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The purpose of this study is to examine the position of the Persian ulama toward the idea of constitutionalism and the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, as exemplified in the life and politica1 thought of Mirza Muhammad Husayn Na'ini (1860-1936).

This thesis presents a comparative study of two modern Muslim biographers of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad Husayn Haykal and Sayyid Ja$ rm sp{c}$far Murtada, the one a Sunni the other a Shispc$ = i. In dealing with their works on the { it s = i ra}, the intention is to focus on some aspects of the life of the Prophet of Islam from the time when he resided in Makka. After outlining the authors' scholarly backgrounds, sources, methods, and purposes, etc., the thesis deals with certain specific issues concerning the Prophet's birth, his nursing and the reason behind the custom of having foster-mothers, the controversial stories of the splitting of his chest and of his participation in the sacrilegious war, his state both before and after the announcement to him of his Mission, the authors' interpretations of his night journey and ascent to heaven and lastly their discussion about the Prophet and miracles. This research should not be considered as historical in nature; rather, it aims at clarifying the similarities and differences which may be discovered between our two biographers, and at comparing their respective Sunn = i and Sh = i$spc$ = i approaches.

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Née d’un questionnement épistémologique sur la manière dont les concepts véhiculés par la recherche découpent le réel et sur la place de la subjectivité en sciences des religions, cette thèse analyse la vision de la mystique musulmane selon Louis Massignon (1883-1962). Elle met en lumière la posture herméneutique de ce chercheur qui, après avoir démontré l’origine qur’ānique du soufisme, fait de la figure d’al-Ḥallāj (m. 309/922), le paradigme de la sainteté en islām. L’analyse montre que sa vision de la réalité étudiée est tributaire de sa propre spiritualité : il perçoit la mystique authentique comme une voie d’ascèse, de purification par la souffrance. Au cœur de l’union mystique, le mystique devient le témoin de Dieu. A cette voie, il oppose celle d’Ibn ʿArabī (m. 638/1240) et perçoit l’influence du néoplatonisme comme une altération de la pureté ascétique primitive. La voie la plus pure est une mystique de l’annihilation (fanā’) au sein de laquelle l’être humain serait indigne d’endosser les attributs divins et de connaître l’état de subsistance (baqā’). Sa quête, mue par des questionnements existentiels, illustre la difficile conciliation entre la quête du vrai et la quête de la Vérité. Cette étude montre combien la subjectivité du ou de la chercheur.e sert la recherche et l’entrave à la fois. Elle suggère, afin de construire les conditions du comprendre qu’il importe de prendre conscience de la particularité de sa posture herméneutique, d’énoncer son intention, d’interroger ses catégories conceptuelles, de maintenir une distance critique à son sujet, de réfléchir sur sa pratique, afin que la subjectivité ne déforme pas le réel, mais l’éclaire et le révèle. / Born from epistemological questions about the way in which the concepts conveyed by research cut out the real and about the place of subjectivity in the academic study of religion, this thesis analyzes Louis Massignon’s (1883-1962) vision of Muslim mysticism and provides the following key results: In a context in which mysticism is attracting increasing interest and in which the study of religion and of Islam more specifically are becoming institutionalized, this orientalist thinker, contemporary of both French and British colonial expansion, experimented with various tensions between scholarly and political logics, between academism and civilizing mission. Biographical sources make it possible to trace an itinerary that originated in Paris, continued in Cairo, and led him to Baghdad, the city where Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj, to whom Massignon dedicated his doctoral dissertation, had died in 309/922. Interesting himself particularly in the lexical dimension of Sufism, he demonstrated, by means of an interiorist method of reading texts, its Qur’anic origin and its fundamentally Islamic character. These contextual and biographical analyses shed light on the specificity of Massignon’s hermeneutic posture vis-à-vis Muslim mysticism. It is as an interpreter inspired by a Christian vision of holiness that he approaches the figure of al-Ḥallāj and makes the latter the paradigm of holiness in Islām. This research brings to light how this Christian scholar’s spirituality influenced his vision of his field of study. The ḥallājian mystic - the purest in his eyes - is conceived as on a path of asceticism, of purification through suffering. At the heart of the transforming and personalizing union, this mystic becomes the witness of God. The mystic can only join with God in atonement, love, and sacrifice. Massignon’s vision thus opposes that of Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), which he reproaches for suppressing the radicality of transcendence. The Islām of theophanies is, in his eyes, pantheism; he refuses all mediation and perceives the influence of Neoplatonism as an alteration of primitive ascetic purity. If authentic mysticism is, in according to him, a mystique of aridity, of annihilation (fanā’) , it is because in his eyes, the absolute smallness of the human being is matched only by divine omnipotence: the inconsistency of the human being makes them unworthy to endorse the divine attributes and to know the state of subsistence (baqā’ ). This study analyzes, finally, how Massignon’s existential questions affect the way he looks at the reality he is studying. His effort illustrates the difficult reconciliation between the (scientific) quest for the true and the (metaphysical) quest for the Truth. Through this case study, this research demonstrates how the subjectivity of the researcher supports research and hinders it at the same time. The study ultimately establishes why it is important to become aware of the peculiarity of one’s hermeneutical situation, to state one’s intention, to question one’s conceptual categories, to maintain a critical distance from one’s work, and to wonder about one’s practice in a reflexive way: these precautions help build the condition of a more just understanding, so that subjectivity no longer deforms reality, but illuminates and reveals it.

Ce travail porte sur le champ poétique dans les premières décennies de l’époque abbasside, en se concentrant non pas sur les trajectoires individuelles des poètes, mais sur les contraintes et les logiques collectives auxquelles ils sont soumis. Il s’appuie sur l’analyse de près de 70 notices du Livre des chansons d’al-Iṣbahānī (m. ca. 360/970). La première partie porte sur la contrainte la plus évidente et la plus étudiée : le rapport du poète au prince. Elle postule que la force du verbe poétique dérive d’un lien plus vaste, celui du walā’, qui implique des devoirs réciproques, inscrits dans le temps. La parole poétique n’est dès lors qu’une modalité particulière de la négociation de la distance entre le patron et son protégé. Cette négociation permanente influe sur les déplacements et les modes d’expression du poète.La seconde partie examine comment les poètes se positionnent face à la multitude d’acteurs qui prétendent dire ce que la poésie doit être. Elle analyse comment les rapports des poètes avec leurs pairs ou avec les savants sont déterminés par l’histoire cumulée du champ. L’accent est ensuite mis sur les modalités de ces multiples positionnements : comportements précodés, mise en scène et en texte de l’être social et charnel du poète, autant de coups dont le Livre des chansons est non seulement le témoin mais aussi le théâtre. / This study deals with the poetic field in the first decades of the Abbassid era. It does not focus on the poets’ individual biographies but on the logics they obey and the constraints that weigh on them as a group. It is based on the analysis of about 70 chapters taken from the Book of Songs by al-Iṣbahānī (d. ca 360/970). The first part examines the most conspicuous and most studied constraint: the connection between the poet and the prince. It assumes that the strength of the poetic word derives from a wider relation: the walā’, which implies enduring mutual obligations. Poetic speech is therefore just a particular aspect of a negotiation of the distance between the patron and his protégé. This negotiation affects the poets’ moves and modes of expression.The second part investigates how poets position themselves when interacting with the multitude of protagonists that claim the right to say what poetry should be. It analyses how the poets’ relations with their peers or with scholars are determined by the cumulated history of the field. Emphasis is then laid on how poets position themselves in the field by playing precoded roles, by “staging” their personae and giving the episodes of their lives a textual expression. As a result, the Book of Songs cannot be seen as a neutral record of these struggles ; it is also the battlefield where they take place.