Related Posts

NYT: The Intersection of Islam, America and Identity

The Muslim Voices Festival has begun, and I’ll be posting soon on Religion Dispatches. However, the NYT has started running some coverage, including this piece on Muslim women artists. Will tryt to check it out (after the music festival) and report.

How the Jews Saved Islam

I was hoping that title would get someone’s attention. More specifically: I was reading The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (And Queens, New York) and learned quite about the relationship between Bukharan Jews and Muslims in Transoxiana (modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). In brief, Muslims started giving up aspects of their musical heritage and the Bukharan (here, basically meaning Central Asian) Jews took up the craft and helped preserve Islamicate music, especially the shash maqām. It’s a good read, and I highly recommend it. While it’s also a bit late for Diaspora Month, the last…

Milad un-Nabi 1432/2010

This week was the Prophet Muhammad’s (ﷺ) birthday. The celebration was formalized under the Fatimids. You can see some of my earlier posts on the Milad here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Items 3 and 4 are devotional poems by Nasr Khusraw. This year, based on a question from a colleague, I am posting a collection of YouTube videos that are songs in praise of Muhammad. All have percussion, but no other instruments. Rather than embed them and slow down the site, I am simply giving links and a short description. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2NNPQhNVYs&feature=related – Bosnian http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_7hDq3HfNo – Turkish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXFMvfxOmS8&feature=related – Arab?…