When you think of a researcher, most people think of professors in universities. When you think of academic books, you think of books with chapters. Our guest today, Mohamed ElShahed, disrupts these assumptions and does it with an urban history flair. Mohamed ElShahed is an independent historian and curator and is well known for his website Cairobserver. We’re going to be talking to him about his book today, "Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide" out now from the American University in Cairo Press. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

In this episode of On The Square, we talk with Dr. Aliyah Khan, author of Far from Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean, about the deep Muslim history of the Caribbean and how the Muslim experience is shaped by the complex racial dynamics of the region. Credits:On The Square’s theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.Artwork for On The Square was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.

Today we will be talking to the founders and editors of Contingent Magazine, Marc Reyes and Erin Bartram. Contingent aims at making history accessible to all while supporting academics who don’t have job security. I hope you enjoy talking to them as much as I do; there’s a lot of laughter in this interview. Bill Black is also a co-founder of Contingent Magazine, but he wasn’t available for this interview. Credits:Our theme music is by Blue Dot Sessions.This episode was audio edited by Sophie Potts

In this episode On The Square, we talk about sex! Sapelo Square Senior Editor Su’ad Abdul Khabeer chats with The Village Auntie, Angelica Lindsey-Ali, a certfied sexual health educator and expert on all things sex, intimacy and womanhood from an African and Islamic perspecitve. Credits:On The Square’s theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.Artwork for On The Square was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.

As the 20th anniversary of September 11 reminds us of personal tragedy as well as structural violence of the state, The Maydan Podcast editor-in-chief Ahmet Tekelioglu hosts Sahar Aziz, a legal scholar, an expert on critical race theory, and the founding director of the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at  Rutgers University Law School. She is the author of the Racial Muslim, forthcoming from University of California Press in November 2021.

In this episode On The Square commemorates Black August. Sapelo Square Senior Editor Su’ad Abdul Khabeer speaks with Jihad Abdulmumit, community activist, playwright, freedom fighter, and chairperson of the National Jericho Movement about freedom and self-determination. Credits:This episode includes excerpts from archival clips of the Black Panther Party preserved in the National Archives. It also includes a clip from an interview with Nina Simone.On The Square’s theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.Artwork for On The Square was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.

Our guest today is Jean Druel, who is a member of the Dominican Order, a member of the Dominican Order (a part of the Catholic Church) who lives in Cairo. After a Master’s Degree in theology and Coptic patrology, he graduated in Teaching Arabic as Foreign Language at the American University of Cairo. In 2012, he completed a PhD thesis in the history of Arabic grammar at the University of Nijmegen, in the Netherlands titled “Numerals in Arabic grammatical theory.” He managed the 200 Project (2013‒2016), which aimed to historically contextualize the works of 200 authors of the Arab Islamic heritage. He served as director of the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (IDEO) in Cairo between 2014 and 2020. He currently studies a manuscript of Sībawayh’s (180/796?) Kitāb that has never been edited.

In this episode, Ermin Sinanovic talks to Dr. Mohammed Hashas (Luiss University, Rome, Italy) and Dr. Meriem El Haitami (L’Université Internationale de Rabat in Morocco) about Islamic thought in Morocco. By tracing the genealogies of modern and contemporary Islamic thought, Dr. Hashas and Dr. El Haitami reveal the rich legacy of Moroccan Islamic thought, especially in the fields of philosophy and Muslim feminism.

In this episode, Sapelo Square History Editor Zaheer Ali speaks with Tulani Salahu-Din, museum specialist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, about Muslim artifacts at the museum and the importance of preserving Muslim material culture

In this episode, Sapelo Square Arts and Culture Editor Ambata Kazi-Nance speaks with author and educator Amani-Nzinga Jabbar about her book, I Bear Witness, the craft of writing, writing about difficult subject matter, and her experiences as a Black Muslim woman writer. Amani-Nzinga Jabbar is a professor of English, author, marathon runner, health coach, wife, and mother of three children. Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, she now makes her home in Decatur, Georgia. You can connect with Amani and get updates on her writing on Instagram @authoramani and Twitter @Author_Amani and on Facebook.   Credits:On the Square theme music was created by Fanatik OnBeats.Artwork was created by Scheme of Things Graphics.