Christian Lange wins British Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies

With his book Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions Prof. Christian Lange (Islam and Arabic) is this year’s winner of the British Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies, a yearly prize for he best scholarly work in English on the Middle East.

The first comprehensive study of the Islamic Paradise and Hell

The jury was unanimous in their support of the reviews of the book:

´This book is quite simply a scholarly masterpiece, a path-breaking and fascinating piece of research. It will remain THE study of Islamic eschatology for a long time to come.´

'[It] is erudite and probing: it really makes the reader think. Much of the information given in the book is new. The scholarly apparatus is exemplary.'

‘This is the first comprehensive study of the Islamic Paradise and Hell. It is full of brilliant and fascinating insights. It should be read slowly and carefully, as it is laden with much detailed and original material.’    

Christian Lange is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Utrecht University. In his research, he seeks to combine the study of Islamic sources in Arabic and Persian with his interest in the analytical categories and approaches developed in the Study of Religion and cognate disciplines in the Humanities. He is primarily interested in the areas of Islamic theology (eschatology in particular), Islamic law and legal theory, and Islamic mysticism.

British Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize

The Prize was founded thanks to an endowment of the Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah Foundation. In each of the years since the prize commenced, it has attracted around 50 nominations from some 20 publishers and the overall standard of entries has been extremely high. The prize is awarded for the best scholarly work on the Middle East each year.