Newsletter ‒ December 2016

Dear friends, Sirte, Mosul, Homs, Madagali, Aden, Istanbul, Mogadishu, Cairo, Kamuya, Berlin, al-Bab… Each time blind violence hits an innocent crowd, the whole of humanity is hit. And when this violence pretends to act in the name of God, whole believers are humiliated in turn. What is there that lies

Read More »

Archeology and water in medieval Morocco

Thomas Soubira Archeologist, PhD student in Toulouse University icon-calendar Monday December 19ᵗʰ, 2016 The archeological site of Sijilmasa is being excavated by a French Moroccan team. This “harbour” of transsaharian trade between the 8th and the 15th centuries has remarkable hydrolic archeological remnants that can be observed on the entire

Read More »

Newsletter — November 2016

Dear friends, Some have reacted to our previous newsletter, finding it very elitist and not very down-to-earth. November was full of all kinds of down-to-earth activities, which are always beautiful and instructive, activities which sent us back to our books and our scholarly studies. Our life here is like a

Read More »

Cooperation with the University of al-Azhar

On November 27, 2016, we had the pleasure to finally sign a cooperation agreement with al-Azhar University, with their two French sections, one in the Faculty of Language and Translation (for men) and one in the Faculty of Human Sciences (for women). Negotiations had been ongoing since March 2015. The

Read More »

Ethics and spirituality in Islam

Francesco Chiabotti, Eve Feuillebois-Pierunek, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen et Luca Patrizi (éd.), Ethics and spirituality in Islam: Sufi adab, Brill, Leyde, 2016, 792 pages. The notion of adab is at the heart of Arab-Islamic culture. Born in the crucible of the Arabic and Persian civilization, nourished by Greek and Indian influences, this polysemic

Read More »

A Persian Gospel manuscript

Dennis Halft, “A Persian Gospel manuscript and the London Polyglot”, in M. Pehlivanian, Ch. Rauch, and R. Vollandt, eds, Oriental Bible manuscripts from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – PK: An illustrated history, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2016, 155‒157.

Read More »

The ‘Book of books’ in Persian

Dennis Halft, “The ‘Book of books’ in Persian”, in M. Pehlivanian, Ch. Rauch, and R. Vollandt, eds, Oriental Bible manuscripts from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – PK: An illustrated history, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2016, 150‒154.

Read More »