This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Humanities with Université Mohamed VI Polytechnique.

Morocco and the Netherlands have a strong bond. The modern community of Dutch people with Moroccan roots is part of a shared history spanning four centuries of social and academic exchange. As an institution that functions at the heart of Moroccan society and the university system, the Netherlands Institute…

NIMAR is the Netherlands expertise centre for Moroccan Studies. Starting 2016, NIMAR is a part of the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University. NIMAR organises lectures, facilitates research and actively adds to the knowledge of Moroccan languages, cultures and society in The Netherlands.

During the Autumn semester (September-December), the Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) offers a minor that focuses on the study of Morocco from a social sciences and humanities perspective.

This book provides a grammatical sketch, glossed texts and a glossary of Tarifiyt Berber, which is the main heritage language of the Moroccan community in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

What are the rights of migrants in Morocco and how does this receiving state and migrants deal with them in practice?

Hayat Essakkati grew up in the Netherlands and studied Public Administration in Leiden. She started her own company in Morocco, the country where her parents were born. 'Moroccan culture and religion are not as conservative as people in the Netherlands often think.'

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.

From 5 to 14 May, the recently reopened NIMAR is organising a study trip to a number of places in Morocco in collaboration with the Leiden Islam Academy. The theme for this trip is ‘Islam, gender and citizenship’. Registration closed down a few weeks ago, but there was a great deal of interest among…

Leiden historian Herman Obdeijn has created an exhibition for NIMAR about the centuries-old bond between the two countries. The exhibition opens on 1 March at the Université Mohammed V in Rabat. ‘The Moroccans changed from distant allies to close neighbours.’

Ethnography and Photography in a Moroccan Berber Village

The idea that prejudices about the (Middle)-East came to be during the colonisation of North-Africa in the 19th century is false. Mounir el-Badri wrote a cum laude bachelor thesis about orientalist judgments with which 18th century slaves in Morocco much earlier characterised their captors with.

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…

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

Are you a teacher (history, social studies, religion, philosophy, geography, etc.) and do you have questions about the relationship between citizenship and Islam? Consider joining NIMAR's study trip to Morocco.

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…

Strengthening the cooperation between Moroccan, other African, and Dutch institutions for higher education. This was the focus of a two-day seminar at NIMAR (Netherlands Institute Morocco) in Rabat in July, during which scholars of the African Studies Centre Leiden interacted with colleagues from NIMAR…

It was more than two years in the making, but despite the delays, giving up was not an option. In May, eighteen staff members of LUCAS and the Faculty of Archaeology visited NIMAR.

The Netherlands and Morocco: relations between the two countries go back a long way. Assistant professor Nadia Bouras is researching these relations. Of Moroccan migrant workers, she says, 'In the seventies the predominant idea was that everyone had the right to their own culture and religion. That's…

The Netherlands Institute in Morocco, part of Leiden University, is open for students from all academic and applied sciences universities in the Netherlands. Four students talk about the added value of studying in Rabat. 'I was surprised that Rabat is so modern.’

The NIMAR offers Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes about Morocco, the Arabic world and North-West Africa.

The Netherlands Institute in Morocco is housed in Rabat, Morocco. However, some of the staff members can be found at the Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University.

The Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) is a Leiden University institute. It is financed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The airspace had almost closed last year as Leiden students and staff rushed to leave the Netherlands Institute Morocco (NIMAR). How is this Leiden institute in Rabat doing over a year later? ‘Luckily we’d done a crisis exercise a few months before. Everyone managed leave the country in time.’

Humanities, The Netherlands Institute Morocco

This project investigates the influence that Arabic (esp. dialectal Arabic) has had on the Berber languages of Northern Africa.

Abdessamad El Amraoui defended his thesis on 6 Mai 2015.

Mr. S. Al Daghistani defended his thesis on 30 November 2017

The University has institutes in Jakarta, Cairo and Rabat:

The Faculty of Humanities has 8 institutes:

Debate, LUCIS Discussion Panel

Lecture, LUCIS Short Stay Visiting Scholar

Berber languages have long been banned from public life in North Africa, but the situation has changed drastically. Linguistic research is generating new insights on the distant past and on present-day Dutch Moroccans. This is the finding of Maarten Kossmann, the only professor of Berber Studies in…

When people migrate, they leave an old environment behind and move to a new one. What exactly happens? How do the migrants feel? How does the host society respond to them?

Humanities

Leiden University offers ambitious students the latest knowledge and the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

Book Launch

Southeast Asia is a term to denote a collection of at present eleven nation-states with an enormous diversity in languages, cultures and religions. Muslims can both take a majority and a minority position.

The Western Mediterranean is a key region to understand human dispersal events within and out of the African continent as well as for the eventual replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans during the Pleistocene. Central to any conclusive interpretation of archaeological and palaeoclimatic…

In this section, each project will have its own project page per country with a summary.

Assembling State, Space and Society on the Urban Margins in Morocco

Lecture

Programme management of research programme “Strengthening knowledge of and dialogue with the Islamic/Arab world”

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

This dissertation provides a grammatical description of Ghomara Berber, a Berber language spoken in North-West Morocco by about 10.000 people. The grammar consists of a description of the phonology, the morphology and the syntax. In the appendices a number of texts and a wordlist are included. The data…

LUCIS promotes high-quality research on Islam and Muslim societies and actively communicates the insights and findings of that research to the larger public.