Dr. Fouad Gehad Marei, PhD

I am a scholar of Religious (Islamic) Studies and Middle East Politics, and Lecturer of Religion and Media Practice at the University of Erfurt, Germany, with a focus on Material and Digital Religion. My research and teaching interests include decolonial approaches to the study Religion, anthropology of religion, ritual studies, and religion in immersive virtual environments. I am also interested in state-society relations, geopolitics of the Middle East, Shiʿi transnational movements, sectarianism and sectarian conflict, insurgency, and conflict transformation.

I holds a PhD in International Studies from Durham University in the United Kingdom, and I have held academic and policy consulting posts in the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Lebanon, Türkiye and Morocco. I joined the University of Erfurt in 2026 as a member of the Heisenberg Professorship for Religious Studies (Religion and Media Practices) team.

For an overview of my teaching activities at the University of Erfurt, please see: https://sulwww.uni-erfurt.de/PublicServices/VeranstaltungsVerzeichnis/Lehrende.aspx

Prior to joining the University of Erfurt, I taught graduate and undergraduate courses on “State-Society Relations in the Middle East”, “Islam and Politics”, “State and Society in Lebanon”, “Global Islam”, and “Comparative Politics of the Middle East”. I also instructed the “German-Moroccan Exchange Programme” at the École de Gouvernance et d’Economie in Rabat (2015 – 2016), and I partook in the instruction of the “German-Egyptian-Jordanian Summer School” (2014) and the “Iran-Berlin Summer School” (2015) at the Free University of Berlin.

In addition to teaching in higher education, I am also involved in designing and delivering professoinal and train-the-trainer program on “Journalism in Conflict”, “Countering Violent Extremism (CVE)”, “Civilian Administration and Transition (PCAT)”, and decentralization and local governance.

• Material Religion
• Digital Religion and religious digital media practices
• Religion in immersive virtual environments
• Material (tangible) and immaterial (intangible) religious heritage
• Geopolitics of the Middle East
• Religio-political movements
• Sectarianism and sectarian conflict
• Decolonial approaches to religion and politics

In this research project, I examine religious media practices that have emerged within the framework and context of the audiovisual forms of communication used by contemporary Muslim preachers. The focus is on two areas of contemporary Muslim preaching cultures and daʿwa, both in their own right and in terms of their interrelationships: I.) The audiovisual design of contemporary preachers’ forms of communication, and II.) The ways in which Muslim believers engage with audiovisual daʿwa in everyday contexts. I examine videos shared by Muslim preachers on social media, focusing on how these videos are designed both visually and acoustically—that is, in terms of camera work, background, space, lighting, and sound; the preacher’s voice; ambient noise; and much more. I am also interested in how Muslims perceive and interact with these videos; whether they use them to find answers to religious or everyday questions; whether they draw inspiration from these videos to adapt their religious practices or inspire others; and whether they share the videos with others, comment on them, or otherwise engage with the preacher.

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For a comprehensive list of publications, including conference papers and events and workshops organized, please visit my ORCID, Academia.edu or Research Gate pages.