In this episode, we talk to Dr. Amira Mittermaier whose book, ‘Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times’ is set against the backdrop of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi’s rise to power. The book draws upon Dr. Mittermaier’s ethnographic fieldwork in Egypt’s Cairo that oscillates between seemingly apolitical spaces of charity and highly politicized spaces of protest. Mittermaier comes to recognize that despite their apparent disparity, these two fields share...

In this conversation on her book, ‘The Politics of Women’s Rights in Iran’ , Dr. Arzoo Osanloo  delves into the politicization of 'rights talk' and women’s subjectivities in post-revolutionary Iran. She talks about how following the 1979 revolution, Iran underwent a transformation into an Islamic republic, during which the country's leaders employed a renewed discourse on women's rights to signify a departure from Western liberalism's perceived excesses. Dr. Osanloo's research reveals that...

In this episode, Dr. Nadia Guessous invites us to think about feminism in non-teleological ways by drawing upon her genealogical and ethnographic research with a particular generation of Leftist feminists in Morocco, often known as bnat al yassar (daughters of the Left). She dissects what requires her interlocutors to reject a traditional way of life that, paradoxically, is also acknowledged by them as the source of inspiration for their leftist feminist politics. She then probes how this...

In this episode with Dr. Anand Vivek Taneja, we dissect how Indian Muslims are bringing their religious tradition in conversation with the everyday lived realities of marginalization. The episode deals with Islam as a 'discursive tradition' as argued by the anthropologist, Talal Asad to understand how the ethical lives of Indian Muslims have transformed in response to the political reality of contemporary India. ----------------------------------------------- We invite you to engage with us...

Muslims and the Making of Modern Europe by Dr Emily Greble show that Muslims were citizens of modern Europe from its beginning and, in the process, rethinks Europe itself. Muslims are neither newcomers nor outsiders in Europe. In the twentieth century, they have been central to the continent's political development and the evolution of its traditions of equality and law. From 1878 into the period following World War II, over a million Ottoman Muslims became citizens of new European states....

The life and legacy of one of Mohammad's closest confidants and Islam's patron saint: Ali ibn Abi Talib is arguably the single most important spiritual and intellectual authority in Islam after the prophet Mohammad. Through his teachings and leadership as the fourth caliph, Ali nourished Islam. But Muslims are divided on whether he was supposed to be Mohammad's political successor-and he continues to be a polarizing figure in Islamic history. Hassan Abbas through his book The Prophet`s Heir...

Nile Green's Islam and the Army in Colonial India is one of those rare works that inspires both admiration and envy. It is a study that cannot fail to impress its readers with its erudition and innovation, especially when reconciling seemingly incompatible official accounts preserved in the colonial archive with subaltern memories preserved in oral traditions. This book is a study of the cultural world of the Muslim soldiers of colonial India, set in Hyderabad in the mid-nineteenth and early...

A Podcast on Islam and Islamic Studies. Hosted by Omer Haq & brought to you by Ergo Studios A Podcast where we attempt to assemble perspectives surrounding Islam through the lens of theology, philosophy, socio-economic and political structure and more. How do the agendas of political elites fidget narratives behind Islam? How media plays out in setting a disillusioned perception in this regard? Has 911 changed how Islam is perceived forever? Are West's liberal attributes of secularism...