Episodes
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It's the end! At least of this season. One year after we started, the week of 9/11, feels like the perfect time to say goodbye—for now. In this episode, we share our reflections on the series and sign off with our hopes for the future. Thank you for taking this emotional, cathartic, moving journey into the past with us.
References:
The Trojan Horse Affair vs. the British Press
New information on the Shamima Begum case
The Trump administration's plan to denaturalize citizens
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Anisa Khalifa
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Mansoor Adayfi is a former Guantánamo detainee, coordinator of CAGE’s Guantánamo Project, and author. In his unforgettable, haunting memoir, Don’t Forget Us Here, he recounts his 14 years of detention, torture, resistance and brotherhood in the vile camps of Guantánamo. In this interview, Mansoor tells us how his living nightmare started, how faith, art and brotherhood sustained him, and how, amazingly, he’s held onto both his sense of humor and his hope for the future.
References:
Buy Mansoor's book, Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo
Muslim filmmakers and activists respond to Islamophobic Sundance film Jihad Rehab
Seton Hall University's Guantánamo Reports
Art from Guantánamo
Support CAGE, advocates against the injustices of the War on Terror
Amy Goodman's interview with Mansoor, who wears his signature orange
Follow Mansoor on social media @MansoorAdayfi
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Anisa Khalifa
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Missing episodes?
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The Qarawiyyin Project is a global initiative aimed at reviving Islamic discourse among Muslim women. Through their work, they analyse contemporary challenges through an Islamic lens. We talk to Aisha and Sarah of TQP, who, like us, are on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Unlike us, however, they never really experienced a pre-9/11 world.
We discuss the legacies of the early response of Muslim communities to 9/11 and the shape of the post-War on Terror world, how Muslim identity has been fashioned by apologetics instead of creed, and whether the concept of "identity" is even a meaningful benchmark for who we are or should be, as Muslims.
Check out The Qarawiyyin Project and The Qarawiyyin Podcast. Follow The Qarawiyyin Project on Twitter and Facebook.
References:
I Refuse to Condemn by Dr. Asim Qureshi
The Ummatics Colloquium
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Khadija Khalil
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Joshua Salaam is the Muslim Chaplain at Duke University and a member of iconic musical group Native Deen. He has a Doctorate of Ministry from Hartford Seminary and has mentored youth throughout his career. He talked to us about becoming Native Deen almost by accident—or perhaps destiny—his years in the army, and how his professional life took shape post-9/11. We tackled the hard questions, like our relationship with the military as American Muslims, and how to deal with anti-Black racism in our communities. In Brother Joshua’s words, we jumped right into the ocean!
Check out Native Deen's music:
"Small Deeds"
"M.U.S.L.I.M" from Not Afraid to Stand Alone and "Worldly Satisfaction" from MYNA Raps 1999 used with permission.
References:
The Washington Post's 2002 feature on Native Deen
Dr. Jamillah Karim's work on race in the Muslim community
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Johana Bhuiyan is a senior tech reporter and editor at The Guardian. A born and raised New Yorker now residing in San Francisco, she's been a journalist since 2013, and has previously worked at the Los Angeles Times, Recode, BuzzFeed News, and Politico.
Johana talks about growing up in New York after 9/11, and how the current state of surveillance of marginalised communities has evolved over the last 20 years. She shares her personal experiences as a hijab-wearing Muslim woman in newsrooms and other places throughout her career, how she got into the very specific field of tech accountability, and what it's like to see her work result in real-world change.
Note: we recorded this interview back in November, so bear that in mind when we make time references.
References:
Johana's reporting about Amazon withholding tips from drivers, which led to a massive settlement
Camera company would identify Uyghurs and alert police
Voyager, the tech that scrapes social media feeds to "predict crime"
The NYPD's Muslim Surveillance and Mapping Program
Supreme Court hears case on FBI surveillance of California Muslims
The harms of the LAPD's former predictive policing program
Follow Johana on Twitter and check out her work.
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Anisa Khalifa
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Dr. Mehreen Faruqi is the Greens Senator for New South Wales in the Australian Parliament and the first Muslim woman to hold public office in the history of Australia. She is a civil and environmental engineer and lifelong activist for social and environmental justice. Mehreen tells us about migrating to Australia from Pakistan, how she made a home and then a political career down under, and how things changed in Australia post-9/11. We cover the rise of right-wing populism, the influence of media on government, dealing with Islamophobic abuse and harassment, how environmental justice is inextricable from racial justice, and why grassroots politics is the best way to make change.
References:
Buy Mehreen's excellent memoir, Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud, here.
Watch her first speech to the Australian Senate, which went viral. Transcript here.
Love Letters to Mehreen, her tongue-in-cheek response to hateful messages.
Mehreen calls out right-wing Murdoch media outlet Sky News, and it is so satisfying.
Follow Mehreen on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @MehreenFaruqi.
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Anisa Khalifa
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Dr. Khadijah Elshayyal, Associate Fellow at the Alwaleed Centre (University of Edinburgh) and specialist in contemporary British Muslim history, joins us this episode to trace the changing relationship of British Muslims and the state, before and after 9/11.
Khadijah relives her experience of the day of the 7/7 bombings in London and looks at its impact on counter-terrorism policy, and the initiation of the Prevent strategy. We finish with a discussion on the dark legacies of empire, what "identity politics" really means, and whether we can close the chasm of rights inequalities to claim citizenship - and humanity - on an equal footing, while retaining our Muslim identities.
References
Muslim Identity Politics: Islam, activism and equality in Britain by Dr. Khadijah Elshayyal (IB Tauris, 2020)
Find Khadijah on Twitter @DrKElshayyal.
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Khadija Khalil
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Dr. Jasmine Gani, a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of St. Andrews, sits down with us for a deeply moving conversation about her journey through the academy, as a student and a teacher, as well as her experiences with community organizing. Our discussion was so wide-ranging that we had to split it into two parts! Listen to Part 1.
In Part 2, Jasmine tells us why she chose academia as a career, the sacred duty of mentorship, and how and why we make space for the discourse of justice.
References:
Find Jasmine’s work on her blog.
On the horrors of extraordinary rendition, read about Gareth Peirce's work and the infamous case of Maher Arar.
Peggy McIntosh initially coined the “invisible backpack” metaphor Anisa mentions for white privilege, but it has since been adopted to describe the trauma of racialisation and/or abuse.
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Dr. Jasmine Gani, a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of St. Andrews, sits down with us for a deeply moving conversation about her journey through the academy, as a student and a teacher, as well as her experiences with community organizing. Our discussion was so wide-ranging that we had to split it into two parts!
In Part 1, we talk about confronting the open and extreme hostility against Muslims after 9/11, university life, being thrust into activism, and how we can find support and friendship in unexpected places.
References:
Read Jasmine’s brilliant article on how Europe's militarism is rooted in the racialisation of Islam and Muslims, and how that's internalised by postcolonial states like Syria.
Find Jasmine’s other work on her blog.
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Khadija Khalil
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Anisa presents a brief oral history of Islamophobia in the US in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. We often reference "what Muslims went through" but what exactly did that involve? We cover the big stuff, the little stuff, and how it all formed the epicenter of a global campaign of terror and violence that targeted over a billion people. Including: the ideological framing of a political phenomenon, the state's exclusive right to kill, and the two sides of American exceptionalism.
References:
The long costs of Islamophobia by Anisa KhalifaCitations Needed on whitewashing Colin Powell's legacy and their excellent series on anti-Muslim racism in Hollywood: Part I Part II Part IIIBarbara Lee’s speech on September 14, 2001, as she voted against the invasion of AfghanistanSecret evidence and extraordinary rendition to CIA black sites, where people were detained and tortured before being put in Guantanamo Bay: One prisoner's recent testimony George W. Bush’s now infamous address on September 20, 2001: "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists"The FBI's COINTELPRO-like program of entrapment targeting ordinary Muslims(Anisa regrets to say that, despite declaring she will never forget it, she in fact misquoted the statistic that 53% of white women voted for Trump in 2016.)Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Khadija Khalil
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Dr Mona Masood is a psychiatrist and founder of the Physician Support Line. She talks to us about the emotional fallout of our post-9/11 lives and the power of going small, whether western psychiatry has the answers for Muslim problems, and how to deal with people who hate you. We also look at what's behind our impulse to divide people into heroes and villains, and how that affects the way we treat them. (Did we lowkey just get some therapy? I feel like we did.)
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Anisa Khalifa
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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G. Willow Wilson, author and co-creator of Ms. Marvel, joins us to talk navigating Muslim identity over the last twenty years, as some things have changed and others have stayed the same. We cover how her journey to Islam was interrupted by 9/11, her gorgeous memoir on life in Egypt, the intense fear our communities lived under as our men were disappeared, and how Islam has inspired her work—including Kamala Khan's excellent superhero philosophy.
References:
Ms. Marvel and The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson
The Prophet Muhammad's saying about how to fight the evil around us
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Anisa Khalifa
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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Zahra Billoo is a civil rights lawyer, activist and Executive Director of CAIR-SFBA, where she leads a team dedicated to the empowerment of American Muslims through legal services, legislative advocacy, and community organizing. We had a great time talking to her about waking up to a new world twenty years ago, how her faith forms the backbone of her advocacy, and why we have to stand against injustice even when we're not its targets. (Many mics were dropped.)
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected]. Support the show.
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Khadija Khalil
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
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In this first episode, we relive that terrifying day twenty years ago, and discuss why we’re doing this oral history/sociology project/group therapy session, who it's for (hint: everyone), and what we want to achieve.
Follow us on Twitter. Email us at [email protected].
References:
Covering Islam and Culture and Imperialism by Edward Said
Adam's World
Hosts and Producers: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Editor: Khadija Khalil
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Coming September 11: Twenty years after 9/11, producers and hosts Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil explore what it meant to come of age when we did. With a lineup of amazing guests who, like us, grew up Muslim in the shadow of 9/11, we’ll dig into how that changed the trajectories of our lives, and how the experience differed either side of the Atlantic.
Muslim in Plain Sight features interviews with artists, activists, academics, religious leaders, and more. As a generation, we were just discovering our own voices when they were suddenly silenced from mainstream narratives. Instantly, we became both invisible and hypervisible.
Our conversations here are a small attempt to remedy that erasure. Join us as we talk about how our world changed, and how we changed the world.
Follow us on Twitter at @mipspod. Email us at [email protected].
Producers and Hosts: Anisa Khalifa and Khadija Khalil
Consulting Producer: Paroma Chakravarty
