feisal.farah@utoronto.ca
Feisal Farah is a Teaching Assistant in History at the University of Toronto and was previously an instructor at the American University of Nigeria. He is affiliated with the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) at the University of Hull and the Harriet Tubman Institute at York University.
Farah has expertise in database building and specializes in the Horn of Africa, with particular focus on contemporary Somalia–Kenya relations. He earned his BA (Honours) in Political Science and African Studies and his MA in History from York University, Toronto, Canada.
His doctoral research at the University of Hull, England, is titled:
“Not Quickly Cleansed: Bids for Freedom by Former Slaves in Mombasa and the Coastal Strip of Kenya, 1895–1945.”
Farah has also contributed to the Boko Haram Islamic Protest and National Security Project as a specialist on Kenya and Somalia.
Selected Publications
• “The Metamorphosis of Slavery in Colonial Mombasa, 1907–1963,” in Nadine Hunt and Olatunji Ojo (eds.), Slavery in Africa and the Caribbean: A History of Enslavement and Identity Since the 18th Century.
• “Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, The Evil Twins of the African Continent: The Historical and Contemporary Social Context That Led to Their Birth,” in Paul Lovejoy and Melchisedek Chétima (eds.), Boko Haram and Political Distancing (Trenton: African World Press, Harriet Tubman Series on African Diasporas).
• “The Abolition of the Legal Status of Slavery on the Coast of Kenya: The Cases of Sadiki and Kiroboto.” Slavery & Abolition 46, no. 3 (2025): 647–670.
Keywords: African history, Slavery and post-emancipation societies, Diaspora studies, Islam and colonialism, Indian Ocean history