Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies

We congratulate our alumna Nora Derbal. Her newly published book "Charity in Saudi Arabia: Civil Society under Authoritarianism" has been selected as one of the "Books of the Year 2022" by the Times Literary Supplement in November 2022.

This bilingual volume examines the relationship between faith, norms and everyday objects from the perspectives of different disciplines. The objects testify to the fact that rules and norms that restrict the freedom of the individual exist in all societies, but are at the same time permanently questioned, renegotiated, and changed. With contributions by Stefan Maneval, Schirin Amir-Moazami, Amro Ali, and others.

Our alumna Nora Derbal has published her dissertation "Charity in Saudi Arabia: Civil Society under Authoritarianism", an ethnographic study of everyday charity practices in Jeddah as part of the Cambridge Middle East Studies book series, published by Cambridge University Press.

The 34th DOT will take place from September 12 to 17, 2022 at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 24 sections representing the entire range of relevant disciplines, scholars of all career stages will present and discuss their research, among them several of our PIs. Our PIs Beatrice Gründler, Shabo Talay and Alberto Cantera Glera are part of the organising committee.

"A Neo-Fatimid Treasury of Books. Arabic Manuscripts among the Alawi Bohras of South Asia" shifts the focus from the study of manuscripts as material objects to the social framework within which they gain meaning through their interaction with readers. In utilising extensive archival and ethnographic fieldwork including unique access to the Alawi Bohra treasury of books, Olly Akkerman shows that the manuscript transmission of Fatimid manuscripts is as much alive today as centuries ago and that the Alawi Bohra community’s manuscript collection is fundamental to the construction of its Neo-Fatimid identity.

The project "Mobility Regimes of Pandemic Preparedness and Response (MoRePPaR): The Case of Covid-19" examines and compares strategies for mobility monitoring and restriction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, South Korea, and Germany with regards to their individual, social, and political repercussions.

Our doctoral fellow Aslı Altınışık's translation titled "Dindarlığın Siyaseti. İslami Uyanış ve Feminist Özne" is the first Turkish translation of Mahmood's influential ethnography about a grassroots women's piety movement in the mosques of Cairo. "Politics of Piety" provides an analysis located at the nexus of ethics and politics, embodiment and gender, liberalism and postcolonialism.

The forth issue of GAMSzine, the magazine of the Department of Gender and Media Studies for the South Asian Region at HU Berlin, has been published. With contributions by Wikke Jansen, Salma Siddique and Nadja-Christina Schneider, among others.

"Ein Bestseller der islamischen Vormoderne. Zur Verbreitung von Ḫvāndamīrs 'Ḥabīb as-siyar' von Anatolien bis auf den indischen Subkontinent" examines, over a period from the 16th to the 20th century, the dissemination, readership, and reception of one of the most frequently copied historical works of Islamic intellectual history, the Persian world chronicle 'Ḥabīb as-siyar'. Bockholt's monograph is published Open Access by the Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

"Forms of Migration: Global Perspectives on Im/migrant Art and Literature” (edited by Stefan Maneval & Jennifer A. Reimer) explores the potential of art, literary and other forms of expression to shape our understanding of transnational migration. Addressing im/migrant culture around the globe, this book is a rich, illustrated collection of essays, poetry, creative nonfiction, interviews, and visual material. Written from a large variety of disciplines, it includes analyses of diasporic fashion, cinema, literature, performances, mixed media installations, painting and photography.

Our alumnus Syaifudin Zuhri has published his dissertation "Wali Pitu and Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia. Inventing a Sacred Tradition". This ethnographic study investigates issues of saint worship tradition, relations between Islam and Hinduism and between different Muslim groups in Bali.

Our alumnus Jannis Julien Grimm has published his dissertation "Contested Legitimacies. Repression and Revolt in Post-Revolutionary Egypt". In this monograph, he explores the rise and fall of different coalitions of contenders and their impact on Egypt’s political transition.

Our alumna Laura Hindelang recently published her dissertation "Iridescent Kuwait. Petro-Modernity and Urban Visual Culture since the Mid-Twentieth Century". In it, she examines the visual legacy of petro-modernity in Kuwait through a variety of different visual sources ranging from historical photographs to contemporary art.

The third issue of GAMSzine, the magazine of the Department of Gender and Media Studies for the South Asian Region at HU Berlin, has been published. With contributions by Wikke Jansen, Salma Siddique and Nadja-Christina Schneider, among others.

In their October issue, campus.leben featured our doctoral fellow Heba Amin who also took up a position as a professor at Kunsthochschule Stuttgart this semester

An article by our alumna Alina Kokoschka that first appeared in the edited volume "Muslim Matter" was translated to English and Russian and published in the EastEast Magazine as "The Thing With Islam" / Те самые вещи ислама.

The second issue of GAMSzine, the magazine of the Department of Gender and Media Studies for the South Asian Region at HU Berlin, has been published. With contributions by Nadja-Christina Schneider and Salma Siddique, among others.

The newly published dissertation of our alumnus Philip Bockholt is a historiogriphal study of writing chronicles in the premodern Islamic world. It also offers an in-depth analysis of Persian scholar Khvāndamīr’s universal history Ḥabīb al-siyar.

Prathama Banerjee from the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi speaks about anti-historical excursions from South Asia. With an introduction by Kai Kresse (ZMO, BGSMCS) and discussion with Abdulkader Tayob (University of Cape Town), moderated by Hansjörg Dilger (BGSMCS). The annual Berlin Southern Theory Lectures at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient aim to decenter and diversify theoretical debates in the social sciences and humanities.

The dissertation of our alumnus Benedikt Pontzen was published as a book. "Islam in a Zongo" is a detailed anthropological study of Muslim communities in southern Ghana.

The dissertation of our alumna Dunja Rašić was published as a book. It sheds light on the relationship between language, logic and grammar in the teachings of the grammarian ‘Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Saḥl Ibn al-Sarrāj whose works on Aristotelian logic had a great impact on the study philosophy and Arabic grammar in 10th-century Baghdad.

Our alumna Nadja Danilenko has published her dissertation "Picturing the Islamicate World. The Story of al-Iṣṭakhrī’s Book of Routes and Realms". In this monography, she explores the oldest preserved maps of the Islamicate world and their manuscript tradition.

For her book What is 'Islamic' Art? Between Religion and Perception (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Prof. Dr. Wendy M. K. Shaw has received the MESA Book Award 2020, the most significant prize in Middle Eastern Studies worldwide. Announced at the Middle East Studies Association’s Annual Meeting, the award honors works that exemplify innovative basic research, scholarly excellence, and clarity of presentation. In her book, Shaw explores the perception of arts, including painting, music, and geometry through the discursive sphere of historical Islam.

Co-directed by our fellow Philip Geisler, the Trickster Orchestra currently presents new concert projects. The orchestra critically assesses exoticizing orders of music and works with music theories and instruments from Europe, West-, Central-, and East Asia to create trans-traditional musical languages and music theater pieces for contemporary art music based partly in Turkish, Arabic, and Persian music traditions and literary subjects.

Our Alumna Antonia Bosanquet has published her dissertation. "Minding Their Place: Space and Religious Hierarchy in Ibn al-Qayyim's Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma" is the first full-length study of Ibn al-Qayyim’s (d. 751/1350) collection of rulings relating to non-Muslim subjects, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma. Bosanquet argues that it represents the author’s personal composition rather than a synthesis of medieval rulings, and analyses how Ibn al-Qayyim uses the notion of space to convey his view of religious hierarchy.

Felwine Sarr (University Gaston Berger in Saint Louis, Senegal) speaks about "Rewriting the Humanities from Africa: For an Ecology of Knowledge". Followed by a discussion with Kai Kresse (ZMO, FU Berlin). With an introduction and moderation by Alexis von Poser (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), Hansjörg Dilger, Sandra Calkins and Kristina Mashimi (all three FU Berlin). The annual Berlin Southern Theory Lectures at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient aim to decenter and diversify theoretical debates in the social sciences and humanities.

On October 11, 2019, PD Dr. Axel Havemann passed away in Burgas, Bulgaria, at the Black Sea. For more than four decades, he was a steadfast presence at the Institut für Islamwissenschaft in Berlin. He introduced generations of students to the history of Lebanon since the 19th century and the social and economic history of the Early and Middle Islamic periods. In the new issue of "Der Islam" (97/1, 2020), Stefan Heidemann (University of Hamburg) has published an obituary for him.

BGSMCS doctoral researcher Heba Y. Amin is currently holding an exhibition at the Zentrum für verfolgte Künste (Center for Persecuted Arts) in Solingen, Germany. Amin's multi-material work recontextualises narratives about European colonial history and cultural imperialism in the Middle East.

BGSMCS alumnus Stefan Maneval has been elected as a member of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA). Based at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW), AGYA aims to establish a community of outstanding Arab and German researchers (3-10 years after earning their PhD), by supporting joint innovative projects in various fields of research across different disciplines.

Our alumna Alina Kokoschka's dissertation "Waren Welt Islam. Konsumkultur und Warenästhetik in Syrien 2000−2011" looks at Syrian society in the pre-war decade through its commodities and comsumption culture. It shows how everyday life was organised in the context of a growing islamisation of society and the remains of Arabic socialism, in the area of tension between Islam and regime, as well as an economic opening to "the West" and to consumer's cultures of the surrounding regions.

Tracing the emergence of ‘New Islamic Urbanism’, this book sheds light on the changing conceptions of public and private space, in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Showing that the rigid segregation regime for which the country is known serves to constrain the movements of men and women alike, Stefan Maneval provides a nuanced account of the negotiation of public and private spaces in Saudi Arabia.

The Dahlem Research School honoured Wendy Shaw for her exceptional commitment in the supervision of doctoral researchers. Shaw had been nominated by current and former doctoral candidates, whose favourable comments convinced a jury. In his laudatory speech, Markus Edler explained how Shaw's diverse network was a gain for her students. The nominators had also praised how exceptionally supportive Shaw was for young academics whose freedom of research was restricted in their home countries. Moreover, Shaw had become a role model of good scientific practice.

Our Principal Investigator Beatrice Gründler, Professor for Arabic Language and Literature at the Institute of Arabic and Semitic Studies, was awarded the Berliner Wissenschaftspreis 2019, honoring her excellent research on arabic literature and her contribution "to a public and differentiated discourse on arabic-islamic culture", as Berlin's governing mayor Michael Müller stated.

For the upcoming two years, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation will fund a Post-Doc scholarship at BGSMCS. It aims at supporting researchers on their way to their habilitation. Thus, the programme in support of PostDoc researchers at BGSMCS can continue.

Our programme offers excellent academic training and supervision, support structures for professional and personal development, and membership in a diverse and international group of doctoral researchers. Our graduates work in academica, political and cultural institutions, and civil society organisations.
Here is how our doctoral students summarise their experience.

Our alumnus Philip Bockholt was awarded the research prize of the Annemarie Schimmel Foundation for Islamic Studies on October 3, 2019 in Hamburg at the DAVO Conference & Workshop of the DMG Section Islamic Studies. The prize is endowed with 5000€.
In September, Bockholt had already been awarded the Honourable Mention of the 2019 S.I.E. European Award for Iranian Studies at the 9th European Conference of Iranian Studies at Freie Universität Berlin.

Congratulations!

We are very happy to announce that our PI Schirin Amir-Moazami was awarded the 2nd Avicenna Prize on September 18, 2019! The chairman of the Avicenna-Studienwerk, Prof. Dr. Bülent Uçar, paid tribute to her "productive, tireless and innovative work with regard to religious topics". Her research enriches both basic research and current socio-political discourses.

"Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience" is an exploration of the ideas and public discussions that have shaped and defined the experience of Kenyan coastal Muslims. Focusing on Kenyan postcolonial history, Kai Kresse isolates the ideas that coastal Muslims have used to separate themselves from their "upcountry Christian" countrymen. This historical ethnography of the postcolonial experience provides a non-Western model to understand regional conceptual frameworks and intellectual practice.

The book of our Alumna Juliane MüllerNahrungsmittel in der arabischen Medizin. Das Kitāb al-Aġdhiya wa-l-ašriba des Naǧīb al-Dīn as-Samarqandī was awarded the "26th World Award for the Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran" in Teheran on 5 February 2019.

This edited volume showcases a variety of innovative approaches to the study of Muslim societies and cultures, inspired by and honouring Gudrun Krämer and her role in transforming the landscape of Islamic Studies. With contributions from various scholars associated with BGSMCS, including our Alumna Alina Kokoschka, our former Managing Director Bettina Gräf and Principal Investigators Schirin Amir-Moazami, Birgit Krawietz, Kai Kresse and Cilja Harders.

Is independent documentary filmmaking possible in the Kashmir conflict? Focusing on mobility, Max Kramer demonstrates new theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of cinematic practices in conflict regions. He argues that the production of testimony is increasingly related to different moments of mobility. With a praxeological approach to cinematic form, the creation and negotiation of audiovisual testimonies of conflict is analyzed.

The institutes of Islamic Studies and Arabic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin hold a lecture series on the "Configurations of Race, Religion, and Language in Modern Knowledge". The events are organized by Prof. Schirin Amir-Moazami (Islamic Studies) und Prof. Islam Dayeh (Arabic Studies).

Our Alumna Saskia Schäfer has received the "Freigeist-Fellowship” from Volkswagen Foundation for her research project "Secularity, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia and Turkey". The project analyses democratization processes in Indonasia and Turkey. Saskia Schäfer is working with her research team at the Institute for Asian and African Studies of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Our Alumna Nora Derbal has received the 2. Award (Deutscher Studienpreis 2018) in the section humanities and cultural studies of KörberStiftung. The price will be officially awarded by Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble on 10 December 2018.

Our doctoral fellow Heba Y. Amin exhibits her latest art works on the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art!
What if Africa and Europe converge? A new supercontinent called Atlantropa emerges...
In Heba's work the lines between past, present and future as well as between truth and fiction are blurred.
The 10th Berlin Biennale will take place from June 9 to September 9, 2018.

The doctoral thesis of our Alumna Sarah Albrecht has just been publishes at Brill (Series Muslim Minorities, 29). Albrecht explores the variety of ways in which contemporary Sunni Muslim scholars, intellectuals, and activists reinterpret the Islamic legal tradition of dividing the world into dār al-islām, the “territory of Islam,” dār al-ḥarb, the “territory of war,” and other geo-religious categories.

Our alumn Alina Kokoschka just published the beta version of her website "hawass". Hawass is an image based open science platform on current aesthetic phenomena of Muslim cultures and societies. This project was supported by BGSMCS.

Our doctoral fellow Jannis Grimm is one of the project coordinators of the SAFEResearch project as well as author of the SAFEResearch Handbook. This book is aimed at supporting researchers at all career levels who are preparing for or engaged in on-the-ground research in challenging environments. The handbook provides a guiding framework that will enable higher-education staff and students to undertake fieldwork as safely as possible.

BGSMCS Fellow Nicola Verderame has received the Benno Geiger Award for Poetry Translation 2017, special award for the first publication by a young translator, organized by the Fondazione Cini in Venice. The book of poems by Tugrul Tanyol Il vino dei giorni a venire (The wine of the days to come, Ladolfi editore, 2016), curated by Verderame.

At its New Year reception on 18 January 2018, the Einstein Foundation Berlin awarded the Graduate School the Einstein Prize for Doctoral Programmes. The award honours outstanding structured doctoral programmes.

We announce our alumnus Dauda Abubakar’s first monograph about the social and political impact of the practice of zakāt in Northern Nigeria. Abubakar’s book “They Love Us Because We Give Them Zakāt” was published in October 2020.