AlMaghrib Institute

AI data centres need huge amounts of water to keep their servers cool. Much of it is fresh water, the same water people need to drink. Dr. Zaid Abidwahid, a glaciologist, says most people never think about this when they type a prompt.

With millions of people using AI every day, that water use adds up. It is a new pressure on water supplies that are already stretched by climate change.

This is a clip from the AlMaghrib Podcast on climate change with Dr. Zaid Abidwahid. Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Ustadh Hisham Abu Yusuf's father grew up in South India, where the cow is sacred, and he never ate beef in his life. He could not explain it. It just felt wrong. That is what happens when you grow up inside a culture: you absorb what it reveres without ever deciding to.

It is the same thing that happened to Bani Israel after generations in Egypt, and it is why the cow story sits at the heart of Surah Al-Baqarah.

Watch the full AlMaghrib Podcast episode: The Hidden Message of Surah Al-Baqarah on YouTube.

Ustadh Hisham Abu Yusuf explains that you do not fill emptiness by taking. You fill it by giving.

Most of us do the opposite. Feel empty, eat something, buy something, consume until the hole closes. The Prophet ﷺ came home and asked Aisha رضي الله عنها what was left of the lamb. She said only the shoulder. He said no, everything but the shoulder is what is left, because what you give away is your asset. What you consume is gone.

Watch the full AlMaghrib Podcast episode: The Hidden Message of Surah Al-Baqarah on YouTube

Every time after Jumu'ah, someone stands up and appeals for flood victims in Pakistan or drought relief in Africa. We give, and then we move on. Sh. Ammar AlShukry has given khutbahs for years and has never given one on climate change. So why has the community stayed quiet on it?

Dr. Zaid Abidwahid says the community does care. You can see it in how people respond to the disasters. The problem is that the response is reactive rather than proactive. We treat these crises as things that just happen and never ask why they keep happening in the same places. That question should shape how our sadaqah and zakat get spent.

This is a clip from the AlMaghrib Podcast on climate change with Dr. Zaid Abidwahid. Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Ustadh Hisham Abu Yusuf says people in the TikTok era have come to treat iman like dopamine, something that rises and falls with how they feel.

Imam al-Bukhari's Kitab al-Iman argues the opposite. The symptom of your iman is your action, and the engine that moves it upwards is disciplined submission. Showing up regardless of how you feel.

Watch the full AlMaghrib Podcast episode: The Hidden Message of Surah Al-Baqarah Nobody Talks About

What colour was the cow Allah commanded Bani Israel to slaughter? Bright yellow. Ustadh Hisham Abu Yusuf says that is no coincidence. The only way to get the calf out of their system was to find one just like it and slaughter it.

So what is our calf? In the corporate world it is career progression. Backstab, drink, grease the right elbows, whatever gets you to partner. Killing your reverence for money and material progress takes something just as drastic. Everyone has a calf. Allah tells you to kill it.

Watch the full AlMaghrib Podcast episode: The Hidden Message of Surah Al-Baqarah Nobody Talks About

The same thing that wiped out a farmer's entire livelihood is what gave you the most miserable summer of your life in the UK. Dr. Zaid Abidwahid, a glaciologist, says we have adopted a Western kind of individualism about climate change. I'm alright here, what happens over there stays over there.

Unlike a conflict, this one does reach you. Not in the same way, and not with the same cost, but the heat is the same heat.

This is a clip from the AlMaghrib Podcast on climate change with Dr. Zaid Abidwahid. Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Boonaa Mohammed is the writer and director of Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem so his pre-show routine is different from the rest!