Ghaleb Bencheikh
Born in 1960 in Saudi Arabia, Ghaleb Bencheikh is an Islamic scholar and a physicist by training. He produces and hosts the programme “Questions d’islam” on France Culture and chairs the Fondation de l’Islam de France (Foundation for Islam in France).
Holding a doctorate in science from Sorbonne Université, where he defended a thesis in fluid mechanics in 1990, he pursued philosophical studies in parallel. His dual training in science and philosophy underpins his effort to renew Islamic theological thought, with particular attention to epistemology, Qur’anic exegesis and the relationship between faith and reason.
A long-standing figure of interreligious dialogue, he chairs the French chapter of Religions for Peace and sits on France’s Council of Elders for Secularism. He hosted the television programme “Islam” on France 2 from 2000 to 2019. His work addresses secularism, religious pluralism and the critique of radical readings of Islam.
He is the author of many works of scholarly outreach, including La Laïcité au regard du Coran (Presses de la Renaissance, 2005), Le Coran expliqué (Eyrolles), Petit manuel pour un islam à la mesure des hommes (Jean-Claude Lattès, 2018) and Les mots (et les maux) de l’islam (Eyrolles, 2023).
At the fifth Pluriel congress, held in Cordoba in February 2026, he opened the proceedings with a paper on axiological approaches to the Islamic phenomenon.
Resources of this researcher
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videos
Axiological approaches to the Islamic phenomenon
- Ghaleb Bencheikh
Paper presented at the 5th 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 i...
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videos
Belonging to the ummah: contemporary issues, ambiguities and challenges
- Ghaleb Bencheikh
Lecture of Ghaleb BENCHEIKH, Chairman of the World Conference of Religions for Peace and president of the Fondation de l’islam de France Lecture given at the second international Congress of ...
Resources related to
Islam Studies
article
A Fragrant Spiritual Heritage. Some Considerations on Perfumes in Islam
- Ida Zilio-Grandi
Abstract Published in volume 20 (2025) of Quaderni di Studi Arabi, this article by Ida Zilio-Grandi (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) revisits a constant of Islamic history that has attracted r...
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The Virtues of the Good Muslim
- Ida Zilio-Grandi
Published in 2025 by Edizioni Ca’ Foscari in Venice, this monograph by Ida Zilio-Grandi (Ca’ Foscari University) is the augmented English translation of Le virtù del buon Musulmano, fir...
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Without Judaism, No Islam. The Denied Source
- Mouhanad Khorchide
Published under the original title Ohne Judentum kein Islam. Die verleugnete Quelle, with the subtitle Die Wurzeln des muslimischen Antisemitismus. Eine aktuelle Analyse (“The Roots of Muslim...
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Literary, Semiotic and Hermeneutical Approaches to the Qur’an in the Modern Period
- Wasim Salman
Abstract In this contribution to issue 51 (Mélanges) of the journal Islamochristiana, published in Italian as Approcci letterari, semiotici ed ermeneutici al Corano nel periodo moderno, Wasim Sa...
videos
A Muslim Reads St Paul: Recording of the Symposium on Shabbir Akhtar Now Online
- David Marshall
- Gabriel Said Reynolds
On 9 September 2026, the Institute for the Study of Religion in the Middle East (ISRME) and the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI, Rome) held an online symposium on The New...
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ʿAbd al-Mutaʿāl al-Ṣaʿīdī (1894-1971): A Defence of Religious Freedom
- Youssouf Sangaré
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
Cosmic and Animal Piety in Islam: Everything Glorifies God
- Geneviève Gobillot
- Pierre Lory
- Florence Ollivry
- Guillaume de Vaulx d'Arcy
Edited by Walid Ghali, Guillaume de Vaulx d’Arcy, Asmaa El Maaroufi and Nicolas Payen, this collective volume examines the concept of praise (tasbīḥ) in Islam, in its human and nonhuman expre...
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...