Podcasts on the Middle East, North Africa, and Islamic(ate) Studies

By N.A. Mansour

Ever since podcasting hit the scene in the early 2000s, there has been no shortage of content on the Middle East, North Africa, the Islamicate world, and on Muslims. We’ve assembled a list here –subject to eventual updates and suggestions– of podcasts on history, current events, and culture from the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans and the Islamic(ate) world more generally. We have also included a few other podcasts on Muslim cultural and intellectual matters. This list is by no means exhaustive and we look forward to developing it more: you can DM us suggestions on Twitter or Facebook and you can email us or comment below. 

For those of you who are uninitiated in the ways of podcasts, a basic guide: you can either listen to them streamed from their sites on your computer or tablet or you can download a podcast catcher app (iPhones come preloaded with the Podcast app).  Many are uploaded to Soundcloud (which is both a website and an app). Other podcast apps include Overcast, Stitcher, Anchor, Breaker, PodTail, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Once you’ve installed the apps, search by podcast title (or episode title) to find what you’re looking for. You can choose to subscribe or just listen to individual episodes (either via downloads or streaming) If you are having problems finding the podcasts on your podcast catcher of choice, please visit the podcast’s homepage to see if it is only available on certain platforms.

History

  • If you’re looking for interviews with authors of recent academic books on the Middle East, North Africa, and the Muslim world, a great resource is the New Books Network, which has channels in Middle East Studies and Islam.
  • The Ottoman History Podcast (OHP) was one of the first podcasts to take Middle East history as its primary focus and did so by featuring both interviews and topical episodes. Some episodes are also in Turkish.
  • Taking a lead from the Ottoman History Podcast, the Abbasid History Podcast is produced by Talha Ahsan and focuses on the pre-modern Islamic(ate) ecuneme with interviews of academics and all those inspired by a diverse medieval past.
  • The Twitter king Ali A. Olomi has a podcast! Head On History focuses on the pre-modern world, with forays into contemporary issues as well. 
  • Dawla: New Histories of the Mediæval Middle East is a project out of Ghent University, and aims at getting the research produced there on the historiography of fifteenth-century Egypt and Syria at Ghent University to the broader public
  • 15 Minute History is a product of the history department at the University of Texas, Austin, and is run by its graduate students. It is composed of short, concise interviews with experts in their field.
  • Khodadad Rezakhani produces two podcasts on Iran in late antiquity, one in Persian and one in English, titled History of Iran.
  • The ANAMED Library in Istanbul records all their lectures, on subjects ranging from the archaeological to contemporary questions, and puts them online in podcast form.  
  • Journalist William Armstrong has conversations with journalists, academics and writers about Turkey and its region on Turkey Book Talk
  • The Southeast Passage features interviews on Southeastern Europe, anything “between Trieste and Trabzon” and is hosted by Andreas Guidi. 

Contemporary Art and Society

  • A Better Beirut was founded on the premise that Beirut and Lebanon are full of people trying to make it a better place. Hosted by Samir Ballouz  and Farrah Berrou and produced by Nicolas Dahan, it features interviews with guests who fit that description, like entrepreneurs and artists, and includes a series on the recent Lebanese Revolution, called Hi.Keefak.Thawra?
  • B is for Bacchus originally began as a wine class offered in Beirut by Farrah Berrou (of the A Better Beirut podcast). It has since evolved into a podcast, produced and hosted by Berrou: it seeks to highlight the Middle East’s wine communities and is also interview-based, with some episodes based on Berrou’s extensive knowledge of the region’s wine. 
  • Sowt is a podcasting network based in Amman, Jordan, that produces content, mostly in Arabic, for the Arabic-speaking world on topical matters, like taboo culture, music, and politics. Below are two of our favorites:
    • دم تك (Dom Tak) is Sowt’s production highlighting music. The first season focused on female musicians and artists. The second season looked at different genres of Arabic music and their history. 
    • Bulaq –the brainchild of Ursula Lindsey and M. Lynx Qualey –and is focused on book culture in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond featuring work in Arabic, English  translation, and English. The episodes are a dialogue between Lindsey and Qualey, often joined by a guest. The discussion is not simply literary –as art is political– so listeners are also in for a dose of contemporary politics and cultural criticism.   
  • From the team that brought you Jadaliyya, Status Hour  is an audio magazine that features different segments under which individual episodes are slotted, like a book review section (featuring interviews) and a poetry section.
  • Kerning Cultures is another podcast network based in the UAE and is backed by venture-capital. It produces content in both English and Arabic. 
  • The Beirut Banyan podcast  consists of weekly interview-podcast brought to you by Ronnie Chatah, who is also responsible for WalkBeirut, amongst other projects. The episodes focus on Beirut and beyond.
  • The Lebanese Politics Podcast is released weekly, hosted by Nizar Hassan and Benjamin Redd, and features a discussion round-up of  the week’s news before focusing on a set topic. 
  • The Maydan is best known for its website, which regularly produces written and video content but also produces podcasts on a variety of issues.
  • Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program Podcast is a platform scholars of contemporary Turkey to talk about their academic work and its social and political implications. It’s hosted by postdoctoral fellow Deniz Duruiz.
  • The Kurdish Edition – Nusxeya Kurdî نوسخەی کوردی podcast is produced and hosted by Sardar Saadi. Tofan Sunbul is the editor of the Kurdish (Kurmanji) section of the podcast. This podcast brings you stories and analyses related to the Kurdish politics, society, art and culture. 

Islamic Art

  • Esra Alhamal runs the Art Illuminated podcast, in addition to the Islamic art classes she teaches in the London area. It features both interviews with artists but Alhamel  also produces episodes where she runs through the basics of Isalmic art in an accessible manner.

Muslim Commentary

  • Co-hosted by Ikhlas Saleem and Makkah Ali, Identity Politics is about race, gender and Muslim life in America. Engaging and nuanced,  it features guests based on the episode’s topic.
  • Amaliah began as a website dedicated to hosting Muslim content, partilcularily that of Muslim women. Its staff have also joined forces on their podcast , where they discuss, Muslim life, culture and politics in the UK. Amaliah has a dedication to creating platforms for all Muslims and promotes inclusion, so the podcast addresses diverse issues from a variety of perspectives. 
  • See Something, Say Something was originally a Buzzfeed podcast hosted  by Ahmad Ali Akbar but Buzzfeed closed its podcasting division, laying off the staff. Akbar continues to produce the podcast, crowdfunding to keep it going: it covers aspects topical to modern Muslim life, particularly in North America. 
  • SeekersGuidance, which is an online platform featuring Sunni Muslim scholarly content for the general Muslim public, has a podcast section featuring their many offerings.

Academia

  • She Speaks: Academic Muslimahs, hosted by Saba Fatima, is an interview-based show featuring female Muslim academics and is  meant to elevate the profile of Muslim women in academia; it is released in seasons and every two weeks. 
  • Project Wasta is brought to you by Amy Fallas and Tyler Kynn and is focused on the Middle East PhD job market.

Beyond Middle East/North Africa/Islamic(ate) Studies

  • Created by Edna Bonhomme and Kristyna Comer,  Decolonization in Action is “a podcast that interrogates decolonization in the arts, sciences, and beyond”  and features interviews with with historians, activists, artists, and curators to look at how decolonization is practiced today.
  • The Newberry Library runs Shelf Life, a podcast on libraries and archives told largely through the lens of the Chicago-based Newberry; a few episodes tackle Islam, the Middle East, and North Africa. The bulk of the episodes will be of interest to bibliophiles and manuscript specialists, as well as those interested in educating themselves on information sciences. 

Thanks go to Farrah Berrou, Djodi Deutsch, Dzenita Karic, Twitter User @_Liuhath, Megan MacDonald, Hind Makki, and Torsten Wollina for suggestions. The original list we compiled on Twitter in December 2019 is below. 

https://twitter.com/HAZINEblog/status/1205219366956077058