My interest in Islamic civilization began during my undergraduate studies in Theology and Religion at the University of Cambridge. Following my Bachelor’s degree I worked for the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation in Cairo before beginning a Magister Artium at the University of Tübingen. Here I majored in Islamic Studies with minors in Politics and the Study of Judaism (2004-2009). After my graduation I worked for the Middle East and North Africa section of Transparency International for two years before beginning a PhD at the Freie Universität Berlin (2011-2016).
My doctoral research focused on Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma, a compendium of rulings for Jews and Christians living within the Realm of Islam which was written by the Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350/751). Throughout my research I became interested in the author’s use of space – both physical and metaphorical – to denote social and religious hierarchies.
I maintain this interest in my current research, which is dedicated to the province of Ifriqiya in the Early Islamic Empire. My study of the portrayal of this frontier region invokes different conceptualizations of the relation between space and imperial power, placing concepts of layered empire and empire as network alongside more classical models of territory. A second question considers the role that Ifriqiya played in the political and economic operation of the Empire, with a particular emphasis on trade networks connecting Iraq to western and Sub-Saharan Africa. My sources include textual and visual culture as well as numismatic and archaeological material, and my methodology benefits from digital analytic tools where relevant.
