Lecture
Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown and White
- Rhea Rahman
- Date
- Friday 25 September 2026
- Time
- Location
- Zoom
An ethnography of Islamic Relief (IR), the largest Islamic NGO based in the West, Racializing the Ummah explores how a Muslim organization can do good in a world that defines Muslimness as less than human. In this talk, Rahman begins and ends with the place and meaning of Palestine for US Muslims. Along the way she traces Islamic Relief’s relation to counter extremism political efforts in the UK, to neoliberal development in Mali, to forms of doing good otherwise that are rooted in an Islamic Black Radical Tradition in South Africa. Based on more than a decade of international research, Rhea Rahman’s study on the organization’s projects, methods, and limitations reveals how racial capitalism permeates all aspects of humanitarianism, while also locating possibilities of its refusal that are grounded in Islam as the foundation of a revolutionary praxis.
About Rhea Rahman
Rhea Rahman is an associate professor of anthropology at Brooklyn College, CUNY. Her research engages global racial formations in relation to histories and enactments of Islamic practice and Muslim identity. Her first book, Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown and White (University of Minnesota Press, 2026), frames international Muslim volunteerism, humanitarianism and development within intersecting racial logics of white supremacy, Islamophobia, and anti-Blackness, while also locating alternative visions of doing good that are grounded in Islam as the foundation of a revolutionary praxis.
Event Information
This event is the third seminar in the “Genealogies of Islam and Humanitarianism” series organized by the ERC-funded Entangled Universals of Transnational Islamic Charity research project.
Professor Rahman will be joined in conversation with two esteemed discussants: Adia Benton, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University, and Ala Alhourani, Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion at University of Cape Town.
Participants can register via the button below. The meeting link will be sent to registered participants one week before the event.
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