Gilles Kepel

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Gilles Kepel
CNRS
Thesis Le Prophète et le Pharaon  (1984)
Websitegilleskepel.weebly.com

Gilles Kepel, (born June 30, 1955) is a French

Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) and director of the Middle East and Mediterranean Program at PSL, based at Ecole Normale Supérieure.[3] His latest english-translated book, Away from Chaos. The Middle East and the Challenge to the West (Columbia University Press, 2020) was reviewed by The New York Times as “an excellent primer for anyone wanting to get up to speed on the region”.[4] His last essay, le Prophète et la Pandémie / du Moyen-Orient au jihadisme d'atmosphère, just released in French (February 2021), has topped the best-seller lists and is currently being translated into English and a half-dozen languages. The excerpt The Murder of Samuel Paty is presently released in the Issue 3 of Liberties Journal
(April 27, 2021).

Biography

Originally trained as a classicist, he started to study

Islamist movements, and spent three years at the Centre d'études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales (CEDEJ) where he did the fieldwork for his PhD[2] (defended in 1983) on “Islamist movements in Egypt”,[6] which would be translated and published in the UK in 1985 in English as The Prophet and Pharaoh (US: Muslim Extremism in Egypt, 1986). This was the first book in any language to analyze contemporary Islamist militants, and it often is featured on reading lists to this day in universities worldwide.[7]

After his return to France, where he became a researcher at

CNRS (France National Research Faculty) he investigated the developments of Islam as a social and political phenomenon there, which led to his Banlieues de l’Islam[8] (not translated) book (1987), a primer on studies of Islam in the West. He then turned to the compared study of political-religious movements in Islam, Judaism and Christianity, and published in 1991 The Revenge of God,[9] a best-selling book which was translated into 19 languages.[10]

As a visiting professor at

Rushdie affair in the UK and the Hijab affairs in France, and lead to his Allah in the West (1996).[11]

He received his

ISIS. That Jihad trilogy was further developed in The War for Muslim Minds (2006) and Beyond Terror and Martyrdom (2008). With his students, Kepel also co-edited Al Qaeda in its Own Words [15](2006) – a translation and analysis of chosen texts by Jihadi ideologues Abdallah Azzam, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
.

In 2001, he was appointed as a tenured professor of political science at Sciences Po, where he created the Middle East and Mediterranean Program, and the EuroGolfe Forum.[16] He supervised more than 40 PhD dissertations, and created the “Proche Orient” series,[17] of which he was the general editor, at Presses Universitaires de France, for his PhD graduates to publish their first book after their dissertation. The series comprised 23 volumes from 2004 to 2017 – many of them finding their way into English translations.[17]

In 2008, accused of assaulting Pascal Menoret at the

Middle East Studies Association in Washington, after the latter had circulated online slanderous material, Gilles Kepel was expelled from the association.[18][19]

In December 2010, the month of

Mohammad Bouazizi's self immolation at Sidi Bouzid, in Tunisia, that sparked the Arab Spring, Sciences Po closed the Middle East and Mediterranean Program. Kepel was elected a senior fellow at Institut Universitaire de France for five years (2010–2015),[20] which allowed him to refocus on fieldwork. He was also offered the visiting “Philippe Roman Professorship in History and International Relations” at the London School of Economics
” in 2009–2010.

In 2012, he published Banlieue de la République,[21] a survey of the 2005 French Banlieues riots in the Clichy-Montfermeil area, north of Paris, whence the events sparked. The study was based on one-year participant observation on the premises with a team of students, in cooperation with Institut Montaigne think-tank. A sequel, Quatre-vingt treize[22] (or “93” from the postal code of the Seine Saint Denis district north of Paris) designed a more general perspective on Islam in France, 25 years after Kepel's seminal Les banlieues de l’Islam.

In 2013, he documented the Arab upheavals with the travelogue Passion Arabe,[23] a best-selling book that was awarded the “Pétrarque Prize” by France Culture radio and Le Monde daily as best book of the year.

In 2014, Passion Française,[24] a survey cum travelogue that documented the first generation of candidates to the Parliamentary elections of June 2012 who were from Muslim descent, and focused on Marseille and Roubaix, was the third book in a tetralogy that would culminate with Terror in France] / The Rise of Jihad in the West (2017 – original French 2015) that dealt with the terror attacks by Jihadists in France and put them in perspective.

In 2016, La Fracture, based on radio chronicles on

the Old Continent.[25]

Kepel serves on several advisory boards such as the High Council of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and, since 2016, Kepel is a member of the advisory board of the Berlin-based Middle East think tank Candid Foundation.[26][27]

In February 2016 he was appointed chairman of the newly founded Program of Excellence on the Mediterranean and the Middle East at Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) University, based at

Ecole Normale Supérieure. He is in charge of the monthly seminar on “Violence and Dogma: Territories and representations of contemporary Islam”.[citation needed
]

In 2017, Kepel was one of the seven public figures mentioned by Larossi Abballa [fr], the jihadi terrorist who murdered a policeman and his wife in front of their son in 2016 Magnanville terrorist attack.[28]

Since January 2018, Gilles Kepel is professor at the Paris Sciences & Lettres University.[citation needed]

He is also director of the Middle Eastern Mediterranean Freethinking Platform at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland where, since September 2018, he is an adjunct professor. The MEM Summer Summit is held every August, gathering young change-makers from the Middle East Mediterranean region.

In October 2018, he published Sortir du Chaos, Les crises en Méditerranée et au Moyen Orient. The book was translated into English by Henry Randolph and published in the US in 2020 by Columbia University Press as : Away from Chaos. The Middle East and the Challenge to the West. It is a sweeping political history of four decades of Middle East conflict and its worldwide ramifications. In the months following the publication, Gilles Kepel participated in webinars organized on both sides of the Atlantic and the English Channel, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,[29] Al Monitor,[30] the Center on National Security at Fordham University,[31] Cambridge University… The New York Times recommended the book in its 12 new books weekly selection.[32]

His last essay, The Prophet and the Pandemic / From the Middle East to Atmospheric Jihadism, just released in French (February 2021), has topped the best-seller lists and is currently being translated into English and a half-dozen languages. The excerpt : The Murder of Samuel Paty, is presently released in the Issue#3 of Liberties Journal (April 27, 2021).

Ideas and analyses

According to Kepel, jihadi terrorism is caused by "the entrenchment of Salafism", a fundamentalist ideology in which most radical elements clash with the values of Western democracies and "are aiming for the destruction of Europe through civil war".[33][34]

In 2017, Kepel criticized

Olivier Roy's assertion that jihadi terrorism is only loosely connected to Islamic fundamentalism as Roy neither speaks Arabic nor looks into the Salafi doctrine behind the jihadism.[citation needed] Kepel also referred to London as "Londonistan": "[the United Kingdom] gave shelter to radical Islamist leaders from around the world as a sort of insurance policy against jihadi terrorism. But you know, when you go for dinner with the devil...".[33] Roy has said "I have been accused of disregarding the link between terrorist violence and the religious radicalisation of Islam through Salafism, the ultra-conservative interpretation of the faith. I am fully aware of all of these dimensions; I am simply saying that they are inadequate to account for the phenomena we study, because no causal link can be found on the basis of the empirical data we have available."[35] This debate can be summarized as opposition between Kepel's theory of "radicalisation of Islam" and Roy's one of "Islamicisation of radicalism".[36]

According to Kepel, prominent figures and leaders among the left-leaning ideologists do not understand the threats against France, which according to him encompasses both terrorists arriving from abroad and Islamists in the French ghettos (French: banlieues). According to Kepel, Islamists are eroding societal cohesion in order to start a civil war while being unwittingly supported by the many leftists. This position makes him a target in many circles.[28]

Kepel claims he belongs to the left in France and according to The New York Times he has "always been careful to distinguish mainstream Islam from the hard-line Islamist ideologues" and has "no sympathy for the xenophobia of the right-wing National Front". He has "repeatedly dismissed claims of widespread Islamophobia in French society as fraudulent, saying the word has become little more than a rhetorical club used by Islamists to rally their base".[28]

Bibliography

Books translated into English

  • Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh, University of California Press, 1986.
  • The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.
  • Allah in the West: Islamic Movements in America and Europe, Polity Press, 1997.
  • Bad Moon Rising: A Chronicle of the Middle East Today, London, Saqi, 2003.
  • Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, Harvard University Press, 2003.
  • The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, Harvard University Press, 2004.
  • Al Qaeda in Its Own Words, G. Kepel and J-P Milelli (ed.), Harvard University Press, 2008.
  • Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East, Harvard University Press, 2010.
  • Terror in France / The Rise of Jihad in the West, Princeton University Press, 2017.
  • Away from Chaos. The Middle East and the Challenge to the West, Columbia University Press, 2020.

See also

References

  1. ^ Tresilian, David (7–13 June 2012). "A view from abroad". Al-Ahram Weekly. Archived from the original on 8 June 2012. Retrieved 8 June 2012.
  2. ^ a b "London School of Economics".
  3. ^ "La Chaire d'Excellence " Moyen Orient Méditerranée ", dirigée par Gilles Kepel". psl.eu. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  4. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  5. ^ a b "Gilles Kepel, Professeur des universités à Sciences Po". www.sciencespo.fr (in French). Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  6. ^ Muslim Extremism in Egypt.
  7. ISSN 0015-7120
    . Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  8. ^ Michel, Wieviorka (1989). "Kepel (Gilles) - Les banlieues de l'Islam, Naissance d'une religion en France". Revue française de science politique (in French). 39 (4): 593–595.
  9. ^ "The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World By Gilles Kepel". www.psupress.org. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  10. ^ Khattar, Abou Diab (1991). "Gilles Kepel. La revanche de Dieu". Politique étrangère (in French). 56 (2): 564–565.
  11. ^ Press, Stanford University. Allah in the West: Islamic Movements in America and Europe | Gilles Kepel. Stanford University Press. Retrieved 2017-04-11. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  12. ISBN 9781845112578
    .
  13. ISBN 9780863563034
    .
  14. ^ Universalis, Encyclopædia. "AL-QAIDA". Encyclopædia Universalis (in French). Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  15. ISSN 0291-0489
    .
  16. ^ "Actes du Forum Eurogolfe - Fondapol". Fondapol (in French). 2007-05-30. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  17. ^ a b "Proche orient : Livres et Manuels - Format Physique et Numérique | PUF". www.puf.com (in French). Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  18. ISBN 978-2-7071-9374-2
    .
  19. ^ Coup de poing, dorures et “‘islamo-gauchistes”: enquête sur Gilles Kepel, Les Inrocks, 7 décembre 2016.
  20. ^ "Institut Universitaire de France Appointment".
  21. ^ "Ce qu'il faut retenir de Banlieue de la République". LExpress.fr (in French). 2011-10-05. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  22. ISSN 1950-6244
    . Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  23. ^ "Passion arabe: un journal de Gilles Kepel". Le Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  24. ^ "Passion française - Témoins - GALLIMARD - Site Gallimard". www.gallimard.fr (in French). Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  25. ^ Robert F. Worth (April 15, 2017). "The Professor and the Jihadi". The New York Times.
  26. ^ "Trois questions à Gilles Kepel". ARTE Info (in French). Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  27. ^ "Our Board". The CANDID Foundation (in German). Archived from the original on 2020-02-24. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  28. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2020-12-09.
  29. ^ "Middle East Mega-Trends, COVID-19, and Beyond". www.washingtoninstitute.org. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  30. ^ "Gilles Kepel discusses his new book "Away from Chaos: The Middle East and the Challenge to the West"". Al-Monitor. 2017-10-17. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  31. ^ "Gilles Kepel's Away from Chaos: The Middle East and the Challenge to the West". Center on National Security. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  32. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  33. ^ a b Lerner, Davide (2017-06-14). "London Gave Shelter to Radical Islam and Now It's Paying the Price, French Terrorism Expert Says". Haaretz.
  34. ^ Symons, Emma-Kate (2015-12-16). "A new book says Islamists and the far right work hand-in-hand to promote jihad in France". Quartz. Retrieved 2020-12-09.
  35. ^ Roy, Olivier (13 April 2017). "Who are the new jihadis? | Olivier Roy | The long read". The Guardian.
  36. ISSN 1180-3479
    . [...] Kepel parle de la « radicalisation de l'islam », Roy insiste sur « l'islamisation de la radicalité », pour reprendre la formulation maintenant fameuse qui les distingue.

External links
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