Giovanni Giacalone
Born in Italy, Giovanni Giacalone is a sociologist and analyst specializing in political Islam and jihadist radicalization in Europe. A sociology graduate of the University of Bologna, he holds a Master’s in Islamic Studies (University of Wales Trinity Saint David) and a specialization in Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism (International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herzliya). His research addresses Islamic communities and movements in Italy, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Malta, as well as Sufi Islam.
A researcher at the Centro Studi Machiavelli (Center for Political and Strategic Studies), he is also a researcher at the David Institute for Security Policy, an analyst at the Washington Outsider Center for Information Warfare, and leader of the “Latin America” team of the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS). He collaborated for about a decade with ITSTIME (Italian Team for Security, Terroristic Issues and Managing Emergencies) at the Catholic University of Milan, and was an associate researcher at ISPI (Italian Institute for International Political Studies) from 2014 to 2016. He teaches Islamist terrorism at Unimarconi University (Rome) and contributes regularly to several institutes and media outlets.
His recent work focuses in particular on Islamist networks in Europe and on the Tablighi Jamaat movement.
Resources related to
Sufism
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“The Reception of Rūmī’s Work in France: Cultural Mediations, Symbolic Transfers and the Recomposition of Belief”, by Khalid El Khadiri
- Khalid El Khadiri
In the journal La Clé des Langues (ENS de Lyon, March 2026), Khalid El Khadiri, a PhD candidate in the history and sociology of religions at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), examines th...
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Landscape and architecture as occasions of contemplation and of interreligious dialogue in the travel narratives of the Sufi ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī
Paper presented at the fifth 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 in Is...
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Spiritual eroticism and erotic spirituality in Sufi mystical thought
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 in Isla...
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Sufi ethics and dystopian aesthetics in Naguib Mahfouz’s The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
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 in Isla...
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The gnostic constitution of aesthetic values in Ibn ʿArabī
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 in Isla...
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Poetics and aesthetics of transgression in The Forty Rules of Love: the body, music and the figure of the Sufi poet
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 in Isla...
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The contemplation of God’s signs according to Ibn Barrajān of Seville: towards an ethics respectful of the natural world
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 in Isla...
videos
Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn ʿArabī
Paper presented at the fifth 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 in Is...