In this episode of History Speaks, Dr. Roshan Iqbal sits down with Dr. Martin Nguyen, author of Modern Muslim Theology: Engaging God and the World with Faith and Imagination, to explore what it means to imagine a “Muslim Malcolm X.” Together, they discuss how Malcolm’s faith shaped his vision of justice, community, and how retelling his story from the vantage point of his religious imagination invites us to see him anew. This conversation reflects on Malcolm X not only as a civil rights icon, but as a transformative Muslim thinker whose legacy continues to nourish contemporary struggles for liberation.
Martin Nguyen is a scholar of Muslim theology and Islamic studies. His scholarship revolves around ethics, constructive theology, Qur’anic studies, and the intersection of race and religion. His most recent book Modern Muslim Theology: Engaging God and the World with Faith and Imagination presents a contemporary theology rooted in the practice of the religious imagination. His present work focuses on theological responses to global mass displacement and modern structural racism. 
Martin Nguyen also worked with Sohaib Sultan (d. 2021), Princeton University’s first Muslim chaplain, to revise and expand An American Muslim Guide to the Art and Life of Preaching.
Additionally, he is co-leading several initiatives, including the “Constructive Muslim Thought and Engaged Scholarship” seminar with the American Academy of Religion and the “Islamic Moral Theology in Conversation with Future” project supported by the John Templeton Foundation and hosted by the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. Finally, he is also part of the leadership team for the 2023 Hybrid Teaching and Learning Workshop for Early Career Religion Faculty at the Wabash Center.
Dr. Roshan Iqbal hails from a small hamlet of 20 million–Karachi, Pakistan. She received her PhD in Islamic Studies from Georgetown University. Prior to this she read for her MPhil at the University of Cambridge. She has studied in Pakistan, the US, Morocco, Egypt, Jordon, the UK, and Iran. Her research interests include gender and sexuality in the Qur’an, Islamic Law, Film and Me
dia Studies, and modern Muslim intellectuals. Her recent book is titled, ‘Marital and Sexual Ethics in Islamic Law: Rethinking Temporary Marriage.’ As an associate professor at Agnes Scott College, she teaches classes in the Religious Studies department and also classes that are cross-listed with Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Film Studies. When she is not working, she loves talking to her family and friends on the phone (thank you, unlimited plans), tracking fashion (sartorial flourishes are such fun), watching films (love! love! love!), reading novels (never enough), painting watercolors (less and less poorly), and cooking new dishes (sometimes successfully).
