#  Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize Announcement 2026 

 





October 08, 2026

 

 

The Selection Committee has chosen **Dr. Sarah Molina** (History of Art and Architecture) as the winner of the 2026 Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies for her dissertation, “**The Poetics of Space: How Carpets Shaped the Safavid World**.”

While earlier scholarship has largely emphasized materials, technique, style, provenance, classification, political symbolism, social function, collecting, and the art market, Sarah examines carpets as spatial objects that shaped experiences in palaces, gardens, cities, mosques, and shrines. She also investigates ownership, circulation, waqf endowments, commodification, and the shifting relationship between carpets and institutions. By treating carpets as “soft architecture,” her work reveals the importance of furnishings often overlooked beside Safavid buildings and landscapes. The Committee was impressed by Sarah’s extensive use of Safavid texts and her sophisticated interpretation of woven poetry and epigraphy. Sarah’s dissertation stood out for its engaging style, incorporation of philology and history, and consistently interesting and surprising findings. Senior scholars in her field have praised Sarah’s dissertation as a “game changing” intervention in the fields of Islamic art and architecture and Safavid history.

The Selection Committee also recognized as Honorable Mention **Dr. Nimet Cebeci** (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations) for her dissertation, “**Anthropology in the Absence of the Human Soul: Abu’l-****Ḥ****asan al-Ash****ʿ****arī’s Understanding of the Human Being in its Philosophical Context**” and **Dr. Cem Turkoz** (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations) for his dissertation, “**The Making of an Ottoman Tradition of Natural Philosophy ca. 1500–1800**.” Nimet writes what has been praised as a masterful, and philosophically astute reconstruction of al-Ash’ari’s views on the human soul. While the trend in recent scholarship has been on the so-called “Avicennan turn” of the Islamic theological tradition, Nimet instead focuses on the eponym of the Ash’ari school, providing a thorough and important exploration of his thought. In his dissertation, Cem upends the assumption among Ottomanists that there was little to no interest in natural philosophy among Ottoman scholars. Cem shows how widespread the tradition of studying Avicennan physics actually was in Ottoman madrasas and does remarkable justice to both the technical content and historical context of these philosophical texts.

Congratulations to Sarah, Cem, and Nimet!



 

 

 



 

 

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