IMIR - International Center for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations

Jorgen S. Nielsen

Jorgen S. Nielsen holds a PhD in Arab history from the American University of Beirut.

From 1978 till 2005 he was at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, University of Birmingham, UK, where he became Professor of Islamic Studies in 1996.

From 2005 till 2007 he was Director of the Danish Institute in Damascus and Cultural Counsellor at the Danish Embassy there.

In October 2007 he was appointed Danish National Research Foundation Professor of Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he leads the Centre for European Islamic Thought.

Since 1978 Prof. Nielsen's research focus has been Islam in Europe, and he has been active in international Christian-Muslim dialogue.

Apart from numerous articles he is the author of the following books:

• Muslims in Western Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 3rd ed. 2004;
• joint editor with A. Zhelyazkova of The ethnology of Sufi Orders: Theory and practice, Sofia: IMIR, 2001;
• chief editor of Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Leiden: Brill, 2009 ff;
• joint editor of Shari'a as discourse: Legal traditions and the encounter with Europe,  Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.