The Messenger Podcast with Shiv Malik cover art

The Messenger

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The Messenger

By: Shiv Malik
Narrated by: Shiv Malik
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About this listen

 When investigative journalist Shiv Malik was betrayed by a source he considered a friend, he spent almost fifteen years tracking down the truth about what happened. The Messenger is an extraordinary audio tale of friendship, lies, betrayal, terrorism, the destruction of a marriage, and the insidiousness of fake news long before it went viral. In the wake of the 7/7 London bombings, Shiv Malik began working for the BBC to discover how young South Asian men like him had turned into suicide bombers. That's when he met notorious Islamist spokesman Hassan Butt, who told Shiv that he'd repented and left al-Qaeda. Hassan wanted Shiv to write his biography, and Shiv thought he'd found the biggest story of his life—a story that would help to change the world for the better. Little did he know that Hassan Butt would almost destroy his life. Over the next three years, Shiv and Hassan became friends, until one day there was a knock on the door from police investigators and everything fell apart. In eight revealing episodes, featuring Shiv's own audio recordings of his conversations with Hassan, Shiv searches for where he can place his trust: in the reams of evidence, in the cops, in a terrorist who swears he's changed, or in a friend who has no one else to turn to? Produced by Topic Studios.©2020 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC True Crime
Episodes
  • Episode 1: The Charming Jihadist

    Episode 1: The Charming Jihadist
    Nov 5 2020
    In the aftermath of 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombings, journalists were desperate to explain why young British Asian men were apparently turning against the country of their birth. Ambitious young reporter Shiv Malik prided himself on being able to persuade them to open up to him. Then he met Hassan Butt, one of the most notorious spokesman for Islamic terrorism in the UK. Hassan told Shiv he now denounced violence and asked Shiv to help him write a book to help others leave the terrorist network.
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    28 mins
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  • Episode 2: How to Make A Terrorist

    Episode 2: How to Make A Terrorist
    Nov 5 2020
    Shiv spends hundreds of hours recording conversations with Hassan in his small house near Manchester in the north of England to try and find out what it was that made Hassan the voice of violent Islamist idealogy. Hassan shares personal secrets and Shiv discovers they have more in common than he thought.
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    26 mins
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  • Episode 3: How to Be A Terrorist

    Episode 3: How to Be A Terrorist
    Nov 5 2020
    Hassan tells Shiv about how he moved to Pakistan and got deeper into the terrorist network. After 9/11, Hassan starts to meet some of America’s most wanted men and glories at being at the center of global attention. Then he gets involved in a bomb plot in Pakistan and tells Shiv that that’s when everything changed.
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    21 mins
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Really enjoyed this audio, its rather a gripping story and nicely read. Takes you into an altogether other world.

A Great Listen!

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Engaging podcast about how one man conned the mainstream media. Tip of the iceberg in my view. The whole Iraq war was based on journos spewing lies too.

Don't believe anything you hear in the media

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Shiv it would appear this man did ruin your marriage , having listened to your former wife: you should give Hassan a thank you for that; she was the least likable person in the whole saga.

Believe everything believe nothing !

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Gripping listen! Page turner - I mean episode turner!!
Based on the book by the same name this is a must for anyone who liked a good story!!

Reads like a top notch spy thriller

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gripping podcast that I binge listened to (it's 2.28 am and I've got to be up at 6am) but Shiv deserves this. a beautifully crafted tale of intrigue, manipulation, narcissism and attention seeking. the toll it appears to have taken was too great a price for the character portrayed to us, who's nothing more than a loser in every regard. wishing you and your loved ones all the best shiv. highly recommended listening. off to buy the book now 👌🏻

fascinating, infuriating and gripping

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A real global terror, real personal tragedies. In a world where everything we feel safe about is based on the stories we want to believe. The Messenger is a must read for anyone interested in what truth is when it walks beside global terror and everyone seeks to exploit it. Utterly engrossing.

A gripping investigation into the role of truth

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The creators do a stellar job at capturing a decade of Shiv's adventure intertwined with a terrorist who was keen on giving up terrorism.
Sometimes we get carried away with the truth we want to believe in, that we start believing things that are too good to be true. This story teaches us that we humans are a gullible lot. We see what we want to see, we hear what we want to hear. We rarely take a second to question our beliefs, until something extraordinary happens, that could potentially put everything around us at risk, because we were going through the same mindset as the "boiling frog".
Absolutely moving story and shockingly something that truly happened. So it just makes one wonder, how we could expect, the average citizen to discern misinformation from the real information, if someone like Shiv, and his team of ambitious journalists could get into this trap.
Kudos to the people who opened up during the interviews, the emotional moments are really moving and I hope everyone is doing well.
Everything from the sound recording to the music, I absolutely loved it. the narration was fantastic, and kept me listening. I resisted downloading the entire set of episodes primarily to force me to listen to one episode every night before sleep. but quickly this turned out to be torture. I learned that this wasn't one of those things you listened to or read in the hope of falling asleep. It woke me up, with curiosity and made me go for finding out more about the characters involved.

When a story rings one's life...

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very intriguing story that I did not put down until the end. A great way to pass my Saturday evening, really good.

facinating

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An interesting story but overly long for me. I understand that the author/narrator wanted to convey the effort put in and the length of his journey, but the whole thing could literally be summed up in a few sentences. For context and detail, maybe 4-6 episodes would have sufficed. Living in Manchester, I also found the recordings exposing jihadi philosophy provocative and distasteful. There will never ever be any belief strong enough to justify the slaughter of innocent people, Muslim or not.

Too long.

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Great story!! I couldn't turn it off and ended up blasting all the way through it in one sitting. I could listen to this sh*t all day. really feel for the Journalist!! something fishy definitely went down!

Very interesting!!

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