Alexandre Bennigsen (1913-1988) was a writer, scholar, and educator who focused on the area of Islam in the former Soviet Union. He was born in St Petersburg, but his family left Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution. Bennigsen studied at the Ecole des Langues Orientales in Paris and later taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes (en Sciences Sociales). Bennigsen also held academic positiona at some American universities, including the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Along with his frequent collaborator, Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Bennigsen contributed the article "Muslim Religious Conservatism and Dissent in the USSR" to the Winter-Spring 1979 issue of Studies.