Sufi Night in Canada: English Chanting, Dhikr & Poetry in the Toronto Area | North American Islam Beauty in Islam: Dr Jason Idriss Sparkes-Dec 6, 2025

 YouTube Video:

https://youtu.be/m1mQfroqhas?si=vwa1l6NS5T-y0Ei2

English Sufi nasheeds praising Allah and honouring the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in a sacred poetic rhythm. Filmed live during a gathering with many beloved shaykhs—including Ali Elsayed, Shelby Haque, Dawud Surillo, Taras Hollyer, Nicholas Hussein Jaussaud, and Omar Bin Dagher—held in the presence of visiting poet-scholar Jason Idriss Sparkes at the Zawiya of our esteemed host, Shaykh Nezar, in Mississauga, Canada (November 2025). These call-and-response chants follow the classical Sufi style: each verse is sung, and the entire zāwiya responds with the refrain after every line. Inspired by the Qur’an and Sunna, the lyrics express tawḥīd, Divine Love, and praise for the Beloved ﷺ through English Islamic poetry and sacred chant. The melodies vary, from blues-inflected dhikr to traditional rhythms from Sudan, Morocco, and al-Andalus. Just voice, drums, heart, and presence. صَلَّى اللّٰهُ عَلَىٰ سَیِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ Allahumma salli ʿalā Sayyidinā Muḥammad

YouTube Video:Beauty in Islam: Dr Jason Idriss Sparkes-July11,2025

https://youtu.be/Rt6oLHK3L2Q?si=1w1EQgtRwxblt7M6

Join this journey from the Arab Street to the Muslim Way with Canadian Muslim poet Dr. Jason Idriss Sparkes, who lives in Saudi Arabia. He begins with a decolonial deconstruction of the term “The Arab Street” frequently used by Western, English-speaking journalists and pundits. He then shares his journey from Arab streets to the Muslim way. He celebrates the beautiful diversity of places the streets can take us in Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, and even Arabic communities in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. Without streets, how would we reach cafés, museums, schools, beaches, souqs, hammams, palaces, and mosques? The journey continues as Dr. Sparkes recalls his conversion to Islam over three decades ago, introducing the rich terminology of streets, paths, routes, roads, and ways in the Islamic tradition. in Islamic terminology. This exploration unveils a theology of movement: human beings, in exile from our spiritual home, journey through stages until our final return to Allah. This exploration unveils a theology of movement: human beings, in exile from our spiritual home, journey through stages until our final return to Allah. Inna lillāhi wa inna ilayhi rājiʿūn (إِنَّا لِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ). Muslims implore Allah for guidance on the straight path during our worldly and spiritual travels. Ihdina al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm (ٱهْدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٰطَ ٱلْمُسْتَقِيمَ). We try to stay on the path (sabīl) of God by following the sharīʿah, which literally means “the clear path to water.” Each methodology is a manhaj (a structured way), each school of jurisprudence a madhhab (a place of going), and each Sufi order a ṭarīqah (path), with its own discipline and pedagogy of spiritual realization. In the end, Dr. Sparkes rehabilitates the Arab Street in English usage and sacralizes it by unveiling its connection to the Muslim Way. He shows that Islam is not a static religion but a flowing tradition of seekers and spiritual travelers.This video is inspired by the work of Roy Casagranda, Sherman Jackson, Abdal Hakim Murad, Blogging Theology, Sylviane Diouf, Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, Omar Suleiman, Hatem Bazian, Frantz Fanon, Ramón Grosfoguel, Baraka Blue, Firdaus Ensemble, Yusuf Islam, Kery James, Joseph Lumbard, Wael Hallaq, Taha Abderrahmane, Amin Maalouf, and Saba Mahmood.

Dr Jason Idriss Sparkes: Website

http://www.jasonsparkes.com/

Dr Jason Idriss Sparkes: Master'sThesis

Université de Montréal: Doctrines and Practices of the Burhaniya Sufi Order in the Arab World and in the West Between 1938 and 2012:  A Decolonial and Transdisciplinary Analysis from an Insider Perspective 

http://www.jasonsparkes.com/uploads/2/5/8/2/2582432/jason_sparkes_2013_memoire.pdf

Dr Jason Idriss Sparkes:Paper

Decolonizing the Left and the Right: Muslim Mistrust of Foxes and Wolves: 

Maydan:An online publication of the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University

https://themaydan.com/2021/02/decolonizing-the-left-and-the-right-muslim-mistrust-of-foxes-and-wolves/

YouTube Video:https://youtu.be/Pa1uLbPrMos?si=HU0J0jOvuJE9G9MW

Sayyida al-Ḥurra: Moroccan Queen, Warrior and Sufi:Forgotten Muslim History, They don't teach this

Sayyida al-Ḥurra was a Moroccan queen, naval strategist, and Shādhilī Sufi leader whose story was erased from mainstream history. This video introduces her extraordinary life—shaped by Spain, Morocco, and Arabia—and explains why she became one of the most influential Muslim women of the 16th-century Mediterranean world. They taught you about Queen Elizabeth. They taught you about Columbus. But they didn’t teach you about the woman who ruled Tétouan, negotiated with the Ottomans, and reshaped the balance of power after 1492. Join Dr Jason Idriss Sparkes, poet and scholar of Islamic humanities, for a decolonial historical account based on years of research and a recent peer-reviewed article. Her life disrupts everything we think we know about Islam, women, power, and modernity. They don’t teach you this in school. But we remember. This is the sixth video in the series “Why Don’t They Teach You This?” Here is the link for the article by Dr. Sparkes "Sayyida al-Ḥurra: An Early Modern Decolonial Muslim Exemplar" https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16111362