Network ReOrient

In this episode of the Radio ReOrient podcast, Dr. Shehla Khan, Dr. Sher Ali Tareen, and Salman Sayyid discuss the ongoing crisis in Pakistan under Gaza’s looming shadow . The latest exacerbation of the crisis comes with the general elections of February 2024, which represent an electoral heist of historically unprecedented proportions followed by the regime’s concerted efforts to normalize the results. This conversation ties the current political climate to broader global issues, including the tragic events in Gaza. The discussion navigates through a complex of concepts central to the development of a critically informed understanding of the Islamosphere. Secularism is usually understood as the separation of church and state, religion and politics, or rationality from dogma. This is an overly simplistic reading of the concept, which dates to historically long-running power struggles and wars that accompanied the rise of European nation-states and colonial empires, and fundamentally changed the exercise of political power. Rather than merely marking the disentanglement of political from sacral authority, secularism refers to the process whereby princes and monarchs (rather than priests) gradually extended their authority over state and society in an uneven, contested, and variable fashion. The process culminated in the establishment of a form of state that based sovereign authority on a set of interrelated functions. Firstly, it assumed the power to legislate the boundaries between the public and private spheres. Secondly, it constructed 'religion' as a category denoting a distinct area of human experience, primarily identified with Christianity. Thirdly, it relegated this area of experience to the private sphere, and in doing so, also proclaimed its neutrality and non-interference in this domain as a means of promoting societal harmony and tolerance. Taken together, these endeavors enabled the rise of secular power and informed its deep anomalies. Far from retreating from the newly instituted realm of 'religion', the newly empowered secular state sought to domesticate its content and purpose, regulate its expression, differentiate 'good' from 'bad' variants, and ultimately co-opt and align with some sects and denominations while suppressing or persecuting others. Lastly, the conversation critiques in passing 'methodological nationalism'—an approach to understanding the world that considers the nation-state and its territorial limits as the naturalized, sole points of reference for explaining and analyzing complex political, social, and economic phenomena that sidelinesthe merits of a relational, transnational approach. These concepts are used in this conversation to illuminate the current crisis in Pakistan as an example of how Muslim political sovereignty, whether in Palestine, Egypt, Eastern Turkestan, or for the Rohingya, continues to be systematically undermined. Further Readings and Listening tps://criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk/project/the-political-struggle-in-pakistan/ https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pakistan-reframing-the-debate/id1458817693?i=1000619861664 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-political-struggle-in-pakistan/id1458817693?i=1000614889565

In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Salman Sayyid, with Hizer Mir as your host, discusses why Gaza matters. This leads to a wide range of discussions with topics ranging from ongoing support form Washington, London and other Western governments for Israel, how the notion of ummah deployed in light of the attack on Gaza has disrupted the nation state model (amongst others) and what is meant by the concept of Palestinisation of Muslims and how that can be resisted.

Islamophobia is a global phenomenon found not only among the international 'usual suspects' of gross and systemic human and civil rights violators but also among established liberal democracies that present themselves as custodians of the international legal order. In this episode of Radio ReOrient, we talk to Saul Takahashi, an international human rights lawyer and academic who navigates the intersections between Islamophobia and the international liberal order. He describes his odyssey through the landscapes of Islamophobia, beginning with his human rights work with the UN in occupied Palestine (where he reverted to Islam), to his observations on the Muslim minority in Japan. In Japan, Saul witnessed how the growth of Muslimness seemed to go hand-in-hand with increased state surveillance. The journey continues to Denmark, where Saul researched the institutionalization of Islamophobia in urban governance, demonstrating furthermore that Islamophobia is racism, and racism is a form of governmentality as much as it is about abusive attitudes and street violence. Given the global nature of Islamophobia, we conclude this conversation by examining some hopeful proposals that Saul has written about reforming the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to make it a more effective player in the struggle against Islamophobia.

This episode of Radio Reorient is based on an event held on Islamophobia and Emancipation. This event was held to discuss the definition of Islamophobia that was put forth by the people’s definition in the UK… Islamophobia is a form of racism against Muslimness and perceived Muslimness. In this intriguing episode of Radio ReOrient, Kawter Najib, Abdoolkarim Vakil, Salman Sayyid, hosted by myself, Hizer Mir engage in a discussion that explores Islamophobia, its definition and emancipation.

In this episode, Kawter Najib sits with Hizer Mir to return to the topic of Islamophobia in France. In this discussion we talk about Kawter’s own experiences of Islamophobia in France as well as the Islamophobic murder of French-Algerian teenager Nahel Merzouk in the summer.

In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Rebecca Ruth Gould, Claudia Radiven and your host Salman Sayyid, talk about some of the issues raised by Rebecca’s new book Erasing Palestine (https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2903-erasing-palestine).

In the realm of popular culture, representations of ancient Greeks and Romans abound in the West and Western adjacent societies. Classics, primarily focused on the study of Greeks and Romans, serve as Western history's foundational narrative. However, this narrative tends to create a timeline that excludes Muslim contributions and unintentionally supports the colonial-racial agenda of the West. In this intriguing episode of Radio ReOrient, Dr Marchella Ward from the Open University and Abdoolkarim Vakil from King's College, London, engage in a discussion that explores the notable similarities and differences between two academic domains: Critical Ancient World Studies and Critical Muslim Studies. This episode serves as an anticipatory introduction to the forthcoming publication titled "The Case for Forgetting Classics," edited by Mathura Umachandran and Dr Marchella Ward. Within this volume, numerous scholars come together with a shared commitment to decolonize the study of ancient Greeks and Romans. Recorded during the Bradford Literature Festival, this conversation provides a platform for reflecting on how the discourse of ancient Greco-Romans has shaped Western perceptions of history, epistemology, and identity, underwriting the exclusion of Muslimness.

In this episode, Naoki Yamamoto, assistant professor in Turkic Studies at Marmara University sits with Hizer Mir to discuss Sufism and manga with an eye towards the possible development of an Islamicate manga. Manga is a quintessentially Japanese style of comics and graphic novels. Naoki is working towards an Islamicate version of manga in order to contribute to a growing global Islamicate culture.

This episode features the second part of a series on the Political Struggle in Pakistan. Professor Salman Sayyid, Dr. Sher Ali Tareen and Dr. Shehla Khan critically explore liberalism, populism and secularism. Focusing on how these concepts are key to understanding the deep crisis engulfing Pakistan, but are often construed in simplistic binaries rooted in orientalism that impoverish the debate, and impede the search for a resolution. In contrast, the podcast seeks to shift the debate to a post-orientalist terrain as well as one that resists the allure of methodological nationalism, and resonates with ummatic struggles more broadly. The immediate context of the discussion remains Pakistan’s subjection to a de facto military dictatorship that is waging war on its people in its bid to crush former PM Imran Khan and his party, the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) as symbols of a more just, equitable, and less westoxicated political order.

In this episode, Salman Sayyid and Haroon Bashir sit with Fatima Rajina to discuss Muslim communities in Argentina and Chile.

In this episode, we listen in on a symposium on Muslimness organised by the Critical Muslim Studies project. The symposium featured Abdoolkarim Vakil and Ovamir Anjum as the speakers and was chaired by Mona Makinejad.

In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Salman Sayyid to discuss the divine, texts (primary and secondary) within Islam and power.

In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Adam Olowo to discuss the myth of religious violence. We also discuss how far the category of religion can be used outside of Europe/the West.

In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Murad Idris for the second part of their discussion on his book “War for Peace”. In this part, ideas pertaining to war for peace in the thought of Al-Farabi and Qutb are discussed.

In this episode, Ayesha Khan and Dr. Shehla Khan continue their conversation with Dr. Sher Ali Tareen, relating his writings on Imranophobia to broader questions of decoloniality, secularity, culture, and the trajectory of events in Pakistan.

This podcast features Ayesha Khan and Dr. Shehla Khan in conversation with Dr. Sher Ali Tareen, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Department Chair of Religious Studies at Franklin Marshall College, and author of the widely acclaimed volume, Defending Muhammad in Modernity. Taking its cue from the political crisis that has erupted in Pakistan since the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022, the episode traverses the various articles that Dr. Tareen published prior to and during Khan’s tenure in government on the interface between what he terms ‘Imranophobia’, secular liberalism, and Islamophobia. Although the episode is primarily focused on Pakistan, its themes are resonant with political struggles and faultlines in other states across Muslimstan.

In this episode, coming to you from Istanbul, we listen on the last plenary session of the inaugural conference of the International Islamophobia Studies Research Association.

In this episode, Ismail Patel sits with Hatem Bazian to discuss Palestine, the Arab world and global civil society. Their discussion touches upon a range of issues such as relations between Israel and the wider Arab world as well as how the Palestinian struggle is viewed within global civil society.

In this episode, the last of season 7, Ayesha Khan sits with Salman Sayyid to talk about recent events in Pakistan and how they relate both the idea of Pakistan and Kemalism/Coloniality.

In this episode, Hizer Mir sits with Murad Idris to discuss his work War for peace. In this part, issues related to defining the idea of war for peace, essentialism and the political are discussed.