Hussein Rashid

Academic. Speaker. Educator. Advocate.

Religion Resources Teaching

New Article: Diverse Muslim Narratives: Rethinking Islam 101

Hussein

I have a new academic piece out on The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching. The article is freely available under a Creative Commons license. The abstract is as follows:

The practice of teaching Islam in the American context has a particular intellectual pedigree. At this point, the critique of the Study of Religion as emerging out of a normative Christian framework is well-established in the field. Edward Said’s argument for the ways in which Islam is constructed to meet American political interests, rather than an engagement with Muslims and their religion, is nearly forty years old. These power dynamics mean that students, through popular discourse, understand Wahhabi Islam as Sunni Islam, which they consider the “true Islam” against which other Islams are judged. I propose a model of looking at how Muslims define their religion through contestation and relation which allows students to understand the dynamic nature of their traditions. What I outline as an approach gives a greater sense of covering the breadth of material represented by a global religious community, with over a millennium of history.

Resources

Sesame Workshop Identity Matters Study | Sesame Workshop

Hussein
I served as a reader for this project.

Sesame Workshop Identity Matters Study | Sesame Workshop.

Building a positive sense of identity is critical to children’s healthy development and, ultimately, to their futures. Seeing characteristics like their race, gender, and religion in a positive light gives kids a pathway to success in school and in life—and research shows that valuing their own identities helps children grow into more confident and accepting adolescents and adults.

Resources

Religion As Critique | Reading Religion

Hussein

Religion As Critique | Reading Religion.

Irfan Ahmad’s text, Religion as Critique, is an ambitious work that seeks to open a new approach to the understanding of Muslims: an anthropology of philosophy. As a result, his book covers a vast amount of material. The text reads like two separate endeavors—a historical, methodological study, and the author’s original work. Since the author recognizes this structure and guides the reader to be aware of it, the book does hold together fairly well. At the same time, as a reviewer, it makes more sense to treat the two parts as divisible, since they each serve different functions.

Media Appearances Religion Resources

Children’s Museum of Manhattan – America to Zanzibar – POLITICO

Hussein

DE BLASIO press shake-up — CUOMO bans insider lobbyist — REDSTONE saga – POLITICO.

NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito, NYC Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer, NYC Council Members I. Daneek Miller and Helen Rosenthal toured the America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan earlier this week with the museum’s executive director Andy Ackerman, the museum’s honorary board chair Laurie M. Tisch, museum board member Judith Hannan, the exhibit’s academic advisor Hussein Rashid and others. America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far is a groundbreaking new interactive exhibit for children and families that explores the diversity of Muslim cultures in New York City, the U.S. and abroad. The exhibit showcases the cultural expressions of various Muslim communities around the world through age-appropriate experiences with art, architecture, travel, trade, design and more.

Books Events Film Inter-faith Media Appearances Music Religion Resources

Newsday on America to Zanzibar

Hussein

Here is a Newsday article on the exhibit America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far, at The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, for which I was the lead academic advisor. It’s a good chance to shout out my friends from high school.

“Our goal is to have children deal with differences in a healthy, positive way and encourage them to be inquisitive while exploring the world instead of running away from its differences,” Rashid said, an experience not so different from his years growing up in Elmont.

 

Media Appearances Resources

Getting the Motives Right – Foreign Policy Association

Hussein

My first piece for the Foreign Policy Association blog.

The recent attack against Ismaili Muslims in Karachi, Pakistan, will be read by most as part of a simple narrative of an ongoing Sunni-Shi’ah conflict. Unfortunately, as consistent fear-mongering has demonstrated with Sharia, bandying about non-English words conveys a facade of knowledge without any guarantee of any actual understanding. As is the case with most political violence, here is more to this attack than a simple retelling of a religious clash. There is a deeper history that is masked by using inappropriate vocabulary, and misusing it is allowing the most extreme voices to set the agenda.

Resources

Notes and Video from “The State of Muslims in America”

Hussein

Teachers from around the country attend webinar on “The State of Muslims in America” | The Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University.

In the contemporary context, Dr. Rashid spoke as well about the role of pop culture and media, including television sit-coms, music, and comedy (examples included the “Axis of Evil Comedy Tour” and the hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco among others), and the ways in which these have historically functioned as a normalizing force for marginalized communities in the U.S.  Participants in the webinar opened discussion about the notion of “Muslim culture” in this context, reflecting on the relationship between unity and diversity within a community that contains a multiplicity of backgrounds and cultural contexts within the U.S.  Rashid noted that the most significant forms of normalizing visibility often come with characters who present markers such as self-identified Muslim identity but are not defined by them.

See a recording of this session here

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