Director of studies at the EPHE (École Pratique des Hautes Etudes), PSL, chair of “Intellectual History of Contemporary Sunnism”, Dominique Avon has a degree in history and a diploma in Arabic. He was a lecturer at the University of Montpellier III, then Professor at the University of Le Mans. He taught in Egypt (1992-1994) and Lebanon (2004-2005). He has been a visiting professor in the United States (2014), Belgium (winter 2015-2016) and Italy (April-May 2020). He has established ongoing cooperations with scholars in Morocco, Tunisia, Switzerland, Germany, Russia and Canada.
He is a member of the laboratory GSRL-Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités (UMR 8582). Since 2020, he has been the director of the IISMM (Institute for the Study of Islam and Societies of the Muslim World), after having coordinated the HEMED Community (“Euro-Mediterranean History”), co-directed the IPRA (“Institute of Religious Pluralism and Atheism”) and chaired the AFHRC (“French Association of Contemporary Religious History”). He is a member of the LabEx haStec (“History and Anthropology of Knowledge, Techniques and Beliefs”), and is in charge of the DCIE collection “Dynamiques citoyennes en Europe” (Peter Lang editions).
Between 1996 and 2022, he wrote, edited or co-edited some twenty books, as well as eighty articles on contemporary religious history, mainly on Islam and Christianity. He has specialised in the study of ideas and doctrines, institutions of religious knowledge formation, and networks of intellectuals.
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Azharis, Representations of Christianity, and the Vagaries of Islamic-Christian Dialogue (1930s-2020s)
Dominique Avon, Director of Studies at the École pratique des hautes études, traces the evolution of the discourse of the ulama of al-Azhar on Christianity since the 1930s. Confronted with the colo...
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Sunni authorities at the turn of the 20th-21st century
Conference « Religious Authority in Islam », organised by the Centre for the Study of Cultures and Religions and the Research Unit of the Catholic University of Lyon (UCLy), on 18 and 19 November 2...
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Islam and Scientific Examination: A Renewed Quest
“How can we establish an objective, rigorous, and detached study of Islam in the face of the excesses generated by its politicization? It is to answer this burning question that the French In...
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Freedom of conscience, a contested yet resilient right
Rome. In a conference given on November 28, 2024, at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, Professor Dominique Avon from the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris traced the ...
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The Mihna. Deconstruction and reconsideration of the Mu’tazilite role in the “Inquisition
Abstract The Miḥna has usually been attributed to the Mu‘tazilite theological school as expression of something unusual, a bid‘ah (Islamic innovation) related to a rationalist group of theologia...
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El islam en Europa occidental. Panorama socio-histórico y modelos de “integración”
Summary This article starts unfolding a brief outline of the history of the relations between Islam and Europe from four geographical view points and four ages: Spain (VIII century), Central Europ...
videos
Azharis, Representations of Christianity, and the Vagaries of Islamic-Christian Dialogue (1930s-2020s)
Dominique Avon, Director of Studies at the École pratique des hautes études, traces the evolution of the discourse of the ulama of al-Azhar on Christianity since the 1930s. Confronted with the colo...
article
Fighting for the Cause of God: Vice or Virtue? Views of ŠIHĀB AL–DĪN AL–QARĀFĪ (d. 1285)
Original title : "Se battre pour la cause de Dieu : vice ou vertu ? Vues de ŠIHĀB AL–DĪN AL–QARĀFĪ (m. 1285)" ABSTRACT: This article discusses the views of the Cairene jurist Šihāb al–Dīn al–Qar...
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PISAI from Tunis to Rome 1964-2014
Lecture given at the Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome, 22 January 2015.
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The secular movement in Lebanon 2006-2019
It was in 2006 that the secular idea (al-‘almâniyya), which the master Boutros al-Bustanî forged in 1861 in his journal Nafîr Sûriyâ, took a political and militant form, when a number of acti...
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ACTES DU CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAL Cultura Europaea 2015
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Medieval Muslim Polemics against the Christian Creed : The Critique of ṢĀLIḤ B. AL-ḤUSAYN AL-ǦA‘FARĪ (D. 668/1270)
Abstract After introducing Ṣāliḥ b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ǧa‘farī (d. 668/1270), the Egyptian Muslim author of an important work of anti-Christian polemic entitled Taḫǧīl man ḥarrafa al-Tawrāh wa-l-Inǧīl...