Francesco Cargnelutti

Junior fellow

cargnelutti@fscire.it

Research interests

Counseling the Ruler in Periods of Political and Religious Change: The Case of Ibn Ẓafar al-Ṣiqillī (1104–1169/1170/1172)

Education, academic and professional experience

Since 2023, he has been working on the publication of his PhD dissertation and on a new research project on the political theology of the medieval Sunni Arab scholar Ibn Ẓafar al-Ṣiqillī (1104–1169/1170/1172).

He obtained his PhD in 2023 with a dissertation on the debate in the Ottoman Arab press regarding the reform of the Caliphate in the late Ottoman period, spanning the 19th and 20th centuries.

In 2019, he began his doctoral studies at FSCIRE, an institute he had already joined in 2018.

Between 2015 and 2018, he lived in Tunisia, where he learned Arabic and conducted research for his master’s thesis on the political thought of Rached Ghannushi, leader of the al-Nahdha party. During this period, he worked as an Italian language teacher and as a freelance journalist for radio, websites, and newspapers.

He got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Trento. During his university years, he worked full-time as a contributor for a local newspaper.

Featured publications

Articles

F. Cargnelutti, Il Profeta Muhammad, «Nuova Secondaria» 5 (2020), pp. 48-52.

Chapters in books

F. Cargnelutti, Rāšid al-Ġannūšī’s Early Writings: The Changing Theorisation of the Opposition to Westernisation, in C. De Angelo, M. Di Donato, R. Tottoli (eds), Philosophy, History and Political Thought in Islam. Essays in Memory of Massimo Campanini, Piscataway, Gorgias Press, 2024, pp. 53-74.

F. Cargnelutti, F. Badini, Gli animali nel Corano: il rapporto tra Allah, uomo e natura, in Religioni e animali, ed. I. D’Isola, Turin, Claudiana, 2020.

Conferences, seminars and workshops

October 2024, Discussing the idea of civilization in the Ottoman Arab press: the case of Aḥmad Fāris Šidyāq’s al-Ǧawā’ib (1861-1884), XVI Conference of the Società Italiana di Studi sul Medio Oriente (SESAMO), Cagliari.

May 2024, papers: Virtual Exchanges in Religious Euro-African Dialogue. New ways of interaction across borders and cultures (with Ilaria Macconi Heckner); The religious other in Ibn Ẓafar al-Ṣiqillī (1104-1170 ca.).
VII International Congress of the European Academy of Religion 2024, Palermo.

September 2023, The caliphate in the pre-Hamidian Ottoman press: The case of Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq’s al-Ǧawā’ib, Turkologentag, Vienna (AT).

July 2023, paper: The ideas on the caliphate in the writings of 'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (Aleppo 1855 - Cairo 1902); panel: Islam, Politics and Democracy in the MENA.
British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), Exeter (UK).

May 2023, papers: Delegitimizing Violence Against the Jews: The Case of al-Nahda’s Answer to International Terrorism in 21st Century Tunisia; Interreligious dialogue in the mid-19th century: the case of abbot François Bourgade.
VI International Congress of the European Academy of Religion 2023, St. Andrews (UK).

June 2022, Rāshid al-Ghannūshī’s Conception of Imperialism from the Cultural to the Political Battle, V International Congress of the European Academy of Religion, Palermo.