Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society

Leiden | Islam interview series

The Leiden | Islam interview series contains short documentary-style videos including interview flashes with leading scholars in the field of Islam and Muslim societies. With this series, LUCIS aims to show the value of unconventional insights related to Islam and Muslim societies, and to relate them to current issues in society. The videos contain flashes of an interview with the scholar, accompanied by vivid imagery to capture the scholar’s fascination for his or her research.

James Montgomery | Arabic poetry

In the first video, released in February 2016, James Montgomery, professor of Arabic at Cambridge University, explains his fascination for Arabic and the relevance of Arabic poetry for our understanding of the Arabic-speaking world. “If there is anything that can make the situation worse it is the continued inability to communicate. I think that Arabic poetry can offer us a different way of thinking about how important communication is.”

Michael Macdonald | ancient Arabian inscriptions

In the second video, released in August 2016, Michael Macdonald, a world-renowned expert in ancient Arabian languages, explains the relevance of uncovering the thousands of undiscovered inscriptions of ancient Arabia, many of them written by nomads. Macdonald calls them “tweets from the desert,” as if he is communicating over 2000 years ago with somebody. “The people who live in Arabia should know about their background. More people per head of population could read and write in ancient Arabia than in any other part in Antiquity, which is a very remarkable thing.”

Driss Moussaoui | Islam and psychiatry

The third video was released in October 2016, and portrays Driss Moussaoui’s mission as a psychiatrist in Morocco. He explains why it is important for psychiatrists to be sensitive about their patients’ religious beliefs. Moussaoui conducted extensive research on the impact of Ramadan on patients with a bipolar disorder and showed that the relapse rate among bipolar fasters was 42%. “I recommend bipolar patients not to fast during Ramadan, and to maintain their usual day-and-night rhythm.”

Petra Sijpesteijn | papyri and early Islam

In April 2017 the fourth and final video series was released featuring Petra Sijpesteijn. In this video, she explains why papyri are important for the study of the earliest centuries of Islam. “They are the written residue of daily life,” she says in the interview. Recording aspects of daily life and reflecting many levels of society, they reveal the diversity of the early Islamic world.