Newsletter — December 2019
Dear friends, On December 18th, we had the pleasure and the honor of paying tribute to Dr. Aly Elsamman (1929‒2017), who played a decisive role in obtaining the construction permission for our new library inaugurated in 2002. Aly Elsamman was a pioneer of interreligious dialogue at a time when few people thought it was possible […]
Newsletter — October 2019
Dear friends, It is very striking to note that for several years Muslims have been taking the initiative in interreligious dialogue. The abuse Daesh has been inflicting has probably forced them to come out of the woods. As always, the media forms of this dialogue tend to overshadow academic research and joint charity work, which […]
Newsletter — September 2019
Dear friends, 2019-2020 will undoubtedly be the year of collaborations. We have the opportunity to work very closely with the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology (IFAO) (MIDEO publication, purchase of books, “Bibliothèques d’Orient” portal), with the National Library of France (BnF) (“Bibliothèques d’Orient”), with the French Institute (purchase of books, “Adawāt” project, “Midan Mounira”), with […]
Newsletter — July and August 2019
Dear friends, You may be surprised to find a picture of a group of Jesuits here! In July, Jean Druel, OP was invited to participate in the meeting entitled “Jesuits among Muslims” (JAM), which gathers Jesuits from all over the world who work with Muslims every two years. Most of these Jesuits work with refugees […]
Newsletter — June 2019
Dear friends, The issue 34 of MIDEO, the periodical of the IDEO, has just been published. Published and distributed by the IFAO (39 €), it is fully and freely available online on the OpenEdition website. This issue is devoted to the authority of Ḥadīṯ, a corpus of texts, very short or sometimes longer, attributed to […]
Newsletter — May 2019
Dear friends, from May 1 to 5th, DoSt-İ, the Dominican Study Institute in Istanbul, directed by Claudio Monge, OP organized an international conference devoted to holiness in Islam and in Christianity (see photo). Dominicans have been present in Turkey since the 13th century, serving mainly the Eastern Catholic Christian communities. For several years, they have […]
Newsletter — April 2019
Dear friends, We are often asked the question —without animosity— what the IDEO is for and who benefits from our research, beyond a limited circle of academics? Your encouraging messages, the increasing consultation of our online catalogue and the MIDEO, the numerous proposals for collaboration, the renewed public of our seminars, show us that while […]
Newsletter — March 2019
Dear friends, We are currently reflecting on the future of Diamond-ILS, the library management software suite we have been developing since 1999, and of AlKindi, the documentary portal dedicated to classical Arab heritage managed by this software. Since last year, thanks to European funding, the Arab Manuscripts Institute in Cairo has been cataloguing its documents […]
Newsletter — February 2019
Dear friends, The reading of Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen’s new book on Coptic-Catholic priests in Upper Egypt (Paris 2019, in French) took up the bulk of my first days of February. At the same time moving, funny, sharp, critical, softened, compassionate, always specific, Catherine’s text describes people and situations that are largely ignored by foreign observers and […]
Newsletter — January 2019
Dear friends, Following numerous rumors in recent months, we feared that the famous Cairo Book Fair would be too remote, too difficult for the public to access, and burdened with discouraging formalities for international publishers. This has not been the case! The organization of this fiftieth Cairo Book Fair is remarkable. Though the premises are […]