On 18 May 2022, Annelien Bouland defended her thesis 'Please give me my divorce: an ethnography of Muslim women and the law in Senegal'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof.dr. J.M. Otto, Prof.dr. M.M.A. Kaag and Dr.ir. C.I.M. Jacobs.

Mr. Ade Jaya Suryani defended his thesis on 28 January 2021

This book examines the impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on national and international jurisprudence, since its adoption in 1989.

Arabic and its Alternatives discusses the complicated relationships between language, religion and communal identities in the Middle East in the period following the First World War.

Terrorism has been one of the most important threats to peace, security and stability in many parts of the world. But what does this mean? What is the nature of this threat? What can be done about it and how can we at least limit the impact of terrorism?

The edited volume 'Arabic in context: celebrating 400 years of Arabic at Leiden University' edited by Ahmad Al-Jallad is out. The volume contains the contributions to the 2013 conference with the same title, held at Leiden University and was published as part of Brill's the Studies in Semitics Language…

This book presents an understanding of the concept of Countering Violent Extremism from a critical terrorism studies perspective using case studies from different countries while examining the issues it raises.

Leiden University seeks to bring knowledge, academic top talents, and resources from Leiden and Latin America and the Caribbean together in mutually beneficial joint research projects that are content-driven, based on existing excellent research. Connecting research and researchers.

To complement scholarly knowledge with journalistic insights, LUCIS regularly invites journalists to share their perspective on current events.

The Layered Heart : Essays on Persian Poetry is published in celebration of the poet and scholar Dick Davis, dubbed “our pre-eminent translator from Persian” by The Washington Post.

In the Master's programme Crisis and Security Management, specialisation Terrorism and Political Violence, we focus on the academic body of knowledge on different form of protests, contention, resistance and violence. We explore and explain the emergence of radical and extremist movement.

The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity—its merits, values, and origins—at a time of political unrest and fragmentation, written by one of the most important scholars of the early Abbasid era.

On Wednesday 3 September 2025 Yu Ai successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Computers are capable of making incredibly accurate predictions on the basis of machine learning. In other words, these computers can learn without intervention once they have been pre-programmed by humans. At LIACS, we explore and push the borders of what a revolutionary new generation of algorithms…

In this project, we will study the genetic and environmental drivers of woodiness and stem lignification at the level of plant‐to‐gene‐to‐molecule.

What inspires scholars who study the history, cultures, religions and languages of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia? LUCIS interviewed scholars about their work and research in the video project “Passion in Profession”. The videos are available online now.

Paolo Sartori is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Iranian Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. In Leiden he will deliver one guest lecture on Twilight of the Persianate: The Vernacularization of Central Asia (18th - early 20th Centuries) on 12 April and a masterclass on How can we…

Pastoralist Societies, Rock Art and Literacy in Jordan’s Black Desert (200 BC to 800 AD)

If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

The main focus of this research project is to investigate why people in Eastern Arabia chose to reuse ancient tombs and how this can be linked to collective memory.

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo is an academic centre providing services for scholars and students from the supporting universities.

This centre brings together the research of the members of the Institute of Philosophy and affiliated academics whose work focuses on the history of philosophy broadly conceived. Research interests range from ancient to near-contemporary philosophy in various regions of the world, and cover all subdisciplines…

Stella Morgana defended her thesis on 31 March 2021

Are you interested in studying South and South East Asian Studies at Leiden University? To have an impression of the student life, see the overview of a typical day out of the life of Yaska Sahara, first-year student.

A measured yet theoretically innovative exploration of how Islamophobia and radicalisation intersect and reinforce each other.

Leiden’s Faculty of Humanities is one of the broadest of its kind, offering courses in no fewer than 80 different languages and a very broad spectrum of academic disciplines.

The programme consists of 60 EC, to be completed in one year.

Many conflicts in Africa have been studied and described as location and time bound. Yet conflict is rarely confined and contained, and instead reaches across communities, borders, and generations.

Leiden Journal of Pottery Studies 23, 2007

What is the impact of Indonesia’s democratization process on everyday state-citizen relations?

This book is the first comparative study of estimative intelligence and strategic surprise in a European context, complementing and testing insights from previous studies centred on the United States. It does extensive empirical analysis of open-source material and interviews in relation to three cases…

The conquest by Rome brought profound changes to large parts of Europe. Unprecedented infrastructural works were created, towns sprang up, a ribbon of fortresses was laid out along the frontiers.

Otrar as a Case Study for a 6-10th century Transition Zone

Leiden University Centre for Intercultural Philosophy (LUCIP) is a centre housed in the Institute for Philosophy at Leiden University.

New insights for policy promoting peace and security in Europe and the world.

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

In this article, Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn and Edwin Bakker provide a big picture reflection on two decades after 9/11 in Western Europe.

The NVIC library is a public, academic reference library. Entrance is free—no membership needed—and offers access to our book collection and two reading rooms, which have a WiFi connection. It is not possible to borrow books from our library.

If you are interested in an academic programme, but do you not wish to complete the entire programme? Then, you can choose one of the many à la carte courses the Faculty of Humanities offers.

Religion, Philosophy, and the Pre-modern World

Hifadhi ya Dijiti ya Ustadh Mau

Update : March 2020 A.J. Mills