Rate My Professor Niels Valdemar Vinding

Niels Valdemar Vinding is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Law & Religion at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, permanently appointed since October 2022. He earned his PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Copenhagen in 2013 as a PhD Fellow at the Centre for European Islamic Thought, with a thesis examining Muslim organisations, institutions, and state-religion relations in Britain, Germany, and Denmark. Previously, he obtained an MA in Islamic Studies from the same institution in 2009, receiving the University of Copenhagen Gold Medal for his thesis on the English state's regulation of Anglicanism and Islam. Vinding also holds an LL.M. in Canon Law with Distinction awarded in 2020. His career trajectory at the University of Copenhagen encompasses Assistant Professor in the Department for Cross-cultural and Regional Studies from 2014 to 2017, where he contributed to the ‘Imams of the West’ project involving sociological interviews with 50-60 imams across Europe, Australia, and North America; Postdoctoral Fellow from 2017 to 2020 on the ‘Danish Mosques – Significance, Use and Influence’ project focusing on mosque leadership and power relations; and Associate Professor and Sapere Aude research leader from 2021 to 2022, heading the ‘Producing Sharia in Context’ project funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark, which he continues until early 2025.

Vinding’s research specializations include Islam in Europe and Denmark, relations between religion, state, and church, organised and institutionalised Islam, sharia and religious law, imams, law and religion, multiculture, and religious plurality. He has edited prominent volumes such as Imams in Western Europe: Developments, Transformations, and Institutional Challenges (2018, Amsterdam University Press, 430 pages) and Når Medierne Sætter Dagsordenen (2021, Djøf Forlag, 354 pages). Key authored and co-authored works comprise Sharia og Samfund: Islamisk Ret, Etik og Praksis i Danmark (2020, Samfundslitteratur, 288 pages, with Jesper Petersen), Annotated Legal Documents on Islam in Europe: Denmark (2020, Brill, 151 pages), Muslim Positions in the Religio-organisational Fields of Denmark, Germany and England (2013, University of Copenhagen), and Churchification of Islam in Europe (2018). Among his honors are the Sapere Aude Forskningsleder grant (2020), shared Lærebogsprisen Teaching Prize (2018), and membership on the Board of Danmission (2016-2020).