Welcome to the website of Turkish Studies at Leiden University. On this website you will find information on the work and the activities of the people studying the Ottoman Empire and Turkey at Leiden University.

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

Middle East Studies Lecture

Engin Kiliç defended his thesis on 11 june 2015

Nuran Buket Cengiz defended her thesis on 13 June 2017

This article investigates the efforts of influential Turkish Muslim civil society actors to amplify the voices of Muslim women in the Netherlands.

Ömer Gürlesin defended his thesis on 28 November 2018

Stylianos Irakleous defended his thesis on 6 February 2020

Lecture, Book Talk

Erik-Jan Zürcher, professor of Turkish languages and cultures, returns his Turkish medal to protest against the repressive regime of Erdogan's government.

As a critical commemoration of its centenary, this book presents a mosaic of one hundred carefully curated fragments by expert authors, shedding light on politics, economy, society, culture, gender, and arts in a hundred years of Turkey.

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…

On Wednesday 14 May 2025 Remzi Çakırlar successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Turkish and Syrian students met Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl to discuss how the university can support students who have been affected by the earthquake.

This study is an attempt to reconstruct the muted violent past by breaking the monopoly of the Turkish state over the memory of the Armenian genocide.

On Thursday 29 January 2026 Uğur Derin successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

In less than a week’s time, millions of Turkish people are going to decide who will govern their country for the next five years. These elections promise to be the most closely contested in years, with the opinion polls showing very small differences and everything at stake, including for Europe. Alp…

This dissertations studies state-society relations in 1930s Turkey, focusing on the anti-veiling campaigns in the mid-1930s and aiming to understand the ways in which the Kemalist policies were received, interpreted, negotiated, compromised and/or resisted by various actors in the provinces.

The new Dutch-Turkish dictionary has been completed, just in time for the celebration of 400 years of Dutch-Turkish ties. It would not have been possible without Gerjan van Schaaik and Mehmet Emin Yıldırım from Leiden University. On Wednesday 18 April the Education Minister Marja van Bijsterveldt will…

Andrea Cortellari, a 2020 graduate of the MA program in Middle Eastern Studies at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies, wins the best MA thesis prize by the Society for Turkic, Ottoman, and Turkish Studies.

On 8 September the students of the European Law Master gathered in the Lorentzzaal for the festive opening of their programme.

This dissertation explores how domestic political power struggles in Greece and Turkey during the Cold War engaged with the ongoing conflict in Cyprus and aims to demonstrate how socialist parties in Greece and Turkey struggled with the concept of the “nation” in battling for power and political positioning…

Over a decade ago the then foreign minister Abdullah Gül awarded me the “Medal of High Distinction” of the Republic of Turkey. I received the award, consisting of a diploma and a gigantic gold medal, during a festive ceremony at the Turkish embassy in The Hague. The reason I was deemed worthy of the…

This COIn Grant 2025 awarded project allows Leiden University researchers and students to do research on the world’s largest corpus of digitized Ottoman language periodicals and books.

On 1 September 2022 Güldeniz Kibris successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On 19 July Erik-Jan Zürcher, professor of Turkish languages and cultures, made a TV appearance in Nieuwsuur to talk about the actions Erdogan took after the failed coup.

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.

On 7 September 2023 Didem Durak Akser successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Lecture

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…

In this research I assess the impact of the recently discovered gas reserves south off Cyprus on the escalation of the Cyprus conflict.

At Leiden University you can study Islam and Muslim societies within two Dutch-language BA and various MA programmes and specializations.

Bahar Şimşek defended her thesis on 4 May 2021.

The Netherlands Institute in Turkey (NIT) conducts scholarly research and supports the academic study of Turkey through the ages. The institute is closely affiliated with University’s Faculty of Humanities. Its facilities are available to students and staff of all universities in the Netherlands.

LIAS is comprised of three research schools with expertise in different areas:

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.

To reach a larger audience beyond the academy, a number of activities in the cultural realm have been programmed over the years.

The discussion on employability of higher education graduates has been around for several years, with more emphasis in the 21st century. Yet, universities are still challenged in the pursuit of providing work-ready graduates who can meet industry expectations.

LUCIS works with Science ON AIR to put its researchers in the spotlight. For that purpose, several online videos of LUCIS members have been produced.

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How did institutions and structures operate throughout the Muslim world from the earliest history of Islam into the early modern period?

In the globalised world of today, traditional definitions of national Self and national Other no longer hold. The unmistakable transformation of German and Dutch societies demands a thorough rethinking of national boundaries on several levels.

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

Platform for research about heritage languages spoken in the Netherlands

The new Middle Eastern Library (MEL) will bring together the UBL's own Middle Eastern collections and the collections of the library of The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), which has been part of the Leiden University Libraries since 1st January 2018.