The Centre for European Islamic Thought was established in October 2007 as a five-year research project in connection with the appoint of Prof. Jørgen S. Nielsen as a Danish National Research Foundation Professor at the Faculty of Theology.

The focus of the Centre was on Islamic religious thought in contemporary Europe, the processes and circumstances in which it is appearing, seeking to locate and understand it in the context both of the history of Islamic religious thought and of contemporary developments in Islamic thinking, and evaluate it as a response to the European environment specifically and to modernity more generally.

As of June 2013 the Centre is officially closed.