected with him electronically since then.
As the above message came shortly after the interview I gave to Rizwan Akram on 24 June, I assumed that interview might have triggered this request.
If at all possible, I take up opportunities to share my views. We scheduled the interview for 9 July, and I sent the suggestions below to help Muniem Batoni to plan the interview.
Given the timing of your request, I assume that you have seen my interview with Rizwan Akram [on Facebook]
Rather than covering the same ground, I suggest the following areas to ask about:
- The situation for Muslims in the UK, and their progress in academic studies, business life, the professions, and politics.
- Whether Islam is compatible with freedom, specifically economic freedom, political freedom, and religious freedom.
- Why Muslim majority countries, such as the members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) lag behind in their development.
- Feel free to ask about my own life story if you wish, but since Rizwan Akram focused mainly on that, I suggest using your interview to explore wider subjects.
The full 28-minute interview was transmitted live and uploaded to Facebook. However I recommend watching the 26-minute version below, because I have deleted some silences caused by Muniem’s limited bandwidth.
The interview is in English, but Muniem opened and closed in Urdu, which my wife has translated below. After the video I have roughly transcribed Muniem’s questions as an aid to readers.
Welcome to our live interview with Muniem Batoni.
Today our guest is basically from Pakistan but is settled in the UK. I will introduce him. He is a very renowned person and his name is Mohammed Amin MBE.
Thank you all very much for watching the show.
I am finishing the show with prayers and hope that you look after yourselves. The most important message is that if you are people aged 18 or over and about to get married, then you should get genetic testing for thalassaemia so you can have a better future.
God bless.
Due to my very limited knowledge of Urdu, I only understood Muniem Batoni’s closing remarks after my wife translated them for me to assist with this website page. I am delighted that he is spreading the message about genetic disorders, a subject I feel very strongly about.
See my page “Playing Russian roulette with my baby's health: the health risks of marrying one's first cousin.”
Follow @Mohammed_Amin