The Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies MA Thesis Award
The winner of this year's MA Thesis Award is Davide de Francesco with his thesis From Dawn to Dusk. Studying the origin of the Islamic fivefold daily liturgy in the Quran. Congratulations!
Davide de Francesco‘s dissertation is a rigorous study of a basic tenet of the Islamic faith, the five daily prayers. It is a very mature piece of academic work with a high level of academic craftmanship. The project sets out to fill a gap in existing research and very convincingly not only does that but also engages with the academic literature in a critical and independent manner. De Francesco combines the different data sources, Quranic verses and hadith with historical information on the socio-religious environment of 7th century Arabia, in a compelling way to support his argument. There is also a strong alignment of the different elements of the thesis - a clear research questions is working as a guiding principle that results in clearly articulated argument - and thus contribution to the field of study.
The committee decided to give honorable mention to Rahma Fateen for her thesis From the Homefront to the Prison Gate: Ethnographic Perspectives on Muslim Brotherhood Wives in Egypt Post-2013. The very well conducted thesis fills a gap in Middle Eastern studies and furthers the research on the family members of Islamists and political prisoners.
The committee received seven nominations which were all very good, but in the end, the committee was unanimous in its decision. The committee members were Tiina Hyyppä, Christine Crone and Thorir Hraundal.
Previous winners:
- 2024: Lili De Paola, University of Helsinki. “Constructing Saudi Arabian Nationhood: Shaping Subjectivities Through Suitable Pasts, Imagined Futures and National Femininities”.
- 2023: Maiken Omnes Frydenlund, University of Oslo. “Meddling with my Dough-Baking Hands! Protest Language and Stigma in Contemporary Turkey”.
- 2022: Mathias Ghyoot, University of Copenhagen. “Brothers Behind Bars: A History of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Second Prison Ordeal, 1954 – 1964”.