Prof. dr. P.M. (Petra) Sijpesteijn

Position:
  • Professor of Arabic Language and Culture
Expertise:
  • Islamic history
  • Arabic papyrology
  • Historiography


Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2027
E-Mail: p.m.sijpesteijn@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Leiden Institute for Area Studies, SMES APT
Office Address: Witte Singel-complex
Witte Singel 25/M. de Vrieshof 4
2311 BZ Leiden
Room number 1.08a

Spreekuur / Office hours

Dinsdag 10-12, Tuesday 10-12

Fields of interest

My research and teaching concentrate on the social and economic history of Late Antiquity, Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean; Arabic papyrology, codicology and palaeography; the use of documentary evidence; historiography and the history of Islamic and Arabic Studies. Specific topics include:

History: The birth and rise of Islam; non-Muslim communities under Islam, mediaeval to modern; the spread of Islam, from the earliest conquests to the modern world; conversion and Arabisation from Muhammad to the present; Islamic popular culture; Mediterranean trade systems and the practice of mediaeval Islamic law.

Sources: Theory and methods of the study of Islam; material culture and history; archaeology; Arabic papyrology, epigraphy and palaeography; Judaeo-Arabic documents; classical Arabic language.

Context and Comparative Perspectives: The history of the Islamic world (600 to the present); the ancient Near Eastern context; Islam and the West; the origins of Islamic law; late antique monotheism; Islamic sects, from mediaeval Siffin to modern-day Najaf; Islamic mediaeval diplomacy; women in Islam, from Aisha to Hirsi Ali; Arab nation alism and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Research

Current projects:

“The Formation of Islam: The View from Below” ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant 2009-2014

“Late Antiquity and early Islam: Continuity and Change in the Mediterranean and Arabia” NWO Internationalisation in the Humanities Network Grant with Oxford University, Princeton University and the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne (2009-2012)

CV

Education

Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey. 1998-2004
Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies June 2004
M.A. in Near Eastern Studies May 2000

Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. 1996-1997
Graduate studies with a Fulbright Scholarship

Leiden University, Leiden. 1990-97
M.A. in Arabic Language and Culture 1997
M.A. in Ancient History 1996

University of Damascus, Syria. 1994-1995
History and Arabic Language Studies

Employment 

- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut de recherche et d’histoire des texts (IRHT), Paris
Chargée de recherche Jan. 2007-present

- Christ Church, Oxford
Junior Research Fellow in Oriental Studies 2003-2007

Key publications

Shaping a Muslim State : The World of a Mid-Eighth-Century Egyptian Official. Oxford University Press. 2012

‘Economics of the Umayyad Army,’ in Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Medieval Middle East. Essays in Honour of Avram L. Udovitch, R. Margarati, A. Sabra and P.M. Sijpesteijn, eds. Leiden: E. J. Brill. 2010: 245-268

’Multilingual Archives and Documents in Post-Conquest Egypt,’ in The Multilingual Experience in Egypt, from the Ptolemies to the ‘Abbāsids. A. Papaconstantinou, ed. Burlington: Ashgate. 2010: 105-126

‘A Mid-Eighth-Century Trilingual Tax Demand to a Bawit Monk,’ in A. Boud’hors, J. Clackson and P. M. Sijpesteijn (eds.), The Administration of Monastic Estates in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt, American Studies in Papyrology (Oxford 2009: 102-119

‘Arabic Papyri and Islamic Egypt,’ Chapter 20 in R. S. Bagnall (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Papyrology. Oxford University Press. 2009: 452-472

‘Landholding Patterns in Early Islamic Egypt,’ Journal of Agrarian Change 9 (2009): 120-133

Teaching

BA:
·  History of the Middle East 600-1500
·  History of the Middle East 1500-2010
·  Arabic codicology
·  The World of Scheherazade: Cultural history of medieval Islam
·  Moving ideas and people: BA thesis seminar
·  Contributions to: The transmission and transformation of culture in Europe and the Islamic World, 800-1700 and From Antiquity to the Middle Ages

MA:
·  Culture and Society in the Medieval Muslim World: Muslim and non-Muslim minorities under Islam
·  Text and Transmission

Prizes and Awards

·    European Research Council Starting Grant for the project “The View from Below” (2009-2013)
·    Mellon Foundation, New York. Sawyer Mellon Seminar (2006-2007)
·    Princeton University Department of Near Eastern Studies Thesis Award (2005)
·    Research and travel grant from the British Academy (2004-2005)
·    Joseph Scaliger Research Fellowship, Leiden University (2003; 2004)
·    Christ Church, Oxford. Junior Research Fellowship (2003-2007)
·    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 2003 Michigan Society of Fellows (declined)
·    Pembroke College, Cambridge. 2003 Abdullah Mubarak al-Sabah Research Fellowship (declined)
·    Princeton University Harold W. Dodds Fellowship. 2002-2003
·    Princeton University Center for the Study of Religion. Dissertation Research Award (2001-2002)         
·    Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Graduate internship in the Islamic Art Department (2000 declined)
·    Fulbright Scholarship (1997-1998)

LIAS
Last Modified: 05-03-2012