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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250916T170000
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SUMMARY:Aksum and Medina: African Diaspora and Early Islam
DESCRIPTION:CSAAD Africa~Diaspora Forum Series\nDr. Hamza Zafer\nPrinceton University\nTuesday\, September 24\, 2025\n5:00 pm – 6:30 pm\n20 Cooper SQ\, 5 FL\, Room 503\nNew York City\, NY 10003 \nZoom link: https://nyu.zoom.us/j/93654463712 \n\n\n\n\nJoin the Center for the Study of Africa and African Diaspora (CSAAD) this September to discuss Dr. Hamza Zafer’s exploration of Islamic origins in the Red Sea domain of Aksum. Drawing from linguistic evidence\, material culture\, and narrative accounts\, Dr. Zafer explores the African empire’s influence on the Medinan polity of the early seventh century. Dr. Zafer investigates\, as a legacy of Aksumite imperialism in Arabia\, early Muslim accounts of Abyssinian leaders within the Quranic community. \n\n\n\n\n\nFor accommodations\, please contact the Program Manager for the Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora at ac8829@nyu.edu. \nWatch Event Recording Here\n\n\n \nHamza M. Zafer (PhD\, Cornell 2014) is a Senior Lecturer in African Studies at Princeton University and a former Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Languages at the University of Washington. Dr. Zafer’s research connects premodern Ethiopic\, Arabic\, and Indic writings to recover genealogies of thought marginalized in Western scholarship. He is currently writing Aksum and Medina: The African Quran\, which tells the story of the early Muslims from the vantage point of an African empire and diaspora. He trains students in Classical Ethiopic (Ge’ez) and ancient Red Sea inscriptions. \nComing of age between Karachi\, Islamabad\, and New York\, Dr. Zafer’s writing and teaching are informed by his experiences as an asylum seeker in post-9/11 America. His migrant pedagogy weaves together classical literatures of the Global South and the diasporic polyglossia of his home cities. He is the author of Ecumenical Community: Language and Politics of the Ummah (Brill\, 2020) and several essays on the Quran\, including “The Quran as Red Sea Literature” (Edinburgh\, 2026) and “The Abyssinian Matriarchs of Medina” (Cambridge\, 2026). \n\nDr. Hamza Zafer\, Reading List\nIn reference to CSAAD Africa~Diaspora Forum Series Event:\nAksum and Medina: African Diaspora and Early Islam\n_____\nGlen Bowersock. The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam. Oxford University\,\n2013.\nNadia El Cheikh. Women\, Islam\, and Abbasid Identity. Harvard University\, 2o15.\nNiall Finneran. The Archaeology of Ethiopia. Routledge\, 2007.\nStuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh University\,\n1991.\nNgũgĩwa Thiongʾo. Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature.\nJames Currey\, 2005.\nAlexis Wick. The Red Sea: In Search of Lost Space. University of California\, 2016. \n\n 
URL:https://csaad.nyu.edu/event/aksum-and-medina-african-diaspora-and-early-islam/
LOCATION:20 Cooper Square
CATEGORIES:Africa Diaspora Forum
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