Before Eric Williams’ seminal text Capitalism and Slavery (1944) which made the profound argument that slavery was the foundation for the Industrial Revolution and industrial capitalism, W.E.B. Du Bois repositioned slavery in American capitalism in
During the colonial era, white people refused to call Africans by their birth names. So African parents gave their children two names - an African name and a western name to better help their kids
You cannot know Islam until you know its edges. Unburdened by historical determinism that is often present at the heart of Islam, Muslims who live on the edges are capable of unleashing the type of
Doosron ko naseehat, khud miyan faseehat (He) gives others advice and he himself is only talk and no action (lit. Mr. Eloquent) This creative Urdu expression (ironically!) describes one of my earliest memories. The head
At the start of the new year, I made my way into a Manhattan coffee shop, the kind of Greenwich Village establishment frequented by women in white shirts (sans any stains) wearing big earrings and
The latest episode of world affairs has divided a complex world into a simplistic Manichean binary. On one side stand a party that poses as vanguards of freedom; and on the other side stands the
Dr. Bilal Ware eloquently takes us through the inception, cultivation, and fruition of Islam in West Africa, on a timeline as far back as the early 9th century to the present day. Navigating historical events
This is the colour of true love, it overflows but it never withers away –– Sana Ginwalla Lusaka, Zambia. Five years ago, I visited my grandparents in Gujarat, India where they stay in a house
In They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers does what many historians before her have failed to do and focuses primarily on the role of white
A real story of slavery and spirituality in 18th century Cape Town. On the evening of 14 July 1760, the slave Batjoe van Bali was on duty in the courtyard of his master’s house