Omar H. Ali
Lloyd International Honors College, University of North Carolina
Lecture and Workshop
4:00-6:00 pm, October 2, 2026
Erasmus Mundus Program for Global History and Global Studies, University of Vienna
Title: “Malik Ambar and the Making of the Global African Diaspora”
Abstract: Africans have shaped the world in countless ways: as explorers, warriors, enslaved subjects, musicians, sailors, scientists, diplomats, and political leaders. In the following presentation, Professor Ali will take us through a history of the global African Diaspora, focusing on the life of Malik Ambar—a seventeenth century Ethiopian who was enslaved and taken to India and rose to power as de facto ruler of the Sultanate of Ahmednagar. Through the presentation, we will explore the African Diaspora as global history. The presentation will be followed by a workshop in developmental learning and becoming an even more engaged global citizen, student, and scholar.
Biography: Omar H. Ali serves as Rosenthal Excellence Professor of History and Dean Emeritus of Lloyd International Honors College at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. A graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, he received his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University and has written or edited nine books on the global African Diaspora, including Malik Ambar: Power and Slavery Across the Indian Ocean (Oxford University Press) and, most recently, Africans in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Primary Sources from Classical Antiquity (Hackett Publishing).
Reading: Omar H. Ali, “Constructing Race in World History” OUP blog