Author Meets Readers | Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam in North America
Thursday, December 10, 2026 from 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
- In-Person event
- Irene’s Pub Restaurant , Ottawa , ON , K1S 3W4
- Cost: Free
About the Book
North America’s relative openness to immigration and religious expression, as well as its unusually high rate of religiosity (especially in the United States) within the developed world, has allowed Islam to take root, thrive, and evolve in surprising ways. Islam is already the second largest religious tradition (behind Christianity) in Canada, and is projected by the Pew Research Forum to be the second largest religious tradition in the United States by 2040. Almost daily, one reads about news relating to Islam and Muslims, and many universities offer courses on the topic. While there is a growing body of scholarship, there are few resources focusing on Islam as a North American religious tradition, and none which consider the connections between Muslims across the region.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam in North America provides the leading reference resource in this growing field, assembling scholars from religious studies, theology, history, gender and sexuality studies, political science, sociology, law, media studies, and the arts. With over 90 articles, the volume covers the major issues related to Islam in the West, including religious practice and communities, immigration, modernism, demographics, artistic expression, politics, and culture. Given their unique and varied interpretations of the religion, African American, Latin American, and Caribbean versions of Islam are also covered in detail, further demonstrating the ongoing evolution of a unique and varied North American Islam, part of a rapidly changing global religious landscape.
About the Author
Melanie Adrian’s research focuses on the question of rights of minorities in religiously, ethnically and culturally diverse societies. She is examining how states integrate or accommodate culturally distinct peoples while maintaining a healthy balance between international and national rights and respect for national values. Amongst other publications, she is author of Religious Freedom at Risk: The EU, French schools, and Why the Veil was Banned (2016) and co-editor of Producing Islams in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality, and Politics (2021). Dr. Adrian serves as Associate Editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam in North America (2026). More recently her research examines identity amongst Muslim youth in private Islamic schools in Canada. Her op-eds have been published in the Globe & Mail and the Ottawa Citizen. Dr. Adrian was invested into the Order of Ontario in 2019 and awarded the Senate Medal in 2017 for her work for at-risk scholars, breast cancer patients and community leadership.