The mystical vision of Louis Massignon: Islam inspired scholar's gratitude, life work and Christian faith

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 17, 2004 by Jerry Ryan

The rest of Massignon's life was an unfolding of his experience with the Stranger and was dedicated to repaying his debt to his Muslim intercessors. For the next 50 years he studied and made known the life and sayings of al-Hallaj. The quality of his relationship with the mystic/martyr is strikingly summarized in a text written in 1932: "It is not that the study of his [al-Hallaj's] life, full and strong, righteous and undivided, ascending and dedicated, has revealed to me the secret of his heart. It is rather al-Hallaj who has penetrated my heart and penetrates it still."

Massignon thought about the priesthood and about joining missionary priest Charles de Foucauld in the Sahara but finally opted for marriage. Mobilized as an officer in the First World War, he was first stationed in Macedonia, then sent to Syria and Palestine as an aide to the French high commissioner. When Jerusalem was liberated from the Ottoman Turks, Massignon entered the Holy City alongside Lawrence of Arabia. He suffered bitterly when the Allies later broke their promises to the Arab insurgents. After the war he was named professor at the College de France where he taught until 1954. He went to Egypt regularly to give classes, in Arabic, at the University of Cairo. In 1929 he founded the Institute for Islamic Studies in Paris and that same year began giving French lessons in the evenings to illiterate North African immigrants--a work he carried on for several decades.

In 1941 he founded the Institute Dar-es-Salaam in Cairo to promote Arab-Christian studies. At one time president of the Friends of Gandhi, during the struggle for Algerian independence Massignon regularly visited North Africans detained in French prisons. He was arrested several times for participating in nonviolent demonstrations against French brutality toward Arabs both in France and Algeria, and he was physically assaulted by right-wing students for being an "Arab-lover." In 1950, Massignon was ordained a priest in the Greek Melkite rite, which allows for married clergy. He died of a heart attack Oct. 31, 1962.

Louis Massignon was a complex and conflictive personality. His erudition was legendary and often overwhelming. He was a tireless talker, literally bursting with ideas and intuitions, constantly jumping from one theme to another with a logic known only to himself. Yet he possessed a basic simplicity. He based his life on a sacred promise he had made to pray for his Muslim brethren and offer his life for them as they had prayed and risked their lives for him. Everything, from his vast intellectual-powers to the most humble gestures of solidarity and friendship, was at their service. There was an absolute, uncompromising, almost frightening fidelity and commitment. This loyalty extended to all his friendships. He would solemnly offer himself as a victim for the salvation of Luis de Cuadra, his former partner.

Not only did Massignon immerse himself in Arab literature, philosophy and mysticism; he learned to think as a Semite, reason as a Semite and express himself as a Semite. To read Massignon is to enter into another world where all is symbolic, where words point beyond themselves to mysteries that cannot be possessed. He approached Islam from the point of view of Islam itself and saw its values as they are interiorized by the community, as a pious and sincere Muslim would wish to live them. He sees the other as the other wants to see himself. This is the dialogue of hospitality, the reception of the other not on one's own terms but on his.