Jørgen S. Nielsen is Professor of Islamic Studies, from October 2007, appointed to a five-year research chair funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF) at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, where he leads the Centre for European Islamic Thought. He holds degrees in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and a PhD in Arab history from the American University of Beirut. Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Department of Theology, University of Birmingham from 1978 and director of the Centre 1988-2001. Appointed Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Birmingham in 1996. Director of the Danish Institute in Damascus and Cultural Counsellor at the Danish Embassy 2005-2007. Research has been concentrated on the situation of Muslims in Europe with related interests in the Islamic debate on religious pluralism and relations with the West. He has worked as a consultant to the EU Presidency and the Council of Europe on religious minorities, and to the Danish, Swedish and British foreign ministries on Islam and Europe. Major recent publications include:
- Muslims in Western Europe (Edinburgh University Press, 1992; 2nd ed. 1995; German translation, Hamburg: EBV-Rissen, 1995; 3rd ed. 2004; Arabic translation, Beirut: Saqi Press, 2006).
- Arabs and the West: Mutual Images, ed. jointly with Sami Khasawneh (Amman: University of Jordan, 1998).
- Towards a European Islam (London: Macmillan, 1999).
- Ethnology of Sufi orders: theory and practice, ed. jointly with A. Zhelyazkova, (Sofia: IMIR, 2001).
- Muslim networks and transnational communities in and across Europe, ed. jointly with S. Allievi (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
- Shari’a as Discourse: Legal Traditions and the Encounter with Europe, ed. with Lisbet Christoffersen (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010).
General editor of the series Muslim Minorities, Leiden: Brill.
Chief editor, Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Leiden: Brill, from 2009.