OIB-COSIMENA Research Colloquium II on Knowledge Transfer
In the first joint colloquium in 2023-2024, the research focus was on new approaches to religious ethics, which was divided into three sections (gender, environmental and biomedical ethics). The 12 lectures were held by Egyptian and German scholars. Attention was paid to the plurality of perspectives: man – woman, Muslim – Christian, Sunni – Shiite, and Catholic – Orthodox – Evangelical. The contributions of the 12 scholars will be published in an anthology in autumn 2024. The success of the colloquium was confirmed by various indicators, in particular the great interest of the audience and the interest of the carefully selected speakers in taking part.
The OIB (Cairo Office) is organizing a new series in cooperation with the DAAD Regional Office Cairo in the period between June 2024 – April 2025 on a new topic, namely “Knowledge transfer, its history and its future in the age of digital humanities” or briefly “Knowledge transfer between history and innovation”. In the new series, the topic will also be treated in an interdisciplinary manner from different perspectives, namely history, religious studies, sociology, modernity and computer science. This time also, there will be three clusters of 4 lectures each. The first cluster addresses the question of what knowledge transfer is. The second focuses on the questions of how, why and by whom. The final cluster will address modern times.
First Public Lecture: Knowledge Transfer and Culture Transfer in the Mamluk Period (1250 – 1517)
Biography of the Speaker
© Albrecht Fuess
Prof. Dr. Albrecht Fuess studied History and Islamic Studies at Cologne University and Cairo University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Cologne in 2000 with a dissertation on the history of the Syro-Palestanian coast in Mamluk times (1250-1517). Since 2010 he has been a Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Marburg.
Registration Link: https://www.daad.de/surveys/199876?lang=en
Deadline for Registration: 12 June 2024
Key information
Date: 13 June 2024
Time: from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (CLT)
Location: DAAD Regional Office Cairo (11- El-Saleh Ayoub Street, Zamalek, Cairo)
This public lecture aims to shed light on the following perspectives
- Exploring the aspects of knowledge transfer in the Mamluk period
- Describing the processes of (knowledge) transfer and (personal) mobility
- Showcasing the mobility situation in the pre-modern period of Egypt and beyond
Second Public Lecture: Women and the Transmission of Knowledge in pre-modern Islamic Societies: Muftis, Muhadithat and Faqihat
Biography of the Speaker
Dr Hoda El-Saadi is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and a co-founder of the Woman and memory forum. She received both her BA and MA from the American University in Cairo and her PhD from Cairo University in Islamic History. She has a wide variety of teaching experiences at both national and international Universities and through participating in graduate educational workshops at different national universities. El Saadi developed an interest in gender issues in the Islamic tradition. The objective of her research is to empower women by making available historical information that demonstrates women’s involvement in public life. She believes that social and cultural issues should be studied in relation to larger issues such as Islamic law, Islamic civilization, and the changing social political, and economic structures. There is an urgent need to study Islamic law in order to understand the development of the social practices and to find out how Islamic law and local practices shaped Islamic societies. This made her join the Islamic studies program at AUC, and earn a diploma in the field.
Registration Link: https://www.daad.de/surveys/616895?lang=en
Deadline for Registration: 23 June 2024
Key information
Date: 26 June 2024
Time: from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (CLT)
Location: DAAD Regional Office Cairo (11- El-Saleh Ayoub Street, Zamalek, Cairo)
This public lecture aims to shed light on the following perspectives
- Exploring the ways of knowledge transfer by women in pre-modern Islamic societies
- Describing the active historical presence of women in fields of theology and religious sciences
- The role of women as Muslim agents in pre-modern Islamic societies
Third Public Lecture: What went wrong with Islamic Historiography? On the Need for a Global Perspective
Concept Note
“Why are Muslims backwards?” and “What caused the decline of Islam?”. These questions stem from the high age of imperialism. Typically, the paradigm of modernization as Westernization was coupled with that of an Islamic decline. Both paradigms have by now been refuted, the first mainly by social theorists, and the second by historians of the Islamic Middle East. However, no alternative model or narrative to these obsolete paradigms has yet been established. This contributes to the lasting purchase of notions of Islamic decline and Western progress in non-specialized academic fields and amongst the public. This lecture will revisit the main trends and options in the writing of modernity in the Middle East and discuss especially their underlying premises. Against internalist perspectives and culturalist explanations, it will argue for the need for connected histories, departing from the synchronic emergence of modernity in the colonial encounter.
Biography of the Speaker
Florian Zemmin is a Professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies (Islamwissenschaft) at Freie Universität Berlin and Director of the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies. Previously he was a Senior Researcher at the Humanities Center for Advanced Study “Multiple Secularities: Beyond the West, beyond modernities” at the University of Leipzig.
His main field of research is religion and society in the modern and contemporary Arab and Islamic world. In that field, more specific topics include Islamic reformism, theories of secularity, and Arabic sociologies of religion. Next to the sociology of religion and sociology of knowledge, he mainly works with approaches to conceptual history.
Registration Link: https://www.daad.de/surveys/296175?lang=en
Deadline for Registration: 18 September 2024
Key information
Date: 23 September 2024
Time: from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (CLT)
Location: DAAD Regional Office Cairo (11- El-Saleh Ayoub Street, Zamalek, Cairo)
This public lecture aims to shed light on the following perspectives:
- Revisiting the main trends and options in the writing of modernity in the Middle East
- Understanding of connected histories, its various perspectives and culturalist explanations
- Explaining the paradigm of modernization and its relationship with Islam
Fourth Public Lecture: Translation and the Colonial Dilemma - Pioneering Approaches during Egypt’s 19th Century Modernization Period
Concept Note
Translations from European languages were an important instrument of modernization for roughly four decades beginning in the 1830s. Besides being documents of intellectual acumen and linguistic proficiency, they may reflect, and in fact react to, the unequal power relations characteristic of the colonial setup. Tahtawi’s first modern Arabic literary translation, nearly forgotten today, his translation of the French constitutional law, and the translations of the huge corpus of the five French law books, which he supervised, give evidence of the translators’ strategies of cultural self-assertion and, potentially much more important, their endeavor to convey practically and politically relevant knowledge beyond cultural boundaries.+
Biography of the Speaker
Prof. Dr Stefan Leder was chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Halle, then director of the Orient-Institut Beirut. The current project on Arabic translation during the colonial period correlates to his research on the genealogy of Orientalism. Further research areas concern premodern Arabic historiography, Islamic ethics and political literature, and conceptual history.
Registration Link: https://www.daad.de/surveys/698776?lang=en
Deadline for Registration: 27th October 2024
Key information
Date: 30th October 2024
Time: from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (CLT)
Location: DAAD Regional Office Cairo (11- El-Saleh Ayoub Street, Zamalek, Cairo)
This public lecture aims to shed light on the following perspectives:
- Discuss the translation of European languages as an instrument of modernization
- Explaining Tantawi’s translation of French constitutional law and translations of a huge corpus of five French law books
- Illustrating translators’ strategies of cultural self-assertion
Fifth Public Lecture: Creation and Transfer of Knowledge in Islamic Law
Concept Note
Islamic law admittedly finds its origin in the major principles contained in the Quran and the Sunna of the Prophet. Following his death, the judges appointed by the expanding nascent state made their utmost to decide cases and settle down rising disputes in order to keep peace and tranquility in the society. They succeeded in their mission and set lots of precedents that were created by their efforts. Their creative endeavor was termed later on as Ijtihad. The novel precedents helped solve disputes on one hand and the development of the legal systems. The case of the three girls playing the horse rider and driver game, for example, sets the principle of contributory negligence. It was decided by the fourth caliph, Ali bin Abi Talib. Many other cases established essential legal principles transferred to future generations through oral transmission up to the time of documenting them in the manuals of jurisprudence. Creative Ijtihad continues and its high value for securing justice and peace in society necessitated the preservation of the legal knowledge up to the present day. Taqlid exercised by the learnt jurists or التقليد المستبصر in the language of al Shatibi has played a vital role in the transfer of legal knowledge.
Biography of the Speaker
Prof. Mohamed Serag is a professor of Islamic studies at the Sheikh Hassan Abbas Sharbatly, Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at The American University in Cairo (AUC). Serag was a professor and chair of the Islamic Law Department at the Alexandria University Faculty of Law, Egypt; chair of the Department of Islamic Law at Cairo University; and assistant and associate professor of law at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. He authored, translated, and co-edited numerous books on Islamic law, including books on the Islamic law of trusts; Islamic legal theory and practice; Islamic laws of contract, inheritance, and bequests; the Islamic banking system; and torts in Islam.
Registration Link: https://www.daad.de/surveys/432517?lang=en
Deadline for Registration: 3rd November 2024
Key information
Date: 5th November 2024
Time: from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (CLT)
Location: DAAD Regional Office Cairo (11- El-Saleh Ayoub Street, Zamalek, Cairo)
This public lecture aims to shed light on the following perspectives:
- Tackling the origins of Islamic law and the development of legal systems
- Explaining the significance of Ijtihad and its influence on future generations
- Illustrating the role of Taqlid in ensuring foundational principles
6th Public Lecture: The contribution of ‘Syrians’ to the early stages of the Egyptian “Nahḍa” in the reign of Muḥammad ʿAlī”
Concept Note
Muḥammad ʿAlī (r. 1805-1848) is generally regarded as the father of modern Egypt, who, through the development of industry and infrastructure and the creation of a modern army, transformed the backward country into a powerful state capable of challenging even the sultans in Istanbul.
The present event will take a closer look at these processes of change, knowledge transfer and creation in the fields of culture and education, developments that are often referred to as the “Nahda”, the cultural, especially literary, reawakening of the Arab world during the 19th and early 20th centuries, which had its main stages in Egypt and Lebanon.
Muḥammad ʿAlī’s modernisation activities are often associated with the Europeans who served him as advisers, educators and managers. Rarely mentioned is the fact that there was also a south-south transfer of knowledge and expertise by mostly Christian Syrians who had immigrated to Egypt since the 18th century. Their role will be examined in more detail. Special attention will be given to “Don Raphael” (Rūfāʾīl Zakhkhūr), an illustrious figure of Syrian origin who was an advisor to Napoleon in Egypt and the only Arab member of the famous Institut d’Egypte. Don Raphael was involved in many of Muḥammad ʿAlī’s educational and cultural projects, such as the medical school, the printing press and translation activities. Through the portrayal of him and a few others, it will be shown that ‘Syrians’ already contributed significantly to the early stages of the ‘Nahḍa’ in Egypt.
Biography of the Speaker
Dr Carsten Walbiner, director of the DAAD office in Cairo since December 2022, received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig in 1995. A specialist in the history of Arab Christianity in the Ottoman period, he is a member of the Research Centre for the Christian Orient at the Catholic University of Eichstätt and for the past decade has been section editor for Christian Arabic texts in the mega-project “Christian-Muslim relations: a bibliographic history” (CMR), implemented by the University of Birmingham and Brill Publishers. He has published on a wide range of topics, including church history, travel literature, book printing and manuscripts. He is currently preparing two catalogues of the Oriental manuscript collections of Andechs Abbey (Bavaria) and the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem.
Registration Link: https://www.daad.de/surveys/184164?lang=en
Deadline for Registration: X November 2024
Key information
Date: Wednesday, 27th November 2024
Time: from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (CLT)
Location: DAAD Regional Office Cairo (11- El-Saleh Ayoub Street, Zamalek, Cairo)
This public lecture aims to shed light on the following perspectives:
- Tackling the transformation of the industry and infrastructure under Muhammed Alis’s rule.
- Showcasing knowledge and expertise transfer under Christian Syrians who immigrated to Egypt since the 18th century
- Exploring the contributions of “Don Raphael” in Muhammed Alis’s educational and cultural projects
7th Public Lecture: “Muslim Women as Scribes and Calligraphers: Biographical and Codicological Notes”
Concept Note
While it has been argued that knowledge production was a traditionally male enterprise, this lecture attempts to share a different view by showing women in the field of knowledge transmission and production. This is based on the biographical accounts and chronicles to show the names of and information about warraqāt or muwarriqāt (‘paper-ologist’), nāsikhāt (scribes, copyists), khaṭṭaṭāt (calligraphers) and munamnimāt or munammiqāt (illuminists). In addition, we will present some codicological features of manuscripts that have been written by women and follow their professional patterns.
Biography of the Speakers
Prof. Dr Walid Ghali is a professor of Islamic and Arabic studies and the head of the Aga Khan Library in London. He works in different research areas such as Islamic codicology, Sufism and Muslim reformers in the 19th century. He is also a novelist, published two collections of short stories and one novel.
Dr Yasmin Amin is an Egyptian-German who received her PhD in Islamic studies in 2021 from Exeter University’s Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies researching ‘Humour and Laughter in the Ḥadīth’. Her research covers various aspects of gender issues, early Muslim society and culture as well as the original heritage texts. Since 2022, she is the OIB’s representative in Cairo.
Registration Link: https://www.daad.de/surveys/274197?lang=en
Deadline for Registration: 16th December 2024
Key information
Date: 18th November 2024
Time: from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (CLT)
Location: DAAD Regional Office Cairo (11- El-Saleh Ayoub Street, Zamalek, Cairo)
This public lecture aims to shed light on the following perspectives:
- Discuss the role of women in the field of knowledge transmission and production
- Present codicological features of manuscripts that have been written by women and follow their professional patterns
Additional Information
After your registration, you will receive a confirmation email with all the necessary information 2 days before the event.
For further information about the COSIMENA project and to subscribe to the COSIMENA network, please visit: https://www.daad.eg/en/about-us/cosimena/
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email us at: cosimena@daadcairo.org
