Dr. Osman Latiff is a Senior Researcher and Instructor at Sapience Institute. He has a BA in History, an MA in Crusader Studies, and has completed a PhD in the "Place of Fada'il al-Quds (Merits of Jerusalem) and Religious Poetry in the Muslim effort to recapture Jerusalem in the Crusades". He has delivered many papers in the UK and internationally at renowned academic institutions. His book on the crusades, "The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades" was published by Brill in 2018. He has also written and continues to write academic articles and book chapters in the field of history.
Further to his PhD, he conducted post-doctorate research in Politics and International Relations ("The effect of war media iconography on US identity: disruptive images, counter hegemony and political syncretism") — considering bottom-up, grassroots humanistic values and affective principles of empathy and syncretism, and the power of the visual dimension in war and conflict. His second book, on the place of empathy in challenging attitudes of otherness in human societies, entitled "On Being Human: How Islam addresses othering, dehumanisation and empathy" was published in February 2020 and launched in Christchurch New Zealand on the anniversary of the Christchurch mosque shootings (2019). His post-doctorate research was published last year, "Navigating War, Dissent and Empathy in Arab/U.S relations: Seeing Our Others in Darkened Spaces" (Springer, 2021) is a comparative, multi-modal study that helps to explain shifting self-identities within the U.S and relationally through the representation of an Arab 'other'. His most recent work, "Divine Perfection: Christianity an Islam on Sin and Salvation" (Sapience Institute, 2022) is a theological response to Christian missionaries and in particular to Dr. William Lane Craig The work sieves through centuries of Christian misrepresentation of Islam and makes the case for the maximal perfection of Allah as reflected through the doctrines of sin and salvation in Islam.
Dr. Latiff is a lecturer and teacher at Jamia Masjid and Islamic Centre, Slough, and is a regular speaker at mosques and universities in the UK and internationally.
Absolutely brilliant podcast Maa’sha’Allah
Nice to see an interesting, intelligent and very beneficial discourse.
Just one point regarding the Dajaal being a ‘system’ as some people like to say, the ulema say that generally we should take ahaeeth literally. Meaning, we don’t make metaphors, we know he is one eyed, and this is not a metaphor for the TV as some like to state etc.
JazakAllahKhair to all.
The following is such a profound statement, maa shaa Allah, by Dr. Uthman Lateef that I really wanted to get it down in writing.
52:34 “Remember that every person immersed in self-grandiosity needs a spectacle. You cannot function as a human being by yourself. So the whole process we have in Islam of khulwah…may Allah grant us that [seclusion]…that’s where your self worth is found…you can’t have self discovery only through the lens of a thousand cameras at you.”
May Allah Ta’ala protect us from reaching a point where we can only do acts of worship and good deeds when we know that we have an audience. May He protect us against those who seem to have reached that point and guide them as well as us. Ameen.