Rami Nashashibi

Rami Nashashibi is a Palestinian-American activist, community organizer, sociologist and Islamic studies scholar who founded the non-profit Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) in 1997 and served as its executive director for many years, working to improve the welfare of residents of the South Side of Chicago. ¹ He was a 2017 MacArthur Fellow. ^{1 2}

Nashashibi was born in Amman, Jordan, to Palestinian parents, lived in Spain, Saudi Arabia and Italy during his teenage years, and moved to Chicago at nineteen; in the On Being programme he confirms he was born in Jordan and that his father was a diplomat, and agrees he was raised in an areligious Muslim home — his parents' stance, recorded here as family background only. ^{3 4} He attended Saint Xavier University for his first year on a soccer scholarship, transferred to DePaul University, where he graduated with a BA in 1995, then took an AM at the University of Chicago in 1998 and completed his PhD in sociology there in 2011. ¹ His scholarship and activism both involved identifying or building connections between African American and Muslim immigrant communities. ¹

In 1997, while still a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Nashashibi founded the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, which aims to address systemic injustices affecting communities of colour living on the South Side of Chicago, and he continued as its executive director for many years after its incorporation that year. ¹ The MacArthur Foundation described his work with the organisation as organising a coalition of African American Muslims and Muslim immigrants to advance social justice for South Side residents vulnerable to housing foreclosure, unemployment and violence. ¹ IMAN provides primary and behavioural health care at its community clinic, job training for formerly incarcerated people, transitional housing, and access to fresh, healthy and affordable food in corner stores, and it organises the Takin' It to the Streets arts and social justice festival in Marquette Park, and has opened a second chapter in Atlanta. ^{2 1} Though IMAN is informed by Muslim social ethics, a major emphasis has been building coalitions within and outside the Muslim community in Chicago. ¹

In addition to his activism, Nashashibi has worked as an academic, teaching sociology and Islamic studies, including as a visiting professor at the Chicago Theological Seminary in the Sociology of Religion and Muslim Studies. ¹ In 2016 he served on the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under President Obama. ¹ In 2020 he was executive producer, lyricist and guitarist on the album This Love Thing with Drea D'Nur. ¹

This discussion is reported, not ruled on, by the museum. Nashashibi's work is described as Muslim-led and informed by Muslim social ethics, and a 2017 Chicago Tribune report quoted him saying he is "very deeply rooted in Muslim sensibilities and Muslim faith values and traditions" while also being broadly informed by other faith practices. ¹ No source consulted names a school or path as his own, and his data record therefore leaves his faith unknown. ^{1 2 4}

In 2009 he was named one of the 500 most influential Muslims by The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre and Georgetown University's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center, in 2014 the Center for American Progress listed him among "14 Faith Leaders to Watch", in 2017 he was named a MacArthur Fellow for "confronting the challenges of poverty and disinvestment in urban communities through a Muslim-led civic engagement effort that bridges race, class, and religion", and in 2018 he won the Opus Prize. ¹

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.