“Medina Is a Place of Refuge and Creativity” - Maryam Kashani on Muslim Study and Survival in the Bay Area

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Mar 7, 2025

In this engaging conversation, Maryam Kashani, an associate professor specializing in Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies, discusses her book, 'Medina By The Bay.' She shares her unique ethnocinematic approach to exploring Muslim identities in the Bay Area, highlighting historical ties from the Black Power Movement to today’s surveillance state. Kashani emphasizes the role of art and activism in shaping community support, while addressing the challenges of navigating Muslim identity within a landscape marked by violence and imperialism.

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ANECDOTE

Organic Career Path

Maryam Kashani's diverse background organically shaped her career path, from music to filmmaking and scholarship.
Following her interests led her to explore various mediums and combine them in her work.

INSIGHT

Medina: A Place of Refuge and Creativity

Medina, where Prophet Muhammad sought refuge, symbolizes the creation of a new society.
It emphasizes knowledge, understanding differences, and mutual aid, offering valuable lessons for contemporary society.

INSIGHT

Medina by the Bay: A New Society

"Medina by the Bay" represents Muslims' attempts to create a new society in the Bay Area, rejecting the existing one.
Inspired by a student's reflection, the title signifies a safe space for incubation and learning.

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This is the first part of a two part conversation with Maryam Kashani on her book Medina By The Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival

It’s a cool book that weaves Maryam’s scholarly ethnographic work with her talents as a filmmaker and a DJ to examine and illuminate various strains of Islam in the San Francisco Bay Area from the Black Power Movement to the so-called war on terror and the rise of the surveillance state. She dubs her approach an “ethnocinematic.” We discuss legacies of anti-imperialist Islam on Turtle Island as well as more assimilative ways of being. We’ll dig into this more in part 2, but we wanted to make sure to get this part out during Ramadan.

Kashani is an associate professor in Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is in the leadership collective of Believers Bail Out, a community-led effort to bailout Muslims in pretrial and immigration incarceration towards abolition. We’ll include a lengthier bio in the show description.

Believers Bail Out has a fundraiser to bail out Muslims during Ramadan which we will link in the show description. We really encourage folks to kick in what they can to support that initiative.

The other thing I wanted to make sure to mention is we do talk a little bit about Imam Jamil Al-Amin in this episode. I’m including a couple of links to projects and campaigns related to Imam Jamil Al-Amin in the show description. According to Students for Imam Jamil he has received a medical transfer thanks to the support and calls of many folks. But there are other ways people can continue to support Imam Jamil Al-Amin (see below).

And lastly, we have a Samir Amin Accumulation on a World Scale Study Group for patrons only. It will start Wednesday the 12th of March and run through June. I’ll include a link with more details in the show description, but space is limited on that so if you want to reserve a spot make sure to sign up today at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism which is also the best place to support our work on this podcast.

Links:

Purchase Medina By The Bay through Massive Bookshop, the bookstore that bails people out of jail.

For Maryam's essay on Hajja Dhameera Ahmad check out the book Black Power Afterlives

For more on Imam Jamil Al Amin: https://www.imamjamilactionnetwork.org/ and freeimamjamil.com and support the fundraiser for the "What Happened to Rap" film.

Samir Amin Accumulation on a World Scale Study Group (7:30 PM Eastern Time US on Wednesdays)

Believers Bail Out use Zakat to bail Muslims out of jail or immigrant detention

Full bio:

Maryam Kashani works from a deep commitment to the aesthetic and political possibilities of experimental filmmaking, music, and the essay form, whether as 16mm films and videos, text/sound/image installations and live performance, DJing, or written monograph. Her work explores the relationships between physical landscapes and the sociopolitical, material, and spiritual histories and forces that emerge with and against them and is concerned with narration and description, archive, and knowledge production with a particular focus on collective study and struggle in and against colonial racial capitalism across local and global geographies. She recently published Medina by the Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival (Duke University Press, 2023), which is an ethnocinematic examination of how multiracial Muslim communities in the San Francisco Bay Area survive within and against racial capitalist, carceral, and imperial logics. Her films and video installations (http://www.maryamkashani.com/) have been shown at film festivals, universities, and museums internationally, including the Sharjah Biennial, MoMA, Hammer Museum, Chelsea Museum, and the Pacific Film Archive.

Kashani is an associate professor in Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is in the leadership collective of Believers Bail Out, a community-led effort to bailout Muslims in pretrial and immigration incarceration towards abolition.