The Qur’ān before the book - History and concepts of Qur’ānic variants (qirā’āt)

أهداف البحث: يتناول هذا البحث مسائل منهجية تتعلق بمفهوم "القراءات القرآنية"، وندرس فيه طريقة الحديث عن القراءات في النصوص الإسلامية الأولى، وفي مجال علوم القرآن، وأيضا الطريقة التي نظرت بها الدراسات القرآنية الغربية إلى القراءات في العقدين الأخيرين.  منهج الدراسة: يدرس البحث التطور التاريخي لمفهوم القراءات القرآنية في المجالات الثلاثة المذكورة آنفا: النصوص الإسلامية الأولى ودراسات علوم القرآن الإسلامية القديمة والدراسات القرآنية الغربية الحديثة والمعاصرة.  النتائج: يبين البحث ضرورة تقديم مقاربة جديدة لتاريخ القرآن والمفاهيم الرئيسية في هذا التاريخ، موضحًا أنه قد حان الوقت لكي تجدد الدراسات القرآنية الغربية أدواتها الإبستيمولوجية في دراستها تاريخ النص القرآني.  أصالة البحث: يتناول البحث مسائل إبستيمولوجية متعلقة بالدراسات القرآنية الغربية، في محاولة لتقييم وجوه التقدم الحاصلة في هذا المجال وطرح منظور جديد لتناول موضوع بعينه؛ ألا وهو: القراءات القرآنية.Purpose: This paper addresses methodological issues related to the concept of ‘Qur’ānic variants and readings’ (qirā’a pl. qirā’āt and ḥarf pl. aḥruf, respectively). I investigate the way they have been depicted in early Islamic narratives, developed in the field of medieval Islamic Qur’ānic sciences (ʿulūm al-Qur’ān), and discussed in Western Qur’ānic studies scholarship in the last two decades. Methodology: The paper proceeds chronologically by discussing variants in the three aforementioned fields: early narratives, classical Islamic Qur’ānic sciences (ʿulūm al-Qur’ān), and modern Western scholarship. Findings: The paper shows the necessity of generating a new approach to studying the history of the Qur’ān and its main concepts. The epistemological tools used in Western Qur’ānic studies on the history of the text of the Qur’ān need to be renewed. Originality: The paper addresses epistemological issues related to Western Qur’ānic studies. It seeks to assess the progress in the field and offers a new perspective on the study of specific topics: Qur’ānic variants and readings

Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen et Bernard Heyberger (dir.), Le corps et le sacré en Orient musulman

L’ouvrage pose les jalons d’une étude anthropologique sur la place du corps humain dans la pensée et la pratique religieuse du monde musulman. Si les limites chronologiques n’ont pas été signalées dans l’intitulé de l’ouvrage, cela s’explique par l’extrême variété des centres d’intérêt des contributeurs qui ont abordé, chacun à partir de sa perspective, une période historique donnée. Dès l’introduction, l’objectif de l’ouvrage s’annonce doublement nouveau puisqu’il s’intéresse aussi bien aux ..

Compiler, exclure, cacher. Les traditions dites « forgées » dans l’Islam sunnite (VIe/XIIe siècle)

Les traditions forgées occupent en Islam une place paradoxale dans la pensée musulmane sunnite. Aux xe/xie siècles, la critique textuelle issue de la théorie de l’authenticité permet d’observer un double processus de compilation et d’exclusion de cette litté­rature. Le xiie marque l’apparition d’une litté­rature de synthèse des traditions dites «  forgées  » qui visent aussi bien à faire connaître ces textes qu’à les exclure de la sphère du hadith prophé­tique. Cependant, ces traditions ont bel et bien été transmises et utilisées dans les sphères savantes et populaires. Il y a dans la transmission des textes religieux à l’époque médié­vale un aspect qui échappe à l’autorité des gardiens de l’Islam orthodoxe.So-called “forged” prophetic traditions (“hadith mawdu’, pl. ahadith mawdu’a”) have a paradoxical status in Sunni Muslim thought. Textual criticism based on the theory of authenticity reveals a double process of compilation and exclusion of this literature in the 10th and 11th centuries. In the 12th century, compilations of forged prophetic traditions emerge with the aim to make these texts known as well as to exclude them from the sphere of prophetic hadith. However, the forged traditions were indeed transmitted (and used as tools of religious legitimization) in scholarly and popular milieux. There is an element of the transmission of religious texts in the Middle Ages that is outside the authority of the guardians of orthodox Islam

Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen et Bernard Heyberger (dir.), Le corps et le sacré en Orient musulman

L’ouvrage pose les jalons d’une étude anthropologique sur la place du corps humain dans la pensée et la pratique religieuse du monde musulman. Si les limites chronologiques n’ont pas été signalées dans l’intitulé de l’ouvrage, cela s’explique par l’extrême variété des centres d’intérêt des contributeurs qui ont abordé, chacun à partir de sa perspective, une période historique donnée. Dès l’introduction, l’objectif de l’ouvrage s’annonce doublement nouveau puisqu’il s’intéresse aussi bien aux ..

Fertiledatepalm – a transdisciplinary collaboration project to ameliorate date palm cultivation via microbial inoculation, organic matter management and mixed cropping using nurse plants

Date palm is an important crop in Morocco, Tunisia and other drylands with a high agricultural, economic and cultural value. Harsh environmental conditions of those areas, further accelerated by climate change and the spread of root diseases, threaten date palm cultivation. To overcome limitations in productivity, high inputs of mineral fertilizers and pesticides are applied. However, these external inputs strongly affect the environment and livelihoods. The project aims at establishing an integrated microbe-assisted fertilization approach, combining the inoculation of native soil microbes, namely arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) during the different date palm growth stages, with adapted agricultural management practices using organic amendments and mixed-cropping in Morocco and Tunisia. As initial step, we established a culture collection of native microbes, isolated from date palm roots and rhizosphere composed of 24 AMF isolates including eight species from six genera, twelve bacterial endophyte isolates composed of Paenibacillus, Mycobacterium, and Achromobacter species and 34 PGPR isolates. Functional characterization of PGPRs revealed that around 50 % can solubilize phosphorus and potassium and between 9 % and 68 % have the ability to produce siderophores, hydrogen cyanid, chitinase, cellulase, amylase and protease. Consortia of microbes were formed and used for inoculations. Experiments under nursery conditions revealed that inoculation with AMF and PGPR combined with compost significantly increased growth of date palms as compared to non-amended controls enabling farmers to decrease the time prior to field transplantation. On-farm trials performed in productive date palm groves have shown that PGPR inoculation with or without mixed-cropping with sorghum as nurse plants significantly increase fruit characteristics such as fruit flesh weight as well as fruit length and diameter for up to 14 % and leaf macronutrient concentrations for up to 200 % while in addition enhancing the mycorrhizal potential of the soil. Our integrated fertilization approach is developed in a participatory approach with key stakeholders in so-called innovation platforms, working at laboratory, on-station and on-farm scale to best tackle farmers’ needs in order to facilitate adoption and implementation

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Urvoy Dominique et Marie-Thérèse, L’action psychologique dans le Coran. Paris, Les Éditions du Cerf, 2007

Helali Asma. Urvoy Dominique et Marie-Thérèse, L’action psychologique dans le Coran. Paris, Les Éditions du Cerf, 2007. In: Bulletin critique des annales islamologiques, n°26, 2011. pp. 29-30

Les Arabes et l’Islam dans l’Antiquité tardive : une Critique de la Critique

This contribution reflects on the critique Aziz al-Azmeh addresses to the field of Islamic studies in his both companions-books: The Emergence of slam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and His People, Cambridge, 2014 and The Arabs and Islam in Late antiquity. A critique of approaches to Arabic sources, Berlin, 2014. Both volumes aim to give an insight into the scholarship about Islam as well as a new interpretation of the source material to study Islamic history. The paper engages a discussion with two problems: Al-Azmeh’s approach to the Arabic literary sources and more specifically, the question of literary genre and his ‘model’ for the Qur’ān composition. The first part of the paper is an overview of the author’s assessment of the field under study; the second discusses his approach to the Arabic literary sources

La maladie des brides amniotiques. Aspects orthopédiques et thérapeutiques. A propos d’une série de 24 cas.

La maladie des brides amniotiques est une malformation assez rare d’origine inexpliquée, et se présentant sous forme de sillons inesthétiques et parfois compressifs intéressant essentiellement les membres. L’objectif de notre étude et de dresser le profil épidémiologique de cette maladie, et ses aspects orthopédiques et thérapeutiques. Nous avons réalisé une étude rétrospective étalée sur une période de 10 ans, au sein du service de chirurgie traumatologique orthopédique pédiatrique de l’hôpital d’enfant de Rabat. Nous avons colligé 24 patients. L’âge moyen était de 26 mois. La moitié des patients était des filles. L’atteinte des quatre membres a intéressé 12% des enfants. Les sillons étaient profonds chez les trois quarts des patients. Après chirurgie, le résultat était bon chez 79 % des malades et mauvais chez 21 %. La chirurgie, seul traitement de cette maladie, doit prendre en considération l’urgence du sillon compressif, ainsi que la hiérarchisation des libérations au niveau de la main, et l’existence de déformations en aval du sillon

Le palimpseste de Ṣanʿā’ et la canonisation du Coran : nouveaux éléments

The manuscript 27.1 Dār al-Maṭūṭāṭ, Yemen, discovered in 1973 may be the earliest known version of Qur’anic fragments. Its edition is important to better understand the history of the transmission of texts in the first centuries of Islam. This paper will provide new elements based on two examples of Qur’anic variants in the inferior layer of the manuscript. I will propose paths of investigation that are essential in order to demonstrate that the manuscript 27.1 has been used as a manual for the study and the teaching of the Qur’anic text rather than as a book for liturgical use.Le manuscrit 27.1 Dār al-Maṭūṭāṭ, Yémen, découvert a Ṣan ʿ ā’ en 1973 est probablement le plus ancien manuscrit comportant des fragments du texte coranique. Son édition est une étape importante afin de mieux comprendre l’histoire de la transmission des textes aux premiers siècles de l’Islam. À partir de deux exemples de variantes coraniques dans le texte inférieur du manuscrit, nous démontrons dans cette note philologique que le palimpseste de Ṣan ʿ ā’ n’est certainement pas un texte coranique destiné à un usage liturgique mais un support d’enseignement et d’apprentissage de certaines lois de récitation du Coran.Hilali Asma. Le palimpseste de Ṣanʿā’ et la canonisation du Coran : nouveaux éléments. In: Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz, 21, 2010. pp. 443-448