Career News
Research Award for Maribel Fierro
The distinguished Spanish scholar of Islamic history, professor Maribel Fierro, is a leading expert on the pre-modern history of the western Islamic world. In her research she has elucidated, in particular, the interaction between politics, religion and science in al-Andalus, the part of today's Spain that was under Muslim rule from the 8th to the 15th century. Her research reveals, for example, how closely the political and social developments in al-Andalus were intertwined with those of other Islamic countries. In Berlin she will strengthen the reputation of the Freie Universität Berlin as an international centre for research on Islamic intellectual history, and create an opportunity for junior researchers in this field to be integrated into an international research project at an early stage in their careers.
Prof. Maribel Fierro, born in 1956, has been a professor at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales of the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) in Madrid since 2005, having held various academic offices there from 1987 onwards. From 1983 to 1986, she taught in the Department of Arabic Studies at Complutense University of Madrid, where she also completed her doctorate in 1985. Maribel Fierro has received numerous honours, including an ERC Advanced Research Grant in 2009. She has been a visiting professor at several universities abroad, such as the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She is on the editorial boards of several leading specialist journals, including the journal "Der Islam", "Intellectual History of the lslamic World", and "Al-Masaq". (© Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, AcademiaNet)