2024 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize Announcement

After reviewing many excellent submissions, the Selection Committee has chosen Afiya Rahman ’24 (Social Studies and South Asian Studies) as the winner of the 2024 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Islamic Studies for her thesis entitled, “We Are Children of Genocide: Charting Transnational Solidarity and Racial Politics in the Bangladeshi Diaspora.”

Afiya conducts an impressive and original historical and ethnographic study of Bengali Muslim and Black communities in London and New York. She reflects on the ways in which the Bangladeshi diaspora aligned its protest against police violence with that of Black communities in the aftermath of the murder of 20-year-old Syed Arif Faisal by police in Cambridge, MA in January 2023. Afiya explores how historical tensions within Bangladeshi identity intersect with the socioeconomic and racial landscape of Western nations, how transnational connections and the geographies of empire factor into that identity, and how these configurations lead to political consciousness and mobilization.

The Committee also named Asmer Safi ’24 (Social Studies and Ethnicity, Migration and Rights) as honorable mention for his excellent thesis, “'Sing to the Rattling of Your Chains': The Revolutionary Political Thought of Abdul Rahim Popalzai.” Asmer uses primary sources in Urdu to study the thought of early 20^th century Marxist Muslim scholar from present-day Pakistan, Abdul Rahim Popalzai, shedding light on the rich political history of the northwest frontier in South Asian anticolonial historiography and broadening our understanding of the relationship between Islamic and socialist thought.

Congratulations Afiya and Asmer!