The Mohamed Ali Foundation Fellowship is hosted by Durham University and is awarded to early career (post-doctoral) or established scholars. The Mohamed Ali Foundation is a UK charity whose aims include advancing the education of the public in the history of the Islamic World, of Egypt and of the Mohamed Ali Family in particular, especially the period of reign of Khedive Abbas Hilmi II (1892-1914).

In June 2018 the Mohamed Ali Foundation announced the launch of this Fellowship Programme, and which is established to devote scholarly attention to the Abbas Hilmi II Papers held at Durham University and to make the collection’s strengths more widely known to scholars. It is hoped that the fellows’ work will foster deeper understanding of an important period of Egyptian history, and of a transformative era in East -West relations.

The fellowship programme is based at Durham University and managed by an international Advisory Panel comprising academic subject specialists. The programme began in 2019 with the residency of the first fellow Dr Pascale Ghazaleh of the American University in Cairo: her inaugural lecture is now available online. The 2022 fellows will be Dr Hussein Omar and Dr Karim Malak. More fellowships will be awarded over the following 5 years. An Advisory Panel, chaired by Professor Anoush Ehteshami, Director of the Institute for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies, will appoint one or two fellows each year.

Fellows will be early career (post-doctoral) or established scholars. The nature of the collection will often require good reading knowledge of Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, French, and English. The online catalogue of the collection indicates the languages of each file of material.

Fellows will research the Abbas Hilmi II Papers, on an agreed topic, and deliver a lecture at Durham University. Each lecture will ultimately form a chapter in a volume of high quality and original research to be edited by Dr Ghazaleh. In the interim the lectures will be published in the university’s Middle East Papers series. The breadth of material in the Abbas Hilmi II Papers will reward an interdisciplinary approach. In order to guide candidate fellows an outline plan of this volume is now provided in the fellowship application documentation. This is not intended to be prescriptive and the Advisory Panel will consider alternative suggestions so long as they are well-grounded in the Abbas Hilmi II Papers and this is evidenced in the application proposal.

The Fellowship, tenable jointly in IMEIS and Grey College, entitles the holder to full access during their residency to departmental and other University facilities such as Computing and Information Services and the University Library. Accommodation is provided at Durham during the Epiphany term (January-March), but there is flexibility to arrange residencies in different terms to suit fellows’ availability, and fellows may be permitted to reside in Cairo or Istanbul for the duration of the fellowship where digitised copies of the archive have been deposited. All fellows will visit Durham, if only briefly, in order to deliver their lecture. Lectures and other activities elsewhere during the fellowship will be encouraged.

Fellows who do reside at Durham will also be encouraged to take a full part in academic and collegiate life, delivering the already mentioned lecture and perhaps also contributing to seminars.

Fellows will be awarded an honorarium upon completion of their fellowship, and accommodation and all meals will be provided for the duration of the fellowship; a research travel grant is also available to each fellow.

Applicants are advised to familiarise themselves with the online catalogue of the Abbas Hilmi II Papers, or the collection itself, and to review the outline plan of the edited volume provided below. More detailed information on the fellowship programme is also provided.

Due to the covid-19 pandemic the 2020 and 2021 fellows’ residencies have been put forward to 2022. The application period for the 2023 fellowship will begin in June 2022 and run to a date that autumn that will be announced on this page. Enquiries in the meantime may be directed to:

The Secretary

The Mohamed Ali Foundation Fellowship Programme

Durham University Library

Palace Green

Durham DH1 3RN

United Kingdom

Email: maf.fellow@durham.ac.uk

Fellow: Role and Responsibilities (pdf)

Outline plan of edited volume (pdf)

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The Fellowship Advisory Panel

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Professor Anoush Ehteshamia

Chairs the panel, is Professor of International Relations in the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University. He is also the Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah Chair in International Relations and Director of the HH Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah Programme in International Relations, Regional Politics and Security. He is, further, Director of the Institute for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies (IMEIS) at Durham University.

https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/directory/staff/?id=488

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Mr Seif El Rashidi

Trustee of the Mohamed Ali Foundation with twenty years of expertise working on heritage preservation and managing projects related to promoting public engagement with heritage and culture. 

https://barakat.org/our-team/staff/seif-el-rashidi/

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Professor Khaled Fahmi

His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Sa'id Professor of Modern Arabic Studies at Cambridge University. He is a historian of the modern Middle East, with a specialty in the social and cultural history of nineteenth-century Egypt. In addition to his academic publications, he also writes for the press in both Arabic and English.

https://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/people/professor-khaled-fahmy-fba

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Professor Nelly Hannah

Distinguished University Professor department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at The American University Cairo. Specialised interests in the Ottoman history of the Arab world (1500-1800) with a special focus on the economic, social and cultural aspects of this period.

https://www.aucegypt.edu/fac/nellyhanna

 

Professor Eugene Rogan

 Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History; Fellow of St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Fellow of the British Academy (FBA). Historian of the Middle East and North Africa from the late Ottoman era to the present.

https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/people/eugene-rogan  

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Dr Pascale Ghazaleh

First Fellow and Managing Editor. Chair and Associate Professor of History at the American University in Cairo. She specializes in Ottoman history and nineteenth-century Egypt.  EUME Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and associated with the Center for Global History at Freie Universität Berlin. 

https://www.aucegypt.edu/fac/pascaleghazaleh

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Mr Francis Gotto

Archivist responsible for the Abbas Hilmi II Papers, is an Assistant Keeper at Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, with responsibility for the Sudan Archive from 2016.

https://www.dur.ac.uk/library/contacts/staff/?id=3772