Pierre Lory

Born in Paris in 1952, Pierre Lory is Directeur d’études émérite at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE-PSL), Section of Religious Sciences, where he held the chair of “Muslim Mysticism” from October 1991 to 2020. A former director of the Department of Arab, Medieval and Modern Studies at the Institut français du Proche-Orient in Damascus (2007-2011), he is a member of the Laboratoire d’études sur les monothéismes (LEM, UMR 8584, CNRS/EPHE/Sorbonne). His research focuses on Sufism and esotericism in classical Islam, spiritual exegesis of the Qur’an, Arabic alchemy (the Jabirian corpus), the science of letters, magic and dream interpretation. He is the author of reference works including Alchimie et mystique en terre d’Islam (Verdier, 1989; repr. Gallimard, 2003), Le rêve et ses interprétations en Islam (Albin Michel, 2003) and La Dignité de l’homme face aux anges, aux animaux et aux djinns (Albin Michel, 2018).

Resources related toIslam Studies

Couverture de l'étude de Wael Saleh « L'Autre épistémologique dans les études de l'islamisme » (TRENDS Research & Advisory, 2026)

publication

The Epistemological Other in Studies of Islamism: From Postcolonialism to Systemic Epistemic Alterity

  • Wael Saleh

Wael Saleh, a member of Pluriel‘s coordination committee, has published a new study in Arabic with TRENDS Research & Advisory (Abu Dhabi). Released on 21 October 2026 under the title الآخ...

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...

publication

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...

publication

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...

article

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...

publication

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)...

Couverture du livre Cosmic and Animal Piety in Islam: Everything Glorifies God, dirigé par Walid Ghali, Guillaume de Vaulx d'Arcy, Asmaa El Maaroufi et Nicolas Payen, Edinburgh University Press, 2026

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...