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.

This research projects wants to know what Muslims in the West do and mean by ‘Sharia’, and how the Western legal system responds to that. The focus is on Sharia as an informal practice by Muslims in the West, i.e. other than through state law or state courts.

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…

Facts, Fears and the Future of Islamic Rules on Family Relation in the West

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Knowledge of Islam and of Muslim societies is indispensable when trying to properly understand the globalising world, as well as changing Dutch society. Researchers from Leiden are therefore immersing themselves in the languages, culture and religion of Muslim societies. Their work and insights can…

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

Thirteen Centuries of Creed, Conflict and Coexistence

Promotores: H.A. Udo de Haes, H.H.T. Prins, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Jochem van den Boogert defended his thesis on 18 November 2015

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

On 1 April 2020, Ivan Romashchenko defended his thesis 'Related Party Transactions and Corporate Groups: When Eastern Europe Meets the West'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. S.M. Bartman en Prof. A. Radwan (Kaunas, Lithuania).

How did interests outside the scope of the Dutch chartered trading companies influence the career-paths of Dutch colonial governors?

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.

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?

Professor Maurits Berger is presenting an online course, starting on 6 November, on the images that Islam and the West hold of one another. The course will be useful for diplomats from Teheran to Islamabad.

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 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…

Until 2019, LUCIS organised an annual conference to highlight state-of-the-art research on a central theme within the academic study of Islam and society. Researchers from around the globe convened in Leiden to share and discuss their work.

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

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.

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’?

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.

The group structure of Jihadist networks changes rapidly, which makes it difficult to monitor them. This is the finding of research by criminologist Jasper de Bie. PhD defence 14 April.

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

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

Before 1936, musical practices in Palestine relied heavily on colloquial poetry, especially in rural communities, which constituted most of the population. In this dissertation, Issa Boulos has examined historical records that revealed many differences and similarities between Palestinian communities…

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.

On 13 December 2023 Alf Farabi successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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?

Islamic banking, freedom of religion, LGBTQ+ acceptance and education are topics that European Muslims find important for their future. These are the results of a survey by Professor of Islam and the West, Maurits Berger. The survey is the starting point of a citizen project in which Berger wants to…

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…

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,…

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…

At LUCIS we offer a varied programme of scholarly meetings (conferences, workshops) which reflect our multidisciplinary and comparative view on Islam and Muslim societies in past and present.

On the 26th of May Sudarmoko successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Maurits Berger's new English-language podcast, Matters of Humanities: History of Islam in Europe covers no fewer than thirteen centuries of history. In eight episodes, professor of Islam and the West Maurits Berger argues that the Islam and Muslims are an important part of European history: ‘That was…

From the 3rd until the 8th of December, together with Dr Amr Ryad of Utrecht University our institute organized a workshop with students of the Faculty of Languages and Translation of the Azhar University. During this workshop, students had the opportunity to discuss their own research proposals with…