The Institute organises Arabic courses for universities, but also for companies, international organisations and individuals.

Research projects which are assisted by the NVIC in the field of Arabic studies.

Policymakers and Academics Speaking with Each Other

With Brill, LUCIS publishes a peer-reviewed book series, “Leiden Studies in Islam and Society” (LSIS), aimed at an international academic audience.

This book offers a new direction for the study of contemporary Islam by focusing on what being Muslim means in people’s everyday lives.

Thirteen Centuries of Creed, Conflict and Coexistence

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

Can we speak of a single Islamic discourse in fields like politics, militancy, economics, sustainable development, and the like, and what interaction does this Islamic though have with ‘Western’ thought?

The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto

Knowledge of Muslim societies is essential to function in a globalised world and to fully understand our own Dutch society. Leiden researchers explore the languages, cultures, religions, legal systems and history of Muslim societies and in this way contribute to a centuries-old tradition.

Sharia Incorporated: A Comparative Overview of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in Past and Present

Islam at 250: Studies in Memory of G.H.A. Juynboll is a collection of original articles on the state of Islamic sciences and Arabic culture in the early phases of their crystallization.

Facts, Fears and the Future of Islamic Rules on Family Relation in the West

Every year, in the last month of the Islamic calendar, millions of Muslims from around the world come together in Mecca to perform the Hajj, the pilgrimage that all capable Muslims should perform at least once in their lives. In 2013, the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden organised the exhibition…

Reconfigurations of Practice, Community and Authority in Contemporary Aceh

Studies on the Ottoman Jihad on the Centenary of Snouck Hurgronje's

Khadija Kadrouch-Outmany defended her thesis on 16 September 2014.

Islam is often studied as a distinct and uniform phenomenon that is or should be kept private, and stands apart from any other human activity, be it in the field of economics, law or politics.

How does the religious identity of islamic primary schools in the Netherlands relate to the social demands?

This month, the NISIS publication “Islamic Studies in the Twenty-first Century: Transformations and Continuities” was published by Amsterdam University Press. This volume brings together contributions of various speakers at past NISIS Autumn Schools, providing an overview of important issues in the…

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 Leiden Islam Blog offers a platform for scholars and publicists from Leiden and beyond to share their research and opinions with a broad audience.

As Lila Abu Lughod pointed out in 1989, North Africa has been one of the geographical ‘zones of prestige’ for the development of canonical approaches and crucial theoretical debates regarding the comparative study of Islam.

This programme starts from the idea that cultural discourse is one of the main engines of intellectual history and the history of ideas.

Muslim scholars work in a long and rich tradition of knowledge-production in their own culture.

The Leiden | Islam interview series contains short documentary-style videos including interview flashes with leading scholars in the field of Islam and Muslim societies. With this series, LUCIS aims to show the value of unconventional insights related to Islam and Muslim societies, and to relate them…

How have Muslims imagined the world before Muhammad? Stories about pre-Islamic times feature across all genres and periods of Arabic literature, and while many writers have derided the pre-Islamic past as disorderly paganism, others celebrate its memory as a time of Arab nobility and fine literature.…

This project explores how Muslim authorities and writers use Russian to transmit Islamic contents, and whether this leads to a specific

In this paper, Sibgatullina and Abbas aim to illuminate the complex connections between the European right-wing movements and Islam and discusses how the adoption of Muslim identity may function as a politically strategic opportunity for European conservative forces.

The present monograph, spanning a wide range of world and local literatures represents a high academic standard of both literary criticism and philological analysis. By demonstrating her expertise as an Africanist conversant with the Arabic canon, Raia reveals how the narrative of Joseph has been re-narrated…

In Women and Property Rights in Indonesian Islamic Contexts, eight scholars of Indonesian Islam examine women’s access to property in law courts and in village settings.

Jochem van den Boogert defended his thesis on 18 November 2015

Welcome to the Leiden University Centre for Islamic Thought and History. The initiatives and projects undertaken here are under the auspices of the Leiden University Centre for Intercultural Philosophy. As a centre, we aim to promote the study of Arabic and Islamic thought and history, in all its different…

From the formative period of Islam to the contemporary world, Muslims have negotiated changing modalities of being Muslim.

With Leiden University Press, LUCIS publishes a peer-reviewed book series “Debates on Islam and Society” aimed at a broad audience. A number of books in this series are available in open access.

How do the pathways of Dutch converts to Islam involved in jihadist movements differ from those of Dutch converts who are not, in terms of their life prior to Islam, their conversion experience and the form of involvement with the Islamic community after conversion?

The FOI project has a number of topics it aims to investigate. These are: State, Economy, Culture and Papyri. You will find links to bibliographies on this page.

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 Issues beneath the Surface

Systematic investigations into religious precepts, worldly rules of law and legal practices in the Muslim world show clearly how these societies deal with justice and injustice. Sharia, the Islamic ‘legal system’, plays an important role in this context.

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…

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.

What forms does Muslim religiosity take in daily life? What is the relation between representations of Islam and Muslims by scholars and the views that exist in the ‘real world’?

This NWO project, which is being be carried out in close cooperation with the universities of Oxford (contact: Prof. Robert Hoyland) and Princeton (contact: Prof. John F. Haldon) and the UMR 8167 (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS, University Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV, University Panthéon-Sorbonne,…