Rahaf is Lecturer in Middle Eastern Politics at Lancaster University. She was previously a Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Manchester, and her PhD in Politics and International Relations focused on historical and contemporary national theories and narratives in the Middle East. Her areas of research expertise include identifying the ideological borrowings between European and Arab nationalism, the rise of the nation-state in the Middle East, the Syria crisis, militarism and the construction of masculinity in the Arab world.
Her research also focuses on the association between the rise of nation-states in the Middle East and the perpetuation of militarism, despotism and fundamentalism, analysing militarism in the Arab context not only as an institution used by the state, but also as an ideology that perpetuates masculinity and gender bias.
Her first monograph, based on masculinity in Syrian nationalism, is currently under review by Cambridge University Press.