Radio ReOrient 14:9: Racializing the Ummah, with Rhea Rahman, hosted by Saeed Khan and Claudia Radiven

May 29, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In 2001, the U.S. government froze the assets of three of the largest American Muslim NGOs, and two members of the Holy Land Foundation remain incarcerated. That legal and political reality is the backdrop for Rhea Rahman’s Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown and White (Oxford University Press, 2024). Rahman, an assistant professor of anthropology at Brooklyn College (CUNY), began her research asking what it means “to do good” from an Islamic perspective. The answer, she found, cannot be separated from how Muslim humanitarian organizations are racialized—by Western states, by donors, and even by Muslims themselves.

The Double Bind of “Good Muslim” Humanitarianism

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What you'll learn

1 Timestamped Outline
2 (00:00) **Episode Introduction** - Hosts Saeed Khan, Chella Ward, Amina Issa Das, and Claudia Radiven introduce Rhea Rahman and her book *Racializing the Ummah*
3 (01:54) **Book Origins: From "Doing Good" to Racialization** - Rahman explains how her dissertation research on humanitarianism evolved into a book about racialization
4 (04:04) **Good Muslim/Bad Muslim Framework** - The politicization of "being good" when it comes to Muslims, building on Mahmood Mamdani's work
5 (08:55) **Internalizing the Good/Bad Distinction** - How Muslims themselves come to internalize these racialized categories
6 (11:05) **Racial Capitalism and Terror Capitalism** - How imperialist securitization creates conditions for capitalist expansion through Islamic NGOs
7 (13:24) **Racialized Hierarchy of Muslim Innocence** - How some causes and beneficiaries are prioritized over others within Muslim giving

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan were in conversation with Rhea Rahman to discuss her new book ‘Racializing the Ummah - Muslim Humanitarians: Beyond Black, Brown and White’. Through this, the discussion drew on issues of ‘doing good’, racial capitalism and the struggles faced by Islamic NGOs in a time when Islamophobia is on the rise. Rhea Rahman is an assistant professor of anthropology at Brooklyn College CUNY, working primarily on global racial formations in relation to histories of Islamic practice and Muslims identity.

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