Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're

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Today I speak with Shadi Hamid. Shadi is a senior fellow at Brookings,

and he's a contributing writer for the Atlantic, and he's published widely in other journals.

Most recently he's written a wonderful book entitled Islamic Exceptionalism,

how the struggle over Islam is reshaping the world. And I highly recommend that, and we

get into all of these issues. His analysis, as you'll hear, doesn't totally align with mine or

with Majid Nawaz's. So it was interesting. And I've been wanting to get Shadi on the podcast for a

while, because he really is a novel voice in this area. A real political scientist who doesn't make

the usual political science noises on the topic, especially on the role that religion plays in

inspiring human violence. So without further preamble, I give you Shadi Hamid.

So I'm here with Shadi Hamid. Shadi, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Hi Sam, thanks for having me. Tell our listeners a little bit about your background and the kind of work

you've been doing. Yeah, sure. So I'm currently I'm a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. I

work on Islamist movements and more broadly the role of Islam in politics. And I'm born raised in

Brinmore, Pennsylvania. My parents came from Egypt in the 1970s. I mean, there's a lot more to say

about how I sort of came to do what I do. But I guess two of the crucial moments for me were 9-11

...