The Maydan Podcast

In this episode of History Speaks, Roshan Iqbal is joined by Celene Ibrahim, Oludamini Ogunnaike, and Younus Mirza to explore distinct fasting practices and their inner and outer dimensions in Islamic scholarship, especially focusing on Al-Ghazali’s seminal book, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Practice. Part of a series designed as a classroom resource and a primer for lay audiences, this episode pro...

A Common Word podcast focuses on Islam and Interreligious Studies. It is inspired by the Qur'anic verse 3:64 which calls the People of the Book to "a common word" and the A Common Word Initiative held in 2007 in Amman, Jordan. It interviews scholars, activists and practitioners in the realm of bridge building, peace studies and social justice.

In this episode of On The Square, Sapelo Square’s Executive Director Latasha Rouseau talks with Tiffany Green-Abdullah, author of The Bean Pie: A Remembering of Our Family’s Faith, Fortitude and Forgiveness. Tiffany starts by sharing how her great aunt, Daisy Kennon, crafted the original bean pie recipe for the Nation of Islam, which would later become a staple in the Black Muslim community. Tiffa...

In this episode of History Speaks, Roshan Iqbal speaks with Cyrus Zargar on the role of storytelling and virtue ethics in the work of Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, the 13th-century jurist, philosopher, poet, and polymath. The conversation delves particularly into the virtue of ‘compassion’ within the context of the story ‘The Tale of the Sufi and the Judge,’ from Maulana Rūmī’s magnum opus, the Math...

In this episode of On The Square, Sapelo Square’s Executive Director Latasha Rouseau sits down with Salima Suswell. Salima is the CEO and President of Evolve Solutions and founder of the Philadelphia Ramadan and Eid Fund. Salima shares how her upbringing provided the foundation for her love of community and civic engagement. Her father, Imam Asim Abdur-Rashid (may Allah be pleased with him) was th...

In this episode of On The Square, Sapelo Square’s Senior Editor Ambata Kazi talks with Aaliyah Bilal, author of the new book, Temple Folk, a collection of short stories portraying the lived experiences of Black Muslims grappling with faith, family, and freedom in America. Aaliyah shares her literary influences and how her interests in American Muslim history, especially the history of the Nation o...

Juvaria Khan is the founder and executive director of the Appellate Project, a non-profit that strives to empower law students of color to not only work, but thrive in the appellate field. Appellate courts, (also referred to as the court of appeals), review cases that have been appealed to ensure that the initial proceedings were fair and the proper law was applied correctly. These are the highest...

On this episode of On The Square, Sapelo Square’s News Editor Dr. Nisa Muhammad, speaks with Yaya Fanusie, creator of The Jabbari Lincoln Files. The Jabbari Lincoln Files is an international spy thriller presented in a 10-episode podcast series. The protagonist is a Black Muslim CIA Financial Analyst who takes listeners on the ride of a lifetime through intriguing narratives and audio effects that...

Welcome to episode 10 of Islam on the Edges channel of the Maydan Podcast, a project by the Abu Sulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University in Virginia. In this episode, we discuss Prof. Mattson’s recent visit to one of the emerging destinations in the Balkans, Bosnia and Herzegovina. With its rich Islamic history, dating back to the Ottoman era and extending to the prese...

In this episode Maydan Podcast's Editor-in-Chief Ahmet Tekelioglu hosts Philadelphia comedian and entrepreneur Moses the Comic and Haverford College professor Guangtian Sulaiman Ha for a conversation on their co-taught class on African American Islam and stand up comedy, "From Malcolm X to Dave Chappelle: Islam, Humor, and Comedy in America,” Philadelphia Islam, and the Muslim Kings of Comedy they...

In this episode of Maydan Podcast, we host Ahsen Nimet Cebeci, a PhD Candidate at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University on her dissertation about the theory of the soul among the core figures among the early Ashʿarī theologians. Cebeci talks about her journey into this field of inquiry while providing tips for young scholars like herself who are intereste...

In episode 9 of the “Islam on the Edges” podcast, Ermin Sinanović talks with Dr. Asim Qureshi about the racialization and securitization of Muslims after 9/11. Dr. Qureshi is the Research Director at the CAGE advocacy group in the United Kingdom. He talked about the struggle for justice for the oppressed and unjustly accused during the war on terror. He highlighted the abuses of power and the brea...

Prof. Maria Dakake, Professor of Religion and Director of AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University, hosts scholar Dr. Katrin Jomaa for a conversation on her recent title, Ummah: A New Paradigm for A Global World (SUNY Press, 2021).

In this guest episode of Maydan Podcast, our Editor-in-Chief Dr. Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu hosts Dr. Radwan Masmoudi and Dr. Dalia Fahmy from the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID)for a conversation on CSID's 21st Annual Conference, "Why the US Should Support Democracy in the Muslim World, and How?" taking place in Washington, DC on June 3, 2023.

In this episode of On The Square, it’s all about our Black boys! Sapelo Square’s Executive Director, Latasha Rouseau, speaks with Atiba Saleem Jones, the founder and Executive Director of SAVE Institute, which offers middle and high school programs to young Black boys as an alternative to a traditional school setting. Located in Atlanta, Georgia, the mission of SAVE Institute is “to SAVE black boy...

Dr. Aminah Al-Deen, PI of Black Islam Internationalism Project (BAMI) at GMU's AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies interviews Dr. Abdullah bin Hamid Ali, a faculty member at Zaytuna College and founder of Lamppost Productions on his journey in scholarship, time in Philadelphia, Morocco, and beyond. See more about BAMI at themaydan.com/category/bami/and learn more about Dr. Ali's scholars...

Dr. Aminah Al-Deen, PI of Black Islam Internationalism Project (BAMI) at GMU's AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies interviews Okolo Rashid, Co-Founder, International Museum of Muslim Cultures on Black Islam in Mississippi and beyond. See more about BAMI at https://themaydan.com/category/bami/and about the Museum at https://muslimmuseum.org/

Aïdah Aliyah Rasheed, Special Projects Lead sits down with Bee Walker, photographer, filmmaker and one-half of Paper Monday. Within this episode, Aïdah and Bee talk about the beginning stages behind the collaborative project between Sapelo Square and Paper Monday, Preserving the Legacy Portraits and Stories Capturing Black Muslim Life.* Bee shares a specific experience that occurred when Aïdah inv...

Jasmine Soliman is an archivist. She started her work on the Akkasah Photography Archive (now part of the al Mawrid Center for Arab Art at New York University (NYU)-Abu Dhabi) in 2016. Prior to that, she worked as an archivist at the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, beginning in 2013, and formerly was a business development professional working largely in the Middle East. Her work focuses...

In episode 8 of the “Islam on the Edges” podcast, Ermin Sinanovic talks with Dr. Aliyah Khan and Dr. Kenneth Chitwood about the Muslims of the Caribbean. They discussed the coming of Islam to the region, Muslim diversity, ethnolinguistic differences, material and cultural production, major historical developments, Muslim politics, and knowledge production. Muslims of the Caribbean is a growing com...

In episode 7 of the “Islam on the Edges” podcast, Ermin Sinanovic talks to Imam Khalid Griggs about the Islamic Party in North America (IPNA). The episode traces the origins of the IPNA within the African-American Muslim community. It looks at the transnational links with the Muslims in Pakistan, Lybia, and other countries, that have contributed to the development of ideas within the IPNA. Imam Gr...

In this episode of the Maydan Podcast, our editor-in-chief, Ahmet Tekelioglu speaks with a new GMU faculty member, Dr. Aminah McCloud Al-Deen who joined Mason to lead the Black American Muslim Internationalism Project, supported by the Henry Luce Foundation . They talk about Dr. Al-Deen’s academic journey from Philadelphia to Chicago and the goals of the BAMI Project at Mason’s AbuSulayman Center...

This episode of Knowledge and its Producers talks to Bharti Lalwani, who is a perfumer and art critic as well as the curator of the online exhibition Bagh-e Hind. Throughout the interview, Lalwani tells us about her journey to making perfume and what it is to work as an independent perfumer, not only demonstrating that practice and expertise are intertwined, but what it is to exist outside of inst...

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 homogenous...

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 par...