Podcast Book Launch - Professor Khalid Medani - "Black Markets and Militants: Informal Networks in the Middle East and Africa"
My sincere thanks to Professor Marc Lynch for hosting me on the terrific Project on Middle East Political Science podcast to discuss the contributions of my new book, "Black Markets and Militants: Informal Networks in the Middle East and Africa," to the important field of Middle East Political Science.
To see more information and the podcast please click here.
Khalid Medani ─ Our Revolution is Peaceful: Understanding the Domestic and Regional Factors Behind Sudan’s Political Crisis and the Prospects for a Transition to Civilian Democracy
Monday, December 6, 2021
12:00 - 1:30pm
McKinney Conference Room, 111 Thayer Street
On October 25, 2021, Sudan witnessed a military coup that has threatened to reverse the country’s path towards a transition to democracy which first began in the aftermath of Sudan’s revolution of December 2018. In that year, following three decades of authoritarian rule, peaceful popular protests in Sudan successfully toppled former President Omar Bashir from power. The intifada (popular uprising) was a culmination of over six months of sustained protests that included Sudanese across the social, ethnic, and regional divide. This lecture will examine the underlying causes and consequences of the popular uprising of 2018 and 2019, the key factors that led up to the recent military coup, and the prospects for the resumption of a transition to a civilian democracy in the context of the ongoing wide-scale pro-democracy protests and non-violent forms of civil disobedience throughout the country. In addressing the obstacles as well as the prospects of a return to civilian rule, the lecture will address the important overarching question of whether Sudan will witness a return to a consolidated authoritarian regime or re-embark on a democratic transition by focusing on the levels (and nature) of popular mobilization, civil society cohesion, political party autonomy and legitimacy, the capacity of the coercive apparatus of the current military regime, and the role of external actors in Sudan’s current political crisis.
Dr. Khalid Mustafa Medani is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University, and he has also taught at Oberlin College and Stanford University. Dr. Medani received a B.A. in Development Studies from Brown University, an M.A. in Development Studies from the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the political economy of Islamist and Ethnic Politics in Africa and the Middle East. Dr. Medani is the author of Black Markets and Militants: Informal Networks in the Middle East and Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Based on long-term, immersive field research, Black Markets and Militants traces the relationship between economic globalization, the expansion of informal markets and the rise of distinct forms of identity politics in Egypt, Sudan, and Somalia. Dr Medani is presently completing another book manuscript on the causes and consequences of Sudan’s 2018 popular uprising and the prospects and obstacles for democracy in that country. In addition, he has published extensively on civil conflict with a special focus on the armed conflicts in Sudan and Somalia. His work has appeared in Political Science and Politics (PS), the Journal of Democracy, the Journal of North African Studies, Current History, Middle East Report, Review of African Political Economy, Arab Studies Quarterly, and the UCLA Journal of Islamic Law. Dr. Medani is a previous recipient of a Carnegie Scholar on Islam award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York (2007-2009) and in 2020-2021 he received a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to conduct further research on his current book manuscript on the prospects for a civilian democratic transition in Sudan.
Persianate Colloquium Series event with Prof. Mahmood Fotoohi - November 9 .. A Resounding Success
To view the video of the event on YouTube, please see here
Arabic Literature in Translation Symposium
Institute of Islamic Studies PhD graduate Professor Dima Ayoub (Middlebury College), IIS professor Michelle Hartman, Prof. Alexandra Chreiteh (Tufts University) all participated in a symposium on Arabic literature in translation, organized by former IIS librarian Sean Swanick now of Duke University !
The video is available here below for your viewing
An Invitation to: The Persianate Studies Colloquium – Tuesday, November 9, 2021 – 3:00p.m. EST
- Moderated by: Prashant Keshavmurthy & Behzad Borhan
- For more information please see the attached posters.
The Zoom registration link is: http://tinyurl.com/PSQ2-McGill
Dr. Khalid Medani with Sudanese human rights activist at the University of California, Berkeley offering an update and analysis of the Military Coup in Sudan of October 25, 2021
For the interview, please see here.
Prof. Khalid Medani Presents a Webinar @ Princeton University
Lecture by Prof. Khalid Medani - November 3, 2021 - 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
For more info see here.
Talk by Prof, Prashant Keshavmurthy @ South Asia Institute, University of Texas (Austin)
Seminar Series: Prashant Keshavmurthy on "Scaling the Sinai of Gnosis with Bīdel"
Thursday November 11, 2021 • Virtual event - 4:30 P.M. EST
For more information: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/southasia/events/seminar-series-prashant-...
Jadaliyya "Connections": Special Episode on the Coup in Sudan with Professor Khalid
Professor Khalid Medani is interviewed by Jadaliyya co-editor Mouin Rabbani about the coup in Sudan in a special episode of "Connections." You can watch the video interview here:
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/43467
Prof. Khalid Medani on the Military Coup in Sudan
Tune into the podcast "Real Talk" of October 26, 2021, to hear prof. Khalid Medani talk about the military coup in Sudan. You can also read his analysis of Sudan's political economy in his new book, Black Markets and Militants, featured below.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/real-talk/id1540709742?i=1000539791456
Talk by Prof. Pasha M. Khan at the Lahore University of Management Sciences
Prof. Pasha M. Khan will be giving a talk at 7:30AM EST, October 29, 2021, entitled "Qissahs on Their Own Terms: Shifting Epistemologies between the Dastan, Romance, and Novel,” as part of the Syeda Mubarik Begum Urdu-Persian Studies Conference and Workshop hosted by the Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).
Congratulations to MA student Sherine Elbanhawy
Congratulations to MA student Sherine Elbanhawy for her new translation of Mohsen Mohamed’s poem, “The Light isn’t Surrounded by Guards” published by Arablit. You can find it here.
Congratulations to MA student Caline Nasrallah
Congratulations to MA student Caline Nasrallah for her article published by the Mediterranean Network for Feminist Information, “Show me How you Care: Birth Control, Is it (a) Right?” You can read it here.
SEDIMENTED URBAN FUTURES - On Housing and War Displacement, Beirut, Lebanon
October 25, 2021 - 12:30 - 14:00 - Presented by: HIBA BOU AKAR, Columbia University - see poster for more info:
poster_-_october_25th.pdf
ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion
History, Theory, and Society - November 18th
More information see here: poster.pdf
The Institute of Islamic Studies announces the publication of the co-translated novel, Without (Bedoon) by Michelle Hartman and Caline Nasrallah (London: Dar Arab, 2021).
From the publicity: “This novel, originally written in Arabic by Younis Alakhzami, tells the story of searching for belonging both in the world and within your own skin. Born in Saudi Arabia to a Yemeni family, the novel’s protagonist has been ill-at-ease since childhood, because she never felt like she was a girl. Alia’s alienation grows as she slowly comes to realise that she is, in fact, a man and begins the transition to live life as Ali.
This is a very important story to tell as it portrays the struggles of gender non-conforming people in society. The novel is sensitive and frank in how it approaches an intersex person’s struggles with the realities of love, friendship, and survival against the backdrop of a life lived between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and then later the UK. Without navigates complex issues in a very human way, painting an honest portrait of how people come to terms with challenges they never expected they would face. Told in a deceptively simple style, through a tightly woven and skillful narration, Without makes these struggles resonate with us all.”
You can order a copy from:https://www.centralbooks.com/without.html
Congratulations Caline and Michelle!
The Institute of Islamic Studies is proud to announce the publication of Professor Khalid Mustafa Medani’s newly published book, Black Markets and Militants: Informal Networks in the Middle East and Africa, (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
About this book: Understanding the political and socio-economic factors which give rise to youth recruitment into militant organizations is at the heart of grasping some of the most important issues that affect the contemporary Middle East and Africa. In this book, Khalid Mustafa Medani explains why youth are attracted to militant organizations, examining the specific role economic globalization, in the form of outmigration and expatriate remittance inflows, plays in determining how and why militant activists emerge. The study challenges existing accounts that rely primarily on ideology to explain militant recruitment. Based on extensive fieldwork, Medani offers an in-depth analysis of the impact of globalization, neoliberal reforms and informal economic networks as a conduit for the rise and evolution of moderate and militant Islamist movements and as an avenue central to the often, violent enterprise of state building and state formation. In an original contribution to the study of Islamist and ethnic politics more broadly, he thereby shows the importance of understanding when and under what conditions religious rather than other forms of identity become politically salient in the context of changes in local conditions.
Congratulations Khalid!
Sad News - Dr. Max Kortepeter (IIS, MA, 1954)
Members of the Institute of Islamic Studies extend sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Dr. Kortepeter, past graduate of IIS who passed away on October 8, 2021. For more information please see obituary.
Congratulations to Dr. Hasan Umut on his essay
Congratulations to Dr. Hasan Umut, IIS graduate, on his short essay on Emeritus Professor Jamil Ragep. The essay entitled "New Questions, Methods, and Sources in Islamic Astronomy: Some Observations on F. Jamil Ragep’s Scholarship " is published in the Newsletter of Turkish Academy of Sciences. Professor Ragep was granted the Academy's International Award in Social Sciences and Humanities in 2019.
View essay on Page 29 - Designfreebies free InDesign newsletter template 2 (tuba.gov.tr)
Shelf Life by Sherine Elbanhawy
Congratulations to IIS MA student, Sherine Elbanhawy on the publication of her review of Nadia Wassef's memoir Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Book Seller. The review can be found on the Markaz Review at the link below. The book is published by Macmillan.
https://themarkaz.org/2021/09/shelf-life-the-irreverent-nadia-wassef/
The Black Presence at McGill University
IIS Administrative Officer Anne Farray and Professor Khalid Medani featured in a recent Montreal Community Contact article on the Black Presence at McGill University. The article introduces the Dr Kenneth Melville McGill Black Faculty and Staff Caucus. https://mtlcommunitycontact.com/the-black-presence-at-mcgill-university/
Congratulations Zain Al-Attar
Congratulations IIS student Zain Al-Attar on successfully completing his MA thesis entitled: "Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī, Imkān, and the Problem of Divine Foreknowledge". His MA supervisor was Professor Robert Wisnovsky
Online lecture series ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion
Professor Jamil Ragep named Emeritus Professor
Congratulations to Professor Jamil Ragep on being named Emeritus Professor. Professor Ragep was the Canada Research Chair in the History of Science in Islamic Societies. He retired from McGill in 2020 and was the Director of the IIS from 2008-2013 and 2014-2015.
PhD Student Aqsa Ijaz on Stanford University Radio
Listen to PhD student Aqsa Ijaz in conversation with a Dante scholar, Prof. Robert Harrison on Stanford University’s radio show, Entitled Opinions. She speaks about Rumi’s ideas on love and separation in the context of such a difficult time we have been living through.
You can listen to it here:
https://entitledopinions.stanford.edu/aqsa-ijaz-rumi
Congratulations to Sarah Abdelshamy
Congratulations to Sarah Abdelshamy on successfully completing her MA at the Institute of Islamic Studies. Her thesis, supervised by Prof. Michelle Hartman, is entitled: "Unspeakable Islam: The Sea, the Memory, the Life, and Afterlife of the Middle Passage."
Congratulations to Omar Edaibat
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Omar Edaibat on his successful PhD oral defense on July 27, 2021, entitled, “The Bā ʿAlawī Sāda of the Hadhramaut Valley: An Intellectual and Social History from Tenth-Century Origins till the Late-Sixteenth Century”. Omar's academic supervisor was Professor Rula Abisaab.
Congratulations to Fiona Williams and Sherwan Ali
Congratulations to two Master's Thesis students at the Institute of Islamic Studies, Fiona Williams and Sherwan Ali, for successfully completing their theses:
Fiona Williams: "Contesting occupations and negotiating home/land: indigeneity and settler colonialism in Arab-American fiction". Fiona's supervisor was Prof. Hartman.
Sherwan Ali: "Democratization under occupation: sectarianism and violence in post-2003 Iraq". Sherwan's supervisor was Prof. Medani.
Dr. Michelle Hartman's Latest Translation Published
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman on the publication of her newest translation, All the Women Inside Me, Jana Elhassan's compelling first novel. The book is published by Interlink Publishing and is available here.
Congratulations to Đồng Bảo Ngân Hà
Congratulations to incoming MA student, Đồng Bảo Ngân Hà (Joint Honours, WIMES and Political Science, 2018), for their recent article published on Mondoweiss, “Striking Parallels: US Bombings of Vietnam and Israel’s aerial assault on Gaza.”
You can find the article here.
Congratulations to Ms. Iyanu Soyege
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Ms. Iyanu Soyege on being selected as one of two Black Graduation Valedictorians. The Black Students Network (BSN) hosted its 2nd Black Graduation event on June 7th. Ms. Soyege will be graduating with a double major in Political Science and African Studies (Faculty of Arts) on June 11th.
For her interview with McGill Reporter please visit: Conversations with Black Grad valedictorians: Iyanu Soyege - McGill Reporter.
Congratulations to Professors Shabani-Jadidi and Keshavmurthy
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Professors Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi and Prashant Keshavmurthy for the first complete English translation of Sohrab Sepehri's Eight Books which should be in print from Brill sometime this year in a bilingual facing-page edition.
The Eight Books: A Complete English Translation is the first complete translation of the collected poems of Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980), a major Iranian modernist poet and painter and yet under-translated into English. The introduction takes up Sepehri's famously difficult if languidly beautiful style to explain it as a series of appropriations of global modernisms in poetry and painting. It offers close readings of how Sepehri's modernism follows and breaks with the jagged rhythms of Nima Yushij (d.1960), Iran's inaugural modernist poet. In keeping with this modernist framing, the translations replicate Sepehri's rhymes where possible, his fluctuations between formal and colloquial registers, his syntactic distortions, and his embeddings of governmental and other jargons. It also includes Sepehri's autobiography.
For more details to the publisher's page, click on link: https://brill.com/view/title/61017
Congratulations to Shahrouz Khanjari
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Shahrouz Khanjari on his successful PhD oral defense on May 28, 2021 entitled "Rašīd Waṭwāt’s Innovations in Arabic and Persian Rhetoric in His *Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr fī Daqāʾiq al-Šiʿr (Gardens of Magic in the Minutae of Poetry)*, a long-consequential but under-studied 12th century manual of Persian-Arabic rhetoric". Shahrouz's academic supervisor was Professor Prashant Keshavmurthy.
Congratulations to Dr. Fateme Savadi on her dissertation prize
Congratulations to IIS alumna Fateme Savadi (Ph.D. 2019), whose doctoral dissertation on Qutb al-Din Shirazi has been awarded a 2021 Dissertation Prize by the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (Division of History of Science and Technology).
For more info see: http://dhstweb.org/awards/dhst-dissertation-prize
Fateme is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the IIS.
Congratulations to Professor Keshavmurthy
Professor Prashant Keshavmurthy has begun a 4-month fellowship at the "Temporal Communities" research group in Berlin's Freie University. This research group aims "aims to create a new theoretical and methodological take on literature in a global perspective that moves beyond the categories of nation and period and conceives of literature instead as a transcultural and transtemporal phenomenon in deep time." Here is description of his research project: https://www.temporal-communities.de/fellows/keshavmurthy/index.html
Congratulations to incoming MA student Sherine Elbanhawy on her translation of Mohsen Mohamed’s poem, “On the Bursh After Dinner” from his collection No One is Answering.
For the translation see : https://arablit.org/2021/05/10/new-poetry-in-translation-on-the-bursha-after-dinner/
The Language(s) of Heaven: Persianate Islam in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
Talk by Aslihan Gurbuzel
Wednesday, April 28
5 PM (Turkish time) | 10 AM EST
Congratulations to Dr. Shabani-Jadidi on the publication of her latest translation
Hafez in Love: A Novel
Iraj Pezeshkzad
Translated from the Persian by Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi & Patricia J. Higgins
Syracuse University Press, Middle East Literature in Translation Series
Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez is in love. He is in love with a girl, with a city, and with Persian poetry. Despite his enmity with the new and dangerous city leader, the jealousy of his fellow court poets, and the competition for his beloved, Iran’s favorite poet remains unbothered. When his wit and charm are not enough to keep him safe in Shiraz, his friends conspire to keep him out of trouble. But their schemes are unsuccessful. Nothing will chase Hafez from this city of wine and roses.
In Pezeshkzad’s fictional account, Hafez’s life in fourteenth-century Shiraz is a mix of peril and humor. Set in a city that is at once beautiful and cutthroat, the novel includes a cast of historical figures to illuminate this elusive poet of the Persian literary tradition. Shabani-Jadidi and Higgins’s translation brings the beloved poetry of Hafez alive for an English audience and reacquaints readers with the comic wit and original storytelling of Pezeshkzad.
https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/3471/hafez-in-love/
Congratulations to Aqsa Ijaz on her Book Review
Congratulations to PhD student Aqsa Ijaz on the publication of her essay "Storytelling In Indo-Persian Literary Traditions" in Marginalia Los Angeles Review of Books. Read it here: https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/storytelling-in-indo-persian-literary-traditions/
Congratulations to IIS alumnus Junaid Quadri (Ph.D. 2014)
Congratulations to IIS alumnus Junaid Quadri (Ph.D. 2014), whose revised doctoral dissertation on Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti‘i has just been published by Oxford University Press.
For more info see: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/transformations-of-tradition-9780190077044?cc=us&lang=en&
Junaid is currently Associate Professor of History and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Walter Edward Young
Congratulations to Walter Edward Young, Research Assistant with the Institute of Islamic Studies, on his publication of his article “Dialectic in the religious sciences” in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third Edition (advance online update 2021-6; print fascicle coming in November 2021).
A copy of the article can be found here: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/dialectic-in-the-religious-sciences-COM_27351?fbclid=IwAR1tcb6WYI7_A4xAdbhRO6sOftOrdoKz1tlaGfLH_XnE6TwL7Dy_DdleCg0
Professor Hartman's new publication
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman on the publication of her newest translation of Shahla Ujayli’s Summer with the Enemy.
Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arab Fiction, Summer with the Enemy is an expansive historical novel based in Raqqa, Syria, that travels throughout the region to Germany and beyond. The novel follows the lives of three generations of Syrian women and the people who fill their lives.
To buy a copy In Montreal, (and Canada in general): https://paragraphbooks.com/products/9781623718671
In the US: https://www.interlinkbooks.com/product/summer-with-the-enemy/
Follow on twitter: https://twitter.com/ShahlaUjayli/status/1376606880190070792
Institute of Islamic Studies
McGill University
“The Old Women of Nishapur”
A Workshop on Gender and Knowledge in Islam
April 20, 2021
3:00-4:30pm
ZOOM link below
The expression “the faith of the old women of Nishapur” recurs in many Islamic theological and mystical writings that address questions of knowledge. The expression captures a specific modality of practicing Islam, though scholars vary widely in their interpretations: some dismiss the faith of the old women while others praise it as the ultimate form of religiosity. Through an intellectual exchange between philology, history, anthropology, literary and religious studies, the workshop addresses the limits and possibilities of the “faith of the old women of Nishapur.” We will discuss the relationship between gender and knowledge, the use of gendered tropes, the historical context in which the expression was formulated and the current relevance of the questions it raises, establishing resonances and frictions between eleventh century Nishapur and twenty-first century Montreal. Overcoming the divide between past and present, between textual and contextual readings, between philological exactitude and conceptual concerns, the workshop poses a set of fundamental questions about Islam, gender, embodiment, and tradition.
Panelists:
Rula Abisaab (Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University)
Sara Abdel-Latif (Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University)
Kausar Bukhari (Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University)
Katherine Lemons (Department of Anthropology, McGill University)
Setrag Manoukian (Department of Anthropology and Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University)
ZOOM LINK: https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/84701998072?pwd=TzJZL2JkVU44SmdJbnZNcXlPQm5Idz09
It is with regret that the Institute of Islamic Studies informs you of the passing of Mr. Andrew William Staples on March 14, 2021. Andrew was a past Administrative Officer in the Institute of Islamic Studies.
Andrew received his MA in Theology from Concordia University, and worked for the Faculty of Arts for 25 years, including serving in ISID, Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute of Islamic Studies and as the Faculty Affairs Officer for the Dean. We will miss him for his dedication, collegiality and kindness.
The Institute of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Arts extends its condolences to his family: Andras Molnar, his life partner and brothers James and Bruce (Ross) Staples in Ontario.
For the obituary in the Toronto Star please click here https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?n=andrew-william-staples&pid=198071918
Online lecture series ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion Event
Patron Saints of the Rum and their Chosen Dynasty: The Story of Ottomans in Sufi Hagiographies
Hüseyin Yılmaz, George Mason University
March 24, 2021
1:30 PM EST (UTC -5)
Hosted on Zoom: https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/81643587302
Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab wins Khayrallah Prize
Congratulations to Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab, she has won the Khayrallah Prize on Literature for her novel “Fi `ulbat al-daw’) (Camera Obscura), and Zayn Alexander won it for his film “Abroad”. For more details please click on link: https://arablit.org/2021/03/02/rula-jurdi-abisaab-wins-khayrallah-prize-for-her-novel-camera-obscura/
Interview with Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdCdVSl18DQ
Online lecture series ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion Event
Setrag Manoukian, McGill University
Towards a Poetic Sociology of Iran
March 10, 2021 1:30 PM EST (UTC -5)
Hosted on Zoom: https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/83063358021
Online lecture series ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion Event
Benjamin Schewel, Duke University
Imagining the Islamic Ecumene: Marshall Hodgson as Philosopher of History
February 17, 2021 2:00 PM EST (UTC -5)
Hosted on Zoom: https://mcgill.zoom.us/s/8266062657
REGARDS CRITIQUE SUR LA LOI 21: A Bilingual Conversation on Islamophobia and Racism
In commemoration of the massacre in the Centre Islamique du Québec on January 29, 2017
February 19, 2021
11 AM - 1 PM
Registration: https://bit.ly/3thKZwo
Facebook event page: Facebook event
Congratulations to Professors Michelle Hartman and Malek Abisaab
Congratulations to Michelle Hartman and Malek Abisaab for their recently published book (in Arabic), Memoirs of a Militant: the Years in the Khiam Prison for Women, by Nawal Qasim Baidoun (Mudhakkarat al-Munadila: Nawal Qasim Baidoun fi Mu’taqal al-Khiyam). It was released by Dar Abaad in Beirut last month.
This book is part of their large SSHRC-funded Women’s War Stories: Building an Archive of Women and the Lebanese Civil War. Look out for the announcement of the English translation of this book, forthcoming from Interlink Publishing later in 2021!
Congratulations Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab, her novel Camera Obscura (fī ʿulbat al-ḍawʾ) has been selected to be a finalist for the Khayrallah Prize for Best Artistic Expression of the Lebanese Diaspora. Camera Obscura (fī ʿulbat al-ḍawʾ) appeared from Dar al-Adab in 2017, and is being translated by Maia Tabet.
To read review by Peiyu Yang click here.
Arabic Philology in Ottoman Istanbul: Practices of Textual Edition in a Manuscript Culture
Lecture by Prof. Aslıhan Gürbüzel as part of the Inaugural Michael Marmura Lecture in Arabic Studies
January 15, 2021, 3 PM EST
Hosted on Zoom Meeting ID: 8853 8832 3665
Aslıhan Gürbüzel is Assistant Professor of Ottoman History at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University. She is currently working on a monograph entitled “Taming the Messiah: Formation of an Ottoman Political Public Sphere, 1600-1700.” Her research focuses on Ottoman Sufi orders, particularly the Mawlawīs, and their contribution to the formation of early modern knowledge in diverse fields such as politics, philology, and medicine. This talk is a part of her research on the role of Sufi authorities in the circulation and textual criticism of manuscripts.
Online lecture series ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion Event
Dyala Hamzah, Université de Montréal
(De)commissioning Ibn Khaldun? Sufis, Statesmen and Publicists during the Long Nineteenth century
January 7, 2021, 1:30 PM EST (UTC -5)
Hosted on Zoom Meeting ID: 890 3358 7339 Passcode: 1234
New Article by Prof. Rula Abisaab
The essay "Writing Islamic Legal History" is part of the Islamic Law Blog’s Roundtable on Islamic Legal History & Historiography, edited by Intisar Rabb (Editor-in-Chief, Harvard Law School) and Mariam Sheibani (Lead Blog Editor, University of Toronto). Read it here.
Congratulations Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab on her Arabic-language novel “Fi ʿulbat al-ḍawʾ” [A Box of Light] being selected as a Semi-Finalist for the 2020 Khayrallah Prize for Best Artistic Expression of the Lebanese Diaspora. The winner will be announced in January.
Rhodes Scholarships for Faculty of Arts students
The Institute of Islamics Studies would like to send a warm congratulations to Abdel Dicko, a U3 Joint Honours Political Science and African Studies student, and Ffion Hughes, a U4 Honours in History student, both have been named 2021 Rhodes Scholars. Please see link below by Neale McDevitt, Editor, McGill Reporter for more details.