Alwaleed bin Talal Seminar in Islamic Studies

Bringing world-class experts on topics ranging from Islamic law and theology to contemporary politics and Islam in America and West Africa to Harvard

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Research Methods in Islamic Studies

A workshop series designed to support the research of Harvard students, faculty and visiting fellows

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Fall 2021 Courses

Explore courses related to Islam and the Muslim world offered this fall

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Undergraduate and Doctoral Thesis Prizes

Congratulations to Murat Eczacıbaşı and Dr. Mary Elston, winners of the 2020 Alwaleed Bin Talal Thesis Prizes!

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Thinking Islam Within Religious Studies Conference

Convened by Professor Ahmed Ragab in honor of Professor William A. Graham on the occasion of his retirement

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The Alwaleed Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University is dedicated to furthering the scholarly study of Islam and the Muslim world on an interdisciplinary, global basis.

News

Ep. 10 | Islamic Scholarship in Africa | Ousmane Kane and Ebrima Sall

October 22, 2021

In this episode, we discuss the new edited volume, Islamic Scholarship in Africa: New Directions and Global Contexts, with its editor, Professor Ousmane Kane, and his colleague, Dr. Ebrima Sall, who wrote the conclusion. This volume is the product of two conferences convened at Harvard by Professor Kane in 2017 on "Texts, Knowledge, and Practice: The Meaning of Scholarship in Muslim Africa" and "New Directions in the Study of... Read more about Ep. 10 | Islamic Scholarship in Africa | Ousmane Kane and Ebrima Sall

Khaled El-Rouayheb New Director of Alwaleed Islamic Studies Program

August 13, 2021

We are excited to announce that Khaled El-Rouayheb, James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and Islamic Intellectual History and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, is the new faculty director of the Alwaleed Islamic Studies...

Ep. 9 | Beyond the Realm of Religion: The Idea of the Secular in Premodern Islam | Dr. Rushain Abbasi

August 12, 2021

The Alwaleed Program team speaks with Dr. Rushain Abbasi, winner of the 2021 Alwaleed bin Talal Prize for Best Dissertation in Islamic Studies for his dissertation entitled, "Beyond the Realm of Religion: The Idea of the Secular in Premodern Islam." In this study, Rushain challenges the prevailing view that maintains that premodern Muslims did not distinguish between the religious and the secular and that this distinction only emerged with the invention of these categories in the modern, post-Enlightenment West. His longue durée study demonstrates... Read more about Ep. 9 | Beyond the Realm of Religion: The Idea of the Secular in Premodern Islam | Dr. Rushain Abbasi

Ep. 8 | How Has the Pandemic Affected Religious Behavior in the Muslim World? | Tarek Masoud, Kadir Yildirim, and Peter Mandaville

June 8, 2021

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic raised questions about how the health crisis, government-imposed lockdowns, and economic recession would affect religious faith and behavior. While many social scientists expected it to strengthen religiosity as people turned to their faith for comfort in a time of need, others suspected a religious recession could result from the limitations on communal religious activity. In this episode, we speak with three political scientists, Tarek Masoud, A. Kadir Yildirim, and Peter Mandaville, about their ... Read more about Ep. 8 | How Has the Pandemic Affected Religious Behavior in the Muslim World? | Tarek Masoud, Kadir Yildirim, and Peter Mandaville

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Upcoming Events

Past Events

2021 Oct 22

Lecture: “Three Moons, Water Buffalo Skins, & Digital Codicology: Snapshots of Ibadi Muslim Manuscript Cultures in North Africa" by Paul Love

12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location:

via Zoom

“Three Moons, Water Buffalo Skins, & Digital Codicology: Snapshots of Ibadi Muslim Manuscript Cultures in North Africa" by Paul Love, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Al Akhawayn University, Morocco

with comments by Matthew Steele (NELC, Havard) and Kathryn Schwartz (History, U Mass Amherst)

Sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar in Book History at Harvard