Prof. Dr. Stefan Heidemann

Over the past years I have become known as a historian of the Middle East who has an equal command of the study of literary and legal sources, material culture, numismatics, and archaeological evidence. I focus mainly on periods of transition and economic and cultural change in Islamic societies. Most prominent among my studies figure the formation of the early Islamic Empire, the apogee of the Abbasid Empire and the formation of the Middle Islamic civilization in the 12th and 13th centuries. I work with archaeological missions from Portugal to Mongolia, yet most of whom excavate in Syria.

Five major research projects emerged from this interest:

• The Early Islamic Empire at Work – The View from the Regions Toward the Center (ERC funded)
• Al-Raqqa at the Euphrates: Urbanity, Economy and Settlement Pattern in the Early Islamic Period
• The Middle Islamic Period: Social, Economic and Cultural Transformations in Syria and Northern Mesopotamia
• Coinage, Commerce and Taxation in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Middle Ages. (GIF funded)
• A Survey of Islamic Numismatics
• The Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project (BACH)

In addition, I pursue currently a number of specific interests, the Abbasid invention of brass, Syriac and Arabic lead seals of the eleventh century, the development of metalwork and neo-Mamluk art in the nineteenth century and the use of medieval history in modern visual political discourse as specific form of cultural memory, and the history of Oriental studies.

The interest in material culture, as source for the societies creating it, lead me to be member of a number of collaborative research projects, and working groups, among them

• The Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project
• KENOM - Co-operative Indexing of Object Data of Coin Collections
• Seljuq Figural Stucco Research Network (Coordinator)

In order to foster dissemination of knowledge in these fields I developed research-oriented classes in material culture as source for the societies creating it for Hamburg's students and those from other universities in the form of international webinars, and workshops for example in the US, Afghanistan (BACH) etc.

As a teacher in Islamic Studies, coming from modern development economics and working on Early and Middle Islamic civilizations, I offer a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses on language, religion, culture, history, and politics of the 19th and 20th centuries. An important aspect in all of my classes whether they are about the development of Islamic thought, law, cultural practice and institutions, is the understanding of their historical, geographical, and economic contextes.

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[photo for press release]