Mar 5

Rian Thum, "Islamic China: An Asian History" (Harvard UP, 2025)

Can someone be Chinese and Muslim? For some academics, this has been a surprisingly fraught question, with some asserting that Chinese Muslims are not really Chinese, or not really Muslim. Rian Thum, in his book Islamic China: An Asian History (Harvard UP, 2025), strives to make ... Show More

43m 42s

Feb 27

Margaret S. Graves, "Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics" (Princeton UP, 2026)

In the heyday of Islamic art collecting around the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of premodern ceramic objects circulated on the international antiquities market. Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics (Princeton University Press, 2026) t ... Show More

57m 40s

Feb 23

Todd H. Weir and Lieke Wijnia, eds., "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

The open access Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe (Bloomsbury, 2025) offers readers a state-of-the-art guide to the public debates and scholarship on religious heritage in contemporary Europe. It contains articles by scholars, policy makers and h ... Show More

1h 22m

Apr 2024

Egor Lazarev, "State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Egor Lazarev explores the use of state and non-state legal systems by both politicians and ordinary people in postwar Chechnya. The book addresses two interrelat ... Show More

50m 47s

Jun 2021

Samy Ayoub, "Law, Empire, and the Sultan: Ottoman Imperial Authority and Late Hanafi Jurisprudence" (Oxford UP, 2020)

In his majestic and magisterial new book Law, Empire, and the Sultan: Ottoman Imperial Authority and Late Hanafi Jurisprudence (Oxford UP, 2020), Samy Ayoub examines and demonstrates the entanglement of Islamic law and imperial political authority in the early modern period. Focu ... Show More

1 h

Apr 2024

Sharia Law, the State & Modernity’s Moral Predicament | Wael Hallaq

<p>Renowned professor of ethics, law and political thought and leading scholar of Islamic Legal Studies, Dr Wael Hallaq, joins us on this episode of the afikra podcast to discuss Sharia law, the modern state, Legal Orientalism, and the idea of a "stateless" yet still orderly worl ... Show More

1h 13m

Apr 2021

Junaid Quadri, "Transformations of Tradition: Islamic Law in Colonial Modernity" (Oxford UP, 2021)

In his much anticipated and equally brilliant book Transformations of Tradition: Islamic Law in Colonial Modernity (Oxford UP, 2021), Junaid Quadri explores the productive tensions, fissures, and creative interpretive projects enabled by the drive to defend Muslim traditionalism ... Show More

1h 16m

Aug 2021

Mark Farha, "Lebanon: The Rise and Fall of a Secular State under Siege" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

Why has secularism faced such challenges in the Middle East and in Lebanon in particular? In light of dominating headlines about the spread of sectarianism and the so-called death of Arab secularism, Mark Farha addresses the need for a thorough examination of the history of secul ... Show More

54m 51s

Jun 2023

Violence Against Tribal Christians in Manipur, India

<p>In May 2023, violent clashes between two communities erupted in India’s Manipur state, leaving entire villages burned and displacing tens of thousands. The ongoing conflict is between the state’s majority Hindu Meitei community and the Christian Kuki population and has seen th ... Show More

15m 17s

Aug 2021

Bagila Bukharbayeva, "The Vanishing Generation: Revolution, Religion, and Disappearance in Modern Uzbekistan" (Indiana UP, 2019)

Weaving together personal story and broad analysis, Bagila Burkhabayeva’s The Vanishing Generation: Revolution, Religion, and Disappearance in Modern Uzbekistan (Indiana UP, 2019) deals with the question of Islam and its repression during the period of Islam Karimov’s rule in new ... Show More

1h 11m

Oct 2020

Danielle Haque, “Interrogating Secularism: Race and Religion in Arab Transnational Art and Literature” (Syracuse UP, 2019)

In many popular accounts of contemporary “Western” society there is an inherent contradiction between the principles underlying liberal secularism and Islam. This type of binary discourse about “religion” and “secular” naturalizes these differences and promotes the seeming rigidi ... Show More

56m 8s

Oct 2023

Hezbollah: Rise of the Islamic Resistance

Some four decades ago, out of the chaos of the Lebanese civil war, a Shia militant group was born who would grow into one of the most dominant and malign forces in Lebanese politics. A proxy for Iran, staunchly opposed to Israel and aggressive in their aims, they have now effecti ... Show More

56m 8s

Jun 2022

The state, the police, and capitalism

The capitalist state, that is in essence the police, army, courts, and prisons, is a weapon of the ruling class used against the rest of us. In this episode of Marxist Voice, Olivia Ruadh will explore how the state developed, how it is maintained, and how to fight against it. 🔗 ... Show More

36m 28s

Egor Lazarev, "State-Building as Lawfare...