Faisal Kenanah
Faisal Kenanah is Senior Lecturer (Maître de conférences) in Arabic Studies at the University of Caen Normandy, a permanent member of ERLIS (Research Team on Literatures, Imaginaries and Societies, UR 4254) and an associate member of CRISCO (Inter-language Research Centre on Meaning in Context, UR 4255).
Holder of the agrégation in Arabic and a doctorate in Arabic language, literature and civilisation from Bordeaux III University (Michel de Montaigne), he defended his thesis on the major work of Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023), Kitāb al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa. His research focuses on the maǧlis (circle, gathering, council) as a locus of knowledge, and on the munāẓara (controversy) as the art of debate. He has organised several scholarly events on these themes, notably in 2022 at the universities of Caen and Rennes 2, in 2023 at Lyon 2 within the 5 th GIS-MOMM Congress on Middle Eastern and Muslim Worlds Studies, and in 2025 at Caen.
He also takes interest in the circulation of knowledge between East and West, a topic he addressed at a conference he co-organised in January 2026 at Caen on « Scholarly Sociabilities and the Transmission of Knowledge: Crossed Perspectives between East and West ». His most recent monograph, Les animaux chez Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī : classement et influences des transmissions (Aristote, Ibn al-Biṭrīq, Ǧāḥiẓ), was published by Safran in 2023.
In parallel, he devotes a significant part of his work to the didactics and pedagogy of Arabic as a foreign language, and has published several methods in this field, notably L’arabe dans toutes ses formes (L’Harmattan) and Progresser en arabe (Ophrys). He is also Deputy Director of the LEA Department of the UFR LVE at the University of Caen Normandy.
At the Pluriel Congress in Cordoba in February 2026, he delivered a paper entitled : « Ethics and aesthetics in the thought of Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023) ».
Resources related to
Comparative Studies
videos
The Foundations of Arabic Grammatical Theory
Cairo. In a lecture delivered in Arabic on Saturday, January 25, 2025, at the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (IDEO) in Cairo, Professor Ramzi Baalbaki, holder of the Chair of Arabic...
publication
Revival and Dynamics of Islamic Studies in Europe
- Michel Younès
- Emmanuel Pisani
- Cédric Baylocq
- Zohra Aziadé Zemirli
- Michele Brignone
- Haoues Seniguer
“In a troubled international context where Islam is sometimes defined as an ideological marker of many conflicts, academic research drawing on history, sociology, and political science has mu...
videos
For a dialogical theological fraternity: a rereading of the Document on Human Fraternity in light of the earliest Arabic theological writings
- Romain Louge
From the 8th century onwards, the first theological writings were composed in Arabic, either in Christian communities or in Muslim communities. This communication aims, through the study of these e...
article
In search of a comparative Christian social thought. A methodological proposal
- Gonzalo Villagrán
The article "In search of a comparative Christian social thought" aims to propose a methodology for developing a comparative Christian social thought. To do this, it explores two sources of inspira...
videos
What does the reformation of religion mean?
Lecture given by Mohamed El Haddad as part of the Anawati Chair at the Dominican Institute of Oriental Studies in Cairo. Summary Plural Mohamed El Haddad presents his conception of religious re...
publication
Can Christians Learn from Qur’anic Christology? Leo Lefebure’s Theology of Judaism and Islam
- Klaus von Stosch
Published in Publié dans Christian Perspectives on Transforming Interreligious Encounter “Christian Perspectives on Transforming Interreligious Encounter” underscores the urgency of int...
videos
Jesus in Recent Qur’an Translations | The Jesus of the Qur’an vs. the Jesus of the New Testament
- Gabriel Said Reynolds
In this video, Gabriel Said Reynolds discusses the presentation of Jesus in the Qur'an and how it is interpreted and rendered in English by recent translations of the Qur'an. I show that recent tra...
videos
From the Declaration “Nostra Aetate” to the Document of Abu Dhabi: Reexamining a Historical and Theological Trajectory in the Catholic Approach to Islamic-Christian Dialogue
- Jean-Jacques Pérennès
Jean Jacques Pérennès, former director of the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, proposes a re-examination of the Catholic approach to Islamic-Christian dialogue, from the Nost...