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ArtLit Competition

ArtLit Competition. Long gone are the days that teens would pick up a book and become utterly lost in the London slums and alleys of Dickens or caught up in the schemes and adventures of Twain’s Huckleberry Finn on the Mississippi River. Today these playgrounds of the mind have been replaced by video games, texting and the social networks of the internet. Our purpose of organizing this competition is to inculcate love for art and literature. The award ceremony brings together people of different backgrounds to promote arts, understanding and cross-cultural dialogue.

Reuter’s Coverage of America to Zanzibar

Here is a Reuter’s video on the exhibit America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far, at The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, for which I was the lead academic advisor. I had no idea the tie was rakishly crooked. The Muslim Culture Exhibition on TRT Showcase from Reuters Content Solutions on Vimeo. The Muslim Culture Exhibition on TRT Showcase

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…