People

Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag

Director

Phone: +49-(0)30-80307-0
Regional focus: Arab countries (notably Arabian Peninsula and Bilād al-Shām), Indian Ocean
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag

Positions

10/2002 - present
Director, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, in conjunction with a full special professorship (S-Professur), Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
9/1993 - 9/2002
Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
3/1991 - 12/1991
Wissenschaftliche Angestellte (Lecturer), Chair of non-European History, Fern-Universität Hagen (German Open University)

Education

2002
State Doctorate (Habilitation) in Islamic Studies, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn
1991
PhD (Dr. phil.) in History, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg
1987
Magister Artium (MA) in History, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg
1981 - 1987
Study of History, Islamic Studies, Literature, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (to 1983), Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (to 1987), University of Damascus (1984-85)

Scholarships, Research Fellowships, Awards

10/2017 - 07/2018
Fellowship, Käthe-Hamburger Kolleg Re:Work
03/2014
LUCIS Spring Fellow, University of Leiden
10/2000 - 9/2001
Fellowship for completion of State Doctorate (Habilitation), Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft
10/1999 - 9/2000
Junior Research Fellowhsip, Historisches Kolleg Munich
8/1996 - 7/1997
Research Fellowship for research in Yemen and Southeast Asia, affiliated with Institute of Oriental Studies, University of Bonn (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)
1/1993 - 9/1993
Research scholarship funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for work in British Archives
9/1988 - 7/1991
PhD Fellowship (Graduiertenförderung) by the State of Baden Württemberg
9/1994 - 6/1985
Scholarship by German German Academic Exchange Service for study of Arabic and History, University of Damascus, Syria

Publications (Selection)

Monographs

A History of Jeddah. The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Cambridge University Press 2020, 404 pp. Reviews: Bruckmayr, Phillipp, DAVO-Nachrichten 54/55 (Dez. 2023), pp. 160-64; Reilly, Benjamin Jmaes, Project Muse, 2.6.2023; Schlicht, Alfred, Orientalische Literaturzeitung, 6.4.2023; Sebastian Prange, Journal of islamic Studies 33;3 (Sept. 2022), pp. 405-7.; FAZ, 02/05/2020; Okaz, 06/07/2020; Seema Alavi, "The Unique Gateway. A History of Jeddah", Urban History April-June 2020, p. 34; Middle East Monitor 11/05/2020; Alwatan, 4/02/2021; Orient 62 2021, S. 68-71; zenith 15.04.2021; The American Historical Review 06.19.2021; Bustan: The Middle East Book Review 2021. Podcasts: New Books network, 10/8/2020; Tell me a history, 28/09/2020; غين - Gheyn, 06/10/2020.

Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut. Leiden, Brill 2003, 589 pp. (Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia, 87). Reviews: Nico J.G. Kaptein, Leiden University in: Asian Journal of Social Science, 35 (2007), 268-69; Asian Journal of Social Science, 35 (2007), 268-69; Sudanic Africa 14 (2003), 140-148; Chroniques Yéménites /11 (2003), 443f., /Archiv orientální/73 (2005), 517-520, Jemen-Report 36, 2005, BSOAS 67;3 (2004), ArOr 73 (2005)

Imperialer Übergang und Dekolonisation: Das Beispiel Syrien. Kurseinheit des Grundkurses an der FernUniversität Hagen über das Moderne Asien. Hagen 1992, 94 pp.

Geschichtsschreibung in Syrien 1920-1990: Zwischen Wissenschaft und Ideologie. Hamburg, Orient Institut 1991, 454 pp. Reviews: npl, REMMM, ZdMG.

Edited Volumes

ed. with Jeanine Elif Daǧyeli and Claudia Ghrawi, Claiming and Making Muslim Worlds, Religion and Society in the Context of the Global, De Gruyter, Berlin 2021, https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110726534/html?lang=en

ed. with Randa Aboubakr, Sarah Jurkiewicz, Hicham Ait-Mansour, Spaces of Participation. Dynamics of Social and Political Change in the Arab World, AUC Press Cairo 2021, https://aucpress.com/product/spaces-of-participation/.

(with André Chappatte und Nora Lafi): Understanding the City through its Margins, Abingdon, Routledge, 2018, 190 p. [2019: paperback edition]

(with Nelida Fuccaro, Claudia Ghrawi, Nora Lafi): Urban Violence in the Middle East. Changing Cityscapes in the Transition from Empire to Nation State, Berghahn series Space & Place, Vol 14, New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015, 334 p.

(with Nora Lafi): Urban Governance Under the Ottomans. Between cosmopolitanism and conflict, SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East, Abingdon, Routledge, 2014, 238 p.

(with William Clarence-Smith): al-Shattat al-hadhrami. Tujjar, 'ulama', wa-rijal dawla. Hadharim fi almuhit-al-hindi 1750-1960, Tarim li-l-dirasat wa-l-nashr, Übersetzung: 'Abdallah 'Abd al-Rahman al-Kaf., 2014 (Übersetzung: Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s-1960s. Leiden, Brill 1997), o.O., o.J.

(with Malte Fuhrmann, Nora Lafi, Florian Riedler): The City in the Ottoman Empire. Migration and the making of urban modernity, SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East, London: Routledge, 2011, 272 pp. Reviews: hsozkult, 25.10.2012 (http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2012-4-075)

Articles

Hammams à Sanaa. Culture, Architecture, Histoire et Société, edited by Michel Tuchscherer and Nabil Boutros, In Die Welt des Islams, 2023.

Der Friedhof für Nichtmuslime in Dschidda, Saudi-Arabien. In: Moderne Stadtgeschichte (MSG), Bd. 1, 2022, 39-55.

Urban Life in Late Ottoman, Hashemite and Early Saudi Jeddah, as Documented in the Photographs in the Snouck Hurgronje Collection in Leiden. in: Léon Buskens, Jan Just Witkam, Annemarie van Sandwijk, Scholarship in Action. Essays on the Life and Work of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936), The History of Oriental Studies 12, Brill, Leiden, 2022, S. 139-167.

The Projection of Saudi Arabian Influence to West Africa, In: Sounaye, Abdoulaye; Chappatte, André (Ed.), Islam and Muslim Life in West Africa, Practices, Trajectories and Influences, de Gruyter, Berlin, 2022, 173-205.

Thinking of the City through Film and Cinema: Roll’em, Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Special Issue: Urban Cultures in the Gulf from a Historical Media Perspective, 15, 2022, S. 241-258.

(mit Noël van den Heuvel): Religion and pandemic. State, Islam and society in Saudi Arabia and Iran during the coronavirus crisis 1. In: The MENA Region and COVID-19. Impact, Implications and Prospects, Zeina Hobaika, Lena-Maria Möller, Jan Claudius Völkel, Routledge, 2022, 107-127.

(mit Daǧyeli, Jeanine, Ghrawi, Claudia) Claiming and Making Muslim Worlds. In: Daǧyeli, Jeanine Elif; Ghrawi, Claudia; Freitag, Ulrike (Ed.) Claiming and Making Muslim Worlds Religion and Society in the Context of the Global, de Gruyter, 2021,ZMO, Nr. 40, S. 1-28.

(mit Noël van den Heuvel): Geschichte des Vorderen Orients und Nordafrikas an deutschen Einrichtungen - Entwicklungen und Trends, VHD Journal, Vol. 10, 2021, 27-30.

(mit Angelika Poferl, Heidemarie Winkel, Ulrike Freitag, Yael Kupferberg, Nahed Samour, Dorothea Sattler): Das Spannungsverhältnis von Feminismus, Säkularismus und Religion, deGruyter, Feministische Studien, Vol. 39, 2021,103-125.  ISSN: 2365-9920 Print ISSN: 0723-5186

(mit Eva Geulen, Manfred Krifka): Aktuelle Perspektiven. In: GWZ (ed.), 25 Jahre Geisteswissenschaftliche Zentren Berlin, 2021.

Islam im städtischen Raum. in: Ludger Hagedorn; Patricia Löwe; Stadt und Religion: Wegzeichen zu einer postsäkularen Urbanität, 170-186, Herder, 2021.

The Dihlīz of the Learned: Bayt Naṣīf as a Node in Reformist Muslim Circles (Mid 19th-Mid 20th Centuries), online publication by the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Nr. 12, November 2020. Arabic Version available.

(with Noël van den Heuvel): Religion und Pandemie. Staat, Religion und Gesellschaft in Saudi-Arabien und Iran in der Coronakrise, in Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 46; 3 (2020), 494-506.

Cosmopolitanism in a Global Perspective. The 2019 Annual Lecture.  German Historical Institute, London, 2020, 24 p.

Reappropriating Urban Heritage. Jeddah’s Rejuvenation and Struggle Over its Past, in: Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ed.), Muslim Worlds – World of Islam? New Directions in Research 2017–2019, ZMO, Berlin, 2019, 66-70.

The History of the Hajj as Heritage: Asset or Burden to the Saudi State, in: Burkhard Schnepel, Tansen Sen (eds.), Travelling Pasts. the Politics of Cultural Heritage in the Indian Ocean World, Brill, Leiden etc. 2019, 62-78.

Die Erforschung muslimisch geprägter Lebens- und Erfahrungswelten, in: Steffen Wippel, Andrea Fischer-Tahir (eds.): Jenseits etablierter Meta-Geographien. Der Nahe Osten und Nordafrika in transregionaler Perspektive, Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verlagsgesellschaft 2018, 212-213.

State-Society Relations through the Lens of Urban Development, in: Ebru Boyar, Kate Fleet (Hg.): Middle Eastern and North African Societies in the Interwar Period, Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2018, 27-53.

(with A. Chappatte und Nora Lafi), The City and its Regulations: Unexpected Margins, in: André Chappatte, Ulrike Freitag, Nora Lafi (eds.), Understanding the City through its Margins, Abingdon, Routledge 2018, 1-15.

A Twentieth-Century Merchant Network Centered on Jeddah: The Correspondence of Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Bin Ḥimd, in Journal of Northeast African Studies 17;1 (2017), 101-130.

Scholarly Exchange and Trade: Muḥammad Ḥusayn Naṣīf and his Letters to Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, in: Michael Kemper, Ralf Elger (eds.), The Piety of Learning. Islamic Studies in Honor of Stefan Reichmuth, Leiden, Boston (E.J.Brill), 2017, 292-300.

Neuere Tendenzen der Restaurierung „authentischer arabischer Architektur“ am Beispiel Saudi Arabiens, in: Christoph Bernhardt, Martin Sabrow, Achim Saupe (eds.), Gebaute Geschichte. Historische Authentizität im Stadtraum, Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2017, 182-205.

(with Philippe Pétriat and Martin Strohmeier): La Première Guerre mondiale dans la péninsule Arabique… en quête de ses sources, in: Arabian Humanities, special issue "Circulations dans la péninsule Arabique pendant la Première Guerre mondiale", No. 6, 2016, online 8 August 2016. In English: World War I in the Arabian Peninsula… in Search of Sources.

Heinrich Freiherr von Maltzan’s “My Pilgrimage to Mecca”: A Critical Investigation, in: Umar Ryad (ed.), The Hajj and Europe in the Age of Empire, Leiden Studies in Islam and Society vol. 5, 2016 [2017], Leiden, Boston: Brill, 142-154, DOI: 10.1163/9789004323353.

Urban life in late Ottoman, Hashemite and early Saudi Jeddah, as documented in the photographs in the Snouck Hurgronje collection in Leiden, ZMO Working Papers 16, 2016, 12 p.

Urban Space and Prestige: When Festivals Turned Violent in Jeddah, 1880s-1960s, in: Nelida Fuccaro (ed.), Violence and the City in the Modern Middle East, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016, 61-74.

(with Nelida Fuccaro, Claudia Ghrawi, Fatemeh Masjedi): Introduction, in: Ulrike Freitag. Nelida Fuccaro, Claudia Ghrawi, Nora Lafi (eds.), Urban Violence in the Middle East. Changing Cityscapes in the Transition from Empire to Nation State, Berghahn series Space & Place, Vol 14, New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015, 1-25.

Symbolic Politics and Urban Violence in Late Ottoman Jeddah, in: Ulrike Freitag. Nelida Fuccaro, Claudia Ghrawi, Nora Lafi (eds.), Urban Violence in the Middle East. Changing Cityscapes in the Transition from Empire to Nation State, Berghahn series Space & Place, Vol 14, New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015, 111-138.

The Falah School in Jeddah: Civic Engagement for Future Generations?, in Jadaliyya, 6 May 2015, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21430/the-falah-school-in-jeddah_civic-engagement-for-fu

(with Nushin Atmaca): Innenpolitische und gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen, in: Aus Politk und Zeitgeschichte (APuZ) Saudi-Arabien, 64(46), 2014, 12-18.

Playing with Gender: The Carnival of al-Qays in Jeddah, in: Nazan Maksudyan (ed.), Women and the City, Women in the City. A Gendered Perspective on Ottoman Urban History, New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2014, 71-85.

(with Nora Lafi): Introduction: Cosmopolitanism and Conflicts: Changes and Challenges in Ottoman Urban Governance, in: Ulrike Freitag, Nora Lafi (eds.), Urban Governance Under the Ottomans. Between Cosmopolitanism and Conflict, SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East, Abingdon Routledge, 2014, 1-17.

Short contributions

The Russian invasion of Ukraine as a contestation of the liberal script? - № 12: The Saudi reaction to the Ukraine war as indicator of shifting alliances, SCRIPTS, 2022.

Foreword to the Introduction to "Diaries of Prisoner Ahmad Suwaydan" Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Texts in Context, 2022.

Rez.: Saudi Arabia and Indonesian Networks: Migration, Education, and Islam by Sumanto Al Qurtuby, Oxford University Press, Journal of Islamic Studies, 2021.

Rez.: Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj By Michael Christopher Low. Oxford: Oxford Journal of Islamic Studies, 2021.

Rez.: Rosie Bsheer, Archive Wars. The Politics of History in Saudi Arabia. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2020 (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures). 416 pp..

Rev.: Madawi Al-Rasheed, Salman’s Legacy. The Dilemmas of a New Era in Saudi Arabia. London: Hurst & Company, 2018. In: Die Welt des Islams, Band 59, Brill, Leiden/Boston 2019, 120-123.

Jidda, In: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson (eds.): The Encyclopedia of Islam Three. Brill, Leiden/Boston 2018, 118.

Foreword. In: Steffen Wippel, Katrin Bromber, Christian Steiner, Birgit Krawietz (ed.), Under Construction. Logics of Urbanism in the Gulf Region, Farnham, Ashgate 2014, xxi-xxii.

Rev.: David Aslanian, Sebouh, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa, California World History Library 17, Berkeley, University of California Press 2011, in: geschichte.transnational, H-Soz-u-Kult, 2014

Media Coverage (Selection)

Tagesspiegel: Aufschub für die Umsatzsteuer Stark-Watzinger will Übergangslösung, Mit Ulrike Freitag, 18.11.2022

Tagesspiegel: Wissenschaftlicher Austausch Der Fiskus fragt die Falschen, Artikel von Ulrike Freitag, 28.Oktober 2022

Tagesspiegel: Berlin darf internationalen Gästen nicht mit Misstrauen begegnen, Artikel von Ulrike Freitag, 03. Juni 2022

SCRIPTS (Contestations of the Liberal Script): The Russian invasion of Ukraine as a contestation of the liberal script? № 12: The Saudi reaction to the Ukraine war as indicator of shifting alliances, 14.04.2022.

Deutschlandfunk Kultur: Mehr als Religion: Vielschichtiger Konflikt in Mali, Interview mit Ulrike Freitag & Judith Scheele, 12. Oktober 2021

Deutschlandfunk Kultur: Vom Orchideenfach zum Topseller: Islamwissenschaften nach 9/11, Interview mit Ulrike Freitag, 05. September 2021

De Gruyter - Conversations: “Our aim is to show the diversity of muslim voices". Interview with Ulrike Freitag, 21.07.2021.

Tagesspiegel: Auch die eigene Gesellschaft kritisch befragenArticle by Ulrike Freitag, 16. November 2020

Deutschlandfunk Kultur: Kulturelle Vielfalt kurz vor Mekka, Interview with Ulrike Freitag, 26 April 2020

leibniz: »Die Pandemie brachte Modernisierung«, Interview with Ulrike Freitag, 21 April 2020

Tagesspiegel:  Wie die Cholera Mekkas Hafenstadt modernisierte, Article by Ulrike Freitag, 15 April 2020

Deutschlandfunk Kultur: Tourismus in Saudi-Arabien. Steht die Öffnung der Konservativen bevor?, Interview with Ulrike Freitag, 27 September 2019

DW News: Saudi Arabien: Frauen dürfen ohne Männer reisen, interview with Ulrike Freitag, 2 August 2019

Deutschlandfunk Kultur: Neues Buch von Thilo Sarrazin. Thesen und Gegenthesen, with a critical comment from Ulrike Freitag towards Thilo Sarrazin's new book "Feindliche Übernahme", 30 August 2018

FAZ: Wie Deutschland mit dem Islam in Dschihad ziehen wollte, by Ulrike Freitag, review of Max von Oppenheim "Denkschrift betreffend die Revolutionierung der islamischen Gebiete unserer Feinde“, edited by Steffen Kopetzky, Verlag Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis 2018, 12 August 2018

leibniz: Am Wasser gebaut: Die Hafenstadt Dschidda, Interview with Ulrike Freitag, 15 March 2017

Full list of media contributions

Service to the Scientific Community (Editorial and Advisory Boards etc.)

Since 2022
Juror, Ernst-Reuter Dissertation Price [Ernst-Reuter-Preis]
2021 - 2023
co-director Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies
2018 - 2020
Juror, Johannes Zilkens-Promotionspreis der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes
Since 2017
Advisory Council Member, ICAS:MP (Metamorphoses of the Political; M. S. Merian – R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences)
Since 2016
Advisory Council Member Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz
2015 - 2018
Advisory Council Member Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute of Advanced Studies)
Since 2014
International Advisory Council Member, World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES)
Since 2014
Council Member "Europe in the Middle East - the Middle East in Europe" (EUME) at Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin
Since 2013
Advisory Board Member, Amsterdam Centre for Middle Eastern Studies (ACMES)
2013 - 2014
Editorial Board, International Journal of Middle East Studies
2012 - 2015
Scientific Advisory Board Member "Elite Change and New Social Mobilization in the Arab World", Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)
2012 - 2017
Scientific Advisory Board Member, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)
2012 - 2018
Advisory Board Member, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin
Since 2012
Vice-Chairperson Enquiry Board Good Scientific Practice, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
2010 - 2015
Board Member, German-Arab Friendship Association (DAFG)
Since 2010
Co-Editor: Journal of Arabian Studies, London
Since 2005
Selection Committee, Georg-Foster Fellowships, Alexander-von-Humboldt Faoundation
Since 2005
Co-Editor: Journal of Global History, Cambridge
Since 2003
Co-Editor: Geschichte und Gesellschaft
Since 2002
Editor: ZMO Studien
Since 2001
Co-Editor (with Benjamin Fortna): SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East
2007 - 2011
Advisory Board, Graduate School Asia and Africa in World Reference Systems, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
2007 - 2009
Scientific Advisory Board, Study about the International Position of German Humanities (Ministry for Education and Research)
2006 - 2013
Co-Editor: Globalgeschichte (Campus-Verlag)
2005 - 2013
Advisory Board, Orient Institut Beirut

Memberships

  • Board of Trustees of the German Orient Foundation (Deutsche Orient-Stiftung)
  • Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient (DAVO)
  • Middle East Studies Association (MESA)
  • Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG)