Anna Canton
Born in 1980 in Italy, Anna Canton is a doctoral student in Islamic, Arabic and Iranian Studies at the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies (ISO) of the Sapienza University in Rome with a thesis on al-Daǧǧāl and ‘Īsā b. Maryam in the thought of al-Qurṭubī (d. 1273), which she defended on 20 May 2023, co-supervised by Samuela Pagani and Bishara Ebeid, under a joint doctoral programme between Sapienza University and the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome.
In 2022, she is conducting parallel research at the University of Notre Dame in the United States under the direction of Professor Gabriel Said Reynolds.
In the first semester of 2023, she is in charge of the course “Bible and Koran. A Comparative Approach” at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, in collaboration with the PISAI.
She holds a Master’s degree in History (University of Padua, 2007), a Master’s degree in Religious Sciences (Istituto Superiore di Scienze Religiose of Padua, 2015) and a Bachelor’s degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI, 2019). His research interests include exegesis and commentary of the classical Qur’an, Islamic-Christian apologetics and interreligious relations during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Resources related to
History
publication
The Recognition of a Hummingbird. Essays on Interreligious Dialogue and Missionary Work (2007-2025)
- Rémi Caucanas
Published in May 2026 by PISAI (Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, Rome), this collection brings together the essays of Rémi Caucanas on interreligious dialogue and missionary wor...
videos
From Lavigerie to PISAI: The Institutional History of the Missionaries of Africa’s Engagement with Islam
Delivered on 21 May 2026 at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome, this lecture opens the series of conferences marking the institute's centenary (1926-2026). Fr. ...
publication
Maurice Borrmans and the Crisis of Christian-Muslim Dialogue. Islamic studies in Question?
- Florence Javel
In 2025-2026, we mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and of the declaration Nostra aetate (28 October 1965). One century earlier, in October 1925, Maurice Borrmans was born ...
publication
Islam and Muslims. Doctrines, Schools of Thought, and Current Trends
- Michel Younès
Publication date: April 16, 2026. Islam, as a historical, religious, and civilizational reality, is difficult to define. It can be perceived as a form of political governance, an expression of fait...
publication
Canon and Censorship in Islamic Intellectual History
- Amir Dziri
Published in De Gruyter’s series “Islam: Thought, Culture, and Society” (vol. 16, 2026), this collective volume is edited by Mohammad Gharaibeh and Bacem Dziri (Humboldt University of Berlin)...
videos
Maurice Borrmans (1925-2017), an Islamologist Defending Christian-Muslim Dialogue
- Florence Javel
On 19 February 2026, in the Maurice Borrmans Library of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome, Florence Javel, who holds a PhD in theology from the Catholic Univer...
videos
Landscape and architecture as occasions of contemplation and of interreligious dialogue in the travel narratives of the Sufi ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī
Paper presented at the fifth international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Is...
videos
Aesthetics of living together: visualising an Islamic ethics of the other in al-Andalus
Paper presented at the fifth international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Is...