Michele Brignone

Where the Weakness of the Islamist Project Lies

Ideological rigour and practical flexibility in post-2011 political Islam

Moroccan Islam: Work in Progress

After the Casablanca attacks in 2003, the Moroccan monarchy has promoted an updated version of...

Qatar and Emirates: the Conflict Between Islams

Behind the Gulf crisis lies a religious rift within the Sunni world

The Paradox of Islamist Democracy

The projects of Islamist parties rely on the idea that democracy is an Islamic concept, since the...

“Neither Liberal nor Fundamentalist”

Where the Islamists’ theory of political freedom comes from

Morocco will train Italian Muslims in Tuscany

The University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez and the University of Siena have signed a cooperation...

Islam and Women, the Tunisian Path Towards Emancipation

The president announced reforms on inheritance and marriage rules. The decision has reopened the...

Does al-Azhar Speak for All Sunnis?

The Egyptian mosque-university is often called “Islam’s Vatican”. This ancient institution is...

Is It All Wahhabism’s Fault?

An Anglo-Tunisian intellectual identifies the origins of jihadism in the official doctrine of Saudi...

The Divisions in the Middle East: Not Only Sunnis and Shiites

In the Gulf crisis, Ulama and preachers have aligned not according to religious but political...

Religious Authorities in Islam

Who speaks for Muslims

A Complex Encounter Destined to Change Us

Europe has in its DNA the capacity to “integrate in new syntheses the most varied and discrete...

Is it Possible to Reform Islam?

The dialectic between renewal and conservation doea not always lead to the path traced by liberal...

“Democratic revolutions are not always happy revolutions”

“To think that the Middle East of the 2000s means to think of our world starting from its...

The Conflict of Interpretations

“It’s Voltaire’s fault. It’s Rousseau’s fault,” sang Gavroche, the street urchin in...

The Conflict of Interpretations

“It’s Voltaire’s fault. It’s Rousseau’s fault,” sang Gavroche, the street urchin in...

The Conflict Between Modern Reason and Theological Reason

Misquoting Muhammad. The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy

The Tunisian Exception: the Islamist Compromise

Ennahda party declared it is framing its actions in terms of “transition and change”. Is a move...

Al-Sisi, Human Rights and the West

The Egyptian president affirms that his country is a "young democracy" in which fundamental...

The origins of Jihadism in Europe

Nihilist revolt, Third-Worldist reaction or Islamic response to social marginalization. The French...

Reforming Teaching to Combat Fundamentalism

Morocco considers changing religious text books: the place of Islam in politics and society is at...

There is more to the Arab Mind than Just Islam

Georges Corm, Pensée et politique dans le monde arabe. Contextes historiques et problématiques...

ISIS or The Preferential Option for Terror

The treatment reserved by the Islamic State to the Christian minorities is indicative of the type...

Why Saudi Arabia is not an Isis That has Made it

They may share the same ideology, but Islamic State’s raison d'être is to remake the world by...

The Unusual Story of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Belgian Jihadist

How Islam following the migrations to Europe has transformed from its lands of origin

The Middle East on the Cusp of a Historic Change

Conflicts are no longer political but religious and are creating deep divisions between...

A Nobel Prize for "Lifetime Achievement" to Tunisian Civil Society

Who are the lawyers, trade unionists, and secular activists who have been challenging the power in...

A Nobel Prize for “Lifetime Achievement” to Tunisian Civil Society

Who are the lawyers, trade unionists, and secular activists who have been challenging the power in...

In Search of a Reformer for Islam

Since the arrival of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, a (never totally extinguished) debate has...

Antagonism Between Islamists and Non-Secular State

Jocelyne Cesari, The Awakening of Muslim Democracy. Religion, Modernity, and the State, Cambridge...

Egypt Between Jihadist Terror and Blind Repression

The sequence of acts that have caused bloodshed in Egypt is an expression of the unstable and...

And after a Year, What do we Know about the "Caliphate"?

A year after the investiture of “Caliph” Ibrahim, ISIS has become an ominously familiar...

Religious Repertoires and Political Practice

Michael Cook, Ancient Religions, Modern Politics. The Islamic Case in Comparative Perspective,...

Inside the jihadist paradox, between expansion and nihilism

The attacks at the Bard raise several questions about the nature and the goals of the jihadist...

The Islam of al-Azhar, between extremists and modernists

In a rare and extended interview with the newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of...

The Revolution of Islam According to President al-Sisi

In an official speech given on 1 January of this year General al-Sisi expressed the wish for a...

A divided Egypt and the need for a compromise

Almost four years after the revolution, an historical analysis can help us identify some of the...

Understanding the Eastern Christians in Order to Save the Middle East

Review of Bernard Heyberger, Les chrétiens au Proche-Orient. De la compassion à la...

The Defeated Islamists Ready for a Pact with the Enemy

Not humiliated, but defeated: the Islamists are the losers of the Tunisian elections but they are...

The Ferment of Modern Islamic Discourse

Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age. Religious Authority and Internal...

A Caliphate that does not Enthuse Muslims

Although it has alarmed the West, which is not able to control it nor to grasp all of its...

If Politics Absorbs Theology

Critica della teologia politica. Da Agostino a Peterson: la fine dell’era costantiniana

The new Egyptian constitution: a step forward or a balancing act?

Islamist Parties and Democracy: a Paradoxical Relationship

Between the mosque and the shopping mall in Istanbul

The three pyramids of the Copts

We offer a part of the exclusive interview given by Pope Tawadros II to Oasis, which will be...

Egypt: neo-democracy practices or a resurgence of the old regime?

Having dissolved parliament for unconstitutionality, the Egyptian Constitutional Court rejected...

Egypt: neo-democracy practices or a resurgence of the old regime?

Maghreb, the inevitable democratisation

We do not ‘exist’ but we are here. The life of the Catholics in Turkey

Interview with Msgr. Louis Pelâtre, Vicar Apostolic of Istanbul

The al-Azhar manifesto for a new state in Egypt, a text to monitor

The al-Azhar manifesto for a new state in Egypt, a text to monitor

Prophecies of Arab Disorder

Abdellah Hammoudi, Denis Bauchard, and Rémy Leveau (eds.), La démocratie est-elle soluble dans...

Al-Qaeda. The texts presented by Gilles Kepel

Al-Qaeda. I testi presentati da Gilles Kepel, [Al-Qaeda. The texts presented by Gilles Kepel],...

Faith, Culture and Holy Ignorance

A Thought for the Afterlife from the Maghreb

Jamaâ Baida - Vincent Feroldi, Présence chrétienne au Maroc

Jamaâ Baida-Vincent Feroldi, Présence chrétienne au Maroc, Editions et...

Giovanni Sale, Stati islamici e minoranze cristiane

Giovanni Sale, Stati islamici e minoranze cristiane (Islamic States and Christian Minorities), Jaca...

Ali Mérad, Le Califat, une autorité pour l’islam?

Michele Brignone