Forthcoming Publications

PUBLISHER PRIZE 2025 FOR GERLACH PRESS

Gerlach Press is delighted and proud to have been awarded the German Publisher Prize 2025, which is presented by the Federal Government's Secretary for Culture. The main criteria for the jury's decision were an innovative publishing programme, the quality of publishing work, and a particularly appealing design of the books. We would like to thank all our authors who are the very foundation of our success, and hope that this recognition will further strengthen the press. Ad multos annos!...
more »

N. Janardhan

GLOBAL GULF

Geo-Economic, Geo-Political, and Geo-Technological Transformation in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar

2026-06

It is common knowledge that ‘great powers’, especially the United States and China, exert economic, political and military dominance over the world. But several middle powers, including those in the Gulf region, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, are changing tack. They are increasingly exerting influence through several Cs: crude (oil), capital, commerce, collaboration, cyber (technology), climate, connectivity, competition, and compromise. The chapters of this book argue that the abovemention...
more »

Cihat Battaloğlu

Qatar’s Societal Security: Towards the Inclusive National Concept of ‘Baladna’

Identity, Migration and External Threats Since 2017

2026-06

Since the 1990s, Qatar has been expanding its concept of societal security to address migration as a presumed threat to national identity. Local citizens regarded communities of migrants increasingly as a threat to existing cultural and linguistic norms, and as a challenge to the country's traditional “we”. The crisis of 2017, which isolated Qatar through a regional blockade, fundamentally changed the perception of the country's societal security. In response, Qatar turned ‘Baladna’ (‘our country’) into a symbol ...
more »

Wael Hegazy

Islamic Rituals Beyond the Mosque

Historical Evolution of Prayer and Devotion in Physical Space and Cyberspace

2026-06

Prevailing assumptions posit that Islamic rituals are inextricably bound to corporeal enactments and spatial constraints. This study, however, critically interrogates such presuppositions, challenging the notion that ritual praxis necessitates physical embodiment. A common misconception is that the conceptualization of Islamic rituals divorced from spatiality and physicality is a contemporary phenomenon, catalyzed by the exigencies of the Covid-19 pandemic or formulated by modern Muslim intellectuals. This research, however,...
more »

Mushegh Asatryan

Early Islamic Sectarianism in Context

The Ghulat Between Late Antiquity and Modernity

2026-08

The essays in this volume open new horizons for studying the Ghulat and early Islamic sectarianism more generally. On the one hand, they eschew the polemical approaches used hitherto, by situating the Ghulat in their proper Late Antique and later contexts. On the other, they engage a number of texts written by the Ghulat themselves, which have only recently become available. In the early 700s, several men rebelled in Iraq, claiming to be acting on behalf of a God who had become incarnate in human shape. They were defeated...
more »

Walid Ghali

Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Ongoing Project of Islamic Reform

2026-08

Muhammad ’Abduh as one of the most influential figures in the modern history of Muslim societies and the reform movement. Although his demise was at an early age (53 years) over a century ago, his thoughts and ideas are still discussed in different spheres. In the chaotic political, social and religious circumstances we find ourselves in post-Arab Spring, thinkers and scholars increasingly turn to the work of some great reformers who appeared in the late 19th century. Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905) is an Egyptian philosopher,...
more »

Mohammed Al Oudat

Al-Ğābirīs Genese und Kritik der Arabischen Vernunft – On Genesis and Critique of Arab Reason by Muḥammed ʿĀbid al-Ğābirī

– Text in German with English Summary –

2026-08

The Moroccan philosopher and literary scholar Muḥammed ʿĀbid al-Ğābirī (1935–2010) is a pioneering example of how Arab intellectuals can create new spaces for critical thinking and the use of reason. His work has been widely received and has triggered an ambivalent attitude towards him. It has garnered much praise and admiration, but also criticism, and his view of Arab reason in Arab-Islamic thought and the problem of progress is still being discussed today. This monograph aims to give the reader an insight into al-Ğābir...
more »