Presentation
Paul Casanova, professor of Arabic language and literature at the Collège de France and a specialist in Egypt, died in Cairo in 1926. Born in Algeria in 1861, he had spent his childhood there, where his interest in the Arab-Muslim world had developed. In addition to his editions of texts and studies on the history of medieval Egypt, P. Casanova made a name for himself with his book Mohammed et la fin du monde (Mohammed and the End of the World), published in 1911 and supplemented by notes in 1913 and 1924, in which he developed, among other things, an original thesis on the chronology of the Koran: rejecting the date of the compilation of the text retained by Muslim tradition and adopted by Theodor Nöldeke, he proposed placing this episode in the Umayyad period (661-750). The symposium organized to mark the centenary of this scholar's death will look back at his career and work, and in particular his work on the history of the Koran.