Current research
The Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)” is a research consortium that analyses why the liberal model of order has fallen into crisis despite its political, economic, and social achievements. Interdisciplinary research teams investigate why alternative concepts of social order are on the rise, how these contestations differ from earlier contestation, and what the consequences are for the global challenges of our time. In operation since 2019, SCRIPTS is hosted by the Freie Universität Berlin and unites eight major Berlin-based research institutes.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Schirin Amir-Moazami-
A research project deals with state and civil society practices for regulating religious plurality in Germany. A special focus is on the shaping of liberal-secular norms with regard to gender orders. Political measures such as the German Islam Conference and various types of naturalization tests serve as case studies. The project examines these initiatives from a power-analytical perspective, drawing primarily on Foucault's studies of governmentality.
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Another research interest is the connection between Islamic and secular (body) practices in liberal public spheres of Western European immigration societies. The analytical approach here is based in particular on theories of the body, approaches to the "anthropology of Islam" and to the "anthropology of the secular".
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A third research project deals with mechanisms of knowledge production about Muslims in Europe. This project is part of a broader international research context on the "provincialization of the social sciences" and sees itself as an attempt to problematize and politicize social science research methods and epistemologies.
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Urban history on the Arab world (especially the city of Jidda)
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Translocal links between Muslim regions and current cultural developments especially in Saudi Arabia.
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Liminal Spaces as sites of socio-cultural transformation and knowledge production in the Arab World, (finanziert von der VW Stiftung)
- Entry of the Jinns into Arabic-Islamic Writing: Shibli's March through Quranic Sciences (Fritz Thyssen Foundation, 2013).
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christian Mauder
Christian Mauder's current research examines the role of the concept of the ‘innovator’ (muǧaddid) in the Islamic religious and political history of the late Middle Period. Drawing on the theoretical tools of transregional historical semantics, the project analyses how and why the notion of the innovator became a central concept through which Muslims across the Islamic world debated issues of political power, religious authority and intellectual rank. The project thus sheds light on one of the least researched key concepts in Islamic political and religious history, demonstrates the value of transregional historical semantics for the study of the pre-modern Islamic world and sheds light on transregional processes of exchange in the Islamic pre-modern period.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Florian Zemmin- Global Secularity: A Sourcebook
The seven-volume series brings together theoretical and historical texts on secularity from different regions, traditions, and languages. It is currently being produced at the KFG "Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities" at the University of Leipzig (https://www.multiple-secularities.de). Series editors are Christoph Kleine, Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Judith Zimmermann and myself. Together with Johannes Duschka, Christoph Kleine and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, I am editing the first volume, which brings together decidedly theoretical contributions. The second volume on contributions from the MENA region will be edited by Markus Dressler, Nurit Stadler, and Neguin Yavari and me. These two volumes are scheduled for publication in early 2023. The other partial volumes, which will appear successively, are also regionally structured. Overall, the series will thus bring together diverse historical, theoretical, and normative distinctions of secularity. Already published case studies on secularity in relation to Islamic and Arab contexts can be found on the publication list [FZ1] .
- Near Eastern conceptual history
Near Eastern conceptual history is increasingly establishing itself as an independent field of research. A sign of this is a special issue on Near Eastern Conceptual History to be published by Die Welt des Islams at the end of 2022, which I am editing together with Alp Eren Topal (Oslo). Programmatic articles [FZ2] and networking activities, both within the History of Concepts Group (https://www.historyofconcepts.net) and in more specific Middle Eastern research contexts, serve to further integrate and strengthen the field. Already published case studies on Arab and to a much lesser extent, Ottoman-Turkish concepts, can be found on the publication list [FZ3].
- Arab sociology of religion
Against the background of postcolonial critique of Eurocentrism in sociology as well as historical entanglements of knowledge production, the examination of Arabic-language sociology and cooperation with Arab sociologists is a focus of both research and teaching. In research, I am primarily concerned with Arab sociology of religion. Unlike theologians or Islamic jurists, sociologists view religion as a social phenomenon. Who represents such an approach to religion in Arab-Islamic societies? What are its characteristics, legitimation strategies, and historical antecedents? How do Arab contributions enrich the broader understanding of sociology of religion? These are central questions of the ongoing research project.
A practical aspect worth mentioning is the current expansion of the stock of Arabic-language sociological monographs and journals in our library. The necessity to also take note of non-German or English-language knowledge production and thus to overcome the boundary between (European) subject and (Arabic) object of knowledge production in the field of sociology is ultimately also related to such practical aspects as the availability of literature
