Dr. Jean DRUEL, O.P

Academic Background and Responsibilities

Dr Jean Druel, O.P., a French national, lives in Cairo. After completing a Master’s degree in theology and Coptic patristics, devoted to “the spiritual experience of Saint Pachomius” (Institut catholique de Paris, 2002), he undertook training in Arabic language teaching at the American University in Cairo, where he obtained a Master’s degree in 2006 with a thesis entitled Emphatic Sounds in Educated Cairene Arabic.

In 2012, he defended a doctoral thesis on the history of Arabic grammar at Radboud University Nijmegen (Netherlands), under the supervision of Professor Kees Versteegh, on the topic Numerals in Arabic Grammatical Theory.

Between 2013 and 2016, he directed the “200 Project,” devoted to the historical contextualisation of the works of two hundred authors from the Arab-Islamic intellectual heritage.

From 2014 to 2020, he served as Director of the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (Idéo) in Cairo. His current research focuses on the critical edition and study of an unpublished manuscript of Sībawayh’s Kitāb (d. ca. 180/796).

Publications on Arabic Grammar

2025: Three Western Recensions of Sībawayh’s Kitāb: A Critical Edition of Ambrosiana X 56 Sup. & Kazan National Archives 10/5/822. Leiden: Brill.
2024: Not that ʾAbū al-Ḥasan!: Witnessing the Death of Two Recensions of Sībawayh’s Kitāb through their Glosses. In The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics VI. Leiden & Boston: Brill.
2024: « Ibn Manẓūr (m. 711/1311) ». In M. A. S. Abdel Haleem & M. A. A. Shah (eds.), The I. B. Tauris Biographical Dictionary of Islamic Civilization. London: I. B. Tauris.
2023: « Milan, Kazan, Londres et Jérusalem : un codex du Kitāb de Sībawayh, dépecé aux quatre coins du monde ». Acta Orientalia Belgica 36, 383‒395.
2022: with I. Amharar, « ‘A little Yesterday’: The ‘canonical’ text of Sībawayh’s teaching confronted to two unedited manuscripts of the Kitāb ». In F. Binaghi & M. Sartori (eds.), The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics V. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 37‒51.
2020: « The Kitāb Sībawayh of ʾAbū al-Ḥasan ʾAḥmad b. Naṣr: A Non-Sīrāfian Recension of the Kitāb ». Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik 71, 29‒56.
2020: « A Sparkle in the Debate about the Word ʾĀmīn used in Supplication and its Rules in Arabic, by ʾAbū Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḫaššāb (m. 567/1172): An Annotated Translation ». In B. Sheyhatovitch & A. Kasher (eds.), From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New Angles on the Arabic Linguistic Tradition. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 123‒140.
2019: with Y. al-Sannārī, « كتاب سيبويه بين أيادي المستشرقين والعرب ». تراثنا (سلسلة ثقافية، 25)، معهد المخطوطات العربية, 2019.
2019: « كتاب سيبويه: دراسة كوديكولوجية لنسخة (كوفية؟) مفرّقة بين ميلانو وقازان ولندن ». مجلة معهد المخطوطات العربية 63/1, 244‒277.
2019: with A. Kasher, « “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t”: The mamnūʿ min al-ṣarf (diptotes) in Arabic Grammatical Tradition ». Arabica 66, 98‒136.
2019: « Can Ambrosiana X 56 Sup improve our understanding of Sībawayhi’s grammar? ». In M. E. B. Giolfo & K. Versteegh (eds.), The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics IV. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 133‒156.
2018: « The Kazan Parchment Fragments of Sībawayh’s Kitāb ». Гасырлар авазы (= Эхо веков) 90/1, 14‒26.
2018: « Blind Spots in Raḍī al-Dīn al-Astarābāḏī’s Grammar of Numerals ». In G. Ayoub & K. Versteegh (eds.), The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics III. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 96‒114.
2015: « What Happened to the Grammar of Numerals after Sībawayhi? ». In A. E. Marogy & K. Versteegh (eds.), The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics II. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 81‒99.
2015: « Why is it Difficult to Date when Qalqala became Unintelligible to Qurʾānic Reciters and Grammarians ». Arabica 62, 19‒52.
2013: « How to Deal with Contradictory Chapters in the Kitāb of Sībawayh? ». Les Cahiers du MIDÉO 6, 73‒91.
2012: « The Proper Name Aḥmar: A Morphological Discussion in the 2nd–4th Centuries AH ». MIDÉO 29, 51‒60.
2012: Numerals in Arabic Grammatical Theory. Doctoral thesis, Nijmegen University.
2008: with R.-V. du Grandlaunay, « Nisba ». In Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 3. Leiden: Brill, 377‒381.
2006: Emphatic Sounds in Educated Cairene Arabic: What to Teach to AFL Students? Master’s thesis, American University in Cairo.