The Majlis

On this episode of the Majlis, Dr. Adnan Husain and graduate student Shahroz Khan discuss the verbal art known as Qissah or Dastaan with Prof. Pasha M. Khan, Chair in Urdu Language and an Associate Professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. He is the author of The Broken Spell, which highlights the rise and fall of the art of Qissah in South Asia. Such storytelling techniques once flourished from Mughal India to Safavid Iran, entertaining and captivating audiences in villages and bazaars and, patronized by imperial courts. Pasha Khan discusses the history of early Qissah and its relevance in the Persinate world, and how British colonization ultimately led to its decline. We also hear the fun tale of Sami Pokar, the Anglo-Indian woman who turned into a cat. You can find Pasha Khan on Twitter. 

In this episode, Dr. Adnan Husain speaks with historian and essayist Prof. Juan Cole from the University of Michigan, about a new collection of essays and studies in his latest book Peace Movements in Islam. Contrary to the distorted and mainstream view of Islam as somehow inherently or uniquely violent, Prof. Cole argues that there is a dazzling array of Muslim organizations and individuals that have worked for harmony and conciliation through history. Expanding  Islam and its relationship to movements for peace, this episode discusses the necessity of bringing attention to how Muslims have looked to their faith to find inspiration for creating and uplifting peace movements throughout the world. 

You can find more of Prof. Cole's work on his website or find him on twitter. 

In this episode, Dr. Adnan Husain speaks with gender studies scholar Dr. Dana Olwan as they discuss her most recent book "Gender Violence and the Transnational Politics of the Honor Crime". Dr. Olwan's research examines how certain forms of violence become known, recognized, and contested across multiple geopolitical contexts—looking specifically at a particular form of gender-based violence known as the “honor crime” and tracing how a range of legal, political, and literary texts inform normative and critical understandings of this term.

On Jan. 29, 2017, a lone gunman entered a mosque in Quebec City and opened fire on dozens of Muslim Canadians ending a prayer service. By the time the shooting had ended, tragically six worshippers had been killed, and 19 more injured. In this special episode, Dr. Adnan speaks to Canadian author, filmmaker, and creative producer Student Asim about his latest project in commemoration of the Quebec City mosque shooting. By going on the website islamophobia.io/jan29, listeners can participate in the project by writing a Letter of Remembrance for the Quebec City Mosque Massacre Victims. 

20 years on, the so-called "War on Terror" has had major consequences on geopolitics but also on domestic politics. In this episode, Dr. Adnan Husain speaks with Dr. Arun Kundnani, author of The Muslims are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror (Verso, 2014) about the intersections between imperialism and military invasion abroad, and their effect on the security and surveillance of Muslims to understand how Islamophobia underwrote both foreign and domestic policies in the US, UK, Canada and beyond. Dr. Kundnani in particular explains the connections between programs of "de-radicalization" and their racial and Islamophobic underpinnings, and implementation as "liberal" alternatives to Bush's War on Terror. 

On Jan. 25, Dr. Kundnani will be speaking at the MSGP lecture titled 'What was the War on Terror'. The link to register for the event can be found here. For more updates from Dr. Kundnani, you can follow him on twitter. 

On December 15th 2016, Soleiman Faqiri died at the hands of correctional officers while temporarily housed at a Lindsay, ON correctional facility. 

In this episode of the Majlis, Host Adnan Husain interviews Yusuf Faqiri, Soleiman Faqiri's eldest brother and founder of the movement 'Justice for Soli'. Throughout their open and candid conversation, Yusuf and Dr. Husain commemorate Soli as a brother, a son, a person with a story to tell while also demanding answers and holding the system accountable. 

Justice for Soli Calls for:

ACCOUNTABILITY: Criminal Charges must be laid against the guards who are responsible for Soleiman’s death.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The Ontario Premier must make an official apology to the Faqiri Family for the death of Soleiman.

REFORM: Institutional Changes must be made to mental health training in the prison system.

Read about Sen. Lucie Moncion remarks on the criminalization of individuals who suffer from mental illness 

https://twitter.com/SenLucieMoncion/status/1471155868658024452?s=20

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In this special episode, Binish Ahmed (she/her), an Asian Indigenous Kashmiri Muslim cis-woman, reflects on her identity and the formation of her activism and politics on Turtle Island through spoken word poetry. Currently, a Policy Studies Ph.D. candidate at X University, formerly Ryerson, her academic and community organizing work has focused on human rights, Indigenous rights, decolonizing governance, anti-imperialism, and social movement resistance at the intersections of racialization, migration, gender, labor, and solidarity with Indigenous movements for self-determination and resurgence. Her first book, ‘The Alchemy of Making Soft Landings on Sharp Places’ s a collection of poetry that deals with subjects of racism, trauma healing, and decolonization; some spoken-word poems are performed in the podcast. Reach her via Instagram @BinishAhmedArt, Twitter @BinishAhmed or [email protected]. 

More on in embedded links: 

- Azaadi Now 

- Kashmir Gulposh

As Binish Ahmed discussed during the podcast, it's imperative we credit, cite, and attribute Indigenous people for their ideas, analysis, and knowledge. Please cite and credit Binish Ahmed from the knowledge she shared during this podcast as a reference, especially given some of the work she shared is her original work from her Ph.D. Dissertation research. Here is the reference:

"A Kashmiri Fire-Pot Speaking": Poetry and Politics - In Conversation with Binish Ahmed." The Majlis Podcast With Shahroze Khan, Muslim Societies, Global Perspectives, Queen's University. Recorded Nov 18, 2021.

Citation format: Binish Ahmed said... (The Majlis Podcast With Shahroze Khan, 2021)

Dr. Shobhana Xavier, Queen’s School of Religion, reflects on the course of her explorations of contemporary Islamic mysticism transnationally and ethnographically.  Beginning with her first project, Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism: Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Contemporary Shrine Cultures (2018), which connected the career and teachings of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sufi master, from his multi-religious native Sri Lanka to an equally diverse community in Philadelphia.  Dr. Adnan Husain and Dr. Xavier discussed her current research interests and experiences using the prism of Rumi to examine Sufism in Canada. You can follow her on Twitter, and listen to her podcast: New Books in Islamic Studies.