Seminar "Plural approaches to Islamic Studies" with Samuela PAGANI
As part of the seminar "Plural Approaches to Islamic Studies/Approches plurielles des études islamologiques" organized within the Master track on Islamic Studies with the support of the Amidex Project TAMAM (dir. Olga L. Lizzini), we are pleased to welcome Samuela PAGANI (University of Salento, Lecce, Italy), for a series of three lectures on: “The Unity of Multiplicity (ahadiyyat al-kathra): Theology, Politics, and Psychology in Mahmud Muhammad Taha”.
Session 1, March 4, 2026, 14:00–18:00 PM, Mmsh, Room A101, Aix-en-Provence
“Mahmud Muhammad Taha’s life and intellectual approach”.
Session 2, March 5, 2026, 14:00–18:00 PM, Mmsh, Room A101, Aix-en-Provence
“The legal philosophy of the Republican Brothers and its relationship with Sufism”.
Session 3, March 6, 2026, 09:00 AM – 13:00 PM, Mmsh, Room A101, Aix-en-Provence.
“The city and soul analogy and the Homo Imago Dei motif”.
Those wishing to attend online via Zoom are welcome to write to: mariem.jabri[at]etu-univ-amu.fr
Abstract: One might define M.M. Taha as a thinker of ahadiyyat al-kathra even more so than of wahdat al-wujud. 'Unity within multiplicity' is the conceptual tool through which he thinks theology (the relationship between the one and the multiple in God, the notion of 'triplicity', its relationship to the image of man), politics (how to make Sudan a 'unified' nation), and psychology (how to make the 'multiples within the soul' into a harmonious community). In Taha's thought, open to the influence of modern thinkers, both Muslim and non-Muslim, as diverse as Muhammad Iqbal and Mahatma Gandhi, there resurge profound and sometimes repressed tendencies from the Muslim mystical and philosophical tradition that deserve to be highlighted. We shall see this by analysing his concept of natural law and its relationship to prophecy.
Samuela PAGANI teaches Arabic language and literature at the University of Salento (Lecce, Italy). She works on the history of ideas in the Muslim world and is a literary translator from Arabic into Italian. Her research revolves around the major interpretative controversies that have affected Islam from its origins to the present day. Sufi sources occupy a privileged place in her research perspective. Among her recent publications: « ‘La perla bianca’. L’acqua come sostanza e come metafora nel culto del Profeta », in Fonti, flussi, onde. L’acqua tra realtà e metafora nel pensiero antico, medievale e moderno, ed. M. Lenzi, O. L. Lizzini, P. Totaro, L. Valente, Firenze, 2022, p. 309-354; « The Reality and Image of the Prophet according to the Theologian and Poet ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī », in The Presence of the Prophet in Early Modern and Contemporary Islam, vol. I: The Prophet Between Doctrine, Literature and Arts: Historical Legacies and Their Unfolding, ed. D. Gril, S. Reichmuth, D. Sarmis, Leyde-Boston, 2022, p. 501-534. She edited, with M. Cassarino, A. Ghersetti et Letizia Osti, Antologia della letteratura araba. Dalle origini al XVIII secolo, Rome, 2024, and with L. Demiri and A. Meier: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1143/1731). A Bilingual Reader, Tuebingen, 2025.