Shabbir Agha Abbas, was most recently a graduate student at Columbia University (MEI/MESAAS) working on Islamic Law and Shari‘a Studies, and now is a PhD student at the University of Arizona, as well as a recipient of the prestigious Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies (https://roshan-institute.org/fellowship/). Shabbir, alongside his Columbia MA, holds an MA in Religion from Rutgers University and has been involved in the Muslim World Manuscript (MWM) project, helping to catalog and describe manuscripts in the RBML collection. He also earned his BA at Rutgers in Religion and Middle Eastern Studies, completed exchange coursework at Princeton, and has pursued Hawzah studies privately with teachers from Najaf and Qom. Shabbir last year was also appointed as the manuscript subject editor at Hazine.

His research focuses on the intellectual development of Shi‘ism in general, but more specifically on how Shi‘i intellectual developments in Najaf and Karbala (Iraq) traveled and took hold in other geographic areas, such as North India. In particular, he focuses on the works of a number of late 18th century Shi‘i scholars who trained in Iraq and traveled to North India.

Shabbir recently published a post on Hazine about his experience conducting research at Al-Imam al-Hakim Public Library in the seminary city of Najaf.

Shabbir was also interviewed by the Global Studies Blog at Columbia University, which details his research and work with the MWM Project: An Interview with Shabbir Agha Abbas; Poring over Manuscripts for a broader and more vibrant understanding of Islamic Studies

Sumaiya Zama is an MA candidate for the Columbia and Aga Khan University dual degree in Islamic Studies and Muslim Cultures. She is the 2020 recipient of the Aga Khan University dual-degree fellowship as well as the recipient of Columbia University’s 2020-2021 Racial Justice Mini-Grant through the Office of Student Life. She is currently a research fellow with the Center for the Study of Religion and the City at Morgan State University. She holds a BA from the University of Massachusetts in Boston in Political Science with minors in Africana Studies and Human Rights.

Sumaiya entered her graduate school journey with several years of professional and personal experience in youth work, civil rights, and community organizing sparking her academic interests which include reading Islamic texts as liberation theology, and learning from scholars in the field so that she may further develop its theory and praxis.

Sumaiya’s research explores how Muslims in different contexts respond to the expansion of surveillance and policing vis-a-vis the weaponization of Artificial Intelligence, specifically facial recognition software. Furthermore, she is interested in theorizing possible ethical formations for Artificial Intelligence within the broader realm of Islamic ethics while employing gender, race, and class analyses on issues of surveillance and AI in her research.

Most recently, she wrote for Nazar about the U.S. military’s purchase of location data from the prayer app MuslimPro and the subsequent anxieties around surveillance that Muslims experience.

Sumaiya organized and moderated Malcolm's Worldmaking Practice: Reclaiming his Local and Global Legacy, a discussion hosted by CSMS in partnership with the Shabazz Center. She was also interviewed by the Columbia Daily Spectator on receiving the Racial Justice Mini-Grant and on her work with the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabbazz Center in Harlem.

Zeinab Azarbadegan is a PhD candidate in the Department of History, in the International and Global History (IGH) track. Her research focuses on inter-imperial relations and impact of new concepts and technologies in the nineteenth century Middle East and South Asia. Her dissertation, entitled “Bloodless Battles: Contested Sovereignty and Citizenship in Ottoman Iraq, 1831-1909,” examines the conflicting and evolving interests in Ottoman Iraq analyzing Ottoman, Qajar -in modern Iran-, and British interests, policies, and personnel, that sought to assert sovereignty over both the space and the population. Zeinab’s research has been supported by the GSAS International Travel Fellowship and Sakıp Sabancı Summer Fellowship Award.

Zeinab was recently interviewed by the Global Studies Blog at Columbia University on her research and interests in Persian lithographs, and in the Nafisi book collection at the Columbia University Libraries: Persian Lithographs: Jām-i Jam: “The World Revealing Goblet”, An interview with Zeinab Azarbadegan