Ever since its foundation, Leiden University has turned its gaze outwards to other cultures, languages and forms of academic practice. It is only natural, therefore, that we as a university have four institutes abroad: the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW)…

Students interested in the study of Morocco can enroll in English-taught minor ‘Culture and Society in Morocco’, starting in September at the NIMAR institute in Rabat. The minor is accessible for all students of universities in The Netherlands.

Have you heard about the book bus project (عربية الحواديت) in Sharqiya? This wonderful initiative encourages children, who don't have easy access to books, to read by spreading books by car. They are also setting up a library!

Dear friends of the NVIC,

Luca Bruls is currently doing an internship at NVIC. Besides that she works on an ethnographic account of the museum of Islamic art in Cairo. Read more…

Minister Jet Bussemaker (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science) will open the new headquarters of NIMAR (Netherlands Institute in Morocco) in Rabat on 1 March, in the presence of Mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb and Rector of Leiden University Carel Stolker. The institute has been part of Leiden…

Marjam Peters has just started her four-month internship at NVIC. She also works on developing a research on gender and sexuality in Cairo. Read more..

The perception of the Middle East is riddled with stereotypes that have had dire consequences on its people. What is myth and what is reality? How did these stereotypes come about? What consequences have they had? All of these questions and more are answered within this reading list.

Studying one another’s languages and cultures fosters understanding between groups of people, which leads to more equality, along with increased economic, administrative, and cultural cooperation.

Women behind the front play an important role in a large proportion of Iranian novels, written on the Iran and Iraq-war (1980-1988). But their martyrdom is an uncommon theme. Saeedeh Shahnahpur will give a lecture on this subject on 16 February.

The 'language analysis interview' on the basis of which the Immigration and Naturalisation Department attempts to determine where an asylum-seeker without any documents comes from, does not meet the criteria of reliability and validity. Joachim Detailleur, student of Arabic, substantiates this statement…

Professor Peter Bisschop has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. He will invest the 2.5 million euros in his research into puranas: ancient texts, commonly written in Sanskrit, that are up to fifteen hundred years old.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Veni funding to seventeen researchers who recently obtained their PhD. This award offers promising young scientists the opportunity to develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

What is the name of the medieval Persian poet Nezami (✞ ca. 1209) doing on the cover of an Eric Clapton rock album? Asghar Seyed Gohrab, associate professor at the Institute for Area Studies, talks about it in a new blog for the Leiden Medievalists Blog.

PhD defence

Lecture, Lunch Time Talk

Persian stories with beautiful miniatures, letters on papyrus from Egyptian traders and medicinal manuscripts translated from Greek and edited in Arabic. Studium Generale organizes a lecture series on the world-famous manuscripts from the Middle East collection of Leiden University Libraries (UBL).…

Dear friends of the NVIC,

'How do you write a slogan to win an election?' Steven Ooms answers this question in his PhD research into ideas about good prose in the time of Caesar and Emperor Augustus. This period is considered a high point for the development of literature. The Roman Cicero and the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus…

With Muslim Futures, our ambition is to create spaces where imagination leads. In an increasingly destabilizing global context, where climate, economic, and social crises expose the limits of current systems, people across disciplines are beginning to ask: 'What kind of society do we want to live in?'…

Three young lecturers are to receive a Comenius Teaching Fellow grant of 50,000 euros. The grant will allow each of them to implement an innovation project in their teaching.

The Netherlands Institute in Morocco is open to students from all Dutch universities. Two students explain why they are spending a semester studying in Rabat.

The relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia is worse than ever. According to Iran specialist Maaike Warnaar, it will be difficult to achieve peace in the region if there is no rapprochement between the two countries.

I’m Laurence Peelen and I am the new intern at the NVIC. I just finished my BA Islam Studies at the Radboud University Nijmegen and I wanted to gain some more experience in the MENA region at the start of my Master’s program.

The new mission of the Netherlands Institute in Morocco, NIMAR, is a broad one, in which the focus is on strengthening knowledge of each other's societies, languages and cultures. Leiden University will be responsible for research and education within the NIMAR.

Leiden scholars succeeded in making Arabic accessible to Western academic communities as early as the sixteenth century. But how did they approach this problem?

In its session of 15 April 2024, the Austrian Academy of Sciences elected professor Petra Sijpesteijn as one of its new Corresponding Members.

I am Sijmen Wals and this semester I'll be the new intern at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo.

The Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabia (LeiCenSAA) announces a new open access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the epigraphy of Arabia and its cultural and linguistic context: Arabian Epigraphic Notes

The book on Turkey. A Modern History written by Professor Erik-Jan Zürcher, Professor of Turkish Studies, is now available in nine different languages. Arabic and Polish versions have now been published.

International conference “Bodies of Knowledge: Arabic Language, Egyptian Labor, and Communities of Practice in the History of Archaeology & Egyptology” 19-21 November 2024

Our MA student Marie Costers from the University of Antwerp wrote about her experiences as a student at NVIC in Spring 2025!

Dear friends of the NVIC

With the help of the JEDI fund, Fatima al Moufridji and Thijs Porck went in search of cultural contacts between early medieval England, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. Together they made four knowledge clips that can now be seen on YouTube.

Ahab Bdaiwi, University Lecturer of Islamic history, religion and philosophy, was received the first Faculty Impact Award. His interest lies in ‘everything that has to do with antiquity’, especially the religious and philosophical ideas that arose at that time. ‘They can move people. And many of those…

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.

A new elective course, 'History of Morocco and the Moroccans in The Netherlands

Een uitbreiding van de NIMAR collectie van de Universitaire bibliotheken Leiden.

Dear friends of the NVIC,

The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (AIBL), one of the five academies that make up the Institut de France, has elected professor Petra Sijpesteijn as foreign corresponding member (correspondant étranger), to fill the seat of the renowned Egyptologist Edda Bresciani.

Coming semester Karen Vet will be joining our team as the new intern. She has a BA in Middle Eastern Studies from Leiden University, specializing in Arabic language and culture.

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.

Applications are invited for a postdoctoral fellowship for up to 6 months, connected to the ERC- funded research project Rethinking Disability at Leiden University, in cooperation with the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo.

To be eligible for Middle Eastern Studies at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

They first entered the Academy Building fifty to sixty years ago. On 28 March, they were back for an afternoon: the members of the Dr Pfiffikus debating society of the German Studies programme. Former chair Hans van der Veen looks back on his student days.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic situation, the Archaeology/Egyptology programme for this year comes in a new form. It is all-digital; consisting of virtual museum tours, Arabic classes, and Egyptology lectures!

Assistant Professor Anna Dlabacova has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council. She will use this grant of around 1.5 million euros to conduct research on the Dutch vernacular ‘book of hours’.