Dominique Avon
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.
Resources of this researcher
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publication
Jacques Ellul and Islam: Analysis of a Discourse and Its Reception
- Dominique Avon
Published in 2026 in the collective volume Protestantisme et islam. Regards croisés (XVIe-XXIe siècles) (ed. Pierre-Olivier Léchot, Brepols, “Bibliothèque de l’École des hautes études, Sciences rel...
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videos
Inaugural Lecture for the Chair in Mediterranean Studies, Religions and Societies
- Dominique Avon
Lecture given by Professor Dominique Avon on October 13, 2025, at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI).
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videos
Freedom of conscience, a contested yet resilient right
- Dominique Avon
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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publication
Islam and Scientific Examination: A Renewed Quest
- Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi
- Dominique Avon
“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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videos
Azharis, Representations of Christianity, and the Vagaries of Islamic-Christian Dialogue (1930s-2020s)
- Dominique Avon
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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videos
Sunni authorities at the turn of the 20th-21st century
- Dominique Avon
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...
Resources related to
History
article
Experiencing a Mosque Through Photography: Islam As an Ordinary Religion
- Guillaume Chatagny
Abstract Published in 2021 in Visual Ethnography (vol. 10, no. 2) under the title "Experiencing a Mosque Through Photography: Islam As an Ordinary Religion", this article by Guillaume Chatagny, ...
article
Islam Seen through the Work of Aziz al-Azmeh
- Wasim Salman
Abstract Published in Arabic in issue 50 (2024) of Islamochristiana (PISAI, released in April 2025), this essay by Wasim Salman, president of PISAI and director of the journal, examines the rela...
article
Islamic Visions of Jesus: Revelation, Prophecy, and Eschatology
- Antonio Cuciniello
Abstract Published in the collective volume Jerusalem in Memory and Eschatology: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Visions of the Past and Future of Jerusalem, edited by Emma O'Donnell Polyakov (Blo...
article
The First Council of Nicaea (325) and the Christian-Muslim Dialogue on God’s Unity and Trinity
- Dirk Ansorge
Abstract Published under the original title "Das erste Konzil von Nizäa (325) und der christlich-muslimische Dialog über Gottes Einheit und Dreifaltigkeit" in issue 2/2025 of CIBEDO-Beiträge, th...
publication
Religious Freedom in Italy. An Unfinished Path (1848-2024)
- Alessandro Ferrari
Published under the original title La libertà religiosa in Italia. Un percorso incompiuto (1848-2024), this synthesis by Alessandro Ferrari, professor of ecclesiastical law and comparative religiou...
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 ...