Semicolons and Teardrops in the Middle East

In this episode, we speak with Mohamed Sayed, whose journey spans from a rural village in Egypt to the global world of Islamic scholarship. A graduate of Al-Azhar University, Mohamed shares how his early passion for rethinking religious education led him beyond traditional frameworks and into international academia.From studying at the British Council and traveling to the UK, to earning a Fulbright and pursuing graduate work in the United States, Mohamed reflects on the intellectual and cultural shifts he experienced along the way. He discusses the contrast between studying Islam as a lived faith versus as an academic discipline, and how exposure to diverse perspectives challenged and reshaped his thinking.Now a PhD student in Indiana and a leader at a local Islamic center, Mohamed bridges scholarship and community life—guiding others through complex religious questions while fostering dialogue across cultures, generations, and beliefs.This conversation explores identity, faith, and what it means to think critically while staying grounded in tradition.

In this episode, Alia Khaled Madi joins us from the bucolic campus of the American University in Cairo, reflecting on her journey from Gaza to Egypt and the life she left behind. Raised between Rafah and Gaza City, Alia was a top student of English literature at the Islamic University, where she also found her voice as a storyteller with “We Are Not Numbers,” sharing personal narratives that challenge how Gaza is portrayed in the media.Her studies, and her future, were interrupted by the devastation of 2023. As universities were destroyed and her community scattered, Alia endured months of uncertainty before a sudden, near-miraculous evacuation brought her to Cairo. Now navigating a peaceful academic environment while her father remains in Gaza, she grapples with displacement, grief, and growth.Through it all, Alia holds onto storytelling as both resistance and remembrance; offering a powerful, deeply human perspective on survival, identity, and hope.

In this episode, Naz reflects on living between worlds, as an Iraqi Kurdish woman raised in Germany, and how those layered identities have shaped her academic work and activism. She discusses the complexities of belonging, the role language plays in identity, and how experiences of marginalization influence the questions she asks as a scholar. Now pursuing a PhD, Al-Windi explores how people living through conflict understand and define violence, challenging dominant Western frameworks. She also reflects on Hamburg’s hidden colonial history and on the balance between scholarship and activism in making sense of the world.

In this episode, Mary shares her journey from a small Arab village in northern Israel to a career in human rights law. She reflects on navigating multiple identities and how speaking Arabic, Hebrew, and English shapes her sense of comfort, power, and voice in different spaces.