New Books in Islamic Studies

Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown and White (U Minnesota Press, 2026) is 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. Rooted in 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.

Beginning with a counterhistory of Muslims in the United Kingdom following World War II, Rahman analyzes IR’s mission and transnational activities in and across places including the UK, South Africa, and Mali in the broader context of global white supremacy. She shows how IR’s approaches often effectively secularize Islam to evade anti-Muslim racism and Islamophobia, implicating concepts such as the “good” Muslim aid worker, who complies with War on Terror surveillance while attending to victims of Western colonialism. Meanwhile, Rahman theorizes the tactics of aid workers on the ground, who creatively draw on an Islamic Black radical tradition to drive real change.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

In this episode, Dr Fatima Rajina is joined by Marieha Hussain to talk about her experience of the Coconuts trial. A case that saw the political activist being charged with, and eventually proven innocent of, a racially aggravated public order offence for showcasing a satirical placard labelling Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as “coconuts” prompting the fundamental question “Who has the right to police your language”?

In November 2023, Marieha was arrested for displaying a placard labelling prominent exponents of the then-Tory government as “coconuts” during a pro-Palestine protest. According to the charges put on her, the term coconut was equivalent to a racist slur. Yet, Black and Brown activists have historically used it to call out members of their communities who aligned with colonial powers and white supremacists. This episode was initially aired by Stephen Lawrence Research Centre Podcast.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan spoke with Dr Izram Chaudry about his recent report (written with Dr Yunis Alam) regarding Islamophobia on Campus. Whilst discussing Islamophobia in the context of higher education we also delved into the issue of Everyday Islamophobia, microaggressions and academic freedoms in the current UK context as well as more broadly. Izram Chaudry is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Bradford and is the author of ‘BrAsian Family Practices and Reflexivity: Beyond the Boxing Ropes’ (2024). He is also the co-editor of the forthcoming collected edition ‘Social Class, Physical Education and Community Sport’.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

In his debut work, Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism: The Contribution of al-Sulami (I.B. Tauris, 2024), Jason Welle sheds a new light on al-Sulami, an influential Sufi master during Sufism's formative era, by examine his work on suhba (companionship). Welle provides a historical reconstruction of Sufi companionship in Khurasan in the period, arguing that al-Sulami's concept of suhba, specifically among and between young disciples, envisioned the transformation of society as whole, not just the master-disciple relationship. Bringing debates in contemporary virtue ethics to bear on al-Sulami's spiritual method, the book offers an original analysis of the latter's thought that will be of interest to scholars of early Islam and classical Sufism as well as moral theologians interested in virtue ethics, character and friendship.

Jason Welle is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Boston College, where he teach courses on Christian-Muslim Relations and Islamic Mysticism.

Saman Nasser holds an MA in history from James Madison University, where he works as an educational staff.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

This is Radio ReOrient. Welcome to our 14th season of navigating the post-Western and connecting the Islamosphere.

We begin this season with Radio ReOrient’ s occasional series The State of the Ummah.

In this episode Shehla Khan, Mona Makinejadbanadaki and Salman Sayyid go beyond the headlines in trying to understand the narratives that shape the War Against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Developing concepts from Critical Muslim Studies, they situate the latest phase of hostilities in a broader historical, ideological and political context, one that conventional analyses, constrained by Orientalist and positivist framings, refuses to grasp.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies