Recommendations

06/30/21 • 29 min

This week’s special episode includes recommendations (and previously unreleased audio) from six past guests about who and what you should be following, listening to, watching, and reading.

From episode 13’s Dr. Shaista Khilji, Pakistani-born George Washington University professor, prolific writer, and cofounder of the Humanizing InitiativeShaista’s recommended books:

A Place for Us

Caste

Educated

From episode 20’s Qasim Rashid, Pakistani American human rights lawyer, writer, political candidate, human rights activist, and author of the recent Hannah and the Ramadan Gift

Qasim’s recommended Twitter accounts:

Salaam Bhatti/@salaam

Simran Jeet Singh/@simran

Lexi Alexander/@Lexialex

From episode 17’s Serena Rasoul, Palestinian American actress, writer, and founder of Muslim American Casting

Serena’s recommended books:

Mornings in Jenin

The Woman from Tantoura: A Novel of Palestine

The Butterfly's Burden (poetry)

Films:

The Present

Projects/series:

American Muslims: A History Revealed

From episode 8’s Afroz Khan, Indian American engineer and the first Muslim woman to serve on the Newburyport (MA) city council

Afroz’s recommended shows:

Attack on Titan

From episode 5’s Razi Jafri, Indian American filmmaker, photographer, and co-director and co-producer of Hamtramck, USA

Razi's recommended artists:

Filmmakers:

From episode 2’s Shahjehan Khan, Pakistani American actor, musician, behavioral health consultant, and co-founder of The Kominas. Shahjehan’s recommended shows can be found on his episode page.

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This week’s special episode includes recommendations (and previously unreleased audio) from six past guests about who and what you should be following, listening to, watching, and reading.

From episode 13’s Dr. Shaista Khilji, Pakistani-born George Washington University professor, prolific writer, and cofounder of the Humanizing InitiativeShaista’s recommended books:

A Place for Us

Caste

Educated

From episode 20’s Qasim Rashid, Pakistani American human rights lawyer, writer, political candidate, human rights activist, and author of the recent Hannah and the Ramadan Gift

Qasim’s recommended Twitter accounts:

Salaam Bhatti/@salaam

Simran Jeet Singh/@simran

Lexi Alexander/@Lexialex

From episode 17’s Serena Rasoul, Palestinian American actress, writer, and founder of Muslim American Casting

Serena’s recommended books:

Mornings in Jenin

The Woman from Tantoura: A Novel of Palestine

The Butterfly's Burden (poetry)

Films:

The Present

Projects/series:

American Muslims: A History Revealed

From episode 8’s Afroz Khan, Indian American engineer and the first Muslim woman to serve on the Newburyport (MA) city council

Afroz’s recommended shows:

Attack on Titan

From episode 5’s Razi Jafri, Indian American filmmaker, photographer, and co-director and co-producer of Hamtramck, USA

Razi's recommended artists:

Filmmakers:

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Previous Episode

Demystifying Sharia with Sumbul Ali-Karamali

This week we are joined by author, former lawyer, and expert on Islamic law, Sumbul Ali-Karamali, to discuss the decidedly unscary Sharia law.

Sharia is essentially a mass of religious guidelines, meaning the path to the watering place literally and the path to righteousness religiously. Essentially, early Muslims interpreted their holy text, the Quran, to determine rules for how to live, called fatwas. The collection of fatwas (fiqh) along with the Quran and Sunnah (practices of Muhammad) equal Sharia. Like many religious texts it is ancient, up to interpretation, and complex, even to our dear host and many other Muslims. Given that scholars interpreting the texts were not governing the people, it was never rigid top-down rules from those in power. (Wager a guess at how often Islamic legal scholars have reached a consensus on the interpretation of religious text as it relates to law.)

Sumbul, who recently published her third book, Demystifying Shari’ah, shares the inspiration for the book (with a cameo by Rush Limbaugh) and the co-occurring explosion of anti-Sharia sentiment in public discourse. She breaks down the key facts in a digestible manner, including the fluidity of Sharia, the five pillars, the immutable goals that every Islamic law has to comply with—which closely resemble our far subsequent Bill of Rights—and the important revelation that no religious law can ever take over the United States because of our Constitution.

We touch on Sharia as it relates to modesty/dress, the colonization of Muslim lands, and behaviors like prayer, divorce, and murder, which are actually ranked by levels of allowance. Asad and Sumbul share the common ground of their parents effectively being the ones to lay down the law when growing up, something most children can relate to. We are surprised to learn that even nonfiction authors can get heckled at public readings. We are not surprised to hear about Fear, Inc., the extreme right-wing lawyer responsible for anti-Sharia legislation in 14 states, and the co-opting of Islamic terms by the mainstream media. Naturally, there’s an aside on Star Trek (check out our most recent blog post for more on that!).

Find out more about Sumbul on her site and get answers to all the questions you’ve ever had about Sharia in Demystifying Shari'ah: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It's Not Taking Over Our Country. Also check our her first two books, the post-9/11 award-winning The Muslim Next Door: the Qur’an, the Media, and that Veil Thing and Growing up Muslim: Understanding the Beliefs and Practices of Islam for ages 10 & up.

American Muslim Project is a production of Rifelion, LLC.

Writer and Researcher: Lindsy Gamble

Show Edited by Mark Annotto and Asad Butt

Music by Simon Hutchinson

Hosted by Asad Butt

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Next Episode

Drawing the Blueprint For Muslim Inclusion with Kashif Shaikh

This week we speak with Kashif Shaikh, co-founder and president of Pillars Fund, a nonprofit investing in American Muslim organizations, leaders, and artists to advance equity and inclusion.

Pillars, founded in 2010, aims to take tangible actions to benefit American Muslim initiatives. But rather than supporting, say, mosques or overseas work, their projects often nurture local communities, well-being, and culture. Case in point, their recent pivotal study with the Ford Foundation and University of Southern California Annenberg, Missing & Maligned: The Reality of Muslims in Popular Global Movies. Kashif breaks down the unsurprising but nonetheless disheartening data from 200 top contemporary films across Western countries, revealing the erasure and demeaning portrayals of Muslims. Unlike former studies, which tend to be anecdotal, this project provides current hard statistics on the lack of female or African Americans, animated characters, or nonviolence in Muslim roles. A study on television characters will be next.

Always working to be proactive rather than reactive, according to Kashif, Pillars has already begun communicating the findings to Hollywood studios, agencies, festivals, unions, and philanthropists, to name a few. We chat about the underlying meaning—the seeming unawareness even in progressive American communities that Muslims constitute one-quarter of the world’s population, or that Black Muslims helped shape Islam in this country (not to mention the country itself). Along with the data, Pillars has released The Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, a concrete plan to remedy the inaccurate portrayal of Muslims in film and a fellowship to build a pipeline of Muslims in the industry. We segue into the root of Kashif’s own activism, which stems from not fitting into the traditional Muslim mold nor his predominantly white community, not to mention his deep affection for his “weird artist dad,” who emigrated from Pakistan to study art. Shout-outs for English majors, Brown rockers, and Muslim wrestlers ensue.

Finally, we cover how terrorist tropes are not just tired but also have harmful real-life implications, and how money breeds influence. Kashif shares the powerful positive responses to the Pillars study, not to mention the general uptick in motivation post-Trump. We close with his vision of the American Muslim world in 18 months, and all the work left to do.

American Muslim Project is a production of Rifelion, LLC.

Writer and Researcher: Lindsy Gamble

Show Edited by Mark Annotto and Asad Butt

Music by Simon Hutchinson

Hosted by Asad Butt

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