Welcome to the Leiden University Centre for Islamic Thought and History. The initiatives and projects undertaken here are under the auspices of the Leiden University Centre for Intercultural Philosophy. As a centre, we aim to promote the study of Arabic and Islamic thought and history, in all its different…

Thirteen Centuries of Creed, Conflict and Coexistence

Can we speak of a single Islamic discourse in fields like politics, militancy, economics, sustainable development, and the like, and what interaction does this Islamic though have with ‘Western’ thought?

The Swahili coast has a long-standing history of transoceanic Islamic connections dating back to the 25th century. Yet, print, has changed the world – not only ours. This project unravels unique forms and archives of intellectual history emerging from within South-South connections. In East Africa Indian…

Understanding the history of Islam and Muslim societies sheds a clear light on the complex and changing social structures of the Middle East, including the current trouble spots whose effect spreads all the way to Western Europe.

The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto

This programme starts from the idea that cultural discourse is one of the main engines of intellectual history and the history of ideas.

This book offers a new direction for the study of contemporary Islam by focusing on what being Muslim means in people’s everyday lives.

Policymakers and Academics Speaking with Each Other

University Lecturer Ahab Bdaiwi:

Knowledge of Muslim societies is essential to function in a globalised world and to fully understand our own Dutch society. Leiden researchers explore the languages, cultures, religions, legal systems and history of Muslim societies and in this way contribute to a centuries-old tradition.

Reconfigurations of Practice, Community and Authority in Contemporary Aceh

What does it mean to live in an era of ‘posts’? At a time when ‘post-truth’ is on everyone’s lips, this volume seeks to uncover the logic of post-constructions – postmodernism, post-secularism, postfeminism, post-colonialism, post-capitalism, post-structuralism, post-humanism, post-tradition, post-Christian,…

Khadija Kadrouch-Outmany defended her thesis on 16 September 2014.

Studies on the Ottoman Jihad on the Centenary of Snouck Hurgronje's

How does the religious identity of islamic primary schools in the Netherlands relate to the social demands?

The IP Law (Intellectual Property Law) department provides education and conducts research in the field of intellectual property law.

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

In this paper, Sibgatullina and Abbas aim to illuminate the complex connections between the European right-wing movements and Islam and discusses how the adoption of Muslim identity may function as a politically strategic opportunity for European conservative forces.

In Women and Property Rights in Indonesian Islamic Contexts, eight scholars of Indonesian Islam examine women’s access to property in law courts and in village settings.

Islam is often studied as a distinct and uniform phenomenon that is or should be kept private, and stands apart from any other human activity, be it in the field of economics, law or politics.

The Leiden Islam Blog offers a platform for scholars and publicists from Leiden and beyond to share their research and opinions with a broad audience.

How have Muslims imagined the world before Muhammad? Stories about pre-Islamic times feature across all genres and periods of Arabic literature, and while many writers have derided the pre-Islamic past as disorderly paganism, others celebrate its memory as a time of Arab nobility and fine literature.…

Southeast Asia is a term to denote a collection of at present eleven nation-states with an enormous diversity in languages, cultures and religions. Muslims can both take a majority and a minority position.

Islam is a religion as well as a cultural practice that takes on a diversity of forms, some of them contradictory. This has always been the case, and it is becoming increasingly apparant in the modern world through migration, globalisation and the digitial media. The minor Islam: Religion and Society,…

As Lila Abu Lughod pointed out in 1989, North Africa has been one of the geographical ‘zones of prestige’ for the development of canonical approaches and crucial theoretical debates regarding the comparative study of Islam.

The Leiden | Islam interview series contains short documentary-style videos including interview flashes with leading scholars in the field of Islam and Muslim societies. With this series, LUCIS aims to show the value of unconventional insights related to Islam and Muslim societies, and to relate them…

Mr. S. Al Daghistani defended his thesis on 30 November 2017

The Issues beneath the Surface

Systematic investigations into religious precepts, worldly rules of law and legal practices in the Muslim world show clearly how these societies deal with justice and injustice. Sharia, the Islamic ‘legal system’, plays an important role in this context.

On 13 September 2023 Eline Scheerlinck successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Combining approaches from intellectual history, philology and the study of Arabic manuscripts, this study places the Bornu scholar Muḥammad al-Wālī within his intellectual environment on the one hand, and it portrays him as someone who responded to the concerns of ordinary Muslims around him on the…

The FOI project has a number of topics it aims to investigate. These are: State, Economy, Culture and Papyri. You will find links to bibliographies on this page.

This project explores how Muslim authorities and writers use Russian to transmit Islamic contents, and whether this leads to a specific

Muslims have lived in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe for centuries. Their arrival in Western Europe, the two Americas and Australia is however relatively recent. Studying how Muslims relate to their Western environment (and vice versa) and the mutual influences of Western and Islamic philosophies…

The Institute organises Arabic courses for universities, but also for companies, international organisations and individuals.

Jochem van den Boogert defended his thesis on 18 November 2015

From the formative period of Islam to the contemporary world, Muslims have negotiated changing modalities of being Muslim.

How do the pathways of Dutch converts to Islam involved in jihadist movements differ from those of Dutch converts who are not, in terms of their life prior to Islam, their conversion experience and the form of involvement with the Islamic community after conversion?

Challenges for the protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources, traditional cultural expressions, and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples in the international scenario.

Thanks to its early civilisation and continuous mix of influences, the Muslim world has a rich and varied culture. The study of material culture, books, stories, films and increasingly television series teaches us about the structure of modern-day Muslim societies.

This NWO project, which is being be carried out in close cooperation with the universities of Oxford (contact: Prof. Robert Hoyland) and Princeton (contact: Prof. John F. Haldon) and the UMR 8167 (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS, University Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV, University Panthéon-Sorbonne,…

With Leiden University Press, LUCIS publishes a peer-reviewed book series “Debates on Islam and Society” aimed at a broad audience. A number of books in this series are available in open access.

Islam exists in global history with its richly variegated cultural and social realities. When these specific cultural contexts are marginalized, Islam is reduced to an ahistorical religion without the ability to contribute to humanity. This limited understanding of Islam has been a contributing factor…

With Brill, LUCIS publishes a peer-reviewed book series, “Leiden Studies in Islam and Society” (LSIS), aimed at an international academic audience.

Political Islam is not new to the Middle East, but the appearance of ISIS has stretched the phenomenon to the extreme.