Islamic Studies in European Higher Education - by Jørgen S Nielsen & Stephen Jones

About the Book

Examines the integration and reform of Islamic studies in universities across Germany, the UK, Turkey, Poland and Belgium

Book Synopsis

Across Europe there are numerous examples of recent linkages between universities and Islamic seminaries. In Germany the federal 'top-down' experiment, now over ten years old, of establishing departments of Islamic theology in five universities has now recruited over 2000 students, many of whom will end up teaching confessional Islam RE in schools. In the UK, local partnerships have been developed at under- and postgraduate level between e.g. Warwick, Birmingham and Middlesex universities and Islamic seminaries representing a range of Islamic traditions. Similar experiences are being developed on a smaller scale in other countries. These developments, which have taken place against a backdrop of state pressure to 'integrate' Islam and address 'radicalisation', challenge university traditions of 'scientific' approaches to the study of Islam as well as the confessional expectations of faith-based Islamic theological training. By looking more closely at the developing experience in Germany and Britain and selected other countries this volume explores how the two approaches are finding ways of creative cooperation.

Review Quotes

This excellent collection demonstrates the rich, yet often contested complementarity between academic and confessional approaches to Islam. Expert authors show repeatedly the vital role of the university in charting the history and the living faith of Islam that is at the heart of modern Europe's search for a shared and productive identity.--Alison Scott-Baumann, SOAS, University of London

This volume provides a timely challenge to the allegedly settled boundaries between "confessional" and "non-confessional" in Islamic Studies. They equally suggest various pathways of how Islamic theological perspectives can be successfully included in European higher education settings.--Oliver Scharbrodt, Lund University

About the Author

Jørgen S. Nielsen is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary European Islam, University of Birmingham, and Affiliate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Copenhagen. He studied Arabic and Middle East studies at SOAS, London, and did his PhD in Arab history at the American University of Beirut. Since 1978 he has researched Islam in Europe at Selly Oak Colleges and the University of Birmingham. He was director of the Danish Institute in Damascus 2005-7 and then spent six years as Danish National Research Foundation professor at the Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen University. He is the author of Muslims in Western Europe (Edinburgh, 1st ed. 1993, 4th edition with Jonas Otterbeck 2016) and is involved in editing several book series for Brill (Leiden) as well as the Journal of Muslims in Europe.

Stephen H. Jones is Lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham. He is a sociologist of religion whose main areas of expertise are in Islam and Muslims in the UK and religious and non-religious publics' perceptions of science. He is author of Islam and the Liberal State (IB Tauris, 2021) and presently Principal Investigator of a research project, 'Science and the Transmission of Islamic Knowledge in Britain', which examines views of Islam and science among students and teachers in UK Islamic educational institutions.