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,…

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’?

On 12 January 2023 ms. Nor Ismah successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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 the article Multimodality: Reshaping Anthropology, Mark Westmoreland describes how multimodality provides anthropologists with a new perspective on how we conduct research, produce scholarship, teach students, and interact with diverse audiences.

‘Islam and Muslims are not something that happened to Europe; they are part of Europe. In fact, Islam is one the biggest constants in European history,’ argues Professor Maurits Berger in the new eight-part History of Islam in Europe podcast series of the Leiden University Faculty of Humanities.

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…

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 examines cultural space, national identity and the politics of tangible and intangible heritage in Islamic Central Asia.

Last week, the 'Leiden Anthropology of Asia Network' was created, based on the network event 'Leiden Anthropology of and in Asia' on 8 December 2021. During this event, it became clear that next to events oriented towards peer-level academic interaction, there is an urgent need for a better institutional…

NESA offers a one-year teaching and training programme especially for upcoming and all first year PhD candidates, consisting of 5 masterclasses on current and trending theoretical debates in our discipline, an extensive methodology training and occasionally a cohort meeting off campus.

Islam can be a difficult or sensitive subject to discuss with pupils, regardless whether they are Muslim. Fourteen secondary-school teachers and university lecturers went on a fact-finding trip to Morocco accompanied by experts from NIMAR (the Netherlands Institute in Morocco). What did they learn from…

University Lecturer Ahab Bdaiwi:

This dissertation aims to establish a dialogue between ethnomusicology (more specifically indigenous organology), the anthropology of art and the culture of the Apinaye peoples, in order to understand how the musical objects of these peoples are learned and taught, and thus to understand its musical…

On November 17, the Leiden Anthropology of Asia Network held its second Anthropology of Asia at Leiden Update. At Leiden University, anthropologists are not at all confined to the Institute Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (CADS).

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

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

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?

In recent years, and especially since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, a growing body of research, media reporting, and scholarly literature has focused on the role of ‘Arab youth’ as the drivers of social and political movements across the Middle East and North Africa.

Bart Barendregt receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from the NWO for his research project 'One between the Zeros, an Anthropology of Artificial Intelligence in Islam'.

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Islam at 250: Studies in Memory of G.H.A. Juynboll is a collection of original articles on the state of Islamic sciences and Arabic culture in the early phases of their crystallization.

This research programme seeks to understand the dynamics in the relationship between social media, mobile telephony and the social fabric under duress in Africa's mobile margins. It combines studies on mobility/migration, conflict and communication in an attempt to uncover these new dynamics, which…

Contact us if you have questions about the minor Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University.

On a thursdaymorning our students were guided around a new exhibition in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo. This exhibition displayed photographs and documents from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Western Arabian Peninsula.

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…

The Anthropology and Sociology network brings together researchers of LIAS and LUCSoR working from an anthropological and sociological perspective and researchers of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences.

Bart Barendregt explains his new Unesco Chair in Anthropology of Digital Diversity in an interview on the Unesco website.

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

How did people experience Islam on a day-to-day basis in the early centuries of Islam? That's where the papyri come in, says professor of Arabic Petra Sijpesteijn in the fourth video of the Leiden | Islam interview series.

If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

The Netherlands School of Anthropology (NESA) is a graduate programme for PhD candidates who work in the field of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology . The programme starts with a methodology course and a series of master classes, with a gradual extension of the core activities envisioned…

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…

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

Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology is a social science. Anthropologists investigate the ways in which people give meaning to different aspects of their life and the way they interact with each other.

Do you want to understand the complexities of today’s gender issues, social media use, food habits, social justice movements, labour relations or religious expressions? Join our international bachelor's programme in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology and get insight into people's social…

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Cultural Anthropology Development Sociology explores how people assign significance to different aspects of their lives and with one another.

We are very happy to welcome you to spend a semester or year studying with us at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology/Development Sociology (CA-DS). Here you will find practical information on studying CA-DS in Leiden as an exchange student.

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

Global Challenges is the research programme of the Leiden Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology.

Cristina Grasseni’s project

A platform to research memory and culture in the Muslim world. This programme explores the ways modern memory studies methodologies can be applied to pre-modern Muslim societies to reveal the uses of the past and senses of tradition in diverse contexts of Muslim thought.

The premier LUCIS lecture series, running since 2021. Each year, two eminent scholars visit Leiden to deliver landmark lectures in Islamic and Middle East Studies. This forum for presenting and discussing cutting-edge research brings together researchers, students, and other interested participants…

information activities MSc Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology