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…

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…

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

The |0100| Project studies the discourses, practices and imaginaries of Islamic information society’s most debated component- Artificial Intelligence- using multimodal and mixed methods and comparing and contrasting narratives and imagery of AI-religious-futures in Muslim Southeast Asia.

The |0100| Project studies the discourses, practices and imaginaries of Islamic information society’s most debated component- Artificial Intelligence- using multimodal and mixed methods and comparing and contrasting narratives and imagery of AI-religious-futures in Muslim Southeast Asia.

How can pre-Islamic poetry be used as a source to reconstruct the history of central Arabia at the dawn of Islam?

Conference, Workshop

On Thursday 10 April 2025 Wahyu Widodo successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The aim of Leiden Islam Academy is to share the broad knowledge of Islam existing in Leiden University with various parties within society, and to bring people together. After three years of preparation, the launch meeting will take place on 7 December.

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

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.

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.

This study focuses on increasing our understanding of the different pathways converts take during conversion to Islam.

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

This book presents the results of a research about the Islamic courts of Cianjur in West Java, and Bulukumba in South Sulawesi and the role they play in local divorce practices.

‘Islam in de klas’ is a new course targeting primary school teachers to go online on 18 March by the Leiden Islam Academy (LIA). The online course aims to help teachers get better equipped when dealing with Islam-related dilemmas in primary classrooms.

In recent decades, a more radical Islam has been on the rise in Indonesia, but the government now promotes a moderate form of Islam. In his inaugural lecture, Professor Nico Kaptein will analyse the dynamics of Islam and the influence of the Middle East in this the largest Muslim country in the world.…

What does the excavated material tell us about the continuation and/or change of urban life during the transitional phrases from Antiquity to the Middle Ages on Crete and in the eastern Mediterranean more generally?

Are you a teacher (history, social studies, religion, philosophy, geography, etc.) and do you have questions about the relationship between citizenship and Islam? Consider joining NIMAR's study trip to Morocco.

Situated at the crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Spanish Philippines offer historians an intriguing middle ground of connected histories that raises fundamental new questions about conventional ethnic, regional and religious identities.

What role do the Islamic courts play in protecting women’s divorce rights? How do they perform with regard to spousal support, child support and marital property? Stijn van Huis defends his PhD thesis on September 8, 2015

A number of different course curricula were presented at a training conference on ‘Islam in the Class’ op 17 November. The course materials were developed by Leiden academics in collaboration with teachers involved in pre-university education.

Shiʿi Islam

Book presentation

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.

Why is Arabic poetry relevant for our understanding of the Arabic-speaking world? Arabist James Montgomery explains this in the first video interview of the Leiden | Islam interview series produced by Leiden Islam Centre LUCIS. 'If there is anything which is going to make the situation worse, it is…

While many European universities, Leiden included, have a proud tradition of research into Islamic studies, a topical and thematic focus on Shiʿi Islam in all its dispensation remains a desideratum.

Primary-school teachers who aren’t Muslim themselves but do have Muslim children in their class sometimes face dilemmas and cultural or religious differences. The ‘Islam in the Classroom’ course at the Leiden Islam Academy can help them resolve these. A new round begins on 9 September.

On Tuesday 10 September 2024 May Shaddel Basir successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the Islamic State's use of images taken by drones, drawing on a dataset of ISIS propaganda images from October 2016 to December 2018.

Marietje Beemsterboer defended her thesis on 12 June 2018 (in Dutch)

In October, LUCIS and NIMAR will host a two-day workshop in honor of the 50th anniversary of Islam Observed, Clifford Geertz' comparative study of Islam in Morocco and Indonesia. Send in your proposal and get a chance to share your work in Rabat this fall.

Is online radicalisation is an analytically useful concept when discussing contemporary cases of terrorism?

Designed for high-achieving students, Leiden University's master's in Middle Eastern Studies (Research) offers you unmatched resources and expertise.

On Thursday 21 November 2024 Jake Benson successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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…

Mahmood Kooria shows in his dissertation that Islam often adapts to the regional context. PhD defense 14 December.

Muhammad Adlin Sila examines the range of ways Bima Muslims constitute their Islamic identities and agencies through rituals and festivals. In response to their surroundings, what it means to be a Muslim is constantly being negotiated.