Network ReOrient: Recent Episodes
Network ReOrient
This is Network ReOrient: exploring the post-Western, reconnecting the Islamosphere. Every other Friday we feature conversations with thinkers, artists and community activists about things Islamicate and decolonial. Network ReOrient is a part of the Critical Muslim Studies project, connecting and intersecting acts of epistemic disobedience and political re-imagination. Check out https://www.criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk/
Radio ReOrient is back for another season, and this time Hizer Mir is joined by a new team of hosts: Claudia Radiven, Saeed Khan and Chella Ward. In this first episode Hizer and Chella interview Ambereen Dadabhoy, associate professor of literature at Harvey Mudd College, about her brand new book Shakespeare through Islamic Worlds (Routledge, 2024). In the process we discover Shakespeare’s secret Muslim characters, travel around an early modern Mediterranean that is nothing like the border of Europe we know today, and ask whether it is possible to talk about Islamophobia much earlier in history than its conventional beginnings.
In this episode of the Radio ReOrient podcast, Dr. Shehla Khan, Dr. Sher Ali Tareen, and Salman Sayyid discuss the ongoing crisis in Pakistan under Gaza’s looming shadow . The latest exacerbation of the crisis comes with the general elections of February 2024, which represent an electoral heist of historically unprecedented proportions followed by the regime’s concerted efforts to normalize the results. This conversation ties the current political climate to broader global issues, including the tragic events in Gaza. The discussion navigates through a complex of concepts central to the development of a critically informed understanding of the Islamosphere.Secularism is usually understood as the separation of church and state, religion and politics, or rationality from dogma. This is an overly simplistic reading of the concept, which dates to historically long-running power struggles and wars that accompanied the rise of European nation-states and colonial empires, and fundamentally changed the exercise of political power. Rather than merely marking the disentanglement of political from sacral authority, secularism refers to the process whereby princes and monarchs (rather than priests) gradually extended their authority over state and society in an uneven, contested, and variable fashion. The process culminated in the establishment of a form of state that based sovereign authority on a set of interrelated functions. Firstly, it assumed the power to legislate the boundaries between the public and private spheres. Secondly, it constructed 'religion' as a category denoting a distinct area of human experience, primarily identified with Christianity. Thirdly, it relegated this area of experience to the private sphere, and in doing so, also proclaimed its neutrality and non-interference in this domain as a means of promoting societal harmony and tolerance. Taken together, these endeavors enabled the rise of secular power and informed its deep anomalies. Far from retreating from the newly instituted realm of 'religion', the newly empowered secular state sought to domesticate its content and purpose, regulate its expression, differentiate 'good' from 'bad' variants, and ultimately co-opt and align with some sects and denominations while suppressing or persecuting others.Lastly, the conversation critiques in passing 'methodological nationalism'—an approach to understanding the world that considers the nation-state and its territorial limits as the naturalized, sole points of reference for explaining and analyzing complex political, social, and economic phenomena that sidelinesthe merits of a relational, transnational approach.These concepts are used in this conversation to illuminate the current crisis in Pakistan as an example of how Muslim political sovereignty, whether in Palestine, Egypt, Eastern Turkestan, or for the Rohingya, continues to be systematically undermined.Further Readings and Listeningtps://criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk/project/the-political-struggle-in-pakistan/https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pakistan-reframing-the-debate/id1458817693?i=1000619861664https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-political-struggle-in-pakistan/id1458817693?i=1000614889565
In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Salman Sayyid, with Hizer Mir as your host, discusses why Gaza matters. This leads to a wide range of discussions with topics ranging from ongoing support form Washington, London and other Western governments for Israel, how the notion of ummah deployed in light of the attack on Gaza has disrupted the nation state model (amongst others) and what is meant by the concept of Palestinisation of Muslims and how that can be resisted.
Islamophobia is a global phenomenon found not only among the international 'usual suspects' of gross and systemic human and civil rights violators but also among established liberal democracies that present themselves as custodians of the international legal order. In this episode of Radio ReOrient, we talk to Saul Takahashi, an international human rights lawyer and academic who navigates the intersections between Islamophobia and the international liberal order. He describes his odyssey through the landscapes of Islamophobia, beginning with his human rights work with the UN in occupied Palestine (where he reverted to Islam), to his observations on the Muslim minority in Japan. In Japan, Saul witnessed how the growth of Muslimness seemed to go hand-in-hand with increased state surveillance. The journey continues to Denmark, where Saul researched the institutionalization of Islamophobia in urban governance, demonstrating furthermore that Islamophobia is racism, and racism is a form of governmentality as much as it is about abusive attitudes and street violence. Given the global nature of Islamophobia, we conclude this conversation by examining some hopeful proposals that Saul has written about reforming the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to make it a more effective player in the struggle against Islamophobia.
This episode of Radio Reorient is based on an event held on Islamophobia and Emancipation. This event was held to discuss the definition of Islamophobia that was put forth by the people’s definition in the UK… Islamophobia is a form of racism against Muslimness and perceived Muslimness.In this intriguing episode of Radio ReOrient, Kawter Najib, Abdoolkarim Vakil, Salman Sayyid, hosted by myself, Hizer Mir engage in a discussion that explores Islamophobia, its definition and emancipation.
In this episode, Kawter Najib sits with Hizer Mir to return to the topic of Islamophobia in France. In this discussion we talk about Kawter’s own experiences of Islamophobia in France as well as the Islamophobic murder of French-Algerian teenager Nahel Merzouk in the summer.
In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Rebecca Ruth Gould, Claudia Radiven and your host Salman Sayyid, talk about some of the issues raised by Rebecca’s new book Erasing Palestine (https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2903-erasing-palestine).
In the realm of popular culture, representations of ancient Greeks and Romans abound in the West and Western adjacent societies. Classics, primarily focused on the study of Greeks and Romans, serve as Western history's foundational narrative. However, this narrative tends to create a timeline that excludes Muslim contributions and unintentionally supports the colonial-racial agenda of the West. In this intriguing episode of Radio ReOrient, Dr Marchella Ward from the Open University and Abdoolkarim Vakil from King's College, London, engage in a discussion that explores the notable similarities and differences between two academic domains: Critical Ancient World Studies and Critical Muslim Studies. This episode serves as an anticipatory introduction to the forthcoming publication titled "The Case for Forgetting Classics," edited by Mathura Umachandran and Dr Marchella Ward. Within this volume, numerous scholars come together with a shared commitment to decolonize the study of ancient Greeks and Romans. Recorded during the Bradford Literature Festival, this conversation provides a platform for reflecting on how the discourse of ancient Greco-Romans has shaped Western perceptions of history, epistemology, and identity, underwriting the exclusion of Muslimness.
In this episode, Naoki Yamamoto, assistant professor in Turkic Studies at Marmara University sits with Hizer Mir to discuss Sufism and manga with an eye towards the possible development of an Islamicate manga. Manga is a quintessentially Japanese style of comics and graphic novels. Naoki is working towards an Islamicate version of manga in order to contribute to a growing global Islamicate culture.
This episode features the second part of a series on the Political Struggle in Pakistan. Professor Salman Sayyid, Dr. Sher Ali Tareen and Dr. Shehla Khan critically explore liberalism, populism and secularism. Focusing on how these concepts are key to understanding the deep crisis engulfing Pakistan, but are often construed in simplistic binaries rooted in orientalism that impoverish the debate, and impede the search for a resolution. In contrast, the podcast seeks to shift the debate to a post-orientalist terrain as well as one that resists the allure of methodological nationalism, and resonates with ummatic struggles more broadly. The immediate context of the discussion remains Pakistan’s subjection to a de facto military dictatorship that is waging war on its people in its bid to crush former PM Imran Khan and his party, the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) as symbols of a more just, equitable, and less westoxicated political order.
In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Salman Sayyid and Sher Ali Tareen converse with Shehla Khan about the political, economic, and constitutional crisis that has been intensifying in Pakistan since the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022.
In this episode, we listen in on a symposium on Muslimness organised by the Critical Muslim Studies project. The symposium featured Abdoolkarim Vakil and Ovamir Anjum as the speakers and was chaired by Mona Makinejad.
In this episode, Salman Sayyid and Haroon Bashir sit with Fatima Rajina to discuss Muslim communities in Argentina and Chile.
In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Salman Sayyid to discuss the divine, texts (primary and secondary) within Islam and power.
In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Adam Olowo to discuss the myth of religious violence. We also discuss how far the category of religion can be used outside of Europe/the West.
In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Murad Idris for the second part of their discussion on his book “War for Peace”. In this part, ideas pertaining to war for peace in the thought of Al-Farabi and Qutb are discussed.
In this episode, Ayesha Khan and Dr. Shehla Khan continue their conversation with Dr. Sher Ali Tareen, relating his writings on Imranophobia to broader questions of decoloniality, secularity, culture, and the trajectory of events in Pakistan.
This podcast features Ayesha Khan and Dr. Shehla Khan in conversation with Dr. Sher Ali Tareen, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Department Chair of Religious Studies at Franklin Marshall College, and author of the widely acclaimed volume, Defending Muhammad in Modernity. Taking its cue from the political crisis that has erupted in Pakistan since the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022, the episode traverses the various articles that Dr. Tareen published prior to and during Khan’s tenure in government on the interface between what he terms ‘Imranophobia’, secular liberalism, and Islamophobia. Although the episode is primarily focused on Pakistan, its themes are resonant with political struggles and faultlines in other states across Muslimstan.
In this episode, coming to you from Istanbul, we listen on the last plenary session of the inaugural conference of the International Islamophobia Studies Research Association.
In this episode, Ismail Patel sits with Hatem Bazian to discuss Palestine, the Arab world and global civil society. Their discussion touches upon a range of issues such as relations between Israel and the wider Arab world as well as how the Palestinian struggle is viewed within global civil society.
In this episode, the last of season 7, Ayesha Khan sits with Salman Sayyid to talk about recent events in Pakistan and how they relate both the idea of Pakistan and Kemalism/Coloniality.
In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Murad Idris to discuss his work War for peace. In this part, issues related to defining the idea of war for peace, essentialism and the political are discussed.
In this episode of Forgotten Ummah, Dr. Baptiste Brodard speaks with Prof. Salman Sayyid and Dr. Haroon Bashir about the history of Islam in Mexico and Columbia and the development of Latin-Islamic identities.
In this episode of In Conversation, Hizer Mir and Sumeyye Sakarya sit together to discuss Islamism, whether Islamism is an acceptable term to use and the contours of the discourse known as Kemalism.
In this episode, the second to mark the launch of the new Critical Muslim Studies website (link in comments), Hizer Mir sits with Professor Salman Sayyid to reflect on the proliferation of Critical Muslim Studies and discuss some of its key themes. This discussion touches upon post-Orientalism and Eurocentricism.
To mark the launch of the new Critical Muslim Studies website (link: https://criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk), Hizer Mir sits with Salman Sayyid to discuss Critical Muslim Studies.
In this episode, Ismail Patel sits with Rob Faure Walker to discuss his new book,”The Emergence of Extremism”.
In the last episode of season five, Hizer Mir sits with Salman Sayyid to conclude their discussion on Islamism as Philosophy.
In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Ismail Patel sit with Darryl Li to discuss his book The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire and the Challenge of Solidarity.
In the first episode of this new series, Salman Sayyid and Haroon Bashir talk with Kelly Hammond about her new book. Her book explores how the geopolitical rivalries between China and Japan created opportunities for Muslim Chinese to articulate their Muslimness politically and culturally.
In this episode, Hizer Mir and Salman Sayyid talk about the continued interest in Islamism from various quarters, how we should approach Islamism as a concept and the story of philosophy.
In this episode, Hizer Mir talks with Salman Sayyid on Islamism as philosophy. This is the first part of a three part mini series this season. This episode covers topics such what is Islamism and the suitability of the concept “Islamism”.
In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Sindre Bangstad to reflect on the far right and Islamophobia in Norway and wider Europe in the 10 years since the Brevik attack.
In this special episode in connection with the Islamophobic attack in London, Ontario, Uzma Jamil and Itrath Syed are in a wide ranging conversation, following the attack in London, Ontario, about Muslim politics, Islamophobia, the logics of settler colonialism, multiculturalism and the nation in Canada and Quebec.
In this episode, Abdoolkarim Vakil and Salman Sayyid talk about the genealogy of Critical Muslim Studies.
In this episode, Hizer Mir talks with Tarek Younis and Claudia Radiven on disciplining Muslimness and PREVENT.
In this episode Dr Amina Easat-Daas speaks with Dr Ben Whitham and Dr Nadya Ali on their recently published paper: Racialised Capitalism, Islamophobia and Austerity, discussing the intersections of austerity, Muslimness, ethnicity and gender. Find the paper here: https://academic.oup.com/ips/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ips/olaa023/5941765?searchresult=1
In this episode, Ismail Patel is In Conversation with Yaacov Yadgar on Jews, Zionism and the Israeli nation-state.
In this episode, Uzma Jamil speaks to Sylvia Chan-Malik on Muslims as racialised subjects.
In this episode, Haroon Bashir speaks with Shahid Matthee on Africa, Islam, law and history.
In our final episode of season 3, S. Sayyid and AbdoolKarim Vakil are “In Conversation” reflecting on the tenth anniversary of Thinking Through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives,and thecurrent opposition to advancing a public understanding of Islamophobia as a type of racism that targets Muslimness. https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/thinking-through-islamophobia/
In this episode, Amina Easat-Daas is in conversation with Marwan Muhammad on CCIF and Islamophobia in France.
In this episode, Amina Easat-Daas interviews Houria Bouteldja on decolonial activism and Islamophobia in France.
In this episode of In Conversation, Claudia Radiven talks with Abdul-Basit Shaikh on PREVENT, academia and representation.
In this episode, Ismail Patel speaks with Diana Darke about her new book, “Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture shaped Europe”.
In this episode, Uzma Jamil speaks with Santiago Slabodsky on decoloniality, decentring and genealogies.
In this episode, Ismail Patel talks with Lars Erik Berntzen on the Far Right and the expansion of anti-Muslim sentiment within it.
In this episode, Uzma Jamil is speaking to Stephen Sheehi on epistemology, critical race theory and critical Muslim studies.
In this episode, S. Sayyid talks with Barnor Hesse (Northwestern University) on the Antimonies of Afropessimism. Professor Barnor Hesse teaches in the department of African American Studies, at Northwestern University, he is the author of Raceocracy: White Sovereignty and Black Life Politics (forthcoming); co-editor of After #Ferguson, After #Baltimore: The Challenge of Black Death and Black Life for Black Political Thought; editor of ‘Unsettled Multiculturalisms & co-author of ‘Beneath the Surface: Racial Harassment’
In this episode, Dr. Hizer Mir speaks with Momodou Taal on Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter.
In this episode, Dr. Ismail Patel talks with Prof. Hatem Bazian about structural Islamophobia, global politics and the demonisation of the Muslim.
In this episode Dr. Uzma Jamil talks with Prof. Setrag Manoukian about his article “Ordinary Matters in Islamic Studies: Notes from the Field” (ReOrient Vol 5, No. 1).
In this episode, Dr. Ismail Patel sits down with Prof. Nazia Kazi to discuss her book “Islamophobia, Race and Global Politics”
In this episode, Dr. Uzma Jamil introduces Tariq Modood on his new book “Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism”.
In this episode, I talk to Prof. Salman Sayyid, Haroon Bashir and Claudia Radiven about their highlights from the past year.
In this episode, we interview Prof. Bernard Freamon on his new book “Possessed by the Right Hand”.
In this episode, we talk to professor Johnathan Brown about his new book, Slavery and Islam.
In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Samayya Afzal talk to us about the implementation of PREVENT in schools.
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Lucia Ardovini to discuss the Brotherhood’s search for identity in a post-2013 context.
An interview with Khalidah Ali on re-examining Hassan Al-Banna's model of dawah after the Arab Spring.
An interview with Dr. Marco Demichelis in which we discuss the ideas of just war and the seal of prophethood.
Hizer Mir in conversation with Yahya Birt who speaks on decolonial Muslim political activism and thought in Britain.
An interview with Dr. Alexandre Caeiro in which we discuss Islamic law and institutions in Qatar, secularisation and the Ottomans.
The second part of the interview with Prof. Ella Shohat in which ghosts, nationalism/national identity and its role in calls for liberation (amongst other topics).
A conversation between Prof. Salman Sayyid and Prof. Ella Shohat on (amongst other topics) the significance of 1492, Orientalism and race.
An interview with Salman Sayyid in which he addresses some of the criticisms of the recent definition of Islamophobia as “a type of racism that targets Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”
To read more about the incident of Islamophobia mentioned in this podcast, please visit: https://inews.co.uk/news/muslim-schoolgirls-filmed-racist-video-bow-girls-school-police-investigation/
An interview with Dr. Mustapha Sheikh on his co-authored paper on alcohol, Islam and the ontic. For those who wish to read the paper in full, please visit the following link: http://iqbalcentre.leeds.ac.uk/files/2018/09/PDF.pdf
Interviewer: Hizer Mir
An interview with renowned calligrapher and author Razwan ul-Haq talking about his graphic novel Sultan Vs Dracula.
An interview with Dr. Nadia Fadil who speaks about secularism the state and Islam. We delve into questions such as what it means to call Islam a lived and embodied reality and what the relationship is between Islam and secularism.
Dr Sabrina Lei, Director of Tawasul Europe Centre for Dialogue and Research, is an emerging Italian Muslim philosopher and thinker. Trained in Latin, Greek and ancient philosophy for over a decade, with a PhD from Pontifical Gregorian University (one of the prominent centres of Catholic scholarship in Rome) in ancient Greek philosophy. Dr Sabrina has, so far, translated over 25 Muslim classics into Italian, besides producing her own five books, including a biography of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the recently released book : Le comunita religioso non-musulmane nel mondo islamico : Un introduzione storica ( The non-Muslim Religious Community in the Muslim World : A Historical Introduction, March 2019). Some of her noted achievements include acclaimed Italian translations of Muhammad Iqbal’s philosophical reflection on Islam called The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Dr Sabrina is currently working to publish a new edition of Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s original English Quran translation, with an introductory study, to address the growing need for Quran translations with an inclusive and refined language in the West. This new edition of Yusuf Ali’s Quran translation is set to be published by Tawasul Europe later this year, insha Allah.
Dr Sabrina is also currently in the final phase of her study on the first Latin translation of the Quran (Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete, 1143). This study, backed up by linguistic, theological and philosophical insights, is set to show how this translation internalized and solidified many of the medieval Christian subjective notions about Islam, the Quran and Prophet (peace be upon him), and how it went on to influence the later western approaches to the Quran translation, etc.
Tawasul Europe, a registered Italian Muslim charity-cum- think tank, founded by Dr Sabrina, is at the forefront of building bridges across cultures and religions in Italy. Tawasul Europe works with Vatican’s Interfaith Section, Rome Municipality and the Grand Mosque of Rome, along with around 10 universities and educational centres in Italy.
Interviewer: Sofia Rehman
A conversation with award-winning academic Dr. Shabana Mir discussing her recent study on the experiences of 'American Muslim' women on campus.
Interviewer: Hizer Mir
An interview with Prof. Salman Sayyid on post-orientalism, what it means and its place in CMS.
In conversation Hizer Mir An interview with Salman Sayyid about decoloniality and its place in CMS.
Interviewer: Hizer Mir
An interview with Prof. Salman Sayyid on one of the theoretical constructs that underpins Critical Muslim Studies: Post-Positivism.