Hamadi REDISSI

The research studies the relationship between Islam and the Other through the medieval theological controversies written in Arabic between the three monotheist religions. The debate takes place within an immense technical corpus extant in three kinds of documents: epistolary exchange, disputation sessions, and essays. It resorts to three types of arguments: exegetical, rational and historical. What is ultimately at stake in the controversy is to construct identity through difference. Generally speaking, the topic is treated by ecumenical dialogue and more recently endorsed by the discourse on alliance of civilizations, in response to the thesis of clash of civilizations. The perspective adopted here focuses on Islam caught in a “polemical” situation, that is, at once polemicizing and object of polemical refutation. The challenge is the passion for truth according to the traditional rules of truth-speaking. The project belongs to the history of ideas, a classical discipline that has been recently vastly enriched by discourse analysis and epistemology. It is also about appraising and cataloguing the topics of discussion, and in so doing drawing the contrast between the medieval age and modern times, and marking the continuities and fixing the ruptures.

Hamadi Redissi, born in 1952, is Professor in Political Science, University of Tunis and visiting scholar at Yale University, spring 2008, and Germany, FALL 2010 (Recht als Kultur, Bonn), and at Fordham University, 1999, and annual visiting professor at Beirut (2000-2014) and Bologna (2000-2010). He is author of several publications, in comparative perspective (history, theory and sociology). Apart from several interviews (newspapers, radios and Televisions) and dozens of academic contributions on various issues, he is member of A.I.M.S. (American Institute For Maghreb Studies), member of Jura Gentium (Florence) and Iris (European Journal of Philosophy and Public Debate) board. Deeply involved in Tunisian public debate, he is honorific president of Observatoire Tunisien de la Transition Démocratique.

2014. Islam e modernità, Verona, Ombre Corte.

2011. La tragédie de l’islam moderne, Paris, Seuil.

2007. Le Pacte de Nadjd, Paris, Seuil.

2004. L’exception islamique, Paris, Seuil.

1998. Les politiques en islam, Paris, L’Harmattan.