Following the recent attacks relayed by certain media outlets against the ERC project The European Qur’ān and its directors, the Institut d'études avancées in Nantes wishes to express its full support for John Tolan and his entire team.
John Tolan is an internationally renowned historian, Professor Emeritus at Nantes Université, member of the Academia Europæa, and a distinguished member of our scholarly community. He is one of Europe’s foremost experts in the history of relations between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim worlds in the medieval period. His research is marked by methodological rigor, deep engagement with primary sources, and a steadfast commitment to a critical, contextual, and resolutely secular approach to the study of religion.
The ERC project The European Qur’ān, which he co-directs, constitutes a major scientific contribution to the understanding of intellectual circulations, translations, and debates that have shaped modern Europe.
We strongly condemn the ongoing smear campaign, based on false accusations and instrumentalized for ideological purposes. By targeting a research project internationally recognized for its scientific excellence, these attacks foster a climate of suspicion that threatens academic freedom and undermines the proper functioning of peer review mechanisms. They are also part of a broader assault on public funding for independent and non-partisan research, a cornerstone of democratic life and knowledge production.
We reaffirm our full solidarity with John Tolan and his team, and we salute their courage and perseverance in defending a free, rigorous, and illuminating scholarly inquiry into the history of Europe in all its diversity and alterity.
