The Grand Mosque of Paris publishes landmark book on European Islam
With the largest Muslim population in Europe, numbering around 7 million people or close to 10% of the overall population, France remains an important context for comprehending both the challenges and opportunities related to intercultural and interreligious relations. The Grand Mosque of Paris has just published a significant work related to Islam and Muslims in Europe, Musulmans en Occident: Pratique Cultuelle Immuable, Presence Adaptée (“Muslims in the West: Unchanging Religious Practice, Adapted Presence”). Composed under the supervision of Chams-Eddine Hafiz (b.1954), rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, the book is over nine-hundred pages and is divided into three basic sections. Following a section with several historic documents and The Paris Charter: Islam and Citizenship (2025), the core of the book is located in the latter two sections. Section II is a kind of dictionary or glossary that offers detailed explanations of more than 200 Islamic concepts with a particular view toward their contemporary meaning and application in modern Europe.
In preparation for the volume, the Grand Mosque convened two commissions in 2023, a religious commission of Islamic scholars and a civil society commission which invited dialogue from a diverse cross-section of ideological perspectives in France. The last section of the book (pp.428-896) reproduces key transcripts of the dialogue sessions held by these commissions. In the coming weeks, our team will be translating some of the most important material from this new resource. I am grateful to DAB editor Luka Renić, our interns, and friends of DAB for helping us to secure a copy from Paris so quickly.
Here in Cairo, our semester is well underway with a new cohort of ten talented interns from Egypt, the Netherlands, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the United States. On Monday, March 9th we attended an ifṭār meal with Muslim and Christian participants engaged in a peacemaking project led by the Centre for Christian-Muslim Understanding and Partnership (CCMUP) and supported by the Dutch Embassy in Cairo.
(CCMUP Iftar)
It remains a tense and fearful time in the Middle East as the United States and Israel continue what I believe is an unjustified and reckless military campaign against Iran. We pray for peace and for responsible and humane international leadership. Despite these things, may this weekend’s ʿEīd al-Fiṭr holiday marking the end of the month of Ramaḍān be a blessing to all who celebrate.
Matthew Anderson
Director - Center for Arab-West Understanding
Executive Editor - Dialogue Across Borders (De Gruyter Brill)
March 17, 2026
Emerging Perspectives on Intercultural and Interreligious Relations
Dialogue Across Borders is a database of summary translations of Arabic newspaper articles with references to their sources about intercultural and interreligious relations, focusing primarily but not exclusively on Muslim-Christian relations. The database also contains articles with editorial analysis and interviews on the subject.