Reading Muslims

The 1980 Hague Abduction Convention was intended to create international consensus over how to handle cases in which one parent absconded with their child over an international border, effectively leaving the other parent without clear legal recourse. Dr. Emon sheds light on the historical ideas and assumptions that have made it difficult for the Hague Convention to gain acceptance among Muslim majority countries. On the one hand, Emon explains the Euro-centric elements of the Hague Convention. On the other, he traces historical Islamic legal norms around jurisdiction, which he terms "cadastral jihad", to highlight its intimate links to notions of empire.

Host: Youcef Soufi

Date recorded: October 14th, 2022

Dr. Nagra discusses the findings of her research with educated second-generation Muslims in Toronto and Vancouver. Nagra analyzes Canadian Muslims' exclusion from citizenship post 9/11. She details her interviewees experiences with racism, the state's border authorities, and security agencies. Nagra reveals the different forms of resistence that young Muslim women and men have adopted in response to anti-Muslim racism and their calls to see the promises of multiculturalism become a reality.

Host: Youcef Soufi

Date recorded: June 7th, 2022

Sunera Thobani, Professor in the Asian Studies Department at UBC, discusses her new book, Contesting Islam: The Inordinate Desire of the West (2021). Dr. Thobani recounts the historical constructions of Muslims and the West through an critical engagement with postcolonial theorists, race theory, feminism, and queer theory.

Host: Youcef Soufi

Date recorded: April 14, 2022

Professor Suzanne Marchand joins the Reading Practices Hub to discuss German Orientalism and the philological approach. She gives an overview of the history of German Orientalism and the reason for choosing it as a subject of her study. In the episode, Prof. Marchand also discusses the critique of philology and mentions that some critics of philology lack a comprehensive understanding of it.

Host: Mohannad Abusarah

Date recorded: May 23rd, 2022

In this episode of the Reading Muslims podcast, the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC)'s director of education and communication, Khaled Al-Qazzaz, discusses MAC as both a place of knowledge transmission and producer of Islamic knowledge in Canada. Specifically, he begins by explaining the texts that centrally inspire and shape MAC's mission in the Canadian Muslim community, citing the Quran, hadith, and the writings of reformer Hassan al-Banna. These foundational texts form the basis of MAC's self-understanding and pedagogical vision, which is channelled into myriad organizational forms including MAC's own textual productions for various community-targeted initiatives. Elaborating on this output, Khaled discusses the impact of MAC's current textual projects and future directions.

Host: Sara Hamed

Date recorded: December 8th, 2021.

Professor Junaid Quadri joins the Reading Practices Hub to discuss theoretical questions related to the study of Islamic thought. He focuses on the connection between thought and practice in the Islamic tradition, especially in Islamic law. He also discusses the question of continuity and rupture in a way that he revised the dominant narrative. He then elaborates on his approach in studying Islamic texts in relation to the context in which they emerged. Finally, he answers the question of interdisciplinarity and his way of constructing an organic interdisciplinary method.

Host: Mohannad Abusarah

Date recorded: January 11th, 2022

Professor Noah Salomon joins this episode of the Reading Muslims podcast to discuss the role texts and textuality came to play in his ethnography of the Islamic State in Sudan, For Love of the Prophet (Princeton University Press 2016). He reflects on what it means to approach texts not only as an object of study, but also as a method that informs one's ethnographic practice. Professor Salomon also discusses his new project, which travels between Muscat, Khartoum, and Beirut to examine the production of religious difference within Islam in post-revolutionary moments.

Host: Abdulla Majeed

Date recorded: December 14th, 2021. 

Dr. Tazeen Ali joins the Anthropology of Islam Hub to discuss her upcoming book project, Authorizing Women: Islamic Authority at the Women’s Mosque of America with New York University Press. She lays out the gendered and racialized landscape of the U.S. Muslim religious authority and what is and isn’t new about Women’s Mosque of America’s approach to Islamic religious authority in the U.S. Dr. Ali reflects on what it means to authorize the lay American Muslim woman to read and interpret the Qur’an for herself.

Host: Iman AbdoulKarim

Date recorded: September 8th, 2021

Dr. Bullock explains the vision of Compass Books and how both her academic and activism careers inspired her to found the company. She elaborates various challenges in the book publishing industry, and the role her company aims to play in Muslim identity formation. She discusses how Compass Books walks a fine and often tricky line as it tries to cater to both Muslim families looking for quality books offering Islamic education, and secular public schools that are hesitant to incorporate faith-based texts in their libraries.

Host: Sara Hamed

Recorded: Sep 5, 2021

Dr. Fadel joins this special edition podcast to discuss his beginnings in academia, and his observations about the field of Middle Eastern studies over time. He is joined by Dr. Emon as the two come together to discuss their approaches to Islamic law and legal studies, where textuality (and debates about it) has been and will likely continue to be central to the field of Islamic Legal studies.

Recorded: June 2021