Dr ​Leif Stenberg

Dean, Institute for the St​udy of Muslim Civilisations​​

Dr Stenberg received his PhD in Islamic Studies from the Lund University, Sweden in 1996 with the publication of his award-winning thesis entitled 'The Islamization of Science: Four Muslim Positions Developing an Islamic Modernity". ​

He was an Assistant Professor at Uppsala Univ​ersity, Sweden for a year and a visiting scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University from 1997 to 1999. From 1999 to 2000, he was a visiting scholar at the Institut Français d'Études Arabes de Damas (IFEAD) in Damascus, Syria. From 2001, he was teaching Islamology at Lund University.​

In 2007, he was appointed as the director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) at Lund University. His research interests include contemporary interpretations of Islam in Sufism, interpretations of Islam among Muslims in Europe, developments within political Islam, and Islam and modern science​​

Since 2010, Dr Stenberg has been the President of the Nordic Society of Middle Eastern Studies, a member of the World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies (​WOCMES) Council since 2014 and Vice-P​resident of the European Association for Middle Eastern Studies (EURAMES) since 2013. He also serves on the Expert Committee of Humanities and Social Sciences, Research Council of Norway.

One of his most recent publications is an edited volume (co-edited with Christa Salamandra) entitled From Reform to Revolt Vol. II: Culture Society and Religion (Syracuse University Press, 2015).