People

Anver M. Emon’s research centers on the study of Islamic law and history.  His publications address both premodern histories of Islamic law, and how those histories are deployed in contemporary debates on governance and the rule of law at a time when the spectre of ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’ are highly politicized tropes in public debate around the world.  A professor in both the Faculty of Law and Department of History, Emon’s teachings range from foundational courses in legal education (constitutional law and statutory interpretation), to historical methods courses that center the study of Islamic law and comparative law. He has received numerous awards and recognition for his scholarship, having been the 2014 Guggenheim Fellow in Law,  appointed to the College of the Royal Society of Canada and awarded its 2017 Kitty Newman Memorial Award in Philosophy, and named a Senior Fellow to Massey College.  

In addition to publishing numerous articles, Professor Emon is the author of The ‘Islamic’ Deployed: The Study of Islam in Four Registers (Middle East Law and Governance, 2019), Islamic Natural Law Theories (Oxford University Press, 2010), and Religious Pluralism and Islamic Law: Dhimmis and Others in the Empire of Law(Oxford University Press, 2012), as well as the co-editor of Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law: Searching for Common Ground? (Oxford University Press, 2012).  His most recent book, Jurisdictional Exceptionalisms (Cambridge University Press, 2021), (co-authored with Urfan Khaliq) interrogates the fields of private international law and Islamic law as they impose themselves on the bodies of children abducted by parents across state borders. 

Zaid has a background in strategic communications in the advertising and design industry. Zaid’s particular interest is in using design-led approaches to help communicate research in new ways, such as digital interactions or experiential installations. He holds a Masters in Design in the Strategic Foresight & Innovation Program at OCAD University.

Moska Rokay has been a dedicated community organizer in her Afghan-Canadian community for over 9 years, committed to raising awareness for Afghanistan and uniting the diaspora in Canada. She is the founding archivist for the Muslims in Canada Archives at the IIS (2019-2022) and still continues to be a part of MiCA’s development in a strategy and research capacity while also pursing doctoral studies. Moska received her Master of Information in Archives and Records Management from the University of Toronto in 2019 and advocates for archives/archival practice that centers marginalized communities. 

Moska is a doctoral student at the University of Toronto Faculty of Information. Her research focuses on community archives, memories, figurations, and identity formation/representation of refugee and diaspora communities of war and trauma in Canada. Her research interrogates archival studies and explores community archiving for refugee and diaspora communities. Her academic interests lie in the interdisciplinary crossroads of archives, critical refugee studies, critical race and ethnicity studies, global Cold War studies, and memory studies. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Association of Canadian Archivists’ New Professional Award as well as the Archivaria Gordon Dodds Student Paper Prize.

She is an External Advisory Committee Member of Library and Archives Canada’s Documentary Heritage Communities Program and has guest lectured for a number of university courses, including at the UofT Faculty of Information.

Sarah Shah (they/them) received a doctoral degree in 2019 from The University of Toronto in Sociology. Shah’s research includes analyses of religion as it pertains to gender attitudes, family organization, mental health outcomes, and group identity. By interrogating the nuances of religiosity, including identities, practices, and approaches, Shah’s research unpacks how religion dialectically structures and is structured by gender and family relations, immigration and racialization processes, and mental health.

At the IIS, Shah is working with a team of leading researchers on the Muslims in Canada Data Initiative. This Initiative aims to address the dire lack of data on Canadian Muslims and their sociodemographic characteristics, socioeconomic outcomes, and social experiences in everyday life. Along with a robust panel of international scholars, the Initiative is supported by collaborations and partnerships with several Canadian Muslim community organizations.

Shah is cross appointed as a faculty member at the Department of Sociology, The University of Toronto Mississauga.

Bee Khaleeli recently received her Master’s degree from the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, with a focus on Archives and Records Management and Library and Information Studies. She has extensive prior experience working in community organizations. Bee has been part of the MiCA team since May 2021.

Prior to joining Toronto Metropolitan University in July 2022, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto. He obtained his PhD at the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University. His doctoral research, supported by SSHRC and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, comparatively examined the securitization of Muslim civil society organizations under national security regimes in Canada and the U.K. He is currently preparing a book manuscript based on his dissertation.

Fahad is an interdisciplinary scholar interested in critical terrorism/radicalization studies; racialized practices of national security policing and surveillance; civil society and resistance; and justice and community-oriented approaches to the study of philanthropy. His scholarship is informed by 15 years of work experience in community and nonprofit organizations in Canada and the U.S. His ongoing projects include work on the SSHRC Connection Grant, “Critical Reflections on Security, 9/11 and the Canadian Settler Colony,” and the SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, “Justice Philanthropy: An international Research-to-Practice Network.” He is also the co-lead for the critical national security hub housed at the Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto.

More recently Ulrike served as Co-Director at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization as well as Senior Strategic Advisor to the Sharjah Museums Department in the United Arab Emirates.

Dr. Kana’an’s primary research focuses on the Intersections between art, artists, art production and law in historical and contemporary contexts. She uses archival, textual and field-based research in her work, and has conducted research in Jordan, Palestine, Turkey, Yemen, Oman, East Africa, Egypt and Syria. In theoretical terms, her research engages with Bruno Latour’s object-networks and Henri Lefebvre’s production of space, among other frameworks. Her publications address questions about the formation and meanings of mosque architecture, metalwork and civic space in pre-modern Muslim societies.

He previously served as Stephen Jarislowsly Chair in Culture Change and Immigration at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and has been the founding director of two research data centres at the University of Lethbridge and Memorial University. His research is in two distinct areas: the socio-economic experiences of immigrants in Canada, and the socio-cultural developments in the Middle East, on which he has published eight books. His book, The Muslim Question in Canada: A Story of Segmented Integration (UBC Press, 2014), received the 2015 John Porter Excellence Award from Canadian Sociological Association. He is currently working on a new book, titled Sacred as Secular: Secularization under Theocracy in Iran. Commentaries and interviews about his works have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, la Presse, Winnipeg Free Press, Vancouver Sun, Lethbridge Herald, Global TV, TVO, and Russia Today TV, among others.

Professor Kortewe’s current projects look at the return of women who joined IS to their European home countries, the construction of LGBTQ+/gender rights in refugee politics, and the citizenship implications of refugee sponsorship in Canada. She has published the two monographs: The Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging (Stanford University Press 2014, with Gökçe Yurdakul); Debating Sharia: Islam, Gender Politics, and Family Law Arbitration (edited with Jennifer Selby, University of Toronto Press 2012). In addition, she has published articles in a wide range of journals, including Annual Review of Sociology, Theory and Society, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Social Politics, Gender and Society, Social Identities, Nations and Nationalism, Women’s Studies International Forum, Canadian Criminal Law Review, European Journal of Women’s Studies, Law & Social Policy, International Journal of Feminist Politics, Signs, Social Compass, Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Her research has been funded by multiple SSHRC grants and funding from the DAAD and CERIS.

Dr. Mostafa has held positions at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Kansas and the Kunsthistorisches Institute in Florence. Her research explores the formation of Islamic architecture through the lens of early Islamic sectarianism and governance and the intersections of politics, the sacred and architecture. A focus of her research is the interface of Islam with late antiquity, Christianity and Judaism through commemorative architecture, pilgrimage and ritual practice. Her two most recent projects explore Davidic commemoration in Jerusalem throughout the Islamic Medieval period and the spatial repertoires of Nile veneration in Medieval Cairo.

Michael engages regularly with the media on his areas of research, including writing comments for the Globe & Mail and the National Post, providing TV and radio interviews for the CBC, CTV, and other local, national and international broadcasters, and interviews with local and national newspapers and legal publications. Before joining the Faculty of Law in July 2015 he practiced law and worked on Middle East policy, human rights, international sanctions and terrorism for Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs. Previously, he completed his articles and worked for Canada’s Department of Justice, where his focus was criminal law. Michael has also worked internationally for the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Appeals Chamber.

While completing his doctorate Michael was a SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Scholar, executive editorial assistant to the University of Toronto Law Journal, and taught in the legal research and writing program.

Fahmida’s role includes leading strategic acquisitions, developing public programs and exhibitions, and further engaging the Islamic community in Toronto and across Canada. Fahmida joined the ROM from the British Museum where she was Phyllis Bishop Curator for the Modern Middle East. In that position, Fahmida was responsible for the Museum’s collection of ethnographic objects and textiles from the Middle East and Central Asia. Previously, Fahmida has also been a consultant with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture during the development phase of the Aga Khan Museum.