The Assassins and the Templars are two of history’s most legendary groups. One was a Shi’ite religious sect, the other a Christian military order created to defend the Holy Land. Violently opposed, they had vastly different reputations, followings, and ambitions. Yet they developed strikingly similar strategies—and their intertwined stories have, oddly enoug ... Show More
Oct 3
Jamal J. Elias, "After Rumi: The Mevlevis and Their World" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Jamal J. Elias' new book After Rumi: The Mevlevis & Their World (Harvard UP, 2025) takes us on a historical journey through the development of the Mevlevi community after Jalaluddin Rumi’s passing in 1273. He frames the Mevlevis as an “emotional community” that is anchored in aff ... Show More
1h 2m
Sep 29
Gina Vale, "The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State" (Oxford UP, 2024)
The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Gina Vale explores the governance of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization through the lives and words of local Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish women. While the roles and activities of foreign (p ... Show More
56m 55s
Sep 22
Wendell Marsh, "Textual Life: Islam, Africa, and the Fate of the Humanities" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Textual Life: Islam, Africa, and the Fate of the Humanities (Columbia University Press, 2025), is a groundbreaking book that recasts the role of knowledge in the making of a colonial and postcolonial nation. It makes a case for a new literary and intellectual-historical approach ... Show More
53m 46s
Sep 29
Gina Vale, "The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State" (Oxford UP, 2024)
The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Gina Vale explores the governance of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization through the lives and words of local Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish women. While the roles and activities of foreign (p ... Show More
56m 55s
Aug 2020
#054: Awakening in the Dream: Ibn Arabi, Virtual Reality & Ultimate Reality w/ Oludamini Ogunnaike
Oludamini Ogunnaike holds a PhD in African Studies and the Study of Religion from Harvard University, and is Assistant Professor of African Religious Thought at the University of Virginia.
Oludamini Ogunnaike is a scholar of African, Islamic, and Religious Studies, with a focus o ... Show More
1h 36m
Jul 2024
Philosophical Sufism in the Sokoto Caliphate: Two Poems of Shaykh Dan Tafa
Oludamini Ogunnaike is an assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. He teaches courses on African and African Diasporic Religions as well as Islam, Islamic Philosophy, Spirituality, and Art. He holds a PhD in African Studies and the Study of Religion ... Show More
23m 20s
Oct 2023
Ep 9: The 500-year history of Islam in America, with Dr Sylviane Diouf and Dr Hussein Rashid
Our latest episode tells the story of how Islam arrived in America, possibly as early as the 1400s on ships from Europe and West Africa.
We have two guests on this episode. One is Sylviane Diouf, a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown Univ ... Show More
39m 50s
Sep 2019
Charlie Laderman, "Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order" (Oxford UP, 2019)
In Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2019), Charlie Laderman exposes the way that imperial ambitions suffused the ideas and practices of turn-of-century humanitarian intervent ... Show More
1h 12m
Jan 2025
How Waqf Endowments Built The Foundation of Muslim Society with Maulana Tahir Talati
The Waqf, or endowments, is an age-old Islamic method of supplying public services. Throughout Islamic history, this third space enabled entrepreneurs and the monied to donate to causes that would multiply their reward. Many of the key services from health to education in history ... Show More
56m 29s