Nayla Tabbara is president of the Adyan Foundation, which she co-founded in 2006 in Lebanon, with Christian and Muslim founding members, and which received the 2018 Niwano Peace Prize. (www.adyanfoundation.org). She is also co-president of Religions for Peace.
She is a professor of Religious Studies and Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Religious Sciences at USJ, where she has been teaching since 1999. She holds a PhD in Religious Studies from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and Saint Joseph University in Beirut.
Her research, publications, courses and trainings focus on Quranic commentary, Sufism, Islamic feminism and theology of religions and dialogue. She also works on diversity education programs in formal school and university settings and in non-formal settings.
Between 2010 and 2020 she directed the Institute for Citizenship and Diversity Management at the Adyan Foundation. She received the French Renaissance Prize for her career, and the Father Jacques Hamel, Des Ecritures et Spiritualités, and Académie des Sciences d’Outre-Mer prizes for her book: L’islam pensé par une femme.
Quranic Studies
videos
Islam and Otherness : A Muslim theologian’s viewpoint
The Why and How of a New Theology of Religion in Islam The question of salvation The perception of the other and the perception of the self This lecture is part of the PLURIEL webinar ‘Islam & Otherness...
publication
Islam thought by a woman
videos
The other in Islamic civilization: from the immanence of cultures to divine transcendence
Lecture given at the 3rd International Congress of Pluriel on the theme "Islam and Otherness", on 24 May 2022, at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. Read abstract on the French tab.
publication
Prophetess – Virgin – Mother. Mary in the Koran
Mary - Bridge Figure between Christianity and Islam An entire sura bears her name. She is the only woman the Koran mentions by name - more often than Muhammad or Jesus. Until today, the esteem i...
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Geography of a forbidden land, women’s bodies: the image of women in Hanbalite fatwas in French-language works
Original tile : ‘Géographie d’une terre interdite, le corps des femmes : l’image des femmes dans les fatwas hanbalites d’ouvrages francophones’ This work aims to analyse the image of wo...
publication
Islam thought by a woman
Today, we can speak of a crisis within Islam. Based on a rigorist vision of the Qur’an and tradition, extremist speeches have been very successful, sometimes with dramatic consequences. Howev...
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Inner Islam, passion and disenchantment
Publisher’s Introduction The contemporary evolution of Islam worries or fascinates. It involves millions of believers, living in societies with a Muslim “tradition” in the midst o...
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The demystified veil
Publisher Overview “A totally new discourse in the history of Islam has been spreading for some years in France, according to which the veil is a prescription and a religious practice! This i...