Gabriel Khairallah
Born in Lebanon, Gabriel Khairallah is a Jesuit, a trained Islamic scholar, and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of Saint Joseph University of Beirut (USJ, Lebanon), where he has been teaching since 2011. He also serves as Visiting Professor at Sciences Po Paris (France) since 2013 and at Sciences Po Aix-en-Provence (France) since 2024.
His research focuses on the relationships between sacred texts, literature and religion, and explores in particular the work of the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize in Literature 1988, crossed on the one hand with the Bible and on the other with that of the French novelist François Mauriac. A PhD graduate of Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III, France), his dissertation analyses the crisis of the family and the autonomy of the individual in Mahfouz and Mauriac. He also holds a dual Master 2 from Sorbonne Nouvelle – Facultés Loyola Paris, dedicated to the figure of God in Mahfouz’s Children of the Alley, as well as a Master’s degree on forgiveness in Paul Ricœur.
At Sciences Po Paris, he teaches the relationship between politics and literature through Mahfouz’s work. His research also explores the connections between literature and feminism. He has published in international peer-reviewed journals, notably in Proche-Orient Chrétien (vol. 73, 2023), edited by USJ. In February 2026, he spoke at the 5th Pluriel Congress in Cordoba with a paper entitled Hospitality, power and interreligious dialogue in Mahfouz’s Children of the Alley. Since 2018, he has directed the Catholic Youth Circle (CJC), the social office of the Jesuits in Beirut.
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...