Religion says, “you’ve got questions, and I’ve got answers. Art says, “you’ve got answers, and I’ve got questions.” 

At the intersection of those two statements, we get the show Ramy from the comedian Ramy Youssef. His work brings to life a new landscape in American comedy: being your spiritual self in public. To be one’s spiritual self in public is to grapple with all questions that exist in the space between who you are and who you want to be, and what happens when your journey to answer those questions only presents more questions and less answers. Over the course of the show, we talk to Ramy about his journey to not only asking questions close to his heart, but how he got there, and why that was so important to showcase in his work.

We also unpack some of the show's themes, what it means to be an imperfect protagonist, creating a spiritual autobiography, and much more. We discuss different elements of the show and its characters with two people who helped bring them to life: writers on the show, Azhar Usman and Amir Sulaiman. 

After listening to this episode, we hope you walk away with a better understanding of not only who Ramy is, what his show is about, and what questions he’s asking, but with a desire to interrogate your own questions, too. 

Written by Imran Ali Malik, Zahra Parekh

Assoc. Producers: Farooq Chaudhry, Adam Lotfi

Music & Engineering: Adam Lotfi and Imran Ali Malik

Special Thanks to Asma Saud, Najib Aminy, ID-PR

Artwork by Masood Tahir

Ramy Youssef on Instagram and TwitterAmerican Submitter on Instagram and TwitterSubmitter Magazine on Instagram and Twitter

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Read the interview on Submitter Magazine

Fatima Bhutto - Pain, Power, and Politics: Making Sense of a Senseless Inheritance

In this conversation, Fatima Bhutto reckons with ghosts of her past. Many of us know Fatima as the author of novels The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, and The Runaways, as well as her latest nonfiction work New Kings of the World. But over the course of an hour, we get a glimpse into the heavy history she has inherited as a member of the Bhutto family and political dynasty. While we unpack ideas of democracy and oppression, she takes us back to Pakistan: to her grandfather, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s vision of the country coming out of the shadow of colonialism and the rise of the global self. As we dive into the vision of a man who did not live to see his vision come to fruition, Fatima finds his spirit in the books of his library. We also hear about her early years in Damascus where memories of grandeur and exile are intertwined. Fatima does not shy away from the tragedy and weight of her past. She tells us of her father, Murtaza Bhutto’s brutal murder and her journey in coming to terms with her pain in writing her first book Songs of Blood and Sword. For Fatima, the pen is her sword; she deploys language to make sense of the past she has inherited and the complicated and interconnected world we live in today.

Produced by Imran Ali Malik, Farooq Chaudhry, and Zahra Parekh. Music by Adam Lotfi. 

Fatima Bhutto on Twitter and Instagram

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"THE STRUGGLE OF MAN AGAINST POWER IS THE STRUGGLE OF MEMORY AGAINST FORGETTING." 

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1979 Milan Kundera, Czechoslovakian, born 1929.

• Islam and the Black American: a free course by Dr. Sherman Jackson 
• Islam and the Black American: Book by Dr. Sherman Jackson
• Stamped From the Beginning by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
• Brother Ali on Instagram/Facebook
• Muslim Anti-Racist Collective
• Islamic Perspectives on Police Abolition with Ustd. Ubaydallah Evans and Shaykh Azhar Nasser
• Sapelo Square
• Wasat Bilal Ware
• Centering Black Narrative by Imam Dawud Ali
• The Walking Qur’an by Bilal Ware

Written by Imran Ali Malik, Farooq Chaudhry, and Zahra Parekh. Music by Mikhail Latif. Support us by becoming a Submitter patron. patreon.com/submitter

What We Talk About In This Episode

• How this period of quarantine has affected our content/the way we work.
• Travel as a mutual ‘unveiling’ (in the Arabic language) and what this means.
• Guinea Bissau: conversion of tribes to Islam after an elder, Maulana, dreamt of the Prophet (saw)- and how Imran’s experience visiting the country was transformative for him.
• How vulnerability whilst travelling can lead one to have a greater sense of tawwakul, reliance upon God.
• Finding meaning in times of crisis.
• Finding the deeper meaning in art and architecture; how the state of the artist/architect affects your soul.
• Indonesia- visiting the Wali Songo, the ‘Nine Saints.’
• Yemeni traders; how they brought Islam to the region, and the way in which they interacted with the local population and culture, including through music and shadow puppet plays.
• The tombs of the saints in Java.
• Preserving and connecting with tradition.
• How Sacred Footsteps started and what it has become.
• How travel can be transformative and the importance of intention.

Things / People Mentioned in this Episode

• SF contributor Shahroze Khan – Wazir Khan mosque Insta Story.
• Mimar Sinan – Ottoman architect
• Wali Songo
• Salahuddin Mazhary – Chechnya Podcast and Insta Story 
• Murabit al Hajj
• ‘A Mauritanian Retreat: In Search of Murabit al Hajj’ by Zara Choudhary

American Submitter is a podcast about Muslims in the West and the spiritual teachings of Islam hosted by Imran Ali Malik. Through a combination of long form conversation, audio documentary, and reflective narration the listener gets the personal story of a religious life. American Submitter attempts to translate what it means to be a conscious Muslim in America by measuring the spiritual teachings of Islam with the reality of Muslims finding their way while living at the western edge of civilization. LISTEN HERE.

Imran Ali Malik is a radio journalist based in Oakland, California. Connect with him on Twitter and Instagram.

THE PRESENT is a series of reflections, stories, and moments captured during the global pandemic of the novel Coronavirus. 

Haider Syed is a hip hop artist and poet from Toronto, Canada that goes by the name of Dialectic. Follow him on twitter and instagram. The song featured in this episode is called "Pillars of Wisdom" and can be found here.

To submit a story for our series 'The Present,' send us an email or send a voice note to our WhatsApp account.

This week we breech the divides of social distancing and isolation by reaching out to Bassam Tariq, a Pakistani-American filmmaker whose latest project Mogul Mowgli, starring Riz Ahmed, recently premiered at the Berlinale Film Festival. In this conversation, Bassam and Imran examine how traces of religion, tradition, and history bleed together and form a voice for the South Asian diaspora. Though Bassam shares with us the difficulties of being a filmmaker with integrity, he also reminds us of our imperfection. We trip up and turn back to the One who is Perfect. This is the non-linear, vulnerable, and vibrant spiritual path of the artist. While the life of the artist can be a lonely at times, Bassam celebrates the cities and communities that support, challenge, and inform his art.

Produced by: Imran Ali Malik and Zahra Parekh.

More about Bassam Tariq: www.bassa.ms

Support this podcast: patreon.com/submittter

We open the second season of American Submitter behind the closed doors of our studio in the Bay Area, which has now been ordered to 'shelter in place'. The past few weeks our feeds have been flooded with endless diagrams, figures, and unknowns. We begin this season about community by checking in with you all. In this short episode, we take a moment to acknowledge the isolation and distress felt by many of us. While we hope to release the first story of this season in a few days, God willing, we leave this message for you all in the hope that you take this time as an opportunity to reflect on the longer journey we are all on.

Send us audio notes to mail@americansubmitter.org

American Submitter is produced by Imran Ali Malik, Zahra Parekh, and Farooq Chaudhry.

For American Muslims, Malcolm X is a saint and martyr and February is the month where I and other muslims often find ourselves reflecting on Malcolm’s last days. As we prepare to launch Season 2, we try to bring the spirit of Malcolm with us.

Featuring Tyson Amir

Music from Tyson Amir, Blue Dot Sessions, and Imran Ali Malik

Produced by Imran Ali Malik and Zahra Parekh

It’s easy to get lost in the names, numbers, and contexts that inform who we are. In this podcast, we hear how Mustafa Briggs conceives identity as something that both illuminates and conceals. Piecing together aspects of identity and experience, Mustafa and other like-minded U.K. based Muslim millenials are creating a niche cultural conversation using Instagram and YouTube as tools to connect. We hear about ‘Beyond Bilal,’ a talk that Briggs designed to foreground black history in Islam, and how this project has taken him to forty different colleges and venues in a single year. As these identities enrich our understanding of who we are and where we come from, Mustafa reminds us that there is no one way to embody them. These identities are only the beginning of our journey. How we use them to manifest the truest version of ourselves is the work that must not be left undone.Support this independent podcast: http://www.patreon.com/submitter

Produced by Imran Ali Malik and Zahra Parekh

Copyright I. A. Malik Studio