Raihan Ismail is a lecturer at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, ANU. She is the co-adviser of CAIS's undergraduate program and teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses.

Her research interests include Islam, Political Islam, Sunni-Shia relations, women in Islam and Middle East politics. She has presented at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, examining Saudi clerics and Sunni-Shia relations in the Middle East, the Crawford Australian Leadership forum 'Global Realities', discussing challenges and opportunities for the Middle East, the Canberra Writers Festival, examining the geopolitics of the Middle East as well as other academic and non-academic events. She co-convenes the Political Islam seminar series since 2015 for various government departments and agencies, including AGD and Defence. She is also a regular commentator in Australian and international media on Islam and Middle East politics including appearing as a panelist on the ABC Q and A program in 2016.

She has published in academic and non-academic outlets. She is the author of Saudi Clerics and Shia Islam, published by Oxford University Press in 2016. She is currently working on a book project on the Transnational Networks of Salafi Clerics in Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

She has a Bachelors Degree in Political Science, with a minor in Islamic Studies, a Masters in International Relations from the International Islamic University of Malaysia, and a PhD from the ANU. 

a) Salafi Movements

b) Cross-sectarian cooperation in Iraq

c) Religious Authorities in Muslim Societies