The Unit’s research focuses on the religion, society, and politics of the modern Middle East. Key specializations are: Modern Islam Sufism Islam in Europe Members of the Unit are engaged in two group research projects: Sufism and Transnational Spirituality. See schoolislam.dk Islam, Muslims and Danish School. See sufism.au.dk. There is also research on the classical period of Arab civilization and on Arabic literature.

Religion, Society and Politics of the Modern Middle East

• Dr Thomas Fibiger is working from an anthropological perspective on the uses of history among various ethnic and religious groups in Bahrain. His recentkly completed PhD project focuses on how different Shi’i and Sunni groups use history in contemporary political circumstances.
• Dr Peter Lodberg is studying how Palestinian Christian theologians have reacted to processes of social transformation in Palestine since 1967, with special emphasis on the period after the first intifada in 1987. The project includes an analysis of relations between Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the relevant period, involving reactions to Christian Zionism's meaning for Palestinian Christianity. The focus is on relations between religion and politics from the perspective of relations between religious state and secular nation state in theological discourse.
• Dr Mark Sedgwick works on Islamist terrorism, on which he has published several articles.
• Dr Morten Valbjørn works on international relations with special reference to Jordan and to the role of culture. His PhD dissertation was on the role of cultural diversity in the study of international relations, which is related to the exceptionalism debate on the Middle East and the Area Studies Controversy. He has written frequently in Mellemøstinformation as well as publishing a number of articles, and was a co-editor of Nye Kolde Krige i Mellemøsten (2007).

Modern Islam

• Dr Thomas Hoffmann has worked with Islamic discourses and rituals and is interested in Islam's role as repertoire and stepping stone for social, political, and intellectual life. He has, inter alia, co-edited Gads leksikon om islam (2008) and published articles on jihâd, gender and (neo)Orientalism.
• Dr John Møller Larsen's current work focuses on Sayyid Qutb. His PhD dissertation dealt with Qutb’s conception of the relationship between Quranic aesthetics and political activism, and his current research project is on the early development of Islamism in the light of Western critique of civilization. This aims to trace the Islamist reception of such Western thinkers as Oswald Spengler and Alexis Carrel.
• Dr Martin Riexinger currently focuses on the interrelation between Mawdūdī’s worldview and his normative concepts. He has previously studied the reception of modern natural science, in particular the theory of evolution, in the Islamic World, as well as Islamic movements in Turkey and South Asia in his PhD-thesis S̱anāʾullāh Amritsarī (1868 – 1948) und die Ahl-i Ḥadīs̱ im Punjab unter britischer Herrschaft, 2004 and his Habilitationsschrift Die verinnerliche Schöpfungsordnung: Weltbid und normative Konzepte in den Schriften Said Nursis und der Nur Cemaati, forthcoming.
• Dr Mark Sedgwick is studying the relationship between socioeconomic and religious change in the Arab world (especially Egypt) in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a project which includes a recently published biography of Muhammad Abduh.

Sufism

• Dr Nils Bubandt is interested in Sufism among converts to Islam, especially as a political-existential phenomenon. He is about to start a comparative study of conversion to the Murabitun. He is also working on Indonesia, looking at revival of tradition in the Muslim sultanates of Indonesia's eastern region.
• Dr Maria Louw works as an anthropologist on Islam in Central Asia and has conducted extensive fieldwork in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, focusing on everyday religion, morality and politics. She is the author of the book Everyday Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia (2007). Her present research project focuses on the meanings of esoteric experiences in present-day Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan).
• Dr Martin Riexinger works with movements which–influenced by Ibn Taymiyya in particular–opposed Sufi creeds and practices (such as the Wahhabis and the Ahl-I Ḥadīth). He is also interested in how Muslims in the 20^th century took recourse to Sufi concepts in order to cope with the challenges of modernity.
• Dr Mikkel Rytter is working on Pakistani Sufis in Denmark. His project explores how Danish-Pakistani migrants engage pragmatically with the Barelwi tradition in order to deal with private matters of disrupted family relations, financial problems or health issues. He is the author of ‘In-Laws and Outlaws: Black magic among Pakistani migrants in Denmark’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2010.
• Dr Mark Sedgwick has worked on Sufism in and beyond the Arab world from the late eighteenth century to the present day, a topic on which he has published two books, including Saints and Sons: The Making and Remaking of the Rashidi Ahmadi Sufi Order, 1799-2000 (2005).

Islam in Europe

• Dr Thomas Hoffmann has recently initiated a study focussing on Islam and higher education, including Muslim scholars and students in the Western university system.
• Dr Lene Kühle works on religious pluralism from a sociological perspective. Muslims, as Denmark's largest religious minority, naturally play an important role. She has studied religion in prisons, and examined the work of prison imams in an article in Straffens Menneskelige Ansigt (2006). She also worked on a project on mosques in Denmark, the results of which were published in Lene Kühle, Moskeer i Danmark (2006). She has most recently been working on the construction of Muslims in Danish public schools in Dansih media and political discourse.
• Dr Lasse Lindekilde is currently working on the relationship between official de-radicalisation initiatives and radicalisation processes among young Muslims in a selection of European countries. His Ph.D. thesis dealt with Danish Muslims' reactions to the Cartoon Crisis of 2005, a topic on which he has published several articles. Lasse has also written on how social movement theory can contribute to the study of religious activism.
• Dr Martin Riexinger has worked on the spread of Islamic creationism among Muslims in the West. he has also worked on the activities of the Ahl-I Ḥadīth and Nurcus in Europe.
• Dr Mikkel Rytter is working on Danish-Pakistani Sufis. He is the co-editor (with Marianne Holm Pedersen) of Islam og Muslimer i Danmark efter 2001 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, in press).
• Dr Mark Sedgwick has worked on the history and influence of neo-Sufi orders in Europe and the United States. His main publication in this area is Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (2004).
• Christian Suhr's PhD-study concerns the interface between the visible and invisible dimensions of human reality with a particular focus on how Muslims in Denmark experience divine healing. Based on visual anthropological fieldwork, the aim is to find ways in which montage of words, images and sounds may enable us to approach the invisible aspects of such experiences and give them a space in anthropological research without reducing it to visibility.

Classical period; Arabic literature

• Dr Thomas Hoffmann has worked on the Qur'ân, with focus on literary and exegetic issues. His main publication is The Poetic Qur'ân. Studies on Qur'ânic Poeticity (2007).
• Elisabeth Moestrup has studied Arab linguistics and now works on contemporary Arabic literature. She is working on a PhD dissertation which will test the application to Arabic literature of postcolonial theory.
• Dr Martin Riexinger has investigated the reception of pre-modern authors (Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Ḥazm, al-Ghazālī, al-Shāṭibī) by Muslims from the late 19^th century until the present, in particular in the field of legal reform. He is currently finishing an article of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s biography of the Prophet and its sources.