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Would you believe we went to like this huge gacha hall? I don't even know where that was. Do you remember? Sunshine City, that's the one. And they had like two or three massive rooms filled with gatches, and not only that, because of Dominion coming out. There's been loads of different things, so they've done like Jurassic Park, Lost World as part three, and Dominion. So, I have got prezzies! Get a prize! You know what? I'll just put it down here. We'll pick from it. Is he break? Oh! You need something to put your droppings into. My droppings? Droppings? Droppings. I'm a terrible husband. Lizardine! What Charizard is called in Japan? It's weird. So, let's start with... Don't know what this one is. Imagine if it's not a dinosaur. It's not a dinosaur. Just as I said, I've got loads of dinosaurs. Yeah, I think we got this in Kyoto, if I remember right? I think I did. Oh, yeah! So cool! I love them. It's like a sumo frog. And there's loads of other ones. I was kind of hoping to get one of the green tree frogs. Yeah, we got the good one. I didn't really like the big toads. If we just have a look at the quality of it, there's like different shades of green that have kind of been airbrushed in there. It's a far cry from like, I don't know, Hasbro, Mattel, like to get something like this. Like, oh, we're not asking much, right? But that, the quality on it is awesome. I love it. Will this one be a dinosaur? Oh, it is! Oh God, it's a lot smaller than I was imagining. But this is the scene with the Indoraptor on top of the roof. Just as Claire points the gun in it, and then it turns around and goes, Oh, an attack, Chris, I guess. You're going to be Mario? Oh, I can't have that. Oh, now we've got a proper mystery with this one. Number three. Three! Oh! Oh wow, you're coming so many different parts. Whoa! Yes, I remember these ones. So this was from a gacha that did not only, you know, dinosaurs, because you see dinosaurs quite often, but prehistoric mammals. So you've got like the giant sloth or the shasta ground sloth. You've got the, I don't even know what that elephant is. Just like a disembodied head. Prati... Prati... Birodon san. Prati-o-don... Something like that. Anyway, that's the one. Put the name up. There it is. Yeah. Oh, that looks really cool. Like the detail on the ground, especially, like with the grass bits, and also there's a bit of water that runs through that they've made clear acrylics. So it was probably all clear, and then they went through and painted it. That looks so nice. The dry brushing on top of it, the color for the eyes, and then they even have pupils. Oh, I think this is more expensive though. I think this is like 400 to 500 yen. Three pound, maybe? Three, three, four pound of that? Onto number four. We'll go for a pink one. Yes! A little bit of a difference here from dinosaur. There's Pingu. I saw this the other day when we were in the, like, Sunshine City, and I couldn't help myself. It's freaking Pingu. And it's awesome. Like where else are you going to find that looks that good? Or anywhere? Like where are you going to find a cartard of Pingu? Japan, that's where you'll find it. Onto number five. Oh, yes. This was actually from one of the dinosaur ones as well. This is one of the reasons why I'm making this video because I... It's Pokemon Go Raytime, Whitney. Excuse us while we do this. Oh, blue took it over. Wow, there's a shiny YouTube here. There's a shiny YouTube? Freakin' nerds. Oh, shiny. Freakin' shiny. Look how shiny it's in here. I see it. Well, there we go. That's great. Back to the video then, I suppose. If I remember correctly, my first video, I took b-roll of these dinosaurs, but I couldn't find them anywhere. But they're apparently back in stock and here we go, our first proper scientific feather dinosaur. Horini. Or it just says underneath, ornithomymus. Is this the one that sings the egg song? No, that's this. Struthiomymus. It's the best song that Land Before Time has ever done. There you go. Bring in Struthiomymus or ornithomymus. My bad. Sorry. Got Land Before Time 2 on the brun. So in this set, I think you can get two versions of the T-Rex. You can get a Dynonicus, I think it is. I'm assuming it's the... Oh, a Utah Raptor. And of course, a Triceratops. But I feel like there's another version of this because they usually release them in sets. So I think I might have even been able to find the other set. Let's go and open more balls. Oh, we got another Jurassic World. Turanodon. Yay. That's really cool. Oh man, that's awesome. Imagine if you got like five or six of those. You could have like a flock of Turanodons coming towards them. But that's really nice. It's... I'm assuming this is the Jurassic Park 3 because if I remember right, this sketcher had Jurassic Park... Jurassic Park 3 and the Lost World. Because that's so rare. Like, whenever, apart from like in recent times, did you ever find merchandise for an old Jurassic movie? After like 2003, you just didn't see it. But now, here it is. A friggin' Jurassic Park 3 Turanodon. That is awesome. And this time, it's a Triceratops. Ooh. Now that could be an Easter egg. And maybe it is. But the base is strangely shaped like a certain Isla Nublo. Oh, that's awesome as well. Now normally with Triceratops, you just get it in like its regular pose, you know, where it's just like stood there. Maybe it's roaring. Maybe it's doing a little attack towards something. But this, I don't know if Triceratops could actually do this. Maybe it could. But it's like a little fighting pose. That's a unique thing to see. I like it. Yes, this is the other set. Now, this is the set that I thought I saw. The thing is with these dinosaur gatchers is most of the time they're not cheap. They're like 400 or 500. But I mean, if you look at the quality on them, it's awesome. So you have a chance for a T-Rex, a Velociraptor, some sort of Hadrosaur. I think there's a Triceratops. That's a lot of pieces. Kono mochi wa muskashi. Oh, thank you. Oh wow, this is really big.  That's what she said. The base leaves a little bit to be desired. Maybe it could have worked if they'd put the name of the dinosaur around the base, like a little title. That would look cool. I haven't looked at his face. What's going on with the face? It looked like an alien. Hadrosaur's don't get enough love. And look, it's a unique pose. It's like on its hind legs, sort of turning. I like it. Yay! Actually, so far, that's my favorite. Oh, maybe Pingu is. Because the Pingu I saw growing up had really creepy music. I remember like, oh, it's cartoon, but... Oh, this, yes. It's one of my favorite Jurassic Park movies. Getting the love it deserves. Got to put together the sidewalk. The sidewalk. That's offensive. What's a who? Me. Yes, look at this. That looks so good. It's like the little city. You remember that scene where all the police cars come around the corner?  But the detail on the T-Rex as well, the fact that its mouth is painted red, its teeth are painted, its eyes, its pupil.  Absolutely squishy or chissai. When Jurassic World came out and you got the mystery bags and those tiny dinosaurs, not a patch on something like that. Onto number lost count, let's go. Look at it, a carnitaurus. Yes. The devil of the isle. The thing that everybody hates. The meatball. I think his eyes maybe could do with some work. You thought T-Rex are tiny, huh? Oh, wait a minute. Oh, this is the fallen kingdom one. I feel like this one didn't have as much love as the San Diego one though. You got the scene, I think in Fallen Kingdom where the T-Rex splits up the fight with the Sinus Aerotops and Carnitaurus and then just stands on them. But actually, out of all of them so far, this one feels like got the least amount of love. The base is kind of mere. The carnitaurus doesn't have too much detail on it if any detail on it, apart from it being a different color. And the different body parts of the T-Rex are different colors. Back leg is like way darker than the rest of it. This is the same set that gave us a freaking airbrush tyrannodon wings. I feel like they were just like, eh, what happened in Fallen Kingdom apart from Indoraptor? I don't know, T-Rex rolled? Yeah, let's get that. Oh, this could be a good one. Oh, no. It's another stricter vibe. We'll call this one Ozzy and call the other one Strat. That's the name in the show. Maybe the T-Rex has surprised them from behind and there's a carnitaurus. Ah! Apparently Whitney wants to pick the next one, so I'm going to give her the bag. Give her the bag! Oh! This one's heavy. Oh, wow. Yeah, look at this. Oh, we've got like prehistoric mammals but also like things from the Odivision Sea. Oh, these look awesome. There's even an anomalocaris you could get. Oh, we've got like the best one. This is like a two for one. Get out, Mr. Turtle.  You can't move the back flippers, but you can like because these are on ball joints, you can move these and then also his mouth opens too.  You compare the size like the biggest we had so far was like the lambiosaurus in comparison to that. Wow. I hope we've got more of these. You could probably buy these individually, but when it's in a gacha, it's just so much better. Give me another one, pure yellow. It's another Jurassic world. Oh, okay. It's another fallen kingdom, T-Rex and Carnotaurus rule. I think we could probably skip this one. Oh, this is, oh, finally. It's not as truthy as mine is. It's a Dakota raptor. One of the raptors known to have maybe crossed paths with the T-Rex because Velociraptor surely didn't. Now, what engine did on my island was interesting colorings. They're not too vibrant. They're all in like the same sort of vein, but you know what? Nice to see some representation of feathers as well. You got them on the, on the forums. I'm a feather dinosaur. You shouldn't be scared of me.  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. Whoa, what is that? It's a frigate. All right. Shark. Tobu no gattarikute. There you go. Didn't really get the other leg in, but got the first one in. And I'm assuming this is some sort of prehistoric giant diving fishing bird. Oh no, Meganei-yu-san. Meganei-yu-san. Apparently that's what this one's called.  Oh, oh. Oh, I think this is the giant ground sloth. He's licking the tree. Oh, it looks so cool. These like prehistoric ones, or at least the prehistoric mammals, the megafauna, they've definitely spent a lot of effort like on the base and just crafting this sort of diorama that they've got going because you could just have something like it posing and that's it. But no, we've got to actually eating and interacting with the tree. Meganei-yu-san. Okay. Six meters tall. Yes. You go there, baby. Oh my God. Oh, it's all galaxy. Oh, this is another frog. It's a toad. Oh, that's awesome. Got like a bow of rope on the back. I'm assuming that's like, I don't know much about sumo wrestling, as you could probably tell. Or maybe that because they grab each other by like the back, don't they? So maybe that's like how they try and lift each other up. Hold on. Where's the other frog? Small green frog or the giant toad? Oh, yeah. No, this is the one you got me. So this is actually like a tiny gachapon and it's the dinosaur one. Tiny little gachapons you can make as well and then stickers you put everywhere. Half an hour later, we have our fixed gachapon with stickers and everything. Twist the thing. There it is. You've got a tiny little gacha. Look, like the level of details that they go into with all these different types of... Even to the extent where you can make your own gacha machine. Whatever you want, you can find in these. Yeah. Oh, there was three in there. Oh, okay. I turned it a lot apparently. One of these is not like the others. Oh, it's another Jurassic Park one. What will it be? You know, I've almost forgotten we've got dinosaurs in here now between the frogs, the pingu, and now the gacha machine. Oh, it's the Brachiosaurus scene from the first movie. We've got the San Diego T-Rex. We've got the Brachiosaurus. All we're missing now is the Spinosaur in flames and then the baby raptor. Off we go. Hop, hop, hop, hop, hop. Oh, you were aiming for the face there. Oh, yes. Oh, it's the gray T-Rex. This is the one I actually recorded when I was like, I couldn't find any T-Rexes. Oh, this one goes together perfectly. Yes. Boom. There it is. The T-Rex. And it's a big boy. More of the scientifically accurate T-Rex. It's a bit more chunky. It's nice to see a T-Rex that doesn't look like the Jurassic Park T-Rex for once. Oh, look at that. That kind of works. Those two together, like the T-Rex and the Lambiosaurus.  Please. So we've got one left. What will it be? Will it be a Jurassic Park? Will it be a battery? There it is. So there you have it. I actually thought I had a little bit more. But apparently not. So maybe for the next video, I'll find more of the Jurassic World ones. There was definitely a gatchapon that I saw that I obviously I didn't have the money at the time, which was just the Atrociraptors from Jurassic World Dominion. So that's still floating around somewhere. So maybe we'll do another trip to Sunshine City or Akihabara or just basically anywhere in Japan because they have gatchas everywhere. So if you've enjoyed this video and a little unboxing thing, always fun, isn't it? Well, you get to see all the different things that Japan has to offer. But if you enjoyed this video, leave a like and until next time, I'll see you later. Oh, buh-bye. Bye. Sponsor beaver back again. Just want to say a big thank you to World of Warships for sponsoring this video. And don't forget to check out the link in the description down below to take to the seas and start playing their awesome game. Bye.


Why aren't you so important to a humanitarian C-spot? You know, I'm with the senator's team. If my guy can talk to you. No, I can talk to him. I voted for him. I'm sorry, this isn't democracy. It absolutely is. Yeah. Yeah, but kind of, sort of. What? Ten thousand people in Gaza have been killed. Half of children. The Pope's calling for a C-spot. The UN has called for it. I'm just asking you. You're a good guy. I voted for you.  This is important. You need to leave here. Can I give you a phone? He just assaulted him. He just assaulted him. He just assaulted him. He just assaulted him. He was just talking to him. He just assaulted him. So, that's what happened when John Federman was asked to support a ceasefire in Gaza. Now, the person who was confronting him is Daniel Kovalec. He's an attorney and former professor of international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. And in a vacuum, there's nothing wrong with him asking that question and confronting Federman. But with that being said, he is not the best messenger to put it mildly. A quick Google search reveals that he's an enthusiastic Putin apologist who literally penned an article for RT laughably claiming that Russia's invasion into Ukraine was legal under international law. So, I mean, he's obviously not morally consistent when it comes to war and war crimes. And when you consider the fact that he also pays for Twitter, there is a possibility that he was just looking for a viral moment to up his engagement and cash in. And, I mean, after raking in six million views for that video, mission accomplished if that was indeed his actual goal. But, I mean, I don't know what his actual goal was there. I can only speculate about his true intentions. I just, I don't know in truth. But if you support Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I just can't believe that you care about Israel's invasion of Gaza for humanitarian reasons. It feels opportunistic to me. And I also have no idea if Federman's team recognized him and assumed that he was a troll, which is why they didn't want to engage with him. But putting motivations aside, pressure does still need to be applied to all politicians still refusing to support a ceasefire. And Federman does still need to explain to his constituents, maybe not that guy, but other constituents why he doesn't support a ceasefire. And if he doesn't want to engage with a bad faith actor like that, there are hundreds of constituents he can talk to who are supporting a ceasefire and demanding that Federman support a ceasefire for altruistic reasons. But Federman is refusing to listen to these voices as well. For example, after Federman's October 18th tweet insisting, now is not the time to talk about a ceasefire, he was met with immediate and justifiable backlash. As Newsweek explains, Federman's stance sparked statewide pro-Palestinian protests outside his four offices, with hundreds of demonstrators gathering at Custom House in Philadelphia on Thursday, and Ariel Cohen, who protested outside of his Philadelphia office, says that they were expelled with no warning. And as you can see from the video that she shared on Twitter, they were being completely peaceful. But regardless if they're welcome there or not, they don't plan on stopping anytime soon when it comes to putting pressure on Federman because, as the Enquirer reports, Anissa Weinraub, an organizer with Jewish Voids for Peace, who sat in the middle of the street, said pressure at Federman's office could persist on a weekly basis. Now on top of that, 16 former Federman staffers penned an open letter to the senator, urging him to support a ceasefire, writing, On the trail, your overarching promise was to forgotten communities, people and places that get overlooked, written off and left behind. You can't be a champion of forgotten communities if you cheerlead this war and the consequent destruction of Palestinian communities at home and abroad. We are speaking out now because we played important roles in electing you. We cannot in good conscience stay silent at this moment. So these folks are not opportunists who are challenging Federman for viral fame. They want him to support a ceasefire because it's the right thing to do. And there's no reason why he shouldn't engage with them. There's no excuse there. You have an excuse when it comes to a troll and not wanting to boost them or engage with them. But these folks, they deserve to be heard. I think that he should speak with them. Maybe he has spoken with some of them, but obviously their message isn't getting through to him because he's not doing what they want him to do. He's not doing the moral thing. And here's the thing. That letter from his former staffers was written 10 days ago. And with each passing day, the need for a ceasefire grows exponentially because at the time that I record this video, Israel has killed approximately 3,195 children since their bombing campaign began three weeks ago. And the UN estimates that another 1,000 are missing or trapped under rubble, making the siege more deadly for kids than annual global conflict totals since 2019, as Jake Johnson of Common Dreams puts it. So with every passing minute, the need for a ceasefire grows, which is why calls for a ceasefire are continuing to happen. Hundreds of thousands of people around the globe are calling for a ceasefire, including many Jewish peace activists who took to the streets demanding a ceasefire as well. Rabbis are literally being arrested for doing so. I mean, the Pope has called for a ceasefire. Human rights groups like Amnesty International have called for a ceasefire. Civil rights groups like the Martin Luther King Junior Center have called for a ceasefire. Former Obama administration officials have called for a ceasefire. So I mean, you have human rights organizations, activists, civil rights groups, all calling for a ceasefire. And on the other side, you have people who have been wrong about everything when it comes to the foreign policy saying no to a ceasefire, case in point. People who are calling for a ceasefire now do not understand Hamas. That is not possible. It would be such a gift to Hamas because they would spend whatever time there was a ceasefire in effect, rebuilding their armaments, you know, creating stronger positions to be able to fend off an eventual assault by the Israelis. So we're in a very different world. I don't think it had to be the world we're in, but that's where we are and we've got to figure our way forward through it. So when the person who voted for the Iraq War and did regime change in Libya and called for a no-fly zone in Syria that could have catalyzed a hot war with Russia says something about foreign policy, I think it's a safe bet to just assume that the opposite of what they're saying is true. But I mean, that's who Fetterman is choosing to side with. But unfortunately, he's not the only senator on the wrong side of history, nor is he the only Democrat taking heat. Hundreds of alum from Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns are also urging him to support a ceasefire as well, and 15 people were reportedly arrested during a Jewish-led sit-in in front of his office where activists demanded that he introduce a companion resolution to the House's resolution calling for a ceasefire. Now, what Bernie Sanders and John Fetterman have done to placate activists is call for a humanitarian pause in lieu of a ceasefire, but as Adam Johnson explained in a recent episode of Crystal-Kyle and Friends, that is a spineless position to take that will amount to nothing. This says stop bombing in this particular spot so we can bring in humanitarian aid.  It's absurd. It doesn't make any sense. For anything to happen, the ask needs to be to stop the bombing. And they needed to create space for Israel to go, you know, again, to do its brawn age, its brawn age recompense. And in doing so, they need to provide space and cover for Democrats who don't want to look like cold-hearted monsters and don't want to look like they're supporting, because again, these horrific images are coming out every day. Children being pulled at a rubble, disfigured, all this horrific stuff, right? People can see that, and they know Joe Biden's associated with that. Of course, genocide, Joe, is alliterative. It's catchy. And again, one doesn't want to be glib about this, but that is in fact what's going on. And that is the reality of what's going on. This is not like a made-up, nihilistic, you know, Russia Today thing. This is like a real thing that's happening, and Biden is actually responsible for it, and he needs to stop being responsible for it. And so they have to provide these kind of stop-measure gaps. And so initially what you saw from people like Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna was this, Israel needs to respect the rules of war.  Why are you not talking about stopping the bombs from landing on them? That is obviously the most morally urgent ask. In other words, a humanitarian pause is nothing more than window dressing. I know that Bernie Sanders knows. John Thetterman too, that a ceasefire is the right thing to call for. But for whatever reason, they are too afraid to do the right thing here. They know it's right. But instead, they don't call for a ceasefire. Instead, they make up some chicken shit alternative to make it seem as if they care, when apparently, to the extent that they do care, well, it's not enough to actually call for what human rights groups are saying we need right now. They're sidestepping human rights groups like Amnesty International and saying, no, we actually want this different thing. A humanitarian pause when they're saying ceasefire.  You're undermining what they're fighting for currently.  Because they have a lot of pressure as a U.S. senator. If you are not using your voice right now to demand an end to the bombing, you are part of the problem. You are complicit. And we're seeing so-called pragmatists and foreign policy experts claim that a ceasefire is dumb because it's unrealistic or they'll try to nuance troll and make it seem as if, you know, if you call for a ceasefire, then you really don't understand the complexity of the situation. That's what Hillary Clinton did. But the U.S. government has an immense amount of influence over the actions of the Israeli government. So yes, it is true that Joe Biden cannot unilaterally say the bombs stop now and it happens, right? But odds are, Israel is going to listen if its number one ally tells them they should stop bombing Palestinians. Or even if, hypothetically speaking, the entire U.S. government says, hey, ceasefire now and Israel refuses, well then you still have leverage cut off aid. Because again, they've got a universal health care system and we don't. So I don't know why we're buying bombs for them in the first place, but there are tools at your disposal as a U.S. politician that you can use and many of them have chosen to just stand back and do nothing. But believe it or not, the tide is turning. Even pundits on mainstream media are starting to call for a ceasefire because that is the obvious solution.  You've probably seen these images over the past three weeks pasted on lampposts and held up at visuals around the world. The faces and the names of the more than 200 Israeli hostages taken by Hamas terrorists when they attacked southern Israel and committed a mass atrocity, slaughtering men and women, children and the elderly.  And for anyone who lived through 9-11, those images bring back memories of the thousands of flyers, of the missing put up all over Manhattan in the frantic days after that terrorist attack or so many family members left grieving. And there was a small group of them that took that grief and turned it into action. They spoke out asking their country, our country, not to respond to the deaths of their loved ones with more violence. They founded an organization called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrow's. At that time in the wake of 9-11, supporting a nonviolent response to al-Qaeda's mass murder was at the very fringes of public opinion. And I remember being struck by the sheer grace, moral witness of those who had personally lost loved ones. I also thought, as many did at the time, that that was not how the world works. Terrorists slaughtered Americans. America had to respond with force. But as the war on terror dragged on, thousands of American service members and hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed. And radicalization spiraled into ISIS in a new round of brutal wars. As all that happened, the call for peace and nonviolent solutions began to seem not just idealistic, but in retrospect, wise. Now there are Israeli families whose loved ones were murdered and kidnapped by Hamas who have somehow found the same moral grace. In her eulogy, the sister of one victim called on Israel to quote, not use our deaths and our pain to cause the death and pain of other people or other families. Another victim's son said, do not write my father's name on a military shell. The mother of a victim pleaded, quote, war is not the answer in my name. I want no vengeance. And this time we should listen more closely to those who are calling for peace, who are calling for a ceasefire, and particularly to those still in mourning now calling for no more civilian deaths on either side of the line.


After one of his greatest seasons of his career, Novak Djokovic has done it again at the ADB Finals. He did lose a match this time around. After not losing a match at all last year, let's go have a look at the records that he set at the ADB Finals because now he's won more titles than anybody before. So with his title today, he has now got more titles than anybody at the ADB Finals. Seven titles ahead of Federer, who had six. Lendl and Sampras won five, and Helina Stasi was there with four. He's also got the record for the most consecutive titles in the history of this tournament with four in a row. Nostazi and Lendl went three in a row, and a couple of players there went two in a row. He's still behind Federer with the most finals because Federer's got ten finals. Djokovic has nine, equal with Lendl after today, and the most matches won. Federer still has that with 59 matches to Djokovic's 50 at number two there, and additions played. Djokovic is only one behind Federer in that record as well. So not too far away until Novak Djokovic probably sweeps the whole records of this, just like he did in Paris last week. So Novak Djokovic, seven titles, the most out of anybody in this tournament. There it is, Novak Djokovic winning his seventh trophy at this event, not to mention the other records that are out there as well. He's getting very close to Roger Federer's record of 103 of most titles of his career, 109 is the most for Jimmy Connors. Djokovic wins his 98th title today, so he's only a few away, maybe two seasons, three seasons away maximum from getting those last records as well. But let me know down in the comments below, what is next for Novak Djokovic? What does he need to do in 2024? What's he playing for? The Olympic gold medal. That's the big one, right? But how many more slams can he win? How many more titles does he want to win? How many more trophies does he need? What else does he need? Let me know down in the comments below, but he also gets the 400 weeks after today, which is a whole other record as well. Let me know down in the comments below, what does Djokovic need to do next after he wins his seventh ATB finals trophy?


Hello, can you hear me? Good evening. My name is Professor Gwropal Singh. I'm Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Here at Sowas. It's my great pleasure today to introduce our distinguished speaker. We are delighted to have with us Bishop Michael Naziralli to deliver the third lecture accompanying the exhibition, Embroidered Tales and the Woven Dreams, an exhibition of traditional embroidered textiles from the land of Indus, Afghanistan, the Near Eastern Central Asia. The subject of Bishop Michael's lecture is monks, maggi and mosques, religion along the Silk Road. I've been asked to say that I hope that you have taken the glossary and the map as you came into the auditorium. If you haven't, can you please share with your person sitting next to you? A little bit about our speaker today. For most of us, he leads very few words of introduction. Bishop Michael is the President of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue, OXTRAD. He was Bishop of Rochester from 1994 to 2009. He was then the General Secretary of the Church Mission Society, CMS. Before that, he was a Bishop of Rawindi in Pakistan, where he was both a Christian, where he has both a Christian and Muslim family background. From 1999, Bishop Michael was a member of the House of Lords, where he was active in a number of areas of national and international concerns. Between 1997 and 2003, he was member of the Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority and chair of its Ethic and Law Committee and was also chair of Rochester Commission on Woman Bishops. He was also President of the Network of Interfaith Relations, Nifcon of the Anglican Communion. In addition to these activities, he has studied, researched and taught at a number of colleges and universities, in particular in Karachi and Oxford in Cambridge. He is the author of several books and his latest book is Faith, Freedom and Future, Challenges for the 21st Century. It is my pleasure, as I have said, to invite Bishop Michael to give today's lecture. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Professor Singh, for your generous introduction and for agreeing to chair this lecture. I look forward very much to the discussion later on and may I congratulate those who have organised this splendid exhibition, which is of course the other side to the lecture series. I hope there is no one here who doesn't want to see or has already seen the exhibition because the lectures are strictly ancillary to the exhibition itself. Certainly this one is and I hope you will see it in that light as a comment on what the exhibition is about. Naturally, ladies and gentlemen, I speak from my own point of view and given the subject monks, magi and mosques, religion along the Silk Road, we could have added mandirs as well to the title. I did think about that. There will be many perspectives on such a subject and mine is only mine. I hope that in the discussion there will be some complementing of what I have to say from your point of view and no doubt you will have seen other work on the subject. So I am not claiming uniqueness in any way in what I am addressing. I have put out some important books. I thought I would bring only a few. I could have brought a whole library of course, which are relevant to what I have to say this evening. Do look at them later if you have the time. You may want to sacrifice your tea and coffee to look at the books. I will leave that to you which choice you make. The title that had originally been given was somewhat factual, I think. Let's put it like that. They said, Bishop, would you like to lecture on religion and the Silk Road? So I thought, well, let's tart it up a bit and so monks, magi and mosques was my attempt and I'll leave it to you to judge whether it has succeeded. So first of all, the so-called Silk Road or Silk Route is actually a network of routes. It's not a single road or a single route. It's a network of roads and routes that take, for example, the northern way through Kazakhstan into southern and eastern Europe. There was a middle road that went to Turkey and southern routes which went into Gandhara and the Indus Valley, as you've just heard, and then also into northwestern India and even right down to the west of India. That's not in fact shown on this map. These routes have connected peoples and the nations of Eurasia. You see, Europe and Asia are actually a single continent pretending to be two different ones, but we can debate that. But the Silk Roots actually do give some reality to the idea of Eurasia. And for many hundreds of years, these routes have brought the different peoples of this region into contact with one another. But the routes are not only land routes. There are also sea routes, for example, from India to the Far East, to the so-called spice islands for the spice trade. Naturally, over such a vast area, the trade in goods has also been very diverse. Although the term Silk Root is deserved because of the importance of the trade with China of this highly desirable fabric in the ancient world, there was of course much else besides. There was a lively trade eastwards, for example, of wool and westward of spices. There was the selling and buying of precious metals and stones of tools and raw material. The list could go on. Equally importantly, there was a transfer of technology, whether in the making of paper, techniques of printing or even the introduction of writing and the reducing of hitherto purely oral languages to a written form. So the script, for instance, in many of the countries of the area, has been influenced, for instance, by Aramaic. Now you may say, why Aramaic? Well, we shall see in a moment why. One of the lasting legacies, and this is the subject of the lecture of the Silk Road, has been the bringing together of cultures, beliefs and ideas. This has brought about debate, discussion and dialogue. We cannot pretend that peace has always prevailed. The territories, roots and even the goods for trade have been the subject of wars, piracy and exploitation, especially of the weak. I know that women are particularly being celebrated in this exhibition, and they have been both contributors and actors, but they've also been victims. And we cannot forget that, of course. Nevertheless, people have talked together and learned from one another about each group's cherished beliefs and rituals, their sense of right and wrong, the transmission of moral ideas, and their basis for honesty in trade, for instance. In this connection, it is worth noting that what we call religion today was not a separate, hived-off activity, but belonged to borrow a metaphor from the world of textiles to the very warp and woof of society and of the life of an individual. It was central to people's identity, to its main symbols and to moral understanding and discourse. It was their world view, that is to say, how they understood the universe and their place in it. Arguably, this remains the case in most parts of the world, but sometimes has to be explained to secularized European audiences, not of course this one. When groups came into contact with one another through travel and trade, it was natural for them to discover their trading partners' rituals, values and way of seeing the world. At other times, there was a more deliberate transmission of ideas and beliefs. Scholars, monks and missionaries travelled along the routes, sometimes with the trading caravan, sometimes alone, with the express intention of sharing their knowledge, beliefs and practices with others. The arrival of Buddhism in China and the spread of Nestorian Christianity into Central Asia and China are certainly to be understood in this way of a deliberate transmission. Islam also arrived with conquest, but spread at least partially both in Central and in South Asia through the peaceful exertions of Sufis and merchants. On the other hand, some travelling was intentionally undertaken to establish the origin and authenticity of religious ideas that had been received from elsewhere. The early Buddhist travellers like Fazian and Zhuanzang went to India to determine the origin of the scriptures they had received as Buddhists and to check on the accuracy of their translations. I mean that was the main purpose of the pilgrimages, though of course much else was received besides. Buddhism and Christianity in the form of the Church of the East, sometimes erroneously referred to as Nestorian, can be seen to be active in the heartlands of the Silk Road from the earliest periods, what we might call inner Asia. Buddhism seems to have entered China at about the same time, interestingly, that the Apostle Thomas arrived in Taxila, now northern Pakistan, to build a palace for the Maharaja stroke Basilius Gundaphorus, known to us from contemporary coinage which uses both Greek and Prakrit. So one side of the coin is in Greek, the other in a form of Prakrit. Although the surviving ancient churches of southwest India testify to the Thomas tradition in the south, the archaeological evidence is at least for an initial arrival in the north. I know this is a matter that can be debated and I look forward to it. Be that as it may, the story of Christianity along the Silk Road is closely tied up with the Church of the East. This is a church whose history before the coming of Islam is mainly related to the Persian Empire, the other great superpower to Rome in the ancient world. After the arrival of Islam, its heartlands were in the Islamic world, but it had important missionary work as far as India and China. Bishop William Young, the late Bishop of Sialkot in Pakistan, his book is there, in his history of the church, recounts more or less peaceful coexistence and even dialogue during the Parthian period which lasted up to 225 AD. He tells, for example, of an exchange between Bardesan, a Christian writer regarded in the west quite often as a fatalist and as a gnostic and a magian in which Bardesan is defending freedom of the will and the distinctive ethics of Christians and Jews in that particular context. The emergence of the Sassanids and the turning of the Roman Empire towards Christianity, however, spelled trouble for these Eastern Christians. The Sassanids were much more centralized than the Lucenid Parthians and more self-consciously Zoroastrian. The Christians, moreover, began to be seen as a potential fifth column in the Sassanian conflicts with Rome. Although there had been localized persecution under the Parthians, usually instigated by various kinds of elements, including some magian elements, there were now periods of more organized persecution culminating in the Great Programme of Shapur II. I was in northern Iraq a couple of years ago and I saw people having picnics by the roadside, so I asked the driver, I said, what are they doing? And he said, oh, this is a Christian feast, these people are all Christians. So I said, well, can I go and meet with them? And he said yes, so I did. And so I asked the bishop who was there, the local bishop, what are you doing? And he said, this is the feast of a great martyr. So I said, well, when was he martyred? And he said, in the third century under Shapur II. So that's how far back these stories go. So the patriarch Shamaum witnessed the martyrdom of his bishops, his clergy and his lay people before he himself was executed. The aim seems to have been under Shapur to exterminate Christianity from the Sassanian domains altogether. It was only the edict of the Shah-in-Shah Yazdegard in 410 that the persecution came to an end and the Church of the East was recognized as a millat, a very important word that was to become very important later on, or a religious community within the Persian Empire. The edict had a similar effect to that of the edict of Milan under Constantine in the Roman world, in that Christians were now acknowledged as a religio licita, a licit religion alongside Jews and others. This term millat, it should be on your glossary, was to become important much later with the imposition of the dhimma, again it's on your glossary that word, under Islam and in the organization of the Ottoman Empire. The edict of Yazdegard did not mean that persecution was at an end. It was still a capital crime for a Zoroastrian to convert to another religion and the penalty was enforced again and again, even then. Although the Church of the East seems to have been initially under the nominal oversight of the Patriarchate of Antioch in the early period in the far west of this map, this link was severed by the edict. That is what the Persian Shah and Shahs demanded. The subsequent influence of the teachings of Nestorius further alienated the Church from the Churches to the west. By west of course here I mean western Asia, not western Europe. This to some extent explains the eastwards thrust of the Church's missionary expansion. It appears that the Christians of Saint Thomas of India were within the orbit of Nestorianism although later on they came under Jacobite influence as well. Again that term is explained in the glossary. In central Asia the Nestorians were everywhere. There were metropolitan seas in cities like Merv, Harath and Turkestan. When people and boys arrived at the request of the great Khans, they found the Nestorians there already. Many Mongol and Turkic peoples converted to Christianity and this remained the case until the 13th and 14th centuries and the gradual Islamization of the area. In China similarly the so-called Nestorian steel of Sigenfu, which dates from the 8th century, tells us of the arrival of the first Christian missionary Alor Pen and his team in 635 AD. So just about the time that Islam was emerging as a global force. They received imperial favour and in spite of opposition the Church flourished there until the loss of royal patronage and persecution led to its decline from the 9th century onwards. The discovery of a Christian pagoda from the 8th century by Dr Peter Saiki, a Japanese scholar in the 1930s as well as its rediscovery by Martin Palmer. I know who is familiar to people and so as more recently and also of the so-called Jesus Sutras at Dunhuang confirm a flourishing Christian presence in China. The wonderful account of the two Chinese monks, Rabban, Sauma and his disciple Marcos, the book is there called The Monks of Kublai Khan, who are dispatched from Beijing. Two Christian monks are dispatched from Beijing by the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan to worship a Jerusalem. Shows the church still in China in the 13th century. As is well known, Marcos is first made metropolitan of China by the patriarch Dinka I and then on the sudden death of the patriarch is himself elected patriarch under the name Yab Allah to those who are familiar with Aramaic or Syriac. You will know that Yab Allah means gift of God. Both he and the local Khan then send the other monk, Rabban Sauma to the west to forge an alliance against the Seljuk Turks and to recover Jerusalem. His meetings with the representatives of the pope, his celebration of the Eucharist in Rome and his visits to various monarchs are all found in the journal of their travels published in English by Sir Wallace Budge under the title The Monks of Kublai Khan. In the subsequent centuries, the church would experience many ups and downs. There would be serious persecution from the very groups they had tried to reach. In the last days of the Ottoman Empire, there were to be massacres of these Assyrians as these Christians were also called. They were to be betrayed about promises for a homeland of their own by Western powers. Most recently they as well as others have been the target of Islamist extremism of the most violent kind. To protect themselves and to find fellowship with the wider church, many of their number have entered into communion with the Roman sea whilst retaining their liturgy and customs. They are now known as the Chaldean Catholic Church, which is of course the predominant church in countries like Iraq today. Both Buddhism and Christianity arrived along the Silk Road, as I've said, at about the same time, first to second centuries AD. Both encountered entrenched religious, philosophical and ethical traditions to which they had to relate. Buddhism, for instance, as it spread to China, had to encounter the ethical and civic system of Confucianism. You can't call Confucianism a religion, but it is something. Buddhism had to accommodate itself to the high value given in Confucianism to a structured society, at first alien to the wandering monks of Buddhist culture, to the worship of ancestors and to a syncretistic tendency amongst Confucianists. As the Jesus Sutra show, Christianity in China also had to adapt itself to Taoist and Buddhist terminology, so it would make sense in the context in which it found itself. The encounter between Buddhism in its Mahayana form, which was the dominant form in most of this region, and Christianity in our area of discussion repays some consideration. So the story of Barlam and Yoazaf, again on your sheets, as this story shows, it was possible for even a great, perhaps the greatest Eastern Christian theologian like Saint John of Damascus to use Buddhist motifs and ideas to tell a Christian story about India. So you see what's happening. A theologian in Syria and then in Palestine is telling a Christian story to a Western audience, but using Buddhist motifs. At the same time, it appears that the Mahayana emphasis on Buddha as a savior of the human race has something to do with Christianity's central beliefs and the encounter that had taken place already. This may also be true of a renewed emphasis on metha or the Buddha's unconditional love for humankind and on themes like wisdom. Of course, our concentration so far on the Church of the East should not mean that we forget Christians of other kinds in this area, Armenians, Georgians, Jacobites, also to be found along the Silk Roots. Indeed, just as the fortunes of the Nestorians began to wane, Western religious orders such as the Dominicans and the Franciscans began to arrive in the area. They too experienced a mixed reception, sometimes being welcomed by rulers and allowed to build churches and at other times persecuted viciously for their faith. These missionaries anticipated the famous Jesuit missionary Saint Francis Xavier to Japan and India and the controversy of the Jesuit accommodation to culture in China and India which eventually led to the suppression of the order by Rome. The Jesuits were also one of the main actors in the dialogue among the religions initiated by the Emperor Akbar. Their work continued under Jahangir, Akbar's successor, with churches built in Lahore and Agra. And Catholic activity continued right up to the beginning of the modern missionary movement in the 19th century with many fascinating aspects to it such as the jurisdiction of an Eastern Catholic bishop. In what is now Pakistan and the significant numbers of Christians in the Mughal and the Afghan armies. So one of the things Nader Shah did when he invaded Northwestern India was to take back with him all the gunners that he had captured nearly all of whom were Christian. Although there was tension between Buddhists and Christians, especially in China, Buddhist encounter with Islam has often been portrayed as violent. This is summed up in the destruction caused to temples and shrines by Muslim armies from the time of Mahmood of Ghazna. 971-1030 AD. Their raids into Northwest India were to plunder the wealth of the country but the obvious targets were the wealthy temples and shrines. The destruction of the international Buddhist university at Nalanda in 1202 is often regarded as the Buddhist somnath. Just as Mahmood Ghaznawi had destroyed the temple of Somnath, so also later on the destruction of Nalanda in 1202 a bit later than Mahmood's time is regarded as spelling the end of Buddhism in the place of its birth. As the Chachnama, again I've put that out there, or an account of the Muslim conquest of Sindh by Muhammad bin Qasim in the 8th century shows, however, earlier conquests were not as destructive. And Qasim went so far as to declare Buddhists and Hindus dimmies or protected peoples even though this title had previously been confined to the Ahl al-Kitab. That is to say the Jews and Christians and by extensions or Westerns, people of the book. He also issued orders that peasants and artisans, people who were making the things at the exhibition, were not to be harmed. And that whilst conversion to Islam was to be encouraged, Hindu and Buddhist worshippers were not to be disturbed. Of course, Muhammad bin Qasim's conquest of the Sindh was much earlier than Mahmood Ghaznawi's raids into northwestern India. In his highly revisionist work, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road, again I've put it out there for you. Johann Elverskog has shown that even in situations of tension and violence, tolerance can still be seen and dialogue can continue. He mentions the Buddha figures of Bamiyan as having survived through the Ghaznawit period right up to modern times when they were destroyed by the Taliban. How was this possible, he asks, if rulers like Mahmood were intent only on destruction? To these we can add the Buddhist and Christian remains of locations like Teksela, which even if defaced have survived enough to tell the tale. Elverskog recounts instances of dialogue and understanding between Muslims and Buddhists because of trade. There was even Muslim appreciation and more importantly purchase of the art or Buddhist art in figurines of the Buddha and Buddhist terminology was used in poetry. The widespread popularity of the tales of Kalila Vadimna is another example of literary and artistic exchange between the worlds of Islam and the Buddhist area known as the Buddhist Mediterranean. As far as intellectual exchange is concerned, he points simply to the huge Indian influence on the Islamic and Western worlds of Indian mathematics and logic. There is still a chair of Indian logic, by the way, in the University of Oxford. I'm not quite sure about London. Under the Barmacite vizies who had Buddhist origins, these were the vizies of the Abbasites, there was a real possibility that intellectual engagement would occur in the Muslim world with the Sanskrit tradition rather than the Hellenistic. The Hellenistic engagement was made possible largely through Christian translators who translated either directly from Greek into Arabic or from Syriac into Arabic more often. Whilst this in fact didn't in the end happen, the engagement with Sanskrit, there was enough influence as we shall see in a moment in areas that still remain important today. So, of course, a lot of this exchange was not exclusively Buddhist. Some of it was Hindu, but Buddhists cannot be excluded from these exchanges either. Elvis Koch also claims that there was convergence on ideas of justice and for those Muslims living under Buddhist rule, how non-Muslim rulers could be regarded as just. This question is also a question for today whether Muslim minority is living under non-Muslim rule, whether it's in India or in the Far East or here in the West, whether they can see such rulers as being just in terms of coexistence. Muslim seem also to have been aware of some ethical teachings of the wider Indian tradition including Buddhism such as Ahimsa or non-violence and the abstention from intoxicants. Although it is clear that the earliest stirrings of mysticism in Islam were rooted in the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet, other influences can by no means be discounted. Muslim scholars like Allama Muhammad Iqbal, as well as Westerners such as Margaret Smith, have well shown the interaction between Egyptian, Syrian and Mesopotamian Christian mysticism on the one hand and Sufis on the other. Nor can the influence because of the revival of Hellenistic learning of Neoplatonism be discounted. For example, in the work of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi in his Matnawi Emanui, having said that, the similarities of language, metaphor and parable employed by the Sufis of the Wahadat al-Wajood or monistic school are too similar to Hindu and Buddhist discourse to be dismissed as mere coincidence. So the similarities between the Wahadat al-Wajood school and Hindu and Buddhist discourse can be so similar to make it a problem to know where the quotation has come from in some cases. An obvious example is that of the drop merging into the ocean to signify the souls union with absolute reality, which occurs in both traditions. The greatest similarities with Indian thought are seen in the work of Ba Yazid of Bistam, who had an Indian teacher, Abu Ali Sindhi, and the more esoteric work of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, who was, of course, originally from Bulk, and not from Contra. I mean that's where he's buried, but that's not where he was originally from. And Bulk, of course, had been a great Buddhist centre in the past. So you know Ba Yazid's exclamation, glory be to me how great is my majesty, is not simply a sign of hubris, that would make it unacceptable, but a claim of his oneness with God or the absolute. Similarly, Jalaluddin Rumi, in his esoteric work, the Diwan-e-Shamshed Tabriz draws very heavily on what must be the Indic tradition at its widest. This is not unique, of course, because even Imam Ghazali, dare I say, even Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, in his Persian work, you see Ghazali was not an Arab. A lot of these people who are today being passed off as Arab were not Arab at all. Ghazali was Persian, and I had a teacher in Oxford a long time ago who used to make me read Ghazali's Persian work every day. Cymia esadad. Well, Cymia esadad is full of Zoroastrian imagery. The contrast between light and darkness, between reality and illusion. So, I mean, this is a Ghazali very different from the Ehia al-Aloom ad-Din and the refutation of the philosophers, the Tahafot al-Philosopher. In India at least there was continual interaction with Hinduism and in the event the birth of Sikhism was one result. So, the Guru Gharan Sahib still has at least two, if I stand to be corrected, two contributors to the Gharan Sahib who are Sufi, Tabeer and Fareed. One religious system which was hugely successful at one time in the area but which eventually died out was Manichaeism. Its founder Mani seems to have been of Persian origin but belonged to a Jewish Christian Gnostic group as these things did exist, Jewish Christian Gnostic group known as the Alkocytes. In his writings as far as we can tell he developed a dualist system based on the old Persian distinctions between light and darkness, good and evil and so on. The material world and specially human beings according to him are a mixture of good and evil, light and darkness. The good spiritual powers are seeking to liberate the light trapped in the darkness and thus lead us to salvation. This is sort of Manichaean soteriology. This is resisted by the evil powers who seek to devour and to extinguish the light. The followers of Mani in a strictly hierarchical system acknowledge the source of the true light and through their asceticism including celibacy and vegetarianism at least among the higher orders sought to be taken into the sovereignty of the good. Manichaeism was adept at adjusting to cultural conditions whether at a man or Persian or Chinese. Saint Augustine of Hipper in North Africa confessed to having been under its influence before becoming a Christian and it was such a danger in the Islamic world that the term Zandik on your list or heretic originally meant a dualist or a Maniki. In addition to Persian dualism there is some evidence of Hindu and Buddhist influences as Manichaeism developed for example in the belief in the trans migration of souls. It seems that because his Persian work the Arzan was beautifully illustrated it was dedicated to Shahpur by the way he came to be known in Persian literature as the archetypal painter or artist. So in medieval Persian poetry Mani is the artist. The importance of Manichaeism lies in the fact that though it died out it posed a challenge of world view to Christians, Muslims, Jews and Taoists. A challenge which had to be met as the writings of Saint Augustine, Al Beroony and the Fairest of Ibn al-Nadim reveal. Throughout the region we see religions, philosophies and world views arriving from outside or originating within the region itself. Islam arrived in most of the area through conquest but it also spread through instruction, trade and preaching especially of the Sufis. We are reminded here of Sir Thomas Arnold's work on the spread of Islam in India, the preaching of Islam, published I think in 1908, hugely influential on the thought of Alama Iqbal. Certainly as with other religions patronage played its part as did the restrictions of the Dhimma on non-Muslim communities. In our context of the exhibition though the astounding cities of Central Asia like Samarkand and Bukhara already celebrated in the time of the Persian poet Hafiz. This is a line from Hafiz's Diwan. Bachal e Hindwish, Bachal e Hindwish bacham Samarkand o Bukhara. So for one mole on the cheek of the beloved I am willing to exchange Samarkand and Bukhara. It's what you call exaggeration but there we are. So Samarkand and Bukhara with their madrasas, mosques and mausoleums bear witness to a creativity which evokes undiluted attitude. Admiration. As far as the Silk Road is concerned the establishing of caravansarais no more than a day's journey from one another.  This shows not only the sophistication of medieval travel. I don't know if you've actually been in a caravansarai but they're extremely well set up around the central courtyard. And people would have been able merchants and others would have been able to stay in some comfort in them. And this, of course, is what made trade and the exchange of ideas and the meeting of cultures possible. As Professor Akbar Ahmad has noted in his living Islam, the Marxist attempt, whether in Central Asia or in China, to approve people from tribal, ethnic and religious identities to create industrial man has failed. That Marxist attempt has failed and we are living with the results of that failure certainly in Central Asia. People are either returning to their roots, be it Tengrism, it's mentioned in your glossary, or natural religion in some of the Central Asian countries, Buddhism or Taoism in China, or Islam in Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. At the same time, evangelical and Catholic Christianity continues to grow in China as well as in Central Asia and Eastern Orthodoxy remains important in the latter. New religious movements are also a feature of the landscape. The fast growth of Jehovah's Witnesses, for instance, and sometimes they attract unwanted government attention and restrictions. So the persecution of the Jehovah's Witnesses, for instance, in many of the Central Asian countries today, is to be noted. One feature of the religious scene which must be mentioned is both the growth and the fear of Islamist radicalism in many countries in the region. This has resulted in civil war, terrorism, the persecution of minorities like Christians, Jews, Bahais and Hindus, as well as of various Muslim groups. It has restricted the freedom of women and has had a generally negative effect on creativity and freedom of expression. It is also true that in some states attempts to curb extremism have led to a draconian curtailing of fundamental liberties of belief, expression and association. It's a lesson for us to learn, of course, here. As ever, religion both provides an opportunity for growth, debate, creativity and freedom and the dangers of violent extremism, theocracy and totalitarianism. The recent history of the region is full of the tyranny of secular ideology. Tyranny of secular ideology. Let us pray that religion will bring light, peace and love to this beautiful but troubled region. The Sino-Pakistan project of reviving at least one of the roots of the Silk Road is fraught with risk but also holds out the promise which the Silk Road has always done of opening up peoples, cultures and religions to one another. Again, let us pray that is what it does rather than being seen as an alliance against others or a hegemony of one over others. The project does show, however, that the Silk Road continues to have relevance today, cultural, commercial, political and spiritual. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Bishop Michael, for a wonderful lecture. You have, in your own way, highlighted the very rich and varied history of the Silk Road and its relevance today in terms of interreligious dialogue, encounters between religions and civilisations. I was particularly struck by how, in your exposition, you outlined how some of the faiths represented themselves. For example, Christians within Buddhist motifs. I was almost reminded of Gandhi's injunction that one should carry the other's faith within oneself. As well as the overview, you have also highlighted some of the challenges that the encounters that have happened here within the Silk Road demonstrate the growth, the debate and creativity of religions, but also warn us against the dangers of ideology and violence and, in particular, your term, the tyranny of the secular. I think you've given us quite a lot to think about and now it's the opportunity for everyone in the audience to ask questions. So we're open to questions, points of information and contributions. Yes, over there? No, yourself. Yourself. This is just a point of information from the printed material you handed out. How do Zoroastrians come to be known as the people of the book when they have nothing to do with the book? In fact, they were an unwritten religion. Initially they were oral rather than written. There are a number of possible responses. May I respond to that? There are a number of things that can be said. One, of course, is that the Zoroastrians do have a book, the Zenda Vesta. But also the real issue, I think, behind what you're asking, is how Islam came to terms with large, at first, large non-Muslim majorities in the lands that had been conquered. So whilst those lands had been predominantly Christian and to some extent Jewish at first, whether you're thinking of Egypt or Syria or Palestine or Mesopotamia, that as the conquest proceeded they came across other sorts of people. The Zoroastrians were the first in the conquest of Iran and it was completely impractical not to treat them in some way that ensured their survival in their own land because the conquerors were for a long time dependent, not only on the agricultural produce of the native population but in areas like administration, commerce and so on. The way of accommodation had to be found. The point I was trying to make was that what had been done with the Zoroastrians was later extended by Muhammad bin Qasim when he conquered the Sind to an even more problematic group of people from their point of view. That is to say the Hindus and the Buddhists. It seems that at the time of the conquest of the Sind in the 8th century the majority of the population of the Sind was Buddhist and not Hindu. That matter can be debated. So what you find is that the idea of the Dhimma, I mean I have many questions about the Dhimma and how it was exercised but given that was a way of accommodating non-Muslim majorities and in India of course they always remain the majority even under Muslim rule to allow the Muslims to govern. Now it wasn't just that Zoroastrian influence was confined to Iran because in fact we know that the Abbasids actually borrowed from Iranian systems of governance to structure and order their empire and many of the highest officials were in fact Persian. Yes, over there. Hi, can you comment on the obvious influence of Islamic Sufi mystics of the past on say Christian monks in the west? Because why I say that is there are narrations of a meeting that took place between Saint Francis of Assisi and Shamsitabrez. These narrations are kind of oral traditions and they go way back in time. I've heard them myself from certain individuals. And also Saint Cuthbert in England I believe had a meeting with Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani of Baghdad. So it seems that there was an obvious influence of Sufi mystics of the past on other religious groups and that's kind of not really touched upon in the history books I believe. Yeah, I mean there is certainly with, I mean you started with Saint Francis of Assisi. I mean a very remarkable figure because Francis whether he met with Shamsitabrez or not he certainly met with the Egyptian ruler and Caliph Al-Malik Al-Khamil. And after the meeting the Caliph is reported to have said that if he met another Christian like Francis he might become a Christian himself. Unfortunately he never did. But from a Christian point of view unfortunately. What is undoubtedly true? And this is the case even with the Quran itself. The Quran admires the monks for their humility in Surat Al-Maida. So there is a consciousness of Christian monasticism in the Quran itself and there are many references to their forms of prayer and so on. Favorable references. The earliest contact seemed to have been when Sufism was just emerging under Junaid Al-Muhaasibi and Dol Nun, who was Egyptian of course. And Muhammad Iqbal says that what the early Sufis admired about Christian monasticism was not so much their beliefs but their practices. And there is in Sufi writing this continual interaction between in Sufi poetry between Christian monks and Sufis and monasteries and so on. I don't know the story about Saint Cuthbert. It would be very interesting to know some more detail about it. Shamsitabrez is a very shadowy figure. I mean nobody knows who he was. He was obviously a mentor of Jalaluddin Rumi. But the way in which Rumi refers to him is not as an actual historical person so much as an idealized figure, a sort of figure of the divine beloved. And I mean obviously he must have come from Tabrez to have a name like that. But not very much is known about him. I mean I stand to be corrected about this. Okay thank you. There was a person here. Could we have the mic down here please? No sorry down here first. Thank you for your scholarly introduction to some of the religions and history of this vast area which I at least am not familiar. However I did note through your lecture that there seem to be two distinct forces for good in this history. One was the fact that profoundly religious people of any religion intuitively understand each other and have a natural tolerance. And the other was that trade is something that also supports a kind of mutual tolerance. And I wonder if these two very different trends in society ever come together for a desirable ecumenical end. Trade and religion you mean? Yes. Well some people hold that they don't and they should not. But in fact they do because I mean the Duke of Edinburgh for instance has for a long time run a group on business ethics I mean ostensibly. And it brings together a large number of business people from all over the world from different faith backgrounds to discuss the question of ethics in business. And also I've been to some of these meetings not that I'm a businessman, I wish that I were. But you know religious ideas come to the fore because whilst people who are not religious may well be moral and be more moral than religious people in fact the great moral systems of the world have been developed generally within religious traditions. So whether it's the Torah of Judaism or the Sharia of Islam or the laws of Manu or the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus these have all been articulated within a religious framework and so when people are talking to one another about what is right even in the commercial area then religious questions and backgrounds come into play and that is how it should be. The other area in which well there are two other areas one is of course ecology of how we view the world in which we live and what the faith traditions have to say about how we treat the world. And obviously interfaith dialogue can have that as a subject and does have it as a subject from time to time. Even in the most unpromising situations I mean I've been in dialogue with leaders in Iran on this question about how their version of Ithna, Sharia, Islam sees ecology and what Christians have to say about it. So it is possible the other main area and this is quite an urgent one this is nothing to do with business in a way but is the justifiability of conflict. We are now living in a world with more and more non-conventional conflict. This affects trade, it disrupts trade, it prevents people meeting one another at least in peace and it is quite urgent that interfaith dialogue should discover some common ground for agreeing when armed conflict is or is not justified. Otherwise we will be continually in this debate that one side will say it's justified and the other side will say it's not justified. So if I were influential in international fora like the United Nations I would encourage this kind of dialogue and possible agreement. Thank you. Yes down here. Yes there is. Thank you. It was a wonderful, wonderful talk. My question relates to, how to put it best, ethics. I'm very mindful of the golden rule that appears in all the major religions do unto your neighbour as you would have them do unto yourself in identical circumstances or in some religions do not do unto your neighbour as you would not have done unto yourself. I struggled to understand looking through history and also the current state of the world how people who profess to be genuinely of this religion or that religion can squirt with their consciences the way they conduct themselves. Now as you're where I'm researching a book on Rabindranath et agor so a lot of the inhumanity of the British Empire in India is coming up with my research. And when I discuss it with people of white skin they say oh you mustn't judge it. Those were different times. So I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I'm doing. I mustn't judge it. Those were different times. But my reply is I'm not aware of Jesus having given any dispensation to the golden rule. So how can we really just say oh they were different times. We can't judge them by the standards of today because to me the golden rule is something that ideally is part of our living reality every day. So that as human beings being imperfect we don't always live up to them but that we should be really trying to get ourselves back on a regular basis. And what I don't understand is why the leaders of the different religions are not very very firmly saying to their flock like on a weekly basis in sermons et cetera reminding us this is the teaching. And let us compare the conduct of the individual, the community, the country. Let us compare what our conduct is compared with our teaching. That if we want to say oh well we're not Christian or we're not Buddhist or whatever so be it. But I just feel as a real mismatch between people who profess themselves to be of a faith and the teaching of the golden rule. Thank you. That's a very important question. Empires of all kinds are empires of self-interest at the very least. And the British Empire is obviously no exception to that. But let's take another empire, let's take the Roman Empire. I mean the Roman Empire resulted in enormous cruelties and enormities enacted against the populations of the various parts of it. But at the same time it also introduced the Pax Romana, the kind of security for travel and so on which made trade possible, which made the exchange of ideas possible. I mean it is impossible to imagine for example the spread of early Christianity without the Pax Romana. So what I'm saying is you know empires like so many other human projects are mixed and this is also true of the British Empire particularly in India. I mean if you I often think what has saved a country like Pakistan if saved is the right word from totalitarianism which it could have ended up with and may still do, why is Pakistan different from say Iran? And in almost every case the answer is the institutions created by the British, whether it is parliamentary democracy or the judicial system or the press, you know, Rudyard Kipling and Lahore, I think you're doing something at SOAS quite soon about that. Now this is not to justify of course the other side to the empire which was what happened at Jallianwala Bagh or the salt marches and how they were dealt with. Our chairman referred to Mahatma Gandhi and the violent response to Gandhi's non-violence. So yes he was and his followers beaten up and arrested but the British judge sentencing Gandhi apologised for having to do so. Well I mean not every empire would have done that. I mean on the question of what religious leaders are doing I think this is one of the purposes of interfaith dialogue is to ask religious leaders, ask them to account about what it is they are teaching their people and whether that is making for co-existence for the recognition of people's fundamental freedoms or not. I was for a long time involved in the Christian dialogue with Al-Azhar As-Sharif, the premier place of Sunni learning and every year we had this dialogue and the rule was that each side would propose one subject because that is all we had time for. And very often on both sides the subject had to do with fundamental freedoms, not so much with what we believed but whether people were free to believe, whether people were free to express their faith, whether they were free to change their faith. I remember doing a joint lecture Mr Chairman with Sheikh Tantawi who was then the rector of Al-Azhar, the chief in Cairo. I mean what I said is not important at all but Sheikh Tantawi said in Cairo that what people believe in Egypt is not the business of the state at all. Now this is a very remarkable thing for a Muslim leader to say in his own country, it's easier to say these things in London or Washington or New York, but to say it in Cairo took courage. President Rohani of Iran has repeatedly called for greater freedom of conscience and belief in Iran. He has so far been ignored by the Iranian establishment but he has said so and I think it has cost him. I remember reading one of his speeches that was soon after I read it censored by whoever, I don't know who censored it. But it must be a unique instance where the president of a country has his own speeches censored. So there are people like that who are doing this and we have to honour them for it but there should be more of them. Okay, anyone else? Yes. Could you just explain what is mysticism? You mentioned the word mysticism in Islam. Could you just elaborate please? Yes, this is a, well first of all in Islam the initial period of mysticism under Muhassabi, Junaid, Dolnoun a Rabi al Adawiyah, the famous woman mystic, was about love of God, an intense expression of love for God seen in devotion. And as I have said I think this was in interaction with Christian monasticism of Egypt and Syria at the time. But as it developed, Sufism as it developed began to be influenced by other ideas particularly Neoplatonist and Indic ideas which had to do not so much with love of God as with unity with God and the unity of everything. Now this is quite different from the Judeo-Christian and even Islamic traditions which of course distinguished God from the world. So it was a new departure and more generally mysticism or whatever kind you have to distinguish between what you might call nature mysticism, which is, I mean an obvious modern example is the poetry of Walt Whitman which is an intense experience of oneness with nature. But then there is in addition to nature mysticism there is what you might call theistic mysticism in Christianity, Judaism and Islam which is not about oneness but about relationship. As a famous verse of Allama Iqbal, it's not his verse, it was a favorite of his, it's an anonymous verse in Farsi. Mardana Khudha Khudha Nabashand. Mardana Khudha Khudha Nabashand. Llekin zi Khudha Judha Nabashand. So men of God never become God but they're not separate from God either. And that's sort of theistic mysticism. Then of course there is this mysticism, monism, mentioned the imagery of the drop merging into the ocean and so on, where nothing is left of the human person in the absorption into God, which the Sufi is called Fana Filhag, annihilation in God. But the more mature Sufis like Sheikh Khujveri from my own city of Lahore where I used to work point out that this is only the beginning of mystic experience. That after the experience of annihilation there is also the experience of remaining, the Baqa Filhag, of remaining in God. And this is also found in the Christian traditions in Francois de Sel, the founder of the Silesian said after the journey to God there is the journey in God. So I think we have to be very careful to distinguish exactly what we are talking about because mysticism is such a broad term. Okay, we have two questions, one over there and then here. Thank you, I really enjoy listening to you, thank you so much. I was just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit about the contemporary situation in Europe and other regions of the world. I'm from Europe, so like Central Europe. I was just wondering, so obviously there is an encounter of two religions happening right now. I'm obviously talking about so many immigrants coming to Europe. And I was just wondering because you have studied so many situations of encounters of different religions if you could, I don't know, predict maybe how we are going to deal with the situation basically. It's a tough question. It is very tough, I know, but it's something that is really important I think. Sure, perhaps we could take the other question as together. Yes, I just wondered about the western Arabs, did they learn their math from India? And the other thing was, when did Buddhism cease to be of the book? When did Buddhism cease to be of the book? Yeah, and the other question was, is when the western Arabs, did they learn originally the math from India? Yeah, well, sorry, let me not lose the, just give you the factual answers first. I mean, I think the numerals as we use them, they are called Arabic numerals, but actually they are from India, as is the zero. I mean, you know, without the zero, maths as we know it wouldn't exist. So transmitted to the western world through the Arabs, but actually originally India. So it's Indian maths that makes modern maths possible, but I'm sure there's a greater authority on that sitting here. What was the other part of your question? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, sorry, Buddhism has never ceased to be of the book.  In addition, there are many other writings. When I say religion of the book, the Alal Kitab, this was a technical Muslim. Yeah, I think that's a very interesting question. I don't know the answer to that. I expect you would, you will get a variety of answers from Muslims if they were asked that question. Generally what I have heard the Ulama saying in the Middle East, the scholars in the Middle East, is that they are confining themselves to what they call the heavenly religions. The Deena Samawi, which to them are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So the new Egyptian constitution, which is a great improvement on the older one, gives freedom of religion to everyone, but freedom of cultic worship only to the heavenly religions. So in that case, Judaism is clearly not Alal Kitab. Coming back to the lady's question about Europe, I think the difficulty with Europe in the last 50 or 60 years has been the myth that secularism is neutrality. I mean secularism is not neutrality. It has its own worldview, its own presuppositions and assumptions. And in my view, I think Europe would have been better place to accommodate people of other faiths if it had given attention to its own tradition. So the complete ignoring for instance of Christianity in the so-called abortive constitution for Europe, which recognized every conceivable influence on Europe except Christianity, is just, I mean it's fiction. Because the material civilization, the art, the music, the literature, everything cannot be understood without reference to the Judeo-Christian heritage of Europe. And that should be the basis for interaction with other religious traditions that are coming into Europe. The effect of secularity is A, to marginalize all religious traditions and secondly to isolate them from one another. So you end up with isolated, ghettoized communities in the name of various doctrines like multiculturalism, etc. Rather than both respecting culture and religion and producing some way of understanding common citizenship, a common history, the need for integration and so on. But this cannot be done with historical amnesia. I think that's the point I would make. Well thank you. One final question. Sorry? I'm just wondering if the title should have been shattered dreams and torn tales rather than the embroidery and the woven dreams. Given the great tapestry of beliefs and religions and philosophies that have risen from this vast area, perpetuated through trade but also used by monks, what has happened? I mean I suppose there is the same essence that other questioners have asked. I mean the people like Yazidis who must have become through intermarriage. I don't think they're a sector or tribe of their own and this great tapestry of everything and it's now just descended into sheer terror, atrocities, no compassion for fellow humans.  And separately, can you comment that the three gifts that the Magi brought to the manger were gold, myr and frankincense, but the gold is actually turmeric?  This were the three gifts that came. Thank you. Yes, I mean the gifts of the manger. That's why I saw in Eastern Iraq recently a Syrian church of the East and written on its front door in Arabic. It said we Easterns were the first to worship Christ. So the Magi, yes, I mean it is quite clear to anyone familiar with Persian civilization who the Magi were. I mean even in modern Persian the word Mughan means a wise man. So many poems start with old Magi's. I don't know if you read Eliot's poem about the Magi in their visit, but I think that shows both their origin and the disturbance that the visit to Christ caused among them. And this is why I gave some attention to the church of the East because this is a Christian tradition largely unknown in the West. I know that so has a department for Eastern Christianity. You have a colleague here present. Well done. Is that you? Where is Erica? Yes, well I know Dr Hunter's work very well. So yeah, I mean well she is a far greater expert on the tradition of that church than I am and I'm so glad that you have that here. The I mean the destruction of the tapestry that you're talking about. Well, yeah, I mean we only see what is in our experience. But if you read the descriptions of the Arab historians about the destruction of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mawls, I've just been reading Bar-Hebrace's account of it. I mean it must have appeared to people then that this was the end of the world, you know.  Such havoc was wrought by the Mongol invasions. So yes and what is happening now looks to us like that. But the there is also the question of hope. I mean somebody was asking me earlier, in fact a Muslim theologian asked me earlier today whether there was any hope for this world. And I said, well you know from a Christian point of view I have to say yes of course there is but that hope is in God not in us and not in the cultures that we've been talking about or any culture. So we can't lose hope. I mean that is one of the things religion has to bring to the table is a transcendence which is not possible for people who are simply exchanging. Political and military possibilities with one another. So it may be that commanders talking to one another is productive in say Syria today. But the meetings that I witnessed in September between religious leaders in Syria I think will be even more significant for the future of that shattered conflict. Then the meetings of these military commanders necessary though they may be you know what is going to build Syria again. The Grand Mufti of Syria said to me in September that he had said to his son you are free to think and believe as you wish. I do not want to impose what I believe on you. Well I mean I think that's a hugely hopeful thing in a country like Syria at this time. But this is the kind of thing that has to be said and I am so sorry that people like the Grand Mufti and many other leaders religious leaders in Syria like the many of the Christian leaders are denied access to audiences here so that you may hear what they have to say. OK on that note I think we will have to draw the events to a conclusion here today. Before we do I just want to thank Bishop Michael for providing us with a very thoughtful lecture and a willingness to answer frankly a range of questions which were perhaps not in the lecture itself. And you know and that's a testament to his great strength. You are all invited to a cup of tea upstairs but before we go can I ask you to join hands and thank Bishop Michael.