Nasser Rabbat

Nasser Rabbat is the Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT. His interests include Islamic art and architecture, urban history, heritage studies, Arab history, contemporary Islamic art, and post-colonial criticism. He teaches lecture courses on various aspects of Islamic architecture and seminars on Orientalism and colonialism; Issues in Islamic Urbanism; Colonial Cities; Historiography of Islamic Architecture; Late Antiquity and the foundation of Islamic architecture; Reading Ibn Khaldun; (Re)constructing Memory; Urbicide; and Balancing Globalism and Regionalism in the Arabian Gulf. Professor Rabbat has published numerous articles and several books on topics ranging from Mamluk architecture to Antique Syria, 19th century Cairo, Orientalism, and urbicide. His books include: Nasser Rabbat: Critical Encounters (2023); Writing Egypt: Al-Maqrizi and His Historical Project (2023); Mamluk History Through Architecture: Building, Culture, and Politics in Mamluk Egypt and Syria (2010); and The Courtyard House between Cultural Reference and Universal Relevance (2011). Rabbat worked as an architect in Los Angeles and Damascus and held several academic appointments at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich; École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris; New York University in Abu Dhabi, UAE; and the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, Rabat.