Many Muslim debates regarding women are solely situated in legal or political frameworks. For example, we often find this tendency in conversations about women’s leadership in the mosque or the politics of veiling. Sa’diyya Shaikh, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town, provides a unique approach to these discussions that puts feminis ... Show More
Jul 25
Samantha Iyer, "Agrarian Superpower: Food, Development, and the Global Ascendancy of the United States" (Columbia UP, 2026)
The United States’ superpower status is often associated with its industrial, financial, and military might. Yet its global power after the Second World War hinged in part on something often seen as backward: agriculture. In contrast to Britain, the predominant global power of th ... Show More
45m 42s
Jul 23
Eamonn Gearon, "The Arab Bureau: The Story of Britain's Most Ingenious Intelligence Unit" (Hurst, 2026)
Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt and the First World War. But Lawrence was part of the Arab Bureau, an effort to better understand and influence the region ... Show More
50m 26s
Jul 22
Martin Shaw, "The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual and Political Challenges After Gaza" (Agenda Publishing, 2025)
The Israeli destruction of Gaza has returned the idea of genocide to the center of world politics, with sharp conflicts between the protesters and lawyers who invoke it and the governments and media that deny it. The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual and Political Challenges Aft ... Show More
1h 17m
Apr 2014
Sa’diyya Shaikh, “Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn Arabi, Gender and Sexuality” (University of North Carolina Press, 2012)
Many Muslim debates regarding women are solely situated in legal or political frameworks. For example, we often find this tendency in conversations about women’s leadership in the mosque or the politics of veiling. Sa’diyya Shaikh, Professor of Religious Studies at the University ... Show More
55m 26s
Jul 2019
Gender and Sexuality in Islam
The theme for season 5 is gender and sexuality in Islam. In our first episode we provide the framework for understanding gender, sex, and sexuality in the Islamic world. We discuss three influences on the framework: cultural beliefs, the Qur’an, and the philosophical tradition of ... Show More
22m 56s
May 2020
Ep 1 - Universalism, Secularism and Islamism: The Three Feminisms of the Arab World
In this episode, we will be diving into the various representations of feminism that exist in our world today, from the West all the way across to the Middle East. Beginning with a brief overview of the most popular Western liberal conception of feminism, we discuss why this pers ... Show More
35m 27s
Dec 2024
Shehnaz Haqqani, "Feminism, Tradition and Change in Contemporary Islam: Negotiating Islamic Law and Gender" (Oneworld, 2024)
Shehnaz Haqqani's new book Feminism, Tradition and Change in Contemporary Islam: Negotiating Islamic Law and Gender (Oneworld 2024), masterfully blends textual analysis of pre-modern and modern Islamic consensus with qualitative interviews with Muslims in the contemporary United ... Show More
1h 21m
Dec 2024
Shehnaz Haqqani, "Feminism, Tradition and Change in Contemporary Islam: Negotiating Islamic Law and Gender" (Oneworld, 2024)
Shehnaz Haqqani's new book Feminism, Tradition and Change in Contemporary Islam: Negotiating Islamic Law and Gender (Oneworld 2024), masterfully blends textual analysis of pre-modern and modern Islamic consensus with qualitative interviews with Muslims in the contemporary United ... Show More
1h 21m
Jul 2024
Mahjabeen Dhala, "Feminist Theology and Social Justice in Islam: A Study on the Sermon of Fatima" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Fatima, the daughter of Prophet Muhammad, has an interesting legacy, one that is often shaped by sectarian differences and tensions. The sermon of Fatima, which is the focus of Mahjabeen Dhala's Feminist Theology and Sociology of Islam: A Study of the Sermon of Fatima (Cambridge ... Show More
1h 12m
Sep 2024
Faith, Femininity, and Knowing Thyself
On this week's episode, we sit down Layla K. Saleh, where we unpack the conventional views on feminism, womanhood, and the intersection of religion and modern societal norms. Layla shares her views on the impact of Western ideologies on Middle Eastern perspectives, the concept of ... Show More
38m 44s