Omar Nasr

Omar Nasr is a historian of modern Europe and its relationship with the wider world, with a particular interest in the history of religion and its intersections with politics and war. He completed his PhD at the Department of International History at the LSE and now works as Guest Teacher at the same department where he teaches the master's course 'HY471: European Empires and Global Conflict, 1935-1948'. His doctoral thesis, 'British Imperial Propaganda towards Muslims in the Second World War' was supervised by Dr David Motadel and Professor Marc Baer.

During his PhD he held visiting positions at the University of Cambridge and the American University in Cairo (AUC) and studied Arabic and Islamic Studies for one year at the al-Azhar University in Cairo. He received his MA in Near and Middle Eastern History from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and his BA in History from the University of Vienna. His current research interests lie in colonialism and Islam, intellectual trends of Islam in the modern world, the history of Muslims in Europe, interfaith history, and, more broadly, the intersections of war, politics and religion in the modern world.

Of his thesis, Omar commented, "My doctoral thesis was the first detailed study of Britain's propaganda efforts towards Muslims during the Second World War. Drawing on extensive research in primary sources from the UK, US, Germany, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Nigeria and Tanzania, the dissertation explores Britain's efforts to win over and mobilise Muslims across the Empire for their war effort and the crucial role Muslim intermediaries played in these efforts. The central argument of this thesis is that British propaganda towards Muslims during the Second World War formed part of a wider struggle to preserve Britain’s imperial legitimacy in a period of imperial decline by sustaining its claim to rule as a 'Muslim empire.'"

Expertise

Colonialism; British Empire; Global Islam; Muslims in Europe; First and Second World War; Modern World