Alaa Qarooni is a Bahraini MA candidate for the Columbia/Aga Khan dual degree in Islamic Studies and Muslim Cultures. He first moved to the United States from Bahrain to pursue a bachelors degree in electrical engineering, but quickly found himself drawn to exploring the educational streamline taken by Arab youth in the gulf as they navigate the complicated dynamics of postcolonial, oil-rich Arab states, a streamline which he believes he himself is a product of. His interests deal with the disconnect between the hegemonic cultural imaginary of the state and the grim reality of youth on the ground. What do standard talking points like ‘economic development’ and ‘building for a knowledge economy’ mean when faced with a near future of economic recession and environmental catastrophe? How do youth conceptualize ‘the future’ when so-called modernization efforts are undertaken without their interests in mind? How does our understanding of Islam in the Middle East, as scholars, evolve when we consider the role of education and youth in constructing it, historically and contemporaneously? Alaa hopes to develop his expertise in order to attribute greater value to youth culture in academic discourse on Islam and the Middle East.

Alae El Ouazzani is an architect born and raised in Morocco, and a graduate of the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture of Paris (ESA) in France. Her main research interest revolves around Pre-Islamic influences on North African Contemporary Architecture with a focus on the impact of the colonial period. In exploring this thesis, Alae aims to develop a more expansive understanding of North African heritage beyond the prism of orientalism and other Eurocentric biases. Past research projects include examining the urban history of Moroccan cities, taking into consideration the impact of popular beliefs in urban morphologies. During her field work she traced and documented the evolution of historical sites in Rabat, such as Sidi Yabouri Saint Evora cemetery, home to handcrafted stonework, on the deserted tombs of the first inhabitants of the city. The research revealed her life-long commitment to become a researcher in the field of historic preservation, hoping to have an impact on the becoming of cities in emerging countries such as her own, Morocco. Language is an important part in the way she approaches research, asare the way Arabic, French, English, and Spanish shapes her work and her sensory exploration of spaces and temporalities.

Yusuf Umrethwala is an MA candidate in the dual degree program in Islamic Studies and Muslim Cultures at Columbia University and Aga Khan University (London). He pursued his undergraduate and graduate studies at Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah in Surat, India, with a major in Arabic literature (ʾAdab), and went on to lecture and research at the same university.

His past research interests include the expression of emotional intensity and visceral imagery by the use of lingual derivations in the poems of Ṭayyībī-Ismaʿīlī Laureates of Yemen in the 13th century. In a more recent project, his research focused on the study of the trans-national socio-religious migratory history of his community, the Dawoodi Bohras starting from the early 19th century to the present day, his findings on which were recently self-published in a book entitled Travel and You Shall Prosper: The History of Migrations of the Dawoodi Bohras. This book covers the migratory history of the Dawoodi Bohras to over 40 countries from India across 9 geographical regions with a detailed account of the early migrants and community developments. Since nothing of this kind was previously documented, his work mostly relied on oral histories and ethnographic research, and is also complemented with a rich collection of old images and archives, each of which tells and complements the vivid history of migrations. He hopes to deepen his research and use his Master's experience to enrich and publish this work. He has also studied and written on the iconography of an old wooden artifact belonging to the Western Fatimid Palace in Cairo. 

With his past research experiences in the history and literature of the Fatimid dynasty, he was always amazed by the significance of geniza documents in complementing the existing scholarship from a bottom-up approach and providing an evidentiary basis for the social history of the period. For the past two years, he has been working as a research assistant at the Princeton Geniza lab where he works primarily on Arabic script documents coupled with his limited and growing Judaeo-Arabic experience. He is currently working on updating the DIMME database. He is presently a visiting scholar at Princeton University's Near Eastern Studies Department where he is writing his dissertation on Fatimid petitions under the supervision of Professor Marina Rustow. To know more about his research, contact him at ymu2101@columbia.edu.

Cimone Rajan, a 23-year old full-time singer and songwriter, graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2019 with a songwriting degree and music technology minor. Her interest in Islamic Studies grew progressively while she was at Berklee after participating in the Berklee Study Abroad Program in Valencia, Spain. After experiencing the rich cultural impact of the medieval Muslim world on Spanish and Mediterranean art and culture, Cimone decided to tailor her songwriting degree towards the exploration of Muslim culture, along with her own heritage as a Middle Eastern and Pakistani-Canadian. This pursuit eventually led to her upcoming debut EP (album), “after the rain”; a sonic blend of RnB and Sufi sounds. During the dual-degree MA program at Columbia and the ISMC, Cimone plans to work at the intersection of Muslim art and culture and women of the Muslim world, to better understand and study the underpinnings of their historical influences in shaping modern culture globally. She is excited to continue exploring the connection between Islam and the arts, with a hope to introducea new narrative as a Muslim artist in the western music industry.

Fareah Fysudeen is an MA candidate for the Columbia and Aga Khan University dual degree in Islamic Studies and Muslim Cultures. She holds a BA in Philosophy and English with Creative Writing sub-concentration from the University of Michigan.

George comes to the dual degree program between Columbia and the Aga Khan Institute after having completed his juris Doctor at the St. John’s University School of Law. During his time at St. John’s, his coursework focused on private and public international law, cross border transactions, and national security. A portion of his scholarly writing requirement discussing the status of the international legal framework governing the Mekong River Basin was published in the first quarter 2020 edition of Benedict’s Maritime Bulletin. In addition to his academic work, George was a Teaching Assistant for the St. Johns’ Transnational Legal Practice Program, whose purpose is to instruct non-U.S. legal practitioners and students in the nuances of legal practice across borders. Before attending law school, George graduated with a B.A. in History with dual minors in French and Economics, with honors, from Fairleigh Dickinson University College at Florham. His undergraduate thesis explored the development and crystallization of Shari’ah commercial law, and how this process differed from the development of commercial law in Europe.

George's research interests relate to understanding political and diplomatic structures in the Persianate Islamic world, and how these affected the development of transboundary activities during the pre-modern period. He is also interested in understanding how historical patterns can serve as an analogy for modern economic development and integration.