Join us for a free online concert featuring prominent American Muslim artists to celebrate our 2020 Columbia graduates!

About this Event

The Center for Muslim Societies at Columbia University presents "New Moon Rising: Muslim American Artists Perform" to celebrate Columbia University's 2020 graduating class, and to commemorate the launch of CSMS. Join us at 3pm EST on Saturday, May 30 for a stunning concert featuring Rachid Halihal, Salieu Suso, Amir Sulaiman, Mitra Sumara, Zeshan Bhagwadi, Akram Ahmad Al-Mustafa, Maalem Hassan Benjaafar, Amir ElSaffar, Maimouna Youssef, and Alsarah of the Nubatones.

Registration is required. Register Here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-moon-rising-muslim-american-artists-perform-tickets-105806907308

Organizers: Middle East Institute, Center for the Study of Muslim Societies, Columbia Religious Life

Apply now for fully funded Language Conversation Practice! Applications open on a rolling basis while funds last.

MEI has partnered with NaTakallam to connect language learners with refugees and displaced people who provide conversation practice in their native  Arabic, Persian, and Kurdish! MEI is offering scholarships that cover 10 fully-funded sessions with a NaTakallam Conversation Partner.  Whether you want to practice what you’re learning in an existing class, prepare for future research or job opportunities, speak with family and friends, or just have fun, NaTakallam can help you reach your goals. 

Languages available:

• Arabic (MSA, Levantine, Iraqi, Egyptian) 

• Persian (Farsi and Dari)

• Kurdish  

What the scholarship includes: 10 fully-funded 1-hour personalized sessions with a NaTakallam Conversation Partner in the language/dialect of your choice.

About NaTaKallam: Since 2015, NaTakallam has grown into a global social enterprise that has provided over 6000 students with unique online language practice and cultural exchange allowing refugees from the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa to self-generate income.

No contemporary figure is more demonized than the Islamist foreign fighter who wages jihad around the world. Spreading violence, disregarding national borders, and rejecting secular norms, so-called jihadists seem opposed to universalism itself. In a radical departure from conventional wisdom on the topic, The Universal Enemy argues that transnational jihadists are engaged in their own form of universalism: these fighters struggle to realize an Islamist vision directed at all of humanity, transcending racial and cultural difference.

Anthropologist and attorney Darryl Li reconceptualizes jihad as armed transnational solidarity under conditions of American empire, revisiting a pivotal moment after the Cold War when ethnic cleansing in the Balkans dominated global headlines. Muslim volunteers came from distant lands to fight in Bosnia-Herzegovina alongside their co-religionists, offering themselves as an alternative to the US-led international community. Li highlights the parallels and overlaps between transnational jihads and other universalisms such as the War on Terror, United Nations peacekeeping, and socialist Non-Alignment. Developed from more than a decade of research with former fighters in a half-dozen countries, The Universal Enemy explores the relationship between jihad and American empire to shed critical light on both.

About the author: Darryl Li is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago.

The Persian Conversation Hour is a weekly opportunity for Persian-speaking students of all levels to meet and interact with each other, instructors, TAs, and native Persian speakers from the local community. Learners of all levels are welcome so long as they have some proficiency, however basic, in Persian language. The subject of conversation is entirely free and determined by the participants, their skill levels and their interests. The conversation is often broken up into smaller groups when practicing with learners of a similar level is more beneficial. Lunch is served.

The Persian Conversation Hour is a weekly opportunity for Persian-speaking students of all levels to meet and interact with each other, instructors, TAs, and native Persian speakers from the local community. Learners of all levels are welcome so long as they have some proficiency, however basic, in Persian language. The subject of conversation is entirely free and determined by the participants, their skill levels and their interests. The conversation is often broken up into smaller groups when practicing with learners of a similar level is more beneficial. Lunch is served.

Check out the MEI Spring Course list here!

Join MEI to hear Sherine Hamdy discuss her project Lissa: A Story of Friendship, Medical Promise, and Revolution and its portrayal of illness and disease amidst the Egyptian revolution alongside Lissa's illustrators Caroline Brewer and Sarula Bao.