Mohamed El-Moursi is one of our Early-Stage Researchers from the MIDA project. His research focuses on the character and self-description of Abd Allāh B. Buluggīn, the last Zirid ruler of Granada, in his book al-Tibyān.
Recently, Mohamed has finished his online secondment with our partner BRILL, a leading academic publishing house in the field of Islamic Studies based in the Netherlands. In the framework of this internship, Mohamed explored different sectors at BRILL, carried out research on their products and conducted interviews with a range of prolific authors.
Mohamed also attended several meetings with different people at BRILL, ranging from sales managers to acquisition editors, particularly those specialised in the Middle East and Islamic Studies. This gave him a sense of how a publishing house is functioning.
During the time of the secondment, Mohamed devoted most of his attention to the new online version of the Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān. He wrote a short report about the Qur'ānic Studies Online in which he explores which factors would make such a platform in the future even more beneficial to experts of the discipline.
Mohamed furthermore conducted an interview with two associate professors who have valuable first-hand experience with the Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān Online, namely Suleyman Dost (Brandeis University) and Shuruq Naguib (Lancaster University). In the interview they discussed the new contributions and ample opportunities that the digital version of the Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān offers scholars in the field.
The outcome of Mohamed's interview will be published later this month, so stay tuned!
