PROJECTS
Welmoet Boender worked on this project as an individual fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW) in Amsterdam (September 2017-June 2018).
Research project: Islamic theology at Western European universities
In recent years, academic programs in Islamic theology and 'imam training' have been set up in several Western European countries. The opening of the public sphere of the universities to Islamic theology is an unprecedented step in Western European history. While the first publications of professors and PhDs appear, it is possible to explore the question how Muslim scholars shape their intellectual thought. What topics do they consider important, how do they explain the religious traditions at the nexus of Islamic and European scholarly traditions, and how does the political, societal and legal context affect these programs?
The research findings will soon be published in a monograph (Brill).
Research project: Innovative forms of Islamic higher education in Western Europe
In recent years, state funded universities have started to organize imam training and Islamic theology programs. This type of higher education was until recently exclusively organized by the various Muslim communities living in the West, often in cooperation with the countries of origin and higher education institutes in the Muslim world. Now, new curricula are developed that answer the needs of Muslim believers while also meeting secular academic tradition and standards.
Furthermore, private confessional Muslim institutes are now recruiting lecturers who graduated from secular Western Islamic Studies programs.
Moreover, Islamic religious education teachers at public schools have been considered among those who could play a pivotal role in combatting Islamic radicalization and Islamophobia.
We thus notice important shifts and innovations in Islamic higher education. This research project explores these developments, understanding them as a next phase of Western European higher Islam education in which academic (secular-informed) Islam Studies and (confessional-grounded) Islamic theology increasingly meet.
On 3 and 4 April 2017, Welmoet Boender, as staff member of the Leiden Islam Academy, organized an international conference that provided a platform for stakeholders to take stock of these fast ongoing developments.
The contributions of this conference are currently prepared for publication in an edited volume.