Neither Latif nor his father could have predicted how that simple gesture would transform the way Latif looks at the world. Today, Canada-born Latif is co-host of the Peabody award-winning New York Public Radio podcast, Radiolab. He has also been a writer for The Boston Globe, and has given two TED Talks. In July, Latif’s documentary series, “Connected,” launched on Netflix, and in some ways, the series seems like Latif’s tribute to his father, as he too, bursts onto the screen with a sparkle in his eyes, talking animatedly with his hands, and simplifying some of the most complex stories about our world.
The six-episode series explores the idea of how human beings are connected across the globe – through technology and the digital world, but also physically, emotionally, and esoterically. In one of the most powerful episodes of the show (which Latif used to pitch the series to Netflix), Latif travels to the middle of the Sahara Desert to find remains of a fish. He traces the journey of dust from the fish’s remains across the globe, on the one hand, reducing the ferocity of hurricanes, and providing nourishment to ocean life, and on the other, causing death and destruction through the Red Tide on the shorelines of Florida. “It’s a story about life and death,” Latif says about the episode. “Even when you’re dead, you have an afterlife. We all leave a thumbprint on the world, and to me, that’s a very profound thing.”
Latif_s Netflix series Connected explores how we are all connected
“Connected” may be the latest in Latif’s repertoire of interesting work, but it’s far from the first. If there were a playbook on implementing Mawlana Hazar Imam’s guidance about using intellect to understand Allah’s creation, Latif’s professional triumphs would gain a mention. Following an undergraduate degree in playwriting from Dartmouth College, Latif found his way to a History of Science PhD at Harvard, combining his love for storytelling with his passion for understanding the natural world. “I felt like I could finally engage with science on terms that I understood – through stories,” explained Latif.
His inherent curiosity landed him a job with Radiolab where Latif and his team work on simplifying some of the most complex scientific concepts in the world around us. “The natural world is something that transcends the everyday noise,” explains Latif. “Here’s something that I can learn, where if we’re doing the science right, it’ll still be true years from now. We can all marvel at the universe together.”
Latif recently explored his own identity as a Muslim through a short series on Radiolab called, “The Other Latif.” The series is based on the story of a Muslim Guantanamo Bay prisoner who is Latif’s namesake, and has been stuck in prison for more than 20 years due to bureaucracy and inaction. As Latif learns more about the other Latif, he juxtaposes his own experience with the story, discussing the impact of politics, faith, immigration policy, and more on Muslim Americans in the US.
By sharing his personal story and experience, Latif pushes listeners to acknowledge the very uncomfortable fact that injustice around us can impact any of us, at any time. “The vast majority of my work is not personal. But this was the first series that I did that was really personal,” Latif explains. “The faith I was raised in played a huge role in that story. I think it brought something to that story that had anyone else reported it, it would’ve been a different story. I hope that it enriched it and it made it smarter and fairer and more open-minded, and an exemplar of how I think these types of stories can and should be covered.” (Bonus points to those who can identify the Ginan in one of the episode credits!)
Latif’s success is centered around his knack for discovering questions. “A Harvard professor told me this: It’s not that 99.999% of the questions in the world haven’t been answered; it’s that 99.999% of the questions in the world, have not even been asked yet,” Latif says.
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His tip for budding scientists, or anyone who is simply curious, is: “ask questions, and take them seriously.” According to Latif, we need to reverse the way we learn. “The way science was taught to me was: ‘here’s a textbook, which is a stack of answers to questions I didn’t even ask – go learn it.’ To me, the much more exciting and compelling way is to say, ‘Don’t you have questions about stuff that’s going on around us? Why do we look the way we do? Why do we sleep? Why does something work this way, and not another way?’ Lead with the question, and try to figure it out. Make it a detective story or a scavenger hunt. If you’re part of the search party, part of the hunt, that’s so much more exhilarating and fun. All of a sudden, science unlocks so much.”
If for nothing else, “Connected” is worth watching simply to see Latif’s pure joy and utter excitement as he unravels his stories and makes connections that all of us can relate to. He forces viewers to remember the curiosity they may have felt as a child, and appreciate how simple things around us – the shape of clouds, the shifting of sand dunes or how our connections with each other and our community change us as humans – can help us appreciate and understand Allah’s creation.
