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Interview on NPR on Riyaaz Qawwali

I was recently interviewed on NPR about Riyaaz Qawwali, a group out of Austin, TX. Hussein Rashid, a professor of religion at Hofstra University, says that many qawwaliartists working in South Asia today have limited themselves. He believes this American group is bringing the music back to its roots.  “You know, I think there’s been so much concern about what is Islam, and what isn’t, politically speaking and artistically speaking,” Rashid says, “that there’s been a push in modern qawwali to actually sanitize it and make it very sterile — and almost rule-bound — rather than ecstatic and devotional. For me, I think…

G. Willow Wilson (@g_willow) on the latest Draw Muhammad Day Insanity

Guest Voices: A Muslim cartoonist on “Draw Muhammad Day” – On Faith at washingtonpost.com. What Norris failed to understand is that by creating events like “Draw Muhammad Day”, artists hurl rhetorical stones that go straight through their enemies and hit Muslims like me. Al Qaeda isn’t hurt by Draw Muhammad Day. Its entire PR campaign is built on incidents like these. Without the Molly Norrises and Jyllands Postens of the world, Al Qaeda would have to get a lot more creative with its recruitment strategies. Artists who caricature the Prophet inevitably claim, as Norris has done, that they never meant…

NYC Play: No Place Called Home – This isn’t Supposed to be a Love Story

In the fall of 2009, Intersections International led a delegation of 8 American artists from many different disciplines on a 3-week immersion trip though Jordan, Lebanon and Syria at part of the Iraqi Voices Amplification Project (IVAP). Our goal is to use the power of the arts to call attention to one of the most pressing and under-reported social justice issues of our time: the displacement of more than 4 million Iraqis as a result of the military intervention in Iraq. While on the trip, the delegation entered into conversations with hundreds of refugees at community centers and in their…