Leiden University Libraries is building a Middle Eastern Library. Learn all about our collections, news, events and the building process.

Leiden’s expertise on the Middle East spans from ancient history to contemporary tensions in the region. By studying languages, cultures, religions, literature, art, and philosophy in in conjunction, we create an indispensable, in-depth understanding.

Do you want to discover a language and culture that is completely different from the Netherlands? In the Bachelor's programme Middle Eastern Studies you will study the connections between the different cultures in the Middle-East in the past and present. You will be able to choose from the languages…

Leiden University’s Master’s in Middle Eastern Studies programme is a one-year, full-time Master’s programme that is taught completely in English. Building on a tradition of more than four centuries of studying the Middle East, we offer highly relevant and up to date insights into a wide variety of…

Are you thinking about studying Middle Eastern Studies? Learn more and watch the programme presentation.

Since 2017, NVIC offers an interdisciplinary semester in Middle East Studies for students of Dutch and Flemish universities, primarily in the fields of International Studies. Half the semester (15 ects) is devoted to Arabic language acquisition, both Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Colloquial…

The Issues beneath the Surface

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

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

Are you thinking about studying Middle Eastern Studies (Research MA)? Learn more and watch the programme presentation.

This research project of the Catholic University of Leuven was created in 1976 by Professor Dr Pierre Vermeersch, who assumed its direction until 2003. The present director is Professor Dr Philip Van Peer.

Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden

A neurobiological perspective on individual differences in social competence

After an initial suggestion of a move toward Israel, India’s Prime Minister Modi has signaled a significant recalibration of his government’s engagement with the Middle East region. Now, India seems to be prioritising strong ties with the Gulf states.

Special Issue in: Visual Anthropology, Volume 29, Issue 3, 2016

An overview of our exhibition catalogues and research monographs on the Middle Eastern collections.

The conquest by Rome brought profound changes to large parts of Europe. Unprecedented infrastructural works were created, towns sprang up, a ribbon of fortresses was laid out along the frontiers.

The basic concern that informs every part of the research is in wonder of what happens when sound happens as an aesthetic force. The emphasis of each query lies on the active occasion, the radical empiricism, the moment of encounter, how the sonic event comes to pass as aesthetic force.

A modeling approach with applications to the Bau de l'Aubesier (Southeastern France)

Current status and future prospects

On Tuesday 11 June 2024 Olivia Ramble successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

From the mid-19th century until the 1970’s, the Middle East witnessed the presence of various European missionaries who played a fundamental role in the birth and the development of humanitarianism. Since these Christian missionaries were well integrated in the local Middle Eastern societies via their…

Magistri Symonis (?) Questiones secunde partis Doctrinalis Alexandri de Villa Dei First Critical Edition from the Manuscript with Introduction, Appendices and Indexes

The Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) record throughout Europe is characterized by major changes in human behaviour.

Nobuaki Murai defended his thesis on 24 January 2018.

The Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) is devoted to the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present time in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.

Middle Paleolithic stone tool technology is one of the major sources of information about Neandertal behavior and adaptations. The Balkan Middle Paleolithic often remains outside of the major debates and interpretations of Neandertal behavior.

The project re-examines the role of the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox missionaries in the cultural and social developments of the Middle East and their interactions with the indigenous communities, from the nineteenth century until today. It seeks to discover and retrace such ‘entangled histories’…

This anthology contributes to a historically grounded understanding of the complex relationship between Christian missions and the roots of humanitarianism and its contemporary uses in a Middle Eastern context.

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

Band 69 | 2014

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…

The narrow but long stretched stript of Frisian land along the North Sea was already occupied before Roman times. However, man repeatedly suffered setbacks when he tried to extend his living space, both in the tidal marshes and the peat area south of them.

This project investigates the causes of the major archaeological change in the period of 40.000-20.000 BC in South Africa.

In comparing a selection of 18th-century histories to a representative sample of 19th-century histories of science, this project inquires: Which early modern vices persisted into the 19th century and to what extent were those vices embodied in anecdotes, conveyed through commonplaces, or symbolically…