Oral History Interview with Su'ad Abdul Khabeer: Muslims in Brooklyn oral histories: NYU Special Collections Finding Aids

Scope and Contents

In this interview, Su'ad Abdul Khabeer discusses her childhood in the Crown Heights and Flatbush neighborhoods of Brooklyn, including her family and her experiences at Masjid Abdul Muhsi Khalifah and Masjid At-Taqwa, both in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. She expands on her religious and secular education, especially at Al-Madrasa Al-Islamiya in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn and at Edward R. Murrow High School in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. She speaks about her work on the intersection of race and culture, particularly regarding her performance piece Sampled: Beats of Muslim Life, and teaching at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She also touches on gentrification in Brooklyn. Interview conducted by Zaheer Ali.

Biographical / Historical

Su'ad Abdul Khabeer was born in 1978 and raised in the Crown Heights and Flatbush neighborhoods of Brooklyn. She earned her bachelor of science in foreign service from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; her diploma in Arabic and Islamic studies from Abu Nour University in Damascus, Syria; and her doctor of philosophy in cultural anthropology from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. She examined the relationship between race and popular culture as an author and a performer, including publishing Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States in 2016 and ongoing performances of Sampled: Beats of Muslim Life. She also joined the faculty at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 2011 as a professor of American Culture and Arab and Muslim American Studies.

Conditions Governing Access

This interview can be accessed onsite at the Center for Brooklyn History's Othmer Library and online at the Oral History Portal.

Subjects

Organizations

Masjid Abdul Muhsi Khalifah (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)

Topics

Places

Bedford-Stuyvesant (New York, N.Y.); Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.); Crown Heights (New York, N.Y.); Flatbush (New York, N.Y.); Midwood (New York, N.Y.)