Dr Ida Zilio Grandi

Currently working for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI) as Director of the Italian Institute of Culture – Abu Dhabi (Cultural Section of the Italian Embassy to the UAE), Dr. Ida Zilio-Grandi is Associate Professor with National Qualification as Full Professor of Arabic Language and Literature (SSD L/OR-12) at the University “Ca’ Foscari” of Venice, Department of Studies on Asia and Mediterranean Africa (DSAAM). She holds a PhD in Studies on the Middle East and the Maghreb from the advent of Islam to the contemporary age (University of Naples “L’Orientale”). She is also an invited researcher at the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome (PISAI). Among other things, she has repeatedly been a visiting professor at the University of Paris “La Sorbonne”, École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE). Her research activity focuses mainly on classical Arabic literature with a religious orientation, both Islamic and, to a lesser extent, Christian. In addition to publishing scientific texts for Italian and international peer reviewed journals, she has always devoted herself to an intense activity of dissemination (“third academic mission”), publishing for major national and international publishers and through conferences in Italy and abroad. Among her most important publications, Le virtù del buon musulmano [The virtues of the good Muslim], Einaudi, Torino 2020; L’affinamento dei caratteri di [The refinement of character by] Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī (363/974) (Patrimonio Culturale Arabo Cristiano), Edizioni GRAC, Bologna 2020; Il Corano [The Holy Qur’an], complete translation and partial annotation (with M.A. Amir-Moezzi, Mohyddin Yahya & A. Ventura), Mondadori 2010; Il Viaggio notturno e l’ascensione del Profeta nel racconto di [Muhammad’s – pbuh – Night Journey and Ascension according to] Ibn ‘Abbās, Einaudi, Torino 2010; Una corrispondenza islamo-cristiana sull’origine divina dell’Islam [An Islamic-Christian correspondence on the divine origin of Islam] (Arabic text edited by Samir Khalil Samir s. j.), Zamorani, Torino 2004; Il Corano e il male [The philosophical question of evil in the Holy Qur’an], Einaudi, Torino 2002.