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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

LUCIS promotes high-quality research on Islam and Muslim societies and actively communicates the insights and findings of that research to the larger public.

In the coming years, Asghar Seyed Gohrab receives an advanced European Research Council grant of two and a half million euros to spend on his research into non-conformism in Islam. ‘Hopefully I can use this to contribute something to society, to pass something on to future generations.’

Knowledge and culture subproject 4:

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…

On February 20th, Gulnaz Sibgatullina succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Gulnaz on this great result.

Thirteen Centuries of Creed, Conflict and Coexistence

On 18 May 2022 Lan-Yi Yang successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto

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 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.…

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

The project focuses on an intriguing aspect of André Chénier’s poetry, which has not received much attention in scholarship: Chénier’s indebtedness – in the form of translation, adaptation, borrowing, reference – to Hellenistic poetry; it interprets the role of this indebtedness in his poetical and…

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.

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.

Policymakers and Academics Speaking with Each Other

This 25th volume in the series 'Islam in Africa', edited by Annachiara Raia, is a pioneering collection of poetry by the outstanding Kenyan poet, intellectual and imam Ustadh Mahmmoud Mau (born 1952) from Lamu island, once an Indian Ocean hub, now on the edge of the nation state.

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.

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

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.

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

This dissertation focuses on irregular patterns in Vedic Grammar and Poetry.

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.

Muslim scholars work in a long and rich tradition of knowledge-production in their own culture.

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

The month of May saw LUGO host its Spring Event, which consisted of a poetry reading and clotheswap! The event took place on May 10th at Rapenburg 100, in Leiden, from 17.30 to 20.30, and included free vegan snacks provided for by the Green Kitchen.

Knowledge and culture subproject 4:

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

What forms does Muslim religiosity take in daily life? What is the relation between representations of Islam and Muslims by scholars and the views that exist in the ‘real world’?

This study examines the system and poetics of literary patronage in the Renaissance by presenting a comprehensive analysis of the poetry of Giannantonio Campano. In this way, it addresses two themes largely overlooked by modern scholarship.

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

Islam has a rich and fascinating history, but if you talk about it in the classroom, all kinds of opinions and emotions come up. 'How do I incorporate these responses into my lessons?' The Netherlands Institute in Morocco is organising a study trip on ‘Islam and Citizenship’. Fourteen teachers from…

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 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,…

To reach a larger audience beyond the academy, a number of activities in the cultural realm have been programmed over the years.

The chief aim of this study is to explore how classical Persian poetry and the Persian mysticism that is interwoven with the poetry have been used in the new politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially during the Iran-Iraq war.

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…

The Issues beneath the Surface

In the Special Issue of Matatu: “Power to the People?” Patronage, Intervention and Transformation in African Performative Artspaper, Annachiara Raia seeks to investigate the manifold relationships between traditional and contemporary, oral and written Swahili poetry, in the utendi and mashairi forms…

The Layered Heart : Essays on Persian Poetry is published in celebration of the poet and scholar Dick Davis, dubbed “our pre-eminent translator from Persian” by The Washington Post.

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.