Joud Nassan Agha M.A.

About

Joud Nassan Agha is a Principal Investigator at the Cluster of Excellence Understanding Written Artefacts. Her current research focuses on the dynamics of books in late Ottoman Syria in the early 19th century, through examination of a Damascene personal-endowed library belonging to a ṣūfī shaykh named Khālid al-Naqshabandī (d. 1242 AH/1827 CE). Upon relocating to Damascus, al-Naqshabandī established a library housing 959 manuscripts, providing a unique opportunity to delve into book culture, circulation, mobility, and endowment practices of the period. By using al-Naqshabandī's biography alongside available materials, including catalogs and surviving books, the project aims to contextualize the library within the broader socio-intellectual landscape of 19th century Damascus.

Previously, from 2021 to 2023, she worked as a research associate at the DFG Center for Advanced Study "RomanIslam - Center for Comparative Empire and Transcultural Studies." Her research project, titled "The Urban Space and the Communal Use of Buildings in Islamicate al-Andalus, 8th-11th Centuries," examines communal spaces and their perception in literary sources as a means to document the transcultural processes across the Iberian Peninsula during the emergence of Islamicate al-Andalus, particularly during the imperial phase and the rule of the Umayyad amīrs and caliphs (8th to 11th centuries). Additionally, she contributed to a cartography project within the RomanIslam Center, which aims to map political events, economic structures, and religious developments in al-Andalus during the late 8th and early 9th centuries.

Current projects

• Cluster of Excellence 'Understanding Written Artefacts' (UWA) (2019-2025):
• Principle Investigator of project RFC11: Traces of an Endowed 19th-Century Damascene Library (2023-2025)

https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/about/people/nassan-agha.html