Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies I
Arabic and Islamic Studies in Göttingen
(Arabic)The bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in Arabic and Islamic studies at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies 1 (SAI-1) are devoted to a spectrum of key topics in the field, including the religion of Islam, political and intellectual history of Islamicate societies, hadith studies, Islamic education and ethics, classical and modern Arabic literature, Arabic-Islamic philosophy, secularism in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa, and Arabic theatre. Instruction in Modern Standard Arabic forms the linguistic basis of the programs, supplemented by classes on classical Arabic and various Arabic dialects.
The main objectives of the BA program, Arabic-Islamic Studies (taught in German), and the MA program, Intellectual Histories of the Arab Word (taught in English), are to provide our students with profound knowledge in the related subject areas as well as Arabic language proficiency on an advanced level.
Arabic and Islamic studies in Göttingen build on a long and very fruitful academic tradition. As early as 1748, Johann David Michaelis (1717-1791) offered an introduction to the Arabic language and a seminar on the Quran as part of his Old Testament classes. Later scholars such as Ferdinand Wüstenfeld (1808-1899) and Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), and in more recent times Albert Dietrich (1912-2015), Tilman Nagel (b. 1942), and Peter Bachmann (1936-2018), shaped Arabic and Islamic studies in Göttingen and internationally.
Today, the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies 1 is home to three professorships, each with its academic staff, and a full-time Arabic language lecturer. The chair of Arabic and Islamic studies is held by Prof. Dr. Sebastian Günther; Prof. Dr. Kata Moser is Junior Professor of Secularism in Islamic modernity; and Prof. Dr. Jens Scheiner is Professor of Islamic Studies with a focus on the history and cultures of the Middle East. The Arabic language instruction is mainly conducted by our lecturer Akram Bishr, MA.
Göttingen Orient Symposium (GOS)
The Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies 1 regularly holds the Göttingen Orient Symposium, at which renowned representatives of Arabic and Islamic Studies give lectures on current research topics.
Click here for the website of the Seminar für Arabistik/Islamwissenschaft II