The theory of knowledge and religious polemics according to Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī
Adrien Candiard PhD candidate in Islamic studies, Paris icon-calendar Wednesday June 15ᵗʰ, 2016 The theory of knowledge according to the Andalusian theologian and jurist Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064) seems to be paradoxical at first glance. On the one hand, he is an enthusiastic defender of the use of reason in theological discussions. And on the […]
The concept of genre in medieval Arabic literature
Gyöngyi Oroszi PhD student at the Catholic University of Budapest icon-calendar Tuesday April 26ᵗʰ, 2016 Rather than starting from existing categories, Gyöngyi Oroszi tries to explore the understanding the ancient authors had for their own literary work, particularly when they compile collections of histories and modify them so they could become integrated in a new […]
The Qurʾān, context and contextualisation
Abdullah Saeed Melbourne University icon-calendar Wednesday March 2nd, 2016 at 5:00 p.m Prof. Abdullah Saeed presented us his last book, entitled Reading the Qur’an in the twenty-first century: a contextualist approach (Routledge, 2013). Even in the Islamic conception of revelation, the Qurʾān is from the very beginning a text that dialogues with its auditors, answering […]
The education reform according to Muḥammad ʿAbduh
Simon Conrad Master’s student at Berlin Free University icon-calendar Tuesday February 23ʳᵈ, 2016 at 5:00 p.m Simon Conrad presented his research on Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s thought, one of the key figures of Islamic modernism in the end of the 19th century. The traditional vision on Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s thought inevitably highlights a tension that supposedly existed between […]
The Christianity of Abraha and the Quran
Emilio Platti University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium icon-calendar Wednesday February 17ᵗʰ, 2016 at 5:00 p.m Emilio Platti, member of IDEO, presented the works of Christian Robin on the inscriptions that are found in the Arabian Peninsula and date back to the beginning of the 4th century. Through his research, Robin brings archeological evidence to answer a […]
Chinese Students of Al-Azhar and their impact on Sino-Egyptians relations
Maurice Gajan MA candidate, intern at the Center for Arab West Understanding icon-calendar December 15, 2015 Since 1931, when the first delegation of four Chinese Muslims came to study to al-Azhar, and today, when they are an estimated of 1,000 to 2,000 students (among a total of 160,000 foreign students altogether), a great deal of soft […]
The Copts and the construction of religious authority
Gaétan Du Roy University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium icon-calendar December 3, 2015 Gaétan Du Roy presented his doctoral research on Fr. Samʿān, an Egyptian Coptic Orthodox priest born in 1941, who gained celebrity by building a huge church complex in the neighborhood of Muqaṭṭam in Cairo, home of 30,000 ragpickers since the 70’s. In the same vein […]
The Azhar Park and the Walls of Cairo
Stéphane Pradines Aga Khan University, London icon-calendar November 24, 2015 Stéphane Pradines has worked over fifteen years with an international team on the excavations of the walls of Cairo. These excavations uncovered four closely linked structures: a first Fatimid rammed-earth wall dating 969-971 built by Ǧawhar al-Ṣiqillī (d. 381/992); a second Fatimid wall built of mud-brick […]
Reason against reason
Guillaume de Vaulx PhD student at Paris-IV University icon-calendar November 3, 2015 Guillaume de Vaulx presented under the title “Reason against reason” a medieval Christian-Muslim polemic. The debate opposed the Nestorian bishop Isrāʾīl al-Kaskarī to Aḥmad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī, one of al-Kindī disciples who the speaker suspects to be the author of Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s treatises. The […]
Muḥammad ʿAbduh (1849-1905): Historian of the Decline of Islam
Adrien Candiard Alumnus of the French École normale supérieure, Paris icon-calendar June 16, 2015 Muḥammad ʿAbduh identifies the reality of Islam and its rationality, and opposes the tradition he sees as rehearsed. In this, he is an heir of the Enlightenment and their pretention in inventing a unique universal system of reasoning, ignoring multiple types of […]