In the contiguity of the light, in the twilight celebration where one lets himself be lulled by musical sounds, we sense an inner and outer power that announces the sun of tomorrow, that of the origin, that of the desert, that of peace. Salam, a delivered word, an exchanged word, a daring word, an offered word, a human coruscation that carries a renewed meaning since the decay of humanity in the Garden. Word of the future, holy word, creative word. Salam is the word that, in the desert, conjures the enemy silences and the dunes of blood. A word of future and hope that connects and cauterizes the wound of a broken communion. In a world of pandemics and ever more acute manifestations of the prophecies of collapsology, the gala of the IDEO of this Wednesday March 30ᵗʰ shared something of these originel parties, we experienced it not as the homo festivus who seeks by the festival to ward off the emptiness or let his mind go blank, but in the spirit of the rooting of the being with, of the being with all, even with the absent ones. To be together, to exchange the word of peace to extinguish the speeches and the wars that hide or bury the faces of men and women that some would like to see disappear, to be together to build and rebuild together.
Lectures
On March 4ᵗʰ, Guillaume de Vaulx gave a lecture entitled “Friendship between natural enemies. Thematization of friendship from Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ to the Iḫwān al-ṣafā”, in the seminar “Enemies and friends: ‘the other’ in the Muslim world”, organized at the Faculty of Historical Sciences of the University of Strasbourg.
Courses
From February 14ᵗʰ to March 4ᵗʰ, Dennis Halft, OP taught a classroom course entitled “Shi‘a texts on interreligious meetings, written by Muḥammad Ǧawād al-Balāġī (d. 1933)”, at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome.
From March 7ᵗʰ to 26ᵗʰ, Adrien Candiard, OP gave an online course on Islamic theological texts at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome: “Testi di teologia islamica: al-qaḍāʾ wa-l-qadar”.
On March 14ᵗʰ, Emmanuel Pisani, OP started to give a six-session online course on the topic of “Islam and Otherness” at the Institute of Science and Theology of Religions in Paris (ISTR).
IDEO seminar
On March 15ᵗʰ, the IDEO resumed its seminars with Professor Youssouf Sangaré on the topic of “The Islamic heritage under debate”. This seminar is organized by the IDEO as part of the project Adawāt.
Conferences and study days
On March 18ᵗʰ, Emmanuel Pisani, OP participated in the conference “Religions and nationalism”, organized by the Institute of Science and Theology of Religions in Paris (ISTR), as well as in the study day organized on March 23ʳᵈ by the French Ministry of the Interior for the world of research and administrations.
Nomination
On March 21ˢᵗ, Mateus Domingues da Silva, OP and René du Grandlaunay, OP were appointed by the Master of the Dominican Order as members of the committee of librarians to think about and define the mission of Dominican libraries, according to the General Chapter of Biên Hòa (ACG 2019 Biên Hòa, 323).
Library
From March 8ᵗʰ to 23ʳᵈ, Ms. Juliette Chevée, class of 2021, museum specialty at the National Heritage Institute, completed her internship at the library of the IDEO.
On March 27ᵗʰ, Mrs. Engy Elgammal, the cataloging director at the IDEO’s library, participated in the Annual Conference for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, Entrepreneurship and Creative Achievement (EURECA), organized by the American University in Cairo. Our interns, Mr. Samuel Gillette, Mr. Joshua Wainner and Mr. Rafael Ordonez, presented their work at the IDEO and the specificities of our cataloguing. The discussions focused on the evaluation of our contribution to the education process of the Egyptian community.
On March 31ˢᵗ, Mateus Domingues Da Silva, OP director of the IDEO’s library, Mrs. Engy Elgammal, director of the cataloging department, Mr. Magdy Yackoub, developer of the Diamond cataloging application, and Mr. Emad Habib, head of the manuscript cataloging team at the Arab Manuscripts Institute, participated in the International Day of the Arabic Manuscript in order to present the outcome of the European Union funded project of cataloging more than 6,000 manuscripts in Diamond according to the FRBR/RAD standards. Click here to view these manuscripts records…
Visits
On March 8ᵗʰ, we welcomed Mrs. Graziella Rizza, from the Delegation of the European Union in Cairo.
From March 12ᵗʰ to 16ᵗʰ, we received Professor Youssouf Sangaré, lecturer at the University of Clermont-Auvergne in order to, give a talk at the French Language Teaching Center and the Faculty of Humanities at al-Azhar, and to lead a seminar at the IDEO on the turāth.
On March 8ᵗʰ and 31ˢᵗ, we welcomed around twenty Indonesian students enrolled in the faculties of al-Azhar in order to present them our library and the mission of our Institute.
Scholars’ House
In March 2022, we had the pleasure to receive in the Scholars’ House Mr. Simon Conrad, PhD student in Islamic Studies at Princeton University, Professor Andreas Kaplony and Professor Rocio Daga accompanied by a group of Master students from the Institute for Near and Middle East Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany.
Publications
Dominique Avon, L’histoire religieuse contemporaine en France, Paris, Éditions La Découverte, 2022, 295 pages.
Guillaume de Vaulx, Identités de papier. Essai documenté sur la logique identitaire, Liban, Dergham, 2022, 376 pages.
Upcoming activities
On April 10ᵗʰ, Mrs. Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen will give a lecture, as part of the “Midan Mounira” lectures series, on the topic of “Pilgrimages in Islam: the example of Egyptian Islam” (in French with Arabic simultaneous translation). This lecture will take place at the IFAO from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. You can join the lecture online.
On November 16ᵗʰ and 17ᵗʰ, 2022, the Orient and Mediterranean laboratory will organize the international conference “Animals as Worshipers of God First of All. On Animal Piety in Islam”. The conference is under the scientific direction of Guillaume de Vaulx and in partnership with the French Ministry of the Interior, section of religious affairs and the National Center for Scientific Research.
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