Episode 107: EXTRA CREDIT with Omid Safi

Transcript for Episode 107:

Digital transcript!

Shownotes for Episode 107:

It’s our first EXTRA CREDIT episode! Extra Credits are meant to dive deeper into topics we’ve covered before—with voices beyond our own.

We are so honored that our very first extra credit is with Dr. Omid Safi, an eminent scholar of Islam who is a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University. He is the author of many books, most recently Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition. He’s working on a new book about the appropriation and reception of Rumi, the famed Muslim mystic. Omid is also writing another book about the legacies of MLK, a topic he’s given many talks about, like this one. 

But dear nerds, you’ve likely read or heard one of his countless pieces of public scholarship! He has a podcast of his own called Sufi Heart, which is part of the Be Here Now Network. He had a long-running and really popular column at OnBeing. He’s written countless op-eds in major newspapers, been on numerous radio and TV spots.

Across all those accessible venues, he is most often talking about social justice, whether that’s on issues of gender or race.  For full disclosure, Omid is also one of Ilyse’s dearest and oldest friends.

And today, nerds, we all get to spend some extra time with him on this Extra Credit episode. Prof. Omid Safi joins us at Keeping it 101 to talk religion, social justice, being a scholar, being an activist, and just being in the world. He said love a lot, because he loves love. Especially the radical kind.

Extra Credit Homework for Extra Extra Credit:

Ilyse suggested y’all read Radical Love. She’s read—and sometimes edited!—Omid’s work since his very first book (a handful of books ago) and thinks this is his best. But if you don’t want to add stress to our heroic letter carriers, delivery folks, and postal workers—and since your local library should be closed for COVID-19—here are ways to get at the themes of Radical Love in isolation.

• Interview with Omid, “Finding Radical Love in Ancient Islamic Sources,” for WUNC’s “The State of Things.” This is a short, sweet introduction to what he means by “radical love.”

• Interview with Omid (with friend of the pod Kristian Petersen!) for the New Books Network Podcast. This is a long-form interview with scholarly listeners in mind; much deeper dive than The State of Things interview!

• Radical Love teaser video, Duke University. November 15, 2018. A short video of Omid’s scholarly lecture about the book & its major points.

• Radical Love book talk, Cambridge Muslim College. April 23, 2019. A video of Omid’s scholarly, full-length lecture about the book & its major findings.

Megan’s homework, nerds, was Omid’s Sufi Heart podcast. She said “It’s such a gorgeous and accessible window into how radical love shapes teaching and activism.” She specifically recommended the episode on Rabbi Abraham Heschel--who called marching for civil rights “praying with my feet.”

We made Omid assign you things, too. He suggested:

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Riverside Church speech.

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