Jacqueline Chabbi (born in 1943) is a historian and a professor of Arab Studies at the University of Paris-VIII (Paris Saint-Denis). Her research concerns the history of the medieval Muslim world.
Jacqueline Chabbi taught at secondary-school level from 1968 to 1973, and from the mid-1970s onwards taught at the Paris 8 University, where she was appointed Professor in 1993, a position she held until her academic retirement in 2011.
She was a visiting scholar at several European universities and is Professor emerita of Arabic Studies. A specialist in History of Islam, her research is distinguished by its anthropological and historical approach to the Quran, which she seeks to situate within its sociocultural context.
She has contributed several entries to the Encyclopædia Universalis, on Sufism, the martyrdom of Al-Hallaj. She also took part in the documentary series Jesus and Islam, broadcast on Arte in December 2015.
In 2016, she was appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour. In January 2018, the Arab World Institute dedicated an evening in her honour.
Chabbi is the author of many articles, including some about Sufism.
It is impossible, using critical methods, to write a historical biography of Muhammad, as the sources on him are late, contradictory, full of approximations and errors, and theologically and politically biased.
