The “LibMed” team
Hafed Abdouli
Professor in Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Sfax
Hafed Abdouli got his PhD in 2011 at the University of Tunis with a dissertation entitled “Tripolitania in the medieval period: A study in settlement and archaeology” (in Arabic text). He has taken part in several archaeological projects in Libya and Tunisia and he is also autor of several studies of historical geography and archaeology of medieval Libya. He is devoting his current research to questions relating to the period of transition between ancient and medieval Libya (Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan), and also to the settlement and land use of medieval Libya through an approach that consists of confrontation material remains with literary sources.
Fields of interest : Islamic archeology, historical geography, land use.
Link : https://independent.academia.edu/HafedAbdouli
email : hafed_abdouli@yahoo.fr
Enas Mohamed Ali Bubtana
Associate Professor of Islamic Archeology in University of Benghazi (Gar Younis)
After working at the National Library of Libya from 1996 to 2005, she graduated (MA) working on Islamic inscriptions from Libya (2003). Then, she defended her PhD in Durham University (2019), dedicated to Continuity and change in early Islamic Cyrenaica, between the 7th to 10th centuries CE. She is now teaching Islamic archeology in Benghazi.
Fields of interest : Islamic archeology, Islamic art, Arabic epigraphy, Cirenaica
email : inas.bubtana@gmail.com
Louis Fandre
PhD student in medieval history at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University
During his master’s degree, L. Fandre studied the Latin community living in Tunis during the XIIIth century, under the supervision of Prof. D. Valérian. While also teaching history and geography in French high school (since 2020), in 2022, he started working on a doctoral dissertation entitled « Tunis sous les premiers Hafsides : la construction d’une capitale maghrébine en Méditerranée (XIIIe – début XIVe siècle) » at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (UMR 8167-Orient & Méditerranée).
Fields of interests : Hafsid dynasty, economic history, diplomatic history, urban history
email : fandre.louis@gmail.com
Sébastien Garnier
Associate Professor of Arabic at the University of Paris-1-Panthéon-Sorbonne (France).
Agrégé in Arabic (2008), after a Master on al-Tiǧānī’s Riḥla (2005), he started focusing on the Hafsid polity and the Ifrīqiyan social formation in the late Middle Ages. He received his PhD at EHESS-Paris (2019). He has recently published Histoires hafsides. Pouvoir et idéologie (Brill, 2022 — https://brill.com/view/title/60833). His postdoctoral research unfolds the concept of ‘memories’ in the Hafsid Ifrīqiyan context.
Fields of interest : historiography, codicology, memory, mediation, poetry
Link : https://univ-paris1.academia.edu/S%C3%A9bastienGarnier
email : sebastiengarnier@hotmail.fr
Afaf Kadiki
Director of the Department of Manuscripts at the National Library of Libya (Benghazi)
Holding a degree in Political Science (Gar Younis University, 1996), Afaf Kadiki developed a specialization in the field of libraries and information services. She held several positions within Dār al-Kutub al-Waṭaniyya, which was established in Benghazi in the end of the 1970’s. Being successively head of various offices and departments, also working for the Ministry of Culture, she is currently, since 2010, Head of the Manuscripts & Rare Books Department.
Fields of interest : Arabic manuscripts, libraries.
email : afafkadiki@gmail.com
Anna Leone
Professor in Archaeology (University of Durham, United Kingdom)
Anna Leone is a field archaeologist who has been working in Libya and Tunisia for over 25 years. Her research looks at the time of transitions between Late Antiquity, the Byzantine and the Early Islamic periods in North Africa. Her work has focused on the transformation of cities and rural landscapes (Changing Townscapes in North Africa from Late Antiquity to the Arab Conquest, Edipuglia 2007 and the edited volume Bockmann, Leone, Rummel (eds.), From Africa to Ifriqiya, Palilia, 2020), issues of Christianisation and forts and fortifications. She has been actively collaborating with the Institut National de Patrimoine de Tunisie and the Department of Antiquities of Libya training field archaeologists and she is actively engaged in the protection of the Libyan and Tunisia Heritage (see for instance https://www.heritageinthecrossfire.com/sabratha-heritage-protection). From 2017 to 2019 she has led the Training in Action Project (http://www.traininginaction.org/). She is currently co-directing with Lisa Mol a project in the Jebel Nafusā and in Tataouine focusing on the Imazighen and their tangible and intangible heritage (Heritage without Borders).
Fields of interest : Archaeology, urbanism, Late Antique and early Islamic North Africa
Links : https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/anna-leone/
email : anna.leone@durham.ac.uk
Paul Love
Associate Professor of History at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (Morocco).
Paul Love’s research focuses on the history of premodern northern Africa, with a special interest in the history of Ibadi Muslim communities and their manuscript traditions. He published in 2018 his PhD, Ibadi Muslims of North Africa. Manuscripts, Mobilization, and the Making of a Written Tradition (Cambrige, CUP ; http://www.cambridge.org/9781108472500). Among other projects, he is currently involved in projects of digitizing manuscripts from Ibadi comunities of Djerba (Tunisia) and jabal Nafusa (Libya)
Fields of interest : medieval Ibadism, jabal Nafusa, manuscripts, cultural history
Link : https://aui.academia.edu/PaulLove
email : p.love@aui.ma
Aurélien Montel
Associta Professor of Islamic history at Toulouse-2 University (France).
While my PhD dissertation focused on the networks and exchanges that connected al-Andalus and the Maghrib from the 9th to the 11th century, my current fields of interest lies in the medieval history of the territories that are forming what we call now “Libya” (Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, Fazzan). I especially am investigating the historical writing that developed there during the medieval times ; as well as the structure of the scholars’ network that connected “Libya” with the other spaces of the Islamic world.
Fields of interest : Biographical literature, networks analysis, imperial history, Digital Humanities.
Link : https://univ-tlse2.academia.edu/Aur%C3%A9lienMontel
email : aurelien.montel@univ-tlse2.fr
Lamya Sharfeddine
Link : https://uot.academia.edu/LamyaSharfedden
email : tri_sharf@yahoo.fr