Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies
The Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies receives funding from the Excellence Initiative sponsored by the German federal government and the governments of the German Federal States. This graduate school is dedicated to the systematic, comparative study of the variety of what “Islam” has been historically understood to encompass, right up to the present day. The school focuses in particular on issues of coexistence and clashes between Muslims and non-Muslims and the forms taken by intercultural and intracultural communication. It is devoted to the internal variety, historical changes and fluctuations, and global interrelations of Islamic cultures and societies. In addition to the Middle East, the school takes care to include Asia and sub-Saharan Africa as well as the Muslim diaspora in Europe and North America within its research activities.
The graduate school encompasses the disciplines of Islamic studies, comparative ethics, Asian and African studies, ethnology, political science, geography, Iranian studies, Turkic studies, history, Southeast Asian studies, and Semitic languages and literature.