Short presentation

From early 2021, I continue my research as associate professor and research leader with a Sapere Aude grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The project is called 'Producing Sharia in Context' and it demonstrates how sharia, framed as Islamic law, ethics and practice and observed amongst Muslims in Denmark and Europe, is substantially to be understood as a product of its context.

In addition, my primary research is on Islam and Muslims in Denmark and Europe. Muslims have quickly to become the second largest religious community in Denmark and many other of the European countries. Here I investigate how Muslims are organizing and building sustainable, institutionalized structures. It is all about establishing professionalism, integration, representations and a continious negotiation of positions, ressources and status.

Closely connected to this research there is plenty of occasion to work on a number of related issues; law and religion, religion and politics, history of Christianity and Middle East studies. I will gladly give a talk, a class or sound counselling if needed, and I would love to advice on papers and theses, if relevant to my reserach interests.

Current research

From 2021 to 2025, I am leading a project called 'Producing Sharia in Context' which is made possible with a Sapere Aude grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The project investigates how sharia is to be understood and observed as a product of its context. 

Read more about the Sapere Aude project here.

From 2017 to 2020, I did my research as part of the project 'Danish Mosques – Significance, Use and Influence,' sponsored by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. My subproject focuses on mosque leadership and power relations between mosques in Denmark. 

Read more about 'Danish Mosques – Significance, Use and Influence' here.

From 2014 to 2018, I conducted research in a project called, ‘Imams of the West,’ which was a qualitative sociological interview study of between 50 and 60 imams in Europe, Australia and North America (‘the West’) in order to document how the Islamic religious institution of the imam changes in the challenging encounter with a global, multicultural and post-migration ‘Western’ world.

The three main research objectives are to produce;

1. A clear sociological and Islamic studies profile of the institution of the imam in the Western context, in both its archetypical, classic form and in all its modern and contemporary varieties. Simply put; who is the imam and what does he think and do?
2. An in-depth analysis of the reflection by the interviewees on the challenges facing Islam in the West today, leading to an assessment of the theological innovations of Islam in the West. Where is Islam headed and how does it respond to the West?
3. A comparative analysis of the developments, positions and reflections of the imams in their geographical spread. While migratory, political, economic and historical circumstances diverge in the individual countries and states, there is a comparable and ongoing discourse about Islam and imams on all three continents.

In the spring of 2018 the first results are published in Hashas, M., de Ruiter, J.J., & Vinding, N.V. (eds), The Imamate in Western Europe, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press

Read more about the project here.

Primary fields of research

Islam in Europe and Denmark. Relations between religion, state and church. Organised and institutionalized Islam. Sharia and religious law. Multiculture, plurality of religions and multiculturalism. Imams in Europe, America and Australia.

Teaching

Islam and Imams in Denmark and Europe, MA, Spring 2017
Islam in the 20th and 21st Century, MA Fall 2016
Lived Islam, MA, Fall 2016
Islamic Law, MA, Spring 2015
Islam in Europe and Denmark, MA, Spring 2015
History of Christianity, BA Fall 2014
Classic Islamic Civilisation, BA Spring 2014

CV

Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Law & Religion, at Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen 

2022 - 
As of 1 October 2022, I am a permanently associate professor at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen, where I will research and teach Islamic studies, but also cultivate the research field 'law and religion'. I continue as head of the project 'Producing Sharia in Context' until early 2025.

Associate Professor and research leader, Department for Cross-cultural and Regional Studies

2021 - 2022

With the Sapere Aude grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark, the purpose of the project 'Producing Sharia in Context' is to investigate the sharia practice of Danish Muslims, as a very variable entity. In many sectors of society, a significant part of sharia is interpreted and concretized in the meeting with ordinary social and professional functions such as school teachers and social workers - or prison officers who, for example, negotiate with Muslim inmates about what reasonable accommodations to be taken on Fridays. At the same time, we see that Muslims' stance on current issues such as climate and sustainability, gender and equality, law and democracy are shifting their understanding of the meaning of the divine messages.

Post.doc fellow, Department for Cross-cultural and Regional Studies

2017 - 2020
http://mosques.ku.dk/

As framed in the project, mosques are not simply Muslim places of worship, but a complex contemporary socio-religious institution of the post-migratory Muslims in Denmark that are highly conflicted and contested in present day Denmark. They are products of infighting, power struggles and pragmatic negotiations internally amongst users, subgroups and leadership and externally with local, national and international agents, stakeholders and structures. We propose to empirically explore the complex power forms and relations constituent to the mosque through initial contextualizing archival and case research followed by qualitative interviews with key informants and participant observation in the mosques in order to produce a multifaceted power diagnostics of the forces at play in and around Danish mosques. Thus, the purpose of this research project is to investigate the forms, rationales and relations of power associated with the perceptions, authority, positions, dynamics and counter-power of mosques in Denmark.

Assistant Professor, Department for Cross-cultural and Regional Studies

2014 - 2017
The project ‘Imams of the West’ proposes a qualitative sociological interview study of
between 50 and 60 imams in Europe, Australia and North America (‘the West’) in order to
document how the Islamic religious institution of the imam changes in the challenging
encounter with a global, multicultural and post-migration ‘Western’ world.

Member of the Board of Danmission

2016 - 2020
Member of the Board of Danmission appointed by the board

PhD Fellow, Centre for European Islamic Thought, University of Copenhagen.

2009 - 2013

This PhD project is intended to investigate the relationship and interactions between on the one side organised Muslims and Muslim institutions, and on the other side, the relationship to religion of the State, specifically in Britain, Germany and Denmark, perhaps Scandinavia. The intention is to examine the current situation of Muslim organisations and institutions in these countries, and the way they address their legal needs and norms to the State. This is to be closely understood in the light of the State's very traditional regulation of, accommodation of and relationship to religion generally and Islam specifically.

Master of Arts in Islamic Studies, Department of Cross-cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2006 - 2009

Won the University of Copenhagen Gold Medal for Academic Excellence with the thesis on 'the English State's regulation of the relationship between the State and Anglicanism and Islam, respectively'