Gilles Kepel is a French political scientist, specialising in Islam and the contemporary Arab world. He is a professor at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He graduated in Arabic and Philosophy, with two Doctorates in Sociology and Political Sciences. He was a researcher at CEDEJ (Egyptian-French Center for Scientific Cooperation) in Cairo, Egypt (1980-83) . He also taught at New York University in 1994, and at Columbia University in 1995. He chaired the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2009-2010.

Gilles Kepel is the author of several books, including Muslim Extremism: The Prophet and the Pharaoh (1986), The War for Muslim Minds (2006), and Beyond Terror and Martyrdom (2010).  He contributes regularly to Le Monde, The New York Times, La Repubblica, El País and several Arab publications.


Gilles Kepel is a member of the High Council of the Arab World Institute and the Academic Director of the Kuwait Program at IEP.