Gilles Kepel is a Professor at the Institut d’Études Politiques (IEP) in Paris and an expert on Muslim and Middle East affairs.

Kepel is head of the post-graduate programme on the Arab and Muslims worlds, holding degrees in Arabic, English and Philosophy from IEP. Gilles Kepel has published several books on Islam and the Middle East, including Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (2002) and The War for Muslim Minds (2004).

Recent articles

The London bombs expose the failure of Britain’s multicultural model, but also pose a challenge to Europe’s sense of identity, says Gilles Kepel.

The European Union’s decision to admit Turkey to accession talks is also a test of how far Turkey’s politics can and will become Europeanised and secularised, says Gilles Kepel.

From Fallujah and Peshawar to Amsterdam and Paris, is radical, militant Islam winning or losing its political battle for the support of the world’s Muslims? Gilles Kepel, leading analyst of post–9/11 global fractures, talks to openDemocracy’s Rosemary Bechler.

Gilles Kepel, one of the world’s foremost experts on the modern Middle East, has written “Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam”, the first comprehensive attempt to follow the history and spread of Islamist political movements. In a talk given at the Institut Français in London as part of a collaboration between European cultural institutes on the relationship between Europe and Islam, he gave a deeply insightful analysis of the past, present and possible future of a new and frightening politico-religious phenomenon.