Diffused Congruence: The American Muslim Experience Parvez Ahmed & Omar Ansari

We are back to close out 2023 and continuing our discussions on Palestine, this time through the prism of the Civil Rights struggle in the United States. Professor Michael Fishbach joins us to discuss his 2019 book Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color. Professor Fishbach chronicles how Black Power activists and others in the Civil Rights struggle came to see Palestinians as a kindred people of color, waging the same struggle for freedom and justice as themselves. He brings his meticulous research to bear for a fascinating conversation about the Palestinian conflict's role in Black activism and the ways that the struggle shaped the domestic fight for racial equality, deeply affected U.S. black politics, and animating black visions of identity well into the late 1970s.
 
About Dr. Michael Fischbach 
Michael R. Fischbach is professor of history at Randolph-Macon College. Dr. Fischbach holds a PhD in History from Georgetown, MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown, and a BA in History from Northwestern University. 
He specializes in land issues relating to Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians and is the author of State, Society, and Land in Jordan, Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Jewish Property Claims Against Arab Countries, The Peace Process and Palestinian Refugee Claims: Addressing Claims for Property Compensation and Restitution, and two related works The Movement and the Middle East: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left, and the book we discussed: Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color.  

We are deeply honored and privileged to be joined by the eminent historian and perhaps leading academic on Palestine in the United States, Professor Rashid Khalidi. Dr. Khalidi discussesed his new book The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 which chronicles his personal and ancestral connection to the land of Palestine and what he characterizes as a war on the Palestinian people by colonial powers and Zionist settler colonialism for over one hundred years. 
Dr. Khalidi joined from his office at Columbia University. About Dr. Rashid Khalidi 
Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He received a B.A. from Yale University in 1970 and a D. Phil. from Oxford University in 1974. He has taught at the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, and the University of Chicago. He is co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies and has served as President of the Middle East Studies Association. He has written or co-edited ten books, including The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017  and Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (rev. ed. 2010).
 

We are back to discuss the ongoing crisis in Palestine, this time focusing on the one-sided and ideological media coverage. To offer his analysis and perspective, and discuss the possible factors that may change that status quo, we are joined by The Intercept’s veteran journalist Murtaza Hussain.

We had the pleasure of sitting with Dr. Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History at the University of California Berkeley for a detailed, highly enlightening and impassioned discussion of the history of the Palestinian struggle. Dr. Makdisi masterfully contextualizes what is happening right now in Palestine within the broader history of the Western colonialist, Zionist project that has dehumanized, brutalized, and ethnically cleansed the Palestinian people for over 75 years.   
About Dr. Ussama Makdisi
Dr. Ussama Makdisi is Professor of History and Chancellor’s Chair at the University of California Berkeley. He was previously Professor of History and the first holder of the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies at Rice University in Houston.    

10/3/2013 - 10/3/2023
Parvez gets on mic to ruminate on 10 years of the podcast, its genesis, mission, accomplishments, pitfalls avoided, and future plans. We are immensely proud and grateful for these past 10 years but we could not have done it without you, our listeners! Thank you for your continued support, feedback, and for sharing the show. We pray that Allah blesses us with 10 more years and beyond by His Fadl and Tawfiq.

We continue making our way through our Chicago recordings with a very special conversation about Palliative Care, a topic that is hardly discussed in the Muslim communities but can impact the lives of young and old alike within the community. Palliative care specifically deals with relieving serious health-related suffering, be it physical, psychological, social, or spiritual for patients with serious illness like cardiovascular disease, cancer, major organ failure, end-stage chronic illness, acute trauma, or extreme frailty related to old age. It includes pastoral considerations, and more broadly can have profound implications on legal matters such as Living wills and other advance directives, the necessity of families having discussions about of quality of life and long terms care, among other issues. 
About Our GuestsDr. Aziz Ansari, is a Professor of Medicine and is the Associate Chief Medical Officer for Clinical Optimization and Revenue Integrity at Loyola University Medical Center. He is a practicing and board-certified hospitalist and palliative care physician.
Omer Mozaffar serves as the Muslim Chaplain at Loyola University Chicago where he addresses theological, personal, social matters for students of all sectarian outlooks. He has received Islamic studies training both through traditional and academic sources.  Across the Muslim community, for nearly three decades, he has been giving sermons, officiating weddings, leading classes at Islamic centers.