Negotiating Ideas

Omar Sadr and Richard Bennett discuss human rights independent accountability mechanisms for Afghanistan. Richard Bennett has served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, documenting Taliban abuses, advocating for accountability, and keeping international attention on Afghanistan's human rights crisis. But what does a Special Rapporteur actually do? How does documentation be...

Omar Sadr and Herschel Hepler discuss Afghanistan's Liturgical Quire, the oldest Hebrew and Judeo-Persian prayer manuscript in the world. This remarkable manuscript compiles three prayer genres into a single bounded book which in Judaism is called codex: morning prayers for the Sabbath, poetry for Sukkot, and a Passover Haggadah mysteriously written upside down. But beyond its religious signif...

Omar Sadr and Dahlia Abraham-Klein discuss Dahlia's grandfather, a Persian-speaking Central Asian Jewish merchant. The Stateless Central Asian Merchant: The Life of Haim Aghajan Abraham (1897-1986). Dahlia Abraham-Klein is a writer on Central Asian Jewish history and Jewish values. Her articles have appeared on Tablet, Chabad, Jewish Journal, and The Times of Israel. She is a teacher at Partne...

Omar Sadr and Ahmet Kuru discuss the role of ulama in reinforcing authoritarianism in the Muslim world, the complex and often ambivalent relationship between religious scholars and state, models for governance in the religious sphere, and alternatives for state-ulama relations in modern Muslim societies. Kuru is the director of  the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies  and professor of political...

Omar Sadr and Anna Larson discuss Power and Authority in Afghanistan. Published by I.B. Tauris in 2025, "Power and Authority in Afghanistan: Rethinking Politics, Intervention, and Rule" tackles some of the most compelling questions about politics in Afghanistan. The book is available here Anna Larson is a writer and researcher who has worked in Afghanistan since 2004. She has taught at SOAS, the U...

Omar Sadr and Adam Baczko discuss the Taliban courts and how the group's legal outlook provided them a breakthrough in the conflict. Originally published in French and recently translated into English by Oxford University Press in 2023, "The Taliban Courts in Afghanistan" tackles some of the most compelling questions about justice and authority in conflict zones, particularly Afghanistan. Baczko ,...

Abdullahi An-Naim and Omar Sadr discuss why and how Muslims should embrace universal values of human rights and constitutionalism. They also talk about how a secular state creates a neutral public space where multiple religious and philosophical perspectives can coexist peacefully. This model prevents religious tyranny by ensuring that no single religious group can use and misuse the state to marg...

Samuel Moyn and Omar Sadr discuss failures of Cold War liberalism and the challenges of contemporary liberalism. Samuel Moyn is the Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University. Trained in modern European intellectual history, he works on political and legal thought in modern times and on constitutional and international law in historical and current perspective.  Readings Liberalism again...

Omar Sadr discusses how refugee academics navigated the American academia with Halil Yenigun and Alfred Babo. Alfred is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Fairfield University, Connecticut. Halil is the Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University. Reading: Alfred Babo. 38 Paradise Road, Being an African Francophone Refugee Scholar in American Academia,...

Omar Sadr discusses the status of Afghanistan's academia under the Taliban with Haroon Mutasem and Qasim Wafayezada. Haroon Mutasem is a Philip Schwartz Initiative fellow at the Law School of Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. Qasim Wafayezada is a specially appointed professor of peace and conflict studies at Kanazawa University, Japan. Readings : Haroon Mutasem, PhD Dissertation and Leg...

Omar Sadr discusses the status of scholars in exile with Dr Mirwais Balkhi and Dr Bashir Mobasher. As we are getting close to the second anniversary of the Negotiating Ideas Podcast in July and the third anniversary of the return of the totalitarian Taliban in Afghanistan, the podcast aims to initiate a second season with a focus on the state of Afghanistan in-exile scholars in the US. Since the f...

Omar Sadr and Nader Hashemi discuss Islam and democracy. Nader Hashemi is the Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.  Readings : ISLAM, SECULARISM, AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY Connect with us! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Google⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ , ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ , ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Omar Sadr and Barnett Rubin discuss Jewish history and antisemitism. Barnett R. Rubin is a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Quincy Institute Responsible Statecraft and at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, where he was Senior Fellow and Director of the Afghanistan Regional Program from 2000 to 2020. From April 2009 until...

Lior Sternfeld discusses the recent controversies on the American campus LIOR STERNFELD is a Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Penn State University.  He is a social historian of the modern Middle East with particular interests in the histories of the Jewish people and other minorities of the region. His first book, titled “Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran...

Omar Sadr talks to ⁠ Haqmal Daudzai on consociational democracy in Afghanistan Dr. Haqmal Daudzai is a researcher at the Dutch Royal Academy in Amsterdam, Netherlands. His book, The Statebuilding Dilemma in Afghanistan, the state governmental design at the national level and the Role of democratic provincial councils in Decentralization at the sub-national Level- was published reviews the US/NATO...

Omar Sadr talks to Halima Kazem on "Bread, Work, Freedom" Movement of Afghanistan Women Halima is a lecturer, historian, and filmmaker whose work intersects in the areas of gender, empire, human rights, and media. Her primary research focuses on Afghanistan and other Muslim countries with long histories of conflict. Her work is deeply rooted in feminist methodologies and 20 years of work...

Omar Sadr talks to Julian F. Müller on Pluralism and polycentric democracy. Julian is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Hamburg. Prior to that Julian was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Political Theory Project at Brown University and research associate at the Peter Loescher Endowed Chair of Business Ethics at Technical University of Munich and a visiting scholar at the Univer...

Omar Sadr talks to Timor Sharan on his book Inside Afghanistan: Political Networks, Informal Order, and State Disruption. Dr Timor Sharan is a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford. His expertise is on the relationship between counterinsurgency efforts, transnational financial flows, and violence as well as organised crime, corruption, and the political economy of international state buildin...

Omar Sadr talks to Hassan Abbas on his book The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan After Americans Left Hassan Abbas is Distinguished Professor of International Relations at the Near East South Asia Strategic Studies Centre (NESA), National Defense University in Washington DC. Suggested readings: ⁠ The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan After Americans Left The Taliban Revival: Violence and Extrem...

Omar Sadr talks to Charles Dunst on how to improve quality of democracies. Charles Dunst is deputy director of research & analytics at  ⁠The Asia Group⁠ ⁠, ⁠ an adjunct fellow at the  ⁠Center for Strategic and International Studies⁠ ⁠,⁠  and a contributing editor of  ⁠American Purpose⁠ . Suggested readings: Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman  (Hodder...

Omar Sadr talks to Michael Goodhart on human rights as a political contestation Michael Goodhart is Professor of Political Science and of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. His core research interests include democracy, human rights, (in)justice, and emancipatory political struggles.  Suggested readings: Injustice: Political Theory for the Real World. Oxford University Press (2018). “Cons...

Omar Sadr talks to Nemat Bezhan on state fragility and resilience Nematullah Bizhan is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Development Policy Centre, Crawford school of Public Policy, Australian National University. He is also a Senior Research Associate with the Global Economic Governance Program, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. in association with the Oxford-LSE Commission on S...

Omar Sadr talks to Jan Rovny on democratic resilience and pluralism in eastern Europe. Jan Rovny an associate professor at Sciences Po , Paris. His research concentrates on political competition in Europe with the aim of uncovering the political conflict lines in different countries. He explores the issues that political parties contest across the continent, the strategies that different part...

Omar Sadr talks to Bengi Gumrukcu on democratic backsliding, populism, Islamism in Turkey. Bengi Gumrukcu is lecturer of political science at Rutgers University. She studies various aspects of social movements, political parties, far right, violence and Europeanization and Euroscepticism, mainly focusing on the case of Turkey. Suggested readings: Bengi Gumrukcu. "Populist discourse, (counter-) mob...

Omar talks to Huma Saeed on Transitional Justice, Human Rights and Socio-Economic Harm Huma Saeed is an affiliated researcher at the Leuven Institute of Criminology, Belgium. Suggested readings: Huma Saeed, Transitional Justice and Socio-Economic Harm: Land Grabbing in Afghanistan , Routledge: 2023 Connect with us! Google , Apple , Spotify , Anchor Twitter: @negotiateideas & @OmarSadr Email: n...