An online publication of the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University

Besnik Sinani

Besnik Sinani is an AIWG fellow at the Center for Islamic Theology, Tübingen University, currently working of modern sīrah. He is the author of the forthcoming monograph “Sufism in Saudi Arabia Since 1979: the Politics of Orthodoxy in Contemporary Islam” to be published by Brill in 2025. He is also the co-founder of the Albanian-based Konak Institute for Education and Heritage.

Posts From This Author

Out of the Cave: The Many Lives of Surviving Islamic Artifacts in Post-communist Albania

By Besnik Sinani // May 29, 2025May 29, 2025

For a year now, I have been working with friends and colleagues to establish a museum of Muslim cultural heritage in Albania, an initiative led by the Konak Institute, a volunteer-based project founded a year…

The Wahhabi Roots of Saudi Nationalism and the Persistence of Religious Nationalism

By Besnik Sinani // March 13, 2024March 13, 2024

In January, 2022, Saudi Arabia announced that the following month, on February 22nd, 2022, the kingdom would begin celebrating a new national holiday. This celebration, termed “Founding Day,” pushed back the inception of the nation…