Humanitarianism and “doing good”
An ethnography of Islamic Relief (IR), the largest Islamic NGO based in the West, Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians beyond Black, Brown, and White explores how a Muslim organization can do good in a world where racial capitalism permeates all aspects of humanitarianism. Author Rhea Rahman paints a frank, nuanced portrait of the constraints Islamic aid entities face in the effort to disentangle themselves from neocolonialism and Western hegemony. Rahman is joined here in conversation with Arun Kundnani and Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan.
Rhea Rahman is assistant professor of anthropology at Brooklyn College, CUNY. She is author of Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown, and White, and her research has been published in Africa, Religions, and an edited volume of The Anthropology of White Supremacy.
Arun Kundnani is a writer interested in race, Islamophobia, surveillance, police violence, and radicalism. Kundnani is editorial director of Monthly Review and the author of What is Antiracism? (Verso, 2023), The Muslims are Coming! (Verso, 2014) and The End of Tolerance (Pluto, 2007), which was selected as a New Statesman book of the year, and co-author of Homeland Security: Myths and Monsters (Common Notions, 2024).
Rhea Rahman is assistant professor of anthropology at Brooklyn College, CUNY. She is author of Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown, and White, and her research has been published in Africa, Religions, and an edited volume of The Anthropology of White Supremacy.
Arun Kundnani is a writer interested in race, Islamophobia, surveillance, police violence, and radicalism. Kundnani is editorial director of Monthly Review and the author of What is Antiracism? (Verso, 2023), The Muslims are Coming! (Verso, 2014) and The End of Tolerance (Pluto, 2007), which was selected as a New Statesman book of the year, and co-author of Homeland Security: Myths and Monsters (Common Notions, 2024).
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a poet, writer, educator, and author of Postcolonial Banter, Tangled in Terror, Seeing for Ourselves, and the play, Peanut Butter & Blueberries. She was the runner-up of the Roundhouse National poetry slam 2017 with her viral poem, This is Not a Humanising Poem. She co-founded The Nejma Collective, a volunteer-led abolitionist group working in solidarity with Muslims and all people in prison.
EPISODE REFERENCES:
Ambalavaner Sivanandan
H. Rap Brown
Yassir Morsi / Radical Skin, Moderate Masks
Steve Biko
Mariame Kaba
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:
"A much-needed and overdue book."
—Darryl Li, author of The Universal Enemy
"A richly detailed transnational ethnography . . . trace(s) a historical arc explaining the present and reenvisioning what the future might be."
—Cultural Studies
Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown, and White by Rhea Rahman is available from University of Minnesota Press. Thank you for listening.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:
"A much-needed and overdue book."
—Darryl Li, author of The Universal Enemy
"A richly detailed transnational ethnography . . . trace(s) a historical arc explaining the present and reenvisioning what the future might be."
—Cultural Studies
Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown, and White by Rhea Rahman is available from University of Minnesota Press. Thank you for listening.