Dr. Ahab Bdaiwi
Ahab Bdaiwi is a Research Fellow at ICCT and Assistant Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Leiden University. He studied Middle East History and Islamic Thought at the University of Exeter (UK). He received his PhD (Exon) in Arabic and Islamic Thought in 2014. He taught Middle Eastern and Iranian History at the University of St Andrews (UK) between 2013 and 2016. His research interests at Leiden University focus on medieval Arabic and Islamic thought, and at the ICCT on militancy, Shiʿism, religious establishments and clerical networks in Iraq and Iran, and Islamic political theology.
The former self-declared caliphate of the Islamic State (IS), once the size of Britain, has collapsed. Its attractiveness to the global jihadi movement also became evident in Germany. The German Federal Domestic Intelligence Service (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) estimates that more than 1.050 Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) have left Germany for Syria and Iraq of whom, to […]
This policy brief examines the role former extremists and former combatants have in countering violent extremism (CVE). ‘The former’ as a special category of actor in CVE activities, including in peacebuilding settings, has gained significant attention in recent years. Various organisations and governments have utilised formers in CVE activities yet it remains unclear if and […]
Hardi N. once said about himself “I am a believer, but not a radical“. That view was not shared by the AIVD (the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service) and the Dutch National Police. Hardi was arrested in late 2014 for attempting to travel to Syria and subsequently convicted. After serving a short prison sentence, […]