Susanne Olsson

At present, my research focuses primarily on Islamic relics in two projects.

This project investigates theological discourses on prophetic relics in Islam through an AI-augmented genealogical analysis of Arabic texts spanning from 850 CE to the present. Despite their historical significance in religious practice and political legitimation, prophetic relics (athar nabawi) remain understudied, particularly in modern and contemporary contexts. The research maps continuity and change in theological thought across three periods: classical (850-1800), reformist (1850-1920), and contemporary discourse. Using Large Language Models to process vast textual corpora, the project overcomes traditional methodological constraints while maintaining rigorous scholarly interpretation. This approach enables the identification of key turning points in how prophetic relics have been conceptualized, contested, and deployed within broader struggles over religious authority and authenticity. The project will produce academic publications, an international workshop, datasets, and methodological frameworks that demonstrate how AI can augment traditional humanistic research without replacing interpretive expertise. By examining prophetic relics through this novel methodology, the project contributes both to Islamic studies and to developing reproducible protocols for AI-augmented analysis of religious texts.The project not only contributes new knowledge to an understudied field within Islamic studies but also demonstrates how the humanities can benefit from new technologies. We are developing methods in which AI tools streamline the time-consuming work of collecting and systematising source material, thereby freeing researchers to focus on interpretive analysis, where human expertise remains indispensable. By combining traditional approaches in the study of religion with new technology, the project sheds light on ongoing discussions within Islam concerning religious authenticity and authority.

The second project is “Islamic Relics as Contested Sites of Authority: Religio-Political Appropriations of Relics”, funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. This project examines how relics and relic veneration function as contested symbols of authority within Islam, despite dominant theological discourses often marginalising or rejecting such practices. The research challenges the notion that relic veneration represents merely “folk” practices incompatible with “orthodox” Sunni Islam. The project analyses how relics are authenticated, disputed, and mobilised throughout Islamic history. It challenges binary taxonomies (such as orthodox/popular, textual/material, religious/political) that continue to shape Islamic studies. Through diachronic analysis, it examines continuity and change in perceptions and uses of relics across various case studies. The project combines historical studies analysing early Islamic sources with contemporary case studies that includes comparative analyses of religious authorities in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It investigates how relics function as powerful religious and political instruments, where contestations over interpretative authority unfold between competing groups. Methodologically, it combines discourse analysis, conceptual history, and material culture studies. The project contributes new empirical knowledge about Islamic relics and develops novel theoretical understandings of how religious authority operates through material-discursive legitimation strategies, where elites selectively appropriate, reframe, and regulate material practices to establish interpretive control.