Edit
Eirik Hovden

Eirik Hovden

Position

Associate Professor, in Arabic, Middle Eastern and Islamic studies

Affiliation

E-mail
eirik.hovden@uib.no
Phone number
+47 55588093
Visitor address
Sydnesplassen 7
5007 Bergen
Room: 248
Postal address
P.O. Box 7805
NO-5020 Bergen
Norway

Eirik Hovden

Position

Associate Professor, in Arabic, Middle Eastern and Islamic studies

Affiliation

Short info

As associate professor I teach in the bachelorprogram for Arabic and can supervise on all levels in topcis relating to Islam, Middle East and Arabic.
I'm part of the research group for Middle Eastern and Islamic studies and focus in my reseaerch on Islamic law, Yemeni history and Zaydi-Islam
Research

2025- Associate processor in Arabic, Department of Foreign Languages

2020-2024: Project leader of the CanCode project, financed by the Trond Mohn Foundation and HF, UiB. In addition to the the general project leadership I focus on the historical development of code-like legal texts from pre-modern Zaydi Yemen.

2018-2020: I started a post-doctoral project at the Department of Foreign Languages at UiB. The project was aobut exploring understadings of secularity in Yemen and the Arab world. I taught at the Arabic bachelor program as part of my duty work.

2016-2018: I worked at AHKR, UiB as a researcher in a HERA-project together with Knut Vikør. The overall project was led by Robert Gleave in Exeter, UK, and was about how the past was and is used in Islamic law. My specific focus was on how the Zaydi law school theorize sovereignty and public management.

2012-2016: I worked at a researcher at the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften in a large project on comparative medieval history called Visions of Community. I worked in Institut für Sozialanthropologie in a team with other Yemen-experts and my focus was on religoius movements in the Zaydi-areas of Yemen in the medieval period, especially a branch of Zaydi-Islam called al-Muṭarrifiyya.

2007-2012: I did research for my PhD at AHKR, UiB with Anne K. Bang and Knut Vikør as supervisors. I did fieldwork in Yemen where I first focused on waqf and water supply and turned to focusing on the development of the waqf-laws in a historical and comtemporary context. Waqf means charitable Islamic foundations and is regulated in its own chapter in traditional Islamic law. This was in older times one of the most used modes of organizing public infrastructure as well as a vehicle for managing private wealth in the Islamic world, until the begunning of the 20th century. I had to relate to the classical texts of the Zaydi legal school, on which there had been little in-depth research before.

2006-2007: I worked as an assistant at the Nile Basin Programme (Unifob global) and aided Terje Tvedt in collected data for the bibliographies on usage of the Nile, which we co-authored.

1999-2006: I studied environmental geography, social anthropology and Arabic at UiB. I have an interdisciplinary MA degree from UiB on water studies and coastal management. I did fieldwork in Yemen and wrote my thesis on traditional rainwater harvesting structures in rural mountains of North-west Yemen.

In May 2022 I got a pormotion from researcher to research professor, meaning professor level in reseaerch.

Teaching

I'm currently teaching in the BA program in Arabic. I have supervised and co-supervised three MA students and two PhD students and been mentor for a Posdoc.

Publications
2023
2010
2008
2018
2009
2016
2021
2011
2017
2022
2012
2024

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

Selected publications:

Eirik Hovden, «Canonising the Code: the Authorisation and Authorship of šurūḥ and ḥawāšī on the Kitāb al-Azhār under the Early Qāsimī Dynasty in Zaydī Yemen (ca. 1600-1700 CE)», Arabica, (2025)(Open Access)

Eirik Hovden, “Backdating the Criticism and Abolition of Family Waqf: Examples from Zaydī Yemen,» Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (JESHO)( 2025)(Open access)

Eirik Hovden, Understanding and Framing Change in Islamic Law: Potentials and Possible Pitfalls of the Concepts of Canonization and Codification, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, Volume 12, Issue 3, 2023, 283–288. (Open access)

Eirik Hovden, Waqf in Zaydī Yemen. Legal theory, Codification and Local Practice, in the series “Studies in Islamic Law and Society”, Leiden: Brill, 2019. (Open access)

Meanings of Community Across Medieval Eurasia. Editors: Eirik Hovden, Christina Lutter and Walter Pohl Online, Brill Series on the Early Middle Ages, vol 25. Leiden: Brill, 2016. (Open access: brill.com/view/title/32570)

 

Projects

Currently I'm the principle investgator of the CanCode-project (2020-2024). The project focuses on processes of canonization and codification of Islamic law.

Project website: uib.no/cancode