When I was invited in 2012 to speak at Harvard University’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Conference, “Expressions of Islam in Contemporary African American Communities,” I was in the middle of my research for my new book Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam, co-authored with Dawn Marie-Gibson. I immediately knew the two women whose…
July 6, 2014 According to the Brigitta Busch, Professor of linguistics at the University of Vienna, Austria is generally paying low or no attention and offers no recognition to language diversity inside its borders. In particular, the Turkish language, Busch stresses, does not enjoy any positive reputation; however, since some parts of the government want to…
June 4, 2014 Inventing the Muslim Cool: Islamic Youth Culture in Western Europe Maruta Herding May, 2014 Paper, 270 pages, 17 b&w 1 color ISBN: 978-3-8376-2511-0 Transcript-Verlag In the current environment of a growing Muslim presence in Europe, young Muslims have started to develop a subculture of their own. The manifestations reach from religious rap and street wear with…
The subject matter of “Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture” could not be more far-reaching unless its author, Hisham D. Aidi, had unearthed data about youth culture and musical influences on other planets. As far as Earth goes, his highly original and ambitious book has got it covered. “Rebel Music” exhibits…
We begin with a five-story building (possibly six), with the mosque or prayer hall on the ground floor, a tea room on the second, a large Islamic bookstore with books in more than ten languages on the third, a museum of Islamic culture and cultural center on the fourth and offices and international centers on…
