Summary: Pierre Lory pursued his studies in political science and in Arabic literature in Paris. He moved to the Middle East, where he lived in Lebanon and Syria while completing advanced coursework in Arabic. He decided to focus his research on the history of Islamic spirituality and Sufism. He earned a Masters on mystical exegesis in the Koran, and a PhD on Arabic alchemical texts (1981). He then pursued further post-graduate work in Islamic Studies, receiving a "Doctorat d’état". He became Professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne) in 1991. His participation in international conferences, panels, and research groups frequently takes him to the Middle East, North Africa, Iran. He was also director of the department of Arabic studies at the Institut Français du Proche-Orient, in Damascus, from 2007 to 2011. He has published several books and many articles on Sufism, Arabic alchemy, Islamic esotericism.
