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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…
Enforced disappearance: Why a whole community is going missing – Home – Herald
Enforced disappearance: Why a whole community is going missing – Home – Herald. Gatherings such as the one at Baitul Huda are common for Ahmadi communities living in various parts of the United States. According to Professor Hussein Rashid of the department of religion at Columbia University, they are more a manifestation of a shared insecurity than of anything else. “Staying together does not tell anything about the community except the fact that they are a minority, and a besieged minority,” he says. “This is often the case with immigrant groups and those who are persecuted in their home countries…
New Co-Authored Article: We are All Children of the Atom
Mizan Project: We are All Children of the Atom The recent launch of the new comic series X-Men Gold has generated international controversy over religious and political images included by its artist, Ardian Syaf. These images stand in striking contrast to the diversity that Marvel Comics has recently come to energetically espouse. The company has released a statement that explains their being unaware of the symbolism in the book as it was originally published, and declared its plans to discipline Syaf and remove the offending imagery from future reprints of the comic. We do not believe that this incident should…