Respect for other religious faiths and interreligious exchange did not appear for the first time during the Enlightenment and modernity. At Freie Universität Berlin a new research unit was established to study the intellectual history of the Islamicate world. The scholars involved in this unit aim to examine the form in which Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars in the Islamicate world were involved in close intellectual exchange beginning during the Middle Ages. In an official opening ceremony in the Museum of Islamic Art in the Pergamon Museum, Professor Sabine Schmidtke introduced her research team and described the work and goals of the Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World.

Turbulence – it’s a word that has come up often in reports on the current situation on the international stock exchanges. But many will also associate it first with the kind of turbulence we hear about in the weather report. After all, these air currents keep things hopping, and not just this past summer, either. This kind of turbulence is the focus of Romain Nguyen van yen. The 27-year-old French citizen has received the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship, and with help from this prestigious institution, he has been at the Institute of Mathematics at Freie Universität Berlin since March.