Forthcoming

April 30 podcast "The First Muslim": author Lesley Hazelton talks about this important new biography of Prophet Muhammad.

April 23 podcast Adameer Office for Palestinian Prisoners (from our archive). The gorilla in the room: humorist Amer Zahr's "lousy weekend"; with open phones.

April 16 podcast. Fawzia Afzal Khan on parallel Muslim agendas in America-- diverging or supporting? BN Aziz reads from The First Muslim, by Lesley Hazelton.

April 9 podcast. Poetry Month selections; The Campaign to Free Lynne Stewart

April 2 podcast Poet Samuel Hazo, on his novel The Time Remaining set in Washington and Palestine. And jazz by trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf.

March 26 podcast. Celebrating women on Youm el-Oum, Arab Mother's Day--Baghdad resident Souad AlRadi (from our 2003 archive), and poems by Lamees AlAthari

March 19, podcast Authors Willow Wilson, part 2 (see March 12), and Hanan Al-Shaykh (2009 archive); poet Gaith Adhami (2010 archive)

March 12 podcast Author of Alif The Unseen, Willow Wilson (part 1); campaign for imprisoned civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart

March 8, podcast Women's Day special: poet and author Mohja Kahf on western representations of the Muslim woman (a 2000 archive production).  

 Jan 29 podcast Tahrir continues our Jan 22nd with Haddad on the new generation of Muslim Americans. Also, books for young readers

Jan 22 podcast Professor and author Yvonne Haddad: the strategy of 'exceptionalism' for Muslim Americans. Tahrir archive interview with writer/novelist Ahdaf Soueif   

 Jan 15 podcast Hassen Abdellah and BNimri Aziz review advances and setbacks in our communities. Marking his 85th birthday, we look at the work of civil rights attorney Ramsey Clark. (see our Jan 26 blog)

 

Jan 8 podcast ALGERIA: Ammar Kessab comments on Algerian government control of ‘culture’; Simone Fattal examines the role of democracy philosopher deTocqueville in Algeria; nuclear scientist Al-Aboudi details France’s nuclear tests in Algeria & longterm affects

 

Jan 1 podcast New Year special with Sarah Malaika

 

Dec  25 podcast. Year end broadcast hosted by BN Aziz, with listener calls 

 

Dec 18 podcast. Tahrir revisits Algeria's Rai music tradition in a 1997 archival production by Anissa Bouziane, then an update with Arab music aficiando Dawn Elder. B N Aziz reviews the work of Arab filmmakers Yasmina Adi and Ruba Nadda.

 

Dec 4 podcast SF activist Alice Nashashibi (archive); “Existence is Resistance" NYC HipHop Festival supporting Gaza. Algeria: Pt 1:Ammar Kessab on the Algerian government's hegemony on cultural (civic) expression.

 

Nov 27  podcast Before the the UN vote on Palestine, an early commentary by Fouad Moughrabi on land seizures; also scholar Walid Khalidi on Jerusalem history. Book review: "The Time Remaining" by Samuel Hazo. Poems: Suheir Hammad and Lisa Majaj.

 

Nov 20 podcast  from Tahrir's 2005 archive: Salma K Jayyusi on modern Arabic literature; also the NY Arab Comedy Festival.

 

Sept 25 podcast  'The stupid film' everyone is mad about: Wayne State U Middle East specialist Abdullah Al-Arian offers strategies for American Muslims. Ramallah-based Palestinian artist Taiseer Barakat (Tahrir archive)

 

Sept 18  podcast American Muslims: advances and setbacks, with author Stephan Salisbury, attorney Fahd Ahmed, DRUM-NY and Adem Caroll of ICNA. From 1991 Tahrir archive, Sayyid M. Sayeed discusses Islamophobia 13 years ago.

 

Sept 11 Ethiopia's Muslim history, past and  present with Nejib Muhammad US Islamic  Community of Ethiopians. 

 

Aug 21 podcast "From Cordoba to Baghdad", Arab Music with virtuoso, Simon Shaheen.  From our Tahrir archive.

 

Aug 14  podcast Naif Al-Mutawa creator of “The 99”and CEO of  Teshkeel Media speaks about his challenges, his vision, his plans for this international superhero young people's project. From our 1994 Tahrir archive, an excerpt from The City of Cairo with Kadry Al-Arabi, and some Ramadan poetry.

 

Aug 7 podcast Mustafa Davis California-based filmmaker & photographer producer of “Deentight” an award winning film talks about hip hop artists and Islam. And productions by this summer’s Tahrir interns-- Weaam Wali and Omar Ammar.

 

July 31  podcast Ramadan from the streets of New Jersey with Tamara Issak.  "The 99",  preview for Aug 14. Comment by MT Mehdi (1997 Tahrir archive).

 

July 3 see podcast. Attorney Omar Mohammedi  assesses Congressman King's hearings and Islamophobia;   interview with London based S. Asia fusion vocalist 'Najma' ('94), and Farid Esack ('97 Tahrir archive)  

 

June 26 see podcast MT Medhi on airport profiling in 1997 (WBAI news archive); Three Veils director Rolla Selbak, and  review of gay/lesbian activists ('97 Tahrir archive) with host Dave Hall.

 

June 19,  see podcast. A review of Arab theater and "Food and Fadwa", by Reem Nasr; Ginan Rauf comments on two Egypt-focused films-- Goodbye Mubarak and Tahrir: LIberation Square.  

 

June 12, podcast. Ilyasa Shabazz, author of "Growing Up X", and daughter of Malcolm Al-Hajj Shabazz.

 

June 5 podcast,  Muslim students talk about their experience after revelations of infiltration by US intellegence agencies  of their student assemblies. Also, a  Tahrir archive  profile: the early 20th C. Egyptian feminist Doria Shafiq

 

May 14  2 hour special: The 'Nakba', 64th anniversary of the expulsions from Palestine in 1948.  

 

May 1 podcast Tribute to Brother Ghazi Khankan 1934-2012. 

 

April 24 podcast Actor/film-director Newark-born Usman Sharif  talks about his career, his productions in progress and the politics of making films. 

 

April 10 podcast Iraq--an economic model? From our archive on pre-1990 Iraq--economist Rashid Yakob. Also: Tuareg of the Sahel and crises in Saharan areas of Niger, Mali, Algeria, Libya-- a commentary by BNAziz.

 

April 3 podcast Managing multi-identities: Arab Americans’  interface with whiteness, with artistic director Jamil Khoury of Silk Road Rising Theater Chicago.

   

March 27 podcast "Water in the Middle East"-a radio documentary from our archive, with updates.  

 

Mar 13 podcast Muslim Responses to Unlawful Surveillance: Sharifah Salaam, NJ & Imam Ramadan, NY

  

"Men have singled out women of outstanding merit and put them on a pedestal to avoid recognizing the capabilities of all women" — Huda Shaarawi (1879-1947), Egyptian political activist and  feminist

 

March 8 podcast Women's Day Special from Tahrir's 1990 archive- women leaders: Huda Shaarawi and author Nadia Hijab

Jan 31 podcast Turkish TV dramas in the Arab World: with Aydin Baltaci and BN Aziz. An excerpt from RNasr's interview with journalist/author Ashraf Khalil-- Liberation Square. (full interview podcast Feb 11)

 

Jan 10 podcast. Sex education for Muslim youth--Mohamad Ahmad and Amir Mertaban, hosts of Irvine CA’s online radio’s "Boiling Point" debate the issue.   

 

Jan 3, 2012 podcast “Warrantless Profiling and Surveillance”: guest attorneys Omar Mohammedi and Faiza Patel.Listener calls. 

 

Dec 20, 2011 podcast Educating our children in Islamic values: private school principal Amanny Khattab of Noble Academy, NJ public school teacher Suada Charaf. and home-school.advocate Nabila Hanson.

 

Nov 29, 2011 podcast, Fencing champion Ibtihaj Muhammad; and medical specialists discuss treatment of NJ Arabs with disabilities.

 

Oct 4, 2011 podcast Afghan-Americans in a NY performance; Khalil Meek of Muslim Legal Fund.

 

 

Sept 27 podcast. Mohammed Ghani Hikmat ,Iraqi sculptor (1929-2011); and BN Aziz' report on her 1993 visit to Gaza at the time of the Oslo Accord (archive)

  

Sept 6, podcast  Our civil rights and entrapment of Muslims by US security agencies. Attorneys Asaad Siddiqi and Lamis Deek.

 Aug 23, 2011 podcast Tahrir archive special Ramadan children's stories, poems and people: AbdHayyMoore, Ibr.Gonzalez, Sapphire Ahmed, Somayieh Uddin, Dasham Brookins, Sharam Shiva & more.

 

Aug 16, no podcast available. What is halal; how halal is your Ramadan iftar? "My Halal Kitchen", and spiritual melodies of our Syrian group "Noor".   

 

August 9, see podcast What Ramadan means to me.

  

Aug 30, see podcast Prophet Mohammad: a third in our series on "the prophets", with Muhammad Jaaber. 

 

Articles

Algerian Agricultural Experiments in the Sahara

April 01, 2006
Soufi from the River, Soufi from the Sand
by Barbara Nimri Aziz

Who else but we built our domes?
Who but we preened these poems?
To whom else do sand dunes yield
A land aglow with golden jewel?
Come,
See a rare pride.
Come,
See how this sand breathes sand;
How these brown arms
Render harsh earth so supple.
How these brown arms
Lift away trouble.
Come.
See, from sun’s hot rays of El-Souf
light enters any dark crevice.

--- Bubakar Murad
(Translation: Rachida Mohammedi)

At the entrance to a private experimental farm near the city of El-Oued in the Algerian sahara stands a modest statue of an early settler of this oasis: the ‘rammaal’. He is neither a camel trader nor a herdsman, although El-Oued is home to both. Rimal means sand in ‘arabic’, and rammaal is the humble farmer and sand porter whose muscle and plodding determination made El-Oued’s early date palms grow.

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Algeria Open For Business

October 28, 2005

It’s confirmed by the US government. Algeria is back on the map, according to the United States. Less than two weeks after the country’s national referendum on peace and reconciliation (Middle East International 7610), the American embassy in Algiers announced that it was to reopen its consular office after a ten-year gap.

It is no coincidence that the American announcement comes 12 days after President Bouteflika’s success in the referendum with little opposition or significant violence.

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Iraq, International Women's Day, 2003

March 08, 2003

March 8, 2003. International Women's Day!

So what? It's still war mode for Iraqi women as well as their sons and sisters, their fathers, their brothers and babies.

In Mosul, 400 km north of the Iraqi capital, it is a glorious spring day. How could a war be looming? How could thousands of tanks be lined up along three borders, ready to mow over us?

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Iraqi Scientists Outside History

September 01, 1996

Archeologist Walid al-Jadir was one of those scientists who somehow connect everything they see and hear to their work. His task was to reveal the ancient history of Iraq. “See those hillocks on the landscape?” he once asked me pointing to the dull, winter farmland we were passing on the way to Sippar, the site of his research. “Every one of those hills could be a tell,” he continued. “Probably under each one lays an ancient city. The entire country of Iraq is a treasure.”

Al-Jadir felt a sense of urgency about uncovering his country’s distant past. He was proud of the role his ancestors—the inhabitants of Mesopotamia—played in human civilization as long as 5,000 years ago.

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Gravesites: Environmental Ruin in Iraq

March 09, 2006
The chain of death created by the Gulf War is a scary thing.  I'm not talking about black skies over the blazing oil wells of Kuwait, or charred remains of soldiers on the sand or the incinerated families who had sought protection in a bomb shelter.  Those are familiar images of death, recognizable, and however painful, they are finite.  With the end of hostilities, they disappear.

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"Scheherazade's Legacy: Arab Women Writing" edited by Susan M. Darraj. Foreword by BN Aziz;

September 07, 2004
Inevitably, a time arrives in a people’s history when a shared awakening occurs. In varying degrees of awareness, driven by the feeling that “It is up to me to tell my people’s story,” we begin. Or, we are compelled simply to tell my own story. James Baldwin, when he emerged as a political voice, concluded, that he could not accept what he once believed --that he was an interloper, that he could have “no other heritage (than the white heritage) which I could possibly hope to use”, and he would simply have to accept his special attitude, his special place in the world scheme. At one time, he had believed that otherwise, “I would have no place in any scheme”. (Autobiographical Notes, p. 7, Notes of A Native Son, 1955.)

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Move Over

January 10, 2000

Move Over is the title of a poem by Mohja Kahf. And for me it is a statement that Western feminists need to hear. It is time for Western feminists to step aside and let women from other parts of the world speak. Why is it that feminists who serve as book editors and conference organizers urge me to talk about my victimization at the hands of my brother, husband, or another Arab man? Why won’t they hear me explain the injustices of Western actions, for example, in the Gulf War? These women, perhaps more than my Arab brother, are an obstacle to my true liberation.

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Demolishing Palestinian Homes--a daily occurance up to the present

April 05, 1996
It's quite a spectacle, a Palestinian home being blown apart. Furniture, dishes and clothes, hastily removed, are deposited helter-skelter in the path or road. Villagers stand by, silent and grim. Heavily armed soldiers are massed to prevent any disruption. And confused, awed children turn sullen.

Americans are not accustomed to seeing Israel's 'demolitions policy' at work. Most recently, this policy has been aimed at the families of suicide bombers. But all Palestinians, from toddlers to the elderly, are familiar with it.

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