Ep. 5: A Brief History of Caribbean Religion

Religion is an integral part of Caribbean history and culture, some of which were introduced as a result of colonization and enslavement and others that are syncretic religions, or made up of a combination of religions. In this episode, Dr. Aliyah Khan and I discuss a handful of Caribbean religions, the influence of music and culture, and her recent book, Far from Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean, that charts the growth of Islam in the Caribbean from both the Afro- and Indo-Caribbean experience.

Dr. Aliyah Khan, a native of Guyana, is Associate Professor of English Language and Literature, and Afroamerican and African Studies, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Khan holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing--Fiction from Hunter College of the City University of New York. Her research areas are Caribbean literature and Islamic literature, with emphases on race, gender, and sexuality. Dr. Khan is the author of Far from Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean (Rutgers University Press 2020), the first academic book on the history, literature, and music of Black and South Asian Muslims in the Caribbean. Her writing also appears in scholarly and popular venues including GLQ, Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, The Rumpus, Agents of Ishq, and Pree: Caribbean Writing. Dr. Khan is currently conducting research for a book on Caribbean hurricanes, the ship routes of the transatlantic slave trade, and their implications for contemporary migration within the Americas.