Claude Cahen (26 February 1909 – 18 November 1991) was a 20th-century French Marxist orientalist and historian.

[1] After studying at the École Normale Supérieure on the rue d'Ulm, he attended the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, receiving a doctorate in 1940.

[3] Cahen was a member of the French Communist Party from the 1930s until 1960, and remained an active Marxist afterwards.

[1] The Festschrift Itineraires d'Orient: Hommages a Claude Cahen, edited by Raoul Curiel and Rika Gyselen, appeared in 1995 as an honor to his "distinguished career",[7] and an issue of the journal Arabica (43/1 (1996)) was dedicated to him.

Entretien avec Maxime Rodinson » (propos recueillis par D. Gazagnadou et F. Micheau, bibliographie exhaustive des ouvrages, articles et comptes-rendus de Claude Cahen), Arabica (Brill éditeur), vol.