Here are a few shows, from glossy network productions to web series, that Muslims — and those interested in the Muslim experience — can stream without eye rolls: “Little Mosque on the Prairie” (2007-2012), “Resurrection: Ertugrul” (2014-2019), “Ramy” (2019- ), …

Continue reading at: Religion News

The series fills a gap in educational materials, as it moves beyond hate crimes and other acts of interpersonal discrimination to understand the deeper institutionalized racism at play.

Each video is animated, approximately three minutes long, and designed for maximum engagement and retention, across age spectrums.

We have created an Educators’ Guide with the support of Ontario teachers to accompany the videos. The guide offers 23 classroom/homework activities appropriate for students Grade 6-12 and includes curriculum connections.

The guide can also be used by post-secondary educators, community organizations and in professional development settings.

Source: MuslimLink

Is wearing a headscarf a clear gesture of submission? Does the Quran really permit men to control women and beat them? Is the image of modern woman anti-Islamic? Must a woman choose between being a faithful Muslim or an independent feminist?

This documentary also consults women who are Islamic scholars. They say it is not Islam or the Quran that vilifies women, but rather certain interpretations of it and patriarchal traditions. They are campaigning for a more gender-neutral interpretation of the Quran and are trying to bring religion and feminism together. In contrast, women’s rights advocates such as Zineb El Rhazoui, a former employee of the French satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo”, refuse to reconcile themselves with their religious roots, saying that Islam cannot be reformed.

Source: Deutsche Welle

In this podcast, we speak with Dr. Katayoun Kishi, who oversaw the ninth in a series of reports by Pew Research Center analyzing the extent to which governments and societies around the world impinge on religious beliefs and practices. We discuss the findings of the report as well as methodology for collecting and analyzing data. Dr. Kishi summarizes findings for different regions of the world–including the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa–and she explains long-term trends evident from Pew’s reports.

To measure global restrictions on religion in 2016–the most recent year for which data are available–the study ranks 198 countries and territories by their levels of government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion. The new study is based on the same 10-point indexes used in the previous studies.

Source: Religious Studies Project

The show is available from July 22 on the digital-only BBC Three channel through the streaming service iPlayer. The program was created, written and performed by Instagram influencer Ali Shahalom and stand-up comedian Aatif Nawaz.“We wanted to create a Muslim sketch show that was inclusive of our people, our experiences and our emotions, but presented in a way that hasn’t been seen before. We knew there’s an appetite at the moment for authenticity, there’s a need to be represented and I feel like more is being done to encourage and develop talent,” Shahalom said in an interview on the BBC’s website. Early reviews so far have been mixed calling the show a ‘hit and miss’.

Source: The Arabian Business

This alumna who graduated in 2017 with a master’s degree in new media photojournalism, said: “The award emphasizes the value of Muslim storytelling in America, especially at a time when my religion is debated and criticized by Americans.”

Goldziher Prize is an award that recognizes excellence in coverage of Muslim Americans by American journalists. Ullah is one of six individuals across the US to win the award, which comes with a $5,000 prize.

The talented winner further said that: “The Prize gives an eye into a part of Islam that a lot of people don’t see, or people that aren’t Muslim often times see and maybe if they do see it, they don’t know.”

Sana Ullah started to take her photo series in 2015 after she and her sister stopped to pray in a dressing room. She explained: “This moment inspired me to capture times when other Muslims take a timeout during their days to pray.”

Using photograph talent to portray Muslim prayer’s beauty, the American Muslim photographer initially started her project as Facebook and Instagram campaigns with over 25,000 followers.

Source: IslamicFinder

A Documentary about Pre-911 Surveillance of Muslim American Communities

Written, Directed & Produced by Assia Boundaoui

Produced by Jessica Devaney

While investigating her neighbors’ experiences, Assia uncovers tens of thousands of pages of FBI documents that prove her hometown was the subject of one of the largest counterterrorism investigations ever conducted in the U.S. before 9/11, code-named “Operation Vulgar Betrayal.” Through a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter her investigation became the documentary “The Feeling of Being Watched”.

Screenings of “The Feeling of Being Watched” took place Friday, February 15 in Toronto as part of the Habibiz exhibit and on Saturday, March 2 in London, Ontario. Filmmaker Assia Boundaoui spoke at the London, Ontario screening.

With unprecedented access, The Feeling of Being Watched weaves the personal and the political as it follows the filmmaker’s examination of why her community fell under blanket government surveillance. Assia struggles to disrupt the government secrecy shrouding what happened and takes the FBI to federal court to compel them to make the records they collected about her community public.

Assia is an Algerian-American journalist and filmmaker based in Chicago. She has reported for the BBC, NPR, PRI, Al Jazeera, VICE, and CNN. Her debut short film about hijabi hair salons for the HBO LENNY documentary series premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Website: http://www.feelingofbeingwatched.com

Under Shaykh Dr. Akram Nadwi’s leadership and profound scholarship, CIC are already pioneers in Online Islamic Education, being the first Islamic institution to live stream seminars. Naturally, given their location in a renowned seat of academia such as Cambridge, they pride themselves on transforming lives through producing Western Islamic scholarship, with a focus on accelerated learning.

Shakyh Dr Akram Nadwi has dedicated his life to mastery in scholarship, perhaps best demonstrated in his ground-breaking research on the female scholars of Islam in the field of Hadith. This research spanned a period of 15 years and resulted in the 57-volume work detailing and analyzing the biographies of over 9000 female scholars from the time of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) until today.

Source: Launchgood.com

But, I suspect things are about to change. There is a new game in town, ‘Mainstream The Muslim.’ Zeitgeist producers ‘get’ that the Muslim bashing industry has reached its zenith. It’s not only Muslims who now feel nauseated by yet another ‘in-depth investigation into jihad at home’, our fellow Brits surely share the instinct to turn off this tired old tale. The question then is, what next?…Citizen Khan’s stereotyping of the porch-Muslim as foolish, rather dim and always chasing cash, puts our community at around 1976 in terms of TV equality. Let’s not despair, the next stage in the ‘normalization’ process in which mainstream channels get to make money out of us (whilst still treating us as ‘the other’) is examining our community as if we are a rather peculiar, yet colorful ‘species’.

Muslims “Like” Us!

This metamorphosis kicked off with the airing of the BBC reality documentary ‘Muslims Like Us’, a two-part series putting 10 men and women from different parts of the community into the same house for ten days.

The cast had a child-like predictability. There was the homosexual, the feminist, the token hijabi. And, of course, no group of Muslims can possibly gather without having in our midst, an ‘extremist’. This role was carried out with authentic truculence by Abdul Haqq, a former boxer and revert to Islam. Reading about the show beforehand I couldn’t help but hear David Attenborough’s mellifluous tone in my head.

“Here, here, here, in the blustery wilds of the north of England, a group of fascinating and colorful Muslimae Reduciae are seen fighting over onions in this rare footage…”

Then came the first of several (not unpleasant) surprises. The series opened quietly, even spiritually. In tight close-up, each housemate recited a line from Al Fatihah. It was powerful to watch ‘The Opening’ of the Holy Qur’an recited with the English translation running beneath. Who thought that in such dark times, the opening of the Islamic prayer would be slowly played on BBC2 for British viewers to absorb free from external comment.

However, Abdul Haqq allowed himself to be a tool of predictability and producers began their fun and games. Mehran, is a pretty teacher whose false eyelashes and fitted clothing hide only her piety. She sat nervously at the kitchen table and in walked Haqq. Rather shyly, he handed out leaflets about the dangers of ‘free mixing’ making clear his preference for separate seating areas for men and women. The following day he had leaflets on how women are expected to dress which he shared with Mehren. As the days progressed, Mehren refused to take the easy option of yelling at Haqq or reveling in hurt feelings. Instead, she showed polite restraint and the two, agreed to disagree in a way that showed some maturity and probably frustrated producers no end.

Openly gay Fehran chose for his suggestion of a daily event to invite a fellow gay couple to meet everyone. Predictably, Haqq left the room, so as not to be near his version of a spiritual nemesis, muttering something about throwing gays off the roof under his breath.

Read more at: AboutIslam.net

Many of the conflicts raging in the Middle East today see Sunni and Shia armed groups pitted against one another and communities that were once a mix of both sects, torn apart.

To understand the origins of the dispute we must go back to the final hours of the Prophet Mohammed and the question of who was going to succeed him as leader of Islam after his death.

Two groups emerged claiming to be the rightful heirs of the mantle of Islam: the Prophet’s immediate family who would become the Shia and his closest companions, who became the Sunni.

Tarek follows the dramatic events of the 7th century AD as Islam spread across continents and power struggles ensued. He pauses at Karbala, in Iraq, and the murder of the Prophet’s grandson Hussein, which saw the irrevocable split between the Shia and the Sunni.

In the second part of his series on the Sunni-Shia divide, Tarek Osman travels to the Middle East to examine the causes and forces behind the sectarian split today.

Conflicts raging in Iraq, Syria and Yemen all have a sectarian dimension with communities – who used to live side by side – now torn apart. Tarek follows history across the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st to understand how the Sunni-Shia divide has become so entrenched.

He wants to know if the current divisions echo the original split between the Sunni and Shia dating back 1400 years. Or whether sectarianism today is being used by powerful regional players to achieve their own geo-strategic and political goals.

In Lebanon, a barometer of sectarianism in the Middle east, he meets people from both Muslim sects to hear how religious identities are changing; and he visits a Syrian refugee camp to meet people who have been forced to flee their homes because of a war waged along sectarian lines.

Source: BBC