Thierry Zarcone

Senior Researcher at CNRS

Thèmes de recherche

  • Histoire et anthropologie du soufisme

Thierry Zarcone is Senior Researcher (Directeur de Recherches) at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris (Groupe Société Religion Laïcité).

Visiting Professor in Kyoto (2005-2006), and Fribourg, Dept of Social anthropology (2007-2008), his areas of expertise include Islamic Studies and the history of systems of thought in the Turco-Iranian region.

Author of numerous articles on related scholarly topics, including the history of Sufism and Shamanism in the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, Central Asia, and Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang), and also on the history of islam in contemporary Turkey and Xinjiang (PRC).

His book, Mystiques, philosophes et francs-maçons en Islam (Paris : Maisonneuve, 1993) was awarded the Prix Saintour of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.

His thesis of Habilitation has been published as Secrets et sociétés secrètes en Islam (Milan-Paris : Archè, 2002).

Some of his books have been translated to Spanish and Turkish. He recently edited (with A. Hobart), Shamanism and Islam : Sufism, Healing Rituals and Spirits (London: Tauris, November 2011) and (with A. Papas and T. Welsford), Central Asian Pilgrims. Hajj Routes and Pious Visits between Central Asia and the Hijaz (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag 2011).

He taught the history and anthropology of Sufism and Sufi brotherhoods at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, from 1997 to 2014; he teaches currently political Islam in Turkey for MA students at the Institute of Political Sciences of Aix-en-Provence.

He is the editor (with Alexandre Papas and Ekrem Ishin) of the Journal of the History of Sufism, published in Paris by the Society for the Study of Oriental Culture and Jean Maisonneuve Publishers (Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient).

Publications choisies

  • En collaboration avec Charles Stépanoff, Le Chamanisme, Paris, Découvertes Gallimard, 2011 (127 p.).
  • Poétesses soufies de la confrérie bektachie. Poésies traduites du turc suivies d’une étude sur le Bektachisme, Montélimar, Signatura, 2010 (138 p.).
  • Le Soufisme. Voie mystique de l’islam, Paris, Découvertes Gallimard, 2009 (130 p.)
  • Sufi Pilgrims from Central Asia and India in Jerusalem, Kyoto, Center for Islamic Area Studies at Kyoto University, 2009 (168 p.).
  • La Turquie. De l’Empire ottoman à la République d’Atatürk, Paris, Découvertes Gallimard, 2005 (160 p.).
  • La Turquie moderne et l’islam, Paris, Flammarion, 2004 (350 p.).
  • Secret et Sociétés secrètes en islam. Turquie, Iran et Asie Centrale, XIXe-XXe siècles, Milan, Archè, 2002 (225 p.).
  • La Route du Jade, Un Voyage de 20 siècles, Paris, Autrement, 2001 (167 p.).
  • Boukhara l’interdite. 1830-1888 : l’Occident moderne à la conquête d’une légende, Paris, Autrement, 1997 (187 p.).
  • Mystiques, Philosophes et Francs-maçons en Islam, Paris, Jean Maisonneuve, 1993 (XVI + 545 p.).

Liste des publications jusqu’à 2010