Every elder was once a child. The fourth episode of released to mark turns to those earliest years. Host Murtaza travels across five geographies and seven lives to recover memories of childhood that span the 1940s, 50s, and 60s: intimate, particular, and rarely forgotten.
Voices of History: Echoes of Childhood
Image credits: Rizwan Karim
About this episode
The children of Ismaili communities have grown up across continents and decades, shaped by places as different as Syria, Iran, India, East Africa, and the mountains of northern Pakistan. What connects them is not geography but memory — and the particular details that memory preserves long after everything else has changed.
Murtaza, the podcast’s youngest host to date, brings together seven elders whose recollections stretch back across more than seven decades. What they offer goes beyond historical record: these are the textures and particulars of lives lived, recalled in the voices of those who lived them.
The elders and their stories
About the Oral History Project
The Oral History Project of the Ismaili Special Collections Unit at ¹ú²úÊÓƵ seeks to preserve the memories, experiences, and stories of members of Ismaili communities worldwide — in their own voices.
Share your story
Do you have a memory to share? If you would like to contribute the story of your family, or help preserve the memories of an elder you know, please contact the Oral History Project Coordinator, Rizwan Karim, at rkarim@iis.ac.uk.
