Dr Abdenour Padillo Saoud

Profile

Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the project "Digital Al-Andalus: Radical Perspectives Of and Through Al-Andalus," selected by the ERC-Starting Grant and funded by UKRI. My research focuses on the construction and representation of historical narratives, with particular emphasis on the past of the Islamic West (al-Andalus and the Maghreb). One of my main interests is analyzing how these narratives have been shaped over time and, more specifically, how they are represented in media culture and mass media.

Additionally, my research interests include premodern Arabic historiography and the history of al-Andalus and the medieval Maghreb. In these areas, I examine the dynamics of historical knowledge production, its transmission, and the representations of the Islamic past across different intellectual traditions.

Throughout my academic career, I have been a member of various research projects, including “Al-Andalus and the Maghrib in the Islamic East: Mobility, Migration, and Memory” and “Local Contexts and Global Dynamics: al-Andalus and the Maghrib in the Islamic East,” both funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities of Spain. I also worked as a predoctoral researcher at the School of Arabic Studies in Granada, part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

Additionally, I have taught as an Assistant Professor in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Granada and the University of Alcalá de Henares.

Research

Research Interests:

• Arabic and Islamic Studies
• Cultural Studies
• Digital Studies
• Al-Andalus and the Magreb
• Historical Narratives
• Arabic Historiography

Publications

Books:

• (2017) Padillo-Saoud, A., Lirola Delgado, J.; and Al Aluni, J., El poder y los intelectuales en al-Andalus. Cronología. Almería. Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes.

Articles and book chapters:

•  (2024) Padillo-Saoud, A., “El retroceso territorial del islam en la península ibérica a través de la historiografía mameluca del periodo baḥrī (1250-1382)”, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 16, 3, pp. 367-388.
• (2023) Padillo-Saoud, A,. “The Teachers of al-Andalus: the intellectual contributions of the Arabian Peninsula to the Formation of Early al-Andalus (92-238/711-852)”, in J. C. Carvajal López and M. Fierro (Eds.), Intellectual Connections between Jazirat al-ʿArab and Jazirat al-Andalus, Casa Árabe and The International Association for the Study of Arabia (IASA), pp. 31-43.
• (2022) Penelas, M. and Padillo-Saoud, A., “Introducción: El Occidente islámico medieval a la luz de la historiografía árabe oriental”, Al-Qanṭara, 43, 2, e26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3989/alqantara.2022.026
• (2022) Padillo-Saoud, A., “La historia de los omeyas de al-Andalus en el enciclopedismo mameluco. Un análisis historiográfico de la Nihāyat al-arab y los Masālik al-abṣār”, Al-Qanṭara, 43, 2, e27. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3989/alqantara.2022.027
• (2021) Padillo-Saoud, A., “Al-Andalus in al-Mukhtaṣar fī akhbār al-bashar, by Abū l-Fidāʾ”, in Maribel Fierro and Mayte Penelas (Eds.), The Magrib in the Mashriq. Knowledge, travel and Identity, De Gruyter, pp. 99-118.
• (2020) Padillo-Saoud, A., “Aproximación historiográfica a la cronística mameluca: al-Andalus en la Zubdat al-fikra de Baybars al-Manṣūrī”, eHumanista/IVITRA, 18 (2020), pp. 94-112.
• (2017) Padillo-Saoud, A., “Novedades sobre las lecturas coránicas en al-Andalus” Revista de la Cultura Andalusí. 3 (2017), Fundación Ibn Tufayl, ISSN: 2444-5282, pp. 184-202.