Thierry de Beaucé

God's Nonchalance

Manès Sperber

Being Jewish

A non-practicing Jew, Manès Sperber learned to read the Bible at the age of three and continued to re-read it until the end of his life. Neither religious, nor a militant Zionist, nor an aethiest, nor aligned with any cultural Judaism, he professes as his only faith a "religion of good memory." His is a Judaism lived as humanism and as an ethic, as a refusal of all idolatry, of exclusion of others, and a constant combat against hate of any kind. It is a profound attachment to the Israelite nation and a prudent attitude towards the State of Israel that Sperber illustrates in these brilliant essays prefaced by Elie Weisel, where analysis of Jewish thought and identity walk hand in hand with the eternal question: Why anti-semitism?

André Miquel, Jamel Eddine Bencheikh

Of Arabia and Islam

Two French specialists on Islam, one Algerian, the other a native Frenchman, discuss Islam and its confrontation with the Western world. Interweaving references to the past and present, they recount a long history of cultural confrontation, marked by continuous debate and violent conflict, repulsion and fascination. Resolutely optimistic, yet painfully aware of the religious intransigence which enshrouds their subject, their conversations shed new light on the conceptions of power and unity within the Muslim world.

André Miquel

The Event The Koran: Surate LVI

Translation and commentary of one of the most famous surates of the Koran, the fundamental book of Islam, that of The Event or "the key to the door of riches" which teaches of the gifts given to man by God. André Miquel is a professor at the Collège de France.