Best Abdullah Iqbal Podcasts (2025)

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Mark Griffiths, "Checkpoint 300: Colonial Space in Palestine" (U Minnesota Press, 2025) 47:04

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4h ago47:04

47:04

Checkpoint 300, the highly securitized border facility between occupied Bethlehem and Jerusalem, is a central feature of Israeli control of Palestinian land and life. An apparatus of turnstiles, overcrowded corridors, and invasive inspections, the checkpoint regulates the movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, granting access to some wh…

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Anne Irfan, "A Short History of the Gaza Strip" (Simon & Schuster, 2025) 34:49

1d ago34:49

34:49

In this episode, Joe Williams speaks to historian Anne Irfan about her new book, A Short History of the Gaza Strip (Simon & Schuster, 2025). Drawing on more than a decade of research, Irfan traces the political, social, and humanitarian history of Gaza from 1948 to the present, situating the territory’s current devastation within a much longer traj…

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Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025) 45:10

6d ago45:10

45:10

In 1924, the Al-A‘waj, also known as the Crooked, set sail from Kuwait on a trading journey around the Persian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz, to Western India and, eventually, back to the Gulf. Dhows had sailed this route for centuries—and would continue to sail it for a few more decades still. Fahad Ahmad Bishara talks about this specific 192…

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Faisal Devji, "Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam" (Yale UP, 2025) 1:04:48

11d ago1:04:48

1:04:48

Faisal Devji's Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam (Yale UP, 2025) is a compelling examination of the rise of Islam as a global historical actor. Until the nineteenth century, Islam was variously understood as a set of beliefs and practices. But after Muslims began to see their faith as an historical actor on the world stage, they ne…

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Killian Clarke, "Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 1:05:01

12d ago1:05:01

1:05:01

Why do some revolutions fail and succumb to counterrevolutions, whereas others go on to establish durable rule? Marshalling original data on counterrevolutions worldwide since 1900 and new evidence from the reversal of Egypt's 2011 revolution, in Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed (Cambridge UP, 2025) Dr. Killian Clarke ex…

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Basit Kareem Iqbal, "The Dread Heights: Tribulation and Refuge after the Syrian Revolution" (Fordham UP, 2025) 1:16:50

19d ago1:16:50

1:16:50

Basit Kareem Iqbal's new book The Dread Heights: Tribulation and Refuge after the Syrian Revolution (Fordham UP, 2025) uses ethnographic scenes from Jordan and Canada to contextualize the role of Muslim charities and community organizations that support displaced refugees from the Syrian catastrophe. Through these encounters, however, we learn not …

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Justin Marozzi, "Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World" (Pegasus Books, 2025) 40:01

20d ago40:01

40:01

Slavery has been a ubiquitous practice throughout much of world history–and the Muslim world was no exception. Slave soldiers, concubines, and eunuchs can be found throughout Muslim writings—which, as Justin Marozzi points out in his book Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World (Pegasus Books, 2025), e…

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Eric H. Cline, "Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:07:05

21d ago1:07:05

1:07:05

From the acclaimed author of 1177 B.C., a spellbinding account of the archaeological find that opened a window onto the vibrant diplomatic world of the ancient Near East In 1887, an Egyptian woman made an astonishing discovery among the ruins of the heretic king Akhenaten’s capital city, a site now known as Amarna. She found a cache of cuneiform ta…

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Aaron Magid, "The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan" (Universal Publishers, 2025) 52:47

21d ago52:47

52:47

The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan (Universal Publishers, 2025) is the first comprehensive biography on Jordan’s King Abdullah. Drawing on interviews with over 100 individuals, including Abdullah's classmates, former Jordanian ministers, and CIA directors, The Most American King offers a thorough account of this key Arab leader. Aaron Magid…

1
Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025) 1:49:59

27d ago1:49:59

1:49:59

Monsoon Voyagers follows the voyage of a single dhow (sailing vessel), the Crooked, along with its captain and crew, from Kuwait to port cities around the Persian Gulf and Western Indian Ocean, from 1924 to 1925. Through his account of the voyage, Fahad Ahmad Bishara unpacks a much broader history of circulation and exchange across the Arabian Sea …

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Sarah Griswold, "Resurrecting the Past: France's Forgotten Heritage Mandate" (Cornell UP, 2025) 55:19

1M ago55:19

55:19

In Resurrecting the Past: France's Forgotten Heritage Mandate (Cornell UP, 2025), Dr. Sarah Griswold shows how the Levant became a crucial front in a post-1918 fight over the French past—a contingent and contradictory but always hard-charging struggle over a forgotten "heritage mandate." Many scholars, clergy, pundits, politicians, and investors pe…

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Patrick Brittenden, "Algerian and Christian: Christian Theological Formation, Identity and Mission in Contemporary Algeria" (Regnum Books, 2025) 1:10:02

1M ago1:10:02

1:10:02

Algerian and Christian are two words that many people do not put together. Dr. Patrick Brittenden does. In this episode, we talk with Patrick about his new book Algerian and Christian: Christian Theological Formation, Identity and Mission in Contemporary Algeria (Regnum Books International, 2025). He invites readers into the complex, often painful,…

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Radio ReOrient 13.3: “Why Palestine Activism & Resistance Matter,” with Hatem Bazian and Ismail Patel, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Marchella Ward 1:07:59

1M ago1:07:59

1:07:59

In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Chella Ward spoke with Ismail Patel and Hatem Bazian about Pro-Palestinian resistance and the nature of protests - from the Iraq war demonstrations to the recent protests after the events of October 7th 2023. This conversation extended into the nature of colonial projects of occupation and the role coloniality s…

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Aria Fani, "Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism" (U Texas Press, 2024) 52:28

1M ago52:28

52:28

The dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through literature. Contrary to the presumption that literary nationalism in the Global South emerged through contact with Europe alone, Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism (University of Texas Press, 2024) demonstrates how the cult…

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James Grehan, "Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century" (Stanford UP, 2025) 36:22

2M ago36:22

36:22

It is easy to believe that manners are empty gestures, little more than social artifice or practiced etiquette whose sole purpose is to project civility and facilitate social interaction. But if we look more closely, they can tell us much more than we might first suppose, revealing what conventional accounts of state, economy, and religion often ig…

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Moudhy Al-Rashid, "Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History" (W.W. Norton, 2025) 43:42

2M ago43:42

43:42

In 1923, archaeologist Leonard Woolley stumbled upon a room that dated back to 530BC, the time of the Babylonians. Oddly, the room was filled with artifacts that were thousands of years older. A clay drum led Woolley to speculate that he might have stumbled across the world’s first museum. Whether that was really the case is still somewhat unknown.…

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Hamid Dabashi, "After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization" (Haymarket, 2025) 37:03

2M ago37:03

37:03

In this episode, we speak with Hamid Dabashi about his new book, After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization (Haymarket, 2025), published by Haymarket Books. Written amid the ongoing war in Gaza, the book confronts what Dabashi describes as the moral and philosophical crisis of the modern West. After Savagery challenges…

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Karl Ittmann, "Fuelling Empire: The British Imperial Oil Complex, 1886-1945" (Oxford UP, 2025) 42:00

2M ago42:00

42:00

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, British companies used the resources of empire to create an imperial oil industry that controlled 20% of global oil reserves by 1939 and allowed for the movement of capital and labor between regions and companies. The imperial oil complex encompassed colonies—Burma and Trinidad—and dependent states-Iraq and…

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Mahboob Qirvanian and Behnaz Mirzai, "Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoman Empire and Iran" (U Toronto Press, 2025) 1:00:38

2M ago1:00:38

1:00:38

Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoman Empire and Iran: The Autobiography of Mahboob Qirvanian provides a translation of a compelling autobiography that chronicles the life of Mahboob Qirvanian, from childhood and enslavement in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire to his eventual liberation in Iran. The Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoma…

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Philip Graubart, "Here There Is No Why" and Michael Kinnamon, "A Rooftop in Jerusalem" 1:08:29

2M ago1:08:29

1:08:29

In this double interview I talked to Michael Kinnamon, author of A Rooftop in Jerusalem and Philip Graubart author of Here There Is No Why. A Rooftop In Jerusalem: When Daniel Jacobs decides to spend his junior year abroad in Israel, he never dreams he'll fall in love with both Jerusalem's Old City and an Israeli woman, Shoshana. It's the year reli…

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Hannah Pool, "The Game: The Economy of Undocumented Migration from Afghanistan to Europe" (Oxford UP, 2025) 51:19

2M ago51:19

51:19

By Marshall Poe

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Georgios Tsourous, "Orthodox Choreographies: Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem's Old City" (Gorgias Press, 2024) 1:04:05

2M ago1:04:05

1:04:05

Orthodox Choreographies: Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem's Old City (Gorgias Press, 2024) offers a comprehensive anthropological study of lived Christianity in Jerusalem’s Old City, with a special focus on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Church of the Anastasis. Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork, the study explores t…

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Gina Vale, "The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State" (Oxford UP, 2024) 56:55

2M ago56:55

56:55

The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Gina Vale explores the governance of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization through the lives and words of local Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish women. While the roles and activities of foreign (predominantly Western), pro-IS women have garnered significant attentio…

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Rosemary Admiral, "Living Law: Women and Legality in Marinid Morocco" (Syracuse UP, 2025) 49:00

2M ago49:00

49:00

Dr. Rosemary Admiral provides a groundbreaking history of women’s legal engagement in Marinid Morocco between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries that fundamentally challenges contemporary assumptions about women’s relationships to Islamic legal traditions. Drawing on a rich collection of fatwas (legal documents) from Fez and surrounding areas, …

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Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, "Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East" (UP Colorado, 2025) 39:05

2M ago39:05

39:05

Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East (University Press of Colorado, 2025) offers an in-depth exploration of the Urartian empire, which occupied the highlands of present-day Turkey, Armenia, and Iran in the early first millennium BCE. Lesser known than its rival, the Neo-Assyrian empire, Urartu presents a unique case …

Abdullah Iqbal Podcasts

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Brain Explained

Abdullah Iqbal

1
New Books in Middle Eastern Studies

Marshall Poe

1
Mark Griffiths, "Checkpoint 300: Colonial Space in Palestine" (U Minnesota Press, 2025) 47:04

1
Anne Irfan, "A Short History of the Gaza Strip" (Simon & Schuster, 2025) 34:49

1
Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025) 45:10

1
Faisal Devji, "Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam" (Yale UP, 2025) 1:04:48

1
Killian Clarke, "Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 1:05:01

1
Basit Kareem Iqbal, "The Dread Heights: Tribulation and Refuge after the Syrian Revolution" (Fordham UP, 2025) 1:16:50

1
Justin Marozzi, "Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World" (Pegasus Books, 2025) 40:01

1
Eric H. Cline, "Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:07:05

1
Aaron Magid, "The Most American King: Abdullah of Jordan" (Universal Publishers, 2025) 52:47

1
Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025) 1:49:59

1
Sarah Griswold, "Resurrecting the Past: France's Forgotten Heritage Mandate" (Cornell UP, 2025) 55:19

1
Patrick Brittenden, "Algerian and Christian: Christian Theological Formation, Identity and Mission in Contemporary Algeria" (Regnum Books, 2025) 1:10:02

1
Radio ReOrient 13.3: “Why Palestine Activism & Resistance Matter,” with Hatem Bazian and Ismail Patel, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Marchella Ward 1:07:59

1
Aria Fani, "Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism" (U Texas Press, 2024) 52:28

1
James Grehan, "Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century" (Stanford UP, 2025) 36:22

1
Moudhy Al-Rashid, "Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History" (W.W. Norton, 2025) 43:42

1
Hamid Dabashi, "After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization" (Haymarket, 2025) 37:03

1
Karl Ittmann, "Fuelling Empire: The British Imperial Oil Complex, 1886-1945" (Oxford UP, 2025) 42:00

1
Mahboob Qirvanian and Behnaz Mirzai, "Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoman Empire and Iran" (U Toronto Press, 2025) 1:00:38

1
Philip Graubart, "Here There Is No Why" and Michael Kinnamon, "A Rooftop in Jerusalem" 1:08:29

1
Hannah Pool, "The Game: The Economy of Undocumented Migration from Afghanistan to Europe" (Oxford UP, 2025) 51:19

1
Georgios Tsourous, "Orthodox Choreographies: Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem's Old City" (Gorgias Press, 2024) 1:04:05

1
Gina Vale, "The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State" (Oxford UP, 2024) 56:55

1
Rosemary Admiral, "Living Law: Women and Legality in Marinid Morocco" (Syracuse UP, 2025) 49:00

1
Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, "Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East" (UP Colorado, 2025) 39:05