Yadh Ben Achour

Yadh Ben Achour is a professor who studied law between 1964 and 1969 in Tunis, then in Paris. In 1974, he obtained his doctorate in public law. Since then, he has pursued an academic career, serving as Dean of the Faculty of Legal Sciences at Carthage University between 1993 and 1999. During his academic career, he specialized in domestic and international public law and Islamic political theory.

The project

Title: In the perspective of a global reflection on the relationship between religions and revolutions

My research project would like to develop chapter 2 (revolutions at the heart of history, in Islam) of part four (revolutions and religions) of my book published in April 2023 by Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, under the title l'Ethique des révolutions. In the history of Islamic civilization, the revolutionary phenomenon has not been examined as such. It has been analyzed primarily in terms of heresies and religious dissidence (Milal, nihal, firaq, zandaqa) from a dogmatic and theological angle. Yet heresy is primarily a political phenomenon, revealing a complex relationship between religion and revolution. These two social facts are intertwined. Political revolutions often pave the way for religious dissidence or even the formation of new religions within the parent religion, and new religious philosophies or dissident theologies pave the way for political revolutions. This research should lead to the publication of a new book.

Hosting institution: Collège de France - BNF

Selective Bibliography

• Aux fondements de l’orthodoxie sunnite (PUF, Paris, 2008).
•  La deuxième Fatiha. L’islam et la pensée des droits de l’homme (PUF, Paris, 2011).
• Tunisie : Une révolution en pays d’islam, CERES Editions, Tunis, 2016 et Labor et Fides, Genève 2018).
• Islam et démocratie. Une révolution intérieure, Gallimard, Paris, 2020.
• La révolution, une espérance, Collège de France, Fayard, Paris, 2022.
• La question islamique devant le Comité des droits de l’homme des Nations unies, Pedone, Paris, 2022.
• L’Ethique des révolutions, Editions de la Maison des Sciences  de l’Homme, Paris, 2023. AC Editions, Tunis, 2023.