Islamic Studies in Vienna

The Chair of Islamic Studies deals with Islam-related topics in the broadest sense of the term in a global perspective. The focal points are in the following areas: exclusive contemporary movements (Salafiyya, Jihadism, Wahhabism), tasawwuf, epistemological studies, medical humanities, natural sciences, and Islamic traditions.

The approach of Islamic Studies is base on philology in a broad sense and a source-based analysis including sources of the Internet Islamic Studies understands the discipline as part of an ongoing dialogue of Islamic issues at an 'equal footing' (in the tradition, e. g., of Ignaz Goldziher) referring critically to discourses on Islam. In the future Islamic Studies at the University of Vienna will have a focus on the social and cultural history of the Islamic World combining it with an analysis of the developments of the contemporary Islamic world.