Ep. 4: Abbas Rattani

Elaine

You're listening to Cha-Tea Circle.  

Hey everyone, this is Elaine here. This is a two part podcast featuring two honored guests, Abbas Rattani and Reyhab Mohmed Patel, about their creative work and the amazing online platforms they've created for Muslim artists. So, our first guest is Abbas, one of the founders of MIPSTERZ.

MIPSTERZ is a non-traditional arts and culture collective for emerging Muslim creatives.  So, first, welcome, Abbas. How are you doing? Where are you located right now? 

Abbas

Thank you for having me. I'm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Probably the most hipstery part of the United States, but I know that Portland and Austin would probably disagree with me.

Elaine

Cool. I actually grew up outside of Boston, so I kind of know the area that you're talking about. It brings back a lot of memories. 

Abbas 

Yeah, it's a great little city here. On one end you have MIT, on the other end you have Harvard, and you just have a lot of creative energy, young energy. thoughtful conversations, weird, different experimental stuff happening. And you're kind of in the middle of it all.  Yeah, I really love it.   

Elaine

I'm jealous, actually, because I don't think I experienced Cambridge in the same way that you are experiencing it now. Maybe I should go back one day. 

I'd love for you to introduce yourself to all our listeners. Maybe you could tell everyone a little bit about your origin story and whatever way you feel comfortable sharing. 

Abbas

Yeah, I mean, I think because this is a podcast focused on religion, religious themes, religion in the practical sense and in the lived sense, I will say that, you know, I was actually raised by my aunt and uncle who were Sikh, even though I'm Muslim, my parents are Muslim.

But when they immigrated to this country, it was very difficult for them to take care of me and give me the attention that, that a child needs to grow and to flourish. And luckily, my aunt and uncle didn't have any kids and they were retired. And so they took me in and I ended up living with them for the entirety of my life up until 16 when I went to college and they were Sikh.

So I grew up in a practicing Sikh household. Learned quite a bit about Sikhism, um, and both my mom and her sister actually converted out of Hinduism. My mom converted to Islam and my aunt converted to Sikhism.  And so I also learned about Hinduism as well from my other,  family members. I grew up, you know, hearing about the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas,  in addition to the Guru Granth Sahib and the messages of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh. 

And then on top of that, you know, my father is from Tanzania and, my grandmother from Zanzibar and grandfather from Tanganyika and Islam came by way of trade, partially even by way of colonialism when indentured servants, I would say, and slaves from other, parts of the world were brought forcibly to certain areas,  they also brought their culture and their religions with them and also through the trade and through, Oman's occupation of Zanzibar in the 1800s or so, you have a version of Islam that's maybe different from the version of Islam that you see in South Asia or in the Middle East or even in West Africa. And I grew up with all of those influences and I found many commonalities from the mystic traditions of all of these faith identities. 

When I went to college at UNC Chapel Hill at that time, the Religious Studies Department, it probably still is the case, was one of the best Religious Studies Departments in the country. And so we had a lot of great thinkers, and I also majored in Religious Studies when I was there. And I got to learn more about Jewish mysticism with Rabbi Heschel and Christian mysticism, and even more so about the Jesuit and the Franciscan traditions in Christianity that focuses their transcendence back to God through the service of those who are most vulnerable.

This was obviously something that sat easily with me as a Muslim, as somebody who grew up in a Sikh home, because those were very central themes, I mean, in Islam, we are reminded over and over again to look after the orphan, you know, orphan, not just somebody who doesn't have the infrastructure, the parents, but an orphan who is kind of stripped away from any sort of socioeconomic infrastructure, and they are among the most vulnerable, or even the word orphan to be a euphemism or a synonym of the most vulnerable. I think that was one of the themes that I carried forward with me. 

I will say, though, when I was at UNC, while I found a home in the Religious Studies Department, I didn't necessarily find a home in the Muslim Students Association, if you will. UNC is a Public university. So they tend to take students who are North Carolinian residents. And a lot of the people that they took were locals. They were like from Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, Cary, they all went to the same mosque in Raleigh. They all grew up with each other. They knew each other's families. So me coming in as a New Yorker, you know, it was a little bit of a change and not only just a New Yorker, but, somebody who has this diversity of faith traditions that I grew up in.

I think there was some sort of disconnect that I had and that they had. And I think that led me to lean a little bit more into the performing arts. I saw the performing arts as a way of taking very dense, complex topics that I was learning in my classes and conveying it in a way that would just spark a thought. 

And all it really takes is to spark a question or to inspire a question that then leads you to go explore or learn about that topic a little bit more. And I saw the performing arts as a way of doing that. And then obviously this led to, as you can imagine, me founding this arts creation, culture creation, performing arts-heavy entity called MIPSTERZ.

Elaine

Yeah. Wow. Thank you for that amazing bio and that backstory about having such a rich interreligious belonging growing up. I think it shows in both your openness and probably in your undergraduate education, your desire to learn about other religious traditions and to find connections, through mysticism.

Maybe it manifests in your own practice as well. I really liked what you said about, you know, caring for those who are most vulnerable because that's a fundamental value that I live by through my religious tradition, Buddhism. In Buddhism, we talk about having compassion, generating compassion for all sentient beings and the fact that no one can be truly happy or liberated if someone else is suffering, basically, so it really invites you to touch into the suffering of others instead of turning away from it, and I've definitely tried to live by that. And it's challenging at times, but it's really heartening to hear you talk about it in such a candid way. So thank you for that. 

Abbas

I will add that.  It was the first time that I came across this thinker who was an Islamic studies professor in Iran but he himself was a Taoist in his day to day this Japanese thinker named Toshihiko Izutsu. And when I came across his works and his breakdown of the Quran in this like very beautiful way you know, it made me appreciate how deep and or how common the human pursuit for flourishing and transcendence is across multiple faiths.

Elaine

Yeah. Yeah. And wouldn't it be beautiful if that was what connected religions instead of, you know, war or misunderstanding. I agree with that and I also hope we can move towards that collectively and all the work that we're doing…

To kind of transition to the previous point you made about getting into the performing arts, while you were at university in your undergrad. I was wondering then from that point on to MIPSTERZ, what was the pathway and how were you first inspired to create this platform? I also wonder if there was something about you talked about, you know, you weren't really a part of the Muslim student associations because you had such a mixed background religiously and otherwise–was that one of the impetuses for you to create MIPSTERZ as a platform?  

Abbas

Uh, definitely. I think there was a sense of belonging that wasn't there. And I found that puzzling because I was also Muslim, they were Muslim, and I joined many different organizations that I thought spoke to my various intersectional identities.

But I was like, ah, this doesn't really like, this is not it, you know? And I don't find that sense of belonging here. And I asked my professor who had just come  to UNC, Omid Safi who's now a big wig. I asked him, I said, Hey, like, did you not have these struggles like I'm having these struggles? I’m having these struggles. I'm like obsessed with Islamic studies. I love this. I love my, religion. I love being a Muslim, but I'm not finding community.  And he said that a community is just two people. So you just really need to find another one person. And that's it.  You know, and it made me realize that, oh, a community is something that one cultivates and that one creates.

And it was very easy to find that other person. A good friend of mine, John Miller, who is a PhD student now in Islamic studies at UNC, had just converted to Islam, from atheism. And then he and I kind of just would hang out a lot and have these philosophical conversations. And at that time, we had two other friends who are studying Hinduism also in the religion department and the political science and economics departments.

We all kind of got together very regularly and we created a philosophical discussion circle called the Dynasty. And a good friend of mine, Aisha Saad, who is a lawyer now out in Chicago, or actually Georgetown, I believe. She's a professor out there.  And we were all part of this intellectual circle where when people are partying, on Fridays and Saturdays in college, we would just meet up at a coffee shop and use their patio furniture after hours to have these philosophical conversations and think about different topics within the world. And I think realizing that a community is something you cultivate, it's something you create carried with me forward. 

I started really getting into ethics, morality, questions around decision making. Why do people make the decisions they do from a moral standpoint? What are ways to influence those decisions or how are people's decisions molded by their environment? I ended up going to Penn and studying this in a more like practical sense. I studied like medical ethics, bioethics. I worked in that space while also being a stand up comic. 

I would try, test out some of these ideas on stage and kind of push the audience to think about the absurdities in which we treat each other and whether or not there were, you know, certain commonalities that were there. And I got to open for Daily Show correspondence and SNL cast players, you know, having similar conversations and be in a conversation with those guys as well was kind of eye opening. But then there was something inside of me that  wanted to grow this a little bit more. I ended up just quitting my job at Hopkins and moving to New York to pursue the arts more full time.

Essentially in Ramadan of 2012, it was a very formative Ramadan for a lot of people at that time. And I basically put out a call and I was like, hey, who else is out here in New York City that has a creative edge that wants to come together  and just share ideas or share what you're working on.

And that Ramadan, because we have to eat at sundown, so we all have to gather and eat and  break our fasts. So it was a great excuse for all of us to kind of come together regularly for the month, to kind of talk shop, from a creative standpoint, from a culture standpoint. 

Similarly, when I moved to New York, I also didn't find a home in any of the pre-existing groups. There was like the Muslim business leaders, there was the Muslim engineers group, the Muslim consultants group, the Muslim young professionals. And I was like, yo, I'm a, I don't even know if I am a professional.

I mean, I'm, I'm a comedian, you know, like I make films and I, you know. And that summer I met such amazing people. I met Layla and Zayneb Shaikley, who are, who were in the film, the first film that we created in 2013. And that film essentially was a representation of all the people in our community. And they were people that were in this community that we cultivated that spanned across the United States.  I flew out to L. A. to meet Layla and all of her friends that she grew up with. And I was like, Oh my God, this, this is like so awesome. Like these Muslims really resonate with me and my ethos on what it means to be Muslim. And then I went out to D. C. and Boston and New York and back to North Carolina and where we shot parts of that film. And I think that's when the earlier beginnings of MIPSTERZ came to be. I think there was no deliberate, thinking like, “Hey, we're going to start a nonprofit. We're going to start an organization that then addresses the arts and cultural needs of the Muslim community.”

And it didn't, it wasn't that at all. It was just like, “Hey, are you a Muslim of this variety of this thinking of this creative background? Like let's just link up, and we'll see what comes of it. And multiple collaborations came from it and it grew and it grew. Yusuf Siddiquee, who is a big, you know, engine of MIPSTERZ joined in 2013, with Wissam Hamou also at that time,  and for those like few years from like 2013, 2015, with Wissam and Yusuf grew Mipsters, in a significant way to take on more  events more,  showcasing of Muslim creativity to the public. 

And not just Muslims would come to it in attendance. It would be everybody. Everybody wanted to kind of see it and witness this contemporary modern, Muslim creative scene. And Yusuf stayed on and just kept growing this thing and the engine that he is, you know, propelled it forward. We became a more serious organization as we saw the response from universities and museums and galleries who would invite us and essentially give us funding so that more Muslim creatives could create new projects.

And then in that, Sara Alfageeh joined as our Creative Director for several years. Most recently, Shimul Chowdhury is our current art director. These are folks, if you look them up, they're very accomplished artists and they're young artists and they're driving what the next landscape of Muslim creativity looks like among Gen Z.

You know, I started this when I was in my 20s. As a millennial, but now millennials are washed, you know, we're basically like boomers to Gen Alpha, but Gen Alpha and Gen Z is kind of where it's at and it's good to see that they have kind of taken over and built out this organization and  most recently, Reyhab kind of just hit us up out of the blue.

She's all the way in Canada and she was like, “Hey, I'm very familiar with MIPSTERZ. I've been following MIPSTERZ like, What? How do I? What's the infrastructure?” That's a common question that people ask is like, “what is the infrastructure of MIPSTERZ? Like, do you do you meet regularly? Are you based in one city?”

I think the benefit of being a digital space primarily, and as you know from all of the like academic work that's been written about MIPSTERZ, it's almost an experiment in how can a religious community thrive and grow in the digital age. And Reyhab is a great example of that. You know, she resonated with our most recent project on Muslim Futurism, pitched projects. We got, you know, funding and got things mobilized for her and now she is the one who's actively growing this new phase of MIPSTERdom. 

Elaine

I'm so happy that MIPSTERZ exists and I really like how it formed as just like you and other artists wanting to connect with each other and do really cool work and then from that, you know, it seems like the whole platform just formed organically because there was this need, with other  Muslim creatives for this kind of connection that could be forged digitally.

And then, as you said, you know, you flew out to meet people, but primarily having this digital space actually allows for a lot more participants, than if it was just located in one city, for instance. 

Abbas

Yeah, I think in an interesting way, people then hear about it digitally, they get very amped and excited about it, and then they come out to the events.

I mean, Yusuf helped pioneer the age of like when we were doing a lot of events. Layla Shaikley, when she moved back to Boston, she was a student at MIT here, but I met her when I was in New York. And when she came back, she started doing MIPSTERZ events. I started doing MIPSTERZ events in New York with Yusuf and with Sam.

And then, there were two others, Dalia and Jenine who were doing events in DC and then LA. Like people were doing these, let us build this community.  At that time, there was this phenomenon or this notion of the “unmosqued,” which is, I think most mosques were noticing that the Gen X were the last of regular mosque goers and the millennials were not really helping out at the mosque.

They weren't really present and they were kind of scratching their heads as to why, like, why  there's this absence of this younger 20s group. And in some ways there was, it was part of a reckoning of maybe we're not addressing the needs of this generation. And I think now that the millennials are at an age where we're having kids and we're thinking about their future and their identity, and we want them to have a rich, beautiful, transcendental life experience–we also are now thinking about what are ways that we can engage them and now you're seeing that more mosque spaces, Islamic community spaces are adapting and accommodating. The best example being the IC NYU in New York City. It just open to everybody. I mean, you can go and pray there, you can hang out there. They do a lot of events that are both NYU focused, but also community focused and it's also located in a beautiful part of New York City. There's the Washington Square Park. So if you're after hours and you can't get into the building, like you can spill out into the park and have a great time there and there's, you know, a lot of food and options there and musical, folks out there.

I mean, one of our MIPSTERZ events was literally in Washington Square Park called “PB and Jam Session” where I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for anybody for like hours. While other MIPSTERZ just had a jam session and somebody would be playing the Kanun and somebody would come over and be like, yo, I have this oud.

Can I join you? Yo, I played the drums. Can I join you? Yo, I played this and that and somebody brought out a rolling piano and you know, all this stuff is happening in Washington Square Park. It's so beautiful and you know, it was great. And I think those are the kinds of environments that I think my generation and the generation that's coming up are longing for and asking for.

Elaine

Yeah, I love that “PB and jam session.” That's amazing. I wish I could have been there for that. I think I was probably living outside of the US at that time. 

Abbas

You would have been most welcome. 

Elaine

Yeah, thank you for giving examples to the kinds of events that you know you held and I was wondering if you wanted to briefly mention any of the particular artists or projects that are on the MIPSTERZ website or maybe just to give a little context for something, maybe a funny story or just an anecdote about an event. Any challenges or surprises that came up in the process of creation. 

Abbas

I think the cool part is that Whenever there's been a call for artists to participate in something collaborative, there's always multiple folks that join in. I will also say that some of the most beautiful things is, we had an event most recently in Durham, North Carolina, and people drove and flew in from different parts of the U.S. to attend,  and when you meet them, they're like, “Oh, yeah, I saw this online and I couldn't miss it. So I came, I flew in just for this.”  

And we were like, “Yo, come over!” Like I invited them over. To Ahmed Amer's house, who is the creator of Karavansarai that exists under the MIPSTERZ umbrella, which is like a pop up,  Muslim celebratory event space.

They were just wowed that these Muslims exist in all parts of the United States. And when we dropped our first film in 2013, it was also wild to hear, at this time, these were Gen Zers. Their parents were reaching out to us and being like, “Oh my God, my daughter feels seen after watching this film.”

Elaine

Talk about that 2013 film. So folks can learn a little bit about it. 

Abbas

Yeah, basically it was a montage of the people in our immediate friend community at that time and the MIPSTERZ friend community at that time. It features Ibtihaj Mohammad, who's  a U. S. Olympic medalist in fencing who's now, I think, a sponsored spokesperson for Nike. Layla Shaikley, who's a co-founder of a massive company that's raised funds from Google, was in it. And so you have these amazing folks in the film and in a prominent way that I think when you're watching it as a teenager, you're just like, “Oh my gosh, this is how I am with my friends. But only on Eid, or only when I'm at the mosque, and I don't feel like I can be this way at school.”

But, these women were that way all the time. And I think it was so awesome for that to be out in the world, and I think a lot of younger folks resonated with that heavily. And, as you know from the academic literature, it inspired a transition in the United States, where, like the hijab wasn't this thing that had this negative connotation because of the marginalization and the vilification and the just sheer hatred towards Muslims in the United States.

Now H&M is running ads with a model wearing the hijab. Nike, Adidas, like everybody wants to get in on this, like Dolce and Gabbana are making abayas, like companies that you would have never thought previously to even care about us. Now they’re like,” Oh my God, like they're part of the fold.” And now whenever I see like a Muslim woman, like in the Barbie movie or something, you're just like, okay, like there is an acknowledgement now that there is a chic, there is a coolness to Muslims and Islam that has existed forever. 

And now you're starting to see all of these like clips of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali speaking truth to power about how Islamic values and anti-racism go together and they're really pushing back on white hegemony. And there's a long and deep black Muslim tradition in the United States that a lot of Muslims who came in that were very much influenced by colonialism, Arab Muslims, South Asian Muslims are just like, we're not the only Muslims on this planet and had to confront some of their own manufactured racism as part of that reckoning, that I thought was very beautiful, and that some of our projects speak to that.

I think if you come to MIPSTERZ events, I think the thing that people are most surprised about is that it's not predominantly Arab, or it's not predominantly South Asian. There's like everybody is from there, like at these events. And our most recent film, Muslim Futurism, which was at the Tribeca Film Festival, among 10 other festivals.

Elaine

Congratulations. 

Abbas

Thank you, thank you. That one was almost 200. Muslims involved in not just the film, but in the larger exhibit that emerged from it, the conference that emerged from it. The film I think was about 95 to 100 Muslims that were involved in this. And these are like Hollywood actors like Maaz Ali, who's like an American Horror Story.

You have entrepreneurs. That are featured in there. You have Condé who's a like a known like film director. You have all of these folks, you know, front and center in a way that, uh, really non- Muslims even found it inspiring and watching this, play at Tribeca and getting like a standing ovation, like people were just moved by this. 

And I think it just reaffirms what I was saying early on in our conversation that there is something about the human soul that is similar across all souls. And we're all trying to reach our home, in this metaphysical space. And when we watch something that may seem very niche, or may seem very focused on one person's experience, there are aspects of it that resonate with so many others. 

It's kind of like now all of a sudden Americans are obsessed with like Korean dramas. It's like, you know, how come it's so niche, you know? Like, you have Nigerians obsessed with Bollywood. It's like, yo, why, how come? It's so niche. But it's because there's something about  these human living experiences that speak to something deeper that people are connecting with and that's something that we've been seeing consistently with a lot of our MIPSTERZ projects.

Elaine

Mm hmm. Yeah, I feel very strongly about that as well as someone who I mean, I love stories.  I studied film in undergrad. So this was my first love just storytelling through film through fiction through books. And I think that it is through the particulars that you get to something more universal, which is ironic because oftentimes I hear, you know, if someone writes a story, someone's like, “Oh, well, how do you make it fit a broader audience?”

But I almost feel like no, you have to make it very particular, very unique, very authentic to you know, the experience that you're writing about, that is unique to a community in order for it to resonate with others. And that's what really touches people. I know it's what really touches me.

I wonder where people can see this film. Is it out yet? 

Abbas

Yeah, it's on YouTube.  

Elaine

Oh, cool.  

Abbas

And you can just go to Muslimfuturism.com. It's there.  

Elaine

Okay, nice. 

Abbas

Right now we have, one of our installations called the Mirage, at the Twelve Arts Gallery (Twelve gates arts) in Philly. But this summer and fall, we're planning on going to Iowa City and Colorado Springs to bring back the initial inaugural exhibit that we debuted at Duke University.

So, if people are eager then they can definitely see it out there.  

Elaine

Oh, yeah. Everyone, please, please go to that. 

You mentioned a few times this term of like Muslim Futurism. I was wondering if you could unpack that a little bit and what that means for you or where the possibilities lie in that idea.

Abbas

Yeah, I was originally inspired by Afrofuturism and the surge of Afrofuturist thinking, thought, you know, the, the literature, the fiction, the musical tradition that emerged in the 70s and 80s. And this notion that you know, when white people create their worlds, they are creating it almost without black folks. I mean, Star Wars, Star Trek, all these like shows predominantly have just white folks, maybe there's one black guy or somebody like that in these films. And it's with this notion that they are omitted from the white future. But it made me think that, you know what, we are currently living in a white utopia. And at the expense, this is all a dystopia. For us non white folks, or us non white passing folks. 

And, yeah, and I think it's, it, that portion of it got me thinking a little bit more about how black communities, especially during the Civil Rights era, were pushing back against this notion that we needed white infrastructure to survive. And then there's a scholar slash creator named Ingrid LaFleur, who has this definition of Afrofuturism that views it as trans-temporal, trans-spatial, you know, it, it has always existed. And in reading Malcolm X's autobiography again, more recently,  and talking about what the early nation of Islam's objectives were was to create a flourishing thriving society that did not hinge on whiteness or white infrastructure to, to exist, was something that was powerful. And post-Mecca Malcolm is really revving up his commitments to Islam and Islamic justice principles that are now woven into this society. And that comes off to me as black Muslim futurism. 

And I thought, was this a phenomenon that was, that we heard about quite extensively from Malcolm and Muhammad Ali or, or did this exist previously? And then you learn obviously about Mansa Musa and the Kingdom of Mali. That was an attempt at a black utopia, it was one that was black and it was very Muslim and, the only times that you hear about the melding of black and Islam is the fact that Islam is the unofficial religion of hip-hop. Like rappers can talk about Islamic ideas and themes, but nobody calls that, oh, this is Muslim rap the way they do Christian rap.

Because there's something about the experience of black Americans in the United States and obviously a good percentage of black slaves who came here were Muslim and a lot of those values and ideas, carried forward,  and into the ethos and into the ethics of of black Americans today. And so with that, I got to thinking about what are the themes that are central to black Muslim futurism?  And among them was this notion of liberation and liberationism and resistance. 

And it made me think about not only the minority Muslim groups that are being vilified and, you know, the amount of genocide and ethnic cleansing that's occurring among the Rohingya, the Uyghurs. Yeah. You know, I can go on and on, but specifically Palestinians, they've been in a long time resistance for sovereignty that I think has shaped their own appreciation for liberation. And, you know, you can even take it one step back, some of the apartheid language is coming out of South Africa, and you probably, you know, have seen most recently with South Africa and the international courts bringing the allegations of genocide against Israel. 

But the parallels there also remind me of the parallels of Muslims in South Africa, like Farid Esack, Ebrahim Moosa, more recently Sa'diyya Shaikh, who are writing about the relationship of white and white folks in South Africa and what apartheid looks like and what does it look like for those who are not white, for those who are labeled as colored or black, you know, you go to, you see a lot of the similar themes in Palestine and Palestinian literature for a long time now. And I think bringing in all of those elements, I think Muslim futurism emerged in this thinking process that had elements of community, identity, liberation, resistance, and imagination.

And the imagination component, I thought, was very central to Muslim Futurism because there is an imagining, there is a leaning into magical realism. I mean, in the Quran, there is so many examples of magical realism. You know, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, you know, transcending up to the heavens and transcending to Jerusalem on this mythical horse being thing. You know, the Burāq, in this night journey and then the Ascension, the Mirage. And so when you have these magical realism elements, it highlights the limitations of empiricism and the physical world and recognizing that there is an alternate universe and an alternate world that exists beyond our five senses that we may never even be able to touch or experience that because we don't have, we're limited by our five senses. But if we transcend that and try to try our best to enter the metaphysical world  through our spiritual and soul faculties, maybe we can unlock something there. 

But then again, I mean, we'll go back to it when we die anyway, because, our souls came onto this strange planet and then we will leave, hopefully, leave this planet as strangers. And so, all of this, I think, is just more or less a reminder of where it is we come from and where it is we will return. 

Elaine

Hmm, yeah. Reminds me of in Buddhism, there's often a metaphor used about how the body is like a guest house that consciousness visits for a short period of time and leaves, although what you're saying about Muslim Futurism and in particular, it's connection with Afro Futurism or black Muslim Futurism made me think that as much as there is this component of transcendence that I hear you saying and I understand too on a conventional level, like, you know, the world as it is, it's not a utopia, right? It's very much dystopia for a lot of reasons, including, very,  steeped histories of colonialism and racism that we're still feeling the effects of that, you know, it's ongoing.

But I, I still have this hope that somehow I've been thinking about this with my own work with regard to time, there's a way that the imagination can cut through time as we experience it now and cut through into our current moment in reality. In other ways, a way to shift reality or the logics of the reality that we're living in now that doesn't rely on transcending this world or this body, but rather really like, you know, grounding us in our bodies in this world right now. 

Abbas

Yeah, I think that very much is a component of this exercise.  

Elaine

Yeah. And you mentioned this in our last conversation about  compounded underrepresentation as the kind of misrepresentation of Muslims. And I wonder if there's something about MIPSTERZ as a platform–what, what do you think that you and all of these artists in this community of artists that's growing are trying to create in terms of a new future or a new kind of representation. 

Abbas

I think ultimately, I think people are missing out. And that's really what motivates us with MIPSTERZ. I think there's just so much richness and awesomeness that inspires and that will inspire everyone that is just being lost or looked over, or, never experienced because we are not even looking or caring to look or  maybe we're driven by our comfort or there is a bias or a fear or something is going on that is preventing people from tapping into other groups of beings out there.

And I think, you know, I am always inspired when I go to something that is outside of my normal like comfort zone or what I'm familiar with, whether that means watching a movie from a creator in Peru or watching or hearing a lecture from one of the Indigenous community members here in the United States, or, visiting another country that I've never been before, whatever, and you just,  dive deep into that, you're like, oh, wow, there were ideas here, concepts here that I had never heard before, and now I'm inspired all over again. 

And I think similarly with MIPSTERZ, there's just so much of that. I meet awesome Muslim people, Muslim leaning people, all the time. And their minds are just like literally on another, in another universe. They're like thinking eons ahead of everybody and they're just thinking about the world in a very cool way, that I'm just like, man, this needs to get out into the world. Like this needs to be experienced by more people. 

And I bet that if they experience this, they will also be just enamored by it. And most of the time,  we're very right about that. I mean, we put out stuff like that, that Tribeca film that I was talking about, when we put that out there just to see non-Muslims Be like, “whoa that Muslim future. That's awesome!” 

And we're doing something bold here. We're basically saying this is a Muslim future. Do you see yourself in it, non-Muslims? You know, and yeah, and a Muslim future like what does that mean? Are these like all practicing Muslims? Like what is the what are we talking about when we say Muslim like who belongs but when they watch it they're like “Yo, that was dope. That was so cool. Like I Yes, of course I see myself in there.” 

And when the first MIPSTERZ film came out in 2013 also available on YouTube for folks to watch or Actually, it's available on mipsterz.com under our project section. But when you watch it, I had non Muslims calling me up, you know, news journalists, news reporters were just like, “Can we be MIPSTERZ? Are we MIPSTERZ?” And for non-Muslims, almost 10 years after 9/11 to be like, “we want to be this”  –Yeah, kind of affirmed what I had always been thinking: that y'all have just been missing out for too long on what our peoples and our communities provide.  

You know, I remember when Lupe Fiasco hit the rap scene, first two, three albums, people were like, “Oh my God, this is amazing. Like, who is this artist? Like what's the man?” This man grew up with so much Islam around him. He himself is a practicing Muslim. And all of a sudden people are resonating with this music. Why? I mean, Mos Def, another artist, everyone's like “This music, it speaks to me.” Yeah. But this man is speaking from a position of Islam. 

Jay Electronica finally dropped an album that was long anticipated in the rap world. So many heavy Muslim themes, you know, and I think that people overwhelmingly have just been missing out. It's kind of been unfortunate and I feel, I kind of feel bad for them because I get access to this. But similarly, I also feel privileged that I have access to this and I would love to like share that access to others. 

And I think like the demonization of Muslims in Denmark, in Paris, in France–they just don't realize how much awesome stuff they have in these people. Muslim soccer players have said this all the time: “We're only celebrated when we score a goal, but then we're vilified otherwise.” 

And we're only valued, and this is a sentiment that black folks say in the United States all the time. It's like, we're only valued when you need something. And I'm just saying, and I'm just trying to highlight that you need us all the time. The reason there's a richness to the culture is because whiteness is so bland.

I mean, white people themselves had to go to other countries to extract literal flavor. Literal flavor to make their lives a little bit more rich, so that goes to show you that there is no world, there is no future that exists that's rich and full of vibrance that doesn't have Muslims at the forefront.

And what I mean by Muslims, I mean this like multicultural, cosmopolitan ethic and peoples and just the immense diversity. And, if you notice like there is no common culture among Muslims. Bengali, Muslims are very different from Senegalese Muslims, which are different from Spanish Muslims. And so all of that gives you a little bit of an alternative to, to the current, very white supremacist hegemonic landscape. 

Elaine

Yeah. I really like how you put that, that folks are just missing out on this joy and this richness and this diversity. And I think it does point to the idea that you've, you know, said this already, but maybe I'll rephrase it in another way that oftentimes what is seen as, or what is marketed as having a certain kind of appeal or universality is a whiteness, it's a kind of selling of whiteness. And then in that framework, everyone else is marked as other. And saying Muslim Futurism is like a radical reorientation of, or maybe upturning, of what was implicitly, occupying the center, you know? 

Abbas

Beautifully, beautifully said. I mean, I couldn't have said that better than the way you restated it. So I appreciate you restating it. 

Elaine

Yeah, it brings me to my next question, which you kind of touched in the last point there about Muslim identity being so many different things and the diversity. And something that I was thinking and my other collaborators in this podcast also wanna address is the relative strengths or drawbacks of certain labels:  Asian American, for instance. Or you could say Black American, Muslim, Muslim American. What do you make of these different identity categories and how they intersect or what the strength is in using one? 

And also I wanted to ask you because you've touched on this a little and this is something that I'm hoping all the people that we interview will touch on–what is the relationship between, MIPSTERZ or your values or what you understand to be this greater Muslim ethos, right? This ethics and its relationship to Indigenous people? 

Abbas

It is a celebration of the, of Indigenous, I guess I want to say, I don't want to say Indigenous identity or community, but indigenousness, like there is a belonging, like we have belonged here before you others have come here, right? Like we are the owners of the house and we are hosting you, the guests.

And I think MIPSTERZ has always valued this, right? I mean, Palestinian liberation is an example of the indigenousness that we very much lean heavily into. In the United States, when we did our show out in Zoolabs, we had a member of the American Indigenous community open the show for us to highlight that as even immigrants to this country, we don't necessarily, we have to acknowledge where it is we belong and where belonging is.

But indigenousness in the United States, I mean, this is a very complicated question because slaves were essentially, these are human beings, stripped of their land where they were indigenous to. Brought here, in one, two, three generations, that identity of where it is they come from, who their families were, was completely destroyed.

And it is no surprise that Native Americans and black folks are calling for the liberation of Palestinians, for example. Because there is a common shared understanding. I mean, there's no surprise that people in Ireland, right, for being under occupation for so long are also resonating with that Indigenous community. Because I think there is an acknowledgement of: this was our home. We're not saying you're not welcome or that you can't be guests here, but know your place.  

I think what you're getting at is that there is a relationship there that maybe I haven't touched upon that, requires some elucidating, but, hopefully I, I  have highlighted that it is very obvious through our works and what it is we stand for and what it is we speak about, that indigenousness and belonging is very central to some of the projects that have manifested.  

And to your earlier question about the labels, I mean, the only people who seem to be uncomfortable by the labels are the ones who's applying the labels, right? I mean, white Americans don't like to be called white American. You know, even when you call them Caucasian American, they're just like, “yeah, this doesn't fit right, we're just American.” 

I also do a lot of research in the medical space. And a few of my papers that have recently come out about the black experience in the United States, one of the things that you're finding is black American or African American is a very unique thing to Americans. There are black folks or descendants of slaves in other European countries, don't get me wrong, but the terminology, the history, they're very different. And so that experience also manifests in a different way, which highlights these like old racist remnants that exist in these identity markers and these label markers. 

I think there are ways of trying to maybe reclaim them in a useful way. Like maybe members of Congress are saying look we've done them dirty for so long. Let's reallocate resources to these communities. And when communities don't identify by those labels on the census, then it's like hard to know where these communities are. So then they get under, funded or they get  underutilized resources. But I totally understand the feeling of like not wanting to be labeled because then that means that more whites. A. K. A. the current government will surveil them or harm them, and there are examples of that. There's so much distrust because we know that the government is not incapable of harm. 

It's a it's a difficult question to answer. I don't, I don't know.  I just call myself American all the time without using  any labels when somebody asks like where you're from. And you can see the uncomfortableness only on white people's faces. So that tells me there is some some deeply held notions of who belongs and who doesn't belong instinctually. 

Elaine

Yeah, I guess um,  you know one thing I was thinking about with regard to that I get what you mean by refusing a label that someone else is putting on you because no one wants to be pigeonholed by someone else or give them the power to pigeonhole you, you know?  And at the same time there is a power like for instance in the idea of Muslim Futurism, right? Or MIPSTERZ in the name and the kind of work that the word Muslim is doing in those instances. So I think what I get from what you're sharing with me is it all depends on who's leveraging these terms and for what purposes.

Abbas

Yeah, yeah, you could say that.  

Elaine

Yeah, I mean, something else just about the relationship with Indigenous peoples. One thing when I attended the Mosquers (“Muslim Oscars”) in Edmonton, I was really moved for instance that their opening act was  a local Indigenous man, who was welcoming us to “Turtle Island,” not Canada. And, and then also having a performance is like that was the first performance.

And I think that's just really important to center that even in the arts, there's a way to, I guess, to think about different paradigms of creating performances or creating events, that also center,  Indigenous voices in the U.S. 

Abbas

Yeah, but, but, you know, to that point, it just makes you, uh, stop and reflect for a second. Who are the ones that are aware of this that center Indigenous voices? It tends to be other minority groups, you know, it tends to be, you know, black folks at their events. You will see somebody do a land acknowledgement. Maybe some liberal whites, maybe, will do this, but overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, it makes me unhappy to say that, you know, white people overwhelmingly don't care. 

And it just reminds me of even with Black Lives Matter, it's like Black Lives Matter until they don't, right? Until it doesn't satisfy the white agenda or the white economy or the white capitalist enterprise. Like McDonald's is gonna say what they're going to say when it's convenient for them and for their sales, but they will then flip the script if it doesn't. Starbucks only cares about racism in their stores when it makes national news and their stock price drops. So, you know, it just feels sometimes as like a defeating exercise.

 But I think our Indigenous brothers and sisters know that we are there with them and we feel that same pain because we're all living in this dystopia, right? We're not living in the white utopia. This world, right now in this present moment is not created for us. It's created for a different group that's actively creating the future that they want to see. They want to leave planet Earth when it's being destroyed. They are inventing medicines that only they have access to right now. But some of the diseases and issues like malaria has been plaguing Sub Saharan Africa for so long.

Not just Sub Saharan Africa, I mean, large portions of Asia that along, along the coast. But nobody is gonna find a vaccine for malaria with an urgency that we found for COVID because malaria isn't endemic to the United States. So, you know, it's just, it just makes that feeling, and a reminder that we are not thriving or flourishing as much as we could, or we should  that's a going back to that Abbas, what is it, 2007, maybe where I'm like thinking heavily about ethics and the should question. What is it should we be doing? Not what currently is. And so, you know, anyway,  

Elaine

I was wondering if you would just share your current projects or next steps, shoutouts, or dreams, aspirations, in any order? 

Abbas

It's a hard question because, with MIPSTERZ, we aren't as forward developing or forward visionaries as maybe we should be. And I think we very much live and exist in the current moment. I think some, a lot of people really credit us for predicting the next, Muslim cultural development. Like I think we called that, that, when we created Somewhere in America, that film from 2013, with everybody on skateboards and that, and that wave, people credit us for shaping that or being the catalyst.

Similarly with Muslim Futurism, I think now everybody's trying to jump in on that and really capitalize on it. And they credit us for really being the catalysts, but when these concepts and ideas were being developed or thought about, it was very much a reflection on the current moment and what came before it.

I mean, Muslim Futurism, I would argue was a framework that Malcolm X used or that Mansa Musa used. And so it's not. Or even what Palestinians have been using when they're constructing their future, the Rohingya or the Uyghurs. Or Iraq, Afghanistan, like all of these communities that have been devastated by imperialism.

Anyway, so when I'm thinking about what is the future project or what is it we're going to do next, I think these things slowly reveal themselves if you're paying attention to the current moment. There is a leaning that is, is occurring among younger generations, Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and I think we really need to invest in younger groups, in communities, while their imagination is still ripe and I will be leaning very much into my daughter's imagination as she starts, at some point she's going to start speaking. Right now, she doesn't speak, but at some point she'll be speaking and will, she will take in the world and then she will output her ideas and visions and imagination and I think that's where we should all be paying attention to.  

And I think that was a lesson that mosque communities learned with the millennial generation, that it isn't the old guard, it is a passing of the torch, and that there are fresher ideas, different ways of looking at the world. And I think with MIPSTERZ we're constantly just going to try to collaborate with more folks. We want younger generations to feel like there's an infrastructure here for them to use, to build upon their ideas, to develop their ideas, to execute their ideas into the real world, and manifest those ideas into the real world. And we really want to support them and provide them with that infrastructure wherever they are.

And I think that's really what our goals are, our next steps are going to be–is trying to rev up those aspects. And my own ambition is to surround myself with, you know, Ramadan is coming up, right? Ramadan is maybe a month away. And I'm just really eager to surround myself by younger Muslims, different Muslims, different communities of Muslims, and just hear and listen, what is it they're thinking about or how are they answering some of the questions of the now? And MIPSTERZ always operates with a sense of like urgency like this needs to get out now because it's only relevant now. It won't make sense later, so we need to do this now. And so that now, that urgency that comes with that, I think, exists, among some of the younger folks that have that fire that's burning. 

Elaine

Yeah. I think that's a lesson for a lot of, for Buddhists as well to learn, to pass the torch on or to invite the imagination of the younger generation to form, whatever the next new wave of religion will mean or, religious ethos will mean for them. That's so important. 

If I could invite you to just give, if there was one takeaway that either you had or you want our listeners to have from joining in on the conversation today, what would you like to say or what would you like to leave folks with? 

Abbas

That there is just so much richness and awesomeness that human beings have created over the centuries and are still creating and just don't miss out on it by limiting yourself or limiting what you read or what events and things you go to and definitely push yourself at least once a month I would say to go to an event or a space that is extremely different from anything you would normally do whether that is trying food from a cuisine that you've never had before, watching a movie at  a private theater or something that was created by a community that you never heard for or not even a theater but maybe you know Netflix has a lot of movies from communities all over the world that you can tap into easily. But do that at least once a month because there's just so much out there that people are missing. 

Not just white folks. I mean all of us are missing out  by limiting ourselves. I mean even you know I can't tell you the number of times that I run into Muslims that witness some of the work that MIPSTERZ as an organization has created and they're like, “Oh my god. This is awesome!” I was just on the phone with a news reporter and she visited one of the exhibits that we had in Philly and was like, “Oh my God, this touched me so deep inside, like at the level of my soul. Oh my God, like I didn't know this existed.”  And this is a fellow Muslim, you know? And so, I think there's just so much out there that people are creating. 

And you just have to be patient with all the noise that's out there. With all the dominance from celebrity culture. I know it sounds like the only album that exists. Taylor Swift's album, but I promise you there is other, other great music and other great movies out there that are not seeing the light of day because of  the noise that capitalism brings, but also the noise that virality brings. 

And so definitely, there are videos out there on YouTube that only have 200 views that will change your life. And so, there are great content creators out there. There are creatives out there. There are artists out there. That you should sit with. 

Elaine

Beautifully said. Go out there everyone. Go visit a MIPSTERZ event, if it's in your city. If it's not, fly there! Watch some YouTube videos. We'll post them here on the page.

Thank you so much Abbas. 

Abbas

Yeah, also also Islam great religion! We're accepting converts so if you're interested,  I'll send you the application.  

Elaine

Proselytize!  

Abbas

Exactly! If I haven't talked enough about Islam, you know,  yeah. Anyway, thank you so much for having me on and good work you know for for really shining a light on these kinds of topics and shout out to your team and all the hard work That you guys are doing to make these shows a reality.

This is a lot of work. 

Elaine

Yeah. Thank you so much.