I want lawmakers and lawyers to question what law is. Why are we creating it that way? Why are we creating these rules? And why particularly these kind of rules and are these rules reflecting our values and which values are we living up to? Dr. Abir Haddad is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine sponsored by the Alohas Regenerative Foundation. Dr. Abir Haddad is director of the Institute for Legal Transformation, capital 40 under 40, alumni of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science and teaches modern law of ARAB states at the Institute for Private International Law at the University of Cologne, where she received her doctor Summa Cum Laude. Congratulations. Wonderful. Previously to that, she developed transformative legal adaptations to address future challenges posed by climate change and exponential technologies at Resilience Frontiers Initiative, a forward-thinking project of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, where she still is an advisor. And that's kind of how we know each other. A couple of other different ways we're both with Resilience Frontiers as well. As director of the Institute for Legal Transformation, she is now applying her seven steps to legal transformation methodology to other areas of futures and disruptive change, exploring the law of the future with a thematic focus on anticipatory legal adaptations that promote sustainable living and balance with nature and foresightful regulation of exponential technologies for a prosperous society. Together with other lawyers, Dr. Haddad founded the network of multicultural lawyers, which provides a platform from German lawyers with a family history of immigration. In her academic career, Dr. Haddad has been selected as one of the 20 scholars worldwide for the Falling Walls Foundation Female Science Track 2022 and won the wild card for the Women in Leadership Program. Also, she is a founding faculty member of the European Club for Leaders and Sustainable Innovation Program. And I could go on for days because she has done absolutely everything. Welcome, Abir. I'm gonna call you Abir because we're actually friends. And even though you have all the accolades and titles and have been doing this for a little bit, welcome, how are you? Thank you, fine. Thank you for having me, Mark. You're most welcome. I'm so glad that it finally worked out. What did you do with that? It sounded so much what you just said. And like, it doesn't feel like this. It just sounds impressive, but... I believe it's because you take a very systemic approach to what you do in order to do the things you wanna do and address those forward futuristic ambitions. There's quite a bit of facets involved that you have to address, study, learn, and be aware of and know what's going on because it's not just this siloed approach to life anymore. You just can't be... Just a lawyer specialized in one area. It's kind of a much bigger picture than that. That brings me right off the bat to my first question.  And I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing some of those with us. How did you end up in Germany and studying law in Germany and you kind of get into this direction and to this field? And if you would mind sharing that with us, that would be great to find out a little bit more on this journey. Yeah, sure. I mean, if you talk about me being a citizen or like a citizen of a national state, then it started all in Iraq, Iraq, of course, like where it was born in Baghdad, like in the capital.  He had my father's family side were like more drawn to the communist side and became quite dangerous for him. So we needed to leave. So I left with my dad to Europe, like as a, yeah, we like refugees, like you seek refuge somewhere else.  So that's why he decided we needed to leave and that's what we did. And so I had many stations like as a child in several countries in the Middle Eastern Europe and then somehow I found my way to Austria and then to Germany where then my dad was because we were separated on the way. So I was separated from my dad as a young kid, as a young girl, yeah, was kind of a, you would call it un-companyed underage refugee. So this was, I think this is a very important point why I am the person I am today. And I became a fighter in every sense so yeah, this is actually where it started. And now I have also the German citizenship additionally to that, but I wouldn't call myself German or I wouldn't call myself Iraqi or whatever. I like my heart is a part of my heart is in Japan and a place I love, part of my heart is in Jordan and in other places in the world. And I wouldn't, would really call myself a world system. This is at least how I feel. That's beautiful. So I mean, that's kind of what I wanted to bring out because people ask me a lot, how did I get involved with what I'm doing and how did that journey come about?  I didn't see the climate God, I haven't been a refugee or in some kind of a conflict. It was a gradual transition over time. Oh, sometimes I almost feel like people are a little bit sad that I didn't have some catastrophic experience to leave me to move more in environmentalism and activism, climate and the UN direction that I am. But this experience that you had at a young age kind of helped you understand some of the problems and governance in countries and nations and living elsewhere and moving some of what maybe is going on in the UN. You started this firm just not too long ago. And what do you do with your law firm or your firm and exactly how are you trying to help people with this? Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, I would love it. Can I go back to what you just... Please do. But I, like with my journey, I understood, no, back then when it all happened, I didn't understand anything. I was just angry about what do you ended, what the majority of countries, how they treat us in Iraq and how they started the war and why, like I felt treated very unfairly. So I just became angry. And then I decided when I'm older, I will bring myself into the position to change that. I will bring more fairness to people and change people's lives. And I decided back then that I will need laws for that. Like it was quite clear that I will be a law changer for me back then. But I didn't understand how exactly and where are the problems. I just understood that the UN resolutions back then were not really thought through. So this developed then and how developed then by time. And this is exactly what I do right now. So I'm feeling kind of the vision what I had back then when I was like experiencing war or fleeing or like being illegal somewhere or not going to school because I was illegal somewhere. So yeah, and this is what we exactly do right now and the Institute for Legal Transformation, me and my team, I'm really very diverse team. We support different shareholders, which is like companies and public organizations. So in companies, we support the mindset shift towards the values we need for the transformation we need to create the future we want, right? And therefore we support and consult in companies like some major big German companies or international companies here. And for like public organizations, we do try to provide also research by research and courses on again this mindset shift towards like the law we need. So and what we do also for lawyers, for law firms is, and this is like very near to my heart is I try to influence as much lawyers as possible to think out of the box, to think about law differently. And therefore we have, for example, a course which called like workshop on legal transformation and so on where we, yeah, where we try with legal arguments, with the history and the past of law and the legal philosophy to create slowly a kind of a mindset shift or thinking out of the box for lawyers. So they can be the advocate for the legal change. I think that's very telling and I want to ask you some questions around this. I mean, it's, I think you were on the border of refugee or do you, are you feel comfortable saying that at one point you were a refugee, so to say? I were, definitely I were, but I am not anymore. But in my head, maybe still, I think this is nothing you can just like skip away and forget about like these experiences, of course form your character forever and makes you empathic and makes you think differently like anyone else around you, of course because you experienced the other side, right? You experienced things other people around you, especially if you look at me in which environment I am at right now as a lawyer quite successful, 40 under 40 teaching at the university. So the people around me are people really kind of like successful or wealthy or whatever. So having these experiences, even if you don't talk about it, it just makes you unique in the way you think just because of that, even if you don't want like even if you don't do exercises like I do like futuristic exercise or read a lot, just like having these experiences makes you think differently and want different things and question everything quite differently. This started back then in my law school that I questioned everything like why is it that way? Why not different? Why? Because the majority says it is but I experienced other realities. So why is your reality the right one? And I have another reality. So that's why I question always what's around me. And yeah, that goes back to different experiences of course. I love that because normally there's a statistic that comes out every year through the United Nations for refugees. And usually once you become a refugee it's very hard to get out of that situation. They say that it's something that you can be locked into and it's getting better day by day but there are some people who, it takes 25 years to get out of that system once you're so ingrained. And unless you find the right refuge and the right support and to do that there's all sorts of facets to that. Whether you have a passport if you were able to leave with your documentation if you had education before that, if you didn't have education all sorts of factors that play into that and that make that process pretty difficult. And it sounds like in the beginning you moved around quite a bit but I'm glad you answered this. I had a strong feeling that you are really good at calling bullshit so to say by seeing all sides. You know, even though you're in a room with white male lawyers or whatever and they have no idea what it's like to be a refugee or to be a woman or to be from another country that you can kind of really tell them how it is and how it feels and what kind of rights you wanted as a citizen.  And I truly believe that is also what we need in this world at this point in time. So we talk a lot about these acronyms and buzzwords, SDGs, ESG and on and on and environmental social governance, ESG governance is a big factor and we're realizing more and more that our judicial system, our governance systems, our policies, our laws are so varied and different and also sorely lacking in different places of the world that I've heard and seen you work on some very forward thinking forward moving ideas and concepts and kind of pushing the future of the policies and the laws, the governance that we need. One example that's interesting is your Dubai Judicial Institute. I'd like you to tell us a little bit about that but then I want to dive even deeper into maybe something that's even more controversial. So Muslim laws and religious laws and governance and kind of also women's rights and things that are going around the world that you're kind of working on, you're thinking ahead towards the future how we can shape those policies so that they'll be ready for that renewable, sustainable, environmentally friendly future that we need to get to that we're working towards with the UN. So please start if you don't mind first with the Dubai Judicial Institute. Oh yeah, there was so much right now. So let me take it step by step. Yeah, back then when I was doing a lot of research for our resilience frontiers, we tried to find out what's the most effective tool or what's the most effective way to bring the change we need and in my field of course, in the field that was like researching all that. And for me it was after a lot of like reading and researching and analyzing what brings the most or faster change we need, I announced that judges or courtrooms are those who the most change can happen rapidly and can lead then to influence the law or the legal structure in a country. It depends on how the country structure is or if we have a state of law or not. But in general, we can say that. So for me, I decided back then, okay, I need to take influence on courtrooms and I need to make it possible that courtrooms can be more innovative. They can be a driver of change and climate change laws because, okay, not climate change laws because laws are made by the governments but at least climate change cases would then could be put into laws. And so luckily, I am lucky that I can consult and support Dubai Judicial Institute in that like I am a lecturer there since last year. And now we developed the whole concept for them on how to get the judges to think ahead, to bring the mindset shift, not only towards climate change but also towards exponential technologies because I think both do not go without each other. Like these are for me the most disruptive factors we need to tackle. And so this is what we do and we try to bring Dubai to be the first and most innovative court education, let's say legal judicial education so they can be a driver of change. So I think, I mean, I'm really, really happy that what I envisioned and what I thought, oh my gosh, this would be a good tool that I can do right now for living. This is quite exciting and amazing because this is that concrete and this is like to put in action what I researched back then and I just take action step by step to create, to use the law to create the future, maybe me and other few people like you in vision which is selfish. So yeah, that's fine. The selfish part of it is totally fine. And I mean, I can feel your and sense your passion and you describe it as happy that you can do this type of work. What is the flip side to that? Is there a certain amount of impact and people that you're influencing certain things that you can see that really shift or change the world and that these things are needed to move us on the right side of history? What are you seeing on the ground where you're saying, boy, that's something that really needs to be shifted or that we're working towards to push that for the betterment of humanity to move forward?  For me, it's important that the discussion in the legal field, this is the field I wanna impact the most because like I have the education, the tools, the knowledge, the study where I can, as you said before, like when I'm in the room with people who do not have the same experience, I have the ability or the legitimation to discuss and because I have the education, I have the summa cum laude like, you know, and I do teach the law. So this constant work towards like having this profile makes me able to start a discussion and this is exactly what I do on social media, for example, on universities and conferences and I can see a clear discussion starting within lawyers, within universities and I try to influence students as much as possible. So a lot of students, meanwhile, reach out to me who say that they don't get the enough education on climate change, on climate change law and not the tools how to create innovative forward-thinking legal concepts and that's why they reach out to me. So we're working also, there's also something we're working on with the certainly university in Germany to create like a longer curriculum for students, for law students to bring them this concept of innovative transformative law and teach them tools, how can they use, again, this is my method, comparative law, which is like a very, let's say solid legal tool and then foresight of future's methodology to create some, yeah, to question and to be change makers in their field and when we influence the students, we're not influenced, like when we teach the students as much as possible, they will be able to drive the change forward because the youth are the farthest for future, right? And even lawyers, even law students, which we really forget and all universities forget, it's like lawyers do not have anything with the like society's movement outside. So this is something we actually work on and where I also think that this will have even more impact because universities need to listen to their students. So yeah, these are, let's say small steps, I can't because law is very slow, like it's so slow. Nothing goes very fast. And for me, I want a systematic change. Like I don't wanna just create one or two projects and that's fine. I want a change in people's head. I want people to question, I want lawmakers and lawyers to question what law is, why are we creating it that way? Why are we creating these rules? And why particularly these kind of rules and are these rules reflecting our values and which values are we living up to? And maybe question those values again and again. And I'm happy to support whatever, like to introduce new values we definitely need and not only just proclaim. So I can see- Before we go on to the Islam, I wanted to just mention something there that I think you're already gonna jump on. But basically we're seeing more and more people suing the government suing countries because of environmental and climate action. So one big one is Juliana versus the United States. There's another one where Greta Thunberg's on it. There's some in Norway and Denmark and even Germany had one and I don't know how the youth were involved in that but they was showing that the climate environmental law, there's some things were messed up. In a lot of respects, I also studied law and so it's very such that we're protecting laws that are bad. We're kind of protecting outdated what I call bad laws instead of trying to find a way to improve them or to make the laws better so that they're equal for everyone so that it's kind of future proof so that it's thinking about the future. Is this something that you're not only seeing more of but you're also involved in kind of these youth movements or these other movements for environmental climate things or directing people to the right places to look, hey, I feel like my future is being cheated. Is that one way to change the laws that what we need to do, what is your feelings and thoughts and involvement in that aspect? I don't think I'm an activist. Like I don't also like activists or other people who are doing it better than I would. I rather focus on like the, how should I say? If you, in the legal field nothing works like other fields and if you want to create a change there, okay, like there is a movement and it's fine and the government needs to react to that but the problem is lawmakers and lawyers and most of all researchers at the universities of professors do not know how and this is where I want to contribute or I do contribute. This how, if you want how to create the laws we want the proactive laws, the laws which are future oriented and according to the values we need. So that's why I try more to focus on the research part on the argumentation, on creating this mindset shift as a discipline, like it is a discipline taught in universities. I need to focus on one thing and because nobody does it and again, I have the education and I have the nerdiness. Let's say I'm a really, really nerd when it comes to comparative law and I do love research. So I have all the let's say attributes to do this really, really hard work because again, everything else, everyone is better than me, I know, but in this part, I'm so good. I know I can create change but really based on, let's say basic, not a basic level, but I think which would lead on the long term, which would really lead to a major change. And yeah, for that again, I'm just involved with students movements like how to support them and teach them how to think differently and how to perceive other legal systems with comparative law and teach them about what you just said, for example, and again, exponential technologies what's coming towards us and therefore I also create this methodology which can be really followed step by step and I try to teach as much as possible. So yeah, mine field would be more the legal discipline itself than like going, like of course I do on, I go on the street and marches and everything but I wouldn't say that this is my biggest impact. My biggest impact is like creating a discipline, creating a discussion and so in every, and I hope, and this is the future I see that in every, when every law will be created that they take an account how can make it more proactive, future oriented and take into account this and this and that. For example, why do we think how do I say? We think very problem oriented like we have the status quo because like, okay, laws perceive very reactive, which it is like the law we do have right now is just reactive. If you studied it, this is the way we learned how law is, this is the way our brain is wired. Like I remember when Dr. Yusuf Nasif, my boss when he told me, we work on creating a future and your lawyer start coming up with future concepts for law. And I was like, this is not possible. No, like it goes against everything I learned, everything I ever studied. And I would like, I can't call myself a lawyer if I do so, like it was like everything inside of me was just like resisting this request. But then I remember, I mean, it was a challenge. So I went to bed and like I went home slept and two o'clock in the morning I woke up and was like, wait a minute, why not? So I grabbed a piece of paper and started writing whatever ideas came to my head. And then the next morning I run to him and said, okay, it did click in my head. Why not? I am programmed just this way. And that's why I refused what he said, but it doesn't mean I'm right only because I studied this. And this kind of change I want to bring everywhere. Okay, but let's say I needed to convince myself first and I know how hard it was. I mean, okay for me it didn't take long because I'm innovative, I was innovative since ever but for others it will take much longer. So I mean, I want to bring this change. So people start like all lawyers can be then the change makers like I am now which would be amazing. I absolutely love that. And so we're gonna get sidetracked one more time and it's not a bad sidetrack. I understand it. Hopefully a lot of my listeners understand as well but you've mentioned foresight, futurism, the future many times and just in that last section as well as well from the beginning. What's the future have to do with it? Why are you so innovative? Why are you talking about the future? What does that have to do with law? I thought you just, you're just watching over the laws and kind of reactionary. What's the future have to do with it? Exactly, very good question because law is just watching over society, let's say and keep society and everyone trying to keep everyone safe, let's say. Okay, like law is a reflection of the values we do have and it's just a manifestation of the rules, how we wanna interact with each other, society, right? So the rules we agree upon will be like written into laws and then we create enforcement tools which are police, military, taxation, whatever to force people to live upon this laws. Again, the rules which are the values, right? That this is how it goes. So, and the way laws were made is we wait till something in society changed.  For example, okay, we need to deal with that and then we start after like five years or 10 years of like people struggling, you know? Then we start, they go to courts, okay? And then again, that's why I think that courts are so crucial in this movement because the first thing, the first place will be like getting in touch with new society or change will be the courts, not the law, okay? So courts will decide one, two, three, 10, 12, blah, so we'll have a judicial law, let's say we call it, okay? So, and then like governments think about taking the law, okay? So it's always reactive on societal change, which is already happening, okay? So people decide something, they do it and law needs to decide. So I have a completely different approach again, completely the opposite to what you studied and what I studied and what I am very much like resisting or was resisting law as a tool at creating like a kind of, you know, creating like a creative, let's say, legal system, or legal framework, which can shape society rather than just reacting. And how do we do with this? In thinking forward and using foresight method, I know it sounds quite crazy and for every lawyer it sounds very, very crazy what I'm saying, but it sounds just crazy until you do it and it works, then it will, you know? And again, if you think of law as just reflection of the values we do have, but the problem is it's mostly not reflection of the values we do proclaim, you know? Because we proclaim we want equality for everyone, human rights for everyone, gender equality, but our laws are definitely, like I can show you hundreds of laws, are definitely not implementing these values. So we proclaim completely different values than the ones which are reflected in our laws. So you can see it very clearly in our taxation law. So wealthy people are taxed less than people who are like middle class. There's ways to go around it, you know? So how to create laws which are according to the values we proclaim, okay? I don't want everyone to live on upon the values I want or like, it's just like the ones, even the ones we proclaim, we should have legal implementation of those. So how are we gonna do this? Again, because we know where the world is going, okay, we don't know. No one can tell you where the future is going, of course, but there are certain research showing us, like ICC report, for example, or many research on exponential technologies where our eye is going, our blockchain is going, did it? So to start dealing with those disruptive changes and creating, again, that's why the mindset is so important to be able to react very fast when you see something is changing in a certain way. Not only reacting when it's too late, this is what we do. And in so many ways, it's just way too late, like laws at least five years behind, at least, and if you think of climate change and exponential technologies as an exponential change, we're lost, like we lost if you want. And I think governments, I'm sorry, I'm getting outrageous as you see. And like governments and national states, if they wanna keep on existing, they need to look and react much, much faster because what's the point of having a national state? Like I don't wanna have a national state. The only thing we say, okay, it's fine because it's protecting us. And to be fair, it's protecting me and you living in a wealthy country from others, right? Which are living not in like not wealthy countries. Okay, we don't wanna start with climate injustice right now, okay, or the injustice in the world. But again, it's just like protecting, let's say just protecting the citizens or providing a certain kind of lifestyle for the citizens and whatever you wanna say, okay? But for these, you need implementation tools, right? So I feel like these implementation tools are losing impact more and more with exponential technologies. So the societal creation and change is getting out of hand from national states and governments towards big corporates with all the technologies people are using. So what's the point of having a national state if you think 10 years ahead? I gave all my rights on my privacy, my information, everything. So how can the government protect me? Even, okay, the government is even using those technologies to also collect the information about me. But this is another topic, okay? But you see my point, like I'm not talking about this much-needed change in the legal thinking. I'm really concerned on the long-term, really concerned. It's not the status quo, which I'm afraid of. And it's really, if I look 10 years ahead, for me, it's more dystopian than utopian. That's why it gives me the motivation to create the utopia. That's beautiful. I'm totally with you and just kind of to clarify and maybe even go a little bit deeper. Our world is growing exponentially around us. Good, bad, ugly, however you wanna say it. And probably the fastest way for human evolution is through social, cultural evolution. That's the fastest way we can grow. Now, when we're talking sustainable development that most people don't understand, development has been around forever. We've developed residential, commercial cities, countries. That's just business as usual form of development. You tack on the sustainable, it means to sustain and keep that in progress with our exponentially growing world, to sustain humanity, culture, and those things along the way. And so if we just look around at development, most areas we live in, the infrastructure isn't developed up to speed to the world that we live in. There's, the homes aren't passive, the waterways, the farmland, the energy infrastructure, the water infrastructure, it's not keeping up with the climate change, the environmental problems, and whether it's population growth or the way a city should do. On the aspect that you're discussing as well as the society, humanities evolving, it's growing, we're changing, same-sex marriages, religious laws and beliefs, things that have been around for a long time that don't make sense anymore. A lot of these things that legal or governance infrastructure is outdated. I tease a lot, but I say still in the dark ages or in the industrial revolution, it's still not progressive towards the times. And it's also holding humanity back for that fastest form of human evolution, which is cultural and social evolution to get us to the future that we're striving for. And as long as it holds us back, that means that infrastructure, that thought system, it makes it difficult to advance and progress to a new epoch out of the Anthropocene. And so that when I hear you speak, when I hear you talk about that, when I hear you talk about the future, I'm saying you've nailed the, you've hit the nail on the head and I think you're right onto something. I would like you to go even more if you don't mind kind of how you feel the future is important and why you've, why you got in there, start, I mean, you talk about the future, you talk about frontier technologies, blockchain and many other pioneering technologies to move us forward. How does that help you? Why is it important? And do you think that's part of the shift for us to use to get humanity on the right side of history or out of the Anthropocene? Well, really good, really good questions. Like, why is the future important? Mm, I don't know. Like, I can't tell you hundreds of answers, but in the end, there is no future. It's just like the moment we're living in, like there's no yesterday, there's no tomorrow, right? I think anyway, we have a false concept of time. So there is no future. It's just like the current moment is endless and we age and others are coming, younger generations and nature is evolving, like having the cycle of winter, summer, whatever. So it's just like, I think humans have the false conception of time and future and past. It's just like a very long present moment, we live through and then we leave this present moment, right? That's why it's so important to do change or to believe in the power of the present moment. And I think this word keeps me alive, that every change in the present moment, no matter how small it is, it can affect my present moment, which will come, right? And it can affect moments of other people and younger people. And again, this has to do with, if you go back when I was a child, I felt unfairly treated. I felt that no one cared about me and my future and how I live. No one cared that I was lost, no one cared that my world is unfair to me and I was treated unequal by law, like by law. So again, nice word to myself, I'm gonna change that. So that's why the future, let's say if we call it, we use this word, but it's again, it's a false concept, but I need to use these words. The future of the generation, which is now 10, 15, 20, I don't want it, I want to do my part so they don't feel unfairly treated, which they are, which they do. Because why? Because Mother Earth or our planet or environment, it's not giving to us by our parents. So we don't want to own it. It's just borrowed from them. And this is not from me, I read it somewhere. So it's just something we need to keep alive or prosper for them. Again, because I have the empathy of knowing how it is to feel unfairly treated by those who are in power. So I get to myself to a point where I can say, okay, I have some power, I have some influential power, I'm getting interviewed by you, for example, and I can, people hear my voice. So I want to use this voice to be an advocate for those who are not in power yet, right? Does it make sense? It does. I'm not sure if I totally agree with you because I still want to know because you haven't answered fully. Oh, okay. If it's the present, why are you so interested about future tools, future systems, future technologies? Because I know you have an interest in that. I know there's a reason that ties back to the legal things that you do or you're trying to promote because you've also been asked to help push or progress the future of governance, the future of legals, for example, with resilience, frontiers and other things. So how do those two things tie together? Why is that, even though we're living in the now and in the presence, why is a certain amount of your interest or your knowledge been focused on the future? How does that tie together? That's what I'm asking you. Maybe what I said, maybe I didn't say it clearly. It's not I'm not interested in the future. It's just like the future is just a form of the present moment. That's why what I do in the present moment will influence the future present moment, let's say. So it's because, again, I'm good in many things, but being a lawyer and dealing with the current laws is something other people can do better than me. What I have as a huge asset is this empathy and this creativity. Not many lawyers do have. And the passion for research. So this makes me quite unique. I was always very, very unique during my studies, designate research. I was always a challenge for my supervisors during my PhD time and my research time. So I was always challenging everything around me. So when I came across then foresight and futures, literacy, I was blown away. Oh my god, there's a tool on how to put all this into, like, to channel it, to create something good. And so everything then made sense. Like, as you said at the very beginning, that you need to have a lot of interest to be able to create a change and not being only a lawyer. I was always many, many means, like not only one thing. I was always different person, personalities and different interests. And now, like Steve Jobs said, connecting the dots, everything suddenly makes sense. Even my research, my comparative law, my Islamic finance, Sharia expertise and Sharia law, like all this suddenly, and my different, like speaking different languages suddenly makes sense. And I feel like, OK, I can channel it in a way that I can create or offer tools for everyone who want to make change in the legal field to set now, again, to use the present moment to set the ground for the better future. Because the future is coming anyway. Like the future moment is coming anyway. So we need to use the present moment right now to create little change or maybe major change, I would hope, to change the direction of the future present moment, which will come towards us. So it can look different than the one which will come if I do not do anything and if I just work in a law firm. I had job offers, it was mind blowing, like really leading positions in German ministries with very, very, very safe contracts. And I was like about to sign. I was like, no, like I can't do this, of course, and I would do a great job. And of course, even in research and like trade law, I would be great. But I wouldn't use my present moment to create the fastest and more effective change for the future moments for others. So does it make sense now? Absolutely, it makes sense. And that's also nicely transitions into what you also touched upon is you speak many languages and you also have this great knowledge of Islamic law. And I want to know, we've talked about this before offline just between us that I worked on the livability thesis for NEOM, the city skill that's coming up and many other projects there as well. Governance and law is a big, big factor for any city, for any place of the world, but especially for Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and different areas of the world for us to understand those things. How does that tie in? And what are your thoughts or feelings for progressing, not just finance, but law in general, Islamic law in general? How does that work? What does it look like? What are your progressive thoughts in that area? Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, I can tell you before my life as a legal futurist, I call myself right now, being a legal futurist, before I was really one of the well-recognized researchers on Islamic law, Islamic finance here in Germany and Arabic law, what I do teach. So I'm quite, in Germany, quite, I have quite expertise in that. So what I meanwhile use a lot in my futuristic research also, because Islamic law influenced me a lot because it is not a written and codified law. So the Islamic law is, and I'm talking about civil law and contract law, OK? I'm not talking about family law, whatever. Like this is my field of expertise. It is what it taught me, because I really dig deep very, very, very much into it and did a lot of research stays in Islamic countries and with Islamic scholars. What it taught me is because it is not written, it has not clear words like we do have with our German law. And the way I think as a German lawyer is completely challenged by Islamic law because it's based on certain rules, which are based on certain values. Again, so you need always to go back to the values of this law to check if it can be or can't be, which makes on the other side a little bit difficult because every country, every scholar can come to a different outcome. Like we see in Saudi Arabia, it's completely different. Islamic law, like we have it in Lebanon, for example, or in Syria or in Egypt, Egypt and Syria, it's quite similar. But the outcome can be very different because the law is not written, not codified. Like we have it in national states and many national states, especially in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the only country in Islamic country who do not have a codified civil law, for example. That's why you can have very, very different outcomes when it comes to, for example, family law and contract law. But the trade law there is quite sorted out meanwhile. So what are my thoughts on that? I think that if you just really, again, go back to the values of this particular legal system or the thoughts of Islamic law, which are amazing because like every religion started with good thoughts and good intentions, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, everything, you would agree on every on the core values.  Let's say, again, you can't create the same meaning of laws we do have in European, Euro-centered picture. You can create quite good laws, let's say, for living with each other.  Like it's ground, oh, you can't use the word ground zero, right? Ground zero, yeah. But Naomi is like this, oh my gosh, this is the only place on earth where you can reinvent everything and this is the only place on earth where you can reinvent law because you can reinvent technology or you can crush down a building and build it again, right? But law is built upon so long tradition and societal influence and, yeah, tradition, let's say you can't just change it very quickly. That's why I'm saying it will take me a long time to create this discipline. But Naomi is just a mix of everything. Technology is coming together with humanity. Homo sapiens is like facing Homo units as like the robots with AI. Oh my gosh, it's gonna be amazing and I'm sure we need rules for that. For example, how do we wanna interact with AI? Do we are a legal subject in our legal sense that we humans are a legal subject? Do we want to give legal personality to these AIs which are like interacting with us and maybe are aware of their existence or not? We do not know, like Lambda, you know this interview with this Google AI which proclaims to be aware of its existence. So I'm doing a research paper on that for the Max Planck Society on like the good personality and for AI which is quite interesting. On the other hand, how do we want to treat nature in this concept? Because again, Naomi can create completely new understanding of what is a legal subject? What is a legal object? What is to be used? Because we treat nature right now as a object according to at least in our German law and according to our civil law. We say that animals are not, what is that? There are not things. Okay, there are not things, but we treat them like this. So we can use the ownership upon them. But how is it? Why is it that way? So why don't we use, for example, values or understanding of indigenous people where they do not treat animals like things they can own but living beings like them with certain rights even like we do like to take away the human from the center of our legal system. Again, I'm a proclamer of rethinking human-centered law. Okay, so I'm a big advocate of rethinking the human-centered legal framework where everything is just centered around the human. So again, back to Neum, this is where you can create a completely new framework, a system, a way of thinking that is not around only the human, but also the nature. And humans are just part of these three. And what I say is we need to rethink of how we govern what created us, which is the nature, we the humans, and what we created, which is then AI. Okay, we can change AI and many things, but AI is getting very, very close to human intelligence or above. You know what I mean? So not only what created us, but also what we created and how can we create an ecosystem with those or a legal system which gives rights and obligations to one another. And I'm looking at that, and I think it's amazing. So I have to tease you a little bit and you're not the only one to do this. A lot of people say, 90 minutes, what are we gonna talk about in that? That's so long. You know, we haven't even got halfway through all my questions and we're already probably close to 60 minutes. So I'm just, I'm so glad to get your passion and you're relaxed about it. Now I'm going to get into the hardest question I have for you today. And it's a big question and I can frame it in two different ways. I wanna know for you, what does a world that works for everyone look like to you or you could frame it in another way? What's the futures? But I think the best way is really, what does a world that works for everyone look like for you, Abir? See, I caught my brain thinking of removing what is right now, but this is not the right way of thinking about the future, right? I was tempted to say, oh, no boundaries, but this mean I'm just thinking of fixing the status quo and not creating a future, right? So... You're going, you're on a roll. So the right future or the future I want for everyone, it's also, again, I feel always very egoistic when I make myself, when I think I'm on the road or on the path of creating something, which I think it's right, but you never know if you're right or not. You can have the best intentions, but it can be wrong or it's gonna be going wrong. So at least from my point of view, creating the future I want or the futures I want where I think it would work for everyone is when every person on this earth is perceiving nature and the planet as a part of us and we are just part of it. Like again, removing us from the center, we're just very intelligent animals, removing ourselves from the center and let us be part of the whole ecosystem. And I'm not against exponential technology. I'm not against creating things which can be used in a good way for us, not at all. But even with creating these technologies, I want, again, moving away from the present moment in the future is that we managed to find a way that while creating these exponential technologies, always taking into account nature, prosperity for everyone and to use it in the best way, not only for humanity, but for the planet, again, animals, our energy. Like, okay, like, and I would love it. I would love the future where energy is monetary, monetary, how do you say? Like it's a sort of money. You know what I mean? So I would be so rich. I would be one of the richest people on earth. If good energy would be like an asset, holy crap, I would be so rich. So that's like- That's amazing. Yeah, and I think it's good, you know? I think it's getting now very critical. I know I'm not talking like a lawyer, but if you want me to talk and read about the future, then it is a future where energy, real energy, good energy, you can just feel it. You can sense it among people where it is an asset. It can be monetized and I can give you good energy, heal you whatever in exchange for something you do for me, you know? And we move away from this money financial system, which is just like, yeah. Kind of just detaching us from being human, yeah. And if I think also about the future, I don't, I think we will be aware of other beings around us. And if we are in like back into being human, we would be able to sense them probably, right? And also realize that our planet is not the only planet. It's just like the only planet we can live on right now. Except if I must manage to gather some Mars, which is not an alternative for me. But okay, anyway, yeah. And just being like every person in human being more humble and removing us from this center and this power which we use really to destroy everything around us because we're so greedy. I love that. So especially that you, you know, we're, we're not at the center, we're not at the top. We are another animal or another species. I love that you said that. And I truly am in full alignment with you. What I hear when you said that is that we become more part of a symbiotic earth, that's more aware of all other species and other things that take us out of this model where man is at the top or that we're in our ego of things. I hear that a lot. I want, and I don't know if you know, I'm sure you do. But there's been more than 21 different civilization models in our world before. Early antiquity, Mesopotamia, Incas, Aztecs, Mayans, Greeks, Romans on and on. And all but three of those collapsed because of ecological or environmental collapse. Basically food and infrastructure, basic needs and resources, the structure couldn't hold the weight and the societies collapsed. Those civilization frameworks collapsed. Those societal frameworks, those cultural frameworks collapsed. And the three that didn't collapse because of environmental or ecological collapse, which really I have to say one more thing is all tied to infrastructure. Food, resources, the basics of life collapse because of disease, conflict or displacement. So there was some kind of a disease, there was some kind of a conflict or some kind of a displacement that caused those people to leave. But all of them, all of the collapsed civilizations we've had in our world, and it's only a few thousand years back, they all collapsed because they were running the exact same model for that civilization framework. And that model is a form of governance. That model is a form of laws, of ways of ruling society. It's a form of governance. And that model is a hierarchy model. And that hierarchy model was usually with man, Lord, emperor, king, somebody at the top, peasant slaves and laborers, farmers at the bottom layers holding up this society. It's very hierarchy, it's very class divided, it's very much this ego, it's very much a really, really negative model for civilization, for society, for culture. And it always reaches a limit to growth. Maybe technology, maybe that can extend the collapse, but that's why I believe that what you're doing, that what you're working on, your answer for the question, what does a world that works for everyone look like is really in line to getting us out of this hierarchy model into more maybe a heart-shaped model, that we're kind of save that where man and woman are equal and together with all other species on our planet acting in symbiosis. We're currently in the Anthropocene and I truly believe that in order to get out of the Anthropocene, we need to have a new terminology, we need to have a new governance. When we talk about the Anthropocene, it's human made climate change man-made destruction of our planet or influence on our planet. Whereas if we move to what you've been saying this entire discussion into the symbiocene, into a symbiotic relationship with our planet, with Gaia, with our earth, with mother nature, I believe that it is a model that is keeping up to speed with our exponentially growing world as keeping up to speed with culture, religion, with this global citizenship and it's also this different narrative. It's a narrative of collaboration and cooperation one with another on this planet. It's thinking multiple generations, how we can sustain and hold ourselves. And so everything that we've discussed, everything that you said and questions you've answered so far have kind of really, that's what I keep pulling out of what you've been saying. In your governance work, in your reforming the judicial and the education system and teaching that shift in the lawyers of the future and the governance of the future. And I hope we can get your advice and your help with NEOM and other projects around the world where it's kind of this green field for the future of governance. You're already doing that for resilience frontiers really helping as one of the advisors to kind of push that envelope and Dr. Yusuf Nassif, a friend of both of ours and I think is really helping to push that forward as well. How do you feel that we can maintain that progress, that momentum so that we can advert collapse as well? What do we need to do? What do we need to continue to do to kind of work down that road and path? Is there a form of reaching a critical mass at some point or is it just keep persisting to moving forward? Are there some certain ideas or things that you've learned over the years that you can advise us on to kind of help us all change that thinking of the models that we use in life and governance? Okay, again, Mark, your questions are like hide a lot of, a lot of many questions within it. So again, I think 90 minutes are not enough. I would love to go back to the governance part which you talked about at the very beginning of your question and then going to the second part which is what we do, we need to do and resilient frontiers. Governance and the cultures which are, which collapsed and the hierarchy, hierarchy model, yeah. That's why for me, I do spend a lot of time in the desert. I do spend a lot of time as much as I can which I will go next week again with Bedwinds which are the only indigenous people I understand the language. So again, coming from research and comparative law we think that it's most important to use firsthand resources. Like analyzing second hand resources doesn't bring you anywhere to understand the law really well and the values and the didn't. So that's why you need firsthand resources. That's why you need to understand the language at first hand. So the only indigenous people I understand their language first hand is the Bedwinds and I can do even the accent because my father was taking me as a kid to those places. So I can even the culture, the accent I can imitate so I can talk to them and they, I go into the desert in Jordan and the eldest of one of the tribes took me under his wings, we would say and adopted me like kind of part of the family this way I can go there and learn, learn as much as I can. So I go, I'm just to tell you what I'm starting with. I met him like this elder got a piece upon his soul he died lately and we met because he came to Friday's prayer to the village and this is where I met him because I told someone I want to meet one of your elder he said I want to ask questions and he said our elderlies they don't come to the village they stay in the desert. So it was Friday and he was like, yeah, lucky you he's coming to the village for the Friday's prayer so you can meet him. So I was talking to him and I was like, you know and he said, you know, people we had like 10 goats and five sheeps and we were happy and people now have like 70, 80, whatever and they're like stressed out and I was like, you know what I'm collecting a lot of, you know, awards and a lot of education and a lot of like, you know, titles and it doesn't really make me happy and smile like you do. And he was like, yeah, I know what you need you need to come with me and as a shepherd, you know take care of goats. And I was like, holy yes, of course I will. So when we did I came the next day at four o'clock in the morning his son drove me to him into the desert like 40 minutes of 15 minutes and I just supported him like was like his assistants for the goats and the sheeps and like how and he was telling me for hours, how they move how what they do, how they communicate was telling me for hours about the flowers about the everything which was growing there why it is growing the wind, how to read, how to read, you know steps of animals, which animal why is it going this direction? Not that that whole. And so I kept going there whenever I can to learn from those people to be in touch with nature to be connected to nature, to see how they think also about nanomass if you see how heartbreak broken they are, if they know a mother goat lost her baby and all the village like even strong man kind of like this, like really taking their cars and their horses and looking for the mother goat because they felt so heartbroken and he's like and one of them, his name is Ali we were looking for the mother goat and he was like imagine I don't want to know how heartbroken she is this mother, this mother animal imagine you lose your baby it would be, it would be so, it must be so sad so they left their work and go looking for the mother goat what I want to say is this deep connection with everything around me, with animals, with the mountains with everything living around me this is something I needed to learn from those people and I do keep on learning and I try to force myself to become, to not lose touch to nature like I do here when I'm here that's why I sleep always outside in our garden and it was like raining all night, it was beautiful and you woke, wake up and birds around you and small animals around you so I got used to it, I very much got used to it to live within nature and to be just part of it so I was talking about governance, I'm sorry so very much they have a decentralized governance system right, so because they live decentralized they're every family, they're nomads so they live in tents and they move around so there's no one structure, one city, one street and everyone knows this is my property they don't have property they don't have the understanding of property like land ownership, earth belongs to everyone like you can't own it, it's impossible this is their legal concept even they wouldn't call it legal concept but how can you own a piece of land if it's like mother earth and it's for everyone it's just like treat it well, treat it well so the next generations can use it and this is also something I learned from them when we go on hunting, I don't do not hunt but I go with them just to learn and it's like the way they think how they hunt when they hunt, what to hunt it's always of okay, I just take an amount which I need right now to survive so I will leave something for future generations and even if I don't know the future generation it can be from another tribe, it doesn't matter and this way of thinking just freaks me out and I think it's so important to learn this way of thinking because there's also humans but they have completely different concept like our monetary concept we do have and this decentralized way of living I think we can learn a lot of so what I did is I tried to find out and I'm not done yet with the decentralized way of living of Bedwinds and how we can again, going back to exponential technologies how we can implement that on DAOs or decentralized anatomers organizations based on a blockchain so DAOs are basically decentralized systems governance systems so why do we, again, why do we and this is like a kind of a Eurocentric way of thinking oh, we need to invent this with our technology and do, do, do why don't we go back to humans who manage to do it well living decentralized with each other why don't we learn from them so I wanna mix this exponential technology with this indigenous knowledge and I think then something great can come out of it so this was about governance, I'm sorry so now Resilience Frontier, right? Yes, please Okay, what was it? What do we need to do right now? Like in Resilience Frontier, we say that we need blue swans, right, we need some kind of a major something happening, we do not know what to bring a major shift which we do not know what exactly right now it can be because if we would do then it wouldn't be a blue swan, right? Like the black swans we just had with Corona it shifted so many things we wouldn't think it would be able before and that's why we need to create this kind and there are even green swans, right? And green ducklings, you had, oh, I forgot his name there's ugly ducklings, there's green swans, blue swans, gray swans, there's white swans, there's black swans yeah, it's all from a couple of people so the green swans comes from John Elkington but the ugly ducklings even Yeah, yes Yeah, yeah, and so we need to listen to what it is exactly I can't tell you because again, if I would I think it would be unmasked I don't know, I don't think I know so much and everything that I can tell you what exactly it is I just can tell you in my field I'm working on creating this blue swan with what I do with my institute this is my blue swan And since I do not, I can't control what I don't know so I'm just working what I do know this is my blue swan So and Yusuf, Dr. Yusuf Nasif is just like my major major inspiration like he's such an inspiration for me and he influences my thoughts so much and I'm in constant exchange with him and like to always check how I'm thinking and the way I'm thinking that I'm going in the right direction and I think he's like for me he's like the futurist even if he doesn't call herself futurist That's great, yeah, he's a great man he's been on the podcast as well and I love working with him and seeing him as much as possible Are you a global citizen and how would you feel about the removal of all borders, walls and limitations between humanity, one and another what's your view or understanding about this and then how do you think we can achieve the symbiote scene that I've kind of been talking about that you've been talking about in a different way Okay, these are two different questions again, Mark, you're talking to a lawyer so my brain is quite We're going to get you out of that Oh, no, I need this structure I need this structure so, you know, it's just like so I get things accessible to lawyers so I need this way of thinking, which is fine I'm doing well so in this combination the first part of the question was if I'm a global citizen I think I am and again, the word global citizen is also a concept of us so within this concept, I think I am I wish I wouldn't say that because I'm just a human or even I'm a form of an animal with a kind of don't you think the Bedouin story that you just gave that that person is a global citizen even though it's very local but he's basically saying I don't own this earth I can take my sheep and my goats anywhere on this earth and share that I can nurture nature I can care where I'm at but it doesn't belong to me it belongs to everybody Yeah, but I go ahead but the word citizen, Mark citizen is a concept it's like a fiction we do have of citizen which means again sorry I'm thinking with my little brain citizen you are you have a passport to work with a certain nationality right it's something legal it's not just a being you know it's a paper which defines your citizenship and that's what like what I'm arguing is like I don't want to be a citizen of anything I just want to be a human like and living on this earth and not defining myself by being a citizen or not or being what kind of citizen even a better citizen which is a look you know what I mean it's like yeah well I mean another form could be a crew member of Spaceship Earth Yes, that's fine that's fine that's fine I'm fine with that definitely, definitely and again for Bedouins no borders exist no citizenship they are like they have the citizenship of the country they live in okay let it be Saudi Arabia many friends of mine from Saudi Arabia or Jordan or Egypt or whatever but they it's just like it just detached from their identity it's just like okay this is a paper I need to have but I am part of this earth and these borders do not exist for me so when we went hunting we crossed national borders just like oh we're on a hunt this is earth this is our space where we live and it's not like oh there is a you could see you could see the national guards everywhere but for us it didn't exist and this experience for me was so mind-blowing because if I may tell you when I was a kid I also crossed national borders illegally right as a refugee you cross borders illegally so I did the other experience at the adults but it felt completely different it felt so natural because the people who were with me they didn't believe in these borders you know but when I was a child with the with the smuggler aren't you a schlepper? schlepper? I don't know how to say a smuggler yeah smuggler these borders existed and they made me so panic and afraid but they did give you anxiety yeah yeah but they existed only in my head and your head and the head of everyone but they do not really exist so being with the Bedwinds I experience that these borders do not exist you experience more that symbiosis the actual breaking down of borders because they don't even they don't even think about it in that way we have a mutual friend Hindu Ibrahim Omaru oh my gosh I love it she's wonderful but I mean she's from Chad so I think what do they call it pastorial community is her but in Chad they have they take their cattle thousands of miles across many borders across many borders to graze because that's the lifestyle of that pastorial but they are from Chad but they also believe strongly in land and that it's not owned by anyone and that they travel and that more and more around the world there's examples like that where people have lived that way but also where it's being encroached upon by nations and borders by bad policies by bad laws by the future of that by lockdowns by pandemics where all of a sudden somebody yeah their pastorial community and they graze their cattle their goats their sheeps across many borders and many many nations and then something happens like a pandemic or a catastrophe climate change and then we start to struggle over resources or ownership or rights and dividing ourselves up amongst one another for many reasons protection for fear for for other things and those are really things that I hope we address long-term I live in Germany and from America I have family all over the world I do business all over the world just return from from Asia and and work with the United Nations for crew members of our spaceship Earth so for me it's really important to also break down those whether it's global citizenry or we find out somehow to get in an aliable human right as human beings as crew members of the spaceship Earth for the future and I'm not going to throw all that on your shoulders that you're you're the one to to fix that but I believe also through through blockchain and distributed ledger technology and DAOS and things like that that there are some ways to give us and maybe also through the United Nations idea an ID system through through the United Nations to make us all some kind of a global citizen to make us all some kind of you know member of this space this this spaceship Earth that a crew member because it's just right now the world's not working for us all it's there's a lot of there's a lot of things that governance really needs to be updated to to the future and so I don't know if you have anything to comment on that but that's something that you're very passionate about okay go ahead oh my gosh blockchain blockchain is so crucial it's so important it's such a disruptive technology we can use for good but we shouldn't be nailed because I know the idea of this of decentralized structure of um a decentralized system um using blockchain decentralized um a ledger which is like say not owned by one entity but by everyone who has access to this entity or copy of this um program or the system on its computers right so this is a let's say from this point of view of the concept again if you think of the Bedouins or indigenous people's head it would be completely different right but going out of this gamification kind of world or want to fix or uh change the current system kind of point of view you cannot say okay this decentralized system using blockchain is a good alternative okay why shouldn't we be nailed because if we are not very very aware from the very beginning every kind of these tools like a digital ID given by one entity can cause the completely opposite of what we proclaiming we want to have right so it's crucial having a decentralized blockchain rather than a centralized but again if we if we leave this and go back to the current moment and just do research on what is happening right now governments are using many governments are using blockchain technology but a private one which means the information stored on this blockchain is belonging or controlled by one entity which is far more dangerous than what we have right now so I don't want to have a digital ID given by one entity why because everything will be done by this ID if I buy a house if I have a life insurance whatever will be all done by this ID which is fine again this is a perfect solution for displaced people you know having just like remembering 12 numbers right and you have all your coins somewhere just remember this 12 numbers whatever you are you can log in enter your wallet and maybe your wallet will be in your wallet for NFT which is your digital ID or even a sold bond token which is like now developed or soon will be developed by Ethereum and a sold bond token or let it be an NFT you just store it on your wallet so you need no paper you need nothing you can be displaced you can lose your house and have this 12 words should I explain what these 12 words are Mark? you can I think most people understand it's complex but yeah it's you okay basically you're token you're key yeah you're like your your password to enter your wallet right so perfect perfect perfect but think long-term think of what else is possible with that and if it does belong to one entity or government what if I am not in alignment with the government what if I steal something what if I I become rebellious which is which I am always always questioning the system always so I wouldn't get along with any digital ID for sure a centralized one yeah so that's I'm very much afraid of this concept it will be it will be I will be I can be punished we don't need like I think we don't need prisons in the future anymore because you can provide people from doing criminal activities with like their digital ID because they don't have access here or there or like censoring them wherever they get near something or whatever okay you don't need to put people in prison you can exclude them from society because we will be able to pay everything with this ID and I won't be able to pay everything anything not even bread maybe you know what I mean I won't have a health insurance or whatever yeah everyone will know everything about me or my ID so it can be this way you know what I mean it can be good for you to use for good but again if we're not fully aware of where it's going look at just just look at China it it can be it can go completely opposite to what this movement is seeking at the first place okay I love that I have two last questions for you whoa okay yeah so if there was one message you could depart to my listeners as a sustainable takeaway that has the power to change their life what would it be your message and it's okay if it's maybe a couple part message but I would like to hear that okay first of all why not question everything like it's I don't have clear advice for me it's just like the biggest advisor the best advisors to get people to a place where they rethink themselves and they enable them to think differently like to change their mindsets so first of all why is around me the way it is and why not different question question held question everything in every minute and every single decision which is made by others of my view because everything has a reason and everything is just like a an expression of things happened or the past okay so you can reprogram this by perceiving the past in a different way and then questioning the past or the present moment and then therefore taking completely different decision in the future so I'm not saying oh drive can I don't drive cars or bicycles no you will know how to act and who to vote okay for what to march if you start questioning everything okay why is it the way we do the things we do and why do we live the way we live and how do other people live and how do they survive hell with like one percent of what we have right and do they do survive so do I need everything I do have right now all this luxury I have around me okay second again a mindset thing our system is just a fiction and this is not for me it's from Harari right I say always law is a fiction so but the idea of government national states corporates everything being a fiction I read it first in Harari so if it's a fiction we can recreate it for me this empowers me a lot to know that law is just a fiction we agreed on because we agreed that these are the rules then they exist and we implement them okay and if I don't want to agree to those rules okay I get punished because I'm an outsider but if enough people agree on different rules then the law has changed right and again this kind of law is also in our perception other people with other cultures they don't have this concept they have just like interaction rules with each others which we would call law but it isn't in another sense like you know as a comparative lawyer I'm talking now very comparative legalish okay these are my two cents what have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start for me I always say it's the journey I love the journey so I couldn't I really couldn't say say it before except for I wish I would have realized it sooner and started sooner but what have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would love to know from the start I would go in your direction because again everything I learned and I the sideways I took just led me to connecting these dots and creating this this crazy and yet important idea I created and this discipline and what I'm working on and this institute so I wouldn't be that person if I just took the job in the ministry and have an amazing office and having a safe job and you know going nine to five to my to my office I wouldn't be able to create this right so everything is valuable but again I wished I wouldn't I would I would know that it's so valuable what I have to offer to the world and it is not just craziness like you know among the lawyers being creative is kind of a craziness but it's a very much needed mindset to be able to create change and that's why I should also have started much earlier and accept that it's an asset what I'm bringing and not like thinking out of the box questioning everything it doesn't make you yeah it's just because you're different it doesn't mean you're worse or like less valuable the opposite is being one of hundreds my my professor always telling me you know what I have 99 times I read the same I'm happy you're the hundreds who giving me something different to read because my research were always different than from another angle so being the one out of 100 is a good thing yeah Dr. Abir Adad thank you so so much for letting us all have your ideas thank you so much for letting us inside of your ideas and it was a sheer pleasure that's all the questions I have if there's anything that you did not get to say or we left out now's your chance otherwise I really thank you oh thank you I'm happy I could share with you and it didn't felt really like an interview you know I enjoy very much our conversations and every way and every time so thank you for having me and I'm open to any questions or like if anyone wants to get in touch with me just google me and recharge via LinkedIn and I'm happy to answer any questions we'll put your your links and and your information in the show notes and maybe I'll be able to found you these earrings are from a tree in Tanzania so made by a woman project so women use just parts of trees parts of fruits power and create jewelry out of it and I think it's so beautiful I don't know why I'm saying that it's just like again using we don't need to have like using the resources we do have and it just is more sustainable way for me the earrings are the simple for that that's why I wore them today I remember we we uh it was this this is how how we'll end it um I was there and I believe it was February this year in Bonn and we did a foresight workshop together for a few days and and I was so fortunate to come over and to your home afterwards and meet your family and we all had some wonderful food together and enjoyed a wonderful time and and we parted yeah we we we parted in a in a very nice way that's for sure I met your wonderful children your husband your family and we had nice meal together and our friends Hindu was there and and Steven Rammage and many other wonderful people who were at that the foresight workshop for resilience frontiers and I thank you for that but the reason I'm saying this is because you practice what you preach you are the true soulful being that that we see here on screen and that we've heard that you really care about humanity but you're also very doing some very groundbreaking things on the future of governance law and policy in your own right and I thank you for that the world's much better to have you there and I'm much better to have you as a friend and and be able to party with you and have some good food together thanks so much Abir you have a wonderful day thank you thank you very much Mark


Bismillahi r-Rahman r-Rahim Alhamdulillahi Al-Rabbi l-Alamin Wa Salat wa Salam ala Sayyidi al-Mursaleen, Sayyidi al-Mohammed Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam tasneeman kathira Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuh Alhamdulillahi wa Salat wa Salam ala Rasulillah Sallallahu alaikum warahmatullahi wa salam I think it's very important for us from time to time to reflect on the shoulders that we stand on because none of us are standing in air. Human beings cannot suspend themselves in air. Like, here I am. We're all standing on someone's shoulders. And we should... Shay Gasser said a lot of significant things. One thing that amazes me, because people see you up here giving speeches and some people think, like, you want to be up here.  Like, if you had a choice between being somewhere in a cabin in the woods surrounded by a bunch of books with no phone, you wouldn't choose that.  And so they see a celebrity maim and they come up and they say, you know, I want to be a speaker one day. What a lowly aspiration.  And if Allah blesses you with their ability or as they say, the gift of gab, then try to use that feasibility level of sincerity. Don't aspire to be a speaker, because you don't know the tribulation that might bring in your life and you might not be able to handle it. Don't aspire to stand on someone's shoulders. I want to be the one up there. Aspire to be the shoulders that someone else can stand on. And there's a hadith that says just that The strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer and in each there's good. The strong believer is the one someone can stand on their shoulders. And if someone doesn't have that strength, they're still good. But try to strengthen yourself. As people move away from religion, they move towards accepting weakness. And in accepting weakness, accepting that that the state is going to compensate for my weakness. That this or that agency is going to compensate for my weakness. That other people are going to compensate for my weakness. That's delusion. Now I'm not saying the state shouldn't have a safety net. There should be a safety net. I'm not saying we shouldn't have institutions that help people who are struggling with this, that and the other in their lives. You should have those institutions. But people should also aspire to be strong and independent. And to be able to stand on their own two feet and to be able to provide strong shoulders that others can stand on. When we talk about, we know the sacrifices the Sahaba made, the sacrifices the Tab'een made, the sacrifices those who preceded us in Islam made. And we're standing on their shoulders. But I want to tell, but they're the giants, our teachers and notables. The people like Jamal Bedouin or Ahmed Sakhar or the people like Imam Wafid-e-Din Muhammad or the people like many, many others whose names we don't know. But they're all of us also standing on the shoulders of people whose names aren't known.  There's a guy I remember, five. How many of you remember much? Can remember a song you learned when you were five years old? Raise your hand. We got a few. Mashallah. When I was about five years old in Atlanta, Georgia in a place called Carver Homes, southwest Atlanta, Georgia, there was a guy older than us. And I think he died. We were in the neighborhood when he died or was severely injured and he subsequently died. He was in a go-kart and the go-kart went out of control and he went under a car on the go-kart. His name is Hindery Turpentine. Hindery Turpentine. I remember his name. And he taught us this song after censoring it because we're in the Masjid. He taught us this song. I went to the barn to milk my cow away in the middle of the night to tell you the truth. I didn't know how away in the middle of the night I pulled his tail and pulled it away in the middle of the night and all I got was buckled away in the middle of the night.  This Hindery Turpentine... What I want to say, you know what? He used to do to us. He used to bring us. He was significantly bigger. He would like fire us up, show the chest. Bam!  Bam!  Bam!  And what he was doing, some brothers laughed and they had a Hindery in their neighborhood. Huh? You were the Hindery's. But what they were doing, they let us know. You know what? It's a hard world out there. They weren't deceiving us like it's peaches and cream and hunky and dory. That same time a song came out. Johnny Cash. He wrote a song and sung a song called a boy named Sue. Some of you remember that. Johnny Cash, a boy named Sue. It was about a guy, he was getting ready to leave his wife. They had one child. So he knew he wasn't going to be there to protect that child. And so he named him Sue. Because he knew as soon as he went to school people were going to start teasing him and about his name. And he'd get into a lot of fights and he would learn how to fight and protect himself because he wouldn't have a father there to look after him. So he named him Sue.  Don't do it now. A lot of you like to Google while people give him speech. Boy named Sue. Johnny Cash. You can't Google Hender Lee Turpentine. Go talk to brother Rashid. Why'd I say that? Because we betray those whose shoulders we're standing on when we don't fight for this religion. There are too many people who say they're Muslims who aren't willing to fight for Islam. And I'm not talking about a physical fight but I don't have to stop the live stream. Let me make that clear. I'm not talking about a physical fight.   You don't believe in God. That's your problem.  Instead of fighting for the ready to just give up. And we can make hundreds of examples that are happening every day. We betray those who fought for us to be able to say la la la la. We betray those who fought so that the Quran could be translated and get it into our hands. We betray those who built this masjid. What's going to happen to this masjid 10, 20, 30 years down the line with this bunch of youth who should be here now and they're the elders who are holding it down. They gave up on Islam because people were looking at them funny. This group they gave up because people were teasing them for wearing a rag on their head. This group they gave up because they weren't sure who or what they were, what the identity was.  You know they're a human being. So they just gave up and these gave up for that reason and those gave up for this reason and none of them were willing to fight for their religion and to fight for the sacrifices that their parents and their grandparents made. We're standing on someone's shoulders. We're the end of a long line of people who sacrifice for us to be able to say la la la la. I said some of them were Muslim.  We're standing on the shoulders of giants. We're standing on the shoulders of giants and some of those giants, their names, aren't known as Sheikh Yasir said. I can tell you people when I was nobody, when I was someone who'd be in the back of this room in the corner people coming in they just walk over me because they want to get up front to listen to the speaker. There were people who said, you know, we're going to do something. We're going to start a little masjid because we need to be making da'a in this city. And I just came back from Egypt but not from Al-Azhar. I just spent 11 months in Egypt beginning to learn Arabic. And these people they didn't know alif from bat or tat and because I knew alif, bat, tat they said, you're going to be the imam. That's how it was at one time. Our father, Qura'at were the ones who Qura'at al-Ashr. They were the ones who memorized the first ten letters of the Arabic alphabet. Say, alif, bat, tat, qa, jim, qa, ha, da, da, enter half of the Qura'at al-Ashr. You're the imam. And now, Subhanallah. But I'll tell you something.   They'll sacrifice. They'll spend a little bit of money they had and they'll appreciate a little bit of love because a little bit of love goes a long way. One thing, we get away from the basics. Now, we're up here sometimes and we project that sentiment down on anyone down there. They understand the issues we understand. They look at the world the way we look at the world. They're bogged down in the pettiness. The higher you go, the pettier things can get back because you lose a sense of perspective from way up there. And they project all that down. These are the people down there. They know it's real. They know it's life and death in many situations. And because of that, they're willing to give their life and they're willing to sacrifice. And they're willing to let people stand on their shoulders if it's going to serve the greater good. They don't care if they're not the one standing on someone else's shoulder. Therefore, they're not raised and elevated. You can't see them. They don't care. As long as they're providing the shoulders for someone else to stand on can help to advance the cause. And that's what we have to focus on, brothers and sisters, the cause. We have a mission. We're not here in vain. We're not feathers just waiting to be blown whichever way the wind blows. We're here to take that message that gave many of us life. When I converted to Islam, I couldn't talk about it for about 18 months, two years. We have this gift testimony. It was powerful because I knew without Islam I'd probably be where a lot of my friends were there or are now. Many of them are dead for various reasons. I could just as well have been them if it weren't for Islam. That could have been me if it wasn't for Islam. But Allah blessed me with this religion and He blessed me to know Imam Surah al-Hajj. So I'm a segue into that. So we said we started this little masjid. They said, you're going to be the Imam. And right around that time it's when all that, he cleaning up the streets in Brooklyn and all that, we said we're going now to help Imam Surah al-Hajj. Before that, one of the first masjids I sat in after I converted in 1977 was Imam Surah al-Hajj's masjid. My wife, I was in the military. I'm from Connecticut. My wife's from Long Island. So we go visit her family and for Juma we ride into New York City to masjid at Takla in Brooklyn. And they had this theater and I sit in the balcony way in the back and listen to Imam Surah al-Hajj and get inspired. And when they had the drug fame we got a group of brothers. We're in New Haven, Connecticut an hour and a half from masjid Takla. We jump in our cars and we drive down to Brooklyn and we go and join the rinks with Imam Surah al-Hajj's with his people helping to patrol those neighborhoods and clean up those neighborhoods. And Allah blessed me to establish a relationship with Imam Surah al-Hajj. So we opened our little storefront masjid in New Haven, Connecticut where the whole masjid was probably from this wall to where brother Yusuf is right there. Maybe, no, with this brother with the sky blue shirt squared. That was the masjid. The second Juma we had there was a snow storm. There were three people for Juma. I was the Khatib. My wife was there and a sister named Iman. A sister Iman. Sister Allah alone Iman. Because you meet that salam alaykum Allah alone. Sister Iman. Tawhid Iman. Allah alone. How you doing sister Allah alone? Sister, can you say anything besides Allah alone, Allah alone. It was me, my wife and sister Iman. That was it. Then we had the grand opening. Imam Surah al-Hajj brought a group of Muslims of brothers and sisters. I think they came in a bus because they had their own bus up to New Haven. And he was there at the inauguration. No, we knew him from Rutgers University when I was a student. We bring him to the MSA. And he come. And then when we started the masjid in New Haven he came. Then we had, you know, we said Imam Surah al-Hajj can clean up the neighborhood. We can clean up the neighborhood. So we started our own drug patrols in the projects. But they used to call our crew F-Troop. Some of you that you can't relate to that. So F-Troop got busted by the cops trying to clean up the neighborhood. Like the dope dealers call the cops on us. We had seven brothers and sisters arrested, weapons confiscated. But Imam Surah al-Hajj then it was a big trial. And we had a hundred lead. The police knew we were cleaning up the neighborhood so they were actually on our side. So how this all happened the police weren't strike. The police can't strike so they have what you call the blue flu. They're all calling sick at the same time. And so they called up the auxiliary police. They didn't know what was going on because they didn't know when the dope dealers called the cops on the Muslims, the cops, auxiliary cops. When the chief found out he said, man, you're crazy. And the people in the neighborhoods this was important to be working in your neighborhood. The people in the neighborhood said they arrested the Muslims all in the news. They went down and protested on the steps of the courtyard. And then we all, the courthouse, and then we organized the people and the police chief, the district attorney, they said listen, because the police chief had higher political aspiration. We were embarrassing him. He said stop the demonstrations we'll work this out. So at that time, the operation of a weapon was a mandatory five-year sentence, felony, because there were so many drug-related killings, the crack wars. And they rewrote all their charges as a misdemeanor and put all these seven brothers in an accelerated rehabilitation. If they didn't do anything for a year they expunged their record. And on the day of the trial, after one year, when their records were clean, Imam Siraj brought a busload of brothers and sisters from Brooklyn into the courtroom. That's Imam Siraj Wahaj. Imam Siraj is there. He has been there. So we know about the fundraising, but he's been there for communities in any city, communities. For poor communities. He's been there. When I left New Haven, I'll tell you, I'm only out here and Imam Siraj gave me permission to be here. That's the truth. He gave me permission to be here. And the day we had, my wife is a witness. So I went to Syria and came back and stayed almost two years, and then we said, okay, we're going to the Bay Area.  It wasn't big, it was little. There was about 10 people from New Haven were there. Sister Iman, Allah alone was there. About nine other people. But there was a busload of people from Brooklyn. From Masjid Taqwa. Every step of the way Imam Siraj was there. So you don't have to tell me about Imam Siraj. And what he meant for me, it's personal. And the sacrifices that he made for this community. So we pray that we're able to support him and his family. His grandchildren. The adults, they're responsible. The grandchildren, they're caught up in a situation, they're all in custody. And he's trying to get them back. So the only thing I know, we're not supposed to fundraise here, so I'm not going to fundraise. I'm just telling you to go to this link, launchgood.com slash I-S-W-E-M-Siraj Wahaj. And go to that link and then do something for Imam Siraj. So if that's fundraising, I just broke the rules. But that wasn't fundraising. You grab people by the ankles and you shake as hard as you can. They have brothers. You don't just lock the door. You post up some big brothers.  Well, God bless this community. This is a beautiful community. It's a community where there's a lot of love. There's a lot of vision. And there are very dedicated young people but there are a lot of challenges facing all of us and especially the young people. And so brothers and sisters, go get some of those old Imam Siraj tapes as I think Omar Suleiman mentioned. Ask your parents.  And listen to those tapes. Listen to the stories, the advice, the wisdom of people who were shaped in another place and time. Because the benefits are sometimes we can become so blinded by our time, we think that's all there is and that's all there ever was and that's all there will be. Now, this is the time. Increasingly, I know I don't understand it. Seriously. Because I was shaped in another time and things were extremely different. You know, it was a time where you could tell people, you know, you need to straighten up. Taqi la. You could tell people like, sister, you need to go put some clothes on.  You know, suicide note, brother told me I didn't have clothes on. Hey, don't laugh. So it benefits us for reflecting back on another time and another place where the influences that shaped people's lives were different from the influences currently shaping people's lives. And maybe some of that stuff that Sheikh Yasir Akhadi was talking about, maybe some of that stuff will rub off on us. Maybe some of that will touch us and maybe that will inspire us to have a little more straightness in our backbone, to have a little more pep in our step, to have a little more fight in our hearts, to have a little more love and cherishing for this religion, to see what it did for others and to see that we shouldn't take it for granted as sometimes we do, and we're not all of us. There are people in here that have that pep in their step and they have that straightness in their backbone and they have that fire in their belly. There are people like that, but increasingly we see other than that. May Allah Ta'ala give us Taufiq. May Allah give us strength. May Allah Ta'ala bless us with the vision. May Allah Ta'ala inspire us to understand that we are the latest runners in a long race. It's a relay race. I used to run track and I ran the relay. I ran four by one ten. And you run, run, you get a running start. Look at the running start. Yes, Sir Khali was talking about it. You can order books online. You have teachers in every Masjid. The person who is half of Qiraat is actually half of Qiraat and not the first ten letters of the alphabet. That's a running start. So you got a running start. And then they say, like, stick. Like, put your hand out and get the baton. Now you got it. And you run as hard as you can to give it to the next man. And if you drop it, everybody loses. If you drop that baton, everybody loses. And it's not about who has the fastest runners. So if you follow the Olympics, the last few Olympics, the U.S., they're four, like Hussein Bolt, the Muslim Jamaican runner. I say Hussein. Hussein, Hussein Bolt. Well, they can't pronounce the H in Jamaica. Anyway, they had Hussein Bolt. They had the one fastest runner. But as a team, the U.S. should have had three or four gold medals. The last few Olympics, they dropped the baton and they lost. So it's not always about who has the fastest runners. It's about who has the most dedicated team that's going to practice passing the baton. Who has the most dedicated team. Who is committed to teamwork. That's what it's about. So may Allah bless us to be a cohesive team that is committed to not dropping the baton. And when we get to the end of our leg, so the stretch you call is called a leg. When you get into your leg, you're going to pass that baton. And then you might just collapse. Not for a four by one ten, you're not going to collapse. Four by four hundred, you pass that baton, cramp up and collapse. And they'll say, Alhamdulillah, he left it all out there on the track. And when each and every one of us, when we pass, may they say, Alhamdulillah, he or she left it all out there in the masjid. They left it all out there in the center. They left it all out there in the community room, in the teaching hall. They gave everything they had. And Alhamdulillah, because of those sacrifices, as I looked at them, down at them writhing in pain, dealing with those cramps, they got the baton into my hand. And I'm not going to drop the baton. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.