Yahya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini is a European Muslim citizen, resident in Rome, married and father of Muhammad Umberto 

Institutional Responsibilities 

• President and imam of the COREIS Italian Islamic Religious Community, one of the principal organisations of institutional representation of the Islamic religion in Italy with a vocation for theological training, ecumenism and intercultural education (www.coreis.it). 
• Since 2004, he is invited to the annual reunion between European religious leaders in Brussels by the Presidents of the European Commission, Prodi and Barroso and by the Presidents of the European Parliament, Pottering and Tajani. In 2005, the Council of Europe invites him to the launch of the White Paper for Intercultural Dialogue and later to its arabic edition. In 2008, he chairs in Azaerbaijan a interministerial session that begins the Baku Process. In 2010 becomes member of the ECRL European Council of Religious Leaders (www.ecrl.eu). 
• From 2005 to 2018, he has worked as an adviser to the Ministry of the Interior and as a member of the Italian Government Council for Italian Islam. Since 2010 he promotes a series of initiatives of cultural exchanges and economic development with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Islamic world. 
• Runs, along with the director, Prof. Abd al-Haqq Ismail Guiderdoni and other French Muslim citizens, the IHEI Institut des Hautes Etudes Islamiques, an organisation for research and intellectual work for Islam in France that is inspired by the writings of the French metaphysician René Guénon. (www.ihei-asso.org). 
• Actively collaborates, since 1997, with ISESCO, Islamic Organisation for Education, Science and Culture, the most prestigious Institution of 54 Islamic States with headquarters in Rabat in the Kingdom of Morocco. Nominated in 2014 as ISESCO Ambassador for Dialogue between Civilizations (www.isesco.org.ma). 
• In 2006 meets in Istanbul HRH Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal of the Hashemite royal house of Jordan, supports the Message of Amman and participates among the 138 Muslim international scholars, in the A Common Word initiative (www.acommonword.com), an important document of dialogue between Christians and Muslims. In 2008 and 2014 participates in the Catholic-Muslim Forum at the Vatican. Since 2009 he has been part of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world, in the category of institutional representatives. 
• Since its establishment in Vienna in 2012, he has collaborated with KAICIID, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (www.kaiciid.org). From 2015 in cooperation with the United Nations and KAICIID he has participated in the writing of a plan of action for religious leaders for violence prevention in seminars organised in Fez, Treviso, New York and Vienna. Since 2018, he is vice president of the MJLC, Muslim Jewish Leaders Council (www.mjlc-europe.org) and coordinator of EULEMA, European Muslim Leaders Majlis. He is a speaker at the G20 Interfaith Forum. 
• Regularly participates in the Forum for Peace in Muslim societies established in the capital of the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi in 2014 and promoted by Shaykh Abd Allah Bin Bayyah. In 2018 he is nominated as executive member of the World Council of Muslim Communities as delegate for interreligious dialogue. In 2019, he is invited by the Council of Elders, presided over by the great imam Sheikh al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb, to take part to the ceremony presenting the Declaration on Human Brotherhood at the presence of Pope Francis. 

• In 2018, the president of the Republic of Indonesia invites him among 50 international Muslim scholars to participate in the first conference on Wasatiyyah, the doctrine of Islamic moderation. Since 2019, he has shared the view of the main institutional organisation of Muslims in Indonesia, Nahdat al-Ulama, which promotes the vision of the Bayt al-Rahma movement for Humanitarian Islam. Together, they participate in the international Abraham Faith Initiative platform sponsored by the US State Department. 

Academic Engagements 

Speaker on Islam at the NATO Defense College in Rome. 

Lecturer on Quran and Commentaries for the Master’s on the Religions of Abraham at the Catholic University of Milan. 

Lecturer on Introduction to Islam for the Master’s in Science, Philosophy and Theology of Religions at the Faculty of Theology at Università della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano. 

Lecturer on Shari’ah, Islamic religious ethics: aims, interpretation and traditional adaptation for the Master’s in Interreligious and Intercultural Integration of the Department of Law at the University of Bari. 

Lecturer on The Islamic World and the Prevention of Radicalism for the Master’s in Economic Security, Geopolitics and Intelligence at SIOI, the Italian Society for International Organization in Rome. 

Publications 

In 2004 Il Saggiatore publishes L’Islam in Europa. Riflessioni di un imam italiano. (Islam in Europe. Thoughts of an Italian imam) with prefaces written by the Minister of EU policies Rocco Buttiglione and President of the Union of Jewish Communities of Italy, Amos Luzzatto. The President of the Republic of Tunisia confers on the French edition of the book a prize at the International Competition for Islamic Studies. 

In 2007 BUR-Rizzoli publishes Dentro la Moschea (Inside the Mosque) that gathers the experiences and sermons of a first generation of Italian Muslims. 

In 2009 a Catholic publishing house, Messaggero of Padova, publishes Il Misericordioso. Allah e i Suoi Profeti (The Merciful. Allah and His Prophets) 

In 2010 the Morcelliana editions publish La Sura di Maria (The Surah of Maria). Translation and commentary of Chapter XIX of the Quran. 

In 2019, the Christian publishing house Paoline asks Imam Yahya Pallavicini to write the latest book in the Islam series on The Five Pillars. Foundations of Islamic Worship. 

Yahya Pallavicini 

Born in 1965 in Lausanne in Switzerland to a Japanese mother and Italian father, both descendants of aristocratic families. His father, Shaykh Abd al-Wahid Pallavicini (1926-2017) converted to Islam in Lausanne through the mediation of sidi Ibrahim Titus Burckhardt (1908-1984) and within the Sufi order of Shaykh Ahmad al-‘Alawi (1869-1934), the first religious guide of the Grand Mosque of Paris in 1926. 

His academic path began at the “La Sapienza” University of Roma in the Department of Oriental Studies in the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature with courses in Islamic studies by Professor Alessandro Bausani and Father Maurice Borrmans on the Sacred Quran at the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies. He then attended courses with teachers such as shaykh Ramadan al-Bouti (Paris), mufti Ahmad Kuftaro (Rome), mufti ‘Ali Jumu’a (Cairo), shaykh Naquib al-Attas (Kuala Lumpur). Later, he met Professor O’Fahey at the University of Bergen, Professor Radtke at Utrecht University and Professor Zounat at the University of Rabat who all guided him in research on Shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris al-Hasani al-Fasi (1760-1837). 

He is a reserve officer on leave for the Italian army. 

In 1998 and in 2016 he has the opportunity to carry out the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca, invited by the Muslim World League, and as a guest of the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques. 

During the past twenty years he assisted and supported the spiritual teachings of Shaykh Abd al- Wahid Pallavicini, his father and teacher, who he accompanied in various travels, visits and traditional meetings in Istanbul, Jerusalem, Tunis, Mostaghanem, Cairo, Tripoli and Rabat. 

In the United Arab Emirates with the support of shaykh Ahmad Ibn Idris from Sudan, he asks and receives the initiation in the order of the Tariqat Ahmadiyyah Idrisiyyah Shadhuliyyah and a month later in Singapore he meets shaykh Hajj Abd al-Rashid Linggi son of the Malaysian mufti shaykh Muhammad Sa’id. 

Since 2006 he has participated in a series of work meetings with mufti Ceric (Bosnia), councillor Abbadi (Morocco), minister Cherif (Algeria), the theologian Nayed (Libya), the jurist Kamali (Malaysia), shi’i ayatollah Taskiri (Iran), president Shamsuddin (Indonesia) with whom he shares the testimony of an international reaction of Islamic traditional orthodoxy against decadence and ignorance and in favour of interreligious dialogue. 

In Italy Yahya Pallavicini represents the testimony of a current of Islam that follows the Sunna Muhammadiyyah, the renewal of the Prophetic wisdom, in the light of the religious teaching of spiritual masters such as imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111) and the noble inheritors of the school of shaykh Abu al-Hassan al-Shadhili (1196-1258).