"American Muslims: A History Revealed" Film Screening

The Muhammad Ali Center and Timestamp Media are proud to present “American Muslims: A History Revealed,” a new PBS documentary series revisiting the nation’s past and exploring more than 400 years of Muslim presence within the United States.

The series tells stories that are often missing from classrooms and public memory: enslaved African Muslims, Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an, Muslim soldiers in the Civil War, early Syrian and Lebanese communities, Black Muslim life in Chicago, and South Asian immigrants whose lives were shaped by America’s race-based citizenship laws.

This special presentation on July 21 at the Muhammad Ali Center will feature two episodes of the upcoming documentary, as well as a panel discussion with the production team (meet the panelists below).

Admission is free, but registration is required.

Zaheer Ali – Executive Producer

Zaheer is an educator and oral historian with over a decade of experience directing nationally recognized public history and cultural heritage initiatives. He has been a Senior Fellow of the Pillars Fund Muslim Narrative Change Cohort and a recipient of the Open Society Foundation’s Soros Equality Fellowship for his work on leveraging the power of storytelling and listening for social change. As the oral historian at the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) (now the Center for Brooklyn History), he directed the Muslims in Brooklyn documentary history and arts initiative and co-produced and co-hosted FLATBUSH + MAIN, an award-winning monthly podcast that explored Brooklyn’s past and present through scholarly discussions, historical archives, and oral histories. His work on Muslim histories in the United States has been featured in both print and broadcast media, including four documentaries: CNN’s WITNESSED: THE ASSASSINATION OF MALCOLM X (2015), and Netflix’s WHO KILLED MALCOLM X? (2020), BLOOD BROTHERS: MALCOLM X & MUHAMMAD ALI (2021), and season 2 of HIGH ON THE HOG (2023).

Malika Bilal – Host, Journalist

Malika Bilal has spent nearly twenty years asking the questions that matter – to presidents and prime ministers, artists and activists, and to the people whose names you won’t find in a headline yet. What she’s learned along the way is that the best stories are usually the ones nobody thought to tell.

That instinct is what drives her latest project: hosting two films in the PBS documentary series American Muslims: A History Revealed, a sweeping exploration of a history hiding in plain sight.

It’s the same instinct that has made her a trusted, and decorated, voice in international news journalism. From earning two Gracie Awards for Best Podcast News Host for her intimate interviews with newsmakers on The Take, Al Jazeera English’s first daily news video podcast, to garnering millions of global audio and video downloads alongside honors from the Online Journalism Awards, Signal Awards, and Lovie Awards. It was also the ethos that drove her vibrant debates while co-hosting Al Jazeera’s The Stream, an Emmy-nominated talk show that bridged TV and social media before anyone else thought to, and was broadcast to more than 310 million households across 140-plus countries.

Malika’s path there began in Chicago, where she grew up; Cairo, where she studied at the American University; and Evanston, Illinois where she trained and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She’s worked for Voice of America, written for the Chicago Tribune, NPR, and ESPN, and hosted documentaries for Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines.

Her reporting has taken her across the US and the Middle East, and allowed her the chance to span the political and entertainment spectrum with her interviews: from the late President Jimmy Carter and the Dalai Lama, to Yara Shahidi and Trevor Noah.

Today, she draws on those experiences as a sought-after moderator, speaker, and interviewer, leading conversations on journalism, representation, and the power of storytelling to bridge divides – a practice she tests nightly with her twin pre-schoolers, and toddler, all of whom have strong opinions about bedtime.

Edward E. Curtis IV – William M. and Gail M. Plater Chair of the Liberal Arts at Indiana University Indianapolis

A community-engaged scholar of Black, Muslim, and Arab American history and life, Edward Curtis is the William M. and Gail M. Plater Chair of the Liberal Arts and Professor of World Languages & Cultures at the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts in Indianapolis, where he also directs the Arabic and Islamic studies program. Curtis is the author or editor of 15 books and the founder of the journal, Arab Americana. His past research has been supported by fellowships from Carnegie, Fulbright, Mellon, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he recently received Guggenheim and American Council of Learned Societies fellowships for his project, “The Riddle of the Evil Eye: Religion in Arab American History.”

Curtis’ works include Muslims in America: A Short History (Oxford University Press), named one of the best 100 books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly, and Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American Midwest (New York University Press), winner of the 2023 Evelyn Shakir Book Award from the Arab American National Museum. Co-founder of the Journal of Africana Religions, he has also penned scholarly articles for the Journal of American History, American Quarterly, and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.
Dr. Curtis engages both national and local audiences in his public scholarship and teaching. The winner of two Emmy awards as executive producer and writer of Arab Indianapolis: A Hidden History (2022), he has also consulted on and appeared as on-air talent in the Great Muslim American Road Trip and American Muslims: A History Revealed. Curtis has contributed interviews and articles to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, and the Associated Press, among other media outlets.

Professor Curtis enjoys collaborating on public history projects with several community partners, including the Nur Allah Islamic Center and the Midwest Federation of American Syrian Lebanese Clubs. He is the former director of the Arab Indianapolis Commmunity History Project, which produced a book, an Indiana state historical marker, community dialogues, PBS Learning Media, a heritage trail, an educator workshop, and a website. Curtis has also helped community college instructors and K-12 teachers integrate information about religion and Muslim American history and life across the curriculum, and most recently, served as lead scholar of New York City public schools’ Muslim American history curriculum. These efforts have been recognized by an IU Indianapolis Chancellor’s prize for community engagement, the Asian Student Union’s APIDA Faculty of the Year prize, and an IUPUI Joseph Taylor prize for diversity.

Edward Curtis holds a doctorate in religious studies from the University of South Africa, a master’s in history from Washington University, and a B.A. in religion from Kenyon College. He grew up in Southern Illinois, where his Arabic-speaking ancestors settled in the late 1800s.