For Muslims to project themselves into the future is a radical act in a world where the lives of Muslims and those perceived to be Muslims are threatened. Shaping Muslim Futures: Youth Visions and Activist Praxis, amplifies counternarratives of activist Muslim youth situated in and near Toronto, Canada, shaping their desired futures. Drawing on intensive life history interviews, Shaping Muslim Futures offers a rich account of learning experiences that raised their critical awareness of the world and of their critical reflection and action upon the world to transform it. The Muslim youths’ learning journeys traverse families, neighbourhoods, secular and faith-based schools, and hip hop culture. Their activist praxis includes advocating for racialized youth living in social housing; creating safer spaces for Muslim girls and young women; resisting racial profiling, police brutality, and state surveillance; and writing and performing counternarratives through spoken word poetry. Woven together, the voices and stories reveal what the activist Muslim youth can teach us about clarifying desired futures. Written for Muslim and other racialized youth, and anyone vested in a world in which these youth are thriving, this guidebook invites readers to imagine and practice living into more just and liberatory futures as though they exist in the present.
“Sameena Eidoo listens closely to the young Muslims she interviews for Shaping Muslim Futures…More than a learned look at the rich complexity of being Muslims in Canada, this is also a guidebook for how to navigate the world with compassion…”
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—Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America.
“Shaping Muslim Futures is a cutting-edge guidebook confronting Islamophobia in Canada through the perspectives of Muslims, particularly youth, in their political struggle for alternative futures…. It is an important resource for youth, educators, activists, and community members working to reimagine and rebuild a just world.”
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—Chandni Desai, Assistant Professor, Critical Studies of Equity and Solidarity, University of Toronto
“At a time when words like ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’ serve as bloated tropes deployed as political theatre, Sameena Eidoo’s Shaping Muslim Futures identifies storytelling possibilities rich in the details that are the stuff of lived realities. Structured decolonially and intersectionally, Shaping Muslim Futures draws on the Muslim experience as a way to envision possible futures that tread in the opposite direction from the sadly prevailing narratives of Otherness and Exclusion…”
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—Anver M. Emon, Director, Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Toronto
“A beautifully written and well-researched book that superbly engages the lived experiences and aspirations of Muslim youth in the Canadian context. Muslim youth will find affirmation and inspiration in its pages. Shaping Muslim Futures humbly offers guidance for anyone, Muslim or not, striving to live into more just futures.”
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—Nevin Reda El-Tahry, Associate Professor, Muslim Studies, University of Toronto
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Sameena Eidoo is an award-winning educator and an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.
