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Two Currents Meet in Ottawa: Mekyle Ali Qadir Launches Crescendo at Octopus Books July 7, 2026 – Posted in: Highlights, Poetry, Readings & Excerpts

Some launches announce a book; others announce a voice. The launch of Crescendo, Mekyle Ali Qadir’s debut poetry collection with Mawenzi House on June 29, 2026, at the Mauril-Bélanger Social Innovation Workshop (The Atelier) in Ottawa was firmly the latter. The evening drew more than forty readers, writers, scholars, family and friends, with thirty copies of the collection finding new shelves by night’s end. Mekyle opened with a reading of the collection’s introduction, “Two Currents,”…

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Four Days Before November 17, 2020 – Posted in: Guest Post, Poetry

I don’t need roses or chocolates. What would I do with buds when they fade, the cracked frieze of a once living leaf. As for chocolates I suffer the bane of middle age, a slight protuberance that needs no additional support. So I will go now for my morning walk but I have something to share before I do, news of a poetry channel on YouTube that grows and grows in viewers. I am close…

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Reflections on Keepers of the Faith by Sumaiya Hamdani May 14, 2020 – Posted in: Guest Post, Reviews

Sumaiya Hamdani, an Associate Professor of History at George Mason University, comes from a long line of Islamic scholars and academics from the Hamdani family. From their origins in Yemen they have over the generations made important contributions to Ismaili thought and literature. Sumaiya’s father, the late Abbas Hamdani, was a scholar of Ismaili history and in particular of a volume of the philosophical work the Rasa’il-e-Ikhwan al-Safa(Epistles of Brethren of Purity). The Hamdani family had…

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An Open Letter on Faith March 25, 2019 – Posted in: Guest Post

A few moments ago, I put down my laptop and went to wash. Then I spread my prayer mat on the floor and performed the ritual early afternoon prayer. And then it came to me, what I’ve been labouring over while trying to write this post. When I pray, I look for peace. And the more I empty my heart of the clutter of the day and leave myself an open vessel, the more often…

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Adab Festival Highlights February 21, 2019 – Posted in: Guest Post

As delighted as I was on receiving an invitation to read at the Adab Festival in Karachi, I was also anxious in the days leading up to it. I had fallen off a treadmill just the week before, and was suffering from terrible headaches, which sometimes left me searching for words. I was scared of making a fool of myself on stage. But thanks to Nadya Mujahid-Chisti and Shazaf Haider, the evening turned out to…

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Al-Shabaab’s Theatre of Death and Destruction Comes to Nairobi, Again February 12, 2019 – Posted in: Guest Post

Four weeks have passed since explosives and gunfire ripped through the DusitD2 on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 15. The attack shattered the usual tranquility of the upscale hotel and office complex in the Westlands neighbourhood of Nairobi. The siege on the compound lasted nearly 20 hours. A haven for Western expats, NGO workers and well-to-do Kenyans, the DusitD2 was a prime target for a terrorist group in desperate need of international media attention. 21…

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