Student Spotlight: ISMA student Asad Dandia's latest Op-Eds

Congratulations to ISMA student Asad Dandia for publishing several opinion pieces this month in the Washington Post, Al Jazeera and Jewish Currents.

Asad is currently a second-year in MEI's ISMA program. He previously completed a BS in Social Work with a focus on community organizing from NYU in 2016, and has also studied at the American University in Cairo's intensive Islamic Studies and Islamic Law summer programs. He co-hosts the "New Books in Middle East Studies" podcast with the New Books Network, and is a Teaching Assistant (TA) for two courses at NYU. His academic interests are in Islamic intellectual history of the Middle East and South Asia, particularly in the modern period, as well as the ideas across time and space, and how Muslim thinkers, societies, and states negotiate[d] the “traditional and religious” with “the modern and secular.” Lastly, Asad has a deep interest in Islamic mysticism or Sufism.

Asad’s recent published pieces:

Washington Post: Bloomberg's NYPD spied on me for being Muslim. He has never apologized.

Al Jazeera English: Can atheists make their case without devolving into bigotry?

Jewish Currents: When "Jewish Security" Means Muslim Surveillance