Published by the Institut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain, Le Coran vu d’ailleurs accompanied the exhibition held at the National Library of Tunisia from 15 February to 30 April 2025. Edited by: Katia Boissevain, anthropologist and Director of the IRMC; Khaled Kchir, historian and Director of the National Library of Tunisia (BNT); John Tolan, professor, University of Nantes; Naima Afif, postdoctoral researcher, University of Copenhagen; and Jan Loop, professor, University of Copenhagen.
The Masāʾil ʿAbdallāh ibn Salām (Abdallāh ibn Salām’s Questions) is a fictional dialogue between a learned Jew who converted to Islam and the prophet Muḥammad. Originally written in Arabic, it enjoyed a great popularity in the West. The text was translated into Latin as part of the Corpus Toletanum in the 12th century under the title Liber de doctrina Mahumet and then served as the basis of several translations in European vernaculars. In this online seminar we will discuss the transfer and wide European reception of this work, and assess how it influenced European knowledge of Muḥammad and Islam over centuries.