Reading Muslims

Re-examining the place of textuality in Islamic Studies

Content

Does Diversity Discourse Matter in the Integration of Muslim Minorities?

Jeffrey G. Reitz

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Patrick Simon

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Emily Laxer

January 26, 2023

Not much. France and Canada take opposite approaches to immigration and diversity, yet differences in Muslim and other minority integration are mainly demographic and institutional in origin.

National Security and Anti-Muslim Racism

Article

The Rimāḥ De-Marginalized: Sealing Sainthood and Ṭarīqa Formation in 19th Century West Africa

Farah El-Sharif

August 12, 2022

The Tijāniyya is a Sufi order found in West Africa. Farah El-Sharif analyzes one of the most important Tijānī theorizations of this doctrine, Ḥajj ʿUmar Futi Tāl's "Kitāb al-Rimāḥ".

Reading Practices

Article

From the Sidelines: Confronting Sunni Privilege in the Student Experience

Yasmeen Atassi

December 1, 2021

This piece hopes to explore the existence of sectarian influence on Muslim student interactions by exploring how sectarian ideology is marginalized by a historically entrenched power hierarchy.

Muslims as Readers

Article

The Need of Protestantization: Reading Oneself Through European History

Mohannad Abusarah

November 3, 2021

Through a reading of several Muslim reformers from the 19th and 20th centuries, this article investigates the influence that historical narratives have on the reading of the self, identity of the other, the status of one's tradition, and one's future.

Reading Practices

Article

Travelling Through Print: Early Urdu Travelogues

Adil Mawani

September 13, 2021

This article explores early Urdu travel writing, its development, and how it became a controversial and highly sought after genre by readers.

Reading Practices

Article

Intolerable Mystics: The Cases of al-Hallāj and Marguerite Porete

Sara Ameri

August 20, 2021

This article begins a comparative analysis of two medieval heretics from the Islamic and Christian traditions in order to foreground the political dimension of heretical condemnations.

Reading Practices

Article

Identity Politics or Theologies of Identity: Lessons from the MAC Scholars Summit

Sara Hamed

July 26, 2021

This article points to intracommunal discussions of Muslim identity in Canada to think beyond the limits of diasporic identity politics.

Anthropology of Islam

Article

The Making of Poetic Solidarities: “Muslim” Resistance Poetry in Indian Student Protests

Aaisha Salman

July 14, 2021

This article considers how certain poetic canons in South Asia are marked by Muslimness, subsequently generating ideas about what kind of bodies are positioned as 'dangerous' readers.

Muslims as Readers

Article

Kamala Khan vs. The Women we Put in Refrigerators

Salwa Iqbal

July 8, 2021

An examination of how the comic book Ms.Marvel revolutionizes the genre through its nuanced depiction of female Muslim characters, and how this can diversify pop culture in the future.

Muslims as Readers

Article

Reflections on the London, Ont. Murders

Reading Muslims

June 18, 2021

Reflections in response to the murders in London, Ontario on June 6, 2021.

National Security and Anti-Muslim Racism

Article

The Sayyid Tweeted

Abdulla Majeed

May 19, 2021

This article looks at the work digital forms of textuality do, mainly Muqtada al-Sadr tweets, to trouble the category of "Islamic text" as it travels between the Islamic and not-so-Islamic.

Anthropology of Islam

Article

Print Technology, Colonial Interests, and the Shāh jo Risālo

Adil Mawani

April 11, 2021

How did colonialism in South Asia affect Islamic thought? This article explores the 1886 printing of the “Shah jo Risalo” and its unanticipated implications.

Reading Practices

Article

A Genealogy of Macron’s Concept of Muslim ‘Separatism’

Rand Saleh al-Jumaily

April 11, 2021

A look at the Islamic separatism or sectarianism in the narratives concerning inter-communal conflict.

Reading Practices

Article

Muslim Prayer Apps and the Issue of Surveillance

Khalidah Ali

March 17, 2021

A critical examination of media coverage of Muslim prayer apps and the government collection of user data framed within the new cyber-geography defined by surveillance capitalism.

National Security and Anti-Muslim Racism

Article

Congested Dhikr: Traffic Signage for an Urban Islam

Abdulla Majeed

March 17, 2021

This article considers more quotidian practices of reading by examining the work "Islamic" signs and posters do in the public sphere of a city like Jordan's capital, Amman.