McGill University - Institute of Islamic Studies

A blessed Eid al-Adha to all of our students, alumni, and community. We wish you a beautiful spring. The page of the Qur'an, Surat al-Baqarah, written in naskh calligraphy and decorated with a flower, is from the collection of the Islamic Studies Library (Arabic calligraphy 138).

Did you even know that McGill offers courses in Turkish, Urdu-Hindi, Arabic, Persian, and Swahili? These courses can count toward many majors and minors across McGill, and students at other Montréal universities can register through the Bureau de Coopération Interuniversitaire. Our languages are keys to the worlds of the Global South; to politics, literature, business, history, and the heritage of the diaspora. So get globally engaged, register, and share!

This year, Jaleh Ebrahimi, a brilliantly creative PhD candidate at the Institute of Islamic Studies, was awarded the BLUE Fellowship for her pedagogical project, "Beings Beyond the Human." She presented her work at Building 21 on April 21, 2026. The fellowship supports interdisciplinary research and collaborative project development at Building 21. Jaleh's project is grounded in her long-term engagement with Persian tales and the fictional characters who inhabit them, and it has been shaped by three months of discussion with scholars and mentors at Building 21.

At this event, Jaleh presented a syllabus for a course designed to explore a fictional being who has lived among Persian-speaking communities and beyond for centuries. The syllabus traces this figure across time, place, language, and media, following her through historical sources from seventeenth-century Isfahan to nineteenth-century London, and into her contemporary digital presence. The syllabus draws on anthropological, philosophical, historical, and literary approaches to examine this figure's life, with the interdisciplinary form of the syllabus producing a generative method that opens new analytical possibilities.

Many congratulations to Jaleh! Tabrīk mīgīm!

Congratulations to Anita Ahmadi, one of the Institute's rising stars. Anita has won an FRQ Doctoral Research Scholarship for her project "From Friction to Routine: Border-Making in Ottoman–Iranian Relations (1760–1830)."

This project examines how repeated disputes between the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran gradually produced more regular diplomatic and administrative practices between 1760 and 1830. Focusing on shrine cities, pilgrimage, commerce, and frontier tribes, it shows how local conflicts and imperial negotiation helped institutionalize the Ottoman-Iranian frontier. The project challenges the view that border-making was shaped mainly by European pressure.

We are so proud of Anita. Tabrīk mīgīm!

Congratulations to the Institute's latest PhD, Dr. Umar Farouq Haruna! Umar successfully defended his PhD on May 7th, under the supervision of IIS Profs Sara Abdel-Latif and Khaled M. Medani. Mabrūk to Prof. Abdel-Latif on her first successful PhD supervisee!

Dr. Haruna's outstanding dissertation, entitled "Intersections of Belief and Practice between Islam, Sufism, and Indigenous African Bori Culture in Northern Nigeria" considered the relationship betweeen the Islam of the Sokoto Caliphate in northern Nigeria, and Bori practice in the region. Using accounts of Bori practitioners, and reading Arabic texts by Sokoto Muslim elites like Muhammad Bello and Uthman Dan Fodio in an innovative manner, Dr. Haruna's analysis considers theories of syncretism and multiple religious belonging and comes to a new theoretical starting point specific to the Nigerian context.

Tamil and Arabic come together in Montréal tomorrow :)

Supported by McGill University - Institute of Islamic Studies, South Asian Studies Students’ Association, Rang Collective, and South Asian Women's Community Centre / Le CCFSA.

Come join us to celebrate community, solidarity, and resistance with poetry readings from the *trace: translating [x]* series of literature from the global South & diasporas.

TAMIL TERRAINS
Nedra Rodrigo and Geetha Sukumaran
+ Prof. Sowparnika Balaswaminathan
&
ARABIC, BETWEEN LOVE AND WAR
Eman Abukhadra and Nofel
+ Prof. Nayrouz Abu Hatoum

Thursday, April 30 | 7.00 pm
Teesri Duniya Theatre
251 Ave. Des Pins Ouest, Montreal

Your hosts for the evening are:
* Prof. Pasha Khan | McGill University
* Nuzhat Abbas | trace press
* Jody Freeman | Montreal Serai

This is a free event with refreshments

Thanks for coming to our Roundtable on Journalism after Gaza, with journalists Kareem Shaheen, Sana Saeed, and Saman Malik, and moderated by Julnar Aizouki! The roundtable on April 9, 2025, was a great success. We got to hear these journalists speak about their experiences, systemic problems, and the future of the media. Thanks to MPRA for their support, TNC Theatre for the space, and Reya Khanna for the photos!

We learned a lot from Dr. Razak Khan's talk on March 18th, which told the history of Islamic Studies as a university discipline in India, including the influence of McGill Institute of Islamic Studies founder Prof. Wilfred Cantwell Smith. We were honoured to have Smith's son in the audience, and to put together some marvellous threads with him and with other audience members. Thank you Razak Sahib for coming all the way from Berlin, and thanks to everyone who took time out to come just before Eid.

If you're interested in learning Arabic this summer, take a look at ISLA-322/622 Summer Intensive Arabic, taught by the best Arabic instructors in Montreal, at McGill University's Institute of Islamic Studies. Email Prof. Shokry Gohar at [email protected] and let him know that you saw this post.