Gerdien Jonker, Ph.D.

I studied History of Religions and Philology at Amsterdam University (UvA) and the École Pratique in Paris, focusing on Ancient History and Cuneiform. The outcome was The Topography of Remembrance. The Dead, Tradition, and Collective Memory in Mesopotamia (Leiden: Brill 1995).

Next to Mesopotamian memory structures, my research looked into the history of religious minorities in Europe. In view came the institutionalization of Islam in as a minority religion, European perceptions of  Jews and Muslims, Ahmadiyya mission,  and Jewish-Muslim encounters in interwar Berlin. European perceptions of Islam were placed in the wider field of German-Indian religious entanglements. Research into the Russian-Muslim POW Camp of Weinberge (1915-1918) cleared the beginnings of Muslim engagement in Germany. The study of mosque archives put the use of precarious sources on a more stable foundation.

I am affiliated with the Erlangen Research Center for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE) at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen.