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Town Hall Seattle and the Aysenur Ezgi Eygi Memorial Lecture present Rozina Ali with Aria Fani and Sumayyah Waheed
January 23, 2027 @ 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm PST
Town Hall Seattle and the Aysenur Ezgi Eygi Memorial Lecture present a book talk by Rozina Ali, author of Seasons of Fury. Ali’s recently published book tells the story of four Muslim families as they navigated the institutionalization of Islamophobia in the post 9/11 US. The event features a pre-show Art Bazaar that displays the creative output and diversity of Muslim and Muslim inspired artists.
About Seasons of Fury
Rozina Ali shows how the War on Terror, conceived in the wake of the September 11 attacks, only accelerated long-standing conflicts between American law enforcement and Muslim communities around the country. From the surveillance of Arab activists that began in the 1960s and laws in the 90s that broadened the definition of terrorism, to the mass detention of entire Muslim communities in the 2000s and the rise of think tanks and nonprofits that sowed panic about the threat of Islam itself, Seasons of Fury shows that the history of policies that have warped the American perception of Muslim communities reaches deep into our past.
Through the stories of four families across eight decades, Ali narrates a range of Muslim experiences shaped by relentless suspicion and prejudice. Introducing readers to Abdeen Jabara, Mohammad Ali Chaudry, Shahina and Matin Siraj, and the pseudonymous Omar family, she shows how fears about American Muslims have always been inextricable from the Israel–Palestine conflict, stoking the idea of a religious war between Muslims and the West.
Ultimately, the U.S. government’s Islamophobic policies disillusioned generations of Muslims who sought the promise of the American dream only to find their communities torn apart, their relatives imprisoned, and their religion villainized by politicians and media. Ali’s story of how we got to our terrifying present is a magisterial accomplishment and a damning indictment of the United States’ abandonment of its core principles in the face of fear.
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Panelists
Rozina Ali is a journalist and contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. Her reporting focuses on the War on Terror, Islamophobia, the Middle East, South Asia, and literature. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Foreign Affairs, The Nation, and The American Prospect, among other publications. Previously, she served on the editorial staff of The New Yorker and as a senior editor at The Cairo Review of Global Affairs in Cairo, Egypt. She received the 2023 National Magazine Award for Reporting and was a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library’s Center for Scholars and Writers in 2022–2023. Her first book, Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America (2026), traces the history of anti-Muslim prejudice and US counterterrorism policies through the experiences of four Muslim families across eight decades.
Aria Fani is an associate professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of Washington, Seattle. At UW, he co-leads the Translation Studies Hub. Aria’s first book, Reading across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism, the winner of the ACLA’s 2025 René Wellek Prize for the Best Monograph in Comparative Literature, was published by the University of Texas Press in 2024. The book details the dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through new ideas about literature (adabiyāt). Reading across Borders is available in both Iran (through a Persian translation published by Shirazeh Press) and India (Sanctum Books, New Delhi). Aria is the co-translator of Shape of Extinction, a book-length collection of Bijan Jalali’s poems. In addition to teaching and research, Aria engages in social advocacy for non-citizen Americans, particularly asylum seekers from Central America.
Sumayyah Waheed is Senior Policy Counsel for Muslim Advocates, a national legal advocacy organization that works to build power and fight systemic oppression for Muslims and all marginalized communities. Sumayyah handles federal policy advocacy on privacy and surveillance, racial and religious profiling, national security, and other critical civil and human rights issues. Sumayyah brings over twenty years of experience in progressive legal and policy advocacy at the local, state, and national levels. Her work has covered issues from the criminal legal system to workers’ rights, racial justice, and tax policy. She has also worked for city and county governments from Oakland to Seattle. Sumayyah earned her J.D. from U.C. Berkeley School of Law and her B.A. from The Ohio State University.
