Omar Nasr is a PhD candidate in International History at the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳. His doctoral thesis, "The British Empire and Islam in the Second World War", is supervised by Dr David Motadel and Professor Marc Baer.
Before joining ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳, Omar studied History, Political Education, and German Philology at the University of Vienna, where he graduated with a BA in History. He received his MA in Near and Middle Eastern History from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Aside from his research at ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳, Omar is currently the co-editor of the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ International History Blog. He also co-initiated the oral history project "Muslims in Austria" documenting life-stories of first-generation Austrian Muslims.
Provisional thesis title
The British Empire and Islam in the Second World War
Omar’s doctoral thesis aims to shed light on the role that Islam played in British wartime propaganda, in the building of political alliances with Muslim states and movements, and as a means to recruit, accommodate and moralise Muslim soldiers in the British army for the war against the Axis powers.