Muslim Voices Public Scholarship Has a Banner Year

2025 has been a great year as we increased our efforts to present the diversity of the Muslim world and promote dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims to accomplish our overall intention of combatting Islamophobia. We organized public events, published blogs, and posted original content and updates on social media in matters related to Muslims and Islam. All our accomplishments have only been possible thanks to the supervision of the Center for the Study of Global Change, the Center for the Study of the Middle East, and the African Studies Program.  

We started hosting our events in February with the “Spiritual Attire: The Inner Dimensions of Clothing in North and West African Religious Traditions” with Shaykh Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkari who traveled all the way from Morocco, Dr. Yousef Casewitt from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, and Dr. Maria Hamilton Abegunde from Indiana University. Next, we organized a training session for pre- and in-service teachers and educators across all levels of teaching. At this “Educator’s Workshop on Teaching About Conflict”, our seasoned master educators Dr. Qur’an Shakir and Ms. Fatima Quadri addressed the challenges of teaching about ongoing conflicts from around the world and facilitated development of pedagogical methods with age-appropriate content.

In March, we hosted Abbas Rattani and Shimul Chowdhury from the MIPSTERZ team at the “Muslim Futurism’ Short Movie Screening and Iftar.” MIPSTERZ, also known as Muslim Hipsters, is an arts and culture collective curating, enabling, and amplifying creators of marginalized backgrounds through sound, film, and visual art. After watching five short movies on the new genre of Muslim Futurism, we had a panel discussion with our speakers and enjoyed a Ramadan dinner all together with participants from different faith backgrounds. This event was followed by our co-sponsorship of the “Ramadan Interfaith Iftar” organized by the IU Bloomington Muslim Student Association. The speaker, Imam Ahmad Alamine, addressed the significance of dialogue across faith groups for fostering relationships in the American society and globally. Spring semester ended with the virtual “Youth Activism and Resilience Book Club for Educators” event in collaboration with University of Minnesota in April. This was our first attempt to cooperate with another university, and it was open to educators across the nation. We read “The Weight of Our Sky” by the Malaysian author Hanna Alkaf. Our first speaker Dr. Sheena Kaur, a Fulbright visiting scholar from University of Malaya, discussed the society, culture, and the historical context of the events that take place in the book in Malaysia. Our second speaker was Dr. A’ame Joslin from the IU Columbus campus. She facilitated a brief workshop on how to utilize the book as a source in K-12 teaching.

We continued publishing new short essays on new topics such as the Bangla New Year, tattooing in the Kurdish culture, history of African American Muslims, and many more on the Muslim Voices blog! Our social media presence continues across Threads, Spotify, X, Facebook, and Instagram! 

We are grateful to the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, Islamic Studies Program, Dhar India Studies Program, Center for Religion and the Human, School of Education Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Department of American Studies, Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, Muslim Women at IU student club, for their trust, generous contributions, and overall support to making our events happen. 

Thank you to all for your unlimited support as we continue to grow!