Youssef J. Carter, "The Vast Oceans: Remembering Allah and Self on the Mustafawiyya Sufi Path" (UNC Press, 2026)

What you'll learn

• 1 (03:12) **Intellectual Journey to the Book** - Carter recounts his path from biology to Black diaspora studies, a pivot from Paris fieldwork to studying the Mustafawiyya community in South Carolina after his wife’s encouragement.
• 2 (09:41) **Identity as a Black Muslim Ethnographer** - Carter explains his hesitation to claim the label “anthropologist,” grounding his work in Black studies and Sufi epistemology rather than disciplinary anthropology.
• 3 (15:33) **Structuring the Book Through Sufi Concepts** - The book is organized around key Sufi terms (baya, zikr, ziyara, khidma, tazkiya, shifa) rendered into new conceptual frameworks to reflect community language.
• 4 (24:16) **Repair and the Soul: Racism as Spiritual Disease** - Carter argues dismantling structural racism requires addressing how race inhabits the soul, citing the hadith on the heart’s soundness.
• 5 (30:46) **The Black Muslim Atlantic Framework** - Carter explains the importance of theorizing Black Atlantic Sufism, moving beyond apolitical readings of Sufism and emphasizing transnational Black Muslim world-making.
• 6 (41:43) **Ziyara as Movement and Commemoration** - The chapter traces pilgrimage routes between Senegal and South Carolina, comparing mausoleums, museums, and mosques as commemorative sites that shape identity.
• 7 (48:59) **Khidma and the Labor of Motherwork** - Carter’s favorite chapter honors the reproductive and spiritual labor of Black Muslim women, centering Umm Aisha and Umm Khadija as foundational to the tariqa.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app