Newsletter — September 2021
Dear friends, In September, we welcomed the President and the Secretary General of the association “The Friends of the IDEO”. Jean Félix-Paganon knows Cairo well. He was an ambassador here. Bertrand Wallon knows the library world well. He was Director of Human Resources at the French National Library. It is unnecessary to say that their […]
Newsletter — July-August 2021
Dear friends, In this new academic year, our institutions are going through many departures and arrivals. The brothers of IDEO living in Cairo are not immune to these movements. Mateus Domingues da Silva, OP our new librarian, will leave for France to follow the Mediadix training course at the University of Nanterre in order to […]
Newsletter — June & July 2021
Dear friends, While no one believed it anymore, the 52ⁿᵈ edition of the Book Fair took place in Cairo from June 30ᵗʰ to July 15ᵗʰ. Aside from the masks, which are mandatory, nothing has changed. Hundreds of booksellers from the Arab world are present, thousands of visitors and a festive atmosphere despite the extreme heat […]
Iǧtihād and taqlīd in Sunnī and Šīʿī Islam
The theme of iǧtihād and taqlīd, by pointing to the notional antagonism between independent reasoning on the one hand and submission to the argument of authority on the other, plunges us into the heart of the debates among Muslims, Sunnis as well as Šīʿis, on the most essential issues of their faith: What is authority in Islam? What […]
Human Fraternity and Inclusive Citizenship
Fadi Daou, Fabio Petito and Michael D. Driessen, Human Fraternity and Inclusive Citizenship: Interreligious Engagement in the Mediterranean, Milan: Ledizioni, June 2021, 194 pages. Polarization and discrimination linked to religion have been increasing in many parts of the world, including on the two shores of the Mediterranean. Against this background, however, seeds of hope have emerged from a […]
Newsletter — May 2021
Dear friends, The year 2021 will definitely be a year of changes in our team in Cairo. After twenty-four years as director of the IDEO’s library, René-Vincent du Grandlaunay, OP passes the torch to Mateus Domingues Da Silva, OP (photo) and takes a few sabbatical months. Through his efforts and uninterrupted work, René-Vincent has not […]
Dialog über das Kennen und Verstehen der muslimischen Kultur vor Ort
Jean Jacques Pérennès, « Jacques Jomier (1914-2018), Dialog über das Kennen und Verstehen der muslimischen Kultur vor Ort », Wegbereiter des Interreligiösen Dialogs, Band III (Petrus Bsteh, Brigitte Procksch ed.), Wien, LIT Verlag, 2020, pages 163‒172.
Newsletter — April 2021
Dear friends, The pioneer work of the IDEO in the field of manuscript cataloging has been rewarded by the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), on the World Arabic Manuscript Day. Traditionally, libraries manage manuscripts and printed materials in separate catalogs, with no link between them. However, in Islamic studies, a manuscript is […]
Newsletter — March 2021
Dear friends, From March 5ᵗʰ‒8ᵗʰ, Pope Francis traveled to Iraq and visited many Christian and Muslim religious leaders, both Sunni and Shia. The scars left by the successive conflicts in Iraq and by the grip of Daech are not only visible on the buildings. They are deeply engraved in the flesh and the memory of […]
Newsletter — January/February 2021
Dear friends, On February 3ʳᵈ and 4ᵗʰ, al-Azhar celebrated the second anniversary of the signing of the Document on Human Fraternity in Abu Dhabi, a declaration signed by the Great Imam of al-Azhar, Aḥmad al-Ṭayyib and Pope Francis, by organizing a two-day online conference headed by Dr. Muḥammad al-Ḍuwaynī, Vice-Great Imam of al-Azhar (photo). Unfortunately, […]