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dialogue on identity, integration, and gender relations, highlighting the experiences of Arab professionals working in obstetrics and gynecology in Germany. It explores how these experiences shed light on the diversity and social transformations within migrant communities.
Continue Readingan intellectual symposium discussing the roots of Sudan’s current crisis. The event will also explore prospects for democratic transition and possibilities for building a sustainable civil state.
Continue ReadingWomen have many faces, and feminism has just as many. Protest against oppression and the struggle for freedom and equality are always influenced by the place and society in which women live.
There are many prejudices about Arab societies, and at least as many about their female members. When is a woman free, and is freedom the same at all times and in all places? Is resistance to patriarchy and the desire for change the same everywhere?
Continue ReadingOn the night of Sunday, 3 August 2025, Professor Dr. Udo Steinbach passed away unexpectedly at the age of 82 after a short illness. He was not only one of Europe’s most important Orientalists, but also a bridge builder between cultures, committed to many causes and always ready to help. He was close to our […]
Continue ReadingOnline Event in English without translation. Questions and contributions to the discussion following the lecture can also be asked in Arabic, we will translate to the best of our ability. Admission free, please register here: registration (link) In a time when global conversations around decolonization, migration, and cultural representation are more urgent than ever, how […]
Continue Readingwhere is “the Holy Land” actually located? Holiness comes from within the believers, and a person, an object or a place only becomes sacred through the attribution of a religious meaning. How does this process affect those who actually live in a sacred place every day? Who perhaps do not share the religiosity ascribed to the place? And how does it affect those who do not live there and for whom sacredness is more important than the actual place and its inhabitants?
Continue ReadingIndependent storytelling is an act of courage. It challenges norms, reclaims voices, and builds bridges between cultures. We invite you to join us for the upcoming Ibn Rushd Young event with the filmmakers Klud Dabash and Mehmet Küçük. With the boundary-pushing narratives of their films, they explore the complexities of identity, power, migration and creative resistance.
Selected scenes from their films will be shown:
How does sex talk on social media platforms challenge local notions of hegemonic masculinity in the MENA region?Social media have played a significant role in advancing feminist movements
Continue ReadingAll Ibn Rushd annual and financial reports from 2017 onwards are now available online. We welcome feedback and comments. ==> Hier geht es zu den Berichten
Continue ReadingA day in the life of women in Sudan & Yemen in times of war ‘Women and War’ – mini-series within the Ibn Rushd Lectures War brings violence and traumatic experiences for everyone. For women, however, there is gender-specific violence in addition to the general violence. According to a report by the UN Secretary-General, women […]
Continue ReadingAn Ibn Rushd Lecture with the ex-President of Tunisia Dr Moncef Marzouki, Prof Dr Udo Steinbach and Manal Seifeldin. What distinguishes the 21st century from the previous centuries and especially from the 20th century? What facts and realities should we relate to? How do we understand our world today and what is the role that […]
Continue ReadingDear Friends of Freedom of Thought, The discourse on promoting the concept of a multi-cultural society is considered an urgent endeavor to encourage plurality, tolerance, fight discrimination, and foster a peaceful, prosperous social environment in all contemporary societies. In Western societies, a multi-cultural discourse is asserted within a modern secular paradigm in the writings of […]
Continue ReadingThe Ibn Rushd Prize 2022 therefore calls for:
an institution or a person who fostered or protected religious freedom in their region or country – including the freedom from religion and the possibility of choosing another religion, as well as the freedom from the obligation to marry within the same religious group – and therewith not only countering all kinds of sectarianism as well as the abuse of power by political and religious authorities, but fostering pluralism, tolerance and peace within society.
The person’s or institution’s work must have fostered and protected religious freedom sustainably for all, not only for specific individuals or specific groups in a society.
Reading Canon of Arabic literature On behalf of Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought we embarked on this project Afdal ma qara’t in 2018 to promote good reading within the Arabic world. Twenty-nine intellectuals and personalities of the Arab world, included one German, contributed to this project. The list contains 378 titles: 234 literary […]
Continue ReadingWelcome to the next event of the online version of our ongoing [zait wa: zaʕtar] Festival of Palestinian Arts and Culture! For the next upcoming lockdown weekend, we prepared a the screening of Kamal Aljafari’s film ‘Recollection’ for you, together with the artist talking with the festival’s film curator Nahed Awwad.
Continue ReadingThe Speed Sisters are the first all-woman race car driving team in the Middle East. Grabbing headlines and turning heads at improvised tracks across the West Bank, these five women have sped their way into the heart of the gritty, male-dominated Palestinian street car-racing scene. Weaving together their lives on and off the track, SPEED SISTERS takes you on a surprising journey into the drive to go further and faster than anyone thought you could.#zaitwazaatarberlin#SpeedSisters
Continue ReadingWelcome to the next event of the online version of our ongoing [zait wa: zaʕtar] Festival of Palestinian Arts and Culture! For the next upcoming lockdown weekend, we prepared a the screening of Kamal Aljafari’s film ‘Recollection’ for you, together with the artist talking with the festival’s film curator Nahed Awwad.
Continue ReadingThe Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought mourns for Reem Banna, who left us today, Saturday March 24, 2018. Through her moving music and her emphatic lyrics, the Palestinian singer brought the pulse of the Palestinian people and of all other Arab peoples to the world. With her musical oeuvre, she supported the Palestinian […]
Continue ReadingThe Ibn Rushd Fund learned with great sorrow about the death of the Algerian-born philosopher Mohammed Arkoun. The great Arab intellectual died Tuesday night, September 14th, at the age of 82 in Paris, where he had taught the history of Islamic Thought at the Sorbonne University. In his late years he also taught Applied Islamology […]
Continue ReadingThe Ibn Rushd Fund mourns the death of the Arab thinker Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid The Ibn Rushd Fund learned with great sorrow about the the death of the Egyptian thinker Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, honorary member of the Ibn Rushd Fund and winner of the Ibn Rushd Award 2005. His death creates a vast […]
Continue ReadingThe Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought, an organization founded by Arab intellectuals in Germany, appeals to EU-governments and the United Nations to intervene immediately in order to stop the violation of human rights in the Gaza strip. We do not regard the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza-strip as […]
Continue ReadingCopy to the Attorney General of Egypt Dear Sir, We would like to give our opinion on behalf of Mr. Abd al-Karim Nabil Sulaiman Amir, who is being trialed on the 22nd February 2007 at an Egyptian Court. According to our opinion and the opinion of many Egyptian intellectuals this trial is an injury to […]
Continue ReadingTo Prof Gerhart President of the American University of Cairo AUC 113 Kasr El Aini Str. CAIRO EGYPT Dear Mr. President, Febr. 5, 1999 it has been brought to our knowledge, that your University is presently undertaking measures against Samia Mehrez, Professor of Modern Arabic Literature at the American University of Cairo, and highly qualified […]
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