Parvez and Omar are honored to be joined by Shaykh Jamaal Diwan, co-founder and Resident Scholar at The Majlis. This was a wide-ranging conversation with Shaykh Jamaal discussing his personal journey connecting with his faith, his studies at Al-Azhar University, and the principles underlying The Majlis. Beyond his personal journey the conversation touches on parenting, the challenges of nurturing a sense of community in the United States, a "cultural topography" of Southern California, and much more.
This is an excellent companion episode to Episode 131 with his wife Shaykha Muslema Purmul, co-founder and Religious Director at The Majlis.      





About Shaykh Jamaal Diwan
Shaykh Jamaal Diwan was born and raised in Southern California to parents from Newfoundland and Pakistan. He accepted Islam in 2003 while at UCSD. After getting married and graduating from UCSD in Third World Studies, he and his wife moved to Egypt to study Arabic and Islamic Studies. He stayed there for the better part of the next seven years finishing an undergraduate degree in Sharia from al-Azhar. During that time he also completed two years of graduate work in Islamic Studies from the American University in Cairo. In addition to his formal studies he has also obtained ijazat (traditional licenses to transmit and teach) in various branches of Islamic Studies such as aqidah, fiqh, tazkiyah, and hadith. 
Upon returning from Egypt in 2011 he has served as a religious teacher and instructor in Southern California in various capacities such as Resident Scholar, University Chaplain, and Islamic Studies teacher.
He cofounded The Majlis with his wife, Shaykha Muslema Purmul. The Majlis seeks to nurture safe community spaces where people can learn and live Islam, based on the traditional sources of understanding the faith, while acknowledging the particular challenges of the American context. It focuses its efforts on religious education, spiritual refinement, love, and service. He is a father of two, residing in Southern California with his family.





















 

Episode 146: From SoCal to Al-Azhar and Back with Shaykh Jamaal Diwan

For our first episode of 2024 we present an interview conducted during our trip to Chicago with Dr. Hooman Keshavarzi, Founder and Executive Director of Khalil Center. Dr. Keshavarzi discusses his journey connecting with his faith, becoming a clinical psychologist, and how he integrated his studies in Islamic theology and spirituality towards creating an optimal, holistic model of mental health care and wellness. Dr. Keshavarzi's insight and in-depth of knowledge of Western and Islamic modalities of psychology made for a wide ranging conversation exploring physical, mental and metaphysical approaches to wellness and the variety of services and therapeutics that Khalil Center provides. We were fortunate to sit and record our conversation at Khalil Center's headquarters in Lombard, Illinois.
 
About Dr. Hooman Keshavarzi 
Hooman Keshavarzi is a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Illinois, he holds a Doctorate and Masters in Clinical Psychology and a Bachelors of Science – specialist psychology track/minor in Islamic Studies. He currently serves as the program director for the Masters in Counseling Islamic Psychology Program in Doha, Qatar, is a visiting scholar for Ibn Haldun University (Istanbul, Turkey) and adjunct  faculty at the Hartford Seminary.  He is the founding director of Khalil Center – the first Islamically oriented professional community mental wellness center and largest provider of Muslim mental healthcare in North America. He is also a senior fellow at the International Association for Islamic Psychology (IAIP), conducting research on topics related to Islam, Muslims and Mental Health. Hooman Keshavarzi is an international public speaker and trainer providing education on the intersection of Islamic studies and behavioral health.
Hooman Keshavarzi has also authored several published academic papers in recognized peer-reviewed journals on integrating Islamic spirituality into modern psychological practice. 
 
 
 
 
 

Episode 145: Integrating Islamic Spiritual Approaches into Professional Psychology and the Khalil Center with Dr. Hooman Keshavarzi

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 animated 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.  

Episode 144: Black Power and Palestine with Professor Michael Fischbach

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).
 

Episode 143: The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine with Dr. Rashid Khalidi

We are back to discuss the ongoing crisis in Palestine, this time focusing on the one-sided and ideologically motivated 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. 
About Murtaza Hussain
Brooklyn-based journalist and “Habitual line stepper” Murtaza Hussain is a political commentator for The Intercept, embodying the online publication’s dedication to “producing fearless, adversarial journalism.” 
His work focuses on human rights, foreign policy and cultural affairs. Murtaza's work has appeared in The New York Times, Al Jazeera English, Common Dreams, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Salon and elsewhere. His writings are also available via his Substack https://mazmhussain.substack.com/ and he is active on Twitter/X @MazMHussain

Episode 142: Media Coverage of the Palestinian Crisis with The Intercept’s 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.    

Episode 141: Historicizing and Contextualizing the Palestinian Struggle with Dr. Ussama Makdisi

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.

Episode 140: Diffused Congruence Celebrates 10 Years!

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 Guests
Dr. 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.

Episode 139: What is Palliative Care and Its Implications with Dr. Aziz Ansari and Omer Mozaffar

Next stop in Chicagoland takes us to Skokie where Parvez and Omar had the honor of sitting with author, educator and school administrator, Habeeb Quadri. We had an in-depth conversation about his experiences growing up in Chicago, what inspired him to become an educator, and his journey from teaching inner city schools in Detroit and Chicago to serving as Principal and Superintendent of a renowned Islamic school.
It was also a great opportunity for Parvez and Habeeb, who have known each other for over 30 years to reconnect, reminisce about cutting their teeth as youth activist in the 90s with Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) and the organization's resurgence in recent years.     

About Habeeb Quadri
Habeeb Quadri has served as principal of the Muslim Community Center Academy (MCCA) since 2002, where he has focused on changing school culture, financial turnaround, and transforming educational standards. He led MCCA to become one of the first Islamic parochial schools to receive national accreditation by implementing a comprehensive improvement plan that engaged stakeholders at all levels. 

Habeeb is on the principal advisory board and a part-time staffer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Principal Center and the founder of High Quality Educational Consulting. He was one of five private school leaders to be selected for the 2019 class of nationally distinguished principals by the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

He has lectured throughout the United States, Canada and abroad on Islam, society, and social problems confronting Muslim youth and the community at large, including workshops for the U.S Department of State, weekend and full-time Islamic schools, public schools and universities. 

Habeeb holds an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from Wayne State University and a B.A. in the Teaching of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has pursued continued advanced studies with Harvard University’s Professional Development Program.

Episode 138: Habeeb Quadri, Educator Extraordinaire

Next stop on Parvez & Omar's Chicago sojourn is the beautiful CAIR offices on historic State Street in downtown where they had the privilege of sitting with Ahmed Rehab. Ahmed's ability to articulate a clear and convincing analysis of contemporary social and political issues while maintaining a fidelity to Islam's normative teachings and practices made for a wide ranging and thought-provoking interview.      
 
About Ahmed Rehab
Ahmed is Executive Director of the Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations as well as CAIR's National Strategic Communications Director. CAIR is the nation's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy group.
A prolific writer and lecturer on contemporary social issues including civil rights, media relations, and Islam-West relations, Ahmed lectures at various University campuses in Chicago and around the nation.
Ahmed comments regularly as a guest on various local TV and cable news programs, as well as on radio stations. He has been interviewed by news publications such as the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily Herald, the Washington Post, the Orlando Sentinel, the Economist, the Boston Globe, Crain's Business Magazine, Germany's Die Zeit, and many more. His Op-Ed's have been published in numerous newspapers around the country.

Episode 137: Ahmed Rehab and ”the Chicago Way”

Parvez and Omar have the opportunity to sit with Shaykh Amin Kholwadia and learn about his lifelong journey towards Islamic scholarship, from childhood, schooling, coming to America, and ultimately, the establishment of Darul Qasim, an institute of traditional Islamic higher learning headquartered in the Glendale Heights suburb of Chicago.



About Shaykh Mohammed Amin Kholwadia






Shaykh Amin is continually engaged with a diverse following of mentees. His deep knowledge in the Islamic tradition and his aggressive engagement with contemporary issues facing everyday Muslims in the West has endeared him to young Islamic scholars and professionals all over. 






Shaykh Mohammed Amin is a Muslim scholar, mentor, and the founder of Darul Qasim, an institute of traditional Islamic higher learning headquartered in the Glendale Heights suburb of Chicago. Shaykh Amin is an active advocate of the classical Sunni tradition of Islamic scholarship and a passionate promoter of traditional Islamic sciences and methodologies of teaching and learning. He is regarded internationally as an expert theologian and an authority in the fields of Islamic philosophy and theosophy.

Episode 136: Shaykh Mohammed Amin Kholwadia

We are joined by Umair Haseeb.  They discuss his family background, growing up in Chicagoland, the spark that led to his spiritual awakening, and his studies towards Islamic scholarship abroad.
About Umair Haseeb

Umair Haseeb formally studied Arabic, the basics of Islam, and Quran in Chicago, which lead him to move to Morocco and Sahara to pursue a full time study of Arabic and Islamic Law. He received his ’Shahada’, or degree as well licenses directly from their Scholars, after studying at The Qarawiyyin in Fes, Morocco. He holds licenses in Legal Theory (Usul), Maliki Law, Grammar, Theology, and the Prophetic biography. He currently serves as the Imam of the “Sayyida Fatima Project at CIC”, under the auspices teacher Shaykh Muhammad el Emam, serving the South West Side of Chicago, as well as doing post graduate work at al Azhar University- Cairo

Episode 135: Umair Haseeb, from Chicagoland to the Maghreb and Back

We visited the Stanford University campus to sit with Professor Adnan Zulfiqar to discuss his journey and his work in the fields of law, history and religion, as well as some of the research he is currently doing in the areas of criminal law & procedure, Islamic jurisprudence, and rule of law in the Global South.  We found Adnan's experiences to be extraordinary and his insights to be enlightening, and we think you'll really enjoy the discussion!
 

About Adnan Zulfiqar
Adnan Zulfiqar is an interdisciplinary scholar in the fields of law, history and religion whose research focuses on critically examining the frameworks underlying legal discourses in both domestic and global contexts. His primary fields of inquiry are criminal law & procedure, Islamic jurisprudence, and rule of law in the Global South.
His most recent work centers on studying how Muslim jurists conceive of and utilize legal obligations, particularly in the context of revolution and war; rethinking approaches to the diffusion of human rights norms; and, exploring questions relating to police discretion in the United States. His scholarship has appeared in a number of publications, including the Yale Journal of International Law, Journal of Comparative Law (U.K.), West Virginia Law Review, NYU Journal of International Law & Politics and the Journal of Islamic Law [Harvard].
Professor Zulfiqar is a Regional Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania's Middle East Center, Editor at Harvard Law School's SHARIASource and faculty affiliate at the Rutgers Center for Transnational Law and the Center for Security, Race & Rights. 
During the 2022-23 academic year, Professor Zulfiqar was an External Faculty Fellow in residence at the Stanford Humanities Center.
He earned his J.D. (law), M.A. and Ph.D. (Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations) from the University of Pennsylvania, his M.L.S. (International Affairs) from Georgetown University and a B.A. (Religion and Anthropology) from Emory University. He is proficient in multiple languages and has spent over a decade in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Episode 134: Professor Adnan Zulfiqar’s Work in Law, History and Religion

Parvez and Omar return from a short post-Ramadan hiatus and meet with Shaykh Jabir Tarin to discuss his path as a young man to scholarship, his work in the growing and important field of Muslim mental health and counseling, as well his involvement with the Halal Food Standards Alliance of America (HFSAA).
About Shaykh Jabir Tarin
Shaykh Jabir Tarin is a registered associate marriage and family therapist. He has served as a teacher at several Islamic institutions, including Dua Seminary, where he teaches the Islamic Sciences, and Nur Institute. Shaykh Jabir has previously served as a therapist and spiritual and religious leader through the Muslim Mental Health Initiative at UC Berkeley and served the greater community through the Khalil Center. Currently, he passionately maintains similar roles through Wasilah Connections. Shaykh Jabir’s professional interests include providing mental health and spiritual training to the City of Fremont, integrating Islamic spirituality with mental wellness, and teaching Islamic theology to young adults and college students.

Episode 133:  Shaykh Jabir Tarin on Islamic Scholarship, Muslim Mental Health, HFSAA and more!

Parvez and Omar are joined by Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi, as they discuss the challenges (and joys) of raising Muslim children.  She shares some of her own experiences growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area and also offers insights about how to instill a love of the Deen and a strong Muslim identity in our children.
About Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi 
Hosai Mojaddidi has been serving the Muslim community for over 25 years as a teacher, public speaker, author/writer, spiritual counselor, and mental health advocate. She began her Islamic studies over 20 years ago at Zaytuna Institute in the Bay Area California where for several years she served as the lead female organizer and studied aqeeda, seerah, Hanafi fiqh, tazkiyyah an-nafs, tajweed, hadith, Arabic, and other sacred subjects with several resident and visiting scholars. She offers talks throughout the year locally and internationally on a range of topics including spirituality, self-development, seerah, women's issues, family/marriage, youth issues, social media literacy/safety, and mental health advocacy. She teaches weekly and monthly spiritual development classes (tazkiyyah) for adults and youth for multiple local and international organizations and via social media. She also currently teaches Seerah, Qur'an, logical and critical thinking, as well as Islamic studies in her local area. She is a mental health advocate and uses both her social media platforms to promote emotional and spiritual well-being and offers workshops on social-emotional learning for students & educators throughout the year. She’s a wife and mother of two and resides in California with her family.

Episode 132:  Raising Muslim Children:  Challenges and Insights with Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi

Parvez and Omar are joined by Shaykha Muslema Purmul, co-founder and Religious Director at The Majlis.  They discuss her family’s journey from Afghanistan to Southern California, as well as her motivations to pursue her religious studies at Al-Azhar University, and the work she is doing today as Religious Director at The Majlis.
About Muslema Pumul
Muslema Purmul was born in Raleigh, North Carolina and raised in San Diego, California. She graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a double major in Religious Studies and Middle Eastern Studies. During these years she served a number of different roles at her local MSA at UCSD as well as MSA West. After graduating she left to study in Egypt where she spent the better part of the next 7 years. She completed the Bachelors program in Sharia from al-Azhar University in Cairo and also completed almost two years of graduate work at the American University in Cairo in Islamic Studies. She also attended the International Union of Muslim Scholars “Future Scholars Program” while she was studying in Cairo.
Upon her return to America, she served the Southern California community in various capacities including religious instruction, directing youth and young adult programs, university chaplaincy, and offering community pastoral care at and with local masjids and organizations. She has taught classes and spoken nationally and internationally about issues related to Islamic law and ethics in an array of educational settings including conferences, retreats, universities, libraries, and mosques. Currently she serves as Religious Director at The Majlis, a community organization she and her husband co-founded together seeking to nurture safe community spaces where people can learn and live Islam, based on the traditional sources of understanding the faith, while acknowledging the particular challenges of the American context. She is a mother of two and resides with her family in Southern California.
 

Episode 131:  Shaykha Muslema Purmul’s Journey to Religious Scholarship

Parvez and Omar are joined by Shahan Mufti, author of American Caliph, The True Story of a Muslim Mystic, a Hollywood Epic, and the 1977 Siege of Washington, DC.The new book is the first full account of the largest ever hostage taking on American soil and of the tormented man who masterminded it. Informed by extensive archival research and access to hundreds of declassified FBI files, American Caliph is a riveting true-crime story that sheds new light on the disarray of the 1970s and its ongoing reverberations.
About Shahan Mufti
Shahan Mufti is the chair of the Department of Journalism at the University of Richmond and a former daily news reporter for the Christian Science Monitor. His work has been published in Harper’s, Wired, The New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and many others.
He is the author of The Faithful Scribe: A Story of Islam, Pakistan, Family, and War. His second book, American Caliph: The True Story of a Muslim Mystic, a Hollywood Epic, and the 1977 Siege of Washington, DC won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award in 2020.
Shahan holds a master’s degree in Journalism and Near Eastern Studies from New York University and an undergraduate degree from Middlebury College. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to India in 2004.
He lives with his wife and children in Richmond, Virginia.

Episode 130:  The True Story of a Muslim Mystic, a Hollywood Epic, and the 1977 Siege of Washington, DC, with Shahan Mufti

Parvez and Omar sit down with Yousuf Azhar who shares his personal experiences joining and then leaving a Muslim cult, the corrosive spiritual manipulation and abuse he suffered, and the patterns to look out for.  
About Yousuf Azhar
Yousuf Azhar was born in India and migrated to the USA at the age of two.  He studied Arabic at the University of Damascus for one year and has studied general Islamic sciences with various scholars throughout his life.  He now resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children.  Yousuf is a software testing lead at a Silicon Valley tech company.
 

Episode 129:  Spiritual Manipulation, Charismatic Leadership, and the Dangers of Cults, with Yousuf Azhar

Parvez and Omar take a visit to Souther California to sit down in person with Sue Obeidi and Evelyn Alsultany to discuss the state of Muslims in the media.
About Our Guests
Sue Obeidi is the Director of the Hollywood Bureau for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Obeidi ensures that MPAC’s Hollywood Bureau is a partner with the entertainment industry.
Evelyn Alsultany is a leading expert on the history of representations of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. media and on forms of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism. Alsultany is an Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Episode 128:  Muslims in the Media, with Sue Obeidi and Dr. Eveylyn Alsultany

Parvez and Omar are joined by a fellow podcaster, Ahmed Khan.  They sit down at Zaytuna College in Berkeley to discuss the power of storytelling, and the inspiration behind some of their respective work in the world of podcasts.
About The Creative Minority Podcast
The Creative Minority seeks to engage with contemporary intellectual issues ranging from but not included to politics, philosophy, theology, sociology, metaphysics, ethics, history, medicine and others. Our speakers include world class academics, theologians, scientists, professors, and celebrities who are at the forefront of shaping academia and culture.
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