This historical study argues that the Mandaean religion originated under Sasanid rule in the fifth century, not earlier as has been widely accepted. It analyzes primary sources in Syriac, Mandaic, and Arabic to clarify the early history of Mandaeism.

An overview of Professional Associations and Journals

This anthology contributes to a historically grounded understanding of the complex relationship between Christian missions and the roots of humanitarianism and its contemporary uses in a Middle Eastern context.

Vol. V, Sections 1-2

Within Una Europa, academic collaboration takes place in interdisciplinary Self Steering Committees (SSCs)

Our staff and students serve on task forces that aim to translate key Una Europa themes into concrete actions.

Humanities are needed to make sense of social issues. Watch or listen to the stories of our experts who tell about their research and the impact on society. Get to know the world at Humanities!

 The International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) invites submissions for its tenth congress, to be held in Leiden from 22 to 25 March 2027. 

A better understanding of Morocco and the Arab world is crucial for international relations and for Dutch society. This was the key message of Minister of Education, Culture and Science Jet Bussemaker and Ahmed Aboutaleb, Mayor of Rotterdam, at the opening of the renewed Netherlands Institute in Morocco…

Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim World

Una Europa launches regular seed funding calls. Leiden University and other Una Europa partners also often offer funding for projects involving Una Europa universities.

Combining approaches from intellectual history, philology and the study of Arabic manuscripts, this study places the Bornu scholar Muḥammad al-Wālī within his intellectual environment on the one hand, and it portrays him as someone who responded to the concerns of ordinary Muslims around him on the…

During the period 500–1000 CE Egypt was successively part of the Byzantine, Persian and Islamic empires. All kinds of events, developments and processes occurred that would greatly affect its history and that of the eastern Mediterranean in general. This is the first volume to map Egypt's position in…

Links to related organisations, institutes, journals and archives.

Welcome to the |0100| blog where our team will be sharing insights from the field and contributing to the various discussions and debates around AI, Islam and scripting futures.

Until 2019, LUCIS hosted one annual lecture, inviting an eminent scholar to give a large-scale lecture in one of the finer halls at Leiden University. Because of their success, we now organise four larger lectures every year, entitled LUCIS Keynotes.

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (the NVIC) was founded in 1971. Nine universities in the Netherlands and Flanders participate in the institute with an aim to stimulating internationalisation of their teaching and research activities in the Middle East.

Meet Bart, Reza, Weiyan, James, Daphne and Yasmin.

Published by Brill Nijhoff and written by leading experts including national judges, academics and practitioners East African Community Law is the first comparative as well as open access textbook on EAC law. The book provides a key resource for the research, teaching, and practice of EAC law. It also…

On 27 September 2017 a new book by Prof. Luuk van Middelaar appeared, entitled The new politics of Europe. The book is at the same time a front line account of Europe’s recent crisis years – from monetary turmoil to tensions around Ukraine, from refugee crisis to Brexit – and an analysis of the Union’s…

In this first ever podcast from LUCIS, hosts Yasmin Ismail & Sara Bolghiran explore what it means to imagine Muslim futures. Over 6 episodes we explore questions around what it means to imagine, the politics of imagination and what it would mean to engage with Muslims from the perspective of futures…

An overview of our exhibition catalogues and research monographs on the Middle Eastern collections.

In this section we will be sharing numerous resources with you on the project and the broader topics of Ai and Islam.

LUCITH runs a number of initiatives and programmes. You will find a list of initiatives and activities by the Centre for Islamic Thought and History.

Our library contains around 23,000 books, journals and historical documents under the care of a specialized librarian.

During the project, this page will be updated with news updates and events organised as part of the research project.

Ethnography and Photography in a Moroccan Berber Village

Dating back more than 400 years, Leiden University has the oldest continuous chair of Arabic outside the Arabic-speaking world. Today the MENA region is studied at Leiden from before the coming of Islam up to today from a wide array of disciplines. And Arabic is studied within the diverse linguistic,…

Jews and Christians in the Middle East

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with three universities in Kenya.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with the University of Dar es Salaam.

The FutureMED Postgraduate Programme, a collaboration between Leiden University's MA in International Relations (Faculty of Humanities) and the Alwaleed Centre at the University of Edinburgh's MSc in the Globalised Muslim World, offers a postgraduate student exchange experience focused on the Mediterranean…

This 25th volume in the series 'Islam in Africa', edited by Annachiara Raia, is a pioneering collection of poetry by the outstanding Kenyan poet, intellectual and imam Ustadh Mahmmoud Mau (born 1952) from Lamu island, once an Indian Ocean hub, now on the edge of the nation state.

What's New is a lecture series organised by LUCIS and the department of Middle Eastern Studies. The lectures focus on current research on Islam and the Middle East.

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…

Imami Shiʿism was a key part of the turbulent thesis and antithesis which formed Islam, and it remains greatly influential today. The aim of the ImBod project is to write the first comprehensive social history of the Imamate.

The NVIC offers academic courses in Arabic & Islamic studies and in the study of Ancient Egypt, in the framework of study programmes at the Dutch and Flemish universities that support the institute. NVIC also puts its teaching experience at the disposal of companies, embassies, international organisations…

The institute is funded by the Ministries of Education, Culture and Science and of Foreign Affairs and by Leiden University. To safeguard the institute’s independence and interests in Morocco, it is part of the Netherlands Embassy in Rabat under Moroccan law. The institute performs its tasks under the…

Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period. It inspired people to strive for social and political change, including sometimes by violent means, and prompted in return strong reactions against their religious activism.

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017

This dissertation is a study of archaeological remains left behind by nomadic communities in the Black Desert, situated in the northeast of modern Jordan.

The 10th ISAP Congress aims to bring together scholars working on papyri and related documentary sources in Arabic, Coptic, Greek, Pahlavi and other languages from the Late Antique and early Islamic Near East in order to foster dialogue between philology, papyrology, and historical research.

From Monday 15 until Thursday 18 October 2018, the eighth annual NISIS Autumn School will take place at the University of Groningen. This year’s Autumn School is organised by NISIS and the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen in cooperation with the Netherlands Organisation…

This week, Prof. Luuk van Middelaar (Europa Institute) publishes Alarums & Excursions: improvising Politics on the Europen Stage – a revised update of his 2017 book on the decade of EU crises.