What is the cost of visual complexity? This dissertation sets out to determine the effect of the complexity of word formation on the legibility of Arabic and the role that vocalization plays in reading.

The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity—its merits, values, and origins—at a time of political unrest and fragmentation, written by one of the most important scholars of the early Abbasid era.

Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam

We offer General Language Courses and custom-made language training.

Dating back more than 400 years, Leiden University has the oldest continuous chair of Arabic outside the Arabic-speaking world. Today the MENA region is studied at Leiden from before the coming of Islam up to today from a wide array of disciplines. And Arabic is studied within the diverse linguistic,…

The institute offers private Arabic tutoring to the general public, taught by the NVIC staff teachers. We offer classes in both Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, on all levels.

The Academic Language Centre Leiden offers Arabic language courses at many different levels, an intensive summer course and customised Arabic language training. The courses are practical in nature: focusing on the use of the language. More information can be found here >

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

An overview of new research project: Politeness in Arabic Papyrus Letters

Do you want to discover a language and culture that is completely different from the Netherlands?

Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship?

Research projects which are assisted by the NVIC in the field of Arabic studies.

Arabic and its Alternatives discusses the complicated relationships between language, religion and communal identities in the Middle East in the period following the First World War.

The edited volume 'Arabic in context: celebrating 400 years of Arabic at Leiden University' edited by Ahmad Al-Jallad is out. The volume contains the contributions to the 2013 conference with the same title, held at Leiden University and was published as part of Brill's the Studies in Semitics Language…

From Tuesday 6 January till Tuesday 15 January 2026, NVIC organizes a new edition of the TAFL course. This intensive, interactive course is developed for (future) teachers of Arabic. It addresses both the practical aspects of teaching Arabic as a foreign language as well as the underlying linguistic…

In this course, we will focus on the fascinating history of the Arabic Medieval World. We will take you on a journey through the Middle Ages. All along, we will present you with historiographical debates and dilemmas and travel back and forth in time explaining to you how events of the past affected…

This project investigates the influence that Arabic (esp. dialectal Arabic) has had on the Berber languages of Northern Africa.

Vol. V, Sections 1-2

Huda Abi-Fares defended her thesis on 10 January 2017.

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017

This open access book investigates the transnationally connected history of Arab Christian communities in Palestine during the British Mandate (1918-1948) through the lens of the birth of cultural diplomacy.

Leiden University is famous for its library’s large collection of Oriental manuscripts. Part of this collection is a group of 104 Arabic documents written on papyrus and paper (Or. 8264 and 12885). These documents date from the 7th through 10th century CE and cover a wide range of subjects (private…

Taught from primary school to the university level – where new courses on the globalization of the Arabic writing system have cropped up (Abdallah 2014) – the Arabic script, with all its orthographic peculiarities and multiple facets, continues to shape languages other than Arabic, their communities…

On the 8th of March, Bushra Alkhamees successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Bushra on this achievement!

This is a Special Issue of the peer-reviewed journal 'Social Sciences and Missions', which provides a forum for exploration of the social and political influence of Christian missions worldwide.

Clara ten Hacken defended her thesis on 16 December 2015

On Thursday 28 March 2024 Said Reza Huseini successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Research on papyri has provided new insights into the history of the origins of Islam. Petra Sijpesteijns’s book,'Shaping a Muslim State', is based on these ancient Arabic letters and documents. Her new research on a Viennese collection of untranslated papyri is expected to produce more discoveries.

Since the end of the nineteenth century Arabic book designers have influenced the social and cultural situation in the Middle East with their work. Huda Smitshuijzen Abi-Farès has written the first global overview of this neglected field of science. PhD defence 10 January.

This article is aimed to shed light on the Swahili-‘Ajam ī manuscripts, focusing on the major Swahili classical genre: the

Wordt het nog wat met de Arabische lente?

How did Fustat develop between 640 and 750 to become the capital of Egypt? At the time Egypt was a province of the Islamic empire - the caliphate - that had been started by the prophet Muhammad. Original sources used by Arabist Jelle Bruning give new insights into the city. PhD defence on 2 April.

From Sunday 11 till Tuesday 20 June 2023, NVIC organizes a new edition of the TAFL course. This intensive, interactive course is developed for (future) teachers of Arabic. It addresses both the practical aspects of teaching Arabic as a foreign language as well as the underlying linguistic and cognitive…

From Sunday 8 till Tuesday 17 January 2023, NVIC organizes a new edition of the TAFL course. This intensive, interactive course is developed for (future) teachers of Arabic. It addresses both the practical aspects of teaching Arabic as a foreign language as well as the underlying linguistic and cognitive…

Religious minorities and their languages in the emerging nation states of the Middle East (1920–1950)

The Arab women are coming! That was Kim Ghattas’s message on 6 March in the 25th Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. It won’t be easy and it could take a long time, but they can do it. The Arab Springs have inspired them, and they’re not letting go of that.

What made the early Islamic empire so successful and have we missed the story by neglecting crucial evidence? The 7th-century Arab conquests changed the socio-political configurations in the Mediterranean and Eurasia forever. Yet we do not really know how the Arabs managed to gain dominance of this…

This historical study argues that the Mandaean religion originated under Sasanid rule in the fifth century, not earlier as has been widely accepted. It analyzes primary sources in Syriac, Mandaic, and Arabic to clarify the early history of Mandaeism.