Michael Kemper specializes in the history and presence of Islam in modern Russia; most of his work is based on Arabic, Tatar and Russian texts from the Volga-Urals and the North Caucasus. One of Kemper’s current projects centers on the eminent Tatar historian, moralist and scholar Rizaeddin Fakhreddinov (1859-1936, Mufti of Soviet Russia from 1921-1936), in particular on Fakhreddinov’s monumental biographical work, Athar (“Traces”). The third volume of this biographical compilation (unpublished during Fakhreddinov’s lifetime) is of particular interest because it discusses the lives and works of scholars whom Fakhreddinov was personally acquainted with; it contains a lot of information on Fakhreddinov’s personal networks and his assessment of ongoing events. This research benefits from interaction with Dr. Alfrid Bustanov’s ERC program on Muslim Individuality in Imperial and Soviet Russia here at ARTES, and its coworkers Galiia Muratova, Dr. Shamil Shikhaliev, and Mansur Gazimzianov.

Kemper also continues his investigation of contemporary Islamic texts from Russia, with case studies on attempts to establish a liberal Islamic theology in Russia (published in 2021, with Gulnaz Sibgatullina), Muslim Eurasianism (publications in 2019, with Gulnaz Sibgatullina), and with a study on gender-related fatwas from Moscow and Kazan (forthcoming). Kemper is co-editor of Die Welt des Islams (Brill), and currently serves as chairperson of the European Studies section.

Recent publications

• “The Nation as a Network: Rizaeddin Fakhretdinov’s Islamic Biographies“, in: Networks, Narratives and Nations: Transcultural Approaches to Cultural Nationalism in Modern Europe and Beyond, ed. by Marjet Brolsma et al. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022), 85-95.
• “Islam for the Atheist: a Soviet Tatar Dictionary of Islam and Its Reincarnation”, Socialism in One Room: Studies in Honor of Erik van Ree, ed. Amieke Bouma and Michael Kemper (Amsterdam: Pegasus, 2022), 191-215.
• Contesting Boundaries and Producing the Norm: Gender-related Issues in Islamic Theory and Practice, special issue of Islamology vol. 11, no. 1 (December 2021), guest editors: Gulnaz Sibgatullina and Michael Kemper.
• "Sufi Saint or Salafi Reformer? ʿAlī Tūntārī in Fakhreddinov's Tatar Lineage of Kalām Critique", in From the Khan’s Oven; Studies on the History of Central Asian Religions in Honor of Devin DeWeese, ed. by Eren Tasar, Allen J. Frank, and Jeff Eden (Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 8 Uralic and Central Asian Studies, vol, 27) (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 258-283.
• "Interlocking Autobiographies: Dialogical Techniques in Fakhreddinov’s Āthār III", The Written and the Spoken in Central Asia. Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit in Zentralasien: Festschrift für Ingeborg Baldauf, ed. by Redkollegiia (Potsdam: Edition Thetys, 2021), 67-82.
• Michael Kemper & Gulnaz Sibgatullina, "Liberal Islamic Theology in Conservative Russia: Taufik Ibragim’s 'Quranic Humanism'", Die Welt des Islams 61.3 (2021), 279-307.
• "Islam als Anker oder als Zentrifuge? Russlands Muftiate zwischen Moskau und den Regionen", in Geschichtete Identitäten. (Post-) Imperiales Erzählen und Identitätsbildung im östlichen Europa, ed. by Thomas Grob, Anna Hodel, Jan Miluška (Wien/Köln/Weimar: Böhlau-Verlag 2021), 347-370. Open access