Islam

In the early Islamic city of Basra, Hasan al-Basri witnessed a dangerous shift: political power learning the language of religion. His refusal to let sacred words excuse moral sleepwalking left a legacy of conscience that still speaks into our world today.

In this episode, Harmonia returns after Matilda Joslyn Gage to tell the story of Shams of Tabriz-the wandering dervish whose fierce honesty transformed Rumi and reshaped the spiritual imagination of a century. Through scenes of Konya's winter streets and intimate conversations between two unlikely companions, we explore how spiritual awakening often arrives in the form of disruption. Harmonia traces Shams's mysterious life, his unsettling brilliance, and the fire he sparked in another soul-asking what it means today to meet someone who changes the course of our inner world.

In a quiet classroom in 19th-century Karbala, Siyyid Kzim Rasht whispered of a sacred change drawing near. He didn't preach certainty. He taught expectancy. This episode explores how his final teachings invited his students-not to preserve the past-but to prepare for what hadn't yet arrived. Set against a backdrop of global spiritual upheaval, his story becomes a lens on the enduring power of faith to point us toward transformation.

In late Victorian Liverpool, a former Methodist solicitor named William Quilliam returned from North Africa with a new name-Abdullah-and an unshakable conviction. From a narrow English row house, he founded Britain's first functioning mosque and invited a different vision of spiritual belonging into public life. Though his work was nearly erased, the truths he lived still ripple through the world today. In this episode, Harmonia remembers the ephemeral faith of a man too early for his time, but never out of place.