Ilyass Amharar
Islamicist, agrégé in Arabic, doctor in Arabic language and Islamic studies. A path built between Beirut, Paris, Aix-en-Provence, Fez and Rabat.
What guides this work
To make accessible, in exact language, the works that shaped the thought of the Islamic West — so that debate about Islam may at last be nourished by the texts themselves.
Ilyass Amharar began his training at the Global University in Beirut, where he obtained, jointly, a degree in literary Arabic specialising in classical grammar and a degree in Islamic law specialising in uṣūl al-fiqh. This double entry — language and law — would durably shape his work: in the authors he studies, theology is played out first of all in a theory of language.
He continued at Paris-Sorbonne University with a master's degree in Arabic grammar and Islamic studies, then defended in 2021, at Aix-Marseille University, a doctoral thesis devoted to the qāḍī Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148) and his Nukat al-maḥṣūl, under the supervision of Éric Chaumont, at IREMAM.
Ranked first in the French agrégation in Arabic in 2022, he teaches at several French universities as well as at the Qarawiyyīn in Fez. An associate researcher at the Centre Jacques Berque in Rabat, he held there in succession a doctoral fellowship, a postdoctoral fellowship, and a UMIFRE fellowship in Islamic studies.
He now directs a research programme on the history of Ašʿarism in the Maghreb, and is preparing the edition of a set of Maghrebi theological texts that remain unpublished.
A teaching session: the text first, explained sentence by sentence.
Career
The stages of a classical training combined with an academic career.
- 2011 – 2014Degrees in literary Arabic and Islamic lawGlobal University, Beirut
A double curriculum: classical grammar on one side, uṣūl al-fiqh on the other. The traditional training in the sciences of language and law.
- 2015 – 2017Master's in Arabic grammar and Islamic studiesParis-Sorbonne University
The encounter between European philology and the methods of critical editing applied to Arabic texts.
- 2017 – 2021Doctorate in Arabic language and Islamic studiesAix-Marseille University — IREMAM
A thesis devoted to the qāḍī Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī and his Nukat al-maḥṣūl, supervised by Éric Chaumont.
- 2019 – 2023Research fellowshipsCentre Jacques Berque, Rabat
Doctoral fellow, then postdoctoral fellow, and finally holder of a UMIFRE fellowship in Islamic studies.
- 2022Agrégation in Arabic — ranked firstFrance
Top of the cohort, opening the way to teaching Arabic within the French university system.
- Since 2022Research and teachingIREMAM · Centre Jacques Berque · al-Qarawiyyīn
Directing a programme on the history of Ašʿarism in the Maghreb, teaching in France and in Fez.
Research areas
Three projects carried out together, all anchored in the manuscript.
- The history of Ašʿarism in the Islamic West, from the Almoravids to the Marinids: networks of transmission, professions of faith, controversies.
- Legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) among Andalusi and Maghrebi authors, and in particular the reception of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's Maḥṣūl.
- The transmission of Arabic grammar and the place of Sībawayh's Kitāb in Maghrebi teaching.
Teaching
Arabic language, Islamic studies, theology and legal theory, taught in France as well as in Morocco.
- French universities — Arabic language and Islamic studies
- Al-Qarawiyyīn University, Fez — Islamic sciences
- Centre Jacques Berque, Rabat — research seminars
- IREMAM, Aix-en-Provence — Kalām in the Maghreb programme
In pictures
Pulpits, conferences, television studios and the houses of masters: research does not stay in the study.
