Loss of Fr Emilio Platti, op (1943-2021)

The PISAI joins with the sorrow of the Order of Preachers for the loss of Fr Emilio Platti, op (1943-2021), on 25 October 2021 in Leuven (Belgium). Fr Platti was an active member of the Dominican Institute of Oriental Studies (IDEO) in Cairo, involved in its mission since 1972; there he had obtained his doctorate with Fr George Anawati on the Jacobite philosopher and theologian Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (893-974). He was also the director of MIDEO, the journal of IDEO, from 2010 to 2015.

A lecturer from 1980 to 2018 at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), where he was now professor emeritus, at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL-Louvain-la-Neuve), at UST (Manila) and at the Institut Catholique de Paris, his teaching focused on the relations between Christianity and Islam. Among his numerous publications, one can mention Islam, Friend or Foe?, Peeters, Leuven 2008.