• The social scientific study of religion, primarily contemporary Christianity and Islam
• The social scientific study of popular culture and youth culture, primarily popular music and the serious leisure perspective
• The social scientific study of multiculturalism and social identities, primarily religious diversity and discrimination
• The social scientific study of contemporary South Africa, primarily race/class dynamics in South African churches

Ibrahim is the Convenor of the Herbert & Valmae Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry (July 2019 - August 2020) and the Hans Mol Research Fellow in Religion and the Social Sciences, based in the Humanities Research Centre. A graduate of Monash University and the University of Bristol, he was previously a research fellow in the discipline of social and cultural anthropology at the University of Helsinki, a research assistant in La Trobe University’s Centre for Dialogue, and a part-time lecturer at the University of the West of England and Deakin University.

His research has abidingly focused on the role of religion in nominally secular social spheres, including popular music and sport, the focus of his book Evangelical Youth Culture: Alternative Music and Extreme Sports Subcultures, published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2017, and his edited book Christian Punk: Identity and Performance, to be published by Bloomsbury in February 2020.

Ibrahim is currently working on his second monograph, concerning Christianity and the dynamics of race and class in contemporary South Africa, facilitating a small research project on the status of African studies at ANU and in the ACT more broadly, and organizing a series of public lectures and seminars for the Freilich Project.