1-2 March 2022
The objective of this conference will be to give an overview of the perspectives through which the Catholic world studied the Qur’an and Islam at the beginning of the modern era (16th-17th centuries). We will try to show how although Catholic authors inherited a series of well-established polemical tools (Collectio Toletana, Riccoldo da Montecroce, etc.) from the Middle Ages they were nonetheless able to renew their approach to the study of Islam, adapting it to the new historical context and inaugurating a scientific and philological study of texts.
In the course of the event we will focus on the individual protagonists who embarked on the study of the Qur’an and Islam, and whose approaches were often conditioned by their personal sensitivity, intellectual and religious sympathies, as well as by the professions they exercised: travelers, priests, polemicists, linguists and scholars of grammar, theologians, missionaries and diplomats. Furthermore, we will highlight how the study of the Qur’an and Islam has often been conditioned by issues of a religious nature internal to Christianity (the Reformation), as well as by philosophical and political questions (the Ottoman Empire).
The event will be held both in presence in Rome and online.
Those who are interested to propose a paper should submit a title and short abstract by 1 November 2021.
Scientific Committee
- Prof. Roberto Tottoli, Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale
- Prof. Diego Sarrió Cucarella, Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica
- Prof. Ambrogio Bongiovanni, Pontificia Università Gregoriana
- Prof. Jason Welle, Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica
- Dr. Federico Stella, Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale