Fellows 2025

Nimrod Hurvitz

Professor at the Department of Middle East Studies, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Resident at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften:

March 2025 – August 2025

Research topic at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften:

»Targeting archaeology: Emotions and agenda behind Isis’s heritage destruction«

Project outline:

From 2014 to 2017, after conquering large swathes of Iraq and Syria, Isis began a widescale campaign of destruction which included archaeological sites, archaeological artefacts in museums, mosques, churches, shrines, and cemeteries. These acts of devastation outraged and baffled archaeologists, state officials and afficionados of archaeology, who were uncertain how to respond to Isis’s rampage. Several scholars focused on Isis’s media strategy of documenting their wreckage. In their investigations and debates these scholars tried to comprehend what were Isis’s motives and agenda.
This project seeks to illuminate the underlying motives driving Isis's performance of violence against archeological sites and artefacts. It will examine their strategy from several angles: Firstly, will be to examine Isis’s rhetoric about the demolition of heritage sites and artefacts. Secondly, it will analyze how they transformed acts of destruction into propaganda disseminated through mass media to both Muslim and non-Muslim audiences. Thirdly, it will explore the emotions that their mediatized destruction evoked: humiliation of their enemies along with empowerment of their supporters, fear due to what their enemies perceive as inexplicable violence, and revenge. Examining these facets will deepen our comprehension of Isis’s strategy of demolishing objects of commemoration and cultural symbols. (Nimrod Hurvitz)

Research partner:

Nimrod Hurvitz follows the invitation of Hagit Nol, Junior Professor of Islamic Archaeology, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. His stay is supported by the project »Islamic Archaeology and Art History« (IAAH) funded by the VolkswagenStiftung.

Scholarly profile of Nimrod Hurvitz

Nimrod Hurvitz teaches at the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. His areas of interest are medieval and modern religio-political movements, and his publications have appeared in The American Historical Review, and in the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School. He has held various fellowships, including from the Fulbrigth Foundation, Harvard Law School, Skidmore College and the Martin Buber Society in the Humanities at the Hebrew University.

Website:
Please find more information about Nimrod Hurvitz here.

Main areas of research:

Medieval Islam, Abbasid period, the development of Hanbali legal thought, modern fundamentalist movements, sectarian conflicts, and authority in early Islam and mass movements in Baghdad

Selected publications:

The Formation of Hanbalism. Piety into Power, London: RoutledgeCurzon 2002. (Translation into Arabic, Arab Network for Research and Publishing, Beirut)
(ed. with J. Duindam, J. Humfress), Law and Empire, Ideas, Practices, and Actors, Leiden: Brill 2013.
(co-authored with E. Alshech), Making Sense of Muslim Fundamentalism. Clash with Islam, London: Routledge 2020.
(ed. with C. Sahner, U. Simonsohn, L. Yarbrough), Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age, Oakland, California: University of California Press 2020.

Nimrod Hurvitz

Scholarly profile of Nimrod Hurvitz

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