Prof. Dr. Angelika Neuwirth “The Qur’an in the Field of Conflict between Interpretative Communities: Towards a New Approach in Coranic Studies”

Lecture on Tuesday, 31 May at 7 pm at the premises of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), 31, Sh. Abu el-Feda, Zamalek, Cairo

The controversy surrounding the possibility of cohabitation between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe, currently making such massive waves, has brought to light a profoundly essentialist perception of Islam, one that makes it easy to forget that until only recently inclusive umbrella terms like “the three Abrahamic religions”, or “the three scriptural religions” were popular. A comparative exclusivist stance can be observed among Muslims. The lecture tries to explore the reasons of the present ideological conflict highlighting the history of Islamic scholarship in the West as well as contemporary constructions of history in the East and to offer a new approach toward the phenomenon of the Coran.

Professor Dr. Angelika Neuwirth holds since 1991 the Chair for Arabic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. She earned her Ph.D. in Semitic Studies from the University of Göttingen and was awarded her Habilitation in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Munich. From 1977 to 1983 she served as Visiting Professor at the University of Jordan and supervisor of the Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts (1981–83) at the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought.  She was Professor at Bamberg University (1984–91) and Visiting Professor (1988-89) at Ain Shams University in Cairo. From 1994 to 1999 A. Neuwirth served as Director of the Orient-Institute of Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft in Beirut and Istanbul.

The lecture is part of our jointly organized lecture series: “Studies on Egypt and the Middle East in Berlin”.