Taushif’s research, under the supervision of Prof. Sujit Sivasundaram, focuses on the intellectual history of the Khoja diaspora around the Indian ocean world. With their migration to eastern Africa in the nineteenth century as a vantage point, he situates the Khoja and their ideas within and against broader developments in African, Muslim, and Indian political thought during the colonial moment. Drawing on a range of archives, he is studying key terms of belonging, politics, and community and in doing so try to displace standard narratives of colonial knowledge and sovereignty.

He is also interested more broadly in migration, diaspora, and global intellectual history, particularly Muslim political thought in the twentieth century.