Martino Diez is scientific director of the Oasis International Foundation and associate professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Catholic University of Milan. From January to July 2019 he was visiting member at the Institute for Advanced Study of Princeton - School of Historical Studies.
He graduated in Oriental Languages and Civilizations from Ca' Foscari University of Venice, where he earned his PhD in Oriental Studies in 2007. In 2007-2008 he was post-doctoral researcher at Ca' Foscari. From 2008 to 2016 he was adjunct professor of Arabic Language at the Catholic University of Milan and from February 2017 to September 2019 assistant professor in the same university.
Among his publications: al-Makīn Ǧirǧis ibn al-‘Amīd, Universal History (The Vulgate recension. From Adam to the End of the Achaemenids), Brill, Leiden, 2023 (critical edition with annotated English translation); Introduzione alla lingua araba. Origini, storia e attualità [An introduction to Arabic: Origins, History and Present], Vita e Pensiero, Milan 2018 (first edition 2012); Abū l-‘Alā’ al-Ma‘arrī, L’epistola del perdono. Il viaggio nell’Aldilà [The Epistle of Forgiveness. The Journey to the Afterworld], Einaudi, Turin 2011; Abū t-Tayyib al-Mutanabbī, L’emiro e il suo profeta. Odi in onore di Sayf ad-Dawla al-Hamdani [The Emir and His Prophet: Odes in praise of Sayf ad-Dawla al-Hamdani], Ariele, Milan 2009 and Georges Anawati, L’ultimo dialogo. La mia vita incontro all’Islam [The last dialogue. My life-long encounter with Islam], Marcianum Press, Venice 2010. He is the general editor of the e-book series “Meticciati” for Marsilio and has edited, together with Andrea Plebani, the e-book La galassia fondamentalista tra jihad armato e partecipazione politica [The Fundamentalist Constellation between armed jihad and political participation], Venice 2015.
A member of the Scientific Board of the IISMM (Institut d’études de l’Islam et des sociétés du monde musulman) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris and of the Scientific Board of the journal MIDEO of the Institut Dominicain d'Études Orientales of Cairo, he is member of the Advisory Board of the Middle East Mediterranean Freethinking Platform (MEM) in Lugano, Switzerland, as well as invited researcher at the PISAI (Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies), and member of the Istituto per l'Oriente "Carlo Alfonso Nallino". He took part in the study commission on radicalization and jihadi extremism established by the Italian Government (Presidency of the Council of Ministers) in September 2016.
Since January 2020 he has been consultor of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.
