In this episode of History Speaks, Tazeen M. Ali speaks with Edward E. Curtis IV about his recent book, Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American Midwest (NYU Press, 2022). They discuss the often-forgotten history of early Arab Muslim migration to the United States, the racialization of Islam, and mythmaking narratives that paint the American Midwest as homogenously white. They also discuss Curtis' wide-ranging scholarship on Islam in America, as well as his book and documentary, Arab Indianapolis. 

Tazeen M. Ali is a scholar of Islam and gender in the United States and assistant professor at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of The Women’s Mosque of America: Authority & Community in US Islam (New York University Press 2022).

In this solo episode, Rahina Muazu discusses Qur’an recitation and female reciters in Nigeria. She touches briefly on the history of Islam and Islamic knowledge in west Africa, particularly in Hausaland (what is today northern Nigeria and some parts of southern Niger), the presence of the female sound of recitation in the public space and the debates surrounding perception of women’s voices as part of their nakedness (ʿawra).

Rahina Muazu is a scholar of Islam and gender and a visiting lecturer and research associate at the Harvard Divinity School. She holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from Freie University, Berlin and MA in Muslim Cultures from the Aga Khan University London and BA in Islamic Studies from the university of Jos, Nigeria. She has authored several articles, the most recent is ‘Why invite her here? Her voice is ʿawra!’: vocal nudity debates and Muslim female preachers in northern Nigeria (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

In this episode of Maydan Podcast, Wikke Jansen speaks with Ken Chitwood about his latest book, The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean (Lynne Rienner, 2021). They discuss the role of Muslims in the history and present of the Americas and tracing their various legacies back to sixteenth-century Andalusian Spain, the coming of the colonizers and conquistadores to Americas. Reflecting on the book, the conversation shines a light on how Muslims have shaped not only Latin America and the Caribbean, but the story of “global Islam” in general - from enslaved Muslims and indentured servants from India and Indonesia, and migrants and asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa, to contemporary convert communities and the halal economy.

Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley are the authors of the cookbook Falastin. In this episode of Knowledge and its Producers, we think about how food is in itself a way to preserve heritage and document how it changes over time, a stark contrast to academia. Together, we think about how to write about labor, the place of cookbooks in  modern society and what it is to document something like food.

In episode 6 of the “Islam on the Edges” podcast, Ermin Sinanovic talks to Dr. Farid Hafez (Williams College) about the securitization of Muslims in Europe. In a vibrant discussion, Dr. Hafez speaks about the neo-Nazis and their relationship with Islamophobia in Austria and other European countries. He traces the rise of the New Right and its role in anti-Muslim rhetoric. Dr. Hafez focuses explicitly on Austria, his country of origin, and its increasing anti-Muslim turn. He examines the long-standing presence of Muslims in Austria, dating back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and how the contemporary Austrian state racializes the Muslim presence. With the French presidential elections around the corner, this episode is a timely reminder of the precarious position of Muslims in Europe.

In this episode of History Speaks, Tazeen Ali speaks with Aria Nakissa about his recent book, The Anthropology of Islamic Law: Education, Ethics, and Legal Interpretation at Egypt’s al-Azhar (Oxford University Press, 2019). They discuss shifting pedagogical approaches to Islamic education, modes of reading religious texts, and the relationships between knowledge and ethics in Islamic law and more broadly in both religious and secular educational settings.

In this episode of On The Square, our host Dr. Su’ad is joined by members of the Sapelo Squad for a 2021 Year-in-Review.

On The Square’s theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.
Artwork for On The Square was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.

In this episode of History Speaks, Dr. Roshan Iqbal speaks with Dr. Celene Ibrahim and Dr. Hadia Mubarak on Gender as a lens to study the Qur’an, Muslim feminism, its contributions and challenges, the limits and role of texts, and questions of power and authority in academia, among other topics.