We invite proposals for the conference entitled 'Ruins and Memory in the Muslim World: Typologies and Motifs (622-1800 CE)' to be held in Leiden between 14-16 September 2026.
In this conference, we seek to explore how particular ruins were interpreted, described, memorialised and utilised in the Islamic period, from 622-1800 - i.e. from the dawn of Islam to the onset of the philological and archaeological discoveries in the nineteenth century. The purpose of our conference is to explore how Muslims interacted with the remains of pre-Islamic history present in their contemporary landscapes, and how the physical ruins of the pre-Islamic past were visualised, imagined and put to use in historical, theological and other literary contexts, and in material formats too.
The guiding purpose of this enquiry is not to weigh the relative accuracy of Muslim reconstructions of the pre-Islamic past, but rather to interrogate the functions of how Muslims chose to interpret it. At this juncture in scholarship, it is imperative to open our enquiries onto the panoply of different approaches to the pre-Islamic past across the different regions, eras and cultural contexts encompassed in the notion of 'Muslim World', and the conference's approach by which each paper will present one case study of a particular physical ruin aims to ground enquiry within a specific landscape and thereby uncover the variety of approaches to ruins and the idea of the past in distinct times, locales, and discursive contexts.
Understanding Ruins
The states and cultures of the Muslim world are built upon the lands of many and diverse prior civilisations, and the presence of the ruins of those past peoples have been a mainstay in the physical reality and landscape of Muslim cultures since the dawn of Islam. Many contemplated the ruins and pondered the history of those past peoples, but the actual history of the pre-Islamic past remained rather obscured since the ancient languages were no longer known by the Muslim era, inscriptions were thus largely indecipherable, and archaeological approaches of empirical reconstruction of the past did not drive most excavations. New approaches for the empirical exploration of the ancient past began taking shape in the nineteenth century via philological and archaeological methods, but prior to time, the ruins of the past still had meaning - even if formed in the imagination - and this conference seeks to explore how specific ancient sites in the landscape of the Middle East acquired meaning.
Important scholarship has opened the topic of the interpretation of ruins in Muslim cultures via typologies of literary depictions of ruins, via exploration of premodern interactions with inscriptions, and via the framework of wider Muslim approaches to the idea of the past and considerations of how pre-Islamic civilisations interacted with the concept of al-Jāhiliyya. This conference seeks to build upon the scholarship, directing emphasis to the materiality of specific case studies.
Call for Papers
The conference will be held at Leiden University between 14-16 September 2026. At the conference, each paper will have 20 minutes to present with a 20 minute discussion afterwards. We aim to publish a collected volume of papers after the conference.
Proposed papers may engage with one or more of the following themes:
- How were pre-Islamic ruins utilised in constructing narratives of local history and local/regional identity construction?
- Did ruins shape the landscape of Muslim-era urban and other development?
- Were ruins inhabited, and by whom? And/or were they used for particular activities?
- In what other ways were pre-Islamic ruins utilised, for example as spolia, and what meanings were ascribed to such uses of past relics?
- What did Muslims inscribe (or efface) on ruins, and why?
- Did regimes or groups develop plans of preservation of ruins on ideological or other grounds, or did they enact plans for destruction of ruins? What success did these projects enjoy and/or how were their ideas received?
- How were pre-Islamic ruins integrated into Muslim worldviews and narratives of world history?
We welcome submissions from leading and junior scholars, advanced graduate students, and independent researchers. The organizers are committed to gathering a diverse group of presenters and will do their best to give more visibility to the work of scholars from traditionally underrepresented groups in academia, including but not limited to junior scholars.
Please send your abstract of ca. 300 words by the deadline of 1st February 2026 to: [email protected].
Details
- The conference takes place on Leiden university campus 14-16 2026.
- Papers will be 20 mins with 20 for Q&A.
- The papers are to be published in a collected volume.
