This research project is supported by an NWO Aspasia grant, DeepDish TV, crowd-sourced funding, and the Democracy and Media Foundation.

Update : August 2017 Dr Willem van Haarlem

An overview of the educational profile of the Leiden Institute for Philosophy, including its global teaching focus, curriculum themes, and supervision model.

Majuka Tanabe defended her thesis on 17 June 2015

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.

The WARN project seeks to understand why certain warnings fail to reach and impact decision makers in time to avert crisis.

From 15 to 20 November 2015 twelve members of the Winter-semester intake of theInternational Humanitarian Law Clinic of the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum attended and actively participated in an international exchange conference on International Humanitarian Law at Radzyner Law School, IDC in Herzliya, Is…

Academic staff and students blog about their research and teaching.

The philosophers at the Institute for Philosophy develop new perspectives and insights not only on topical themes such as immigration and climate change, but also on more fundamental philosophical questions.

Muslims have lived in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe for centuries. Their arrival in Western Europe, the two Americas and Australia is however relatively recent. Studying how Muslims relate to their Western environment (and vice versa) and the mutual influences of Western and Islamic philosophies…

Information about the association and the board.

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 27 November 2025 at 6:00 pm.

The launch meeting of the Leiden Islam Academy on 7 December in the Academy Building drew just the right audience: a diverse group of people who were all in some way engaged with Islam. This was just what the directors of the Academy, Maurits Berger and Fatiha Azzarhouni, were hoping for.

The aim of Leiden Islam Academy is to share the broad knowledge of Islam existing in Leiden University with various parties within society, and to bring people together. After three years of preparation, the launch meeting will take place on 7 December.

The safety of students is a priority and hence an ever recurring issue at the NVIC. NVIC not only attaches great importance to the safety of its students, but also that its students feel safe.

This year, LUCIS adapted the programme of its popular annual Middle Eastern Culture Market into an evening version, featuring a lecture, book discussion, and music.

Ali Al Tuma, PhD candidate at the Leiden University Institute for History, has won the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity for his play ‘Yusuf Melik Espanya’ (Yusuf King of Spain), that tells the story of a young Moroccan whose brothers conspire to send him off, against his will, to the Spanish Civil…

LUCL is glad to announce that two of its members have been awarded an NWO Vrije Competitie Grant.

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

The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) has appointed four Leiden professors as members. Petra Sijpesteijn, Vanessa Mak, Mariska Kret and Miranda van Eck have recently joined the KHMW.

Apply now for the LUCIS Summer School on Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim world, which will take place from Tuesday 15 August until Friday 25 August 2017 in Leiden. The deadline for applications is Friday 16 June 2017.

On February 1st 2016 the first Rabat semester at the Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) has started. During the semester, organised for students of Arabic (Middle-Eastern Studies), participants will study Modern Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Moroccan culture and society, Berber languages and…

This fall, LUCIS will have the pleasure of welcoming Professor Maribel Fierro, Research Professor at the CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid), to Leiden. She is the third Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation Visiting Professor in Arabic Culture at Leiden University…

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.

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)…

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!

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..

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…

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…

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.

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…

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

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,

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?'…

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.

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 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.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Veni funding to four Humanities researchers in at Leiden University. This award offers promising young scientists the opportunity to develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

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 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.

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.

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

Professor Petra Sijpesteijn has been elected as an International Fellow of the British Academy, a prestigious recognition that highlights her exceptional contributions to the study of early Islamic history.

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

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