"Optimization" may usher life-saving AI-assisted medical advancement, but with it comes disturbing AI cartoons aimed at children running endlessly on YouTube Shorts. These developments are of a piece.

Our America issue focuses on militarism, foreign policy, technology, capitalism, and exceptionalism through the lens of a word we’re hearing with increasing frequency: multipolarity.

Episode 20 of the Protean View podcast

Episode 18 of the Protean View podcast

Episode 17 of the Protean View podcast

Podcast Episode · Protean View · April 10 · 1h 2m

Episode 16 of the Protean View podcast

Episode 15 of the Protean View podcast

Since relaunching in 2024, Muftah has published four issues and some of its best work yet. Catch up with ten of our most-read articles and most-streamed episodes.

Episode 14 of the Protean View podcast

Episode 13 of the Protean View podcast

In Dubai, your business loan can be as “halal” as your Big Mac. For many Western Muslims, this is an attractive promise and an alluring reason to permanently resettle there.

On socialism, self-criticism, and the end of a political sequence.

Corporate-born "communities" are astroturfed projects that fabricate connections and make purchasing power the limiting, necessary, and determining point of access.

The lesson of history is that armed movements do not disarm because they are defeated, but because political developments and integration make their arms functionally obsolete.

In the past thirty years, the top 1% in America have added $21 trillion to their wealth, while the bottom 50% has lost $900 billion. We know from history that democracy cannot survive such conditions.

Our final issue of the year focuses on questions of community, crisis, and the tensions in between.

Episode 12 of the Protean View podcast

Episode 12 of the Protean View podcast

Episode 11 of the Protean View podcast

Post-Assad Syria was, in theory, a blank canvas for revolutionary transformation—in reality, its leaders inherited conditions that narrowed the horizon of possibility before the first stroke was made.

Episode 10 of the Protean View podcast

Post-Assad Syria was, in theory, a blank canvas for revolutionary transformation—in reality, its leaders inherited conditions that narrowed the horizon of possibility before the first stroke was made.

Many praise doubt as a critical virtue—but what happens when skepticism becomes an excuse to waver in the face of injustice? As Gaza burns, intellectual ambivalence becomes a mask for moral evasion.

Post-Assad Syria was, in theory, a blank canvas for revolutionary transformation—in reality, its leaders inherited conditions that narrowed the horizon of possibility before the first stroke was made.

What does it mean to be authentic in our politics, within systems of power, and in acts of resistance? How is “authenticity” claimed, challenged, or co-opted?

Episode 9 of the Protean View podcast

Episode 9 of the Protean View podcast

Episode 8 of the Protean View podcast

A biannual digital magazine that probes key issues of the metamodern. Click to read Muftah Magazine, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

Episode 8 of the Protean View podcast

Episode 7 of the Protean View podcast

Aaron Bushnell didn't self-immolate to "raise awareness" of the Gaza genocide but to expose the limits of protest in the face of incorrigible power. One year later, he was right.