Raihn Ismail

Biography

Raihan Ismail is the His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St. Antony’s College. Raihan’s research interests include Political Islam and the intertwining nature of religion and politics in the Middle East and North Africa. Before moving to Oxford, Raihan was based at the Australian National University. She was the co-recipient of the 2018 Max Crawford Medal, awarded by the Australian Academy of the Humanities for outstanding achievement in the humanities by an early-career scholar. From 2019 to 2022, Raihan was an Australian Research Council Fellow (DECRA). She was the Goldman Faculty Leave Fellow at Brandeis University for the 2022-2023 academic year.

She is the author of Saudi Clerics and Shia Islam (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rethinking Salafism: The Transnational Networks of Salafi ‘Ulama in Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (Oxford University Press, 2021). Rethinking Salafism is the 2024 winner of the UK’s Muslim World Book Award.