A living language?

The Centre is the proud home of several research programmes.

At our regular panel discussions we bring together scholars and other experts to discuss a current topic that captures the interest of the general public as well as academics.

Understanding the history of Islam and Muslim societies sheds a clear light on the complex and changing social structures of the Middle East, including the current trouble spots whose effect spreads all the way to Western Europe.

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.

Papyrology+, founded in 2014, is a collaboration of Leiden scholars studying (Abnormal) Hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Arabic papyri from a socio-historical, economic and linguistic perspective. Papyrology+ aims to explore new opportunities and directions in the study of ancient…

Our institutes abroad are instrumental for Leiden’s internationalisation activities.

Lecture, Leiden Lectures on Arabic Language & Culture

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.

'Consider languages in their shared context.' That is the message of Professor and Arabist Beatrice Gründler, who will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on 8 February. ‘I would like people to learn that Arabic history has a close connection with Europe.’

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

The Role of Law in Libya’s National Reconciliation (RoLLNaR) was a research project that ran from 2017 to 2020. It identified and assessed the role of law – both actual and potential, enabling and constraining – with regard to major challenges of reconciliation in Libya. The project was led by Dr. Suliman…

Conference

Middle East Studies Lecture

In this sub-project a selected number of narrative texts will be examined written in the Eurasian realm in the period 1300-1800, focusing on representations of kingship and royal authority.

Associates of Leiden University Center for Intercultural Philosophy

This book argues that Armenians around the world – in the face of the Genocide, and despite the absence of an independent nation-state after World War I – developed dynamic socio-political, cultural, ideological and ecclesiastical centres. And it focuses on one such centre, Beirut, in the postcolonial…

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

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.

Lecture, Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

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

How should the Quran be read? The manuscript of this holy book makes different interpretations possible. Researcher Marijn van Putten has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant of two million euros to explore centuries-old recitations.

EU foreign policy has become increasingly politicised over the past years, amongst others as a consequence of the succession of crises. Crises may engender processes of crisis framing and contestation. This article focuses on how the policy demands being voiced in these processes of contestation are…

Do you want to do your minor in Morocco? Then choose the minor Culture and Society in Morocco! You'll about Moroccan culture, society and languages, and a solid training in ethnographic research methods.

Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim World

‘Islam and Muslims are not something that happened to Europe; they are part of Europe. In fact, Islam is one the biggest constants in European history,’ argues Professor Maurits Berger in the new eight-part Matters of Humanities: History of Islam in Europe podcast series of the Leiden University Faculty…

At LUCIS we offer a varied programme of scholarly meetings (conferences, workshops) which reflect our multidisciplinary and comparative view on Islam and Muslim societies in past and present.

Every semester, LUCIS invites a scholar to Leiden to provide a lecture series on a topic of their choice. With these lectures, we aim to present state-of-the-art research in Islamic studies to the Leiden academic community and beyond, and to offer students and junior researchers the opportunity to get…

Leiden University offers courses about papyri and papyrology for beginners and more advanced students (BA and MA), both based on texts in translation as well as in the original source languages, from Egyptian to Greek, Latin and Arabic.

This Global and Comparative Philosophy master’s programme is unique in Europe. It offers comparative perspectives from around the world that will enable you to be part of the next generation of thinkers: someone studying and shaping philosophy for a globalised 21st century.

The hinterland of important centres like Petra (Southern Jordan) can provide essential information that contribute to the understanding of their rise, expansion and decline.

During the autumn semester (September–December), NIMAR offers an English taught minor that focuses on the study of Morocco from both a social sciences and humanities perspective. The semester teaches ethnographic research skills in a Moroccan setting.

The refurbished P.J. Veth Building - the first completed sub-project in the Humanities Campus project - was officially opened in the summer of 2017. The Faculty of Humanities moved in straight away. . The building was meticulously transformed into a modern teaching building with attractive areas for…