Kutayba Al Kanatri

Kutayba Al Kanatri holds a B.A. in Liberal Arts and Sciences from University College Freiburg and an M.A. in Middle and Near Eastern Studies from the Universities of Freiburg, Basel, and Boğaziçi. He has worked as a student researcher in various departments at the University of Freiburg, and as a consultant for migration and integration with the German Red Cross. His academic and professional interests lie in postcolonial studies, social and economic history of the Arabic world, late-Ottoman history, History of Saudi Arabia, Arabic Pop-culture, Islamic thought, and migration.

Kutayba has completed internships at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute and DaMigra e.V., and has participated in several international academic programs, including the Torino Middle East Summer School and he speaks Arabic, German, English, Turkish, Persian, and French.

He is a recipient of several scholarships, including Erasmus+ and DAAD PROMOS.

The Archaeology of Islamic Courts in Nağd, Ḥiğāz, and ʿAsīr: Colonial Entanglements in 19th-Century Arabia

My research explores the colonial and imperial entanglements of Islamic legal traditions in (Saudi) Arabia during the 19th century, focusing on the regions of Ḥiğāz, ʿAsīr, and Nağd. Although Saudi Arabia was never formally colonized, its legal history was significantly shaped by Ottoman governance and transregional Islamic networks involving East Africa, the Levant, and South Asia.
The project investigates how colonial pressures and global Islamic scholarship influenced local court practices and legal terminology, contributing to the eventual formation of the Saudi legal system. It further addresses the global influence of Saudi jurisprudence and the need to contextualize it within the broader intellectual history of Islamic law under colonial modernity.