Maryam Kashani
Medina by the Bay AV Club
The videos assembled here are audiovisual portals into the kind of work being produced in what I call Medina by the Bay, the infrastructure of feeling that aggregates multiple histories, geographies, beliefs, practices, politics, vibes, and aesthetics of a Muslim San Francisco Bay Area.
The AV Club is a way for me to think about and work with a kind of collective labor and way of being that attends to documentation, reflection, selection, and care that its uninitiated members attend to, what Haroon Sellars calls, “all about being here and preserving.” In particular, I’ve been challenged by Khalid Waajid’s archive in particular as I feel an ethnographic relation and responsibility to it. What are the parameters by which one judges what is enough?
“Understanding Our Past and Present” by Khalid Waajid for Masjidul Waritheen, Oakland, California
Password: past
Waajid has been documenting the community of Masjidul Waritheen for five decades. In this short clip, Waajid presents a montage of images and videos that document the Sister Clara Muhammad School, which was established in the community in 1976. This clip ends with students reciting al-Fatiha, the opening of the Qur’an.
The Prophetic Biography by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf” by Haroon Sellars for Zaytuna College, Berkeley, California
Sellars has been documenting the community of Zaytuna College (initially Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California) for over two decades. This is the opening of a class recording from the first year of Zaytuna College.
“Documenting Haroon” by Maryam Kashani for (not only the) completion of the PhD in Anthropology from the University of Texas, and while not known at the time, to fulfil research requirements of a tenure-track position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Kashani began ethnographic fieldwork at Zaytuna College in 2010. She and Sellars immediately connected through their AV identities and interests. This footage was never used in Kashani’s previous films and video installations related to her research at Zaytuna.