Category: Art

Art Inter-faith Intra-faith Media Appearances

Children’s Museum of Manhattan – America to Zanzibar – POLITICO

islamoyankee

DE BLASIO press shake-up — CUOMO bans insider lobbyist — REDSTONE saga – POLITICO. NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito, NYC Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer, NYC Council Members I. Daneek Miller and Helen Rosenthal toured the America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan earlier this week with the museum’s executive director Andy Ackerman, the museum’s honorary board chair Laurie M. Tisch, museum board member Judith Hannan, the exhibit’s academic advisor Hussein Rashid and others. America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far is a groundbreaking new interactive exhibit for children…

Read More
Art Books Events Film Food and Drink Games Inter-faith Intra-faith Literature Media Appearances Music Photos Poetry Religion

Newsday on America to Zanzibar

islamoyankee

Here is a Newsday article 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. It’s a good chance to shout out my friends from high school. “Our goal is to have children deal with differences in a healthy, positive way and encourage them to be inquisitive while exploring the world instead of running away from its differences,” Rashid said, an experience not so different from his years growing up in Elmont.  

Read More
Art Books Events Film Inter-faith Intra-faith Literature Media Appearances Music Poetry Religion Video

Reuter’s Coverage of America to Zanzibar

islamoyankee

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

Read More
Art Events Film Inter-faith Intra-faith Literature Music Poetry Religion

My Secret Thoughts of America to Zanzibar at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan — Ummah Wide — Medium

islamoyankee

My Secret Thoughts of America to Zanzibar at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan — Ummah Wide — Medium. For the last few years, I got paid to play with toys. I was able to put a philosophy of Star Trek’s Vulcans into practice, and live as a Jedi. Comics littered my work space, and Dr. Who’s TARDIS traveled with me through space and time. All I was missing was a Buffy or Firefly fix. All of this was possible because I was working on religious literacy and global citizenship.

Read More
Art Inter-faith Media Appearances Music Politics

Interview on NPR on Riyaaz Qawwali

islamoyankee

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…

Read More
Art

NYC Event: Agora Gallery – Fahim Somani – Exhibition Announcement

islamoyankee

Agora Gallery – Fahim Somani – Exhibition Announcement. Pakistani-American, Houston-based artist Fahim Somani creates expressionistic, calligraphy-inflected compositions which are not only exquisite formal experiments full of delightful painterly flourishes, but aesthetic bridges between two cultures. While drawing on the text of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, Somani incorporates elements that evoke Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, and other currents in post-war American art. The artist achieves this marriage of visual cues from Islamic and American art with innate talent, producing powerful and enigmatic images full of brilliant brushstrokes and vibrant textures.

Read More
Art

Blurring of Cultures at Louvre’s Islamic Art Wing – NYTimes.com

islamoyankee

Blurring of Cultures at Louvre's Islamic Art Wing – NYTimes.com. Other Arab bronzes with inscriptions in Arabic and Latin conjure memories of places where East and West met.  A ewer from Arab Spain in the shape of a peacock carries an Arabic signature identifying it as “the work of the Christian King’s slave.” Underneath, an inscription in Roman capitals proclaims “Opus Salomonis Erat” naming the artist, probably called Sulayman, the Arabic form of the biblical name.

Read More