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Soheib Bencheikh was born in 1961 in Dejddah, Saudi Arabia, from an Algerian family of imams. He graduated in Islamic Theology from Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt, and from the Université Libre of Brussels. He holds a Doctorate in Religious Sciences from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), Paris. He was nominated as Grand Mufti of the city of Marseille in 1995 by Dr. Dalil Boubakeur, the Rector of the Great Mosque of Paris. He is a member of the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (Council of French Muslims) since its creation in 2003.
Bencheikh is an anti-fundamentalist religious leader and an assertive supporter of an Islam eager and capable to adapt itself to the modern world. He also is acknowledged as a reformer Muslim theologian committed to interreligious dialogue. He has written two books Les Grandes Religions and Marianne et le Prophète : lIslam dans la Laicité, his famous book on the position and opportunities for Muslims in secular democrary.
References:
- 'Marianne et le Prophète: L'Islam dans la France laïque', Paris, Bernard Grasset, 1998.
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