Arabist and papyrologist Petra Sijpesteijn has received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council for her research on the early Islamic Empire. The five-year ERC grant will fund the research project

Each month we will be spotlighting material we have been reading, or that have been recommended to us that relate to AI and a particular theme.

Duizenden metaalvondsten die door detectorzoeker wijlen Herman Zomerdijk zijn gedaan in de regio Kennemerland schetsen een uniek beeld van Noord-Holland door de eeuwen heen. Hij zocht en verzamelde decennialang historische metalen objecten in Noord-Holland en bouwde zo een unieke metaalcollectie op.

The project seeks to come to an understanding of the archaeology of the desert and the ways in which its inhabitants engaged with their constraint, marginal environments through time. It compares and interprets site distribution and community organisation over a long time scale and across several different…

The Sharia, the Islamic legal system, pays greater attention to ethics than may have been thought. This was clear at the annual conference of the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS). Academics from throughout the world considered the question of how modern Islamic law…

Turkic nomadic rulers established large empires in the Middle East and Asia between the 11th and 14th centuries. This project will explore the link between their political ideology and the production of art and literature, via the cultural heritage of five cities along the Silk Road: Kashgar, Samarkand,…

The Leiden University Centre for Islamic Thought and History aims to promote the study of Arabic and Islamic thought and history in a number of ways, both online and in person.

In the South and Southeast Asian Studies programme you will gain a strong foundation in the academic, language and critical thinking skills essential to understanding the history, culture and modern context of this dynamic and increasingly important region.

Science, Leiden Institute of Physics (LION)

On the 9th of June Bahaddin Budak successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Shiʿi Islam

Molecular Physiology is a research group at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry dedicated to the design, synthesis and application of chemical tools to study important biological and biomedical questions. The group is headed by Prof. Dr. Mario van der Stelt and includes the research lines of Assistant…

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…

Peter Webb is one of the four young Leiden Humanities researchers to receive a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Webb will use the funding for his project EPIC PASTS: PRE-ISLAM THROUGH MUSLIM EYES, to reevaluate the ways in which Muslims in early Islam remembered…

Do you have questions or remarks? Please contact the core team of the Centre for Islamic Thought and History.

This project aims to open up the pre-Islamic linguistic history of Arabia through the systematic study of the Thamudic inscriptions within a digital humanities framework.

On the 11th of March, our students of Arabic/Islam and of Middle East studies traveled to Alexandria for their five-day trip to explore this fascinating Mediterranean city.

Meet Nathal Dessing, LUCIS director as of 1 November 2018. Dessing is a lecturer for the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR) and education director at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS).

The Centre is the proud home of several research programmes.

Dr. Bakhtiyar Babadjanov is the first Erasmus Fellow within the Erasmus Mobility Plus Project between Leiden University and the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies, in particular the Al-Biruni Centre of Oriental Manuscripts. The two-year project (2016-2018) envisages exchange of teaching staff…

Diede Farhosh-van Loon defended her thesis on 18 October 2016

From the rise and fall of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, to Islamic State’s attempts to create its own currency, to the dramatic return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, this edited volume from two leading scholars of contemporary terrorism assembles an enviable array of international experts to explore these…

'In Perspective' is the quarterly publication of the Faculty of Humanities in which we bundle some of our most high-profile stories. In Perspective is printed in limited quantities (currently only available in Dutch), spread amongst relations and partners and offered on coffeetables within our buildings.…

A Jurist's Travelogue

The EU and the World is a Jean Monnet Chair, awarded to Karolina Pomorska (Institute of Political Science, Leiden University). Its aim is to promote and strengthen teaching and research in European Studies in Leiden and in The Hague.

Devin DeWeese, Indiana University Bloomington, will be the Central Asia Visiting Professor between 5-17 September 2016. Professor DeWeese will deliver a guest lecture on Monday, 12 September (Lipsius 148, 3pm) and a masterclass on Friday, 16 September within the Central Asia initiative at Leiden Uni…

Hermeneutics and the Humanities: Dialogues with Hans-Georg Gadamer / Hermeneutik und die Geisteswissenschaften: Im Dialog mit Hans-Georg Gadamer

On the 24th of June Hossein Pourbagheri successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The NVIC has published a series of scholarly publications in Arabic and several European languages.

This summer school is for graduate (MA and PhD) students and researchers who have an interest in handwritten materials, editing, and the tradition of editing in the Muslim world. It offers theoretical lectures as well as hands-on practice with samples from the world-famous collections of the Leiden…

Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim World

The book ‘Pesticides and the Environment’ gives a transparent overview of facts and figures concerning pesticide use in the Netherlands and the impact of pesticides on the environment.