Wael Tahhan
Wael Tahhan is a temporary teaching and research fellow (ATER) and a doctoral candidate in aesthetics at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he teaches aesthetics and the philosophy of art. He is affiliated with the Institut ACTE (research strand “Aesthetics and Critical Theories of Culture”).
Trained in aesthetics and Arabic studies, his research unfolds along two complementary lines: the first addresses the question of aesthetics in Arab-Islamic thought; the second examines issues related to artistic and spatial practices in the Middle East and the Islamic world.
At the fifth Pluriel congress, held in Cordoba in February 2026, he offered a reading of ghaḍḍ al-baṣar (the lowering of the gaze) as a paradigm for an Islamic aesthetics, drawing on the thought of three Sufi authors: al-Muḥāsibī, al-Qushayrī and al-Ghazālī.
Resources related to
Islam Studies
publication
ʿAbd al-Mutaʿāl al-Ṣaʿīdī (1894-1971): A Defence of Religious Freedom
- Youssouf Sangare
Published in 2024 in the collective volume Théologies musulmanes du pluralisme religieux (ed. Emmanuel Pisani, Éditions du Cerf, proceedings of the ISTR symposium of 20-21 November 2021, pp. 65-88)...
publication
Islamic Lessons for Christians
- Gabriel Said Reynolds
Islamic Lessons for Christians (Oneworld Publications, 2026) is the latest book by Gabriel Said Reynolds, Crowley Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at the University of Notre Dame. What, if...
article
Kenneth Cragg and the Event of the Qur’an
- Timo Güzelmansur
Article by Timo Güzelmansur published under the title Kenneth Cragg und das Ereignis des Koran on the theological portal feinschwarz.net (12 June 2026, open access). Timo Güzelmansur presents the A...
publication
Photographing Ordinary Islam
- Guillaume Chatagny
What does Islam concretely look like within a Muslim association? This is the question addressed by sociologist Guillaume Chatagny in this book, based on fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2021 w...
article
Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas and the Pluriel working group on AI-assisted interreligious dialogue
- Wael Saleh
Text by Wael Saleh, researcher at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and member of the Pluriel coordination committee. The simultaneous appearance of Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Human...
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
The Muslim Brotherhood in International Relations: Roles and Outcomes
- Wael Saleh
In this book published by TRENDS Research & Advisory (Abu Dhabi, May 2026), Wael Saleh, a member of Pluriel‘s coordination committee, examines the place and modes of action of the Muslim ...
videos
Opening address of the Cordoba congress
- Michel Younès
On Tuesday 10 February 2026 in Cordoba, Michel Younès, general coordinator of Pluriel and dean of the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Lyon (UCLy), delivered the opening address of...