The Center for Advanced Study “RomanIslam – Center for Comparative Empire and Transcultural Studies”, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines working on Romanization and Islamication in Late Antiquity with a focus, though not exclusive, on the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa during the first millennium CE. The overall purpose of the Center is to explore new approaches to Romanization and Islamication in this period and set the scholarly debate on a new footing.
Imperial Transformations - Comparative Strategies in Empires of Salvation Religions
Nov. 11-14, 2026
Over the past six years, the RomanIslam Center fostered scholarly exchanges and debates on how the Roman and Islamic empires and civilizations transformed and governed the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, as a ‘sand box’ to compare both empires. The conference organized by Prof. Stefan Heidemann and Katharina Mewes will synthesize the findings and take our questions a step further to examine the ‘family’ of empires of salvation religions: the Roman, the Islamic, and the Spanish empire.