Here you can find annual reports and evaluation reports of LUCIS from previous years.

At our Summer School on Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim World we offer graduate students and researchers lectures by experts, practical classes, and hands-on experience with manuscripts from Leiden University’s famous collection of oriental manuscripts.

Each month we will be spotlighting material we have been reading, or that have been recommended to us that relate to AI and a particular theme.

LUCL is pleased to announce that two Vrije Competitie Grants have been awarded to LUCL researchers. Prof.dr. Lisa Cheng and dr. Jenny Doetjes have been awarded a grant for their project 'Understanding questions'. Prof.dr. Michael Kemper (UvA) and prof.dr. Jos Schaeken have been awarded a grant for the…

The Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabia aims to promote research on the ancient languages and cultures of Arabia, and to disseminate this knowledge to the broader public.

A project aimed at understanding the complicated process of religious transformation in one of the centres of the early Muslim world.

The subjects of the texts vary from Demosthenes to the delivery of camels in early Islamic Egypt, and their provenances stretch from the Eastern to the Western Desert, and from the Egyptian Nile valley to Qasr Ibrim in northern Nubia.

This research deals with the royal houses of the Vijayanagara Empire and four of its successor states: Ikkeri, Tanjavur (under both the Nayaka and Bhonsle rulers), Madurai, and Ramnad. This study is thus concerned with dynastic politics and imperial legacies in south India between the 14th and 18th…

Humanities, Institute for Area Studies

Self-censorship violates principles of a free society but few people want to take the role of the martyr.

In this project, M. Riep studies the complexity of historical events related to the Arab conquest of the region along the upper course of the Syr Darya in Central Asia and especially of the micro oases of Shash and Ferghana. This project focusses on mobility, action and dynamics and will place the Arab…

The 2012 crisis in Mali, where the state collapsed and terrorist groups took over the north, came as a surprise to many. Mali had been considered a poster-child for democracy and was judged as considerably more stable than its neighbors by leading quantitative indices of state fragility. This article…

In the following you will find a list of courses that are offered at Leiden University that are relevant to the study of Ancient Arabia.

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

Our researchers are experts in the fields of languages, cultures, history, arts, societies and philosophy. Together we cover almost all continents and time periods. Knowledge of these disciplines contributes to a humane, safe and sustainable world.

This volume was edited by Jeroen Duindam, Jill Harries, Caroline Humfress, and Nimrod Hurvitz.

The Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies (LAMS) is an academic initiative housed at the Leiden University Institute of Philosophy. It brings together researchers and academics working on one or more aspects of late antiquity and medieval studies, across the fields of philosophy, history, theology,…

Publications from the Project 0100 team members.

An overview of Academic E-Resources and Bibliographies

The Golden Horde Project was initiated by Dr. Marie Favereau and Dr. Gabrielle van den Berg. The initiative is funded by Asian Modernities and Traditions (AMT) and Leiden Global Interactions (LGI) research profile areas.

If you have a question, there are various ways to get in touch with us.

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…

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

Do you want to discover a language and culture that is completely different from the Netherlands? In the Bachelor's programme Middle Eastern Studies you will study the connections between the different cultures in the Middle-East in the past and present. You will be able to choose from the languages…

The coastal site of Butrint is situated on a peninsula in south-western Albania, opposite the island of Corfu and Apulia in southern Italy (across the Adriatic Sea). In Medieval times, Butrint served as a connecting bridge between East and West – between Byzantium and the Latin world.

Episode 1: The Golden Horde in a Global Perspective: Imperial Strategies. This project intends to challenge the conventional way of considering the nomadic state organizations and the role of Nomads in world history.

In ancient times, the steppe in the hinterland of Petra (Jordan) was transformed into a green oasis. This project tries to shed insights in the agricultural, water management and societal processes resulting in this transformation. This will be accomplished by practicing an interdisciplinary research…

The hinterland of important centres like Petra (Southern Jordan) can provide essential information that contribute to the understanding of their rise, expansion and decline.

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

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…

Athens is universally known as a symbol of democracy, philosophy, and ancient Greek aesthetics. Some of the most famous classical monuments, including the Parthenon and the temple of Hephaestus, can be found here.

The new Middle Eastern Library (MEL) will bring together the UBL's own Middle Eastern collections and the collections of the library of The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), which has been part of the Leiden University Libraries since 1st January 2018.

Religion, Philosophy, and the Pre-modern World

Leiden University works close with Indonesian and Dutch scholarship providers in order to expand the opportunities for Indonesian students to study in Leiden.

This project aims to revisit the ways in which religious minorities in the Middle East participated in, contributed to, and opposed the Arab nationalism of the post-war years, when the British and French ruled the region via the Mandates. Research question: How did religious minorities in the Middle…

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 study offers a new approach to the history of sites, archaeology, and heritage formation in Asia, at both the local and the trans-regional levels.

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.

This project examines the notion of sacred fertility and sacred landscapes, associated rituals and material culture, both archaeological and ethnographic manifestations in the Horn of Africa.

Huda Abi-Fares defended her thesis on 10 January 2017.