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Thursday, 16 September 2021
11.00 – 13.00: General Meeting of DAVO Members
13.00 – 14.00: Lunchbreak
14.00 – 16.00: Panel Slot A
A.1.
Authoritarianisms in Search of Consolidation and Challenges to the Liberal Order: Remilitarisations, Dynamics of Adaptations and Political Phobias, Part I
Chair: Maria Gloria Polimeno (Exeter)
1. Omar Bortolazzi (Dubai): Rethinking Rentierism: Nation Branding, Economic Diversification and Authoritarian Rule in the UAE
2. Ferdinand Arslanian (St. Andrews): Authoritarian Resilience during the Syrian Conflict: The Role of the Reconfiguration of Syria’s System of Political Economy
3. Davide Grasso (Torino): International Repression through Joint and Competitive Militarization: The Case of North and East Syria
A.2.
COVID-19 and Political Dynamics in and beyond the Middle East
Chair: André Bank (Hamburg)/Thomas Demmelhuber (Erlangen)
1. Yannick Deepen (Hamburg): Armed (Non-)State Actors in the MENA Before and During COVID-19
2. Selman Almohamad (Hamburg): Violence Dynamics in Syria During COVID-19: Preliminary Insights from Damascus and Darʾa
3. Tobias Zumbrägel (Bonn): Global Autocratic Collaboration in Times of the Pandemic: Sino-Gulf Relations
4. Julia Gurol (Freiburg): Words Matter! Reproduction and Contestation of Narratives of Supremacy in Sino-Gulf Relations
A.3.
Workshop for Young Scholars I
Chair: Nadine Scharfenort (Trier)
1. Meriem Ben Ammar (Cagliari): The Medinas and Cities in the Middle Ages: Urban Heritage, Jurisprudence, Traditions and Built Form
2. Elena Fellner (Freiburg): Insta Fame and Twitter Storms: Heroized Activism on Social Media in Algeria and Iran
3. Lara Christmann (Mainz): Hochzeitspraktiken von jungen städtischen Omanis
4. Mohaddeseh Ziyachi (Belfast): Iranian Motherhood: A Cognitive Approach
A.4.
Shared Images and Conceptions in the Qurʾān and Pre-Islamic Religious Traditions
Chair: Ana Davitashvili (Tübingen)
1. Nadja Abuhussein (Tübingen): “The God of Mecca and the Cross”. God in Pre-Islamic Arabic Poetry and in the Qurʾān
2. Mohammad Ali Tabatabaʾi (Tehran): The Ethnic Identity of the Prophet Muḥammad through the Lens of the Qurʾān and the Bible
3. Ana Davitashvili (Tübingen): Clothing Metaphors in the Qurʾān and Syriac Christian Literature
16.00 – 16.30: Coffee Break
16.30 – 18.00: Panel Slot B
B.1.
Authoritarianisms in Search of Consolidation and Challenges to the Liberal Order: Remilitarisations, Dynamics of Adaptations and Political Phobias, Part II
Chair: Maria Gloria Polimeno (Exeter)
1. Christopher Cox (Exeter): Kicking the Can down the Road: Morocco’s Continued Youth Inclusivity Problems and the Long-Term Implications for Autocratic Governance
2. Bruno Schmidt-Feuerheerd (Cambridge): Changing Threat Perceptions? Neo-Ottoman Phobia in the Saudi Policy Discourse
B.2.
Comparing Jewish, Kurdish and Amazigh Nationalism
Chair: Johannes Becke (Heidelberg)
1. Johannes Becke (Heidelberg): Gathering the Dispersed: State Evasion and State-Making in Modern Jewish, Kurdish and Berber History
2. Alessia Colonnelli (Heidelberg): The Berber Academy – Notes on the Invention of Modern Amazigh Nationalism
3. Bareez Majid (Heidelberg): Nation-Building and the Politics of Memory – Comparing the Kurdish and the Israeli Case
B.3.
Workshop for Young Scholars II
Chair: Jörn Thielmann (Erlangen)
1. Mohammedreza Nemati (Mashad): Principles of Understanding the Qurʾan and Philosophical Hermeneutics
2. Muhammed Shahin Machinchery (Erfurt): Takhrij as a Tool for Historicity of Hadīth: A Case Study of Harald Motzki’s Isnad cum matn Analysis
3. Rıdvan Talha Yücedağ (Istanbul): Madīnan Ḥadīth Circles in the Second/Eighth Century
B.4.
Higher Islamic Education and a New Generation of Muslim Religious Leaders in Europe
Chair: Simon Stjernholm (Copenhagen)
1. Maximilian Lasa (Copenhagen): Paths to Islamic Theology: German Students at the International Theology Program in Turkey
2. Simon Stjernholm (Copenhagen): Uses of Experiences of Higher Islamic Education in the Danish Public Sphere
3. Amna Mahmood (Oslo): Representation and leadership among Ahmadiyya communities in Scandinavia
18.30: Evening Program (Aula, Osnabrück Castle)
18.30 – 19.00: Welcome Addresses:
Prof. Dr. Martina Blasberg-Kuhnke, Vice President of Osnabrück University
Prof. Dr. Bülent Uçar, Osnabrück University, Institute of Islamic Theology
Prof. Dr. Günter Meyer, Chairman of DAVO
19.00 – 19.15: Prize Ceremony of the “DAVO Dissertation Award 2021” (Laudatio: Prof. Dr. Günter Meyer)
19.15 – 19.30: Prize Ceremony of the “WGIT 2020 Award” to Prof. Dr. Mathias Rohe (Laudatio: Dr. Hatem Elliesie)
19.30: Official Speech by Prof. Dr. Serdar Kurnaz: "Quo vadis (Uṣūl) al-fiqh in der islamischen Theologie?"
Friday, 17 September 2021
9.00 - 11.00: Panel Slot C
C.1
Internal and External Conflicts in Turkish Politics
Chair: Markus Koller (Bochum)
1. Efrat Aviv (Ramat Gan): İsmailağa Community and its Relation with the AK Party
2. Iralia Kotsakidou (Corfu): The Turkish-American Relations in Arab Press - A Corpus Based Study Comparing Newspaper Articles from 2017 and 2019
3. Eka Tchkoidze (Tbilisi): The Move of Greeks from the Ottoman Empire to Batumi in the Early 20th c. and Back to Greece in the 1990s
C.2.
Workshop for Young Scholars III
Chair: Günter Meyer (Mainz)
1. Aref Bijan (St. Petersburg): Role and Foreign Policy of Russia and Iran as Global Actors on the Middle East Arena (since 2011 until now)
2. Thomas McGee (Melbourne): Syria's Changing Statelessness Landscape: Protracted Situations and "Ticking Time Bombs"
3. Bruno Schmidt-Feuerheerd (Cambridge): Nationalism as a Tool of Autocratic Legitimation? Evidence from Saudi Arabia
4. Mustafa Karahamad (Frankfurt): Sunni Muslim Clerics Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Discourses in post-2011 Arab Monarchies
C.3.
New Perspectives on Sufism, Modern Sunni Reform Thinking and Activism, Part I
Chairs: Stephan Kokew (Münster)/Sebastian Elsässer (Kiel)
1. Stephan Kokew (Münster): Integrating Sufism into the Salafīya: Jamāl ad-Dīn al-Qāsimī's Adaption of Al-Ghazālī's 'Revival of the Religious Sciences'
2. Soraya Khodamoradi (Erfurt): Indo-Muslim Interactions in Mujaddidi Tradition: Observations on Nāla-i ʿAndalīb ("Lamentation of Nightingale")
3. Philipp Bruckmayr (Vienna): Iṣlāḥ and ṭarīq: The Transnational Dynamics of Islamic Reform and its Suppression in Kelantan (Malaysia)
4. Sebastian Elsässer (Kiel): The Muslim Brotherhood and the Sufi Heritage
11.00 - 11.30: Coffee Break
11.30 – 13.30: Panel Slot D
D.1.
Intelligence Agencies in the Middle East: Understanding Surveillance & Violence
Chair: Noura Chalati (Berlin)
1. Ali Doğan (Berlin): The Ba’ath Party’s Transnational Hand of the Revolution – Iraq’s Intelligence Operations in Europe During the Cold War
2. Noura Chalati (Berlin): The Syrian Mukhabarat and the Stasi – Practices of Surveillance and Social Control during the Cold War
3. Ugur Üngör (Amsterdam):Shabbiha and Mukhabarat Violence in Homs, 2011-2019
D.2.
Palestine in Post- and Decolonial Contexts
Chair: Detlev Quintern (Istanbul)
1. Detlev Quintern (Istanbul): Entinnerung (Dememorization) und Vergessen-Machen.
Lebendiges palästinensisches Kulturerbe vor dem Hintergrund der Achille Mbembe Debatte
2. Bashar Shammout (Paderborn):Rezeption der ersten Palästina-Bilder und Fotografien des 19. und frühen 20. Jh. in Europa – Ihre Wahrnehmung und Auswirkungen auf die Anfänge der politischen Veränderungen im Nahen Osten
3. Anna Haesen (Heidelberg): “What’s Past is Prologue”: The Impact of Cultural Heritage on Conflict, Illustrated by the Heritage in the Palestinian Territories
4. Nagla Abed (Oldenburg): Palästinensische Frauen - Bewahrerinnen von Geschichte, Kultur und Identität durch Tatreez
D.3.
Workshop for Young Scholars IV
Chair: Philipp Bruckmayr (Vienna)
1. Benedikt Römer (Bayreuth): Elam in Exile: Nationalism and Diasporic Religion Among Iranian Christians
2. Henriette Raddatz (Berlin): Yezids in Siberia Social-economic Development. History Legacy of the Soviet Union
3. Ihsan Altıntaş (Münster): Attitudes towards Religious Diversity in Germany: A Comparative Study of the Nur Community and the Ramakrishna Mission
4. Wen-Yu Wu (Birmingham): Syrian Refugees Experiences in Higher Education in Lebanon and Jordan: Waiting, Hopes and Futures
D.4.
Islamic Social Politics
Chair: N.N.
1. Fabio Coriolano (Warsaw): Islamic Welfare after the Collapse of the “Authoritarian Bargain”
2. Christiane Paulus (Cairo): „Rekonstruktion koranischer Lebenswelten“, Text – Umwelt – Zugang zur Genderthematik
3. Mounir Saidani (Tunis): Tunisian Women’s Religiosities in a Context of Gender Transition-related Crisis
13.30 – 14.30: Lunchbreak
14.30 – 16.30: Panel Slot E
E.1.
The Political Consolidation of the Islamic State Movement. Between Baathists, Islamists, and the Taliban, Part I
Chair: Craig Whiteside (Monterey, CA)
1. Samuel Helfont (Monterey): The Geopolitics of Relations Between Iraqi Ba‘thists and Islamists before 2003
2. Nadeem Khan (Münster): The Rise of the Islamic State of Iraq during the Sunni Insurgency
3. Craig Whiteside (Monterey): State Accompli: Islamic State’s Political Consolidation in Pre-Caliphate Iraq
4. Cole Bunzel (Stanford): The Islamic State and the Taliban
E.2.
Modernizing al-Watan: Arab Experiences of Nation Building in the Early-20th Century
Chair: Sebastian Żbik (Warsaw)/ Marianne Dhenin (Mainz)
1. Sebastian Żbik (Warsaw): “Entrusted by Allah in the Hands of Its Sultan and Leaders”: The Perception of Oman by the Arab Elite of Zanzibar in the Early-20th Century
2. Marianne Dhenin (Mainz): Rearing Modern Egypt: Child Welfare and the State in the Early-20th Century
3. Nadi Abusaada (Cambridge): “From Jerusalem the Light Shines on the Rest of the Arab World”: The 1933 Arab Exhibition in Jerusalem
4: Abdel Qader Amer (Amman): A King from Abroad: Iraqi Elites’ Attitudes Towards the Coronation of King Faisal 1921
E.3.
Violence and Legitimacy in the Middle East and North Africa: The Consequences of Repression and Conflict
Chairs: Maria Josua (Hamburg)/Jannis Julien Grimm (Berlin)
1. Maria Josua (Hamburg): How Autocrats Legitimize Repression: Insights from the Maghreb
2. Jannis Julien Grimm (Berlin): When Violence is not the Answer – The Rabaa Massacre and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Struggle for Legitimacy in Post-coup Egypt
3. Eckart Woertz (Hamburg)/Daniela Huber (Rom): Resilience, Conflict and Areas of Limited Statehood in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria
4. Faouzia Zeraoulia (Marburg/Jijel): Counter Narrative Mobilization, Civil War Memory, and the Political Change in Algeria
E.4.
European Transcultural History in Diachronic and Synchronous Perspectives, Part I
Chair: Ildar Kharissov (Berlin)
1. Stephan Theilig (Berlin): “German-Tatar” History. Insights into an Encyclopedic Research Project.
2. Ismail Kerimov (Simferopol): Crimean Tatar Documents in Archives and Libraries of Europe
3. Marat Gibatdinov (Kazan): Intercultural Contacts and Communications as Part of Tatar History
16.30 – 17.00: Coffee Break
17.00 – 18.30: Panel Slot F
F.1.
Political Discourses and Cultural Entanglements
Chair: Claudia Preckel (Osnabrück)
1. Kurstin Gatt (Msida): Linguistic Tenets of Propaganda in Modern Arabic Political Discourse
2. Onn Winckler (Haifa): The Mystery of the Israeli-Druze Fertility Decline
F.2.
The Construction of Islamic Normativity through Devotional Piety
Chair: Dženita Karić (Berlin)
1. Dženita Karić (Berlin): Beyond the Pure Obedience: Ottoman Khalwati Regulation of Ritual and Devotional Practices
2. Mohammad Gharaibeh (Berlin): Interaction Rituals and Normativity: The Hanbalī “Charismatic Leaders” of Damascus in the 12th and 13th Century
3. Eyad Abuali (Berlin): Figurations of the Body and Cosmos: Diagrams and Visual Practice in 12th and 13th Century Sufism
F.3.
Workshop for Young Scholars V
Chair: N.N.
1. Hamed Reza Karimi Malayer (Kashan): A Study on the Evolution of Religion System in Northern Iranian Plateau from the Neolithic to the First Millennium BC: An Archaeological and Religious-Studies Approach
2. Ali Hassany (Tehran): Iran and Germany: An Attempt to Build Strategic Relationship (1870-1945)
3. Benjamin Heidrich (Erlangen): The Imaginary Dimension of Fragile Statehood: Syria and the Struggle for the “Rightful” Polity
F.4.
European Transcultural History in Diachronic and Synchronous Perspectives, Part II
Chair: Ildar Kharissov (Berlin)
1. Mieste Hotopp-Riecke (Magdeburg): “Methode Pascha”. Transcultural Crossroads of Tatar-Ottoman-German History as a Tool in Interdisciplinary Youth Education
2. Temur Kurshutov (Simferopol): Documents in the German Archives Regarding the Activities of Jaffer Seydamet as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Crimean Regional Government (1918)
19.00 – 21.30: Evening Program
Film Presentation in the Aula of Osnabrück University (Castle):
Karlstraße 10: In Search for Muslims throughout Interwar Europe
by Prof. Umar Ryad (Prof. Ryad will be present for questions and discussion)
Saturday, 18 September 2021
9.00 – 11.00: Panel Slot G
G.1.
The Formation of the Concepts of Secularity/Secularism in the Arab/Islamicate Worlds, Part I
Chair: Housamedden Darwish (Leipzig)
1. Sima Baidya (New Dehli): Polemics between Secularity/Secularism and Islam: Why Secularity Never Dies Down?
2. Housamedden Darwish (Leipzig): The Pioneer Formation of the Concept of Secularism in Butrus al-Bustani’s Text “The Clarion of Syria”: Secularism as a Thick Normative Concept
3. Amany Abdelrazik (Berlin): Dressing the Feminine Body, the State and the Formation of the Concept of Secularity in Modern Egypt
4. Rafique Wassan (Bern): Progressive Political Sufi Polemic of G.M Syed and the Reconstruction of Secular Civil Islam in postcolonial Pakistan
G.2.
Online Databases Instead of History Books? Potentials of Digital Humanities Databases in Historical Research on the MENA Region and Ottoman World, Part I
Chairs: Vivian Strotmann/Johann Büssow (Bochum)
1. Yusuf Çelik/Christian Lange (Utrecht): Digitizing the Study of Islamic Legal History: Footprinting the Qur’an in the Muslim fiqh
2. Ursula Bsees, Michail Hradek & Team (München): The Arabic Papyrology Database (APD): Background and Features
3. Ursula Bsees/Michail Hradek (München): Tracing Corpora Through Connections in Medieval Arabic Documents: EGIPTOS
4. Hülya Çelik/Marco Jusman (Bochum): Die digitale „orientalische” Privatbibliothek Sebastian Tengnagels (gest. 1636): Wissensvermittlung durch frühmodernen Manuskripttransfer
G.3.
The MENA Region and COVID-19: Impact, Implications and Future Prospects, Part I
Chair: Lena Maria Möller (Hamburg)
1. Jan Claudius Völkel (Freiburg): Authoritarian Responses to COVID-19: Risk Governance in the Middle East & North Africa
2. Carola Richter (Berlin): 'American Corona' vs. 'The Chinese Virus': Blaming and Othering in Arab Media
3. Noël van den Heuvel (Berlin): Religion and Pandemic: State, Islam and Society in Saudi Arabia and Iran during the Coronavirus Crisis
G.4.
Intellectual Entanglements and Literature in Persian History
Chair: Ahmed Sheir (Marburg)
1. Ahmed Sheir (Marburg): Transcultural Memory and Entangled History: The Development of the Historiography of the Crusading Studies vs. Jihad in the Modern Egyptian Academia
2. Khaled Sheykholeslami (Tehran): The Intellectual and Cultural Interconnections between Islamic and Jewish Medieval Ages: The Case of Maimonides and Farabi
3. Anis Vahid and Javad Bashari (Tehran): Ebn-e Talhe and New Documents from Persian Quatrains of the Saljuq Era
11.00 – 11.30: Coffee Break
11.30 – 13.30: Panel Slot H
H.1.
The Formation of the Concepts of Secularity/Secularism in the Arab/Islamicate Worlds, Part II
Chair: Housamedden Darwish (Leipzig)
1. Rahaf Aldoughli (Lancaster): Departing ‘Secularism’: Boundary Appropriation and Extension of the Syrian State in the Religious Domain since 2011
2. Reza Hosseini (Tehran): The Religious Secularity and the Shariatization in the Iranian Decision-Making Process
3. Maher Massoud (Berlin): Dismantling Secularism in the Arab World Context
4. Hussein Alwaday (…): The Role of Al-Azhar Scholars in the Formation of the Concept of Secularity in the Arab World. A Study of the Contribution of Taha Hussein and Khaled M. Khaled
H.2.
Online Databases Instead of History Books? Potentials of Digital Humanities Databases in Historical Research on the MENA Region and Ottoman World, Part II
Chairs: Michaela Hoffmann-Ruf/Markus Koller (Bochum)
1. Adrien de Jarmy (Paris/Bochum): Divergent Narratives of Early Islamic History: A Case Study of the Kutub al-Maġāzī Preserved in the Muṣannafs of ʿAbd al-Razzāq (d. 811/826-27) and Ibn Abī Šayba (d. 235/849)
2. Markus Koller/Vivian Strotmann (Bochum): Synergy in DH: The “Historiography in Ottoman Europe“ Database Project
3. Yuval Ben-Bassat (Haifa)/Johann Büssow (Bochum): The Gaza Historical Database: A Study of a Late Ottoman City in a Comparative Approach
4. Michaela Hoffmann-Ruf/Johann Büssow (Bochum): The Abriyin Database: Political and Economic Transformations in the Indian Ocean World as Reflected in the Letters to a Shaykhly Family in Oman, c. 1790-1920
H.3.
The MENA Region and COVID-19: Impact, Implications and Future Prospects, Part II
Chair: Zeina Hobaika (Beirut)
1. Giulia Cimini (Bologna)/Beatriz Tomé Alonso (Madrid): Securitisation Dynamics and Covid-19 Politics in Moracco: Old Wine in New Bottles?
2. Nassim Abi Ghanem (Vienna): The Reverse Impact of Politics on the COVID-19 Response: How Hezbollah Determined the Choices of the Lebanese Government
3. Thomas Demmelhuber (Erlangen)/Julia Gurol (Freiburg), Tobias Zumbrägel (Bonn): The COVID-19 Temptation? Sino–Gulf Relations and Autocratic Linkages in Times of a Global Pandemie
