With pain in our hearts for the atrocities carried out against the people in Iran on 8 and 9 January this year, followed by flames of war, we remain committed to our goal of safeguarding Iran’s intellectual heritage.
You are cordially invited to the next international conference by the ERC Advanced Grant project, Beyond Sharia: The Role of Sufism in Shaping Islam. This scholarly gathering is focused on bringing together researchers working on a range of topics from Sufism in present-day Turkey to areas in the Balkans. Topics we would like to cover at this conference include the role of Persian as a lingua franca, saints and sainthood in this cultural zone, and the role of antinomian or non-conformist Sufis in shaping a new type of Islamic piety. If you are interested in presenting a paper, you can send an email to beyondsharia@uu.nl before 20 March 2026. Please note that including an abstract of 300 words and your working paper of 1500 words for the assessment of papers in the program is mandatory.
We are delighted to welcome you to this event on the 15th of April 2026 at Utrecht University, the Netherlands.
Image: “A Man Complained to Da’ud of a Sufi Mystic Drunk”, Folio from a Kulliyat of Sa’di. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Object Number: 13.228.10.7