Professor Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Senior Research Fellow at The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) and Director of Studies Emeritus in Religious Sciences at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, has received the Avicenna Prize of the Royal Academy of Belgium.
About the award
The Academy’s Class of Letters and Moral and Political Sciences awarded the prize as part of its 2026 honours, which covers the period 2022–2025. Created in 2020, the international prize recognises research and publications in fields associated with Simone Van Riet. These fields include the history of philosophy and science in the medieval period, especially the Byzantine, Arabic and Arabo-Latin traditions.
Professor Amir-Moezzi received the award for his body of work. The Academy gave particular recognition to Le Mahomet des historiens, which he co-edited with John Tolan. Éditions du Cerf published the volume in Paris in 2025. The award recognises his major contributions to Islamic religious thought, Shiʿi intellectual traditions and the wider history of religions.
Professor Amir-Moezzi’s academic career
Professor Amir-Moezzi is Director of Studies Emeritus in Religious Sciences at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, where he served as Professor of Islamic Studies since 1992. He has held the chair of “Exegesis and Theology”, previously associated with Louis Massignon, Henry Corbin and Daniel Gimaret.
At IIS, Professor Amir-Moezzi serves as Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Academic Research. His scholarship focuses on Shiʿi Imami theology, Islamic mysticism and classical Persian poetry.
Major publications
He is the author of several major works. These include Le Guide divin dans le shî‘isme originel, translated into English as The Divine Guide in Early Shi‘ism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam. His other works include Qu’est-ce que le shî’isme?, co-authored with Christian Jambet, and La religion discrète: croyances et pratiques spirituelles dans l’Islam shi’ite, translated into English and published by IIS in 2011 as The Spirituality of Shiʿi Islam. A two-volume Festschrift in his honour was prepared by IIS scholar Orkhan Mir-Kasimov along with Matthieu Terrier, both students of Professor Amir-Moezzi and published in 2025.
The award recognises Professor Amir-Moezzi’s lasting contributions to the study of Islamic intellectual and religious traditions.
