ثيولوجيًا لويس ماسينيون

THE THEOLOGY OF
Louis Massignon
THE THEOLOGY OF
Louis Massignon
ISLAM, CHRIST, AND THE CHURCH
CHRISTIAN S. KROKUS
Foreword by Sidney H. Griffith
The Catholic University of America Press

Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2017
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Frontispiece: The Cave of the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus, watercolor by

Fr. Arnold Smit, in possession of the author. Photograph by
Robert F. Sanchuk, University of Scranton.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Krokus, Christian S., author.
Title: The theology of Louis Massignon : Islam, Christ, and the church /
Christian S. Krokus ; foreword by Sidney H. Griffith.
Description: Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of America Press,
2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016053713 | ISBN 9780813229461 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Massignon, Louis, 1883–1962. | Islam—Relations—
Christianity. | Christianity and other religions—Islam.
Classification: LCC BP49.5.M3 K76 2017 | DDC 261.2/7092—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016053713
V
For Herbert Mason (1932–2017)
who led me to the source
Contents
Foreword by Sidney H. Griffith ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xvii
Introduction 1
1. Louis Massignon: Method 18
2. God: Visitation of the Stranger 46
3. Christ: Substitute Spirituality 83
4. Islam: Traditional Muslim Apologetic 108
5. Islam: Massignon’s Positive Judgments 134
6. Islam: Abrahamic Schism 167
7. Church: Badaliya 190
Conclusion 226
Bibliography 231
Index 241
Foreword
When Louis Massignon died on October 31, 1962, the Second Vati-
can Council had barely begun and no one at the time even remotely
foresaw the course of events that would lead in due course to the
promulgation of the council’s “Declaration on the Relation of the
Church to Non-Christian Religions” (Nostra Aetate), promulgated
by Pope Paul VI on October 28, 1965. This brief document was des-
tined to change the Church’s approach to other people of faith, es-
pecially Jews and Muslims. It includes two short paragraphs that
almost immediately resulted in a paradigm shift in the Roman
Catholic Church’s relations with the world’s Muslims. One phrase in
particular, in the very first sentence of the first paragraph, expresses
the new line of thinking: “The Church regards with esteem also the
Moslems.” And the text goes on to highlight points of coincidence
in faith between Christians and Muslims, albeit with crucial differ-
ences on each point: the worship of the one God; God’s word to hu-
mankind; submission to God’s decrees on the model of Abraham;
reverence for Jesus and for Mary, his virgin mother; and work for
peace and justice in the world in view of the expectation of the Day
of Judgment. The second paragraph similarly expresses a new atti-
tude: “Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostili-
ties have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod
urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual under-
standing and to preserve as well as to promote together for the ben-
efit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace
and freedom.”
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Louis
Massignon’s thought in the background of Nostra Aetate’s para-
ix
x Foreword
digm shift in the Church’s view of Islam and her approach to en-
gagement with Muslims. While Massignon was professionally one
of the twentieth century’s major scholars of Islam (and especially of
Islamic mysticism) whose scholarly works still hold the attention
of Islamicists throughout the academic world, he was also a fervent
and observant Catholic thinker who drew on his vast knowledge of
all things Islamic to articulate proposals for a respectfully religious
reception of Qur’anic and Islamic thought and practice on the part
of Jews, Catholics, and Christians in general. He was neither a pro-
fessional philosopher of religion nor a theologian in the academic
sense but was nevertheless a well-informed believer and an en-
gaged Catholic activist in all the corporal works of mercy, especially
as they apply to Christian-Muslim relations. In addition to his more
scholarly work, he wrote widely about how Catholics might, in their
own terms, take Islam religiously seriously and how they might
respond to its challenge in an appreciative way that would enable
them to deepen their own faith as a consequence. Together with an
associate (Mary Kahil) he even founded a Church-approved sodality
of prayer for Christians and Muslims together. Massignon’s religious
writing and testimony, often only informally published and circu-
lated in his lifetime, nevertheless reached a wide European, Chris-
tian audience by the middle of the twentieth century and shaped
the lives and thought of many prominent Christian and Muslim
thinkers, a number of whom had important roles in academic and
ecclesiastical circles, including those engaged in the work of the Sec-
ond Vatican Council. The section on the Church and the Muslims
in the Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate, for example, clearly re-
flects the influence of Massignon’s thought on those who advised
the bishops and who had a major role in crafting the language of the
two paragraphs that would chart the course of Christian-Muslim re-
lations well into the twenty-first century.
Louis Massignon wrote almost exclusively in French, a circum-
stance that in part explains why his thought and influence were
slow to find a wide readership in the Anglophone world outside of
academic circles. It has been only in the last decades of the twen-
tieth century that Herbert Mason’s translations of his major work,
along with some of the more significant essays, have afforded read-
Foreword xi
ers of English firsthand access to Louis Massignon. A biography in

English by Mary Louise Gude has provided a quick sketch of the
major events in his life. But it is only with the publication of the
present volume that any systematic account of Massignon’s reli-
gious thought has become available. There is a pressing need for
it, due to widespread misunderstandings and misinterpretations
of Louis Massignon’s ideas about Islam and Christian-Muslim rela-
tions in particular.
Christian Krokus systematically and theologically plots the curve
of Massignon’s developing thought about the Church and Islam by
means of a close, interpretive reading of the author’s religious writ-
ings from the earliest years after his conversion to his ancestral Ca-
tholicism in 1908 up to virtually the time of his death in 1962. For this
purpose Krokus has focused his close reading on a selection of the
more important religious texts that heretofore have received little
or no close scholarly attention in English, which nevertheless most
clearly disclose the evolving course of Massignon’s thought about
the interface of Christianity and Islam, along with the thoughtful
basis for public action on behalf of justice, peace, and interreligious
rapprochement. Krokus shows how at every stage along the line, one
can discern and give expression to Massignon’s religious reasoning
in reference to traditional Catholic thought and his strong adherence
to the Church’s teaching authority.
Christian Krokus’s work is significant because in addition to
bringing a much-needed measure of clarity to the English-speaking
world about Massignon’s ideas he simultaneously manages to dis-
pel a number of common misconceptions about them. Krokus does
not set out primarily to convince the reader of the right-mindedness
of Massignon’s thought; rather, his purpose is clarification. In light
of Krokus’s work, those who disagree with Massignon will now at
the very least be able the more knowledgeably than heretofore to
understand his views. What is more, Krokus’s work provides an in-
terpretive framework, within which he and others might engage in
further study of some of Massignon’s more intriguing ideas, with
a view to bringing them into the current conversations between
Christians and Muslims.
Following the lead and encouragement of Pope Francis in this
xii Foreword
time of crisis between Muslims and Christians, especially in the

Middle East, Catholics around the world are encouraged ever more
urgently to engage in dialogue. Along with many dioceses and even
local parishes, the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interre-
ligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
currently sponsors three regional dialogues with leading national
Muslim organizations and is preparing to sponsor an annual confer-
ence of Muslim and Catholic scholars further to discuss matters of
mutual religious interest. Given the fact that Louis Massignon has
been one of the few Catholic thinkers to write knowledgeably and
in depth about the interface between Christianity and Islam, it is
high time that English readers have access to his thought. This book
provides just the right introduction to Massignon; one hopes that
it will inspire many more translations of his work and provide the
stimulus for a continuing development of mutual understanding
between Christians and Muslims.
Sidney H. Griffith
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.
Acknowledgments
I thank Sidney Griffith first for his insightful foreword, which pro-
vides an integral introduction to the book. He was early to recognize
Massignon’s importance for Catholic theology, and he has gener-
ously supported and encouraged my efforts throughout the years.
As will become clear in the following pages, much of what I have
written merely pursues his many leads.
I am, of course, grateful to numerous other people who have
been generous with their time and knowledge. First among them
is Nicole Massignon, daughter-in-law to Louis and wife of Daniel,
who maintained the Louis Massignon archives in her Paris home
until they could be moved to the Bibliothèque nationale de France
in 2013. She allowed me to work in those archives in 2007, and she
provided not only a study with desk and coffee pot but also many
hours of conversation and friendship. Christian Destremau’s sup-
port of my early research in Paris was invaluable, and his biogra-
phy of Massignon remains essential for any serious study. Anthony
O’Mahony has given his time, attention, and critical advice to this
project from its inception. He invited me to present aspects of the
book at two important conferences at Heythrop College (London),
and his historical work on Massignon as a man of the Catholic
Church is foundational for my own. I remain grateful to everyone
associated with Les Amis de Louis Massignon, especially to Bérengère
Massignon, Françoise Jacquin, and Maurice Borrmans, M. Afr., as
well as Jacques Waardenburg, who, along with Arnold Smit, died in
2015. May they rest in peace. Fr. Smit graciously hosted me during
several research trips to Paris over the years, providing tea, conver-
sation, and opportunities to hear him play the piano. His watercolor
xiii
xiv Acknowledgments
of the cave of the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus appears on the frontis-

piece.
The guidance of Frederick Lawrence during my graduate school
years at Boston College and beyond has been especially important.
He told his doctoral students to study a figure or a work that they
found difficult to understand, and I listened. Francis X. Clooney, SJ,
introduced me to the discipline of comparative theology. He be-
lieved in this project from the beginning, and he has encouraged
and supported me at every step along the way. Stephen Brown co-
ordinated a Bradley Fellowship through the Institute of Medieval
Philosophy and Theology at Boston College that made my early re-
search in France possible, and Jim Morris deepened my understand-
ing of Islam, Sufism, and Christian-Muslim dialogue. In 2008 Bagus
Laksana, SJ, joined me for the annual Christian-Muslim pilgrimage
to the Chapel of the Seven Sleepers at Vieux-Marché.
I thank the Catholic University of America Press, especially John
Martino and Theresa Walker, who patiently saw the book through
to completion; James Kruggel, who first expressed interest in the
manuscript; the anonymous readers for their highly useful and
constructive feedback; and the editors for their fine work. Any mis-
takes in the text are my own. I thank the University of Scranton for
a sabbatical during 2015–2016 in order to complete the book, and I
thank all the Massignon scholars living and deceased whom I have
not met directly but on whose work I have relied extensively. Their
names appear frequently in the following pages.
I thank Fr. Paolo Dall’Oglio, SJ, who has taught me and many
others how Massignon’s Christian love for Islam and for Muslims
might actually be lived. He is a disciple, priest, monk, witness, schol-
ar, and friend. With hope and prayers we long for his safe return.
I thank my children, Theodore Obadiah and Josephine Marija,
for their playful encouragement; and I thank my wife, Melinda, who
has taught me much about Islam, Sufism, and friendship, and espe-
cially about self-denying love.
Above all, my gratitude goes to Herbert Mason. It was in his class
on Islamic mysticism that I first heard the name of Louis Massignon
and became intrigued. Over the next decade and beyond he encour-
aged, supported, and facilitated my introduction to Massignon the
Acknowledgments xv
scholar, to Massignon the activist, and, in a way I simply could not

have achieved through books, to “Louis” the man. Mason’s transla-
tion of the Passion and of the articles in Testimonies and Reflection
as well as his own Memoir of a Friend propelled my research and
that of many emerging scholars in the Anglophone world. He con-
nected me with European scholars, arranged financial support for a
semester of research abroad, gained access for me to the Massignon
archives in Paris, and consulted with me at every stage of the proj-
ect, even reading, rereading, and reading again the final manuscript.
Every academic should have such a mentor. I am doubly fortunate
to count mine as a friend.
Herbert Mason died on January 1, 2017. May Louis Massignon,
who guided Herbert in this life, lead him to the loving embrace of
our Lord in the next, in the company of Mary, Mother of God, on
whose feast he passed. This book is dedicated to his memory.
Abbreviations
BAL Badaliya Annual Letters
EM Écrits Mémorables
Examen
Examen du “Présent de l’homme lettré” par
Abdâllah Ibn al-Torjoman
HI “L’hégire d’Ismaël” (Les trois prières

d’Abraham)
IT Abdallah Ibn al-Torjoman
Q Qur’an
xvii
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Anticipating the vision of Nostra Aetate, Louis Massignon (1883–1962) imag-

ined and worked toward a revolution in the relationship between Muslims
and Christians, from one poisoned by fear and rivalry to one rooted in mu-
tual understanding and fraternal correction. For him, Islam was primarily
a religion rather than merely a body politic, centered in Abrahamic faith in
God, whose key elements—the Qur’an, Muhammad, the Arabic language,
Sufism—could be sources of inspiration even for the Church, if she were
receptive to them. Massignon famously referred to Islam as the lance that
pierced, or stigmatized, the side of the Church (adapting John 19:34), an im-
age that, in his hands, was meant to communicate the mission of Islam to
provoke Christians into ever more authentic appropriation of the humil-
ity, universalism, and charity of the Gospel. His decades-long research into
the life, teachings, and reception of the Muslim mystic and martyr al-Hallâj
(858–922), who was executed by crucifixion for having publicly claimed
union with God, crying out in the divine first person “anâ al-haqq!” (I am
the Truth! or I am the Real!), grounded Massignon’s conviction that there
was a Christological nexus between the two religions.1 His founding of the
Badaliya sodality with Mary Kahil (1889–1979) sought to bring Christians
and Muslims together in prayer and substitutive love, and his writings and
personal contacts helped to form the views of the men who would eventu-
ally draft the statements on Muslims at the Second Vatican Council. For all
1. Whenever it appears within a quoted passage, I preserve the transliterated Arabic terminology
of the quoted author. However, for the sake of simplicity and consistency, I removed all underdots and
marked all long vowels with a circumflex (^). Otherwise, the transliterations are my own. As much
as possible, I followed examples provided by Massignon, whether found in his French originals or in
English translations of his work. All verses of the Qur’an are quoted from The Meaning of the Glorious
Koran: An Explanatory Translation, trans. Marmaduke Mohammed Pickthall (New York: New American
Library, 1953).
1
2 Introduction
those reasons and more, Massignon has been called “the single most influ-
ential figure [in the twentieth century] in regard to the Church’s relation-
ship with Islam,” and his approach has only become more important in the
decades since his passing.2
It was an unsentimental approach, the fruit of learning as much as
of prayer and friendship. Massignon was among his generation’s greatest
scholars, preeminent in the field of Islamic mysticism, and still authorita-
tive among academics today. He published in all the major areas of Islamic
studies, including mysticism, history, linguistics, sociology, ritual studies,
theology, and philosophy. His monumental Passion of al-Hallâj won acclaim
from European and traditional Muslim scholars alike, securing for him the
chair in Muslim sociology at the Collège de France, a position he held for
nearly thirty years, and from which he trained many of the most important
Islamicists and Arabicists in the next generation, including Henri Corbin
(1903–1978), Ibrahim Madkour (1902–1995), Osman Yahya (1919–1997), Ali
Shariati (1933–1977), George Makdisi (1920–2002), Jean-Muhammad Abd
el-Jalil (1904–1979), Louis Gardet (1904–1986), and Mohamed Talbi.3
Although Massignon died just as the Second Vatican Council opened,
and although he was never invited to participate as an expert, there is wide-
spread consensus among his commentators that his work and his personal-
ity exerted significant influence on the wording of the statements on Mus-
lims and Islam proclaimed by the Council.4 The language about Muslims in
the relevant conciliar documents, namely Lumen Gentium and Nostra Aetate,
closely echoes Massignon’s positions on Muslim belief in God, devotion to
Mary, the virtues of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and so on. Many of the
principal writers of the conciliar drafts as well as those persons with au-
thority to promote positive language about Muslims were either students,
especially Georges Anawati (1905–1994) and Robert Caspar (1923–2007), or
friends of Massignon, especially Pope Paul VI (1897–1978); Giuseppe Des-
cuffi (1884–1972), the archbishop of Smyrna; and Pierre-Kamel Medawar
2. Sidney Griffith, “Sharing the Faith of Abraham: The ‘Credo’ of Louis Massignon,” Islam and
Christian-Muslim Relations 8, no. 2 (1997): 193.
3. Talbi is described as having “sat at the feet of Louis Massignon” in Hugh Goddard, A History of
Christian-Muslim Relations (Chicago: New Amsterdam Press, 2000), 164.
4. See Christian Krokus, “Louis Massignon’s Influence on the Teaching of Vatican II on Muslims
and Islam,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 23, no. 3 (2012): 329–45; Krokus, “Louis Massignon:
Vatican II and Beyond,” Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 55, nos. 3–4 (2014): 433–50. For a
summary of common hesitations vis-à-vis Massignon’s influence, especially regarding Massignonian
ideas that were seemingly either ignored or rejected by the Council fathers, see Gavin D’Costa, Vatican
II: Catholic Doctrines on Jews and Muslims (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 165–67, 180, 186–87.
Introduction 3
(1887–1985), the auxiliary to Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV (1878–1967).5

Scholars are at a loss to identify other pre-Council Catholic scholars of Is-
lam who also advocated for a positive turn in Catholic-Muslim relations
and whose influence therefore might be seen to contend with Massignon’s.6
And yet Massignon remains little known in the Anglophone world. Al-
though Herbert Mason translated Massignon’s magnum opus in four vol-
umes as The Passion of al-Hallâj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, as well as sev-
eral important occasional articles from across his career in Testimonies and
Reflections, most of his writings, and in particular those on the relationship
between the Church and Islam, are available only in French.7 Another rea-
son for Massignon’s relatively limited readership may be that an impres-
sion lingers among some Catholic thinkers that Massignon’s work is at best
dangerously naïve and at worst religiously unorthodox. Examples of such
critiques can be virulent. His works have been blamed for contributing to
a perceived decline in the Church’s mission vis-à-vis the Muslims, and his
sympathetic approach to Islam, adopted by many of his Catholic students,
has been seen as unbalanced, even attributed to “a blow . . . to the head,” in
reference to an attack Massignon suffered in 1958 while delivering a talk on
Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916) but interpreted metaphorically: “Unfortu-
nately it is the effect [marque] of that ‘blow received to the head’ that the
public knows and that is celebrated among those who conduct dialogue.”8 It
has also been said that an “entire literature favorable to Islam has grown up
in Europe, much of it the work of Catholic priests under the sway of Mas-
5. Rita George-Tvrtković’s forthcoming article on the Council’s appropriation of the shared

Christian-Muslim devotion to Mary demonstrates the influence of Massignon upon Yves Plumey, OMI
(1913–1991), the French missionary bishop of Garoua, Cameroon, who, in addition to Descuffi and Bishop
Pietro Sfair (1888–1974), appealed to the Council fathers in support of positive statements about Muslims.
6. D’Costa cites the Spanish priest and scholar Miguel Asin Palacios (1871–1944) as one such
voice. See D’Costa, Vatican II, 165 n. 20. For a rehearsal of the differences in approach to Islam between
Palacios and Massignon, see Louis Massignon, “Muslim and Christian Mysticism in the Middle Ages,”
in Testimonies and Reflections: Essays of Louis Massignon, trans. Herbert Mason (Notre Dame, Ind.: Uni-
versity of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 116–33.
7. Louis Massignon, The Passion of al-Hallâj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, trans. Herbert Mason,
4 vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982); Massignon, Testimonies and Reflections. It
should be noted additionally that many key passages from Massignon’s corpus have been translated
into English in the scholarly publications of American and British commentators, including, among
others, Sidney Griffith, Anthony O’Mahony, Mary Louise Gude (1939–2013), Andrew Unsworth, Neal
Robinson, David Burrell, Giulio Basetti-Sani (1912–2001), and Patrick Laude (Basetti-Sani was Italian
and Laude is French; their work on Massignon has been translated into English). Unless otherwise
noted, all translations in this book are mine.
8. Marie Thérèse Urvoy, “Le dialogue islamo-chrétien: du principe à la réalité,” Catholica 106
(2009–10): 74, 80.
4 Introduction
signon’s ideas,” because of which “the effort to ‘dialogue’ with Muslims has
been set on a mistaken course.”9 Even one of Massignon’s most devoted stu-
dents, the aforementioned Georges Anawati, was censorious of the open-
ings toward what he called a “maximalist” or overly permissive tendency
implicit in Massignon’s theological judgments.10 It is true that Massignon
ventured further and more sympathetically within Islam than almost any
Catholic thinker before him, so his work quite naturally generated some
controversy, making it all the more important to visit that work again.
This book sets out to explicate the key features of Louis Massignon’s un-
derstanding of Islam in the light of his Catholic-Christian faith, and their
interrelations, along the way correcting misconceptions of his work as ei-
ther unorthodox or naïve. After a consideration of his method, each of the
book’s main chapters explains some key theological locus in his thought,
namely God, Christ, Church, and Islam, thereby providing a comprehensive
examination of his religious worldview. It is an interpretation, roughly as
Bernard Lonergan (1904–1984) understood that functional specialty, name-
ly as an exegetical task in which the interpreter works to understand cor-
rectly the author and texts under consideration.11 The hope is first to get
Massignon right. Subsequently, the hope is both to encourage further stud-
ies of Massignon and also to involve his work in current and future con-
versations among English-speaking thinkers about the proper intellectual
and religious response of the Church to the advent and growing presence of
Islam. Historians will find Massignon essential for understanding what was
going forward in the years prior to and during the Second Vatican Coun-
cil in terms of Catholics’ understanding of and engagement with Muslims.
Dogmatic and systematic theologians working on questions related to reli-
9. Alain Besançon, “What Kind of Religion Is Islam?” Commentary 117, no. 5 (2004): 47–48.
10. By way of contrast with a “minimalist” Christian position that severely limits what good can
be said of Islam as a religion, a “maximalist” position already accepts Muhammad as a prophet in the
vein of the Old Testament prophets and accepts a Christian reading of the Qur’an. Anawati identified
the maximalist position with certain of Massignon’s students, and he criticized them for having dan-
gerously exceeded Massignon’s “via media.” See Georges Anawati, “Christianisme et Islam: point de
vue chrétien,” in Presence de Louis Massignon: Hommages et témoignages, ed. Daniel Massignon (Paris:
Éditions Maisonneuve et Larose, 1987), 86–94. Anawati was often caught between Massignon and
his critics, especially at the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies. Another student, Louis Gardet,
eventually stopped attending a regular meeting of those interested in Muslim-Christian relations es-
tablished by Louis Massignon, Les Mardis de Dar as-Salam, because he was accused of “loving Mus-
lim culture too much.” Among Gardet’s critics was Jacques Jomier (1914–2008). Anawati sided with
Jomier against Gardet, whose position was a proxy for Massignon’s, but not until after Massignon’s
death. See Dominique Avon, Les Frères prêcheurs en Orient: Les dominicains du Caire (années 1910–an-
nées 1960) (Paris: Cerf, 2005), 606–14.
11. Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 153–73.
Introduction 5
gious pluralism will want to engage, whether by appropriation or correc-

tion, many of Massignon’s conclusions about the status of Islam. For exam-
ple, Massignon claimed a limited inspiration for the Qur’an and a qualified
negative prophecy for Muhammad. He argued against direct proselytiza-
tion of Muslims, and he characterized Islam as an Abrahamic schism. Are
his judgments correct? Are they helpful for Christian theology today? What
are their limitations, and to the extent that there are limitations, should his
categories be rehabilitated? It is important that a wider theologically astute
audience, especially in the English-speaking and -reading worlds, has the
opportunity to wrestle with Massignon’s thoughts on such matters.
Massignon was a prolific author, writing hundreds of journal articles
and more than ten books. Besides Islamic studies, he also wrote in the areas
of Christian mysticism, devotion, and theology, not to mention archaeology,
Arab and world politics, and medieval European history. The main sourc-
es of investigation for this book are the major articles and books in which
Massignon addressed in a specific and sustained manner the intersection of
his understanding of Islam and his Christian-Catholic faith. Of course the
study draws upon a wide selection of Massignon’s writings from across his
corpus (as the bibliography and notes attest), but the principal and essen-
tial texts are three books: Examen du “Présent de l’homme lettré” par Abdal-
lah Ibn al-Torjoman (1917), Les trois prières d’Abraham (1935, 1949), and the
Badaliya Annual Letters (1947–1962).12
Those books roughly correspond with the three periods in Guy Harpig-
ny’s interpretation of the development in Massignon’s life and work, which
he called the Hallâjian (1908–1922), Abrahamic (1922–1950), and Gandhian
cycles (1950–1962), naming the periods by reference to dominant figures in
Massignon’s thinking at the time. That convention was later adopted and
modified by Pierre Rocalve and Sidney Griffith in their studies. I find the tri-
partite division of Massignon’s life and work especially helpful for plotting
the curve (to borrow Massignon’s phrase) of his developing understanding
of Islam and the related development in his ideas about a proper Christian
response to Islam. Therefore, when I refer to his early, middle, or late peri-
od, the reader should know that I refer roughly to the dates associated with
Harpigny’s cycles.
12. Louis Massignon, Examen du “Présent de l’homme lettré” par Abdallah Ibn al-Torjoman (Rome:
Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica, 1992); Massignon, Les trois prières d’Abraham (Paris:
Cerf, 1997); Massignon, Badaliya: Au Nom de l’Autre, edited by Maurice Borrmans and Françoise Jac-
quin (Paris: Cerf, 2011).
6 Introduction
It should be noted from the outset that even though Massignon was not
a professional theologian himself, he sought critical feedback and approv-
al from respected Catholic theologian colleagues and friends for the three
books mentioned previously. Massignon hesitated to publish those works,
out of a feeling of inadequacy with respect to his own theological training
as well as a concern not to violate Church teaching. He was well aware that
some of his ideas or “orientations” were “ahead of his time.”13 Daniel Mas-
signon (1919–2000), son of Louis, tells how “L’hégire d’Ismaël,” the center-
piece of Les trois prières d’Abraham, was finally published:
When, on the eve of his death, Louis Massignon evoked the possibility of a sud-
den end, I asked him: “What should we do about your unpublished works?”—
[LM responded], “You can publish the Examen du “Présent de l’homme lettré” d’Ibn
al-Torjoman, if you find a Catholic theologian who agrees to examine it according to
its orthodoxy.”—[DM asks], “And Les trois prières d’Abraham?” He responded to me
by a vague gesture. In fact, he had decided to finish the second edition of La passion
de Hallâj before completely revising L’hégire d’Ismaël and writing, finally, Le sacrifice
d’Isaac. More than thirty years have passed. It is time to provide the last edition cor-
rected by him. The possibility of maintaining the unpublished copies, already widely
circulated in their uncorrected version, seemed to me chimerical.14
The story of the Examen’s publication is similar. Already in his own

lifetime, he actively sought theologians to review the Examen, including
his good friend Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), who was unfortunately al-
ways too busy, and Albert Marie-Joseph Lagrange (1855–1938), then head
of l’École Biblique de Jerusalem, who agreed but only managed to offer
cosmetic suggestions.15 Daniel Massignon ultimately decided to publish his
father’s text posthumously because, like Les trois prières d’Abraham, uned-
ited versions were already in circulation and he thought it best to provide a
definitive edition. The story of the texts’ publication is not irrelevant. Mas-
signon’s hesitancy vis-à-vis official publication is indicative of his desire to
understand and then represent the Church’s teachings faithfully and accu-
rately.16 As one sees in the Examen’s opening paragraphs, which criticize the
13. Daniel Massignon, Avant-propos to Examen du “Présent de l’homme lettré” par Abdallah Ibn
al-Torjoman, by Louis Massignon (Rome: Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica, 1992), ix.
14. D. Massignon, Avant-propos to Les trois prières d’Abraham, by Louis Massignon (Paris: Cerf,
1997), 15–16.
15. D. Massignon, Avant-propos to Examen, viii.
16. Rocalve refers to the Examen as a “work of youth” and highlights critically Massignon’s “theo-
logical scruples” and desire never to offend Church teaching or morality. Pierre Rocalve, Louis Mas-
signon et l’Islam (Damascus: Institut Français, 1993), 21, 88.
Introduction 7
ostensibly neutral reading of the text’s translator, this was serious business
for Massignon. In matters of faith—for all concerned: author, translator, and
readers—nothing less than the status of one’s soul was at stake. He main-
tained a religious focus in all areas of life as well as sensitivity to the spiri-
tual fortunes of those close to him, and it would be important to such a man
that he not communicate false teaching.
A Note on the Contemporary

Relevance of this Book
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) once wrote:
When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them. God sees
Christ, His Son, in us. And so we should see Christ in others, and nothing else, and love
them. There can never be enough of it. There can never be enough thinking about
it. St. John of the Cross said that where there was no love, put love and you would
draw love out. And this is not easy. Everyone will try to kill that love in you, even
your nearest and dearest; at least, they will try to prune it. “Don’t you know this, that,
and the other thing about this person? He or she did this. If you don’t want to hear
it, you must hear. It is for your own good to hear it. It is my duty to tell you, and it is
your duty to take recognition of it. You must stop your loving, modify your loving,
show your disapproval. You cannot possibly love—if you pretend you do, you are a
hypocrite and the truth is not in you. You are contributing to the delinquency of that
person by your sentimental blindness. It is such people as you who add to the sum
total of confusion and wickedness and soft appeasement and compromise and the
policy of expediency in this world. You are to blame for Communism, for industrial
capitalism, and finally for hell on earth!”
The antagonism often rises to a crescendo of vituperation, an intensification of
opposition on all sides. You are quite borne down by it. And the only Christian an-
swer is love, to the very end, to the laying down of your life.17
She was responding to accusations of naïveté or even treason in relation to

the Catholic Worker’s pacifism, concern for the poor, and communist sym-
pathies. It was the eve of the nuclear arms race, and anti-communist senti-
ment in the United States was fast rising to fever pitch. In such an environ-
ment, she was told, one cannot possibly love.
Today the antagonism that has risen to a crescendo of vituperation with
all its concomitant warnings about the danger of sentimental blindness re-
17. Dorothy Day, By Little and Little: The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsburg (New
York: Knopf, 1983), 213–14.
8 Introduction
fers not to communism but to Islam and Muslims. Massignon would have
us respond exactly as Day suggests. In fact, in 1946, when a young Francis-
can missionary priest in Cairo approached him with his conviction that Is-
lam “was the religion of Satan,” Massignon responded by quoting the same
passage from St. John of the Cross referenced by Day. Giulio Basetti-Sani,
the missionary in question, tells the story:
I revealed both my ideas and my doubts to my teacher Massignon, whom I revered
as both a saint and a great scholar. He quickly repressed his initial impulse, — he had
started in an apparent indignation and cried out: “No! Absolutely no!” Then he smiled
and said to me with what can only be described as a profound tenderness: “There is a
phrase of Saint John of the Cross which can serve as a starting point: ‘Whenever you do
not find love in something, bring your love into it, and soon you will discover the Love!’ You
should have brought love to your understanding of the Qur’an; you should have put
love into your consideration of the person of Muhammad!”18
When the headlines report brutal repression in Iraq, devastating civil war
in Syria, acts of terror in California, Paris, Nigeria, London, and beyond, it
may seem naïve or worse to recover the work of a Western (but later East-
ern) Catholic who recommends love of the Qur’an and the Prophet, who
saw in the Muslims of his day the least among us, deserving of the Church’s
preferential concern, and who insisted on treating Islam (though not its
distortions) as a religion and not only as a body politic, even as an inspira-
tional call to faith in the one God, and as a check on Western post-Christian
secularist-consumerist idolatry. However, as Dorothy Day suggests, for a
Christian there is nothing else but to love, to see Christ in every human be-
ing, and so the learned, religious, and humanizing vision of Louis Massign-
on is needed as urgently today as it was in his own time, when tensions be-
tween France and her Muslim-Algerian subjects came to a head, or as Day’s
voice was needed in the United States of her generation and ours.
His Holiness Pope Francis has announced an extraordinary jubilee of
mercy (2016). In his bull of interdiction, Misericordiae Vultus, Pope Francis
acknowledges the central and rich role that mercy plays in Islam as an at-
tribute of God (23), and explicitly invites Muslims to participate in the holy
year. The Vatican’s secretary of state confirms: “In a world torn by violence,
it is the right time to launch an offensive of mercy”; “Mercy is also the most
beautiful name of God for Muslims, who may join this holy year, as the
18. Giulio Basetti-Sani, Muhammad, St. Francis of Assisi and Alvernia (Florence: S. Francesco–Fie-
sole, 1975), 9.
Introduction 9
Pope wishes.”19 Anticipating Francis’s sympathy, Massignon continuously

encouraged the members of his Badaliya sodality not only to approach
their Muslim neighbors, hosts, or guests with acts of spiritual and corporal
mercy, but also to understand the Muslim conception of God and Muslim
beliefs and practice through study, dialogue, and prayer. The massive refu-
gee movements we see at the time of this writing would constitute, for Mas-
signon, a chance to protect the foreigner, to grant asylum to sincere seekers,
and to combat with hope the paralyzing fear and the logic of military vio-
lence, proposed as the only solution to global unrest. About the post-WWII
refugee crisis, for example, Massignon wrote: “We want to share the humble
hope of the poor Muslim workers themselves, the hope in a Day of Justice,
the door to eternal life. We prepare our hope in this Day by the total aban-
don of our Faith to the divine will in the day-by-day patience of unshake-
able non-violence (this constitutes a renunciation of the idol of progress
but not of reform).”20 Massignon’s is not the final word on the relationship
between the Church and Islam, but his is a key word, one that moved the
conversation forward, grounded not only in scholarly understanding but
also in prayer and love. It deserves critical attention from those engaged, as
Nostra Aetate requests, in the task of mutual understanding and the promo-
tion of common moral welfare today.
Biography
I conclude the introduction with a brief biography for readers unfamiliar
with Massignon.21 Louis Massignon was born to bourgeois parents in a sub-
19. Sébastien Maillard, “Cardinal Parolin: ‘Il faut une mobilisation générale des moyens de sécu-
rité et des ressources spirituelles,’” in La Croix (Paris), Nov. 15, 2015.
20. BAL 10, 147–48. From here on, I cite the BAL according to letter number, page number. The
page number refers to the recently published edition mentioned previously.
21. Massignon’s biography has been recorded elsewhere, in French and English, in more detail
and at greater length than I have done here. The most complete biography remains Christian Des-
tremau and Jean Moncelon’s Louis Massignon: le “cheikh admirable” (Paris: Éditions Le Capucin, 2005).
In English, see Herbert Mason, Memoir of a Friend: Louis Massignon (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1988); Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, by Louis
Massignon, 4 vols., xix–xliii (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982); Mary Louise Gude, Lou-
is Massignon: The Crucible of Compassion (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996). In
French, see Vincent Monteil, Le linceul de feu: Louis Massignon, 1883–1962 (Paris: Vegapress, 1987). Guy
Harpigny, Islam et Christianisme selon Louis Massignon (Louvain-la-Neuve: Centre de d’histoire des re-
ligions de l’Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, 1981); Jacques Keryell, L’hospitalité sacrée (Par-
is: Nouvelle Cité, 1987); Jacques Keryell, Jardin Donné: Louis Massignon à la recherche de l’Absolu (Paris:
Saint-Paul, 1993); and Jacques Keryell, Louis Massignon: la grâce de Bagdad (Paris: Pierre Téqui, 2010).
10 Introduction
urb of Paris. His father, Fernand Massignon, aka Pierre Roche (1855–1922),
a famous Parisian sculptor and onetime student of Auguste Rodin (1840–
1917), “was a skeptic and preferred his son to be raised the same.”22 As a
child, Louis Massignon embraced the traditional Catholic piety and devo-
tion to the Virgin Mary of his mother, Marie Hovyn Massignon (1859–1931),
but his father’s ambition and love of learning characterized the years from
his adolescence to early adulthood.23 He exhibited a natural talent for lan-
guages, eventually reading dozens and speaking perhaps ten fluently, es-
pecially Semitic languages, and his father encouraged his education in lin-
guistics and philology.24 Among Massignon’s closest boyhood friends was
Henri Maspero (1883–1945), the Sinologist and son of the famous Egyptolo-
gist Gaston Maspero (1846–1916). Letters reveal “the breadth and special in-
terests of these two insatiably curious friends, absorbed in turn with Greek
and classical literature, mathematics, history and archaeology, science,
physiology, language, politics, each always impatient to share his discover-
ies, reflections, and enthusiasms with the other.”25 In 1901 Massignon passed
his Baccalauréat examinations with honors and began to study literature,
history, and Sanskrit at the Sorbonne; during 1902–1903 he served as a vol-
unteer in the French infantry. In 1904 he went to the Near East and traveled
from Tangiers to Fez in order to verify the findings of the sixteenth-century
cartographer Leo Africanus—the published results of which he sent to the
hermit (now Blessed) Charles de Foucauld, which marked the beginning of
an important friendship. This was his “first serious contact with the Islamic
world,” and, according to legend, it was the occasion for his study of Arabic:
“As the story goes, when his Bedouin guides became drunk at a stopping
place, he was forced to take command of his caravan and, with revolver
in hand, smashed their wine bottles and ordered them on to complete the
journey. He said himself that he vowed on that occasion never to touch
wine again, and to learn Arabic so that next time he could better under-
stand those on whom his life depended.”26 Upon his return to Paris, through
the influence of the elder Maspero and the encouragement of his own fa-
ther, Louis Massignon began to study Arabic with the intention of pursuing
Egyptology as a career. In 1906 he went to the French Archaeological Insti-
22. Mason, Memoir, 27.

23. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xxi.
25. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xxi.
26. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xxii.
Introduction 11
tute at Cairo, but by 1907 his interests had shifted and he decided to study
the times, life, and work of a tenth-century Islamic mystic of Baghdad, Hu-
sayn ibn Mansur al-Hallâj. He wrote to his father: “His character was indeed
very beautiful, and the account of his martyrdom has a very deep quality,
a tragic appeal, which overwhelms me. I want to do my doctoral thesis on
him.”27
During 1907–1908, Massignon had the chance to further his studies on
Hallâj, when a friend of his father arranged for him to undertake an archae-
ological expedition in Mesopotamia.28 He was to live in Baghdad, where
the French consul would look after him; however, against the advice of the
consul, he requested permission to live in a strictly Muslim quarter of the
city. A contact was made for him with the elite and educated Alussy fam-
ily, who ran the local mosque school and maintained a library of medieval
manuscripts. They rented a house to him near their own home. Eventually
a great friendship developed between Massignon and his hosts, but at first
there was a good deal of suspicion on the part of the Alussy family as well
as others in the neighborhood. Why had this European come to live among
the Muslims? Why did he dress as an Arab? There was some sense that Mas-
signon’s intentions may have been less than noble, and he had to convince
his host family that he would do nothing to scandalize or embarrass them.
His word was accepted, and Massignon claimed that as the very moment
he realized the importance of hospitality in Muslim culture.29 The Alussy
family, from that point forward, and in a crucial moment, would vouch for
Massignon’s integrity. Others were less certain. The political situation in the
Ottoman Empire at the time was precarious. The populist movement Union
and Progress threatened revolution; European powers sought to exert in-
fluence; tension was in the air. Massignon’s particular mission was also a
controversial one. He had been given the job of exploring and mapping a
vast area of ancient ruins in Mesopotamia and was supposed to complete
27. Quoted in D. Massignon, “Chronologie,” in Louis Massignon, ed. Jean-François Six (Paris: Édi-
tions L’Herne, 1970), 14.
28. His father’s friend was Leon de Beylié (1849–1910), according to Keryell, Grâce, 48. Keryell
refers to Beylié as the author of the preface of Massignon’s book about Leo Africanus. See Louis Mas-
signon, Le Maroc dans les premières années du XVIe siècle; tableau géographique d’après Léon l’Africain
(Algiers: A. Jourdan, 1906). However, the book actually cites Louis Gustave Binger (1856–1936) as the
author of the preface. On Massignon’s travel and research for the Leo Africanus book, see Destremau,
Louis Massignon, 35–46; Pierre Rocalve, “La découverte du Maroc par Louis Massignon dans les pas de
Léon l’Africain,” in Louis Massignon et le Maroc: une parole donnée, ed. Maurice Borrmans (Casablanca:
King Abdul-Aziz Foundation, 2008), 205–21.
29. Gude, Crucible, 29–30.
12 Introduction
the work before his competition, a team of German archaeologists, could

do the same. Massignon tried to arrange an agreement with the Germans,
but they refused. Exploiting the suspicion Massignon aroused by dressing
and living as an Arab, the Germans denounced him to the government as a
French spy. Eventually, partly because of his oddities and partly because of
his contacts with members of Union and Progress, Massignon was arrested
by Ottoman officials in a region north of the city and put on a steamer back
to Baghdad.30
Although there has been some debate about the circumstances of its oc-
currence, in May 1908 Massignon underwent what may be considered the
most significant experience of his life.31 Convinced that his captors intended
to kill him, he began to despair of his life.32 He even attempted suicide by
stabbing himself in the chest with a small penknife—he would later attribute
the failure of the attempt to God’s hand—but in his moment of lost hope he
suddenly felt overwhelmed by what Herbert Mason has called the “Unique,
Transcendent, and Absolute God.”33 He would later refer to that moment as
the “Visitation of the Stranger,” and he often said that it prompted his first
mature prayer to God, significantly in Arabic.34 The experience had two stag-
es. First, he became aware of the sinful condition in which he was living, and
he felt judged and condemned by the Absolute One. But in a second wave
of religious experience, the feeling changed. Now he felt welcomed, as if re-
ceived by a father, like the prodigal son upon his return.35 That foundational
religious experience was the basis of Massignon’s conversion to God and his
return to the Catholic Church. In its aftermath, Massignon was taken to a
hospital and treated for malaria, but he was still under police control. When
30. The cited events are detailed in many places. The fullest account is in D. Massignon, Le voy-
age en Mésopotamie et la conversion de Louis Massignon en 1908 (Paris: Cerf, 2001). See also Destremau,
Louis Massignon, 51–82; Gude, Crucible, 27–56; Keryell, Grâce, 71–94.
31. In Voyage, Daniel Massignon painstakingly reconstructs the circumstances of the experience.
In the official Ottoman records there are no reports of arrest, only of Massignon’s having been ill, even
delirious and in need of restraint during his passage to Baghdad. However, using his father’s journals
and documents from the French consulate, Daniel Massignon concludes that his father was in fact
detained, though he concedes that his father also may have been infected with malaria at the time of
the events.
32. His despair was linked, in part, to a feeling of guilt related to his romantic relationship with
Luis de Cuadra (1877–1921). See Gude, Crucible, 21–23; Jeffrey J. Kripal, Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wis-
dom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001),
95–146.
34. Louis Massignon, “Visitation of the Stranger: Response to an Inquiry about God,” in Testimo-
nies, 39–42.
35. D. Massignon, Voyage, 73.
Introduction 13
he awoke, he found in his room the patriarch of the Alussy family praying
for his recovery. His Muslim host had been true to his word. He vouched
for Massignon’s integrity and secured his release from custody. Massignon
recalls: “I was saved in the land of Islam by virtue of the right of asylum, ex-
ercised heroically by my Muslim hosts toward this ‘spy’ as I was denounced
to them. I was not a spy, but there were so many people there, charged with
scientific missions, who, out of European patriotism, were collecting ‘infor-
mation’ about the land of Islam, that the practice of the right of asylum was
becoming ever more rare. Even without reporting ‘information,’ the lack of
hospitality on the part of the European guests was discouraging.”36 Massi-
gnon vowed then and there to repay his Muslim hosts by devoting his life
to the study of Islam and to making Islam better known and better received
in the West. Massignon then remembered that certain persons had interced-
ed for him in his hour of despair. Nowhere does he indicate exactly how he
knew this, but he lists among his intercessors his mother, Charles de Fou-
cauld, Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907), and al-Hallâj.
There is consensus in the secondary literature that the occasion of his
religious conversion marks the beginning of a lifelong vocation. Herbert
Mason has remarked:
In contrast to this event, circa May 1908, all of Massignon’s subsequent body of inves-
tigation and monumental scholarship was an impassioned response but a formality.
What mattered and sustained him was the event itself as a revelation of the existence
of the Absolute One. Thereafter he sought complete union with the presence and
sought and found guidance from others, both in Catholic and early Sufi experiences,
as to the efficacious path to union. Christ and the Christian saints were mirrored for
him in the witness of the Friends of God. I say mirrored, not to suggest exactitude, nor
imply distorted but still visibly similar. Affinities may be a helpful word, preferable to
comparison.37
Sidney Griffith says of this “unwonted enlightenment” that it was partly re-
sponsible for Massignon’s “attempts to discover and to articulate what one
might call a Catholic, Christian theology of Islam that would be rooted in
doctrine and expressed in action.”38 Guy Harpigny summarizes the signifi-
cance of the religious experience as follows:
36. Louis Massignon, “Le respect de la personne humaine en Islam et la priorité du droit d’asile
sur le devoir de juste guerre,” in vol. 1 of Écrits Mémorables, ed. Christian Jambet, François Angelier,
François L’Yvonnet, and Souâd Ayada, 2 vols. (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2009), 790. From here on, I cite
EM according to volume number, page number.
37. Mason, personal letter to the author, November 2006.
38. Griffith, “Sharing,” 194.
14 Introduction
A call to God for help; a call to others for help; a cry and a gesture of desperation. A
presence of God as Lover; an experience of God as Father. The understanding of the
Church as a sacrament, mediation between God and men. A call from God to Mas-
signon who seeks a religious community. Unlimited gratitude for those who prayed
for him during his illness, Arab Muslims. There, in a few traits, we understand the
self-offering that Massignon made to God the 24th of July 1908 when he promised to
live in order to exalt and consummate the Cross, in the compassion of Mary.39
After his conversion, his attempts at understanding Islam had a feeling

of repayment about them. He was grateful to Muslims not only for having
intervened on his behalf and at great personal risk but also for having shep-
herded him back to faith in God and to the Catholic Church. Apparently he
was not alone: “There are many of us in France who have received in the
Arab desert this summons from Islam, which is a grace, and which allowed
us to rediscover God in his Christ, in order to adore His transcendence there-
in, Charles de Foucauld . . . at the edge of the Sahara . . . and [Ernst] Psichari
in Mauritania. This summons is an authentic mission of Islam.”40 Asked in
an interview in the last years of his life whether there were saints in Islam,
Massignon responded: “I have encountered them, and now, forty years later,
I can attest that my return to the Church is the fruit of their prayer, and
that for me, their neighbor, they are not outside the Church, which I redis-
covered with them.”41 He is referring principally to al-Hallâj, about whom I
will say more later, and about whom Massignon makes the following con-
fession, unlikely for a historian of religion: “Not that the study of his life,
which was full and strong, upright and whole, rising and given, yielded
to me the secret of his heart. Rather it is he who fathomed mine and who
probes it still.”42 From Hallâj he continued to learn about Islam, about God,
about mysticism, and about human development. This took place primarily
through reading Hallâjian texts and studying Hallâjian currents in Islamic
mysticism, but Massignon suggests that another mysterious dimension was
present within their relationship, solidified in that moment through Hallâj’s
intercession. Across hundreds of years and thousands of miles, they were,
somehow, friends. Hallâj really did intercede for Massignon, and in turn
Massignon really did come to understand and know Hallâj. Such claims, for
many academics, are simply inadmissible in the field of religious studies,
39. Harpigny, Islam et Christianisme, 60.

40. Louis Massignon, “Le signe Marial, la position ‘intérioriste’ de L. Massignon,” in EM 1, 219–20.
41. Massignon, “Le Signe,” 220.
42. Massignon, Passion 1, lxv.
Introduction 15
but for Massignon, the web of relationships he enjoyed with Muslims living
and deceased were foundational not only as motivation but also as provid-
ing access to understanding Islam, and especially Islamic mysticism, from
within.
Massignon worked on his Hallâj project for the rest of his life, but he
had already submitted two doctoral theses for acceptance in 1922 (in Eng-
lish translation, The Passion of al-Hallâj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam [four
volumes] and Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mys-
ticism). In the meantime, he had forged a friendship with Charles de Fou-
cauld, who encouraged Massignon to join him at his hermitage at Taman-
rasset in the Sahara, to be ordained a priest, and to spend his life working
with and studying the local population and languages. Through a difficult
period of discernment, Massignon finally decided not to join Foucauld. In-
stead, on the nineteenth of January 1914, he married his first cousin Mar-
celle Dansaert-Testelin; eventually three children, Yves (1915–1935), the afore-
mentioned Daniel, and Genevieve (1921–1966) were born to them. For their
honeymoon, the couple traveled to the Sahara to receive a blessing from
Foucauld, but because of political insecurity they were unable to reach their
destination. From 1914 to 1919, Massignon served in the French army during
World War I. First, he was part of the diplomatic corps. Then, through the
advice of Foucauld, he requested and obtained a transfer to the front lines
in Serbia. Finally, at the end of his tenure, he was part of the Sykes-Picot en-
tourage that negotiated settlement with the Arab countries formerly ruled
by the Ottomans. It was there that he met T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935), his
British counterpart. Charles de Foucauld was murdered (or martyred) on
the first of December 1916, and the Massignons finally visited his hermitage
in 1950.
As mentioned earlier, Jacques Maritain was among Massignon’s closest
friends, and there exist scores and perhaps hundreds of unpublished letters
between the two men. Other close friends included Paul Claudel (1868–1955),
Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), François Mauriac (1885–1970), Charles Journet
(1891–1975), Léon Bloy (1846–1917), Pierre Jean de Menasce (1902–1973),
Jean Daniélou (1905–1974), and Thomas Merton (1915–1968), to name just
a few, which places him at the heart of European Catholic intellectual life in
the early to mid-twentieth century. He also had private audiences with three
popes: Pope Pius XI in 1934, in order to have the statutes of the Badaliya ap-
proved; Pope Pius XII in 1949, in order to attain permission to transfer from
16 Introduction
the Latin to the Greek Catholic (Melkite) rite; and Pope John XXIII in 1959,
to attain his blessing on the Badaliya sodality. He also was in frequent con-
tact with a number of high-ranking bishops in both the Latin and Melkite
churches and was a longtime personal friend of Giovanni Battista Cardinal
Montini (later Pope Paul VI).
From 1926 to 1954 he held the chair in Muslim sociology and sociog-
raphy at the Collège de France. It was an unusual position that afforded
him complete freedom with respect to the subjects he wished to research
and teach.43 He devoted much of his time there to studying Qur’anic com-
mentaries, but he also regularly offered a course in Muslim anti-Christian
polemics, one of the ways he sought to understand Islam from the inside.
During many of those years he was also an intellectual and spiritual guide
to many prominent Arab and North African Christians, including Georges
Anawati, Youakim Moubarac (1924–1995), Paul Nwiya (1925–1980), and Mi-
chel Hayek (1928–2005), among others. From 1933 to 1954 he directed the
religious studies section of L’École Pratique des Haute Études at the Sor-
bonne. He founded a journal, Revue des Études Islamique, as well as the Insti-
tut des Études Islamiques, and became president of the Institut des Études
Iraniennes. He also spent a month each year beginning in 1933 lecturing
in Arabic on the history of philosophy at the new University of Cairo. Very
little is written about Massignon’s activities during World War II. In 1939 he
was enlisted by the Ministry of Information and was sent on missions to
the Near East, but he continued to teach at the Collège de France during the
war years. It was during that period that he worked out a theoretical under-
standing of Islam in light of his Catholic faith.
Politically, Massignon was quite involved in French diplomacy. He found-
ed, with Jean Scelles (1904–1996) and André de Peretti, the Comité Chrétien
pour l’entente France-Islam.44 He met and came under the influence of Gan-
dhi (1869–1948) in Paris in 1931, and subsequently accepted the presidency of
Les Amis de Gandhi. Also, in 1934, with Mary Kahil, he founded the Badaliya
sodality, a community of mostly Arab, but some Latin, Christians who de-
voted themselves in prayer to the welfare and salvation of Muslims as well
43. It is fair to ask why Massignon did not pursue a more Catholic or ecclesial teaching position.
In conversations with French scholars of Massignon, it has been suggested to me that his positions
were too radical for an ecclesial faculty. That is a possibility, although it seems unlikely given the tra-
ditional nature of his earliest reflections on Islam. Probably it has more to do with the freedom and
resources available at the Collège de France.
44. André de Peretti and Maurice Borrmans, Louis Massignon et le Comité Chrétien pour l’Entente
France-Islam (1947–1962) (Paris: Karthala, 2014).
Introduction 17
as Christian-Muslim friendship. This group would take on increasing signifi-

cance for Massignon in later years. Finally, it was during this time that Mas-
signon made numerous pilgrimages to Catholic and Muslim religious sites,
became a Franciscan tertiary under the name “Ibrahim,” transferred to the
Melkite rite in order to pray in Arabic, and was ordained a priest in the Mel-
kite church.
In the years following Massignon’s retirement, he actively participated
in public protests of abuses during the Algerian-French war, often to the
embarrassment of his more cautious academic friends. His retirement was
also occupied by his direction of the various institutes over which he pre-
sided, namely the Badaliya, Les Amis de Gandhi, Les Amis d’Éphèse, and
Les Amis d’Anne Catherine Emmerick. He developed a keen interest in the
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus; he visited their cave at Ephesus, researched the
locations of shrines and pilgrimage sites dedicated to the saints throughout
the world, and established a joint Christian-Muslim pilgrimage to one such
site in Brittany at Vieux-Marché, a pilgrimage that continues annually to
this day. During his later years he practiced, mostly privately, his priestly
ministry and regularly sought solitude in prayer.45 However, if one exam-
ines the breadth of his correspondence during his final period, it is hard
to imagine that he found any time for solitude. As mentioned previously,
he was also busy forming several of the next generation’s most prominent
Islamicists, and it was then that he met, taught, and enlisted Herbert Mason
to undertake the English translation of his Passion. Somewhere it is written
that Massignon said, “When we go to God, we must go exhausted.” No doubt
he accomplished his goal. He died on October 31, 1962, the eve of the Feast
of All Saints.
45. Destremau, Louis Massignon, 487.

Louis Massignon: Method
one
LOUIS MASSIGNON
Method
Louis Massignon’s method was sophisticated. He demonstrated a master-

ful command of the full apparatus of a scholar of Islam. He also insisted
on personally experimenting with the aims and techniques of his sub-
jects (especially mystical), and he was a believing and practicing Catholic,
whose commitments informed, without distorting, his understanding of
religious data. However, because of that personal investment, he has some-
times been described as a kind of religious genius whose insights, while
fascinating, proved too original, too idiosyncratic, too mystical, or even too
Catholic to remain relevant in today’s scientific climate, which demands
hyper-objectivity and positive proofs.1 In order to correct that miscon-
ception, and in preparation for examining the main lines of his religious
thought, especially in relation to Islam, it is important to attend to Massi-
gnon’s scholarly method, which was marked by four characteristics: an at-
titude of hospitality, a love of “textual truth,” an interiorist disposition, and
a bias in favor of historicity, integrity, and originality.
1. That view is best represented by the work of Jacques Waardenburg (1930–2015), a student of
Massignon, who periodically across his own career challenged his teacher for violating the professional
norms of religionswissenschaft. According to Waardenburg, in Massignon “organized Islamwissenschaft
and Religionswissenschaft as scholarly disciplines became subordinate in practice to a particular schol-
ar’s own spiritual élan. This led to unverifiable interpretations and judgments outside scholarship.” Fur-
ther: “Because of its particular way of interpreting, exaggerating or even constructing the significance
and meanings of particular Islamic data from a particular kind of religious—partly Catholic—perspec-
tive, Massignon’s work poses a real challenge for any scholarly study of Islam.” See Jacques Waarden-
burg, “Louis Massignon (1883–1962) as a Student of Islam,” Die Welt des Islams 45, no. 3 (2005): 335, 339.
In a word, “Massignon’s own interests were too original and personally motivated to permit broad aca-
demic cooperation.” His motivations were also “too Catholic.” See Waardenburg, “L’impact de l’ouvre
de Louis Massignon sur les études islamiques,” in Louis Massignon au coeur de notre temps, ed. Jacques
Keryell (Paris: Karthala, 1999), 295, 302.
18
Louis Massignon: Method 19
Hospitality
Hospitality was a central theme of Massignon’s life and work, but he never
developed a theory of hospitality as some philosophers do today.2 It was for
him a very concrete virtue. In “La signification spirituelle du dernier pèler-
inage de Gandhi,” Massignon writes: “Hospitality is the consummation of
the works of mercy,” for “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of
mine . . . ,” in reference to chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel.3 He visited pris-
ons, protected vulnerable women, and even buried the dead. For example,
in 1961 he and others attempted to retrieve from the Seine the bodies of
Algerian “suspects” shot dead by Paris police and dumped into the river.4
Examples could be multiplied. The important thing for Massignon was the
crucial reciprocal relationship between host and guest, of course the same
word in French, l’hôte. Having been accepted as a guest, especially when
vulnerable, one must act as host to the stranger in one’s midst. Hospitality is
for him basically an application of the Golden Rule.
For example, in “Le Signe Marial,” an article that has been called “the
extreme point of Massignon’s progress toward a Christian-Muslim rap-
prochement,”5 he writes: “A self-proclaimed Christian apologist once ob-
jected to me, ‘In thirty years of life in Algeria, I have never met one sincere
or honest [‘afîf] Muslim public magistrate [cadi].’ I responded to him, ‘Here
below, we only find what our heart desires. Had you searched for the good
[bien] of God in the very first cadi you met you would have obtained a word
of truth. You would have recognized it in his canonical mandate and, will-
ing or unwilling, he would have responded to you in the name of the God of
Abraham.’”6 Recall also the story of Massignon convincing the young mis-
sionary priest Basetti-Sani not to fear but to love the Qur’an, Muhammad,
and Islam. And finally, responding to the question directly, “Do you believe
[Muhammad] was sincere?,” Massignon distinguished himself from other
prominent Catholic scholars of Islam:
2. See Catherine Cornille, The im-Possibility of Interreligious Dialogue (New York: Herder and Herd-
er, 2008). Cornille catalogues recent treatments of hospitality in continental and American philoso-
phy. (See 241 n. 1.) See also Jacques Derrida, Acts of Religion, trans. Gil Andijar (New York: Routledge,
2002), 358–80. Derrida (1930–2004) compares Massignon and Lévinas on hospitality. He emphasizes
the Abrahamic aspect of hospitality in Massignon’s thought, but I think he has not sufficiently high-
lighted the evangelical/Christological influence of Matthew 25 upon Massignon.
3. Quoted in Keryell, Grâce, 26.
4. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xxxvii.
5. Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 48.
20 Louis Massignon: Method
I believe that [Muhammad] was sincere and that, as my old master Goldziher said to
me . . . “We must make of others what we would have them make of us.” The apolo-
getical skepticism, the scalpel wielded by H. Lammens in his studies on the Sîra7 is
a doubled-edged sword. Why reserve to Islam, to Muhammad, and to the Qur’an,
the base explanations by psychological or sociological fraud? The result is to cause
the Muslim apologists to translate into Arabic every pamphlet that, from Lessing to
Couchoud, has treated the Bible as a “grosse Täuschung,”8 Jesus as a mythical person,
and the Church as a consortium of priestly exploitation of the poor and the suffering.9
Hospitality warrants that one always make the best of one’s guest or host,
depending on which position one occupies. One should treat others (and
other traditions) the way one wants himself (and his tradition) to be treat-
ed. Massignon employed a strategy of hospitality not only in relation to per-
sons but also in relation to the texts, histories, and traditions he studied.
Therefore hospitality was really the first principle of his scholarly method.
First, he acted as the guest of Islam, studying its languages, people, cultures,
art, intellectual and legal traditions, and various religious and mystical in-
terpretations, and doing so as much as possible from within. Then, he acted
as host, putting what he learned in the best light possible for his Western,
mostly Christian, readers.
Love of Textual Truth

Massignon’s scholarly and linguistic prowess is almost universally ac-
claimed. He was a collector, editor, and translator of key Arabic and Per-
sian manuscripts. He shifted the course of Western studies of Sufism by
successfully arguing for its organic roots in the Qur’an and in Islamic tra-
dition, rather than in Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or Zoroastrian
influences.10 He was admired “as a scholar” and for his “linguistic genius”
by Ignaz Goldziher (1850–1921), his teacher and a pioneer of Orientalism.11
His “methodology—of authenticating, collecting, editing, and translating
sources, of establishing a lexicon of technical terms and their various his-
torical meanings, as well as identifying the people through whom these
sources and terms were transmitted through history—has been followed
7. Sîra rasul Allah, that is, biographies of the messenger of God.

8. A great deception.
9. Massignon, “Le Signe,” 213–14.
10. Benjamin Clark, introduction to Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysti-
cism, by Louis Massignon (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), xxi.
11. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xxiii.
by scores of Orientalists directly or indirectly under his tutelage.”12 Fur-

ther: “His use of this method virtually created the study of Islamic mysti-
cism as a field, and all scholars working in it recognize their indebtedness
to his penetration of its sources. His genius clearly lay in that penetration
and in his tireless pursuit of authenticating evidence.”13 Roger Arnaldez
(1911–2006) has remarked: “Of all the titles he held, as prestigious as they
were, the one he preferred was the title of president of the aggregation jury
of Arabic” at the Sorbonne.14 In that role, and as chair of Islamic sociology
at the Collège de France, he was responsible for ensuring and verifying the
linguistic-philological skills of young scholars in Arabic, Islamic studies,
and Middle Eastern studies.
Massignon’s work is not what one would call reader-friendly. It is dif-
ficult, dense, convoluted, and filled with references to unpublished manu-
scripts, historical figures, Biblical and Qur’anic passages, and current events
—references whose connections to the point at hand and to each other are
apparent to Massignon but often not to his reader, at least not immediate-
ly. Tracking down such references and noticing their place in patterns be-
comes necessary for the dedicated follower of Massignon’s lively mind. As
Herbert Mason put it: “Massignon wrote in a stream of intense and highly
learned consciousness.”15 However, despite the difficult style, the serious-
ness with which Massignon engaged texts, including their careful study,
translation, historical documentation, critical preparation, and honest pre-
sentation, is never in doubt. That is not to say he never made mistakes. He
certainly did, but his work is also “replete with corrections made . . . in re-
sponse to others’ (fully acknowledged) critical questionings of aspects of his
work.”16
To get a sense of Massignon’s careful approach, in the area of Christian-
Muslim engagement, it helps to consider an example. In the introduction to
his Examen du “Présent de L’Homme Lettré” par Abdâllah Ibn al-Torjoman, which
is Massignon’s commentary on a fifteenth-century (1423) anti-Christian po-
lemic by a former Spanish Franciscan priest (Fra Anselmo de Turmeda)
converted to Islam, Massignon devotes several pages to a criticism of the
12. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xxxviii.

13. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xxxviii–xxxix.
14. Roger Arnaldez, “La pensée et l’oeuvre de Louis Massignon, comme clés pour l’étude de la ci-
vilisation musulmane,” in Louis Massignon au coeur de notre temps, ed. Jacques Keryell (Paris: Karthala,
1999), 305.
15. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xl.
16. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xl.
translator, Jean Spiro (1847–1914), who is responsible for the French edition
of the text that Massignon had read. When Massignon checked Spiro’s ver-
sion against the original Arabic manuscript, he found that Spiro had altered
the text in significant ways. Spiro corrected the original author’s mistaken
understandings of Christian doctrine and literature without noting it. Mas-
signon accuses him of trying to make Ibn al-Torjoman’s argument more
palatable to his modern audience. For example, he planed off the rough
and vulgar language of Ibn al-Torjoman, and he even removed several in-
sults (Christians are called “impious” and “dogs” in the original) that may
offend his French Christian readers.17 Where the original Arabic text reads,
in reference to the Christian apologist, “Let us see what the rascal says,” the
French translation gives “Let us pass now to the article. . . .”18 More serious
is Spiro’s exclusion of a significant portion of a hadîth, quoted in full by Ibn
al-Torjoman, about the presumably carnal joys of Paradise, in order to spare
his modern Western readers any “shock.”19 Further, Spiro corrected Ibn
al-Torjoman’s obvious misinterpretations as well as his false citations, but
he rarely noted the changes, and for Massignon that is simply poor scholar-
ship.20 As he writes in the Passion: “[T]he duty of the historian is to criticize
the personal authority of the witness before the text of his testimony; and,
if he accepts the witness, not to mutilate his testimony to support a priori
theories.”21 Spiro failed to investigate whether Ibn al-Torjoman’s work was
dependent upon earlier polemics by Ibn Hazm (994–1064), Ibn Taymiyyah
(1263–1328), or Qadi Iyâd (1083–1149), which Massignon suspects it is—
later he identifies citations from the Gospels in which Ibn al-Torjoman re-
peated the same errors, verbatim, as those found in the text of Ibn Hazm.22
Spiro did not situate the work of Ibn al-Torjoman in the history of Muslim
apologetics,23 and then, having missed some possible authentic sources, he
argued that Ibn al-Torjoman was probably dependent on the (in)famous
Gospel of Barnabas, a claim Massignon finds incredible, because of dating
and language problems.24
17. Massignon, Examen, 2.

21. Mason, Passion 1, 294.
24. Massignon, Examen, 3. The consensus of post-Massignon scholarship suggests that in fact
the Gospel of Barnabas was of Spanish origin and was not composed until the sixteenth century.
See Jan Slomp, “The Gospel in Dispute,” Islamochristiana 4 (1977): 67–112; Mikel de Epalza, “Le milieu
In general, one could say that Spiro did not take his role as a critical
translator and editor as seriously as Massignon would have, had he trans-
lated Ibn al-Torjoman’s work. The reader is left with the question why? Mi-
nor errors are easy to forgive, but why would an editor correct the mistaken
ideas of his subject without reporting it? For example, why would Spiro
change Ibn al-Torjoman’s Muslim understanding of the Trinity as “God is
the third of three,” probably an allusion to the Trinity as Jesus, Mary, and
God the Father (Qur’an 5: 73–75), to a Christian-friendly version, “God is
in three persons,” without noting the correction?25 Why would he varnish
the vitriolic approach of his subject’s polemic without alerting the reader?
The critical editor’s job is to render a text accessible for serious study by an
educated reader. Spiro seems to have obscured the true perspective of his
subject. Why?
One possible explanation is Spiro’s incompetence, his lack of awareness
about the seriousness of the task before him, but a second explanation is
more likely. In a beautiful turn of phrase, Massignon writes that, to get it
right, a critical editor and translator must “love textual truth,” and in Mas-
signon’s opinion, Spiro’s willful misrepresentation belies that love of textual
truth.26 Here one finds linked Massignon’s dual concerns as a scholar and a
Christian. The accuracy of the text is not only important for erudite schol-
ars, it matters in the religious lives of readers, and Massignon’s distaste (dis-
gust might be more accurate) for scholars who are religious skeptics and
who “seek in order to seek, not in order to find, who compare without want-
ing to judge or to choose” could not be more plain. Massignon writes:
The translator presents himself as an impartial editor who wants to maintain a balance
between his presentation of Christianity, which is attacked, and Islam, which attacks.
He extends to these two religions the same cold courtesy, that of the skeptics who love
to label and classify on the same shelf, in the same funerary museum, what remains of
the three great forms of Semitic monotheism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The equal respect that they afford each forbids the scholar from ever practicing
either. This is often the case today in a science with no real knowledge of its subject,
a science which seeks in order to seek and not in order to find, which compares with-
out ever wanting to judge or to choose. Far from seeing the perfect form of the science
hispano-moresque del’Évangile islamisant de Barnabe,” Islamochristiana 8 (1982): 159–83; R. Stichel,

“Bemerkungen zum Barnabas-Evangelium,” Byzantinoslavica 43 (1982): 189–201; David Sox, The Gospel
of Barnabas (London: Allen and Unwin, 1984); Sidney Griffith, “The Bible and the ‘People of the Book,’”
Bulletin of the Divine Word 79/80 (2006): 22–30.
known as the history of religions in this much too extolled perspective, a perspec-
tive that forbids to one’s intelligence the possibility of ever achieving possession of
either historical or dogmatic truth and that cannot discern the sacred difference be-
tween nothingness and being, rather we must recognize in this bland and lukewarm
condition that denies the desire of the human heart for certitude and for love a last
degenerate, disabused, seemingly friendly survival of the ancient blasphemy of the
Carmathians that the Middle Ages put on the lips of Frédéric II when he supposedly
derided the “Three Impostors,” Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet.27
Supposed methodological neutrality is almost never neutral in fact.

Massignon sees in Spiro a reader sympathetic to Islam and hostile to Chris-
tianity in the line of other anti-Christian European “neutral” scholars of Is-
lam, such as John Toland (1670–1722) and Anacharsis Cloots (1755–1794).28
Thus one possible answer to the many why questions listed in the previous
paragraph is that, at worst, the translator has an anti-Christian bias, but at
best, in an attempt to honor the sacred code of neutrality in the discipline
of religious studies, Spiro distorted the presentation and sometimes the
meaning of his subject. From Massignon’s perspective, better to reveal one’s
convictions and let the accuracy of one’s translation or interpretation stand
on its own. Religious texts, especially an apology of the sort one encoun-
ters in the Examen, make truth claims; they intend to persuade and orient
the reader. Studying religious history differs in this respect from studying
chemistry or mathematics, and the task of the critical editor is to prepare
the text in such a way that the reader can make an honest judgment about
the veracity of the claims he encounters. He asks:
“For whom and for what purpose is a religious text written? Is it for the
dead or for the living? And, if it was written in order to defend a thesis, then
it appeals to the tribunal of reason. Who then is more qualified to appreci-
ate the force of its argument? The specialist who has studied it at his lei-
sure? Or the poor reader who approaches it as a kind of adventure? JS [Jean
Spiro], as a determined skeptic, refuses to appreciate the intellectual and
moral impact of the work that he translated.”29
Massignon means to reclaim care for the intellectual and moral impacts
of the apologetic upon the reader, which are directly related to the critical
accuracy of the text.
27. Massignon, Examen, 1–2.

28. Massignon, Examen, 2. Massignon notes that Spiro descends from a Portuguese Jewish family;
it is likely that he himself was not a Christian.
29. Massignon, Examen,16.
Interiorist Method
Good philology is necessary, but for Massignon it is not sufficient for the
understanding of religious or mystical texts, and that marks the third char-
acteristic of his scholarship, namely his so-called interiorist method.30 In
his Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, un-
der the heading “The Method of Interpretation,” Massignon addresses the
question of foreign influences in Islamic mysticism. His concerns are how
to detect them and how to declare something original. He concludes that
“the philological method is the only one that will permit the presentation
of serious evidence, i.e., evidence that will be able to bring the specialists
into agreement if certain rules are strictly observed.”31 A properly criti-
cal linguistic-historical study is always essential. However, in Massignon’s
opinion, it is not enough. For example, employing the philological meth-
od, many scholars concluded that Sufism was the product of extra-Islamic
sources, such as Reynolds A. Nicholson (1868–1945), whose claim that Su-
fism borrowed from Indian Hindu practices was typical. Massignon, on the
contrary, was convinced of the Islamic originality of Sufism. Although he
challenged Nicholson on technical grounds, he also argued that to under-
stand mysticism demands understanding “the reality that practicing a con-
structive method can enable [mystics] to discover.”32 One must have some
sense of what the mystic under consideration claims to have achieved.
Therefore, “the scholar [of mysticism] will not succeed as long as he only
classifies technical terms and compares the structure of the authors’ state-
ments of dogma; he must personally redo the moral experiment, reliving the
experience by putting himself, at least hypothetically, in the place of his
subjects, in order to gain a direct, axial understanding of the consequences
of their rules for living.”33
At least hypothetically—that is key. Massignon famously wrote: “Al-Hallâj
said that to comprehend something else does not mean to annex it, but
rather to be transferred, through decentralization of ourselves, into the very
center of the other thing in question. . . . We can help ourselves understand
30. The term comes from the subtitle of an interview with Louis Massignon (by Gulio Basetti-Sani),
“Le Signe Marial, la position ‘intérioriste’ de L. Massignon.” See “Le Signe,” 14.
31. Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism (Notre Dame,
Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 39.
32. Massignon, Essay, 41.
33. Massignon, Essay, 39–40; emphasis added.
only by entering into the system of the other thing.”34 Massignon never claims
somehow to have adopted the persona of a medieval Sufi, but he does claim
to have taken practical steps to increase the probability of understanding his
subject’s worldview. One way was to take up the Sufi practice of meditation
upon key terminology from the Qur’an or the Sufi tradition. Benjamin Clark
notes that “whether he was reading Arabic or writing French, Massignon kept
in mind the istinbât of difficult words, the ‘chewing’ and ‘swallowing’ that the
mystics practiced in order to assimilate Qur’ânic terms into their lives,”35 and
his footnote reads: “The word istinbât means literally ‘finding the source of
running water.’ Nicholson translates it, in a manner typically divergent from
Massignon’s, as ‘intuitive deduction.’”36 It is emphatically not intuitive deduc-
tion in which either Massignon or his Sufi subjects were engaged. Finding the
source of running water implies investigation, experimentation, trial and error.
One is on a search for a fuller, improved, and corrected understanding of the
reality to which the author or the terms refer.
Another way Massignon entered the system of his subjects was to read
texts at as many levels as were available. In “Soyons des sémites spirituels,”
Massignon argues that Semitic languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic
in particular—have the “unique privilege of having been elected to receive
the revelation of the transcendent God of Abraham, not the philosophy of a
deity.”37 The theological claim notwithstanding for the moment, the prob-
lem is that European exegetes often fail to grasp the Semitic sensibility of
the scriptures. Too often they turn to Greek and Latin literary and philo-
sophical references rather than to other Semitic examples for interpreting
difficult passages. He acknowledges that “it would be much more practical”
for the European exegete, who, because of his lack of comprehension, usu-
ally settles on the plain sense of Semitic words in his translations, “if each
word had only one immediate, obvious, material sense, and if this word,
once used dialectically, could be erased from our memory like a balance
sheet wiped clean at the end of the year.”38 Unfortunately, such is not the
34. Quoted in Giulio Basetti-Sani, Louis Massignon: Christian Ecumenist, trans. Allan Cutler (Chi-
cago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1974), 148.
35. Clark, introduction to Essay on the Origins, xxiii.
36. Clark, introduction to Essay on the Origins, xxiii n. 6.
37. Massignon, “Soyons des Sémites spirituels,” in EM 1, 41. The title of the article is apparently an
allusion to a 1938 address of Pope Pius XI to a group of Belgian journalists, in which the Holy Father
concludes: “Spiritually we are Semites.” See Johannes Willebrands, Church and Jewish People: New Con-
siderations (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1992), 60.
38. Massignon, “Soyons,” 42.
case, so he recommends that scholars employ the four classic senses of

Catholic tradition for interpreting scripture, namely “the material (or liter-
al) sense, the symbolic [allegorical] and moral senses, the spiritual (or ana-
gogical) sense,” none of which excludes the others.39
That is precisely how Massignon opens HI (following the Preliminary
Note). After indicating that the Hebrew name Hagar comes from “a root
identical to the Arabic ‘hégire’” and means “desertion, expatriation,” Mas-
signon interprets Genesis 21:14 according to the four classical senses.40 Ac-
cording to the literal sense, the Code of Hammurabi 146–147, which specifies
the conditions for dismissal in the event that a man produces a child via his
wife’s maidservant, the scene is justified. There is no need to seek an expla-
nation in previous mythologies; this is not a doublet of the Isaac story, nor
is it Jewish anti-Arab slander. It was a live issue in ancient Semitic cultures.
According to the allegorical sense, Hagar represents carnal nature and the
active life, while Sarah represents the soul and perfection of the contempla-
tive life. According to the tropological (moral) sense, Hagar represents the
synagogue while Sarah represents the Church. Finally, according to the ana-
gogical sense, Hagar is Eve exiled from paradise or Mary fleeing into Egypt,
while Sarah is Mary standing under the cross; Hagar is limbo while Mary is
paradise.41 All the senses are legitimate and operative, according to Massi-
gnon. If he emphasized the allegorical and anagogical, then it was to correct
an impoverished reading of religious texts and persons current in his day.42
His multileveled reading of the Qur’an is atypical in modern academic
circles. He writes in the Passion: “Many Europeans, failing to make suffi-
cient use of the Qur’an, have studied Muslim thinkers only ‘from outside,’
without entering into the heart of Islam itself. Unable really to become the
guests of this still living Community whose members have ‘desired to live
together’ for thirteen hundred years, they could grasp neither the radiant
structure nor the central interdependence of the lives that their patient eru-
dition dissected.”43 Not to understand the Qur’an from within through em-
ployment of the various senses of reading is to put one’s study of Islam on
very shaky footing. Massignon precises:

40. HI, 61–62.
41. HI, 62.
42. Sidney Griffith notes the difficulty of Massignon’s patristic-allegorical reading of texts: “Mas-
signon expresses [himself] in Christian language that is so archaic as to be almost unintelligible to
moderns.” Griffith, “Sharing,” 204.
43. Massignon, Passion, 3, 3.
One cannot overemphasize . . . the central position that the Qur’an holds in the elabo-
ration of any Muslim doctrine, even of the most seemingly heterodox one. Memo-
rized by heart in childhood, the Qur’an is a real and revealed “world plan” regulating
the experimentation, interpretation, and evaluation of every event. It is a memoran-
dum for all the faithful, a complete reminder for everyday life, a verbal repository,
“the dictionary of the poor.” Much of it is also an enchiridion, a manual of definitions
and guarantees, continually applicable and providing a basis for reflection. Lastly, it is
for some a vade mecum for the will, a collection of maxims of practical action to medi-
tate on by oneself, focusing attention on the unceasing proofs of divine glory.
The Qur’an thus simplifies the problem of method for the faithful. This revealed
code nourishes memory and inspires action without causing thought to waver for
long between the two.44
Read literally, the Qur’an is a memorandum. Read morally, the Qur’an is an

enchiridion. Read anagogically, the Qur’an is a vade mecum. One presumes
that in his experimentation, Massignon undertook all three readings, but
that is precisely what most Orientalists fail to do. Echoing the statement just
quoted, he writes:
Europeans unfamiliar with Semitic concision, with the brief lightning flashes of the
Psalms for example, communally suppose that the Qur’an has no mystical tendencies;
in other words, that there are no passages meant to be taken in an anagogic (muttala‘)
sense. But many allegorical passages, contained in various sûras both Meccan and
Medinese, will be perceived, if we reflect even a little attentively (a fortiori if a believer
meditates), to be more than simple anecdotes offered to the imagination, verifiable
definitions presented to the intelligence, or legal and moral injunctions against our
desires. Such verses (âyât) are condensed but expressive parables containing an ‘ibra,
an “admonition.” One must consent to accept them before they will be understood; as
a result, their vehemence proves repellent to the haughty and pharisaic minds of the
fuqahâ. Purely legal commentators, in general, also neglect them.45
One must consent to accept them, that is, the Qur’anic verses, before they will be
understood. One cannot help but recall the Augustinian-Anselmian credo ut in-
telligam, whereby the Christian mysteries in themselves are super-intelligible,
so that only by entering into those mysteries through faith and belief does
one have the chance, the proper disposition, the inclination necessary for
improved understanding. An intelligent outsider could certainly follow the
logic of particular Christological or Trinitarian arguments, but he would
miss something. He would miss the sensus plenior, the why of doctrines that
44. Massignon, Passion, 3, 4.

is integral to the what of doctrines; he would miss the insights that make the
teaching more fully intelligible. Massignon is saying that the same is true, at
least functionally, for Islamic exegesis, theology, and spiritual practice. The
footnotes in this section of the Essay point mainly to Hasan Basri (642–728)
and Hallâj, but it is evident that Massignon’s understanding of the ascetical
dimension of the Qur’an results not only from a “recollection of the words
and a sound perception of their meanings,” but also from putting the direc-
tives into practice. In the Passion, he writes:
The attentive reader of the Qur’an rediscovers in it similar rudiments of the Jewish
and Christian notions of asceticism. In order for the divine wisdom, which is grasped
intelligibly in the heart, to make a man its interpreter, dwell within him, and be able
to be expressed without distortion by the tongue, he must fast, keep watch, and pray.
He must fast first in order to speak ever after, not from the fullness of the belly, but
from the fullness of the heart. Our mouth, through which food enters and words go
out, is sincere only if we have gained control of its appetites through fasting. What
God brings the heart to understand and what the human tongue utters can be identi-
cal only if the appetite of the flesh is completely subdued. In fact, to utter the Divine
Word correctly, one must have not only an accurate recollection of the words and a
sound perception of their meanings, but also a sober and real control of one’s limbs
by one’s will: an ascetical discipline which, by training the body, succeeds in keeping
the heart and its impulses under control.46
That is why the word experimentation is so important for Massignon. In

order to verify something, one must test it. In order to say that the Qur’an is
inspired, one has to test it. One must pray with it, meditate on it, practice it,
and pay attention to the results. But in order for the desired results even to
be possible, one must prepare through fasting and ascetical-spiritual disci-
pline. In the Examen, it is clear that his concern applies to studies of Chris-
tianity as much as to studies of Islam: “We must not attribute to the [early]
Christians the comical illusion of certain modern historians of religion who
presume to be able to ‘understand’ Christianity by curiously comparing in
their offices collections of texts revised by the paleographers and indexed
by the lexicographers without entering into it themselves, without clean-
ing up their lives or examining their consciences, without conforming their
behavior to the examples and precepts of holiness traditionally proposed
by this religion that they seek to know.”47 For Massignon, much more than
reading is required of the scholar of religion in general and mysticism in
46. Massignon, Passion 3, 30.

particular. To increase understanding, one must clean up one’s life, examine

one’s conscience, and actively seek out holiness.
Religious Originality
Of course many academics would be skeptical regarding Massignon’s interi-
orist method of scholarship. For example, Jacques Waardenburg wrote:
If it is true, that a researcher to a large extent must “imitate” a leading intention of the
object in order to understand it, it is equally true, that too advanced an imitation on
his side would make not only a judgment in the normal sense of the word, but also
all comparison impossible. According to this method, actually, everything which is
understood becomes more or less “original” or at least unique. And so there is a risk
of faulty conclusions precisely with regard to the originality or the original elements
of a work, admitting thereby that this originality cannot be known “objectively” apart
from the researcher.48
A few replies are in order. First, Massignon never argued that either the
plain sense of a text or the philological method of study is in and of itself
ineffectual. To the contrary, each is necessary, as was indicated in the afore-
mentioned quote. Where he does challenge the received wisdom of much
of academia is in his insistence that the likelihood of understanding im-
proves through imitation, to use Waardenburg’s term, or experimentation, to
use Massignon’s. Second, it is not correct to say that Massignon thought of
religious experience, or response to it, as always and everywhere sui generis.
He often referred to common modes of response and common formulations
of religious experience, drawn from a common pool of symbols and leg-
ends. And though he seems not to have endorsed completely Jung’s notion
of the collective unconscious, Massignon did often cite Jung’s work on ar-
chetypes. For example, he wrote: “There is a number, probably a fixed and
limited number—archetypal, Jung would say—to which we can reduce the
mass of themes in the universe as they might be catalogued by such folk-
lorists as Aarne-Thompson.”49 And he described legend as “an immediate
projection of [an] event in the world of symbols.”50 In other words, Massi-
gnon expected that religious experience must be expressed through a set of
words, images, and symbols common to a particular culture or sometimes
48. Jacques Waardenburg, “Louis Massignon’s study of religion and Islam: An essay à propos of
his Opera Minora,” Oriens 21–22 (1968–69): 144.
49. Massignon, “The Notion of ‘Real Elite’ in Sociology and in History” in Testimonies, 62.
50. Massignon, “The Transfer of Suffering through Compassion,” in Testimonies, 156.
across cultures, and that when similar images were chosen by diverse per-
sons, there may exist shared experience, at least partially. Therefore, he was
fully aware of the scholar’s need to classify and compare. What he guarded
against was a reduction of the mystic subject to the terms, images, and sym-
bols by which she expressed her relationship with God. He guarded even
more carefully against the temptation of the scholar to think that by clas-
sifying and comparing, he therefore comprehended, in the sense of fully un-
derstood, the mystic’s relationship with God.
That said, when presented with questions of cultural or religious bor-
rowing, it is accurate to say that Massignon tended to err on the side of
originality. As one will see in the pages that follow, Massignon understood
Islam to be an original witness to the transcendent One, not merely a de-
rivative of Judaism and Christianity. He understood Semitic languages in
general and Arabic in particular to bear an original capacity to communi-
cate divine commands. Sufism was an original and organic development
within Islam; Hallâj’s realizations, while dependent upon the experience of
previous Sufis, went further and were therefore original. In a certain sense,
for Massignon every relationship with God is original, but only when that
relationship is authentic. When the spiritually purified subject responds to
God’s instigation in and through the point vierge, the inviolate center of her
soul, then she is in fact an original actor. The difficulty, of course, is in de-
termining when a subject is acting authentically. That is where experimen-
tation on the part of the scholar is an aid. The scholar comes to recognize
movements, obstacles, limits, and the transcendence of limits in her own
soul; those characteristics then become resources for understanding some
subject’s description of religious life.
Massignon’s confidence in originality led to some interesting conclu-
sions. For example, in the Preliminary Note to Les trois prières d’Abraham
he states: “Before those who no longer believe, I confess that I accept in
their simplicity chapters 16–22 of Genesis that transmit to us, in the frame
of Abraham’s life, a memorial of these three astonishing prayers; like a poor
but glorious human sunken treasure [épave], preserved by the same grace
that not only inspired their very outline but also provoked their subsequent
redaction, despite the perils during the long history of their transmission,
until they finally reached us, without the incurred risks having undermined
the divinely precious intelligibility that was conserved for us intact.”51
51. Massignon, “Note Liminaire,” in Les trois prières, 23.

Whereas many scripture scholars in Massignon’s generation and today

would question the historicity of Abraham, he was convinced of it. That is
not to say he was naïve about the transmission of the text. As the quota-
tion admits, he was well aware that the original story underwent a series
of redactions, but he was convinced that the historical core of the events
was faithfully, even divinely, preserved and transmitted. The most impor-
tant aspect, for Massignon, of those chapters in Genesis—and the most orig-
inal aspect of his interpretation—is the portrayal of Abraham’s life as one
of spiritual development: “It is the first example of a history of the steps of
grace actualized in a soul; a life, evangelically holy; it is the assumption, de-
gree by degree, until reaching friendship with God, of a soul transfigured by
eternal love—a soul whose paternal power of intercession, experienced by
my unworthy self, continues to attest of itself in our days, and more widely
than ever.”52 There is a neat parallel between the life of the Abraham cycle
of stories and the spiritual development of Abraham himself. As Massi-
gnon notes, “grace acts gradually.”53 The Holy Spirit works in and through
the very process by which the life of Abraham has been communicated
throughout the ages, sanctifying the souls of those engaged in the process of
hearing, understanding, appropriating, and transmitting Abraham’s story
along the way.54 Notice that part of the evidence for Massignon’s conviction
about Abraham’s historicity is his own unworthy experience of the power of
intercession, which Genesis first associates with Abraham. Massignon also
argued for the historicity of lesser known personalities in Islam and Christi-
anity, such as Salmân Pâk and the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.55
On a wider scale, he was forever unsatisfied by “internal criticism”
that disassembled biblical texts for the sole purpose of disassembling bib-
lical texts. Instead, he emphasized the unity of the Bible: “Understanding
the Bible . . . is a matter of climbing up to the most pure unity of the design
that inspired it, to the Person, the Judge, who is announced therein, who is
there, and whom we await.”56 He acknowledged the various puzzles pre-

55. “Salmân Pak and the Spiritual Beginnings of Iranian Islam,” in Testimonies, 93–110; “Le culte
liturgique et populaire des VII dormants martyrs d’Ephese (ahl al-kahf): Trait d’union orient-occident
entre l’Islam et la Chrétienté,” in vol. 3 of Opera Minora, ed. Youakim Moubarac (Beirut: Dar al-Maaref,
1963), 119–80; “Éphèse et son importance religieuse pour la Chrétienté et pour l’Islam,” in EM 1, 298–
321; “Les ‘Sept Dormants’ apocalypse de l’Islam,” in EM 1, 321–35.
56. Massignon, “Soyons,” 45. In this section, Massignon refers to Arthur Henry Finn, The Unity of
the Pentateuch: An Examination of the Higher Critical Theory as to the Composite Nature of the Pentateuch
sented by the text without conceding that they undermined the historicity
of the central events. For example, the doublets one encounters may indi-
cate a mnemonic device developed over the centuries toward better trans-
mission of the stories. As for the early appearance of the Tetragrammaton, if
an image of the Trinity (the three angels who greet Abraham in Genesis 18)
mysteriously appears in the Old Testament, then, he asks, why cannot the
divine name of the LORD do likewise before Moses and the burning bush?57
Whether or not one accepts these as plausible explanations, it is important
to note Massignon’s main concern, which is that internal criticism tends to
“enslave itself to this or that fashionable explanation,” whether it be Marxist
economic theory, Freudian complexes, the racial or astral theories of Renan,
genealogical reductions according to Durkheim, or folkloric roots according
to Frazer.58 All of these are “false keys” if in fact “the text under consider-
ation carries the mark of an original and personal experience, as is the case
with prayer or dialogue with God.”59 A correct interpretation demands that
the interpreter have some familiarity with the aim of the text, and familiar-
ity in this case demands experimentation with the subject studied. For exam-
ple, the chance for insight into the life of Abraham increases when one wel-
comes the stranger, willingly sacrifices out of love for God, etc. This is true of
biblical stories in general. Without entering into it, how will critics ever un-
derstand that “the Holy Book brings a message from God, ‘good news’ from
the beyond, that it confides to us a secret of eternal life and is to be received
with respect and love? At least, that is how Pascal, anticipating [Charles de]
Foucauld . . . treated Holy Scripture, and they were holy [saints].”60
The preceding paragraphs also roughly summarize Massignon’s retort
to the common Islamic claim that textual divergences among the canoni-
cal Gospels undermine the reliability of the accounts therein. According to
Massignon, it is important first to note that the divergences were compiled
(London: Marshall Brothers, 1928). Finn questions the self-assured conclusions of higher criticism re-
garding the composite nature of the Pentateuch. On page 5, the last lines of Finn’s introduction must
have delighted Massignon. They are reminiscent of his own criticism of the supposed “neutrality” of
Jean Spiro, translator of the Examen. Finn writes: “The critics assert that the evidence they adduce is so
clear and so weighty that no candid and reasonable enquirer can fail to be satisfied that their conclu-
sion is the only possible one. Is this assertion really justified? Those of the critical school are prone to
suggest that their opponents are prejudiced, while they stand for impartial enquiry, and the honest
recognition of the facts. To the facts, then, let us go.”
59. Massignon, “Note Liminaire,” in Les trois prières, 26–27.
60. Massignon, “Soyons,” 44–45.
and studied by Christian scholars (e.g., St. Justin, Tatian, Origen, St. Augus-
tine) long before the advent of Islam, and the Church managed to persevere
in faith because it was judged that “neither faith nor morals” was affected
by the particular differences.61 Second, and more telling of Massignon’s in-
teriorist reading, to see textual divergences as discrediting the Church is to
miss the essential thing about how the Church came to be in the first place,
that is by personal witness: “If they believed in Christ, it is because they
were overwhelmed by the sincerity of an ensemble of living witnesses, di-
rect disciples of the Apostles of Christ, united by a common creed of faith,
by a common cult, and in a common love.”62 The early Christians were
attracted primarily not by the accuracy of manuscripts or the impressive
style of some “life of Christ,” but by the apostolic tradition, by the rule of life
of churches in communion with the Apostles, by a witness and tradition
maintained despite persecution.63
Massignon’s Work as Theological

Massignon was never trained as a theologian, and at times he appears un-
easy with the technical vocabulary and methodology of theology, especially
with the Neo-Scholasticism of his day.64 For example, in the Examen, he
defends several key Christian doctrines, including the Incarnation and the
Trinity, but his explanations of those doctrines probably would not satisfy
a theologian trained in scholastic methodology, as were Massignon’s con-
temporaries. (I provide an example in the following discussion.) However,
Massignon was clearly asking and answering theological questions. For ex-
ample, referring to the possibility of rendering a judgment regarding the
mystical vocation of a given subject, Massignon himself argues for an in-
terdependency between historian and theologian when he writes that “only
the historian, with his proper methods, can establish” the acts and thoughts
of his subject, while the theologian “must confront the two series of doc-

64. However, as Benjamin Clark observes, “Massignon’s refusal to use [the terms dogme and
doctrine] in a pejorative sense challenges a prejudice held as much among scholars of mysticism as
in Republican France and modern Protestant countries.” Clark, introduction to Essay on the Origins,
xxiv. Harpigny, Rocalve, Borrmans, and Griffith all argue that Massignon was not a theologian. See
Harpigny, Islam et Christianisme, 228; Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 92; Griffith, “Sharing,” 205; Maurice
Borrmans, “Aspects théologiques de la pensée de Louis Massignon sur l’Islam,” in Louis Massignon et le
dialogue des cultures, ed. Daniel Massignon (Paris: Cerf, 1996), 111.
uments prepared by the historian; the one of actions and examples with
the rules of moral theology regarding the discernment of spirits; the one
of communicated thoughts with the . . . necessary dogmatic data.”65 It is as
if the historian of religion passes off the results of his investigation to the
theologian to address the further questions. Obviously things rarely work
out so neatly in practice, and Massignon performed both roles at different
places within his body of scholarship. There are sections in his books and
articles, often in a concluding reflection, and there are whole texts as well,
in which Massignon quite deliberately puts on a theologian’s cap, reflects
on reality, deliberates about value, and confronts the historical with the
necessary dogmatic data. That is the point of Maurice Borrman’s comment
that there are at least five major texts and a thousand passing comments
throughout the rest of Massignon’s corpus in which his work is explicitly
theological.66 Perhaps the best way to put it is that Massignon’s study of Is-
lam, or anything else for that matter, was pursued as a Christian.67
In that sense, the confessional nature of at least parts of Massignon’s
work anticipates what has come to be called comparative theology.68 The
development in Massignon’s approach to Islam is therefore at least partly
attributable to a process that Francis Clooney argues is universal for inter-
religious understanding: “Theologians cognizant of theology’s interreligious
and comparative dimensions learn to stop judging other religions from afar
based simply on their understandings of their own traditions; instead they
learn to write in a way that speaks and responds to people in other tradi-
tions as well. They also become accustomed to conversing with their peers
65. Massignon, “L’expérience mystique et les modes de stylisation littéraire,” in EM 2, 300.

66. Borrmans, “Aspects,” 113. Describing the complications of the previous discussion in differ-
ent terms, Pierre Rocalve distinguishes Massignon’s “approach,” which he calls “religious,” from Mas-
signon’s “method,” which he deems “scientific.” Louis Massignon, 57.
67. On the relationship between religious studies and theology, I am indebted to John Dadosky’s
reading of Bernard Lonergan on the matter. See John Dadosky, The Structure of Religious Knowing: En-
countering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004), 33–39. It should be noted that
for Waardenburg, Massignon’s theological assertions do not spoil all of his scholarly work: “It must
be said, however, that such exaggerations remained within the limits of the admissible in the case of
Hallâj, for whom the scholar showed a religious if not devotional respect.” Waardenburg, “Louis Mas-
signon’s study,” 145.
68. According to Francis Clooney, “Only when an interreligious theological conversation is actu-
ally taking place can there be progress in drawing conclusions from it and about it, either to reaffirm
or revise established theological positions”; therefore Clooney’s work, and I would argue Massignon’s,
is “Christian theology, provided one understands that the confessional overtones of such a claim must
at every stage be properly specified within the frame of an interreligious, comparative, and dialogical
theological conversation.” Francis X. Clooney, Hindu God, Christian God: How Reason Helps Break Down
the Boundaries between Religions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 28.
in those other traditions about theological issues of shared concern. Theolo-

gians are thereafter doubly accountable.”69 That last comment echoes what
Roger Arnaldez has said that he learned from his teacher Louis Massignon:
“A true Christian is the one who recognizes that the non-Christians, in gen-
eral, have a claim upon him.”70
Christian Commitments
Louis Massignon adamantly opposed any notion of pluralism that denied
religious differences. In an address to the World Congress of Faiths in 1936,
he wrote: “I feel that union of all creeds is not to be reached through lev-
eling all the dogmas to the lowest common level of natural religious feel-
ing, nor by a mere table of transpositions. Dogmas must, on the contrary, be
tested, develop their full distinct features, sprout till of full height, so as to
be judged on their fruits from this low humble common level by the ordi-
nary man.”71 Through his creative reference to Jesus’s parable of the wheat
and the weeds (Matt. 13:24–30), Massignon encourages an examination of
religious dogmas in their peculiarity. Common and ordinary human be-
ings are in no position preemptively either to reduce all observed doctri-
nal difference to manifestations of a universal religious feeling or to claim
similarity between doctrinal claims on the basis of superficial comparison.
The dogmas must be tested; their fruits must be analyzed, but that demands
patience. Massignon’s own religious commitments were, on one level, un-
ambiguously and even conventionally Christian. He believed in the Triune
God, the divinity of Jesus and his redemption of humanity, the efficacy of
the sacraments, and the necessity of the Church for the salvation of souls,
and he accepted the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church as an au-
thentic mediation of apostolic succession and teaching. He defended those
beliefs where relevant to do so, and he did not shy away from explaining
them, even if, as mentioned previously, the technical formulation of his ex-
planations was sometimes unconventional.
69. Clooney, Hindu God, 10.

70. Roger Arnaldez, “Abrahamisme, Islam et Christianisme chez L. Massignon,” in Louis Massi-
gnon, ed. Jean-François Six (Paris: Éditions L’Herne, 1970), 125.
71. Massignon, “Tu vertex et apex,” in vol. 3 of Opera Minora, ed. Youakim Moubarac (Beirut: Dar
al-Maaref, 1963), 788–89.
Trinity
An example of one such defense is instructive. In the Examen, Massignon’s
Muslim interlocutor argues that positing a plurality of persons in God and
insisting on the identity of Jesus with one of those persons violates God’s
simplicity and incurs guilt of the primary sin in Islam, shirk, association of
partners to God. He is simply repeating a standard and Qur’anically based
Muslim critique of Christian belief in the Trinity. In response, Massignon
first establishes that the logical impossibility of there being three persons
in the one essence of God has never been demonstrated.72 He continues:
“In fact, the unity of the person is not necessarily correlative to the unity
of substance, since in one human person, we admit that there are two sub-
stances, soul and body.”73 The terms of the analogy appear reversed (as the
editor of the text observes in a footnote). In the Trinity there is a plural-
ity of persons in one divine essence (this is already complicated by the fact
that person and substance translate the same word, hypostasis/substantia).
The distinction is between divine persons, but Massignon makes his point
via reference to a distinction within the one human person. The analogy is
further complicated by the fact that the scholastics speak of the relationship
between soul and body as one of form and matter, and they speak of that
body-soul composite as comprising a unity of substance. Massignon, how-
ever, speaks of body and soul as two substances. He proceeds to imagine a
continuum of the degree to which different things decompose. “Masses” or
“material bodies” are the most decomposable, “forces” are somewhere in the
middle, and “spiritual substances” are the least decomposable. His example
of a spiritual substance is the human soul, which “remains simple” even
as the body that it animated “decomposes into atoms.” Finally, he returns
directly to his defense of God’s simultaneous oneness and threeness. He ar-
gues that if the simplicity of the soul is not violated by the decomposition of
the body, a fortiori the divine simplicity is not violated by positing a distinc-
tion of persons: “IT thinks that Christians confuse ontological unity, which
is pure simplicity, with arithmetic unity, which can be resolved into frac-
72. Charles Hefling, in a very different context, said much the same thing, though more color-
fully: “If the very notion of trinity-in-unity were unthinkable, like the concept of circular squareness,
Christianity’s doctrine of God would be like the six impossible things that the White Queen in Alice [in
Wonderland] claimed she could believe before breakfast.” Charles Hefling, Why Doctrines? (Cambridge,
Mass.: Cowley, 1984), 178.
tions; but this is an unjustified presupposition.”74 His point is clear, namely

that Christian theologians are not naïve realists when it comes to the Trin-
ity. Distinction is not the same as separation, and as he indicates elsewhere,
the divine simplicity is not violated either by creation or by the assumption
of a human nature, which are acts ad extra. However, his explanation in-
vites further questions, which are left unresolved. For example, is the un-
created divine substance on a continuum with other created substances? Is
decomposition of the body really analogous to the distinction of divine per-
sons in the Trinity? Still, while he was more interested in living rather than
explaining the Trinity, his grappling with the traditional formulae nonethe-
less underscores his commitment to God as Trinity.
Christ
Massignon was equally vigorous, and traditional, in his defense of a Chalce-
donian understanding of Christ. In the Examen, Ibn al-Torjoman cites Gos-
pel verses in which Jesus eats and drinks (Matt. 11:19), admits ignorance of
“the Hour” (Matt. 24:36), and prays to the Father (Matt. 26:36–45) in order
to demonstrate that Jesus himself neither claimed divine identity nor be-
haved in such a way that would indicate he was anything other than hu-
man. Massignon responds by accumulating scriptural references to the
divinity of Jesus, emphasizing those accounts in which Jesus “teaches not
by a received investiture, but from authority,” because he is aware of the
Islamic insistence that a prophet teaches or performs miracles only by the
permission of God. He continues: “[Jesus] speaks in his own name, baptizes,
forgives sins, cures, and exorcises demons in his own name.”75 Then, citing
the case of John’s Gospel, in which he argues that Jesus is presented most
clearly as both human and divine, he turns the tables on his interlocutor,
asking why Ibn al-Torjoman cannot hold Jesus’s humanity and divinity in
tension when the Evangelist clearly does so. He answers: “It is because, like
[Ernst] Renan [1823–1892], IT has an a priori principle that forces him to dis-
cern in the Gospels two distinct but intermingled witnesses, one acceptable,
the other to be rejected because of its contradiction of the first.”76 For Renan,
the a priori principle is the impossibility of miracles; for Ibn al-Torjoman,

76. Massignon, Examen, 21. See also his comments on Renan in Passion 1, 154.
however, the principle is that creator and creature are contrary terms.77 The
absolute transcendence of God forbids a priori the possibility of union with
the creature.78 Therefore, as in the case of Renan, where miracles like the
raising of Lazarus must have been staged affairs aimed at winning acclaim
for Jesus, in the case of Ibn al-Torjoman and like-minded Muslims, the
Christian scriptures must have been intentionally falsified by overly zeal-
ous disciples.79
Massignon, representing the Catholic position, argues for a different way
of reading the Gospels, one that first accepts the Word of God as true and
subsequently seeks to understand the true teachings therein, in this case
the affirmation that Christ is both divine and human. Roughly put, Massi-
gnon follows the conciliar tradition, a process by which questions for judg-
ment and questions for understanding have been asked and answered in an
ecclesial context.80 Massignon indicates as much when he asks the follow-
ing question: “Why does IT not accept completely the Christ of the Gospels,
such as he was historically, such as he is described, such as he left himself
to his Church in the hypostatic union of his divinity and his humanity?”81
The Christ of the Gospels is the Christ of the Council of Chalcedon, which
proclaimed the hypostatic union of human and divine natures in Jesus’s
divine personhood. Massignon even attempts to explain the teaching ac-
cording to the rules of the communication of properties (communicatio idi-
omatum), which he posits negatively, referring to the “non-communication
of properties” in response to Ibn al-Torjoman’s subordinationist interpreta-
tion of Matthew 24:36, where Jesus states: “But of that day and hour no one
knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”82 It
is worth quoting Massignon’s response in full:
77. See Ernst Renan, The Life of Jesus (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1991); Mark Allan Powell, Jesus
as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster
John Knox Press, 1998), 15.
78. For Hallâj the terms “creator” and “creature” are not in fact contrary; for John of the Cross, a
Christian mystic, they are, but that does not prevent the possibility of union. See Passion 3, 48; John of
the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, in The Collected Works of John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh
and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1979), 1.4.
79. Martin Accad, “Corruption and/or Misinterpretation of the Bible: The Story of the Islamic us-
age of tahrîf,” Theological Review 24, no. 2 (2003): 67–97.
80. See Bernard Lonergan, The Way to Nicea: The Dialectical Development of Trinitarian Theology,
trans. Conn O’Donovan (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1976), 1–17.
82. Interestingly, as Massignon points out, in the Qur’an, where the Hour is often connected to his
second coming, Jesus has knowledge of the Hour: “And lo! verily there is knowledge of the Hour. So
doubt ye not concerning it, but follow Me. This is the right path” (43:61; the verses before and after this
One of the rules of the “non-communication of properties” is that what is said of God
exclusively cannot be said of Jesus. Now, it is by divine and incommunicable knowledge
that Jesus knows the Hour of judgment. For he is the Son, perfectly obedient to his
Father, made man in order to save men; before judging them all at the solemn hour of
his second coming, he must save them; also he exhorts them to pray without ceasing
for their own hour, which will precede the terrible day. In order to save them, he finds
the means of “remaining in agony” with them “until the end of the world” in the Eu-
charist, for the way to save them is not to make sure they know the Hour but to teach
them to acknowledge It and to believe in Him. Having been made, by filial obedience,
one of us, Jesus renounced, by this very fact, “knowing the Hour.” [L. M.’s note reads,
“It is therefore not a matter of mental restriction.”]83
Although his explanation of the communicatio idiomatum is a bit peculiar,

it is not totally off the mark.84 And in the ensuing sentences, in which there
is a more pastoral emphasis—that is, Jesus came not to reveal the Hour but
to save humans through love and conversion—Massignon articulates a gen-
uine sensitivity to the unique mission of Jesus. Knowledge of the Hour is in-
communicable not because Jesus does not know it—as the second person of
the Trinity, he most certainly does—but because in becoming man, the Son
took on human nature with all of its limitations, including a finite capacity
to explain what He knows divinely, perfectly, and infinitely. His emphasis
on the Son’s willing renunciation of knowing the hour (placed in quotation
marks in the original, presumably in order to lend nuance to the phrase),
his footnote suggesting that Jesus’s inability to communicate his knowledge
of the Hour was not due to a defective intellect, but to the limits of a finite
human intellect entailed by the divine person’s becoming true man, and his
emphasis on salvation as the raison d’être of Christ’s mission, are converging
attempts to explain the reality of the hypostatic union in Christ. As he writes
in the Examen (in Pauline idiom), “In the fullness of time, Jesus was born;
being, by the hypostatic union, the Son of God, the least of his sufferings was
an adequate reparation for the ancient sin. But his Passion effected super-
abundantly satisfaction, through an excess of love for all.”85
one concern the mission of Jesus to the “Children of Israel” by whom He was rejected). Massignon’s
note reads, “Notons que le Qoran (XLIII, 61) soutient le contraire ‘Certes il (= Jésus) connaît l’Heure,’” Exa-
men, 22 n. 18.
84. Instead of writing that “what is said of God exclusively cannot be said of Jesus,” he might have
explained that in the one divine person of Christ, there are two natures, human and divine, such that
to the divine person of Christ may be attributed the concrete properties of either of the two natures,
even though the concrete properties exclusive to either nature individually are not interchangeable.
Church
Sacraments are, for Massignon, means to “sanctify through virtue.”86 He
most frequently refers to the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist, and I
devote some attention later to his thoughts on the former, specifically to the
question of baptizing Muslim converts. Here I only mention his conviction
about the efficacy of the sacraments. Particularly clear is his belief in the
real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In the long quotation mentioned
previously, Eucharist bodily extends Christ’s offer of redemption in history.
Elsewhere, Eucharist is nothing less than the means of union with God. He
writes: “In the Eucharist, the qualities of the species of bread and wine, cre-
ated and perishable, disappear by the assimilation of these accidents. This
sign, which maintains the distinction between the substances, consecrates
the union between Creator and creation. The form of the promise [i.e., ac-
cidents of bread and wine] is reduced to appearance while the substance is
actually divine. If the body naturally assimilates the material appearance,
why would the soul refuse the spiritual gift of God?”87
The Church was for Massignon not simply a dispensary of sacraments,
however, but also a living and authoritative teacher. Massignon is supposed
to have said, “There is no life of grace in the Church without obedience to
the hierarchy.”88 I mentioned in the Introduction his audiences with three
popes, Pius XI, Pius XII, and John XXIII, his friendship with a soon-to-be
fourth pope, Paul VI, and his friendship with Pierre-Kemal Medawar, aux-
iliary to Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV. Massignon collaborated regularly
with bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and Catholic priests of influence,
and he sought hierarchical approval for his various projects, including his
founding of the Badaliya sodality, his encouragement of Muslim-Christian
86. HI, 98.

87. Massignon, Examen, 66 n. 1. The Eucharist joins a spiritual, divine, and imperishable sub-
stance to the created and perishable accidents of bread and wine. Therefore the relationship between
perishable and imperishable realities seems better suited as an analogy for the relationship between
the human and divine natures in Christ (communicated in the Eucharist) than it does as an analogy
for the relationship among divine persons in the Trinity.
88. Quoted in Louis Gardet: “A propos du sacerdoce de Louis Massignon,” in Presence de Louis
Massignon: Hommages et témoignages, ed. Daniel Massignon (Paris: Éditions Maisonneuve et Larose,
1987), 195. That is not to say, however, that Massignon was uncritical with respect to the institutional
Church. He could even be scathing in his attacks on theologians and ecclesiastics. Robert Caspar tells
a story in which Massignon offended several members of an audience at the Gregorian University at
Rome before whom he spoke; apparently they left “shaking their heads in resignation or condescen-
sion.” Robert Caspar, “La vision de L’Islam chez L. Massignon et son influence sur l’Église,” Louis Mas-
signon, ed. Jean-François Six (Paris: Éditions L’Herne, 1970), 135 n. 30.
devotion to Mary at Ephesus, his attachment of a Muslim-Christian pil-

grimage to a traditional Breton pardon, and several others. He even de-
fended the primacy of the Roman pontiff as guarantor of Christian unity in
fairly traditional terms. In the Examen, Ibn al-Torjoman takes the separation
of the churches as evidence of the lack of any real authority in the Church.
Massignon responds by defending, in unusually strong terms for someone
engaged in ecumenical or interreligious understanding, the teaching au-
thority of the Church, “which rests with the Popes in the Roman Apostolic
Chair.”89
In chapter 7 I examine Massignon’s expanded notion of Church, but for
now a last quotation neatly summarizes the concrete particularity of his
Catholic commitments. Addressing the World Congress of Faiths, an ecu-
menical but predominantly Protestant organization, Massignon offered his
personal strategy for navigating the pain of Christian disunity. He wrote:
Trying to live, among my Christian brethren, just as I live it among the others, my
faith, hope and love, pregnant of the full dogma. My only way to love my friends is
to love them personally, with all that may seem to them, in their R[oman] C[atholic]
friend “queer, obsolete, or borrowed,” with all that I recognize as the living structural
personality of the R.C. Church: ecclesiastic hierarchy, sacramental realism, vows per-
petual, all that warrants my irrevocable love; for me, and for them: immaculate in
Her conception, exclusive in Her infallibility, indissoluble in Her wedlock, wearing
the threefold token of crowning union given by the Spirit to the Bride.90
Parallel to his conviction that dogmas of various religious traditions must

not be prematurely leveled to a common denominator, here he confesses
that the only way to love his non-Catholic friends, whether secularist or Prot-
estant, is to honestly and fully embrace and confess his Roman Catholic
identity, with all it entails.
A Copernican Revolution
It is important to keep in mind Massignon’s dogged adherence to the par-
ticulars of his Catholic faith when interpreting his famous call for a “veri-
table religious revolution, a ‘Copernican’ revolution,” in the Church’s wider
ecumenical mission wherein one would “rediscover God at the center of the
world.”91 It would be a mistake to read into Massignon’s religious-Copernican

90. Massignon, “Tu vertex et apex,” 787.
91. Massignon, “Le Salut de l’Islam,” Jeunesse de l’Église 13 (1947): 146.
revolution something like current Kantian approaches to the question of

religious pluralism, where the one unknowable God is approached under
many names and attitudes by the more or less equally valid religions of the
world. Massignon’s Copernican revolution is, first and foremost, interior. He
calls for a shift in orientation within individuals as well as within the Church
from a focus on anything but God to a focus on God alone, but he definitely
means the one transcendent and triune God of Catholic faith. The revolution
is for him akin to conversion; it means falling in love with God so that one
approaches other persons in the specificity of the institutions and religions
to which they belong with the eyes of someone in love with God the creator
of those persons.92
He explained in a public lecture: “I believe then by a kind of Copernican
tactics, that it is necessary to locate the center where it actually is, not in the
visible earth of our person, of our misery, and of our condemnation, but
outside, in the sun of justice that enlightens us despite all, the light whose
triumph we desire.”93 The admonition not to locate one’s center in one’s per-
son or one’s misery or one’s condemnation is significant. The talk, titled “Le
Front Chrétien,” is a kind of Christian call to arms. In it Massignon makes
several references to Islam, but the main point is to exhort Christian Europe
to regain a God-awareness that is slipping away in an increasingly materi-
alistic and technology-obsessed society. The aforementioned quotation fol-
lows a section in which he describes the Christian front as a “perpetual civil
war” that is actually an “interior war.” Massignon rejects mindless faith in
technological advances, what he calls “the principal of Pygmalion, to fin-
ish by adoring one’s idol, which is imbecile”; instead, he prefers “the prin-
ciple of Archimedes, searching for a fulcrum outside the world in order to
raise up the world.”94 The principle of Archimedes refers to his conviction
that there is no natural solution to the problem of sin or, here, misery and
condemnation; a supernatural solution is necessary. In the planetary met-
aphor, salvation cannot come from the earth; it must come from the sun.
That is the Copernican revolution Massignon has in mind. Christians must
approach their lives, and the Church must approach its mission, including
92. That is how I interpret Robert Caspar’s borrowed Massignonian language in his comment that
Nostra Aetate’s statement “Upon the Moslems too, the Church looks with esteem” represents “quite a
revolution, in the Copernican sense of the word, in the Church’s attitude towards Islam.” See Robert
Caspar, “Islam according to Vatican II,” Encounter: Documents for Muslim Christian Understanding 21
(1976): 3.
93. Massignon, “Le Front Chrétien,” in EM 2, 33.
94. Massignon, “Le Front Chrétien,” in EM 2, 32.
its encounter with Islam, always with the goal of knowing, participating
in, and sharing the divine life into which they are invited through the mis-
sions of the Son and the Spirit.95 The mission to the world is God’s, not the
Church’s.96
Conclusion
It is not surprising that, although no one completely escapes his criticism,
Edward Said (1935–2003) is more forgiving in Orientalism of Louis Massign-
on than he is of other scholars, noting Massignon’s genuine empathy toward
Islamic peoples and cultures.97 Massignon’s scholarly talent, acumen, and
dogged dedication to textual truth are evident. His interiorist method was a
direct application of the concrete virtue of hospitality in the intellectual do-
main. In order to understand someone or something, in this case Islam, one
cannot simply annex it, as the colonial logic of his day was too eager to do.
One must insert oneself, or, in a Massignonian idiom, one must substitute
oneself axially in the place of the system or the person one intends to un-
derstand. What to some collapses the necessary distance between scholar
and subject, for Massignon is necessary for genuine understanding, espe-
cially in the case of religious-mystical subjects. Axial insertion, or substitu-
tion, or understanding, is not simply imaginative, though imagination is a
key component. It demands actual performance of the mystic’s ascetic and
spiritual practices. It means actually striving for holiness in order to under-
stand the obstacles and graces that one encounters along the path.
Massignon’s investigations were influenced not only by his desire to un-
derstand from within but also by his Christian, Catholic beliefs. He believed
in God, in the one transcendent triune God, in Jesus as Son of God, in the
efficacy of the sacraments, in the legitimacy of the institutional Church’s
teaching authority, and so on. In some works, and as Borrmans noted in a
thousand passing comments across his corpus of writings, Massignon made
those Christian beliefs and practices the subject of explicit examination,
understanding, and judgment, usually in comparison to Islamic beliefs and
95. That is not to say Christians have a monopoly on conversion. The need for a Copernican shift,
according to Massignon, has Islamic roots as well. He writes: “Muslim doctrine encourages this shift by
teaching that the ‘virginal point,’ the point at which each person is in contact with the Creator, should
come more and more to be the place out of which we live.” Quoted in Caspar, “La Vision,” 132.
96. See John Sivalon, God’s Mission and Postmodern Culture: The Gift of Uncertainty (Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis, 2012).
97. See Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 264–84.
practices. In those cases it is possible to say that Massignon was reflecting

and writing theologically. Rather than being a liability, Massignon’s theo-
logical forays respond directly to a need in the Church to understand Islam
in the light of its own tenets, and vice versa.98
98. Mason reminds the reader that “as has been noted by both his admirers and detractors, it is
unusual for a learned man of his cultural background and stature to also be a man of exceptional pi-
ety.” Herbert Mason, “Louis Massignon, Catholicism and Islam: A Memoir Reflection,” Spiritus: A Jour-
nal of Christian Spirituality 8, no. 2 (2008): 202.
God: Visitation of the Stranger
t wo
GOD
Visitation of the Stranger
Although he taught courses in the history of philosophy, both Western and

Arab, and although he was well aware of Latin scholastic theology’s de-
pendence upon Islamic commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle,
and although many of his best students, including Louis Gardet, Georges
Anawati, and Roger Arnaldez, pursued the relationship between medieval
Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophers, Massignon himself remained
hesitant vis-à-vis the God he found in philosophical works. Time and again,
Massignon contrasts in Pascalian fashion the God of revelation with the
God of the philosophers. Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship a “God who
is not the law of laws, the Greek demiurge, but the Miracle of miracles, the
God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, as Pascal said.”1 Islam, for exam-
ple, is “not a religion of natural faith in the God of the philosophers, but of
faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, faith in our God.”2 Semitic
languages such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic have the “unique privilege
of having been elected to receive the revelation of the transcendent God of
Abraham, not the philosophy of a deity.”3 Outside the Bible and the Qur’an,
the God of revelation has been captured best, according to Massignon, by
the writings of the mystics.
The mystics’ description of God is thus an important source for Mas-
signon’s own understanding of God, and it makes sense to begin the dis-
cussion there. Even more narrowly, it makes sense to focus on Massignon’s
treatment of Muslim mystics, since he devoted so much of his scholarly and
1. Massignon, “Muslim and Christian,” 126.

2. Massignon, “Le Salut,” 140.
46
God: Visitation of the Stranger 47
personal energy to understanding and promoting them, especially al-Hallâj,

to whom a few pages are devoted in the following discussion. He wrote
scores of articles on the writings of various Sufis; he authored the entry
on Tasawwuf (Sufism) for the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam, and
he wrote the aforementioned Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language
of Islamic Mysticism, which became an indispensable standard in the field.
His most thorough study on Sufism is his four-volume work, The Passion of
al-Hallâj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam.
Of course, another source for Massignon’s understanding of God was
his own religious conversion experience in May 1908, about which he often
spoke, and about which he wrote at length in “Visitation of the Stranger: Re-
sponse to an Inquiry about God,” an article translated and titled by Herbert
Mason.4 Excerpts from that work are therefore interspersed throughout the
chapter. The two sources, Sufism and his own religious experience, inter-
sect at the end of his personal reflection, where he transcribes “simply a cry
that is of course imperfect but poignant uttered by Rumi (quatrain 143) in
which the essential, insatiable, and transfiguring divine Desire flows forth
from the depth of our silent and naked adoration, at night”: “The One whose
beauty made the Angels jealous has come in the morning twilight, / and He
looked into my heart; / He was crying and I cried until the coming of dawn,
/ then He asked me: ‘of the two of us, who is the lover?’”5
Massignon studied the works of Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) and St. John
of the Cross (1542–1591), so it is telling that he turned to a Muslim mystic
in order to describe the experience of union with God, citing a quatrain in
the Diwan (collected poems) of Rumi (1207–1273), certainly the most widely
known Sufi today. For Massignon, the God of authentic Christian mysticism
is the God of authentic Islamic mysticism.
The sources of Massignon’s understanding of God are not limited to Is-
lam. I discuss the importance of both biblical witnesses to God, especial-
ly Mary and Abraham, and the importance of Catholic dogma, especially
about God as Trinity, and I devote the entire next chapter to the impor-
tance of Jesus Christ in Massignon’s thought. The overarching concern of
this chapter is simply to highlight general features and emphases in Mas-
signon’s understanding of God with an eye toward their relevance for his
understanding of Islam vis-à-vis Catholic faith.
4. Massignon, “Réponse à l’Enquête sur l’idée de Dieu et ses conséquences,” in EM 1, 3.

5. Massignon, “Visitation,” 41–42.
48 God: Visitation of the Stranger
God of the Mystics, God of Personal Experience

In his article “Was Avicenna, the Philosopher, Also a Mystic?” Massignon an-
swers the question posed in the title through a brief analysis of the life and
work of the highly influential medieval Persian-Muslim philosopher, math-
ematician, and physician Ibn Sina (980–1037).6 Massignon opens with a def-
inition of mysticism, which serves as the criterion for determining whether
in fact one should properly call Avicenna a mystic. He writes:
The word “mystic” has been so generalized in its diverse usages, especially in our
time, that we must recall briefly its basic meaning. It is the experience, unprovoked,
of the unexpected, of the inexplicable, of the unique, of the individual, of the instant,
that may be of joy or of suffering; an experience that is surely “subjective” but whose
subject intends to remain passive, in the embrace of the real, in order to conceive it,
in an unpreconceived reception that most psychologists and psychiatrists consider
inefficacious and sterile, but which has led many men to “find” their definitive per-
sonalities and to share, through an all-powerful compassion, in the suffering and grief
of humanity.7
Three points bear highlighting. First, mysticism is an experience. It is unpro-

voked, of the unexpected, of the inexplicable. It is not manufactured. Mysticism
is a response; something (or someone) happens to the subject, who intends
to remain passive. One cannot explain exactly wherefrom or how. That is not
to say there is no preparation for religious experience, only that ultimately
it is the result of divine initiative. Certainly, the mystic subsequently turns
to traditional religious resources in order to understand the experience, but
there is a moment during which one remains helpless to explain the nature
of the experience. Second, mystical experience is of the instant. It is not a
state, though it may bring the subject into a state, what Sufis refer to as a hâl;
nor is it a life, though it may lead to a lifetime of practice. The initial experi-
ence is instantaneous. Third, he tells us that mystical experience is effica-
cious, at least in the life of the subject. That is what he means when he says
that mystical experience is conceived. One must take conception to mean not
the intellectual abstraction from data of an image or a definition (though
the term is not unrelated), but the impregnation of the one in whom some-
thing is conceived. The latter understanding corresponds with Massignon’s
use of the term elsewhere.8 Therefore, in mystical experience, something is
6. Avicenna is the Latinized version of his name.

7. Massignon, “Was Avicenna, the Philosopher, Also a Mystic?,” in Testimonies, 111.
8. See HI, 68–72.
given to the subject that was not there before, namely the subject’s definitive
personality. Finally, the experience evokes compassion and enables the sub-
ject to share in the suffering and grief of humanity; the experience is fruitful
socially. The opening of Massignon’s entry on Tasawwuf in the first edition
of the Encyclopedia of Islam echoes many of these themes, but it adds a peni-
tential hue to the finding of oneself: “The mystic call is as a rule the result of
an inner rebellion of the conscience against social injustices, not only those
of others but primarily and particularly against one’s own faults: with a de-
sire intensified by inner purification to find God at any price.”9
Massignon’s definition of mysticism in the Avicenna article serves in-
ternally to determine whether the title’s question should be answered af-
firmatively or negatively. The chief philosophic problem of Avicenna’s day,
according to Massignon, was to reconcile Qur’anic revelation with Hellenis-
tic thought (especially with Aristotle). The anthropomorphic qualities at-
tributed to God, and especially God’s particular and personal activities in
the world, as found in the Qur’an challenge the philosophical understand-
ing of God as one, simple, immutable, eternal, good, perfect, infinite, tran-
scendent, and so on. According to Massignon, two options for solving the
problem were current: Gnosticism and mysticism. The Gnostic solution at-
tributed any appearance of change to a system of divine emanations, not to
God Himself. The mystical solution emphasized the cultivation of a person-
al relationship with God in order to come to some experimental-practical
understanding of divine activity in the world. It is less concerned about
explaining and more concerned about testifying and describing. In at least
one instance Avicenna chose the mystical solution, and after consulting
Sufi literature, he wrote the Ishârât, the title of which Massignon translates
as Directives, understood not as techniques of mechanical “prescriptions”
but as “therapeutic directives” of a doctor of the soul.10 It is a treatise on the
orientation, relationships, practices, and attitudes that bring about the con-
ditions for the possibility of realizing one’s definitive personality.
But Massignon is not satisfied with the results; he determines that in
fact Avicenna is not a mystic, and he makes the case by way of contrast. He
opposes the experience of Avicenna to that of al-Ghazâlî (1058–1111), who,
a century later, addressed the same problem, the reconciliation of Helle-
nistic thought with Qur’anic revelation, with the same method, recourse to
9. Massignon, “Tasawwuf,” The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1913–36), 682b.

10. Massignon, “Avicenna,” 112.
Sufism, but who produced a work of qualitative difference. The difference

is rooted, for Massignon, in the two personalities themselves. Ghazâlî was
willing to experiment personally with Sufi practices, teachers, and doctrine,
while Avicenna was not: “We lack even the slightest indication of an ‘in-
teriorization’ by [Avicenna] of the public rites of Islam; the commentaries
on the Qur’an that Avicenna has left us are completely rationalistic with
a Gnostic thrust. And as for the ‘therapeutic directives’ of his Ishârât, we
have seen that they remained theoretical for him. Indeed, though he was a
great physician who cited for us, especially in Persian, many firsthand ob-
servations, he did not want to inoculate himself with mysticism in order
to understand it, as Ghazâlî dared to do.”11 Massignon continues the com-
parison: “[Ghazâlî] will turn, in a kind of Pascalian wager . . . without a spiri-
tual guide, as is his manner, and he will come out of it ending in a kind of
marginal philosophy of mysticism.”12 On the other hand, “Avicenna, per-
haps out of tact, is hesitant vis-à-vis Transcendence and out of humility as
a sinner remains, alas, habitually in this position until his death.”13 Ghazâlî
is clearly the more mystical of the two, given Massignon’s criteria at the be-
ginning of the article. Avicenna studies the mystics, but he maintains a dis-
tance personally from the practices and sources of mysticism. His explana-
tion is theoretical, not practical. He remains hesitant vis-à-vis Transcendence,
whereas mysticism is most helpful for understanding God when it is un-
dertaken personally. That Avicenna did not do so is evident to Massignon,
for it does not seem that anything was conceived or given to Avicenna as a
result of his foray into Sufism. By way of contrast, Massignon offers quali-
fied approval of Ghazâlî’s mysticism, because he turned “to mysticism out of
disgust with the uncertainties of all of the sciences that he had passionately
studied one after another.”14 His was a path of existential self-discovery, not
an attempt to understand God from a distance.
Toward the end of the article Massignon observes that Avicenna “dis-
tinguishes clearly between the two domains, the theoretical (theological)
and the practical (mystical). In terms of his influence on Thomistic theo-
logical Scholasticism, Avicenna acts as a monotheist—but from the per-
spective of Thomistic theological knowledge, not from the Augustinian
perspective of the savorable wisdom which represents the mystical tradi-

13. Massignon, “Avicenna,” 113–14.
tion in Christianity.”15 In other words, Avicenna’s influence endures, in both

the West and the East, as a philosopher, not a mystic. Whatever the merits
of his judgment, one finds that some basic Massignonian categories have
emerged. On one side are the terms mystical, experimental, Ghazâlîan (to
some extent), Pascalian, Augustinian. On the other, one finds theological, the-
oretical, Scholastic, Avicennian, Thomistic—and Massignon clearly prefers the
former set of terms as a way of understanding God’s activity in the world,
although it is important not to exaggerate his preference. It is not that he
rejects either Avicenna or Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Rather, the vari-
ous personalities he names stand in for two general approaches to God. The
mystical approach emphasizes relationship and prayer, whereas the theo-
retical approach emphasizes order and intellect.
In his “Visitation of the Stranger,” one discovers that Massignon’s own
path was very much in the mystical, Augustinian, Pascalian vein described
previously. The article is a response to an inquiry about Massignon’s un-
derstanding of God under three headings: 1. The meaning of the word “God,”
its consequences; 2. Our representation of God; and 3. The correspondence of the
word “God” in me. The resulting reflection, though very brief, is the closest
thing Massignon wrote to a treatise on God.
The enigmatic opening line, which stands alone as a sort of subtitle,
guides the entire piece: “Discovery antecedes theory, commotion precedes
denomination.”16 As a rule, first we experience God, then we understand
(maybe). First there is disruption, then there is reflection. Massignon has
implicitly taken sides in a classical Christian debate. For St. Thomas and for
Thomism generally, nihil amatum nisi praecognitum (nothing is loved that is
not first known), whereas for St. Augustine (354–430) and those who con-
sider themselves Augustinian, at least according to the logic of the Confes-
sions, it is exactly the opposite. There, Augustine realizes that his life has
been a search for Him with Whom he has already always (though misguid-
edly and unknowingly) been in love.17 Once more, it is important not to fo-
cus unduly upon the historical Augustine or Thomas. Anyone even superfi-
cially familiar with his work knows that Augustine’s thought could be quite
theoretical; likewise, recent studies have retrieved the richly prayerful con-

16. Massignon, “Visitation,” 39.
17. Augustine, The Confessions, translated by Maria Boulding (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press,
2009).
text in which Aquinas taught and wrote.18 The point is rather to draw out
Massignon’s preferred Augustinian, or experiential-descriptive, approach to
God, which attributes priority to love and mystical experience over under-
standing.
Under the first heading, The meaning of the word “God,” its consequences,
he repeats various themes from the definition of mysticism examined ear-
lier. God is something (or someone) that happens to us, that renders one
passive, that happens instantaneously, that produces some concrete effect:
“An internal break in our habits, a brief disturbance of the heart, a point of
departure for a new order in our personal behavior; or, if one looks from
without, the acknowledgment of a sin, the transgression of the Law.”19
The proximate occasion for the discovery of God may involve an in-
tensely intimate experience of falling in love, or, as in Massignon’s case, it
may involve a sudden desire for repentance. It may also involve a concrete
and shocking encounter with poverty or injustice that invites the subject to
compassion, as he explained in a late article on shared suffering:
But how begins this vocation for heroic compassion? By an “epoché,” by a sudden stop
of time, by a sudden abolition of space, by a shock, psychosomatic, viz. in the heart
of someone passing by, on the common road. Someone who suddenly perceives, on
the side of his path, a beggar standing, or a wounded, or a dying wretch, a single case
of blind despair. Someone who has an instant of mindedness, better than a thousand
years of nursing administratively, mechanically, and deceivedly, as do “benevolent
societies.” It is a sparkle from some unknown personal being, badly veiled under the
wretch’s poverty, fleshing out the holes of this pierced frock of disabled humanity. A
Fire, quickening the careless heart with an everlasting Need. Gautama on his royal
youth’s road, the Good Samaritan going down on his tradesway. The psychosomatic
shock they endured was deeper than human love; it was absolute desire defying the
lack of justice in the whole world, a kind of revolt against the laws of nature, in the
name of their hidden Lawgiver; “in the name of the Compassionate,” as says the be-
ginning of the Muslim prayer.20
In summary, the first stage of relationship with God requires that one un-
dergo an experience of what Massignon calls déplacement, a de-centering of
18. See Augustine, On the Trinity: Books 8–15, ed. Gareth B. Matthews, trans. Stephen McKenna,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Thomas F. O’Meara, Thomas Aquinas: Theologian
(South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997); Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas:
The Person and His Work, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1996); Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master, trans. Robert Royal (Washing-
ton, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003).
20. Massignon, “Transfer of Suffering,” 156–57.
the self. God is the initiator of metanoia; God is the unexpected Guest who
demands a response, who demands hospitality, who demands compassion;
God is the visiting Stranger.
Massignon’s “Visitation of the Stranger” next turns to the response of
the subject:
Before the Lord who has struck the blow, the soul becomes a woman, she is silent, she
consents and the jealousy of her primordial virginity dissuades her from looking for
the “why” or the “how.” She starts only to commemorate in secret the Annunciation, vi-
aticum of hope, that she has conceived in order to give birth to the immortal. This frail
Guest that she carries in her womb determines thereafter all of her conduct. It is not a
made-up idea that she develops as she pleases according to her nature, but a mysteri-
ous Stranger whom she adores and who guides her: she devotes herself to Him.21
The reference to the Annunciation to Mary (Luke 1:26–36; Matt. 1:18–25, to

Joseph) and the subsequent Incarnation is unmistakable. Here it serves as
the prototype, even a kind of template, for religious experience.22 The soul
becomes a woman who jealously guards her primordial virginity. Massignon
was influenced by Hallâj’s description of the heart as composed of succes-
sive layers (and of the Sufi tradition generally), which include at least the
material covering, the nafs or lower soul, the rûh or upper soul, and the sirr,
literally the secret, what Massignon calls the point vierge, which Dorothy
Buck translated as the virgin heart.23 There remains an inviolably good as-
pect, or foundation, or (to use Massignon’s spatial metaphor) point in each
human being, and it is through that virginal point that God both enters (so to
speak) and calls forth the human heart. It is at that point that God shocks,
disturbs, and awakens the soul in the terms described previously, so that
the déplacement of the soul in fact turns out to be, from another perspective,
a radical centering of the person at her core. Thus the proper response to
God’s stimulation of the point vierge is not first and foremost reflection (ask-
ing why or how); rather, it is consent.
In the account of the Annunciation according to the Gospel of Luke, the
angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin whose name was Mary in order to reveal

22. See also HI, 70.
23. See Dorothy Buck, Dialogues with Saints and Mystics: In the Spirit of Louis Massignon (New
York/London: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 2002). The Qur’an itself seems to indicate the fem-
ininity of the sirr: “Good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded”
(4:34). The notion of the point vierge was made well known by the writings of Thomas Merton, who
learned about it from Louis Massignon. See Wendy Wright, Mary and the Catholic Imagination: Le Point
Vierge (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2010).
to her the miraculous conception by the power of the Holy Spirit of a child
within her womb. Mary’s response to this unexpected visit is recorded in
Luke 1:38, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done unto
me according to your word.”24 She consents to the discovery of God’s Word
within her. The phrase may it be done in Latin is fiat, which is an expression
Massignon uses again and again. It summarizes both God’s action toward
the soul and the proper response of the soul. God says, “Let it be so,” and the
soul responds, “May it be done.” Fiat is also Massignon’s preferred transla-
tion of the Arabic term kun, which occurs regularly in the Qur’an to express
God’s free and unlimited creativity: “But His command, when He intendeth
a thing, is only that He saith unto it: ‘Be!’ [kun!] and it is” (36:82).25 The
intriguing fact that the Qur’anic uses of kun! are “always in relation to Je-
sus son of Mary and Judgment” only strengthens Massignon’s conviction
that Mary’s encounter and willing reception of God, the mysterious Stranger
whose visit introduces to her womb the frail Guest, is archetypal.26 In his
encyclopedia entry on Tasawwuf, Massignon writes: “Primitive Sûfîsm was
based on the two following postulates: a. the fervent practice of worship en-
genders in the soul graces (fawâ’id), immaterial and intelligible realities . . . ;
b. the ‘science of hearts’ (‘ilm al-qulûb) will procure for the soul an experi-
mental wisdom (ma’rifa), which implies the assent of the will to the graces
received.”27 The religious-mystical path involves first consent to interior
grace and then progressive purification or unveiling of the heart such that
the Word, which is associated with the subject’s definitive personality, and
which is conceived by God at the point vierge, might finally be birthed, or
released, or lived: “The Sûfîs assert that there is a dynamic character in the
‘science of hearts’; it traces their itinerary (safar) to God, marks it by a dozen
stages (maqâmât) and steps (ahwâl), some virtues acquired, other graces re-
ceived, as in the Scala Sancta of St. John Climacus; their double list varies
with different authors (cf. Sarrâdj, Kushairî, Ghazâlî) but contains almost
always well known terms like tawba, sabr, tawakkul, ridâ’.”28
Those four Arabic terms are classic virtues in the Sufi tradition, namely
repentance, patience, single-minded devotion, and acceptance-surrender,
24. Massignon’s thrice-daily recitation of the Angelus, the prayer that repeats Mary’s words at the
Annunciation, will be addressed later.
25. Fiat is also the Latin translation of the Hebrew Yehi, which refers to the creative activity of
God’s word, davar. Hence, yehi’or = fiat lux = let there be light (Gen. 1:3).
27. Massignon, “Tasawwuf,” 683a.
28. Massignon, “Tasawwuf,” 683b.
and they are progressively realized and exhibited though prayer and asceti-
cal training, what Massignon, borrowing the Sufi nomenclature, calls the
science of hearts. The goal is to cultivate a humble, patient, simple, surren-
dered human being, which is to say, to cultivate one’s real personality.
God and the Feminine

Patrick Laude has treated thoroughly the importance of the feminine in
Massignon’s thought, so I will mention just a few relevant aspects here, with
due reference to Laude’s work. First, God’s choice to enter human history
through Mary is indicative, for Massignon, of a general “correspondence of
divine grace and the feminine.”29 He writes: “Woman is without doubt more
receptive to the suggestions of the spirit. Man stands face to face with God.
Woman enters into dependence upon the Spirit of God,” thus displaying “an
interior freedom that is without a doubt the sign of grace.”30 For Massignon,
the terms masculine and feminine correspond respectively with the terms
inner and outer, oath and vow, letter and spirit, law and grace, as well as the
Arabic-Islamic terms shahâda (witness) and dhikr (remembrance).31 In ev-
ery case, Massignon privileges the interior-feminine pole without denying
the necessity of the exterior-masculine pole. Laude writes: “If, as Massign-
on contends, and not without reason, man/vir is a ‘brute,’ it is because he
does not know how, or does not want, to listen to the ‘feminine’ grace that
is within him.”32 In other words, it is important not to link exclusively the
feminine with biological women. For man, too, the soul becomes a woman,
when he consents to God’s advance. That said, for Massignon, women do
naturally enjoy a privileged feminine disposition vis-à-vis God.
There is a tension in Massignon’s ideas about women, especially Muslim
women. On the one hand, he argued consistently against the “humiliating
status of women in Islam.”33 He accused Muslim men of idealizing women
in their rhetoric while denigrating them in everyday life.34 He even peti-
tioned certain Moroccan officials to establish schools for girls.35 Nor were

31. Patrick Laude, Pathways to an Inner Islam: Massignon, Corbin, Guénon, and Schuon (Albany:
SUNY Press, 2010), 104–5.
32. Laude, Pathways, 111–12.
33. Laude, Louis Massignon: The Vow and the Oath (London: The Matheson Trust, 2011), 76.
34. Laude, Vow, 132 n. 107.
35. Laude, Vow, 90 n. 31.
his criticisms limited to Muslim men. He railed vociferously against Euro-

pean colonizers, whom he blamed for the exploitation of Muslim women
through the institution of prostitution in Islamic lands.36 He championed
a greater public role for women generally and predicted associated salutary
effects. He argued that “were women granted their rightful place, the bar-
barism of world war would be impossible,” and Christians “would witness
differently, from a spirit of charity and hospitality,” rather than from one
of “insecurity” and “cunning.”37 And since “man confronts and chooses,”
whereas “woman tends to gather together,” he recommended that “ecumen-
ism must be carried out by women; the intuition of ecumenical reunion
comes much more easily to her.”38 It was presumably because woman “pos-
sesses a certain instinct for recognizing the work of God,” that it was, for
example, “Mary Magdalene who recognized the voice of the resurrected
Christ, the first among the first of the apostles.”39 In summary: “Woman will
be the messenger . . . of abandonment into God’s hands, in the confidence
of love. She will be the sign of the transparency and self-effacement that
permits transcendence to manifest in the creature.”40 On the other hand, he
sometimes romanticized the traditional societal roles that women played.
For example, if most Muslim women were restricted to domestic spheres,
or if they were exempted from certain exterior religious obligations, then
rather than support their efforts to challenge those restrictions, Massignon
encouraged women to see in them privileged opportunities to cultivate in-
teriority.41 He even preferred a “certain [worldly] ignorance” among women
and counted it a “blessing.”42 While the intention of such an attitude may
be noble, the effect is problematic. The identification of passivity in the
face of the divine with feminine spirituality has been roundly criticized. No
doubt Massignon meant to honor the role of women both in his own life
and in the life of the Church and in Islam, and he wrote prolifically about
the lives and teachings of key women in the history of the Church and Is-
lam, including Mary, Hagar, Fâtima, Joan of Arc (1412–1431), Christine the
Admirable (1150–1224), Violet Sussman (1882–1950), and Marie Antoinette
(1755–1793). No doubt too, he really meant to recover the importance of an
36. Laude, Vow, 79 n. 9.

41. Laude, Pathways, 110–12.
42. Laude, Pathways, 111.
interior spiritual life among women and men. However, what Sarah Coak-
ley has written about contemporary efforts to extol gender complementar-
ity in religious discourse might apply retroactively to Massignon: “Precisely
as male theology has wallowed in a new adulation of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘re-
ceptivity’ (perhaps aiming—consciously or unconsciously—to incorporate
a repressed “femininity” into its dogmatic system), feminist theology has
emerged to make its rightful protest. Such a strategy, it has urged, merely
reinstantiates, in legitimated doctrinal form, the sexual, physical and emo-
tional abuse that feminism seeks to expose.”43 To be fair, Massignon was
already aware of the problem. For example, after delivering a public lecture,
he wrote: “Women often treat me harshly for my ideas. I went and preached
among feminists, and they did not receive me well, saying: ‘You have a way
of admiring us that discards us.’”44
Not intending to minimize the importance of Massignon’s views re-
garding the lived experience of actual women, I shift to the relevance of his
notion of the feminine for Christian-Muslim engagement. In “Le salut de
l’Islam,” Massignon writes that “if we [Christians] want Islam to understand
our own wonder before the fullness of salvation in God, then we must help
it to reform its ideas about women and to restore women to their place in
the dialogue between humanity and God.”45 Again, “it is necessary for this
hard and virile people [i.e., Muslims] to discover the maternal role of woman
in the order of messianic salvation.”46 Muhammad himself, “when he was
brought into the presence of God was too manly [viril] to accept the propo-
sition of infinite love.”47 That is, in Laude’s words, he lacked the “spiritual
audacity” of Mary in particular and of women in general.48 Therefore, ac-
cording to Massignon, “it remains that the intercession of Mary for these
people who venerate her [i.e., Muslims] cannot but deliver them from a
spirit of servitude and render them vulnerable to the Spirit of adoption. It
falls to Christianity to offer, through women, that Marian intercession before
God.”49 The references to Muhammad’s virility, to hard and virile Muslims,
and to the need for Mary’s intercession highlight that for Massignon certain
43. Sarah Coakley, Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy, and Gender (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 2002), xv.
44. Quoted in Laude, Pathways, 110.
aspects of Islam are not sufficiently feminine. Certain strains of Islam encour-
age servitude toward God, which in Massignon’s vision constitutes a mascu-
line disposition, rather than vulnerability, which represents the feminine. The
two dispositions may be equally obedient to God, but the latter goes further
than the former (perhaps à la Ghazâlî and Ibn Sina), seeking intimacy with
God and rendering the point vierge of the heart vulnerable to God’s penetra-
tion. As Laude notes, the point vierge, “through which the soul is in contact
with God, is the feminine part of being, the seat of consent to the Truth,”
and it is “precisely the place in the soul where the welcoming of the Other
may occur.”50 Being in touch with the feminine point vierge has implications
for the possibility of union with God (complete welcoming of the Stranger),
which has further implications for the possibility of Incarnation. Hence Mas-
signon encourages Christian women, through the intercession of Mary, to
pray for the cultivation of the feminine in Islam with the hope of opening at
least the questions of union and Incarnation among more Muslims.
God of Witness, God of Action

Returning to the long quotation mentioned previously from “Visitation of
the Stranger,” one sees that for Massignon, God’s encounter with the human
can be verified by examining the effects of the visitation. Although he does
not cite it explicitly, clearly Massignon adheres to the evangelical proverb
By their fruits, you will know them (Matt. 7:16). In the final sentences of Mas-
signon’s response to the first prompt, he summarizes his understanding of
those fruits. He writes:
Morally: the soul sanctifies herself to protect her sacred Guest from any defilement
by earthly actions, since the Inaccessible has exposed Himself to them by His visit.
Socially: the soul cannot hide the pure Witness with whom she is “pregnant”; she feels
herself marked, “branded,” stigmatized by suspicions, the blows which injure Truth
and call forth Justice among the oppressed, the imprisoned, slaves and convicts. Es-
thetically: how not to soothe her sorrowful compassion with a song of hope . . . to this
divine Guest whom she cannot bring to the world before the apocalyptic fullness of
time. Pedagogically: she does not speak about her Guest “didactically” like the orator
who is more or less an actor playing the God of modern biblical exegesis, but rather
testimonially, waiting for the moment when He suggests to her that she invoke Him,
making her progress in experiential knowledge through compassion.51
50. Laude, Vow, 79, 133.

51. Massignon, “Visitation,” 39–40.
Massignon describes the effects of religious experience once again in es-

sentially Marian terms. In imitation of Mary’s perpetual virginity, the soul
who has been visited by the Stranger protects her sacred Guest from any de-
filement. As Mary sings her Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), so too the soul now
sings a song of hope filled with sorrowful compassion and in anticipation of
a final and just reconciliation for the oppressed, the imprisoned, slaves, and
convicts. And as Mary suffered injury and insult to her reputation, so too the
soul should expect to be marked, branded, and stigmatized by suspicions.52 If
religious experience is authentic, then for Massignon the soul increasingly
and inevitably feels compelled to release her interior Guest in order to wit-
ness to the Truth and to demand Justice for the voiceless. Now the point vi-
erge is not only the place of communication between God and the soul; it
is the place from which God manifests God’s self to others.53 Finally, one
must speak about God from personal experience, testimonially, not as if God
is a made-up idea, and one learns to do so by responding experimentally,
though no doubt imperfectly, to the Stranger’s promptings to embrace with
compassion the suffering of others.
To the second prompt in “Visitation of the Stranger,” which asks how
he represents God, Massignon begins by grudgingly acknowledging that the
“moment comes for the believer when it is necessary no longer ‘to conceive’
God as a woman conceives, blindly, but to explain the notion one has of
Him. With words and names.”54 He continues:
Very quickly, alas, these become idols to be put on pious display in the profiteering
“stock exchange” of “values.” Fortunately, One comes sometimes to overturn the ven-
dors’ stand—and to show them that the divine Questions, even on the purely philo-
sophical plane, exist apart from the exhibited individual solutions. The true Answers
52. Massignon’s feelings about the newly founded state of Israel were connected, in complicated
ways, to his devotion to Mary. In “La Palestine et la paix dans la justice,” he cites historical records
of the Jewish community of Nazareth that refer to Jesus as the “son of an adulterous woman,” thus
insulting Mary. In response, Massignon placed great weight upon the Qur’anic confirmation of Mary’s
virginity. He also argued that a lasting fraternal peace between Jews and Christians would demand
revisiting the case of Mary’s reputation at Nazareth. However, a Jewish interlocutor once “emphasized
that the lack of respect towards Mary is a virtually unknown phenomenon in the world of Judaism.”
He acknowledged that a faithful Jew, if presented with the claim of Mary’s virginity, would necessarily
reject that claim, but he insisted that, in actuality, the question “simply does not arise for him, since
it does not touch at all upon the spiritual integrity of the tradition in which and from which he lives.”
The implication is that Massignon created a conflict where for most contemporary Jews there simply
was none. All quotations from Laude, Vow, 49–50.
53. Massignon, “Muslim and Christian,” 127.
of humanity are the uprooted words of prayer which are rich with dogmatic defini-
tions (not yet mummified by theological directives). “Lex orandi, lex credendi.”55
When God becomes one value among others, then we are deluded
into thinking we can control and manage God through pious explanations
and theological formulae. It is likely that Massignon had in mind early-
twentieth-century French Neo-Thomistic theology when worrying about
the mummifying effect of theological directives and the priority of answers,
creeds, law, and system over questions and prayer. The reference to Jesus’s
overturning of the vendors’ tables in the Temple (Matt. 21:12–13) suggests
that theologians can be guilty of cheapening conversation about God. As
a corrective, it is imperative that the I-Thou sense of relationship with the
Stranger be maintained through prayer. If true to his vocation, the theolo-
gian can never be too uncomfortable. He must expect that his theology will
be overturned by the One about whom his theology speaks. Massignon does
not dismiss theology altogether, but he subordinates the importance of re-
flection and objectification to religious experience and love in religious life.
The citation of the ancient formula Lex orandi, lex credendi privileges acts
of intercession and sacrifice as especially fruitful for providing religious in-
sight: “It is in the bosom of Abraham, beyond the Law, in the sacrifice of the
‘King of Justice,’ when Abraham was blessed, that all liturgies inspired by
human supplication will rediscover the unique ‘God,’ the principle of their
unity.”56 It is in direct encounters with the living King of Justice, the God of
Abraham, and not in an overarching theological concept of plurality, that
we discover our human unity.
In response to the third and final prompt, which asks for a personal re-
flection on the word God, Massignon begins broadly, explaining that aware-
ness of God provokes one “to do as if God were all in all.”57 However, that
requires “a mental shift of our center, one that is, so to speak, Copernican, to
function in us, or, rather, to be felt.”58 The disruptive, commotion-producing
Stranger invites the soul into a radical Copernican déplacement. She is invit-
ed to see not with her own eyes, but with the eyes of God. As I said earlier,
the required shift of our center is actually both a radical centering of our
heart in the point vierge and one of the means by which God manifests God’s

self to the world. To describe the soul’s new vision, Massignon employs a
spatial metaphor: “In terms of spiritual cartography, in order to carry out
the divine course indicated by fixed landmarks on the rectangular projec-
tion of a Mercator’s chart, one has to get to the axial peak of a conical pro-
jection of the world, to the summit of the umbra where all durations will
be eclipsed.”59 One must undergo a peak experience, or, more likely, several
such experiences, in which one glimpses and participates not only in God’s
perspective but also in God’s time, which is instantaneous.
Although he criticized what he called the traditional Muslim apologetic
for being occasionalist, his understanding of God was nonetheless strongly
influenced by his reading of Islamic theological, legal, and philosophical
texts with respect to his understanding of time. According to Massignon in
“Time in Islamic Thought,” in Islam the instant is the way God created time,
and it is also the way God appropriates His creation. He writes: “There is no
question here of [humans] inventing time; it is time that reveals to us the
order (amr) of God, the fiat (kun, kuni), which releases the acts we perform
as responsible beings. Thus for the Muslim theologian time is not a con-
tinuous ‘duration,’ but a constellation, a ‘galaxy’ of instants.”60 For Islam, the
instant serves “as an authoritative reminder of the Law, as inevitable as it is
unexpected.”61 All instances of time ultimately remind one that “the only
perfect, self-sufficient instant is the Hour (Sa’a), the hour of the Last Judg-
ment, the final summation of the decrees of all responsibilities incurred.”62
All time has an eschatological component. The reminder of the Law is the
reminder of judgment; and the reminder of judgment, ultimately, is the re-
minder of God. Such an understanding of time is indicative of Massignon’s
frequent description of the style of the Qur’an as elliptical. The individual
verses themselves are pregnant with meaning beyond the immediate lit-
eral context. It is almost as if they leap off the page to grab the reader’s or
hearer’s attention. Likewise, the Qur’an frequently describes Muhammad as
a warner (Q 25:1), implying that without warning, we may drift along sleep-
ily unaware of God, judgment, and the Hour. The people who best under-
stand time as a collection of instants are the “grammarians and fundamen-
talists (in canon law), physicians, psychologists of ecstasy, and musicians,”

60. Massignon, “Time in Islamic Thought,” in Testimonies, 85.
61. Massignon, “Time,” 86.
because each of those persons has a feel for the natural “pulse” of the uni-
verse.63 However, preeminent among such persons are the mystics.
The Arabic word used by some early Sufis to capture the peak of mysti-
cal experience already connotes the instantaneous: “The first psychologists
of ecstasy, wajd, gave it this name to signify a sudden shock of grace, per-
ceived as an instant of anguish (wajada = to find; wajida = to suffer), without
duration but endowed with a variety of mental colors (joy, sorrow; grati-
tude, patience; dilation, constriction; etc.).”64 As noted previously, the now
familiar instantaneous shock has lasting effects:
The instant of anguish can in some sense survive, but like a germ of hidden immor-
tality, buried at the bottom of the heart (tadmin), not like those virtues worshiped by
certain fanatical ascetics, who, through wishing to keep them as emblems, forsake
for them the God who made them desire them. We can form an idea of the “hidden”
persistence if we recall that the duality of the annunciatory instant is not symmetri-
cal, but oriented toward the future, toward the marked term (ajal musamma) that has
been “announced” to us, and that the “empty” dimensions of the period of this expec-
tation engender a kind of spiritual rhythm destined to impress on each creature its
personal melodic mark in the symphony of the Beyond.65
The instant is like a germ of hidden immortality, a taste of eternity. It cor-

rects the person and reorients one toward the Beyond, the Last Judgment,
God. Though it may bring a person to a new state in life, it would be ter-
rible to mistake the virtues, or states, or duration—or even the mummified
theological directives—for the Source by which alone the virtues, states, or
theologies have any significance. Notice, too, Massignon’s mention of the
annunciatory. He again undoubtedly has in mind the Annunciation to Mary
of the conception of Jesus, but possibly also the annunciation to Muham-
mad of the conception of the Qur’an. The Word is planted as a seed and must
be called forth.
Until the end, his article on time focuses entirely on Islam, but Massi-
gnon concludes with a reference to St. Augustine, reinforcing his commit-
ment to what might be called an Augustinian understanding of God. He
writes that the mystic’s understanding of time, whether Sufi or Christian,
is neither linear nor cyclical. Rather, it is eschatological. It “announces the
final stopping of the pendulum of our vital pulse on the tonic of its scale, on
the ‘place of its salvation’ (St. Augustine). It is not a fragment of duration; it

is beyond doubt a divine ‘touch’ of theological hope, which transfigures our

memory forever.”66 Hope, in the Christian tradition, is an eschatologically
oriented theological virtue, given by God, as opposed to a cardinal virtue,
attainable by any person of good will. It is God who reaches back to us, so to
speak, from the place of salvation, who touches us, and who offers the way to
achieve our real goal.
At the conclusion of “Visitation of the Stranger,” Massignon offers an ac-
count of his own religious conversion, including the moral, social, aesthetic,
and pedagogical effects it had on him. His description of the events, now
familiar to the reader, is rendered quite poetically:
The Stranger who visited me, one evening in May before the Taq, cauterizing my de-
spair that He lanced, came like the phosphorescence of a fish rising from the bottom
of the deepest sea; my inner mirror revealed Him to me, behind the mask of my own
features—those of an explorer exhausted after a ride in the desert, betrayed to his
hosts by his scientific gear, the disguise of a spy—before my mirror darkened in the
presence of His fire. No name remained in my memory (not even my own) that could
have been shouted at Him to free me from His scheme and let me escape his trap.
Nothing left, that is, but the recognition of His sacred aloneness: acknowledgment of
my own unworthiness, the transparent shroud between us, the intangibly feminine
veil of silence which disarms Him and becomes iridescent with His coming: through
His creative Word.
The Stranger who took me as I was, on the day of His wrath, inert in His hand like
the gecko of the sands, little by little overturned all my acquired reflexes, my precau-
tions, and my deference to public opinion. By a reversal of values, He transformed my
relative ease as a propertied man into the misery of a pauper. By a “finalist” reversal of
effects on causes, of intersigns on archetypes, as most men experience only when dy-
ing. And this would be an excuse if I did not propose further, here, to search through
the biographies of mystics for an ersatz technical vocabulary in order “to enter into
the presence” of the One whom no Name a priori dare evoke, neither “You” nor “I” nor
“He” nor “We.”67
All the characteristics of religious experience from the more expository sec-
tion of the article are present in his personal narrative. He was struck unex-
pectedly by the inner presence of the Stranger, and he felt a deep need for
repentance and forgiveness. He was initially unable to name the source of
the disturbance. A feminine veil was made iridescent by the Stranger’s ap-
proach, and his soul was taken and rendered inert in the Stranger’s hand. His

bourgeois priorities were instantly overturned, and he received a glimpse of

his end. He responded by turning to the words of prayer and the liturgies
of the mystics not only for an insight into the experience but also for culti-
vating union with the Stranger.
One may object that the neat coordination of Massignon’s understand-
ing of God’s relationship to the human soul with his recollection of the
events of May 1908 is too convenient, but it is important to recall the last
step he took in response to the visitation of the Stranger. He researched the
biographies of mystics in search of a technical vocabulary for an approach
to God. The bulk of his scholarly career was devoted to that endeavor, and
what he discovered among the mystics, at least those whom he consid-
ered authentic, was a pattern that roughly mirrored his own: disruption,
de-centering, self-examination, consent, mining of scripture and tradition,
purification, witness to justice, persecution, and union.
God of Hâllaj
Among the mystics Massignon studied, he gave pride of place to the
tenth-century thinker, poet, and activist al-Hallâj. I have already indicated
the importance of Hallâj for Massignon’s personal biography, but the mys-
tic of Baghdad was essential also for his understanding of God, especially
of God’s relationship to the human soul and of God’s activity outside the
Church. What follows is a sketch of key elements in Hallâj’s life and words
as they relate to Massignon’s own understanding of mysticism and of God.
The first thing to note is that Massignon divided Sufism into early and later
Sufism. He favored early Sufism, which he described as experimental, ac-
tive, and vibrant, and he judged Hallâj as the pinnacle of its development.
Later Sufism for Massignon generally (but certainly not in all cases) de-
volved into decadent speculation or cultivation of detached ecstatic experi-
ences. On Hallâj as the perfection of early Sufism, Massignon writes:
[Studies of the early Sufis] show how much the presentation of doctrine in Hallâj’s
work depends upon the terminology gradually established by his predecessors. Al-
most all of his vocabulary, his principal allegories, even his rule for living, can be
found in those who preceded him. His originality is in the superior cohesion of the
definitions he brings together; and in the firmness of the guiding intention that led
him to affirm in public, at the cost of his own life, a doctrine his teachers had not
dared make accessible to all. Just as the rationalist movement in Greece ended in
Socrates with the affirmation of a religious philosophy valid for all, so the ascetic
movement in Islam ended with the proclamation of an experimental mysticism, pro-

viding aid to all. Hallâj, far from being an aberration within the Islamic Community
of his time, represents the final completion of the mystical vocations that had sprung
up throughout the first centuries of Islam through meditated reading of the Qur’an
and the “interiorization” of a fervent, humble ritual life.68
Hallâj studied with and eventually broke from famous Sufi teachers:
Sahl in Tustar (818–896), ‘Amr Makki in Basra, and Junayd in Baghdad (830–
910), and he is best known for having declared “anâ al-haqq,” which can be
translated as “I am the Real,” or “I am the Truth,” but which effectively means
“I am God,” haqq being one of the Qur’anic divine names, often serving as
shorthand for God.69 For this apparent blasphemy, though officially for pos-
sible other religious infractions, and largely due to political intrigue at the
Abassid imperial court, Hallâj was arrested, tried, and executed. The major
medieval Muslim commentators who address the topic focus almost exclu-
sively on the controversy stirred by Hallâj’s religious teachings, specifically
his expression of divine identity, so I will too.70
Hallâj’s expression anâ al-haqq, or “I am the Real,” is an example of sha-
th, which Carl Ernst, after surveying the etymology and usage of the term
among Sufis, translates simply as “ecstatic expression.”71 According to the
Khurasani compiler and commenter of early Sufi teaching al-Sarrâj (d. 988),
shath “means a strange-seeming expression describing an ecstasy that over-
flows because of its power, and that creates commotion by the strength of its
ebullience and overpowering quality.”72 The basic meaning of the term in
Arabic is “movement,” and it is related to the noun al-mishtah, the “shaking
house,” where flour is sifted, as well as the verb shataha, to overflow, as water
in a flooded stream. Sarrâj writes: “When the ecstasy of an aspirant becomes
powerful, and he is unable to endure the assault of the luminous spiritual
realities that have come over his heart, it appears on his tongue, and he ex-
presses it by a phrase that is strange and difficult for the hearer, unless he be
worthy of it and have widely encompassed the knowledge of it.”73 Hallâj’s “I
68. Massignon, Essay, 209–10.

69. Hallâj knocked at Junayd’s door. When Junayd asked, “Who is there?” Hallâj responded, “anâ
al-haqq, I am the Real.” Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1975), 66.
70. They include Ruzbihan Baqli (1128–1209), ‘Attar (1145–1220), Qushayri (986–1072), Hujwiri
(990–1077), Ghazâlî, Rumi, and Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328).
71. Carl Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1985), 12.
72. Ernst, Words, 12.
am the Real” qualifies as an instance of shath according to Sarrâj’s descrip-

tion, as do the utterances of other Sufis, including Bistami’s “Glory be to Me!”
and Nuri’s “Here am I! Blessings to You!” said in response to a barking dog.74
Hallâj’s cry was not an isolated incident. At his final trial, his accus-
ers introduced a letter that opened, “From the Compassionate, the Merci-
ful”; in other words, from God. Hallâj admitted the letter was his but asked,
“Can the writer be other than God? I and my hand are but tools in this.”75
In the Akhbar, or sayings, of Hallâj, there are numerous similar statements.
For example: “Between me and you (there lingers) an ‘it is I!’ (which) tor-
ments me. . . . Ah! Lift through mercy this ‘it is I!’ from between us both!”;76
“[Y]ou became the personal consciousness within my inmost self”; “I find
it strange that the divine Whole can be born by my little human part.” Also
in his Diwan, or poetry: “I have seen my Lord with the eye of my heart, and
I said: who are You? He said: You”; “Your Spirit is mixed with my spirit in
drawing near and in separation; And now I am You. Your existence is mine,
and this is my wish”; “I do not cease swimming in the seas of love, rising
with the wave, then descending; now the wave sustains me, and then I sink
beneath it; love bears me away where there is no longer any shore.”77
It is important to note a difference in interpretations of shath among
Sufis. For Sarrâj, such ecstatic expressions indicate the experience of a nov-
ice, to be surpassed through acquisition of further self-control, while for
Hallâj they can be evidence of having realized the goal, union with God.
Louis Massignon’s translation of shath as “theopathic locution,” that is, an
utterance suffered at the divine initiative, is intentionally closer to the in-
terpretation of Hallâj. In his encyclopedia entry for Tasawwuf, Massignon
outlines the trajectory of early Sufism, which eventually directly addressed
the question of union with God by way of coming to terms with such theo-
pathic locutions:
Without laying stress on the individual variants of this mystic itinerary the Sûfîs aimed
especially at defining the ultimate goal when, triumphing over its attachment to the
flesh, the soul finds the true God to whom it is aspiring, the Real (al-Haqq, a word used
as early as the third century A.H. and perhaps borrowed from the pseudo-theology of
Aristotle). But how are we to define in orthodox terms this supreme state in which the

77. Akhbar 3, 11, 15–16, 34 in Herbert Mason, Al-Hallâj (Richmond Surrey: Curzon Press, 1995),
69–71.
soul enters with God into this ecstatic dialogue of which the first revelations are made
by Râbi’a, Muhâsibî and Yahyâ Râzî, a state which raises the difficult question of theo-
pathic conversation (shath)?78
In his Essay, Massignon goes further, arguing that Hallâj’s understanding of

shath was superior to that of his predecessors and contemporaries:
The correct solution of the central problem [of Sufism], mystical union, was insinuat-
ed by Hasan and Ibn Adham, sensed by Bistami, glimpsed by Tustari and Junayd, and
finally presented by Hallâj through a complex method defining it as an intermittent
identification of subject and Object. The identification is renewed only by a continual,
amorous exchanging of roles between the two, a vital alternation (like oscillation,
pulsation, sensation, consciousness) that is imposed in superhuman, transcendent
fashion on the heart of a given human subject, without ever achieving permanence
or a stable regularity during the subject’s mortal life.79
Massignon, via Hallâj, discovers in shath, the culmination of the mystical

path, not merely a flowing over of religious experience, but an amorous ex-
change of roles between creature and Creator. That is the axial peak that
Massignon described in “Visitation of the Stranger.” The relevant Hallâjian
expressions are voiced in the divine first person; hence, according to Mas-
signon—and this is the key—one should not understand “I am the Real” as
Hallâj, the human being, claiming to be God. Rather, one detects here an
“intermittent identification” and an amorous exchange of personalities such
that it is God who utters, through Hallâj, “I am the Real,” as in fact only God
can properly say. God manifests God’s self in and through the point vierge of
Hallâj’s purified heart.
The ability to channel God’s voice in this way perfects a long and ardu-
ous process of physical and spiritual asceticism and purification. Hallâj is
quoted in the Akhbar as saying, “O people! When al-Haqq (God) takes pos-
session of a heart, He empties it of all else but Himself; and when He keeps
a man for Himself, He ruins him for all else but Himself. When He lovingly
desires a servant, He incites His other servants to enmity against him, so as
to bring him closer to Himself.”80 The successful self-expression of God, who
resides in the heart, depends upon a clear the path from heart to tongue so
that nothing inhibits or distorts the divine communication. As we saw earli-
er, the heart is composed of successive layers, namely the material covering,

80. Akhbar 36 in Mason, Al-Hallâj, 70.
the nafs or lower soul, the rûh or upper soul, and the sirr, the point vierge.
Now one sees that the sirr is also the subject’s latent but truest personality.
To be most authentically oneself is to strip away the layers of false selves.
As mentioned previously, that process is called by Sufis and by Massignon
the science of hearts. Hallâj described it in terms roughly coordinate with
what Catholics call the active and passive purgation of senses and spirit.
He writes: “Renouncing this world is the asceticism of the senses; renounc-
ing the next life is the asceticism of the heart; renouncing oneself is the as-
ceticism of the Spirit.”81 The radical detachment not only from sin but also
from all creatures allows God’s voice to emerge, transforming the subject
in the process. One’s true personality is that which emerges from the deep-
est heart; that is why déplacement is necessary. Massignon writes: “Teach-
ers of Sufism such as Misri, Junayd, and Hallâj said again and again that
only on condition of self-mastery could a humble soul attract, if God wills,
the unpredictable grace of shath, the divine speech that attacks the soul di-
rectly through the unwitting reciter’s voice, in the form of the consecrated
words.”82 One must be de-centered from attachment to self and things and
re-centered in God’s will and voice: “When man agrees to give up this final
covering of the heart, God makes it fertile, causing . . . its ultimate explicit
personality, its legitimate ‘personal pronoun,’ the right to say ‘I,’ to enter it:
the right which unites the saint to the very source of the divine word, to its
fiat.”83
The question remains, Why was Hallâj executed? He appeared before of-
ficials at least three times. First he was charged with anthropomorphism
for having admitted the possibility of love between humans and God, using
for “love” the noun ‘ishq, which Massignon translates as désir essentiel (es-
sential desire), to indicate both the creature’s and the Creator’s dispositions.
At the second trial, he was accused of hulûl, infusion or incarnationism,
and of having claimed to be the mahdî, the messiah, the one to appear at
the day of judgment. Hallâj was acquitted of the first charges and received
only minimal punishment the second time, but at the third trial, again ac-
cused of hulûl, he was finally convicted, officially for having spiritualized
the rites of pilgrimage, having constructed a miniature ka’ba at his home,

83. Massignon, Passion 3, 19. The emergence of God’s voice necessarily complicates the creature’s
understanding of transcendence. Hallâj writes: “[O]ne testifies that He is not, and another testifies that
there is none other than He. But the witness in negation of Him is not rejected, and the witness in af-
firmation of Him is not praised.” Akhbar 41 in Ernst, Words, 64.
and having recommended the possibility of performing the rites of the hajj
locally for those unable to make the trip to Mecca. Still, it is for uttering “I
am the Real!,” the expression that crystallizes his audacious claims to divin-
izing union, that Hallâj is remembered, and it is that expression with which
popular and institutional Muslim memory associates his conviction and
execution.
In three fatwas on the subject, the medieval jurist and theologian Ibn
Taymiyyah—on whose opinions many traditionalist scholars continue to
base their own—reviewed the case of Hallâj and judged the condemnation
valid. He affirmed the accusation of incarnationism and declared Hallâj’s
supposed postmortem miracles contrived. He also reviewed and dismantled
the responses of other Sufis, which are worthwhile noting. Many protested
Hallâj’s innocence on the ground either that he uttered such provocative
sayings during moments of religious ecstasy and was therefore not respon-
sible for his words or that his error was not in claiming identity with God
but in knowingly revealing the secret of realized union between creature
and Creator, which knowledge is too dangerous for the masses. Typical is
the saying of the poet Hafiz (1325–1389): “His crime was this: he made the
secrets public!”84 Also, Shibli (861–946) is reported to have remarked: “I
and Hallâj are of one mind, but my madness saved me, and his intellect de-
stroyed him.”85 Another group, among them Ibn ‘Arabî (1165–1240), argued
that Hallâj meant to indicate not a unique personal union, but the essen-
tial unity of all creation with the divine. Finally, according to Ibn Taymiy-
yah, some argued that Hallâj was actually “possessed of God,” for “God alone
can declare through our voice that He is One.”86 In other words, the first
three responses—that he suffered a bout of temporary insanity, that he
publicized what should remain esoteric knowledge, and that he used a pro-
vocative example to demonstrate a general principle—all assume primary
agency on the part of Hallâj. By way of contrast, the last response assumes
divine agency, and it is that response that Ernst, following Massignon, calls
the “‘theory of the witness,’ according to which the divinized human be-
comes the earthly witness of divinity, speaking with the voice of God.”87
Shath is deliberate on God’s part and is therefore on behalf of others with
84. Diwan 142 in Ernst, Words, 131.

85. Al-Hujwiri, Kashf al-Mahjub: The Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufism, trans. Reynold Nicholson
(London: Luzac, 1976), 189.
86. Massignon, Passion 2, 45–48.
implications for issues of justice—Hallâj, for example, exposed corruption

among the ruling elite and even supported a slave rebellion. That is why he
preached it openly, to the consternation of his admirers. He wrote: “The in-
timates of God are those who ask Him the way; they annihilate themselves,
and He forms their glory. They abnegate themselves, and He achieves their
glory. They humble themselves, and He shows them (to others) as guide-
lines. They go in search of those astray, abasing their own glory, and with
them, even the graces of God fall in love; He ravishes them in their attri-
butes with His own characteristics!”88 As we saw earlier, public witness on
behalf of the oppressed or the exiled, whether in Mary, Abraham (as we will
see), or Hallâj, is a crucial indicator for Massignon of authentic religious ex-
perience.
Hallâjian ecstatic language is therefore not primarily about the saint’s
realization but about God’s communication with others, and the emphasis
on divine activity is what seems to trouble his detractors. Hallâj anticipated
as much. A major thread in his spirituality is the connection between wit-
ness and suffering. For example, recall the end of the saying quoted pre-
viously: “When [God] lovingly desires a servant, He incites His other ser-
vants to enmity against him, so as to bring him closer to Himself.” Hallâj
openly desired suffering and martyrdom, not from morbid masochism but
from obedience to God and out of love for his community. He accepted
his conviction and execution as lawful (anticipating the judgment of Ibn
Taymiyyah), for it provided a means to unite the Muslim community in af-
firmation of divine unity and transcendence through the condemnation of
apparent blasphemy. He once said to a student:
Those who testify against my infidelity are dearer to me and to God than those who
affirm my saintliness . . . , [for] those who testify to my saintliness do so from their
good opinion of me, while those who testify against my infidelity do so from zealous
defense of their religion, and he who zealously defends his religion is dearer to God
than him who has a good opinion of anyone. Then he said [to the student], “Ibrahim,
what will you do when you see me crucified and killed and burnt? For that will be the
happiest day of all the days of my life!”89
As we will see in a subsequent chapter, respect for those who sincerely

defend the divine unity and transcendence, even by rejecting true claims of
God’s activity in the world, figures largely in Massignon’s understanding of

how the Church should respond to Qur’anic denials of the Incarnation and
the Trinity.
Hallâj’s role as victim would complete his union with God and would
identify him liturgically with the sacrificial victim offered at ‘Arafat during
the hajj. Ernst observes: “In his spiritualization of the hajj, which ultimately
cost him his life, Hallâj evidently saw himself as a sacrificial victim, the re-
placement for the sheep and the goats that were to be slaughtered the follow-
ing day on ‘Id al-Adha.”90 He desired the role of a sacrificial lamb, for from the
Hallâjian perspective, God uses his loved ones in precisely that way; He al-
lows their suffering, even their death, in order to mediate some benefit, such
as unity, to the wider community. In ‘Attar’s account of his execution, Hallâj
says: “My God, do not condemn them for all the trouble that they are taking
for your sake. Do not deprive them of this good fortune of theirs. Praise be
to God that they cut off my hands and feet on your path! If they remove my
head from my body, they will place it upon the gallows, contemplating your
glory.”91 At the same time, God rewards the one who suffers, for in his annihi-
lation, the saint attains union with God. Thus, as his end approached, Hallâj
wrote: “So kill me now, my faithful friends, / For in my killing is my life. / My
death would be to live; / My life would be to die. / To me removal of my self
/ Would be the noblest gift to give.” The poem ends with Hallâj’s belief in the
resurrection, suggesting confidence in the approval of his path. He asks that
his body be burned and buried in the ground so that “When seven days have
passed, / A perfect plant will grow.”92 Rather than evidence of demonic pos-
session, insanity, or rejection by God, the suffering and death of Hallâj repre-
sent for Massignon a divine stamp of approval on the life he lived.
The case of Hallâj is obviously compelling for a Christian observer, be-
cause his realization of union, which was facilitated in part by meditation
on and in imitation of the Qur’anic Jesus, has such obvious Christological
resonance.93 It is no coincidence that Massignon, as we will see, describes
90. “What was Hallâj trying to accomplish here, at the high point of the hajj . . . when Muslims ad-
dress God in penitential prayer? In one verse, he explains, ‘You who blame my longing for Him, how
long can you blame? If you knew what I meant, you would not blame me. The people have their pil-
grimage, but I have a pilgrimage to my Love. They lead animals to slaughter, but I lead my own heart’s
blood. There are some who circle the Ka’bah without the use of limbs; they circled God, and He made
them free of the sanctuary.’” Diwan 51 in Ernst, Words, 69.
91. Attar, Farid ad-Din. Memorial of God’s Friends: Lives and Sayings of Sufis, trans. Paul Losensky
(Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2009), 404–6.
92. Diwan 14 in Mason, Al-Hallâj, 73–74.
93. See Massignon’s section on “Hallâj’s Resemblances to the Qur’anic Model of Jesus” in Passion
3, 219–21.
Hallâj as the ransom of Muhammad and of Islam, as a testimony within Is-

lam to the truth of Jesus’s crucifixion, and as an example of extra-ecclesial
participation in the cross. It is precisely in the elevation of Sufism, in the
life and teaching of Hallâj, that Islam becomes aware of its Christological
potential and orientation. When the Qur’an is understood and meditated
upon in the way Hallâj did, and when the rites of Islam are interiorized and
practiced in the way he did, then, at least potentially, a believing Muslim is
led toward union with God. The possibility of union with God then raises
the question of incarnation, and the response to Hallâj, who died, as he said,
“in the confession of the cross,” echoes the crucifixion of Jesus, generally
denied by Islamic tradition.94
Hallâj versus Ibn ‘Arabî

Hallâj exemplifies Massignon’s preferred approach to God, and just as he
contrasts terms like mystical, instantaneous, and experimental with terms
like theoretical and mummified, so too Massignon sets the Hallâjian, which
clearly belongs to the former nest of descriptors, against its opposite.
Even more typical and emblematic for Massignon’s understanding of God
than the difference either between Avicenna and Ghazâlî or between the
Augustinian-Pascalian and the Thomistic is the contrast between Hallâj
and the thirteenth-century mystic Ibn ‘Arabî, whose importance to the sub-
sequent intellectual and spiritual trajectory of Islam would be difficult to
overestimate. Patrick Laude succinctly describes Massignon’s estimation of
the difference between those two giants of the Sufi tradition: “While Hal-
lâj represents, for Massignon, the epitome of an authentically Quranic and
sacrificial witnessing that perfects Islam as a law while revealing its limits,
Ibn ‘Arabî is consistently envisaged by Massignon as an abstract theosopher
whose doctrine denies the very life and tension lying at the core of mystical
desire.”95 For Massignon, Hallâjian Sufism belongs to the “school of wahdât
ash-shuhûd. This vision refers to a unity—or rather union—that occurs only
in him or her who witnesses (shahîd) . . . without postulating a fundamental
ontological unity.”96 Ibn ‘Arabî’s Sufism belongs, according to Massignon, to
94. For the various Islamic positions on the crucifixion of Jesus, see Todd Lawson, The Crucifixion
and the Qur’an: A Study in the History of Muslim Thought (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009).
the school of wahdât al-wujûd, which “is founded on the insight into an es-
sential unity of being.”97
For Massignon, the mysticism of Ibn ‘Arabî and his followers, which he
describes with terms such as monistic, neo-Platonic, quietist, and syncretis-
tic, lacks three key elements of authentic relationship with God, namely the
precipitating shock to the conscience, the compelling urge to witness pub-
licly on behalf of truth and of justice for oppressed persons, and the pos-
sibility of intermittent but real and unique moments of union with God.
The quietism he (fairly or unfairly) associates with Ibn ‘Arabî is overly in-
tellectualist, cautious about public expression, solitary and unconcerned
for this-worldly justice, and suspicious of claims of momentary union with
God; such a mystic prefers to say that there is nothing to be united to God.
There is only God. Massignon writes: “This quietism . . . led the Sûfîs among
other paradoxes to the rehabilitation of Iblîs (supported by Djîlî) and of the
Pharaoh of the Exodus (the celebrated thesis of Ibn ‘Arabî).”98 His reference
to the rehabilitation of Iblîs, or the Devil, has to do with a Sufi tradition of
characterizing Iblîs’s refusal to bow before God’s creation of humanity in
the Qur’an (Q 2:34; 7:11–13; 17:61–62) as a jealous preservation of love for
God alone as well as a protection of divine transcendence.99 Herbert Mason
has summarized Hallâj’s seemingly similar account of the episode:
Iblîs is presented justifying himself as a pure monotheist, affirming God’s transcen-
dence by refusing to bow down before His unclean lowly creature man. This Iblîs is
thus a higher mystic lover who witnesses the inaccessibility of God, but who through
his extreme intellectualization of God as Pure Idea is unable to attain that humility
97. Laude, Pathways, 38. For a summary of and commentary on Massignon’s famous criticism of
Ibn ‘Arabî as representative of “existential monism,” the beginning of a mysticism that, having blurred
the doctrine of divine transcendence, sheds its societal therapeutic role and thus begins the decline of
Sufism, see Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 59–61. Michael Sells argues that anything resembling “monism”
in Ibn ‘Arabî’s discourse should be taken as “linguistic strategy,” that is, not as a judgment of reality.
For this reason Sells prefers the phrase monistic method to monism when discussing Ibn ‘Arabî. See
Sells, “Ibn ‘Arabî’s Garden Among the Flames: A Reevaluation,” History of Religions 23, no. 4 (1984):
310. Seyyed Hossein Nasr includes Massignon’s failure to recognize the genius of “later Sufism” among
three persevering critiques of his scholarship. The others are overemphasizing the role of redemptive
suffering in Islam and too confidently judging the religious intention of an author or meaning of a
text. However, Nasr defends Massignon, mostly, against all three charges. See Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
Traditional Islam in the Modern World (London: KPI, 1987), 266–72.
99. See William Chittick, “Iblîs and the Jinn in al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya,” in Classical Arabic Hu-
manities in Their Own Terms: Festschrift for Wolfhart Heinrichs on His 65th birthday, ed. Michael Coo-
person, 99–126 (Leiden: Brill, 2007). Carl Ernst, “Controversies over Ibn al-‘Arabî’s Fusus: The Faith of
Pharaoh,” Islamic Culture 109, no. 3 (1985): 259–66.
necessary to accept the reality of His creativeness. Iblîs, in Hallâj’s subtle monologue,
marks the spiritual boundary of the mystic’s hubris and dares to cross it through his
defiant need of self-justification in order to attain his full tragic self-perception . . .
Iblîs, in his way, as a Shi’ite neo-gnostic Manichean, is a negative witness of the
Unity of the One he professes only to love, and to love more purely, more uncompro-
misingly than humanity can. To Hallâj he is therefore a teacher of contemplative love,
albeit a tragic figure of fatal self-deception . . .
Hallâj’s Satan is an utterly solitary figure who can bear no companion but God,
who aspires to no human quality given by God, whose message infused subcon-
sciously, as it were, to humans is to believe that they themselves, because of their
lower natures, can never attain God’s Presence let alone be one with Him, that their
true position is one of separation from God and despairing solitude.100
Hallâj’s own rehabilitation of Iblîs is thus a severely qualified one. While

acknowledging Iblîs’s noble and even loving intention, he derides as pride-
ful Iblîs’s refusal to see that love spill over into concern for humanity and
for human institutions. He refuses the possibility of loving union with God.
Iblîs’s God is the God of the philosophers. Massignon once wrote that “justice
is the perfection of love.”101 The reader will also remember that Massignon’s
description of God as real as opposed to being a made-up idea had to do with
the concrete moral, social, and testimonial effects of God’s presence in the
life of the believer. He preferred a tactile mysticism, “bound to the ‘material-
ity’ of Quranic meditation and devotional moral practices”; he preferred a
mysticism “akin to the early Desert Fathers and the pilgrims of Love belong-
ing to Saint Francis’ spiritual family,” whose asceticism and material love for
the poor is so well known.102 Thus, whereas for the quietist (again, rightly or
wrongly associated with the school of Ibn ‘Arabî), Hallâj’s anâ al-haqq was
“an indiscretion and a confusion between the demands of the language of
the ‘nuptial chamber’ and the requirements of the ‘public square,’” for Mas-
signon it was evidence of “the springing forth of naked sincerity.”103
Allah = Dieu
It has been said that Massignon preferred Hallâjian Sufism because it was
“consonant with his Christian outlook,” and in a sense that is true.104 How-
100. Mason, Al-Hallâj, 21–22.

101. Massignon, “Le voeu et le destin,” in EM 1, 20.
ever, it is not that Hallâj confirmed for Massignon the superiority of his own
Christianity. Rather, Hallâj’s life confirmed that the God who captures the
hearts of Christians is the same God who captures the hearts of Muslims. If
Hallâj’s passion conforms to Christ’s passion, then it is because it is the same
God working in and through the two men, even if for Massignon the for-
mer’s experience is a created participation in the latter’s permanent identity.
That is another fundamental feature in Massignon’s understanding of God.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the one, true—and, very impor-
tantly—same God of Abraham. Massignon was once asked, “Do you believe
in Islam?” He answered: “I believe in the real, imminent, personal God of
Abraham, not in the ideal Deity of the philosophers and of the Devil, and
that is the first link that unites me to my Muslim friends.”105 Another time
he was asked, “Yes or No, Is Allah of the Qur’an the God of Abraham?” He re-
sponded: “My entire life as a convert, as a penitent, as a ‘substitute’ [badali-
yyote] depends, for being judged, on this fundamental question,” which he
answered affirmatively.106 Islamic faith is “faith in our God.” It “testifies to
the unicity of God, points to the revelation of God’s transcendence, the rev-
elation that Abraham and the prophets of Israel received; this witness is
worth more than the monotheism of ancient philosophers or of syncretis-
tic theodicies.”107 His conviction that Christians and Muslims worship the
same God may not strike the Catholic reader as particularly revolutionary
today, but that is because Nostra Aetate and Lumen Gentium both affirmed
it to be the case. In Massignon’s pre–Vatican II era, the question was very
much a live one. As Andrew Unsworth has observed, in various writings of
Leo XIII, Pius XI, and Pius XII, “the ‘God of Muhammad’ was not generally
considered to be the one true God.”108 It has been argued by admirers and
critics alike that Massignon’s work was, at least in part, responsible for the
stance the Church took at the Second Vatican Council.109
A very mundane consequence of Massignon’s conviction was his habit
of using the French Dieu to refer to God in both Christian and Islamic con-
texts and thus as a translation of Allah. He was an expert linguist and Ara-
bicist, and just skimming any of his articles or books, even those written for

106. Quoted in Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 25.
107. Massignon, “La conversion du monde musulman,” in EM 1, 48.
108. Andrew Unsworth, “John Paul II, Islam and the Christian-Muslim Encounter,” in A
Catholic-Shi’a Engagement: Faith and Reason in Theory and Practice, eds. Anthony O’Mahony, Wulstan
Peterburs, and Mohammed Ali Shomali (London: Melisende, 2006), 300.
109. See Krokus, “Influence,” 329–45.
a wide and mainly French Catholic audience, proves that he was not averse
to burdening his Western readers with original Arabic and Islamic termi-
nology (though he usually transliterated). He could very easily and defen-
sibly have used Allah when discussing God in a Muslim context, but he did
not.110 He chose Dieu, because Allah and Dieu are identical. This may seem
a small point. However, it stirred some controversy between Massignon and
others, including one of his students, the Dominican Jacques Jomier, who,
when writing his doctoral thesis in French, refused, against Massignon’s
wishes, to translate Allah as Dieu.111
God of Abraham
To say that Christians and Muslims worship the same God is not to say that
they have exactly the same understanding of God.112 For example, Chris-
tians, including Massignon, obviously believe God to be triune, while Mus-
lims do not. Still, there are major areas of agreement between Christian and
Muslim understandings of God. Massignon captures those agreements in
his frequent references to the God of Abraham. I devote an entire chapter to
Islam’s Abrahamic standing according to Massignon. Here I will identify a
few attributes of the God of Abraham. First, in line with the central Islamic
dogma of tawhîd, the God of Abraham is one, and He is absolutely tran-
scendent. The God of Abraham is absolutely simple and therefore demands
“naked faith of childlike simplicity [enfantine]”; such faith “witnesses to the
faith of Abraham, revived by Muhammad through an unshakeable and an-
cestral conviction.”113 Because it cultivates worship of the God of Abraham,
Islam has “predisposed millions to a sort of militant, svelte, and sober mo-
nastic discipline; it is not only a matter of spontaneous hospitality and of
110. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald reports that some Muslims prefer the term Allah pre-
cisely to maintain a distinction between Muslim and Christian conceptions of God, “forgetting that
Arabic-speaking Christians have no difficulty in giving a Trinitarian connotation to the same term.”
Fitzgerald, “From heresy to religion: Vatican II and Islam,” in Interfaith Dialogue: A Catholic View, eds.
John Borelli and Michael Fitzgerald (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2006), 114.
111. In a letter to Georges Anawati, Massignon admitted feeling “very hurt” [fort peiné] by the
episode. See Avon, Les Frères, 607.
112. That is the main point of François Jourdan, Dieu des chrétiens, Dieu des musulmans: Des re-
pères pour comprendre (Paris: Éditions de l’Oeuvre, 2008). Jourdan argues that were one to ask wheth-
er Christians and Muslims worship the same God, invoke the intercession of the same Jesus, share the
same books, he would have to answer yes and no because Christian and Muslim understandings differ
in important ways in each case.
fraternal charity . . . and of rigorously observed fasting . . . but also, and above
all, it is a contemplation, undertaken in the hand of God, a quiet, immateri-
al, and sacred premonition of a pure omnipresent divine transcendence—in
which the knowing Christian . . . recognizes in its simplicity the patriarchal
adoration of the earliest times.114
In Midrashic commentary and again in Qur’an 21:51–59, it is said that
Abraham’s father was an idol maker. Abraham, witness to the one God,
destroys the idols of his father’s shop, thereby reflecting and anticipating
the Jewish and Islamic prohibitions toward graven images. Massignon was
deeply affected by the intensity of living Islamic denial of devotion to any-
thing but God already inherent in the testament of faith (There is no god but
God): “The destruction of idols and forms by Islam is for me a witness.”115
The Qur’anic touchstone for the divine simplicity is sûra 112: “1. Say: He
is Allah, the One! 2. Allah, the eternally Besought of all! 3. He begetteth not
nor was begotten. 4. And there is none comparable unto Him.” The third
verse presents an obvious difficulty for Christians, but Massignon, turning
to Church history, insists that in fact the Church adopted this formula near-
ly verbatim to describe the divine essence. He frequently cites the Fourth
Lateran Council, which in 1215 “defined that the [divine] essence is neither
begetting nor begotten, nor proceeding; but it is the Father who begets, the
Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds.”116 The Church was
concerned not to turn the Trinity into a Quaternity by suggesting that the
divine essence begets. It is only the Father who begets, and it is only the Son
who is begotten. Thus traditional Islamic and Christian theologies share the
same classic negative attributes of the Creator, that is, simplicity, immuta-
bility, eternity, aseity, and transcendence, as well as the same basic positive
attributes, for example, God’s omnipotence and omniscience. Agreement
between Christians and Muslims about the unity of the divine essence leads
Massignon to argue that sûra 112 “does not refute the dogma of the Trinity,
which is nowhere clearly understood by Islam, from the Qur’an to Ghazâlî
to Ibn ‘Arabî.”117 That is a controversial position to which I will return; for
now it is important simply to have established that the God of Abraham,
114. HI, 110.

115. Massignon, “La foi aux dimensions du monde,” in EM 1, 14; emphasis added.
116. Bernard J. Otten, A Manual of the History of Dogmas Vol. II: The Development of Dogmas Dur-
ing the Middle Ages and After, 869–1907 (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder, 1918), 90. See Heinrich Denziger,
The Sources of Catholic Dogma, trans. Roy Deferrari (Boonville, N.Y.: Preserving Christian Publications,
2009), 170 (nos. 431–32).
117. HI, 101.
whom Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship, is one, wholly transcendent,

and absolute.
Massignon’s understanding of the God of Abraham is obviously also bib-
lically informed. As the title suggests, Massignon’s Les trois prières d’Abraham
is a collection of three essays, each of which is a meditation on one of three
prayers of Abraham taken from early chapters in the book of Genesis. The
first, “The prayer for Sodom,” corresponds to the episode at Genesis 18:22–33
in which, having learned from his three angelic visitors that because of the
wickedness of its inhabitants, God planned to destroy the city of Sodom—
home to Abraham’s nephew Lot and already rescued militarily by him once
(13:13–16)—Abraham intercedes with God, on behalf of any innocent and
righteous residents, that Sodom might be preserved. The second, “The ex-
patriation of Ishmael,” corresponds to the episode at Genesis 17:18–21 in
which Abraham, having been asked by his wife, Sarah, whose request was
subsequently authorized by God, to dismiss his firstborn son, Ishmael, and
Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, intercedes with God for the protection and bless-
ing of Ishmael. The third, “The sacrifice of Isaac,” corresponds to the episode
at Genesis 21:1–19 in which Abraham is commanded by God to slaughter his
second son, Isaac, as a ritual sacrifice. No prayer is recorded in the Bible, but
Talmudic tradition suggests Abraham did intercede on behalf of Isaac.
I will later treat extensively the second essay, “The expatriation of Hagar”
(“L’Hégire d’Ismaël”). “The sacrifice of Isaac,” the third essay of the trilogy,
was supposed to be Massignon’s reflection on the relationship between the
Church and the Jewish people. Although he “sketched” his thoughts several
times and was still working on a “plan” as late as 1960, he never completed
a stand-alone essay.118 The summary included in a 1949 publication focuses
on the relationship between on the one hand the unwilling “sacrifice” of
Isaac and the disposition of Sarah, who would have unknowingly lost her
son, and on the other hand the willing sacrifice of Jesus and the disposition
of Mary, the model of hospitality, who received God as a guest and then of-
fered up her own son on the cross. Massignon reviews and regrets the often
tragic relations between the two communities. He indicates as examples the
suspicion cast upon Mary in rabbinic tradition already mentioned, as well
as the Church’s legacy of forced baptisms and cooperation with usurious
financial schemes.119
118. D. Massignon, Avant-propos to Les trois prières, 10.

119. “Nazareth would drive Mary out and erase her name from its Megillot. Bar Kochba would slay
all the Jewish-Christians who refused to avow that Mary was an adulteress. And three times—under
Here I want briefly to touch upon the first essay, “The prayer for Sodom,”
in order to demonstrate that for Massignon the God of Abraham, in addition
to being the one, wholly transcendent, and absolutely simple God, is also
the God of hospitality and the God who responds to intercessory prayer.
“The prayer for Sodom” was completed in 1949. It is a dense and compli-
cated treatise on the virtue of hospitality that takes its bearings from the
biblical passage cited previously in which the men of Sodom seek to abuse
the three visiting strangers, representatives of God. Among the many inter-
esting things about this essay, I will cite just two. First, whether in scholarly
or pastoral settings, people often interpret Abraham’s arguing or haggling
with God as a justification of his (and by proxy one’s own) right to argue
or to bargain with God. From this interpretation we could infer that one
must occasionally demand justice from an arbitrary and wrathful God.120
Massignon’s interpretation, however, focuses on the sincerity and faithful-
ness of God. It also highlights Abraham’s dual role as a universal interces-
sor—he did not just rescue Lot, but he prayed for the entire city—and as
a model of hospitality, contrary to the residents of Sodom. For Massignon,
God’s promise to spare the city if ten righteous persons could be found re-
veals a law built into the divine-human relationship. Where just persons
live, pray, serve, and intercede on behalf of a wider community, as Abraham
did in this instance, there God withholds the punishment deserved by sin-
ners. These holy people are the “substitute saints,” the “apotropaic saints,”
the abdâl (the cognate term and function in Islam) among whom Massi-
gnon counts Abraham the first, and to whom we return in the next chapter.
Regrettably, in the case of Sodom, only three just persons could be found,
hence the ensuing destruction, but Abraham’s prayer is a reminder that the
promise stands. God protects and blesses the many because of the often
hidden and unknown holy ones among them.
The second interesting thing about Massignon’s interpretation of this
episode in Genesis is his understanding of the sin of Sodom. There is a di-
vide among exegetes who see it primarily as the sin associated with homo-
sexual acts and those who see it primarily as the sin of inhospitality. Others
Constantine (with the Happisses), under Sultan Baibars (of the Mamluks), and now—Nazareth would
resound with a legalistic protest.” Massignon, “The Three Prayers of Abraham,” in Testimonies, 16.
120. For a helpful discussion of the ways in which “Yhwh’s voice has not been heard aright be-
cause we have been too taken with the voice of Abraham,” see Nathan MacDonald, “Listening to Abra-
ham—Listening to Yhwh: Divine Justice and Mercy in Gen. 18:16–33,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 66,
no. 1 (2004): 25–43.
argue that the crime is rape, not homosexual sex per se.121 Massignon was
early among scholars to denounce Sodom as the “city of self-love which ob-
jects to the visitation of angels, of guests, of strangers, or wishes to abuse
them,” that is, the city of inhospitality.122 At the same time, he explicitly
linked that inhospitality with homosexuality itself. It is not my purpose
to analyze this aspect of Massignon’s thought in any detail. I just mention
his argument that “uranism [i.e., homosexuality] is essentially ‘antisocial,’”
that it denies the biological level of intimate relationships, namely the abil-
ity to reproduce, which itself is an act of hospitality, and that it fosters se-
crecy (no doubt because of social prohibition).123 He did, however, see in
chaste friendships an ideal that would apply as readily to same-sex as to
mixed pairs: “If [friendship] deepens in modesty and chastity, it can arrive
at the point of conceiving a vow of virginity and of loving it . . . [and] in
the end, this connatural friendship becomes complementary to transnatu-
ral love which unites us with God.”124 The most important lesson here is
that of hospitality: “The perfect hospitality which [Abraham] offered to his
three mysterious visitors (‘tres vidit et Unum adoravit’), who came to over-
whelm him with the promise of Isaac, led them to test him: Will Abraham,
now that he is assured an heir, continue to look after the people of Sodom
121. For a brief review of scholarly interpretations as well as the Church’s position, see John Har-
vey, The Homosexual Person: New Thinking in Pastoral Care (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), espe-
cially 98. Harvey himself, in interpreting the episode at Sodom, condemns both homosexual sex and
inhospitality.
122. Massignon, “The Three Prayers of Abraham,” 10.
124. Massignon, “The Three Prayers of Abraham,” 12. Massignon was quite open with people, of-
ten to their embarrassment, about his homosexual encounters as a young man. Some have focused on
this aspect of his biography. Most notably, see Jeffrey Kripal, Roads of Excess. The section on Massignon
is titled “The Passion of Louis Massignon: Sublimating the Homoerotic Gaze in The Passion of al-Hallâj
(1922).” Kripal attributes the results of much or most of Massignon’s work either to the sublimation of
frustrated homosexual longing or to repentance and guilt over the fact of such longing. In my view,
Kripal’s reading is terribly reductive. Massignon would have thought so too. He famously resisted psy-
chological deconstructions of important religious authors; such a method limits a person’s authentic
response to God and authentic belief in the Church’s teachings. Plus, his approach to homosexuality
after his religious conversion, which some today might consider outdated or even offensive, was quite
pastoral at the time. He argued, against the prevailing opinion of his contemporaries, that one can-
not “treat” homosexuality by purely psychological or chemical means. The approach must include
developing a “blessed rule of life, sacraments first of all (even marriage sometimes), confraternity, ob-
lature, third order . . . daily meditations,” and establishing “a common place of pilgrimage,” a church
where people could pray in common, invoke the intercession of saints, and keep in their intentions
especially those who “survived Sodom.” “La prière sur Sodome,” in Les trois prières, 53–55. The goal is
to help them “find God as a third in their friendship of two.” “The Three Prayers of Abraham,” 9. It is
impossible to know what Massignon would have made of current thinking, inside and outside the
Church, regarding homosexuality.
. . . when he learns that they have gone astray by their iniquity?”125 Here
one sees the essential Abraham-Mary connection, centered on response to
the divine fiat and already explicit in the Magnificat. Abraham and Mary
both received God directly, allowing their lives to be turned upside down in
the process.126 For Massignon, Abrahamic hospitality anticipates and par-
ticipates in that foundational Marian holiness. One also now sees why, in
Massignon’s interpretation, “Ibn ‘Arabî’s doctrine is perceived . . . as a subtle
betrayal of the Abrahamic message of faith.”127
God as Trinity
In subsequent chapters I will address Massignon’s belief in God’s Incarna-
tion as well as his efforts to reconcile his Christian beliefs with his reading
of the Qur’an and Islamic tradition. Here I want simply to reiterate Massi-
gnon’s traditional belief that the God of Abraham is also the Triune God,
acknowledging that on this point Christians and Muslims (and Jews) part
company. The reference to Abraham’s greeting of the three mysterious visi-
tors (Gen. 18), tres vidit et Unum adoravit (He saw three and adored One),
indicates Massignon’s acceptance of a traditional patristic-allegorical Chris-
tian reading of the episode.128 The “allusion to a Trinitarian theophany” in
Genesis, like the appearance of the Tetragrammaton before its revelation
to Moses, is for Massignon a wholly acceptable component of God’s provi-
dential design.129 His reflections on the Trinity were primarily experiential.
Revelation of the Trinity, in addition to confirming the Incarnation, was for
Massignon first and foremost an indication of “the dynamism of the divine
life” and “of the procession of love by which we have been invited to par-
ticipate in Faith.”130 It is important to note that for Massignon the Trinity
grounds our own authentic loves: “The Charity of God is mediated by our
charity.”131 Our love witnesses to and participates in God’s inner relations

128. The phrase tres vidit et Unum adoravit is an antiphon from the liturgy of the hours for Quinqua-
gesima Sunday, the Sunday before Lent in an older Catholic calendar. See Barbara Newman, “Contem-
plating the Trinity: Text, Images, and the Origins of the Rothschild Canticles,” Gesta 52, no. 2 (2013): 141.
130. Massignon, “Le Salut,” 147. Massignon acknowledges that a “dynamic” sense of God also ex-
ists within Sufism, especially in Hallâjian thought. See Massignon, “Interférences philosophiques et
percées metaphysiques dans la mystique Hallagienne: Notion de ‘l’essentiel désir,’” in EM 1, 452–78.
of love. For that reason he recommended—some would say counterintui-

tively—that in order to increase Christian-Muslim fraternity and mutual
understanding, Christians ought more intentionally to live out their “faith
in the Trinity.”132 More on that later.
Conclusion
The most fundamental characteristic of Massignon’s God is that He is real,
hence his fascination with Hallâj’s identification of God as haqq (truth, real-
ity). Massignon encountered God in religious experience, and he discovered
God in the testimony of mystics, both Muslim and Christian. Ever skepti-
cal and hesitant of an overly intellectualized or idealized God—the so-called
God of the philosophers—Massignon emphasized a God of will and action
(perhaps not unlike Pascal’s or Bergson’s God), a God who communicates
through creative divine fiat. Massignon’s God is the mysterious Stranger
who conceives in the feminine soul a divine Guest, a loving word of truth
and justice. The Stranger purifies the soul in order to bring the Guest to
birth, thus compelling a chosen one to witness publicly on behalf of the
oppressed. Massignon’s is the God of Hallâj, the God who inhabits the point
vierge of the heart, who arouses intimates to moments of divine union, and
who speaks through the chosen witness. Massignon’s is the God of revela-
tion, the God of Abraham, and the God of Mary. God is one, transcendent,
and absolute, and God is simultaneously Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Fi-
nally, God reveals Himself in and through the life, teaching, passion, death,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, so it is to Massignon’s understanding of
Christ that we turn.

Christ: Substitute Spirituality
T hree
CHRIST
Substitute Spirituality
Louis Massignon is reported to have said, “I begin every day at the foot of
the cross.”1 There is a Christological key, sometimes explicit, sometimes im-
plicit, to all of Massignon’s reflections on God, Christian and Islamic mysti-
cism, and the relationship between the Church and Islam. For Massignon,
Jesus is God’s definitive self-expression in history. He is the model of hu-
man sanctity; his wounds are evident in mature religious lives. Christ’s in-
carnation grounds the possibility of mystical union with God, and it is in Je-
sus’s redemption of humanity that all who are saved participate, no matter
their religious tradition. Even his ordination to the priesthood, according to
Harpigny, was principally about identifying with Christ’s sacrifice.2 Finally,
Christology is for Massignon the link between the Qur’an and the Church.
After reviewing his promotion of what is common in the Muslim and Chris-
tian understandings of Jesus, which I identify with the Qur’anic appellation
‘Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus, son of Mary), and after highlighting his attachment
to what is proper and exclusive to the Christian understanding, namely Je-
sus’s divinity, captured by the title Son of God, I devote the lion’s share of this
chapter to a discussion of Massignon’s understanding of Jesus as intercessor
and redeemer of humanity from sin, especially as that function grounds the
accent that he places upon substitute spirituality.
1. Herbert Mason, personal e-mail to the author, November 2015.

83
84 Christ: Substitute Spirituality
‘Isa Ibn Maryam

The Qur’an is replete with denials of the divinity of Jesus, including “They
are infidels who say, God is the Messiah, son of Mary” (Q 5:19) and “And
they say, God hath a son. No!” (Q 2:110). As Sidney Griffith has shown, “the
Qur’an’s purpose is selectively to recall the stories of Jesus and Mary within
the parameters of its own distinctive prophetology.”3 In other words, while
the Qur’anic portrayal of Jesus and Mary may be quite positive, that por-
trayal is always on the Qur’an’s own terms. There is no shortage of literature
about Jesus in the Qur’an, and I do not intend to review it here.4 I will just
point out that, as the aforementioned quoted passages indicate, a signifi-
cant function of the Qur’an is to reject “what the Arabic-speaking Christians
in Muhammad’s and the Qur’an’s milieu were accustomed to say about
Jesus.”5 For that reason, the following statement from Massignon is extraor-
dinary, even shocking: “In his Agony, Jesus is very much the Muslim Issa
ibn Meryem, robbed of all divinity.”6 At first blush, it seems to concede the
Muslim denial of the Incarnation. Jesus is ‘Isa of the Qur’an, and therefore,
one might reasonably conclude, not divine. However, as indicated in the
previous chapter, Massignon was unambiguously committed to a Chalce-
donian Christology. How then to interpret the statement?
The qualifier at least in his agony is very important. Massignon undoubt-
edly has in mind Luke’s presentation of what has been called Jesus’s ag-
ony in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed before his imminent
arrest and subsequent trial, and in which he says: “‘Father, if you are will-
ing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.’ And
to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him. He was in such
3. Sidney Griffith, The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the “People of the Book” in the Language of
Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013), 85.
4. Some recent books or parts of books on Jesus by Muslim scholars include Mahmoud Ayoub, A
Muslim View of Christianity, ed. Irfan Omar (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2007); Zeki Saritoprak, Islam’s Jesus
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015); Mona Siddiqui, Christians, Muslims, and Jesus (New Ha-
ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2014). For studies of the many references to Jesus in the Qur’an, the
hadîth, and other Islamic texts, see Tarif Khaldi, The Muslim Jesus; Sayings and Stories In Islamic Litera-
ture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003); Geoffrey Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’an (Lon-
don: Sheldon Press, 1965). For an exhaustive study of Qur’anic commentary on Christians and their
understanding of Jesus, see Jane McAuliffe, Qur’anic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern
Exegesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). On Mary in the Qur’an, see Jean-Muhammad
Abd-el-Jalil, Marie et l’Islam (Paris: Beauchesne, 1950).
5. Griffith, Bible, 87.
6. BAL 1, 64.
Christ: Substitute Spirituality 85
agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood
falling on the ground” (Luke 22:42–44).
Massignon’s description of Jesus in his agony as being robbed of all di-
vinity is likely also a reference to what has been called Jesus’s cry of derelic-
tion, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). In those
passages, what is revealed is a Jesus utterly dependent upon God, but who
momentarily seems to feel disconnected from or abandoned by God, or, as
Massignon puts it, robbed of all divinity. Patristic and medieval theologians
labored at length to reconcile such statements with Jesus’s divinity, even-
tually working out an understanding of his human nature as distinctively,
but always and completely, obedient to his divine nature.7 To cite just one
non-Gospel New Testament source for Jesus’s obedience to God, Hebrews
5:4–8 reads: 4. “No one takes this honor upon himself but only when called
by God, just as Aaron was. 5. In the same way, it was not Christ who glori-
fied himself in becoming high priest, but rather the one who said to him:
‘You are my son; this day I have begotten you’; 6. just as he says in another
place: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ 7. In
the days when he was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with
loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and
he was heard because of his reverence. 8. Son though he was, he learned
obedience from what he suffered.” This passage has been said to depict Je-
sus’s “submissive priesthood,” which is characterized by his “appointment
by God,” his “dependence on God,” his “reverence for God,” and his “obedi-
ence to God.”8
Massignon’s point, I believe, is that no Muslim, basing her judgment
upon the Qur’anic data, would disagree with such descriptions of Jesus’s re-
lationship to the Father (even if she disputed calling God Father). The Qur’an
attests repeatedly that ‘Isa ibn Maryam is completely dependent upon the
will of God. For example: “Lo! The likeness of Jesus with Allah is as the
likeness of Adam” (Q 3:59); “The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than
a messenger” (Q 5:75); “Thou [God] knowest what is in my [‘Isa’s] mind,
and I know not what is in Thy Mind. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Knower
of Things Hidden” (Q 5:115). I believe that by saying “In his Agony, Jesus is
7. See Christian Krokus, “Jesus’ Expression of Sorrow, Fear, Doubt, and Abandonment in the Pas-
sion Narrative of Mark (14:33–36; 15:34) according to Modern Catholic Exegesis and Thomas Aquinas’s
Summa Theologiae: Pastoral and Doctrinal Concerns,” Angelicum 85 (2008): 675–96.
8. Raymond Brown, The Message of Hebrews (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1982), 57–58.
very much the Muslim Issa ibn Meryem,” Massignon means to identify the
common ground between Christians and Muslims in their understanding
of Jesus. A few years after his death, Nostra Aetate 3 would cite in positive
fashion that “though [Muslims] do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they re-
vere Him as a prophet.” It is implied that there is overlap in the Christian
and Muslim understandings of Jesus, there captured by the term prophet.
What is really interesting is that, for Massignon, it is not a matter of iso-
lating a lowest common denominator. The Qur’anic Jesus is not generically
a prophet just like any other prophet. No, the Qur’anic Jesus has distinctive
features, and although those features are found in Christian understand-
ings of Jesus as well, they are points of emphasis in the Qur’an, which Mas-
signon appreciated, because in their own way they further the mission of
the Church. The Qur’an confirms Jesus’s virgin birth in conjunction with
the immaculate conception of Mary (at least in some interpretations), his
messianic role, his transparent conformity to the divine will, and his role
as eschatological judge. Most important for Massignon were the openings
or perhaps allusions he perceived in the Qur’an to the Incarnation. They
include what he called the “sign of two” and also the Qur’anic account of
the judgment of the fallen angels. However, his hunch about the potential
openness of the Qur’an to the Incarnation was confirmed by his study of
Sufism and in particular Hallâj, whose meditation on the Qur’anic Jesus as
the model of union with God led him to enjoy his own experiences of mys-
tical union.
Sign of Two
Massignon often referred to the “sign of two” or the “double Marian sign” of
the Qur’an, in reference to its supposed confirmation of both the immacu-
late conception of Mary and the virgin birth of Jesus, but he was also al-
luding to the Qur’an’s repeated designation of Jesus as a “sign” (19:21). The
virgin birth is clear in sûra 19:
16. And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her
people to a chamber looking East. 17. And had chosen seclusion from them. Then We
sent unto her Our spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man. 18. She
said: Lo! I seek refuge in the Beneficent One from thee, if thou art God-fearing. 19. He
said: I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a faultless son. 20.
She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been
unchaste? 21. He said: So (it will be). Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me. And (it will be)
that We may make of him a revelation [sign] for mankind and a mercy from Us, and
it is a thing ordained. 22. And she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far
place.
The immaculate conception of Mary is less clear, and is by no means uni-

versally accepted, but it derives from the Qur’anic account of St. Anne’s pre-
sentation of Mary at the Temple (Q 3:35–37):
35. (Remember) when the wife of ‘Imran said: My Lord! I have vowed unto Thee that
which is in my belly as a consecrated (offering). Accept it from me. Lo! Thou, only
Thou, art the Hearer, the Knower! 36. And when she was delivered she said: My Lord!
Lo! I am delivered of a female—Allah knew best of what she was delivered—the male
is not as the female; and lo! I have named her Mary, and lo! I crave Thy protection
for her and for her offspring from Satan the outcast. 37. And her Lord accepted her
with full acceptance and vouchsafed to her a goodly growth; and made Zachariah her
guardian.
Geoffrey Parrinder succinctly summarizes the affirming tradition:

Later Islam regarded Mary as sinless, in company with all the prophets, and a ba-
sis for belief in Mary’s sinlessness was found in Sûra 3, 31/35, where Mary’s mother
said: “I seek refuge with thee for her and her progeny from Satan the stoned.” On this
Bukhârî gave a tradition of Muhammad saying that no child of Adam is born without
a demon touching him at the moment of birth. The one whom the demon touches
gives out a cry, which is why all children cry. There have been no exceptions but Mary
and her son.9
When Massignon, a Christian, reads those Qur’anic passages, two things

stand out. First, he observes that within the Qur’an itself the pieces are
in place for opening a conversation about what the Incarnation actually
means. The facts of the immaculate conception of Mary and the virgin birth
of Jesus guarantee the divine Word’s entry into history independent of hu-
man agency (other than Mary’s consent) and human sin, and Massignon
would say that in the Qur’anic witness there is the potential to clarify at
least what the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation is not: “For every Mus-
lim protest against the Incarnation is a protest against a carnal paternity, but
the Muslim witness of the Immaculate Conception indicates a virginal ma-
ternity . . . that conceives the ‘fiat’ (kun), cited eight times in the Qur’an, al-
ways in relation to Jesus son of Mary and Judgment.”10 It is not uncommon
9. Parrinder, Jesus, 62. Pages 67–74 include reviews of opinions, Muslim and Christian, about the
Immaculate Conception and Mary’s virginity.
in Islamic anti-Christian polemic to complain that the Christian designa-

tion of Jesus as Son of God somehow implies a sexual relationship between
God and Mary. Nor is it uncommon to accuse Christians of polytheism, of
having corrupted the monotheism of Abraham and Moses, but Massignon
argues that the Qur’an itself already guards against such critiques. He writes:
“It is not as much a matter of having [Muslims] discern the generation of
the eternal Word as it is of suggesting to them that the Immaculate Concep-
tion is what allows the virginal birth of the Messiah and what safeguards
a pure monotheism. Christ (and the Elect who are his adopted members)
was born neither of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of any
man.”11 That said, he does not expect all Muslims to see immediately what
only becomes clear in the light of a proper understanding of the doctrine of
the Incarnation: “I do not say that the ‘sign of two’ sketched in the Qur’an is
any more clear for the Muslim reader than the ‘sign of Three’ before Abra-
ham at Mamre is for the rabbinic reader of the Bible.”12
The second thing that stands out to Massignon is that sûra 3 of the
Qur’an was received and communicated in Medina (formerly Yathrib), the
city into which Muhammad and his companions were invited when they
fled Mecca, and in which there was a substantial Jewish population. Sûra
3 recounts not only the immaculate conception of Mary (35–37a) but also
the birth of John the Baptist (37b–41), the virgin birth of Jesus (45–47), Je-
sus’s preaching and rejection by his people (48–54), and his ascension into
heaven (55–57). Of course sûra 3 also critiques the notion of Jesus as in-
carnate Son of God in the episode of the Mubâhala (59–64), but what im-
pressed Massignon was that Muhammad preached the lives of John, Mary,
and Jesus to the Medinan Jews. In other words, the Qur’an declares among
Jews that the messiah indeed arrived in the person of Jesus (masih, mes-
siah, is one of the Qur’anic titles for Jesus), and the Church should be grate-
ful. By preaching the sign of two, the Qur’an potentially answers Israel’s
concern that Christian devotion to Jesus amounts to a violation of mono-
theism:
The essence of Muhammad’s rigorous monotheist message, exiled to Medina in an
Israelite biblical milieu, was to proclaim, in connection with the Messiah, the virginal
secret of the intact transcendence of the glory of God, the secret of hearts that Angels
could not divine, the Election, that the Messiah must reveal by returning for the Last

Judgment. Muhammad affirms, contrary to the blasphemy in the Medinan [Jewish]

milieu, that Jesus and his Mother Mary were not only pure, virgin, and holy, but that
they were the only humans whose conception was immaculate, untouched by the
Devil (Qur’an 3:31, prayer of St. Anne). [He affirms] that Jesus will return victorious,
at the hour of Judgment, that the world, like Israel if it persists in its unbelief, will be
judged and condemned under this sign of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, pure
vase of the virginal birth of Jesus, Ark of salvation of the predestined.13
Judgment of the Fallen Angels

The Qur’an 19:90–92 states: “90. Whereby almost the heavens are torn, and
the earth is split asunder and the mountains fall in ruins, 91. that ye as-
cribe unto the Beneficent a son, 92. when it is not meet for (the Majesty of)
the Beneficent that He should choose a son.” That “the heavens are torn” is
traditionally understood to indicate the blasphemous nature of suggesting
that God would take a son. The Qur’an directly rejects the Christian claim of
Jesus’s divinity. However, Massignon interprets the passage once again in a
unique manner. In his Christian allegorical reading, it providentially refers
to the Islamic account of the fall of Satan (Iblîs) and his companion angels.
It was precisely the suggestion that God would take up a human nature that
divided the angels, that is, tore the heavens, causing some, with Satan, to re-
fuse adoration and thus to fall, while others accepted the command to bow
down before the human form, prefiguring the advent of the Incarnation.14
For Massignon, the fall of Satan is not, as the main Islamic traditions have
held, the result of his failing to accept humanity’s stewardship of the earth.
Rather, Satan’s downfall is his refusal to accept the Incarnation, prefigured
in the creation of Adam.15
In “Le Salut de l’Islam,” Massignon gives an explanation, referring to
“the Incarnation as an unthinkable, unbelievable miracle that would ‘split

14. Massignon also interprets this as the fulfillment of Isaiah 45:8: “Shower, O heavens, from
above, and let the skies rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation may sprout forth,
and let it cause righteousness to spring up also; I the Lord have created it.”
15. For Ibn ‘Arabî the fallen angels are guilty of “binding,” that is, fixing on one manifestation or
interpretation of God to the exclusion of others. They were particularly guilty of “binding the Truth
into a ‘high’ station,” meaning they opposed the selection of Adam as a vice regent because of his low-
ly status as human being, as one who would surely “corrupt” the earth and “shed blood” (Sells, “Gar-
den,” 291–92). The lack of imagination on the part of the angels in Ibn ‘Arabî’s interpretation seems to
support Massignon’s, even if for the former the Incarnation is not at stake.
the heavens’ i.e., would divide the angels, which actually happened.”16 And
in a long and dense passage from HI, he elaborates:
It makes sense that [the Qur’an] appeared in the Arabian desert, where Azâzîl,17 the
scapegoat, was chased [Lev. 16:6], and among those who have no more link to the God
of Abraham than being of physical descent from Ishmael, and where the concern of
tribal genealogies, their only heritage, impedes them from grasping the secret of the
divine Paternity in the unheard of conception of a Virgin giving birth to the Media-
tor, that a voice resounded from beyond . . . formulating the protest of the primordial
angelic nature, in order to reveal to an Arab, and by him to an entire idolatrous world
enamored of avatars, haunted by the horrible myth of demi-gods, what inviolable
seal, forever virginal, encloses the mystery of the Incarnation; grace surpassing the
order of creation, as the angels first understood it, and which, like lightning, “split the
heavens” (Qur’an 19:92) thus [evoking] the Rorate caeli . . . of Isaiah: 45:8;18 grace con-
ceived by the unique Fiancée, Mary, in the other Abrahamic line, the predestined one.
It makes sense that this anonymous protest of the angelic nature, making itself heard
in Arabic, in the tongue of the excluded, was attributed to “Gabriel,” since the Qur’an
there defends the honor of Mary against the Jews, as did Gabriel when he re-assured
Joseph. Who was the real organ of this protest . . . ? Even before the creation of Adam,
the first Azâzîl, the first scapegoat, Satan . . . protested, in the name of the angelic na-
ture, at the Judgment of the angels, against the hypothesis of a divine Incarnation.
Here, in the Arab race, on the lips of Muhammad, whose role in the Mi’râj has been
justly compared by Hallâj to this attitude of Satan, the protest expresses itself, takes
its historical signification, the one of an anticipated closure, in view of the imminent
Judgment of men. After this Judgment, there will be no more legal genealogical filia-
tion, the elect among men will have all become “like the angels in the heavens.” This
is the open [brute] proclamation of the primordial love of God for the whole lot of the
predestined ones, passing a bit quickly under silence how the Lover came to save
the lovers and to conduct them to the Beloved,19 for God is not only the Lover—but
the Loving and the Loved—from which he proceeds.20
Many of the themes are now familiar, but Massignon pulls them together
in a fascinating way. The Arabian desert was populated by the Ishmaelite
exiles, those denied the spiritual blessings of the descendants of Isaac. As
a result, their too-carnal attachment to tribal lineage and loyalty prevents
them, at least immediately, from being open to the correct idea of incarna-
tion, which depends upon the notion of spiritual, rather than physical, pa-

17. The fallen angel of 1 Enoch, also the scapegoat driven off a cliff at Yom Kippur.
18. Christ is the rain dropped by the splitting of the heavens.
19. Massignon’s note 2 refers to Raymon Llull’s Amich et Amat.
20. HI, 97–98.
ternity. Plus, they were infected with wrong, even horrible, ideas about in-
carnation, including the ideas of avatars and demi-gods. In that milieu, the
most pressing concern, and the one the Qur’an assumes, is to establish the
absolute transcendence of God. However, the Qur’anic testimony is actually,
according to Massignon, ambiguous. On the one hand, it denies the hypoth-
esis of a divine Incarnation, leading Massignon to wonder whether perhaps
Satan was the real organ of this protest, while on the other hand, it alludes to
a division among the angels, some of whom accepted the Incarnation, pre-
figured in God’s creation of the first human being, grace surpassing . . . cre-
ation. With Muhammad, whose refusal of the possibility of human-divine
union Hallâj compares with Satan’s refusal to bow before Adam, the protest
is transposed from the heavenly realm into history. Massignon closes by
noting that the Qur’an universalizes God’s love for humanity. It is no longer
the privilege of Israel, nor the privilege of the spiritual descendants of Isaac,
the Church. The exiled have been reincorporated. Massignon’s understand-
ing of Islam as an Abrahamic schism, which is implied here, will be the sub-
ject of chapter 6. For now, I simply observe that he closes the passage with
a Trinitarian reference, hinting that Muslims have avoided the important
questions of how God mediates God’s love to humans and what the effect is
of accepting God’s offer of love.
It is essential to note that Massignon certainly understood that his
Christian allegorical interpretation of the sensitive Qur’anic passages quot-
ed previously ran against the grain of centuries of tradition both in the
Church and in Islam. Asked whether many Muslims read those passages
as he does, Massignon responded negatively, but added: “there have always
been some, within the Muslim ascetical and mystical tradition, who wit-
nessed explicitly to the sanctifying action of Jesus and his Mother upon
Muslim souls—with direct reference to the Qur’an.”21 He lists Hasan of Bas-
ra, Shâfi’î (767–820), Nazzâm (775–845), Ibn ‘Aqîl (1040–1119), and Ghazâlî
as examples, and I will turn in a moment to the importance of Sufi attach-
ment to Jesus. Asked whether there were many Christians who extended
this kind of reading to Islam and the Qur’an, Massignon responded: “Very
few; the most explicit was the Melkite bishop Paul of Sidon in the twelfth
century.”22 In other words, Massignon was not naïve about the problems.
He knew from personal experience the real and frustrating difficulties of

reconciling Christian doctrine not only with the Qur’an but with the Arabic
milieu into which the Qur’an was introduced:
I myself, reborn a Christian, thinking in Arabic, dressed like an Arab, was struck by the
difficulty which I encountered in trying to re-think Christianity and the Incarnation in
Arabic terms, because the Arabs are still distinguished by a concept of transcendence
even more intransigent than that of the Jews. The Jews hope for the coming of the
Messiah. However, they reproved the early Christians by telling them that they were
turning the Messiah into a second God, greater than the first! A difficult theological
elaboration was necessary before we Christians could escape this apparent dualism.
The Muslims don’t admit the validity of this theological elaboration. They oppose us
with their rigid monotheism. It is God who judges creation. Alright! But how can His
Word take on physical form, even the miraculous form of the Messiah?
There are several difficulties in the theology of the communicatio idiomatum
which are almost incomprehensible in the Arabic language. The Arabs, who have
been excluded from the Covenant because they are descendants of Ishmael, have no
other means of attaining the Divine Word (and they have indeed attained it!) except
through their language. That is why they love the Arabic language so deeply. I too love
it because it brought me back to Christ. Therefore we are obligated to fix our attention
on the predisposition of the Arabic language to communicate the word of truth if we
want to understand why Islam exists.23
It is a confession filled with passion and some frustration. Once again he

implores his Muslim interlocutors to ask certain questions, such as how the
Word is mediated to human beings in history. At the same time, he demon-
strates sensitive understanding. He has experimented with trying to rethink
Christianity and the Incarnation in Arabic terms and found it a particularly
difficult enterprise. That limitation, when coupled with the historical, geo-
graphical, and spiritual distance between the Ishmaelite tradition and its
counterparts in Israel and in the Church, makes it difficult, if not unlikely,
to accept the notion of God’s Incarnation in Jesus. Therefore, critics are cor-
rect to caution against reading the Qur’an at odds with traditional Muslim
exegesis, and Massignon himself would not expect a Muslim to read the
verses quoted earlier in the same way that he does.24 That said, as he in-
23. Quoted in Basetti-Sani, Louis Massignon, 116.

24. See Giulio Basetti-Sani, The Koran in the Light of Christ (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1977).
Basetti-Sani’s position is even more bold than Massignon’s. He begins “from two suppositions that are
recognized as hypothetically possible. Let us suppose that the Koran is actually a revealed book and
that Mohammed is a genuine messenger of God. Let us apply the methods of criticism and history, and
keep in mind, too, the ‘analogy of faith’ which we use in the study of Sacred Scripture. What results can
come of such a realistic and honest approach?” This interpretation of the Qur’an “with a Christian key”
results in the judgment that the Qur’an rarely, if ever, directly addresses Christians. Instead, Basetti-Sani
dicates in the aforementioned quote, there have always been some. It is Sufi
devotion to the Qur’anic Jesus and Mary that supports, for Massignon, his
interpretation of the Qur’an.
Hallâj and Jesus

In the section of his Passion titled “Hallâj’s Resemblances to the Qur’anic
Model of Jesus,” Massignon writes:
The Qur’an presents Jesus, from his birth, as identical to the Spirit of God, by whom
Mary conceived him: he is the model of holiness through the mystical union, and
the only vivifying miracles mentioned in the Qur’an are, as Ibn ‘Arabî has noted, the
work of this Spirit, through Jesus. It is therefore natural that the contemporary Mus-
lim public, hearing Hallâj preach about the life of mystical union, would have tried
to find in him the Qur’anic physiognomy of the Christ. The latter gave life to birds
of clay, cured the man born blind and the leper, brought the dead back to life, re-
vealed to men the food with which they nourished themselves, and the food that they
hid in their houses: he confirmed the Mosaic Law and modified the observance of it
with several exemptions. All of these characteristics are also found in Hallâj, with too
many unexpected details and based on too many independent sources for this model
configuration to be explained as a later transfer by an ingenious forger.25
As we have seen, these material resemblances are founded in an explicitly re-
corded doctrinal similarity; it was in meditating on the example of the Qur’anic Christ
that Hallâj had defined holiness as a permanent union with the divine “Kun” (fiat),
acquiring through ascesis and humility this increasing unction of graces within.26
Hallâj is reported to have said, “It is in the religion of the cross that I die,”
and Ghazâlî cites a tradition in which Hallâj is reported to have quoted the
Qur’an 4:156 before his death: “ . . . they slew him not nor crucified him, but
it appeared so unto them.”27 In the paragraphs of the Passion following the
sees “the message of the Koran as intended for the Jews of Mecca first, then for those of Medina and
for the Arab pagans, descendants of Ishmael.” The Arab pagan environment accounts for the return of
Islam to the patriarchal faith of Abraham. It is necessary that a people be prepared via Abrahamic faith
before realizing the Mosaic covenant or the Incarnation. Basetti-Sani, Koran, 39, 36, 205. Andrew Rippin
reviewed Basetti-Sani’s book in 1981. He praised the author’s honesty but criticized the results: “One can
only laud such frankness in expression even if the whole enterprise leaves one feeling cold.” Further,
“Many of the practitioners of ‘dialogue’ would find his whole enterprise as a step backwards: to suggest
that Muslims have the ‘wrong’ interpretation of their Holy Book is to alienate them immediately and
to destroy all possibility of meaningful conversation.” Rippin, “Approaches to Islam: A Review Essay,”
Religious Studies Bulletin 1, no. 4 (1981): 140–41.
27. Massignon, Passion 3, 221; Massignon, “Le Christ dans les Évangiles selon Ghazâlî,” in EM 2, 100.
long passages just quoted, Massignon acknowledges other similarities in

the characters and events associated with the respective trials and deaths of
Jesus and Hallâj, and then he concludes: “Hallâj appears before the observer
as a strangely living image of the real Christ as we know him.”28 Hence Hal-
lâj’s meditation upon and conformity to the life of the Qur’anic Jesus re-
sults, in Massignon’s judgment, in conformity to the life and death of the
Jesus of the Gospels and the Church. It results in a temporary realization of
Jesus’s permanent mystical union with the divine will. Hallâj was not alone.
Massignon writes: “For Muslims (and for Ibn ‘Arabî above all) Christ is the
Spirit of the unique Rule of the perfection of life.”29 Ghazâlî goes further,
citing Jesus’s divinely permitted “theopathic locutions,” or claims to iden-
tity with God, as evidence for the non-absurdity of the possibility of hulul,
an Arabic term that is often rendered as infusion but is used by Muslims to
translate the Christian category of incarnation.30 Ultimately, Ghazâlî rejects
any notion of an incarnate God, but his recognition of the connection be-
tween Jesus and the notion of human union with the divine was important
for Massignon’s thinking. ‘Isa ibn Maryam is, for Massignon, the virgin-born
son of the immaculately conceived Mary; he is the expected eschatological
judge and messiah of Israel (and beyond), and he is the model mystic, in
permanent and immediate union with the divine will (kun!), as well as the
example upon which those aspiring to union must meditate. All of this, ac-
cording to Massignon’s Christian allegorical reading, is discovered not only
in the New Testament and the Church but also in the Qur’an and the Sufi
tradition, and for that reason he can approve and even promote the Jesus
of Islam.
Jesus, Son of God

Massignon’s Jesus is also the nonviolent crucified redeemer of humanity,
the divine Son of God, and the second person of the Trinity. His writings,
especially but not exclusively on topics pertaining to Christian spirituality
and to Christian responses to Islam, are peppered with explicit and implicit
references to Gospel accounts of Jesus’s teachings, parables, healings, mir-
acles, and so forth, but his sustained efforts at writing about Jesus tend to
focus on his incarnation and his redemption of humanity. As I indicated

30. Massignon, “Ghazâlî,” 100.
previously, many are apologetic, answering Islamic denials of the pillars of

Christian doctrine. For example, I already mentioned that in the Examen
Massignon responds to Ibn al-Torjoman’s subordinationist reading of vari-
ous Gospel verses (and of the Islamic tradition generally) in which Jesus
eats and drinks (Matt. 11:19), admits ignorance of “the Hour” (Matt. 24:36),
and prays to the Father (Matt. 26:36–45) by accumulating scriptural refer-
ences to the divinity of Jesus and by invoking a Catholic-conciliar herme-
neutic that assumes that Christ is both divine and human. I also mentioned
his effort to explain the Catholic position by employing the rules of the
communication of properties (communicatio idiomatum), which he refers to
as the “non-communication of properties” on at least one occasion.
Here I add further comments about his defense of the Incarnation,
against which Massignon entertains three objections in the Examen. First,
the Incarnation is simply impossible, for it introduces change to the immu-
table God and assigns limits in time and space to the infinite and eternal
Creator.31 Second, it is illogical, even inconceivable, for it forces one to ac-
cept absurdities and contradictions such as attributing to the Creator all the
imperfections of the creature and to the creature all the perfections of the
Creator.32 Finally, even if the Incarnation is not a logical impossibility, it cer-
tainly violates the unity of Jesus’s person, making of him a sort of half-man,
half-God.33 Instead of starting with the difficulty of understanding and
from there concluding to the improbability (or impossibility) of the teach-
ing, Massignon once again begins from a position of faith, starting with
the truth of the matter and proceeding to seek some understanding, that
is, faith seeking understanding.34 He offers two justifications, one scriptural
and one anthropological. He draws upon Genesis 1:26–27, where one learns
that humans are created in the image of God, and which establishes “a priori
a certain conformity between the Creator and his reasonable creature.”35

35. Massignon, Examen, 29. Massignon also cites the Qur’an 82:7–8. “Who created thee, then fash-
ioned, then proportioned thee? Into whatsoever form He will, He casteth thee.” Whether humans are
created in the image of God according to the Qur’an is a contested matter. Consider, for example, Qur’an
42:11, “The Creator of the heavens and the earth. He hath made for you pairs of yourselves, and of the
cattle also pairs, whereby He multiplieth you. Naught is as His likeness; and He is the Hearer, the Seer,”
and 112:4, “And there is none comparable unto Him.” See Yahya Michot, “The Image of God in Human-
ity from a Muslim Perspective,” in Abraham’s Children: Jews, Christians and Muslims in Conversation, ed.
Richard Harries, Norman Solomon, and Timothy Winter, 163–74 (London: T and T Clark, 2005).
Then he argues the following: The very fact that human beings, Christian
and Muslim, speak about God at all, whether by apophatic means (via re-
motionis, tanzîh) or kataphatic means (via excellentiae, tamjîd), suggests that
love and desire for God exists in all human hearts, if only unthematically in
some cases, and that all human beings ultimately seek fulfillment in an Ab-
solute: “Human nature in its will as in its reason is not deprived a priori of
all access to God.”36 Thus, against the first charge, on scriptural and anthro-
pological grounds, Massignon argues that an intimate relationship between
Creator and creature at least cannot be ruled out a priori.
To the second charge, that to express the idea of incarnation one is
forced to say absurd things about both Creator and creature, Massignon
returns to the communicatio idiomatum in order to demonstrate the logical
control of meaning regarding the hypostatic union in the person of Jesus.
This time he cites it in its classical expression and in French, communication
des idiomes, and he attempts a further explanation: “Jesus was personally
both God and man, the point of union between creation and Creator. Thus
one cannot say anything about him that applies abstractly and exclusively to
the man (human nature) or to God (divine essence). However, one can say
about Jesus anything that can be said essentially and personally about the
Son of God and about a man.”37 He provides an example: “One can say: the
Christ is all powerful, eternal . . . , and the Son of God was born of a wom-
an, crucified. . . . One cannot say: The Trinity, the Holy Spirit was crucified;
the Son is only a creature; the humanity of Christ is uncreated, impassible.
Thus, one observes that the logical relations between the words ‘God’ and
‘man’ employed a propos the Christ cannot be reduced to the antinomy
between ‘Creator’ and ‘creature’ in the way IT imagines.”38 In short, Mas-
signon argues that Christians are well aware of the philosophical problems
involved and in response have posited the doctrine of the hypostatic union.
To the third charge, that the Incarnation would make of Jesus a
half-man, half-God, Massignon corrects a faulty presupposition: “[IT] de-
fines it [the Incarnation] as the introduction from heaven of a material par-
cel into the womb of Mary. And God, not being a material substance, could
not have produced a piece of divine material from himself with which to
form the Christ.”39 Massignon responds: “This argument is sophistry; it con-

38. Massignon, Examen, 29–30 n. 37.
fuses the person of Christ with his body. In the same way that God, without
human concourse, creates the soul and unites it to the body engendered by
the parents, so also He united the person of the Word to a human nature
(both body and soul) at the moment of the conception of Jesus. The person
of the Word is not a piece broken off from the divine essence!”40 In a foot-
note, he observes that this “materialist confusion” is pervasive in the text of
Ibn al-Torjoman.41 Once again, Massignon has argued for a spiritual rather
than material understanding of divine paternity.
Massignon’s commitment is not only defensive. He argues that the fact
of the Incarnation also produces pastoral effects; it affects how one prays,
for example:
The Christian certitude of union of the sanctified soul with God encourages that soul to
pray more in order to defer or to slow the chastisements that prophetic knowledge has
revealed to him.42 In Islam, on the contrary, the holy fear of an inaccessible God keeps
[arrête] the prayer within the soul to the degree that the secrets of predestination have
been revealed to him. Compare the prayers of Abraham for Sodom (Gen. 18:16–33) and
of Jesus for Jerusalem (Matt. 23:20) [in the Bible] with the passages of the Qur’an where
Abraham refuses to pray for his father (60:4; 9:114) and where Moses learns from an
anonymous messenger not to protest against predestination (18:61–83).43
Knowledge of the Incarnation provides an intimacy and confidence that al-

lows the soul to enter into conversation with God, whereas the traditional
Islamic respect for the absolute transcendence of God and the doctrine of
predestination, here typified in the dispositions of the Qur’anic Abraham
and Moses, encourages submission to the divine will from a distance, at
least according to Massignon’s understanding of the traditional Muslim
apologetic, one narrow strain of Islamic tradition that I will address in the
next chapter. Prayer remains in the soul, meaning that the relationship be-
tween the soul and God is less conversational than it is a pious obedience.

41. Massignon, Examen, 30 n. 38. Hallâj, like Augustine in Book 7 of the Confessions, seems to have
overcome the materialist confusion: “[He] was concerned in the same way with affirming doctrinally
the immortal immateriality of the soul and the ineffable divine transcendence, and in breaking loose,
as Saint Augustine did when he left Mani for Plotinus, from the materialistic terminology of the mix-
ture of the two primary causes that had infected the cosmogony of the early theologians of Islam and
even of mystics such as Tustari and Junayd.” Massignon, Passion 1, 201. This is no small achievement.
According to Bernard Lonergan, the realization that real ≠ body is “what an Augustine took years and
modern science centuries to discover,” See Lonergan, Insight (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2005), 17.
42. That is, the warnings of the prophets.
43. Massignon, Examen, 23 n. 24.
Note the relationship between the Incarnation and the confidence every
sanctified soul should have about its union with God. The former justifies
the latter. In HI, Massignon somewhat poetically extends the insight, argu-
ing that Jesus’s incarnation both grounds and heuristically orients the pos-
sibility of mystical union:
When the appointed hour came, . . . when Rome dedicated the Pantheon to the com-
memoration of All Saints, the true cross, ending its brief Abrahamic pilgrimage (614–
628) where it was elevated at Ctesiphon on the horizon of paradise lost, returned to
Jerusalem by an oriental route, through Édom and Basra, to be pulverized into pieces
and scattered throughout Christendom, before Islam was able to disrupt it. The cycle
of Christological definitions would conclude by proclaiming and fully formulating
the coexistence of two wills, divine and human (pledge of mystical union), in the
person of Jesus. That is according to the Qur’an, “the sign of the Hour”; the herald of
Judgment; “temporary arbiter between Justice and Mercy, together at last.”44
The teaching of Christ’s two wills, one human and one divine, was decreed
formally at the Third Council of Constantinople (681) in order to correct
the Monothelite position, which stated that Jesus’s two natures shared
only one will. For Massignon, this was an extremely important judgment,
for it showed that the Incarnation successfully joined not simply human
and divine natures but specifically human and divine wills, and the union
of human and divine wills is, of course, the ultimate aim of both Christian
and Muslim mystics. He therefore celebrates the roughly contemporaneous
assembly of events, including the Qur’an’s affirmation of the permanent
union of human and divine wills in Jesus, the Third Council of Constan-
tinople, and the discovery of the true cross as an auspicious confirmation
of the link between Incarnation, our capacity for union with God, and the
cross as the requisite condition for achieving union.
For Massignon, the Incarnation also grounds the efficacy of the sacra-
ments. As an example, it is worth repeating and expanding upon his com-
parison of the Qur’an and the Eucharist as the central organizing principles
of Islam and Christianity, respectively:
If we compare the sign of union in Islam, which is the reading of the Qur’an, to the
sign of union in the Church, which is communion in the Eucharist, then we observe
that, in the Qur’an, the substance of the Divine Word is reduced to a series of phonetic
articulations, corresponding to the reading of a written text, where man spells out the
Law of an inaccessible God. This sign that unites believers by a common recitation
44. HI, 64–65.

attests to the separation of Creator and creation by the written pact. In the Eucha-
rist, the qualities of the species of bread and wine, created and perishable, disappear
by the assimilation of these accidents. This sign, which maintains the distinction be-
tween the substances, consecrates the union between Creator and creation. The form
of the promise45 is reduced to appearance while the substance is actually divine. If
the body naturally assimilates the material appearance, why would the soul refuse
the spiritual gift of God?46
For Massignon, to receive the Eucharist is to participate directly in the union

between Creator and creation. It is to assimilate in body and soul the Incarna-
tion, without completely collapsing the Creator-creature distinction.
I will later address Massignon’s position on baptisms vis-à-vis potential
converts to the Church from Islam, but in my reading, he says relatively
little about the other sacraments. Of course Guy Harpigny’s groundbreaking
book thoroughly established the sacramental and symbolic importance of
holy orders, priestly ordination, in Massignon’s life. However, as Harpigny
shows, ordination for Massignon primarily meant access to a more intimate
celebration of the Eucharist, which really meant a sacramental participa-
tion in Christ’s redemption of humanity.47
Jesus, Sacrificial Redeemer

In the Examen, Massignon sees in the doctrine of redemption “the central
antinomy between Christianity and Islam. IT considers as only a story (ro-
man) without verisimilitude what the Christian knows to be History itself,
the woof of the recitation of the ‘Acts of God through men,’ the very order
of the plan of the creative Will.”48 For Christianity, “Original sin anticipates
the redemption, and all of Christian history is the construction of the heav-
enly Jerusalem from the ruins of Babylon,”49 whereas, according to the tra-
45. That is, accidents of bread and wine.

47. See Harpigny, Islam et Christianisme.
48. Massignon, Examen, 31. On the “gesta Dei per homines,” apparently Massignon refers to the Lith-
uanian theologian A. Dambrauskas-Jakštas: “What is history in the light of the Christian faith? Bossu-
et called it ‘gesta Dei per Francos.’ The Lithuanian philosopher and theologian A. Dambrauskas-Jakštas
extended this definition and called history ‘gesta Dei per homines.’ In either case, whether taken in a
narrower sense or as including the whole of mankind, in essence history is the joint activity of God
and man in time. For the Christian, history is not only an earthly process, because its real springs,
from which it takes its origin, are not in this world. The prologue of history is in heaven.” Antanas
Maceina, “‘The Spirit of the Antichrist in History’ from the Mystery of Iniquity,” Lithuanian Quarterly
Journal of Arts and Sciences 15, no. 2 (1969): 38.
ditional Muslim apologetic, “history has neither stages nor center. Jesus is
just a prophet like the others and God has no need of making [the earlier
prophets] wait for their deliverance in Jesus.”50 Christian history is a graded
progression, and the heavenly Jerusalem built from the ruins of Babylon
is a compelling image. There is development in the tradition just as there
is development in the spiritual life of the individual believer, and such de-
velopment requires conversion of the heart.51 That is an absolutely central
theme in Massignon’s thought that cannot be overemphasized. The Incar-
nation is first and foremost evidence of God’s desire to rescue sinners out of
His infinite love, and our acceptance of God’s extended hand involves, for
Massignon, the practice of substitute spirituality.
Substitute Spirituality
In the opening paragraphs of “The Three Prayers of Abraham,” Massignon
lists Léon Bloy, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Charles de Foucauld as “men of
prayer and spiritual longing who have appeared on the threshold of this
generation” and who “have left a testimony of God’s Holy Name, an incor-
ruptible trust, a spiritual vow, for those to whom they spoke of Him, to be
passed on to coming generations in order that they, in turn, might expe-
rience its saving power.”52 At the turn of the twentieth century, among a
circle of French Catholic intellectuals, many of whom were adult converts
and many of whom have been described as either “reactionary” or “jazz
age” Catholics, the subject of voluntary and vicarious suffering was strongly
in vogue.53 Massignon was introduced as a young man to many of those

51. Massignon, Examen, 31. For the Christian vision of history, Massignon invokes a work of Dom
Adrian Gréa (1828–1917), an influential early-twentieth-century theologian, in which Gréa marks
three stages of history: the creation and subsequent fall of the angels, which, because of their spiritual
nature, was an unforgivable sin, providing God the opportunity to manifest His justice; the creation
and fall of humankind, which, because of their composite nature, was a forgivable sin; and the In-
carnation and redemption, providing God the opportunity to manifest His mercy. See Adrien Gréa,
L’église et sa divine constitution (Tournai, Belgium: Casterman, 1965).
53. See Richard Griffiths, The Reactionary Revolution: The Catholic Revival in French Literature,
1870–1914 (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1965). Stephen Schloesser notes the interesting
ways many of Massignon’s contemporaries attached themselves to an ultratraditionalist Church,
which they then presented in completely modernist “guise.” It made for an unlikely mixture of
avant-garde art, literature, music, and philosophy with loyalty to Church authority, pious Marian de-
votion, and asceticism, and it won an unusual set of converts to the faith. Among the ways the old
was presented as new in this renouveau catholique was to “dress up Catholic order in exotic oriental-
ist costume.” Massignon was not alone in his interest in both Catholicism and an “eastern” religion.
writers, including Huysmans and Bloy, and it is fair to say that they were
particularly important for his understanding of substitute spirituality.54 A
novelist in the decadent school, J. K. Huysmans was a friend of Massignon’s
father, the Parisian sculptor Pierre Roche, and like Roche, Huysmans left
the Catholic Church as a young man. However, he converted back to the
Catholic faith late in life (1891), and it was during that period that Massi-
gnon, before his own religious conversion, came to know him. Mary Lou-
ise Gude recounts their first meeting: “Among the topics touched upon was
Huysmans’ forthcoming biography of Saint Lydwine of Schiedam, whose
life exemplified the writer’s belief that one could atone for the sins of others
by offering up one’s sufferings on their behalf.”55 Richard Griffiths’s obser-
vation helps to contextualize that first Huysmans-Massignon conversation:
“In the religious writings of Huysmans the theme of vicarious suffering has
a dominant place. In most of his religious novels it is stressed above all oth-
er doctrines, and in Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam (1901) it is the cornerstone
of the whole work, which is a paean of praise for suffering, the example
being a medieval ‘compatiente,’ the Blessed Lydwine . . . who devoted her
life to suffering for the world around her.”56 Massignon came to share Huys-
mans’s fascination with redemptive suffering—substitute spirituality—and
he also included Huysmans among those who (he believed) interceded for
him during his own crisis and conversion of 1908.57
Massignon was also influenced by Bloy, with whom he was in frequent
contact, often at the home of the Maritains. Bloy was largely responsible
for Massignon’s devotion to La Salette, and his thinking helped to provide a
theological structure to Massignon’s interest in suffering.58 Bloy argued that
we are “the continuators of Christ, since we are his members, and our duty
Schloesser observes this trend among many of the confidantes in Massignon’s own circle, such as the
Maritains, Bernanos, Bloy, and Claudel, so it is not unreasonable to assume that this community of
friends would have encouraged both Massignon’s Catholic faith and his exploration of Islam. See Ste-
phen Schloesser, Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris, 1919–1933 (Toronto: Univer-
sity of Toronto Press, 2005), 203–6.
54. Other important writers include Paul Claudel, Émile Baumann (1868–1941), and Charles Pé-
guy (1873–1914). See Griffiths, Reactionary Revolution, 149–222; Gude, Crucible, 58–59.
55. Gude, Crucible, 9.
56. Griffiths, Reactionary Revolutionary, 181.
57. See Massignon, “Notre-Dame de la Salette et la conversion de J. K. Huysmans,” in EM 1, 135–36;
“Le Tombeau de J. K. Huysmans,” in EM 1, 137–39; “Huysmans devant la ‘confession’ de Boullan,” in EM
1, 139–46; “Le témoignage de Huysmans et l’affaire Van Haeke,” in EM 1, 147–56.
58. Destremau, Louis Massignon, 108. See “Notre-Dame”; Jean Sarocchi, “Le secret de l’histoire ou
‘l’invention’ de Bloy par Louis Massignon,” in Louis Massignon au coeur du notre temps, ed. Jacques
Keryell, 44–63 (Paris: Éditions Karthala, 1999).
is to prolong his sacrifice on earth until it is entirely consummated. Suffer-

ing . . . is always supernatural if it is accepted, and always has supernatural
results; every suffering is part of the Redemption and is instrumental in
expiati[on].”59 Throughout his career, Massignon researched the religious
significance and healing efficacy of the suffering of Christian figures such as
Joan of Arc, Marie Antoinette, and Christine the Admirable.60 However, he
developed a unique understanding and expression of substitute spirituality
formed primarily through meditation on the life of Christ and in conversa-
tion with his study of al-Hallâj and other Sufis. Therefore, compared to his
contemporaries, his was an expanded horizon of authentic substitution.
In BAL 10 Massignon sketches a general orientation to substitution and
indicates how closely associated with (Gandhian) nonviolence his vision of
substitution had become: “If ‘substitution’ is before all else a thought, a vow
of our soul, it is only truly accomplished if we assume in our lives and our
fleshy hearts the pains of another, his bloody wounds, in non-violence, by
compassion, interior tears, and counseling others. . . . We feel that non-violent
compassion is the corner stone of any reconstruction of human society on
the condition that we persuade others by demonstrating to them that this
notion of compassion allows for the resolution of the anguished psychologi-
cal and social problem of the contagion of evil.”61 One hears echoes of Huys-
mans and Bloy and, of course, Gandhi, but substitution is fundamentally an
acceptance of the Gospel invitation. As he puts it elsewhere: “Badaliya [sub-
stitution] is neither a rule of prayer nor a systematic method of apostolic
work. It is a spiritual disposition by which we offer ourselves totally to the
desire that Jesus has for souls, in order to respond in their place to His call.”62
Substitution is a commitment to be part of the counterintuitive solution to
the problem of evil by willingly taking on the pain, the wounds, the suffer-
ings of another. We cooperate with the desire that Jesus has for souls when
we reconstruct society on the basis of compassion and forgiveness, when we
refuse to return violence for violence, when we reject the logic of rivalry in
favor of a logic of fraternity. That begins, for Massignon, with a decision to
assume another’s anguish.
59. Griffiths, Reactionary Revolutionary, 176.

60. See Massignon, “Jean d’Arc et l’Algérie,” in EM 1, 36–38; “Examen de l’aspect ‘théopathique’
du témoignage de Jeanne d’Arc, suivant une psychologie sociale de la compassion,” in EM 1, 364–
74. “Bi-centenaire de la naissance de Marie-Antoinette,” in EM 1, 176–78; “Un voeu et un destin:
Marie-Antoinette, reine de France,” in EM 1, 179–210. “L’apostolat de la souffrance et de la compassion
réparatrice au XIII e siècle: L’exemple de sainte Christine l’Admirable,” in EM 1, 350–64.
61. BAL 10, 135.
62. BAL 4, 72; emphasis added.
After providing examples of misguided, because self-serving, conceptions

of “substitution” such as a Jewish man who hires a gentile to work in his place
during the Sabbath or a Muslim ship broker who hires a Christian banker
to finance his business and thus “carry his sin of usury,” Massignon turns to
an example of righteous substitution, namely protection of a victim in the
face of persecution.63 In that case, in order to protect another from abuse, one
risks real harm, whether bodily, emotional, or to one’s reputation. Massignon
predicts the likely outcome: “As Gandhi already signaled . . . the ‘servant of
order’ drops his chosen victim and turns his hatred against those of us who
interposed ourselves; he picks up stones (or a grenade) against us and blocks
his ears. Or, even better, he solicits witnesses from the press in order to muti-
late our words, which they transform from prayer into blasphemy.”64 Having
diverted the aggressor’s attention, one has substituted oneself for the victim,
presumably allowing him to escape. Next: “As for us, we must not become
disturbed over the blows that we endure for [the victim]. For we believe that
when we are struck by hatred of His Name, God would rather descend from
the heavens than allow us to fail. Another [i.e., Christ] comes to suffer in our
place by ‘substitution.’”65 The Christian substitutes himself on behalf of the
victim, but Christ substitutes himself on behalf of the Christian.
Returning to BAL 10, we find that Massignon looks to other disciplines
for analogous ways of thinking about substitute sanctity. First, he notes that
both psychoanalysts and sociologists have confirmed “cases of the transfer
of the suffering and moral evil of other people.”66 However, he is critical of
them, because they often recommend curing such cases, whereas for him,
there is no need for a cure at all. In a later article on the same topic, “The
Transfer of Suffering through Compassion,” he writes that psychoanalysts
“try to cure the mind of such ‘traumatisms,’ mere [useless] ‘remains’ of old
forgotten ‘shocks’;—in showing to the patient that they originated from in-
accurately ‘intentionalized’ and ‘personalized’ former ‘misunderstandings.’
No real good should be anticipated, they say, from others’ illnesses, whatev-
er homeopathic osmosis of compassion may be fancied.”67 In other words,
when psychoanalysts identify in their patients what they deem abnormal
identification with the suffering of others, they seek the root cause in hid-
63. BAL 10, 141.

64. BAL 10, 141.
65. BAL 10, 141–42.
66. BAL 10, 135–36.
67. Massignon, “Transfer of Suffering,” 155.
den or repressed memories of traumatic events. Once they surface, these

memories can be faced, and the analyst can help the patient overcome the
problem of hyper-compassion. Sociologists report cases of people who vol-
untarily absorb the debt, whether financial or punitive, of other members
of their community without any expectation of remuneration. Sociologists
tend to label such cases “foolish” or “plain madness” and recommend that
these trespassers of social conventions “be punished for this insolence to-
wards the law. Promethean rebels are to be scourged. Moral virtue is a ‘mid-
dle’ between two excesses, and nothing else.”68
One of the problems, for Massignon, is that both conventional psychol-
ogy and conventional sociology lack the category of sanctity. However, as
the sentence just quoted hints, he had a fairly unique understanding of ex-
actly what sanctity was. In the preface to the Passion, Massignon even criti-
cizes the official process of canonization in the Roman Catholic Church by
disparaging
the normalizing rules of prudence of hagiographical criticism sanctioned by Father
Delehaye (in whose hands they have already proven so unsuccessful in the cases of
Pokrov and La Salette). To proceed with the proper toilette of the “acta martyrum,”
to expurgate them of their “enormities,” “unduly argumentative” repartees with the
judges, sessions of “excessive” tortures, charisms manifested “needlessly,” is to refuse
to understand that true sanctity is necessarily excessive, eccentric, abnormal, and
shocking; it is to prohibit the soul in search of God from escaping the prison of “com-
mon courtesies,” “accepted manners,” and “respectable habits” by its breakthrough.
A breakthrough certainly unusual and disconcerting. But is it reasonable to treat an
existential affirmation as unacceptable because it has no precedent and because it
presents a fact as being outside the norm?69
He concludes the thought by repeating his claim about the extreme and he-
roic nature of authentic virtue: “To [the Semites] virtue is not a Greek bal-
ance, a medium ‘méson,’ between two extremes, but a ‘supremely noble
moral behavior’ (makârim al-akhlâq), a heroic tension, at its peak, without
either counterpoises or counterslopes (Eckhart).”70 For Massignon, there is
no escaping the facts that Jesus’s moral teachings are extreme (“Love your
enemies,” “Bless those who curse you,” “Give the other cheek,” “Lend with-
out expecting repayment”) and that those who closely follow these teach-
ings often behave in ways the “servants of order” deem strange or even

69. Massignon, Passion 1, lxvi–lxvii.
70. Massignon, Passion 1, lxvi–lxvii.
dangerous.71 True sanctity is necessarily excessive, eccentric, abnormal, and

shocking; hence his fascination with the vicarious suffering of victim souls,
the stimagatics, the martyrs, and so on.
Substitute spirituality is not, however, only the province of the strange.
It expresses a deeper and broader truth. In the Examen, arguing against a re-
ductive view of providence that renders God’s permissive will toward suffer-
ing completely inscrutable, Massignon observes that human beings rightly
want to understand why suffering, sorrow, and pain, “and our hope is not
in vain, for it is acceptable neither to adore sorrowful pain like a masoch-
ist nor to escape it like a morphine addict.”72 He is convinced that, regard-
ing suffering, “reason, if it seeks, can find the Law.”73 What Law? Massignon
never directly defines the term. Instead, he turns by way of description to
the Eucharist and to the cross, thereby confirming the Christological me-
diation of the sacraments, as mentioned earlier. He notes that “each priest”
at “each Mass” renews the holy sacrifice before God, and that this sacrifice
“gives to human reason the key to the enigma of pain and sorrow.”74 In
other words, the passion of Jesus and the mass as sacrifice together unlock
the mystery of suffering. Further, the “sign [of the cross] is very mysterious.
It explains to us the entirety of the law; it reveals to us ‘the image of God,’
for it breaks open the mystery of divine mercy. This Charity, which is God
Himself, discovers us naked and invites us to imitate Him—we who are so
poor and impotent—by giving our very life, with the blood of our heart, in
an ecstasy of compassion.”75 In “La conversion du monde musulman,” he
acknowledges that the cross “offends Muslims,” that their modesty forces
them to “turn away from so undeserved an abjection,” and that only “the
supernatural faith of the Church can understand, accept, and desire it,” but
still, for Massignon, the cross explains the law.76 He writes: “And this is why
71. Luke 6:27–38. The phrase “servants of public order” (gendarmes de l’Ordre public) appears in
“L’Oratoire de Marie à l’Aqçâ,” where Massignon critically discusses the efforts of Omar (583–644, sec-
ond rightly guided caliph of Islam), whom he calls “the true founder of the Sunni Muslim theocratic
State,” to force Fâtima, the prophet’s daughter, with whom Massignon is sympathetic, to submit to
the authority of Abu Bakr (573–634, first rightly guided caliph of Islam). See Massignon, “L’oratoire de
Marie à Aqça,” in EM 1, 269. Laude observes that for Massignon, Fâtima fulfills a role that “consists in
calling for justice, both in resistance and silence, thereby foreboding the revelation of the truth and
the final redemption of mankind through ‘feminine grace.’” Laude, Pathways, 105.
75. Massignon, Examen, 73; emphasis added.
76. Massignon, “La conversion,” 54. See Krokus, “Louis Massignon’s Secret of History Read in the
Light of Bernard Lonergan’s Law of the Cross,” Lonergan Workshop Journal 24 (2013): 20–26.
the bloodied instrument of the martyrdom of Jesus became after the resur-
rection the distinctive sign of Christianity, its pledge of hope and its cry of
tears. The cross is for the world a sign of death and war, but it is a pledge of
hope and salvation for the Christian.”77 With these tantalizing few words,
Massignon concludes his explanation.
What is distinctive about Christian life is both the call to seek meaning
in suffering and the invitation to give oneself in an ecstasy of compassion.
Even the physical act of participating in Eucharist, which involves absorp-
tion of the host, the body of Christ, by the communicant, is an intentional
participation in the Christ event and thus a self-offering as well as an offer-
ing of Christ.78 It is worth observing again that Massignon was fascinated
by the stigmatics of the Christian tradition, from St. Francis of Assisi to St.
Thérèse Neumann to the Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, because they
so fully identified with, participated in, and imitated Jesus’s suffering and
compassion for others that they manifested his wounds physically. If the
crusaders wore the “bloody cross” as an insignia on their chests, the stig-
matics “were really wounded in their limbs and in their hearts out of com-
passion for the wounds of Christ.”79 Taking the stigmatics as its expression
and the Eucharist and cross as its primary symbols, one might say that ac-
cording to the law, suffering, and even death, when accepted out of faithful
obedience to God, out of desire for union with God, out of compassion for
the sufferings of others, out of contrition for one’s sins, out of sorrow at the
sins of one’s neighbor, and out of desire for reconciliation of one’s neigh-
bor with God, is mysteriously transformed into an occasion for announcing
God’s glory and healing a broken world. That is the substance of Massign-
on’s understanding of Christ.
Conclusion
In this chapter I meant only to demonstrate a few things. First, Jesus was
central to Massignon’s religious worldview, and his understanding of the
preaching, healings, miracles, and eschatological role of Jesus as messiah
and judge was informed not only by his reading of the Bible and Church
tradition but also by his reading of the Qur’an. Second, Massignon’s respect

for the Qur’an was enhanced because it confirmed, originally in a Jewish

milieu, Mary’s immaculate conception, Jesus’s virgin birth, and Jesus’s au-
thentic prophethood and divine mission, even while denying his crucifix-
ion and divinity. He saw in the Qur’an itself openings to the question of
divine union and the possibility of the Incarnation, even if one could not
reasonably expect many Muslim readers to recognize or seize upon those
openings. Third, however, there were some who did pursue those openings,
at least partially. Especially important for Massignon was Jesus’s identity
as the model of mystical union for many Sufi Muslims, including Hallâj,
whose own life conformed not only to the Qur’anic Jesus but also, as Mas-
signon puts it, to the real Christ. Sufi meditation upon and conformity to
Christ, whether knowing or unknowing, constitutes for Massignon a point
of contact between the Church and Islam, a theme I will explore at length
later. Fourth, Massignon accepted and promoted a classic Chalcedonian
understanding of the divinity of Jesus as essential for Christian theological
thinking and for prayer and sacramental practice. Fifth, the decree by the
Third Council of Constantinople of the union of two wills in Jesus, human
and divine, grounds both the possibility and the orientation of the quest for
mystical union with God, whether Christian, Muslim, or any other religious
tradition. Sixth, the most important aspect of Jesus’s life and ministry was,
for Massignon, his other-centered loving sacrifice and offer of redemption
to all human beings, past, present, and future. Massignon’s own priestly
ordination and his reception of the Eucharist even before ordination were
primarily about intimate sacramental identification with Christ’s redeem-
ing sacrifice. Finally, Massignon’s Christology, which is focused on Jesus’s
redemptive mission, is most clearly expressed in the substitute spiritual-
ity that he discovered in ancient and medieval saints, modern expressions
of which he learned from thinkers such as Huysmans, Bloy, and Foucauld,
but which he modified and expanded in interreligious directions through
study, prayer, and friendship, primarily with Muslims.
Islam: Traditional Muslim Apologetic
Four
ISLAM
Traditional Muslim Apologetic
Louis Massignon’s understanding of Islam was thorough, vast, and intricate;

it was the product of lifelong study. He researched, translated, and published
about both Sunni and Shi’a Islam in the latter’s various manifestations.1 He
traveled the so-called Muslim world incessantly, and he was renowned for
his uncanny ability to track down important medieval manuscripts in ob-
scure libraries across the globe. To do justice to the detail with which he ex-
amined various Muslim personalities, cultural aspects, historical eras, and
fields of study within Islam is frankly beyond the competence of this book.
Fortunately, in Massignon’s Christian-Muslim comparative writings, some-
thing of a broad understanding of Islam emerges, always in relation to his
understanding of the Church, and always rooted in a philological-historical
expertise at least on par with the most careful thinkers of his day.
Massignon’s understanding of Islam evolved across his life and career.
1. For a succinct overview of Massignon’s study of Shi’a Islam, see the chapter “Louis Massignon,
le Si’isme et les sectes” in Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 67–84. Rocalve shows that Massignon has been
criticized by scholars of Islam equally for not paying enough attention to Shi’ism and for paying too
much attention to Shi’ism. Rocalve interprets the seemingly contradictory criticisms as follows. Mas-
signon undeniably devoted a significant portion of his scholarship, especially in his later years, to
various sects, ideas, and traditions within Shi’ism. Further, many spiritual and theological themes
within Shi’a thought obviously resonated with Massignon’s personal interests, including redemptive
suffering, outsider figures such as Fatima and Salmân Pak, messianism, and eschatological justice as-
sociated with resurrection. However, to the end, and to the consternation of key Islamicists such as
his student Henri Corbin, Massignon refused approval of what he considered Shi’a heterodoxy. As he
was to “orthodox” Roman Catholicism, he was devoted to “orthodox” Sunni Islam, particularly Sunni
Sufism, which he believed rendered the Imamite system unnecessary, and whose this-worldly cry for
justice he preferred to what he saw as pseudo-mystical and futurist Shi’a esotericism and Gnosticism.
Massignon’s ultimate preference for Sunni Islam had a linguistic component as well; Arabic was an
authentic carrier of Semitic-Abrahamic revelation, while Persian (the vernacular of much Shi’a devo-
tional literature) was susceptible to Indo-European philosophical corruption.
108
Islam: Traditional Muslim Apologetic 109
Pierre Rocalve argues that Massignon’s research into medieval and mystical
Islam dominated his early period, while a focus on Islam generally (what
Rocalve calls “eternal Islam”) and the relationship of Islam to the Church
dominated his middle period; in his latter period Massignon focused on
contemporary Islam and the possibility for greater Christian-Muslim frater-
nity. I would like to apply the three-stage hermeneutic to Massignon’s un-
derstanding of Islam, particularly in relation to the Church. In this chapter I
focus on the early part of his life and career.
Massignon’s mature, more conciliatory views are better known and more
influential. It is vital to attend critically to the earlier views, partly in order
to correct a popular view of Massignon as being naïve about the dogmatic
differences between Christianity and Islam. In his early writings on the topic
it was precisely difference that he emphasized, by drawing a severe contrast
between what he called the Christian and the traditional Muslim apologetics.
The latter represented for Massignon a narrow interpretation of the Qur’an
and an exaggerated insistence on the separation of Creator from creation,
which he associated with the names Aboû Qolâba, Ibn Hanbal (780–855),
Ibn Taymiyyah, and the Wahhabites, as well as al-Ashâri (874–936) and the
doctrine of occasionalism (all events are directly caused by the will of God;
there is no secondary causality). Today one would likely associate the tra-
ditional Muslim apologetic with a Salafist, literalist, legalistic interpretation
of the Qur’an and implementation of Islam.2 It represents an intellectualist
abstraction, devoid of popular devotion, devoid of mystical tendencies, and
devoid of humanist artistic, literary, or musical impulses. Massignon was not
foolish enough to think that such an abstraction captured the Islamic tra-
dition as a whole, so it is absolutely crucial to keep in mind the context in
which he typically addressed the traditional Muslim apologetic, namely his
study of, and his own responses to, Islamic anti-Christian polemic, where for
the sake of effective dispute clear propositional lines are drawn.
In this chapter I rely principally on a close reading of his Examen du
“Présent de L’Homme Lettré” par Abdâllah Ibn al-Torjoman, the early work that
best conveys Massignon’s understanding of Islam in light of his Catholic
faith. Along the way, in addition to highlighting his critiques of the tradi-
tional Muslim apologetic, I also revisit Massignon’s Christian-allegorical
2. Not surprisingly, Massignon compares al-Ashâri to Malebranche (1638–1715) in the Christian

tradition. By contrast, Hallâj, “against the occasionalists,” accepts that “interconnected natural causes
explain . . . the normal course of visible phenomena,” even if in the end he “leans on secondary causes
only to rejoin their First Cause.” Massignon, Passion 1, 199. On Massignon’s understanding of Salafism,
see Henri Lauzière, The Making of Salafism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).
110 Islam: Traditional Muslim Apologetic
reading of various Qur’anic passages, already operative in his early works,

and I include a brief treatment of his understanding of the various provi-
dential missions of Islam vis-à-vis idolatry, Judaism, and the Church. Fi-
nally, I mention two early positions on which he reversed himself in later
writings, the (non-) Abrahamic character of Islam and the (non-) inspira-
tion of the Qur’an. I conclude by recounting Massignon’s dramatic portrayal
of a Christian and a Muslim in competition for the soul of friend, a telling
image from the early period, since he emphasizes fraternity rather than ri-
valry among Muslims and Christians in his later works.
Examen du “Présent de l’homme lettré”

par Abdâllah Ibn al-Torjoman
Daniel Massignon, son of Louis, tells in the Avant-propos to the Examen
that when his father was in Cairo in 1917 as part of the Sykes-Picot diplo-
matic entourage, he learned that a friend, a religious priest,3 had recently
experienced a crisis of faith after reading the anti-Christian polemic of Ibn
al-Torjoman, written in 1423 by a Spanish Franciscan convert to Islam, Fra
Anselmo de Turmeda, and translated into French by Jean Spiro in 1886. After
several evenings of discussion with this friend, Massignon agreed to analyze
and respond in writing to the troubling text. He wrote seventy-eight pag-
es in just over a month while in Cairo studying, teaching, and performing
various diplomatic duties, but he would think about the relevant questions
for many years. He regularly taught Muslim anti-Christian polemics in his
course at the Collège de France in Paris, always from the Muslim perspective,
so he well understood the critiques.4 The Examen should be understood as
an example of Christian apologetic that in many ways was not unlike the
“standard ones of the Church of the day,” as Sidney Griffith has observed.5
In it Massignon rehearses many of the centuries-old Islamic critiques of
Christian belief and practice, defending the Christian positions and demon-
strating their superiority at every turn. The text is therefore interesting as an
example of Massignon’s unambiguous commitments to key Christian doc-
3. Christian Destremau identifies the priest as Father Alcantara; he also specifies that Massignon
was residing at the famed British Arab Bureau. See Destremau, Louis Massignon, 167. Harpigny notes
that it was on this trip that Massignon really came to know the Holy Land. See Harpigny, Islam et
Christianisme, 66.
4. See the annual syllabi collected and reproduced in EM 2, 797–848.
5. Griffth, “Sharing,” 195.
trines, but it is also instructive for the distinctions he makes within Islam.
For example, in the Examen he provides his most thorough critique of what
he calls the traditional Muslim apologetic (l’apologétique musulmane tradi-
tionnelle), or sometimes simply the Muslim apologetic (l’apologétique musul-
mane) or the Islamic apologetic (l’apologétique islamique).
Massignon identifies three trends of Qur’anic interpretation within Is-
lam. In the Passion, the first two “paths” are “natural,” and then there is a
third “path.” The first corresponds to a literal interpretation of the Qur’an; the
second is the intellectual way of the philosophers, especially the Mu’tazila;
the third is the way of the Sufis, and he argues that this third path “perfects”
the first two paths.6 The Examen does not include the language of natural,
but the schema basically mirrors that of the Passion. The first is the tradi-
tional Muslim apologetic,
which has no criteria of holiness, which says “al roûh min amr Rabbî,”7 which presents
Providence as only ever leading men to the truth of the faith. It is what I call the dia-
lectic of dilemma, the alternation between the presence and the absence of fact, the in-
termittent appearance of the miracle, of the verse, in the field of intellectual intuition.
The Qur’an [according to the traditional Muslim apologetic] presents this “logic” of
intuition to the mind as the revealed Law. It is itself a kind of intellectual proof by the
fact that God gives His Law, and it does not include explanation.8
The logic of intuition is really a cognitional theory wherein the mind receives
flashes of insight that are direct communications and, importantly, imper-
atives from the Divine. Such, in Massignon’s reading, is the nature of the
Qur’an according to the traditional Muslim apologetic. Every verse is an ap-
pearance of the divine will. The Qur’an is its own proof.9 Neither explanation
nor interpretation is necessary, only recognition and acceptance. The tradi-
tional Muslim apologetic is suspicious of unchecked reason. It sees God’s
hand immediately behind every act and every creature. Massignon regards
Ibn al-Torjoman as a run-of-the-mill representative of this tradition.
Massignon speaks of “another way” of interpreting the Qur’an, one that
“human reason normally follows, that is, the natural logic, the logic of dis-
cursive syllogism,” but this other way “has never been fully accepted by Is-
lamic theology because it is not completely reducible to the Qur’anic logic

7. “The spirit is by command of the Lord” (Q 17:85).
9. On the development of the Qur’an as “proof,” see Andrew Rippin, Muslims: Their Religious Be-
liefs and Practices (London: Routledge, 2005), 39–40.
which sees itself as pure reason.”10 This is a philosophical interpretation of

the Qur’an in which the truth of certain propositions would govern one’s
reading of difficult passages and wherein philosophy would be enjoined to
clarify and to explain certain Qur’anic ideas. To take an obvious example,
anthropomorphic passages referring to God’s “hands” and “feet” would be
read in the light of the doctrines of God’s absolute unity, simplicity, eternity,
etc.11 The philosopher may interpret the Qur’an according to an Aristote-
lian, Platonic, or Neo-Platonic framework that he sees as either external or
immanent to the Qur’an itself, but in any case, more is involved in reading
the Qur’an than a simple acceptance. The work of reason is necessary. Mas-
signon associates this perspective especially with the famous philosopher
Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126–1198).12 This philosophical reading corresponds
roughly to orthodox biblical interpretation in the Christian tradition, but as
Massignon suggests, unlike its counterpart in Christian theology, it has not
been the dominant perspective: “There is nothing [in Islam] comparable to
the splendid dogmatic work of the Fathers of the Church who, operating
with reason clarified by faith, took six centuries to construct coherent defi-
nitions of the person of the Word in all His intelligibility.”13
Finally, as a third way, Massignon mentions the “poetic proof.”14 This
reading of the Qur’an and of the world in general depends upon a sacra-
mental worldview wherein all created forms are ways to the Divine. This

11. By contrast, for Hallâj, Jahm, ‘Allaf, and Jubba’i, such anthropomorphic verses indicate that
“God is really everywhere and not only ‘to one side of’ (jiha) and beyond (‘uluw) us, contrary to the
view of the Hanbalites and of Ibn Rushd.” Massignon, Passion 3, 125.
12. The name Averroes is more controversial in the Christian tradition than it is in Islam, pre-
cisely because it was the heresy of Averroism that was accused in the Latin Church of divorcing philo-
sophical from religious truth, even though Averroes himself insisted that truth was one.
14. “Poetic” in Massignon’s usage in this instance refers only to an interpretive lens and the effect
of the text upon the reader (more on that in the following discussion and in subsequent chapters), not
to a formal categorization of the type of literature present in the Qur’an. Even though there are rhyme
structures within the Qur’an itself, it is clear about its not being poetry. In fact, it distinguishes itself
from the works of pre-Islamic poets and diviners. Qur’an 69:38–43 states: “38. But nay! I swear by all
that ye see 39. And all that ye see not 40. That it is indeed the speech of an illustrious messenger. 41. It
is not poet’s speech—little is it that ye believe! 42. Nor diviner’s speech—little is it that ye remember!
43. It is a revelation from the Lord of the Worlds.” It also refutes the claim that Muhammad himself
was a poet. For example, Qur’an 36:68 states: “And we have not taught him (Muhammad) poetry, nor
is it meet for him. This is naught else than a Reminder and a Lecture making plain.” Additionally,
Qur’an 37:35–37 corrects the disbelievers who took Muhammad for a “mad poet”: “35. For when it was
said unto them, there is no God save Allah, they were scornful, 36. And said: ‘Shall we forsake our gods
for a mad poet?’ 37. Nay, but he brought the Truth, and he confirmed those sent (before him).” In other
words, the Qur’an makes the case that it is even loftier than the best of the Arab poets, whose status was
revered in pre-Islamic Arabia.
is the way of spirituality, the way of the Sufis. This is also the way of love
by which the whole of the person, not just his mind, is drawn through the
inescapable harmony and beauty of the created world to the Creator Him-
self. Massignon, whom Rocalve credits “more than any other orientalist”
with introducing Sufism to the West, was well aware of this way in Islam;
in fact, as we have already seen, he was attracted to and even persuaded
by it.15 In the preface to the Essay, Massignon judges it “dangerous to mini-
mize the role of the mystical lexicon in the development of Islamic dogma.
The mysticism of Islam is what has made it an international and univer-
sal religion. International, through the proselytizing work of mystics visit-
ing infidel countries,” and “[u]niversal because the mystics were the first
to understand the existence and moral efficacy of al-hanifiyya, the rational
monotheism natural to all men.”16
The difference between Sufism (or the poetic way) and the tradition-
al Muslim apologetic could not be more pronounced. If the latter derives
meaning immediately and literally through flashes of insight, then the for-
mer demands patient meditation, experimentation, and interiorization in order
to plumb the depths of meaning inherent in the text and its resultant tra-
ditions. For example, over the course of his life Hallâj transformed the five
pillars of Islam by means of interiorization, which both spiritualized their
meaning and universalized their accessibility. In Massignon’s interpreta-
tion, through Hallâjian interiorization, the five pillars began to resemble the
evangelical vows (poverty, chastity, and obedience) of the Christian tradi-
tion. Pilgrimage (hajj) for Hallâj became “immolation,” fasting (sawm) be-
came “abstinence,” giving alms (zakât) became “poverty,” ritual prayer (salât)
became “obedience,” and testimony (shahâda) became “thanksgiving.”17
Hallâj was not alone. According to Massignon, the first to undertake a “sym-
bolic and anagogical tafsir” of the Qur’an was Sahl Tustari, the early Sufi for
whom “interiorizing . . . worship through spiritual poverty” was necessary

16. He also quotes Snouck-Hourgronje (1857–1936) to the effect that it is precisely in and through
Sufism that one finds the richest possibilities for interreligious dialogue with Islam: “Through its
mysticism Islam has found the means to rise to a height from which it can see farther than its own,
severely limited horizon . . . ; in it there is something interreligional.” Massignon, Essay, 9. Benjamin
Clark, the translator, cautions in his introduction that Massignon retained Snouck-Hourgronje’s term
interreligional, a “neologism (in French as in English),” in order to preserve the distinct Islamic nature
of Sufism, thus avoiding any syncretic reduction of all religions to general spirituality. See Clark, “In-
troduction,” xxx.
in order to discern in the Qur’an “a substantial word.”18 Many followed suit,

and for all the early Sufis the key to the poetic way was as follows. Because
the Qur’anic terms “are allusions pointing to the spiritual realities,” one must
“put the words into practice before he can understand them.”19 Or, as Mas-
signon put it in “L’Expérience mystique et les modes de stylisation littéraire,” the
words of the Qur’an act collectively as a “harpoon destined to draw the soul
to God.”20 One must surrender to their influence and trustingly allow oneself
to be drawn into encounter with their Author. Perhaps Massignon would
say, borrowing from classical Christian terminology, that whereas in the tra-
ditional apologetic only the literal sense of scriptural interpretation counts,
in the mystical apologetic all the senses are in play, but the anagogical sense
is primary.
In Ibn al-Torjoman, however, and in the tradition he represents, Sufism,
or the “poetic proof,” is simply absent, leading Massignon to conclude at
an early stage of his career that “there can be no integral [intégral] mysti-
cism in Islam,” a perplexing and even paradoxical conclusion given that,
as Rocalve notes, “Massignon treated Sufism as Islam par excellence while
simultaneously attributing true mysticism to Islam only exceptionally,” e.g.,
in Hallâj.21 In other words, Massignon was convinced of the authenticity
of Sufism as an organic Islamic and Qur’an-grounded reality. He was con-
vinced of the potential for Sufism to cultivate lives of heroic virtue and holi-
ness, at least when practiced in a Hallâjian direction of self-sacrificing love.
He was equally convinced, however, at this early stage that Sufism was a
reality separate from what one might call mainstream Islam.
Traditional Muslim Apologetic

Massignon’s understanding of apologetic includes offensive and defensive
aspects. “On offense” (Dans l’attaque), the traditional Muslim apologetic,
“like all deisms without mysteries,” is “critical and sharp.”22 The Christian
apologetic on offense is “constructive and graduated.”23 “On defense” (Dans
la defense), the traditional Muslim apologetic is literal and destructive while
18. Massignon, Passion 1, 21–22. In the Islamic mystical tradition there is of course the equivalent
of the four senses of exegesis; Rumi even proposed seven. Passion 3, 175–76.
19. Massignon, Essay, 81–82.
20. Massignon, “L’expérience mystique,” 288.
21. Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 51, 50, 61.
the Christian defense is real and living. Massignon observes elsewhere that
the traditional Muslim apologetic enjoys an advantage over the Jewish and
Christian apologetics, because it reduces complex theological problems to
radical simplicity, hence the adjectives critical, sharp, literal, and destruc-
tive.24 The traditional Muslim apologetic “proposes to man only that he ad-
here via reason to the evidence of the natural religion and that he wage
holy war against the partisans of error,” while the Christian apologetic “in-
vites one to humble himself in order to understand the mystery of God, in
order to love, with God, sinful souls even if that love brings the Cross and
martyrdom to the lover.”25 The traditional Muslim apologetic, in Massignon’s
understanding, reduces the reading of the Qur’an to an intellectual assent
to its divine origins, perfect transmission, and inscrutability. It reduces the
cosmos to a set of dichotomies, e.g., creator/creature, believer/unbeliever,
elect/damned, and it reduces the purpose of human life to an intellectual
assent or denial of the divine unity. It reduces the Islamic cult to a simple
manifestation of the intellect’s subordination to God, and, most problematic
for Massignon, it collapses into the Qur’an four functions of divine com-
munication that remain distinct in the Christian apologetic, namely the
appearance of the Word in history, the announcement of Judgment, the
revelation of divine positive law, and the indication of the natural law.26
Again and again, Massignon criticizes the tendency of the traditional Mus-
lim apologetic to reduce, to narrow, to collapse, and to close, whereas he
celebrates the Christian apologetic’s tendency to open, to expand, to ascend,
and to integrate.
As an aside, in the passage quoted previously, Massignon refers to the
traditional Muslim apologetic as a natural religion, but it is difficult to say to
what extent he held that view for Islam in general. He certainly emphasizes
that no new supernatural data were revealed in the Qur’an, but he also in-
sists on the importance of the Islamic doctrine of the mîthâq, the primordial
covenant at which every soul swore an oath of allegiance to the Creator,
such that revelation, via the prophets, reminds one of this calling before
God. He even referred to the mîthâq as a kind of Muslim baptism, where the
soul says yes to God, and he occasionally uses the word “revelation” in re-
lation to the Qur’an.27 Therefore, as a description of activity (prayer, fast-
24. Massignon, “Ghazâlî,” 90.

27. Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 32, 39.
ing, etc.), beliefs (divine unity, simplicity, and transcendence), and morality
(sharp distinction between right and wrong, reward and punishment), Mas-
signon would characterize Islam as a natural religion. However, in terms
of its origin (from God or from merely human strivings), he would not be
content to call Islam a natural religion, as we will see in subsequent chap-
ters, especially in the discussion of Islam as having theologal faith. The best
interpretation is probably Griffith’s, who sees in Massignon’s “natural reli-
gion” the equivalent of identifying Islam with “primitive religion,” a more
positive assessment in line with Islam’s own self-understanding.28
A similar interpretation should be made of Massignon’s description
of Islam as a “deism without mysteries” in the aforementioned quotation.
Identification of Islam with deism has a long history in orientalist scholar-
ship, but Massignon’s employment of the term has a particular meaning. In
“La conversion du monde musulman,” a piece written in 1923 and thus at
the limit of Massignon’s early period, he specifies that Islamic faith, “testify-
ing to the unicity of God, points to the revelation of God’s transcendence,
the revelation that Abraham and the prophets of Israel received; this wit-
ness is worth more than the monotheism of ancient philosophers or of syn-
cretistic theodicies.”29 That it is worth more than the philosophers’ mono-
theism would seem to mitigate any facile equation of Islam with deism. In
fact, Massignon’s use of deism, as the addition of “without mysteries” sug-
gests, has more to do with the lack of mystery in the classic Christian sense
of that term than it does with the degree to which God takes an active inter-
est in the world, on which a classical understanding of deism might rest.30
The appendix to the Examen shows that, for Massignon, mystery has to do
with the divine nature, which, because it is inexhaustibly intelligible and
good, draws the believer beyond himself through questions.31 Massignon
asks: Why does God present Himself to each consciousness as a question? Why
28. Griffith, “Sharing,” 202. Basetti-Sani’s criticism of the term was almost certainly intended to
reflect Massignon’s vision: “I cannot talk in terms of a ‘natural religion’ when treating of the Koran.
The religious spirit of the Koran always supposes revelation in the line of descent from the historical
and supernatural revelation of the God of Abraham. If man does not come to realize the greatness and
presence of God by looking at the world with all its dynamic forces, nor through the ‘witness’ of his
conscience, God then, in his mercy toward man, intervenes by sending his ‘messengers.’” Basetti-Sani,
Koran, 86.
29. Massignon, “La conversion,” 48.
30. Unrelated to consideration of Massignon, Kenneth Cragg (1913–2012) writes: “The created
world, on the Qur’an’s firm showing, is not a divine jest (21.16 and 44.38), not a divine ‘hobby,’ not
a divine enigma, not a divine ‘toy.’ That way lies deism, and the Qur’an is passionately theist.” Cragg,
Muhammad and the Christian: A Question of Response (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), 136.
does God present Himself as mystery? Why is God not immediately obvious?
Massignon answers that God leaves one free to respond to His invitation.
Without freedom there is no love, and God, who is Love, wants us to love
Him sincerely. To do so, we must transcend ourselves, and it is precisely the
asking of the question of God that calls us forth. A deism without mysteries
renders questions about the divine nature and the divine will beside the
point.32 Again, his criticism is of narrow reductionism, which he contrasts
with the ability of mystery to draw the soul forward in self-transcendence.
Creator and Creature

The most unfortunate consequence of the traditional Muslim apologetic is
its rejection of the possibility of union between creature and Creator.33 As
Massignon wrote later in HI, “the Qur’an [in this reading] is a sign not of
union but of separation.”34 By way of contrast, the Incarnation guarantees
for the Christian apologetic the possibility of union between humanity and
divinity. Massignon remarks: “[The Christian] conception leads from dog-
ma, by morals, to mysticism,” meaning the intellectual ascent of the mind is
sublated by the moral conduct of the agent, which in turn is sublated by the
religious love of God, thereby integrating the entire person and also the per-
son with God.35 However, according to the traditional Muslim apologetic,
“the inaccessible mystery of [God’s] essence is forever closed to men.”36 Ac-
cording to traditional Islamic anthropology, each person makes two appear-
32. Commenting on the phrase “Even to his inscrutable decrees” as descriptive of Muslim faith in
Nostra Aetate, Robert Caspar, one of the experts who drafted Vatican II’s texts on Islam, writes: “These
few words indicate the place of ‘mystery’ (ghayb) in Muslim faith. This mystery (ghayb) is not related
to the nature of God, who is one and invisible, but to the will of God concerning the world and every
man in it.” Caspar, “Vatican II,” 4.
33. The traditional believer simply trusts “that the Qur’anic passages mentioning ‘the life, the
view, the hearing, the hands, the side, the throne’ of God, designate divine perfections that are radi-
cally imperceptible to the spirit (balkafiyah),” for “it is impossible to imagine a relationship of real
participation between God and created being, for only materials of the same nature can mix; this is
the heresy of holoûl, ‘infusion,’ which is a matter of grace, of holiness, or of the hypostatic union. It is
forbidden to employ analogy, tashbîh, drawn from a created thing in order to explain the perfections
of God.” Massignon, Examen, 41–42.
34. HI, 89.
35. Massignon, Examen, 59. Sublation should be understood in Karl Rahner’s (1904–1984) intend-
ed sense of the higher incorporating, perfecting, and extending the lower, rather than in a Hegelian
sense of the higher eclipsing and denying the lower. In a similar way to Massignon’s schema, Bernard
Lonergan speaks of the threefold nature of conversion: intellectual, moral, and religious. See Loner-
gan, Method, 241–43, 318, 338.
ances in history, and Massignon uses a different word to refer to each, “one’s
intellectual appearance [comparution] before the divine Law where one dis-
covers one’s destiny [sentence] and one’s bodily appearance [apparition] in
the created universe where the sanctions [of the Law] are applied.”37 The
traditional Muslim apologetic emphasizes the second moment of appear-
ance, “and it reduces human life to the manifestation of an intellectual vo-
cation of obedience to God.”38 By contrast, the mystical Muslim apologetic
emphasizes the first, “the impassive appearance [comparution],” on “the day
of the [primordial] Covenant, mîthâq, in order to swear a solemn oath of
obedience to Him,” and situates anthropology in an exitus/reditus schema:
“The day of Judgment, and the final reality of the human person, nihâyah,
for eternity, is actually a return to the commencement, bidâyah, to the pri-
mordial act of intellectual assent to the presented evidence”39 In summary,
according to the traditional Muslim apologetic, human living “is a matter
of faith in pure thought, not contrition, not sanctification. There is no dif-
ference between actual grace and sanctifying grace.”40 Consequentially, the
traditional Muslim apologetic is typically concerned only for sins that dis-
rupt the public good; it rarely inquires into private faults, thus reinforcing
the sense that only the intellectual assent counts. For Christian anthropol-
ogy, which does not distinguish between an intellectual and a corporeal ap-
pearance, the body is not simply the manifestation of the soul, and as such,
because they are held in common, the person is equally responsible, bodily
and intellectually, for his or her actions.41
The same contrast informs Massignon’s description of the apologetics’
respective views of creation. If for Christianity creation is “a splendid hier-

39. Massignon, Examen, 57. See also Massignon, “Le ‘jour du covenant’ (yawm-al-mîthâq),” in EM
2, 379–86.
40. Massignon, Examen, 58. Herbert Mason, in his translation of the Passion, observes that in
Catholic theology, “the distinction is made between charism and sanctifying grace. The first is given
for particular functions to one for the benefit of others without necessarily deeply transforming the
one; in the second instance, the recipient is transformed by grace in the direction of holiness without
necessarily being given special gifts.” Massignon, Passion 1, 88 n. 135. This is the formulation of the
early Aquinas. Later on the category actual grace (gratia operans) became much broader—the univer-
sally available invitation of God’s love—and Massignon is probably referring to this later understand-
ing and not to the distinction between sanctifying grace and charism. See Bernard Lonergan, Grace
and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Frederick Crowe and Robert Doran
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000).
41. Christian anthropology does distinguish between the internal forum of conscience and inten-
tion and the external forum of acts that are observable by others.
archy of works totally distinct and complementary, which, reason clarified

by faith sees elevating themselves toward God as innumerable hymns of
His glory . . . which makes them to acclaim in love the very mystery of the
divine Trinity,” then the traditional Muslim apologetic emphasizes not the
relation but the separation of Creator and creature; it sees “in every creature
one of innumerable forms of obedience that the divine thought pleased it-
self to conceive and thus to create. It excluded these created beings from
the divine essence, exiling them forever to a mission of attesting, by this
separation from God, that He is the Unique Master and that every creature
is indistinctly his servant.”42
Providence
History in the traditional Muslim apologetic, according to Massignon, can
also be reduced to a succession of unconnected moments, each a part of a
“perpetual oscillation between ignorance and revelation, reward and pun-
ishment, election and damnation; nothing explains the duration of the
drama wherein all the scenes are examples of an identical situation.”43 The
consequence of this vision is that there is no providential link between the
events of human history. One of Massignon’s footnotes in the Examen tells
the story from sûra 18 of Khidr, the mysterious Elijah-like Qur’anic figure,
in which Khidr kills a child because he would have become greedy, “as if
his future were totally unavoidable.”44 Even the various prophetic missions
do not depend on each other. Muhammad’s mission takes precedence only
because it is the last one.45
The contrast between the Christian and traditional Muslim apologetics
is especially evident in their respective treatments of suffering, sorrow, and
pain, which Massignon treats in relation to providence. I have already in-
troduced Massignon’s understanding of the law as revealed in the passion,
cross, and resurrection of Jesus and as communicated sacramentally in the
Church. For the traditional Muslim apologetic, attempting to reconcile the
fact of suffering, sin, and evil with the goodness of God could mean “expos-
ing oneself to the heresy of badâ (supposing that God contradicts God’s self),

45. That is analogous to the abrogation of verses in the Qur’an—the principle of interpretation
whereby later verses correct or replace earlier verses, though the earlier are preserved in the text.
or to shirk (associating the creature with the simplicity and glory of God).”46
In the extreme view, “the divine will has predetermined with equal force
monotheism and atheism, the negation of God as well as his affirmation
(naîf wa ithbât in the shahâda), the commandment and the transgression.”47
One resolves the question of evil by attributing all acts directly and imme-
diately to God. The believer’s role is to be patient (sabr) with the divine ac-
tivity, to enjoin good and avoid evil, but not to speculate about the meaning
or purpose of good and evil. Despite the fact that human responsibility is
safeguarded by the doctrine that all have been apprised of the divine law
“in advance, before the creation of their bodies” and that they have “sworn
an oath of obedience to God and to his law which never changes,”48 and de-
spite the fact that in Islam God sends prophets precisely to remind humans
of this “pre-eternal” covenant, Massignon remains dissatisfied, for such ac-
count eliminates the dialectic of sin and grace so central to the Christian
view. As the reader will recall, he observed that we rightly want to under-
stand why suffering, sorrow, and pain, “and our hope is not in vain, for it is
acceptable neither to adore sorrowful pain like a masochist nor to deny it
like a morphine addict.”49 He was convinced that, regarding suffering, “rea-
son, if it seeks, can find the Law.”50
Divine Word
The Christian apologetic locates the divine word in a person, while the tra-
ditional Muslim apologetic locates the divine word in a recitation recorded
in writing, that is, the Qur’an.51 Identifying the divine word with a writing
has several consequences. It seals the separation of creature and Creator, be-
cause as a text, complete in God, it must be delivered via an angel to the
Prophet Muhammad rather than realized through self-transcendence.52 The

51. For a nuanced understanding of the Qur’an as recitation or ongoing writing versus as a static
book, see Daniel Madigan, The Qur’ân’s Self-Image: Writing and Authority in Islam’s Scripture (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001).
52. It is important to note that, unlike many of his contemporaries, and unlike those involved
today in a resurgence of scholarship on the Qur’an, Massignon never questions the historical-textual
authenticity of the Qur’an. He argues for a faithful transmission of the text, and he argues that any
differences among the recensions of Obayy, Ibn Mas’oûd, and Ali involve insignificant grammatical
variations and rearranging of chapters. See Examen, 43 n. 59. For more critical and controversial theo-
fact that there is no “mediation between God and his people except for the
Qur’an,” so that the only “bridge between” God and humanity is the “Arabic
language,” also impossibly limits access to God’s word for most people and
most times.53 Further, Massignon turns back on itself a typical Muslim cri-
tique of Christianity. Whereas Muslims accuse Christians of having compro-
mised the divine unity by claiming divinity for Jesus, Massignon argues that
more confusion results from exclusive identification of the Word and the
Qur’an. The Christian apologetic, clear about Jesus’s humanity being created,
and knowing that creation itself is a work “ad extra, God’s pure act,” realizes
that when the Word, the second person of the Trinity, assumes creation in all
its corporal and spiritual composition and multiplicity, the divine simplicity
ab intra has not been violated. The traditional Muslim apologetic, however,
is ambiguous about the nature of God’s speech, that is, the Qur’an, tending
to emphasize only its uncreated nature, which then potentially introduces
multiplicity into the divine essence.54
ries about the formation of the Qur’an, see John Wansborough, The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Com-
position of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), and Christophe Luxenburg,
The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran (Berlin: Hans Schiler, 2007). For analysis of those controversial
theories, see the essays collected in Gabriel Said Reynolds, ed., The Qur’an in Its Historical Context (Lon-
don: Routledge, 2008).
54. On the absolute transcendence of God and the problem of God’s attributes as well as God’s
speech as present in creation, there is a vast tradition of debate and multiple positions. Often the ques-
tion centers on whether the Qur’an is created or uncreated. Those who hold to the uncreatedness of
the Qur’an, the orthodox position as set forth by al-Ash’arî, tend not to speculate about the how of
God’s communication to creation. For example, al-Ash’arî’s solution “was to speak of the reality of the
attributes but that these are not attributes in the same way that humans have such. God does have a
hand, but we just ‘do not know how’ this is to be conceived. The phrase bila kayf, ‘without knowing
how,’ became a key term in Ash’arite theology, to be used whenever reason and the Qur’an or hadîth
met head-on in conflict. Al-Ash’ari saw the Qur’an as the eternal and uncreated word of God, precisely
because it was the word of God and, therefore, must partake in the character of His attributes.” Rippin,
Muslims, 84–85. The Mu’tazilite position, against which al-Ash’arî argued, held to the createdness of
the Qur’an and did attempt to work out solutions to the problem of the absolutely transcendent God
speaking in creation: “To explain the notion of ‘the speaking God,’ the Mu’tazilites devised a singular
mechanical theory. . . . It cannot be the voice of God, they argued, that manifests itself to a prophet
when he feels the divine revelation acting upon him through his sense of hearing. The sound is cre-
ated. When God wishes to manifest Himself audibly, He causes, by a specific creative act, speech to
occur in a material substratum. That is the speech which the prophet hears. It is not the immediate
speech of God, but rather a speech created by God, manifested indirectly, and corresponding in its
contents to the will of God. This theory offered a form into which they could fit their doctrine of the
created Qur’an, which they set against the orthodox dogma of the eternal and uncreated word of God.”
Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), 98. For comparative readings of the Christian and Islamic un-
derstandings of the divine word, see Daniel Madigan, “God’s Word to the World: Jesus and the Qur’an,
Incarnation and Recitation,” in Godhead Here in Hiding: Incarnation and the History of Human Suffering,
eds. Terence Merrigan and Frederik Glorieux (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, forthcoming), 143–58, and
Finally, the traditional Muslim apologetic necessitates that the book

is always superior to the prophet who receives and recites it, for example,
Torah-Moses, Gospel-Jesus, Qur’an-Muhammad. Therefore, certain Islamic
authorities are perennially critical of excessive devotion toward any proph-
et, to which Massignon responds disapprovingly: “To prefer an inanimate
text to a living man!” He contrasts the experience of Christians: “No Chris-
tian can love Jesus too much by loving him more than the Gospels, because
He is the living God about whom the texts speak.”55 And, in summary, he
contrasts the respective modes of apprehension: “The word of conversion
in Islam is ‘Read!’ (96:1); the word of conversion for the Church is ‘My child,
give me your heart!’ not only your intelligence or your will but the entire
life of your person.”56
Missions of Islam
Despite his repeated and virulent critiques, Massignon’s earliest works show
that from the very beginning he envisioned a positive role for Islam, even
for the traditional Muslim apologetic, in history. That is, whereas for many
historical Christian thinkers Islam was at best a paganism to be converted
or a heresy to be corrected, and at worst a Satanic cult and anti-Christian
imperialism to be defeated, for Massignon, from its inception, Islam’s advent
was providential: “Islam which founded Medina (622) at the moment of the
consecration of the Pantheon of Rome to the Queen of Martyrs (699) and
of the exaltation of the True Cross at Jerusalem (614) is one of the strongest
divine proofs, the most permanent proofs of the truth of the Church.”57 As
noted earlier, in other texts among that constellation of auspicious events
is included the Third Council of Constantinople (681), at which was pro-
claimed the doctrine of two wills, divine and human, in Christ.58 According
to Massignon, Islam’s role in history manifests itself as a threefold mission
vis-à-vis idolatry, Judaism, and Christianity.
Krokus, “Divine Embodiment in Christian-Muslim Perspective,” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 22,

no. 2 (2012): 158–69.
55. Massignon, Examen, 44. Kenneth Cragg’s chapter “Muhammad in the Soul” is a helpful re-
minder to Christians of the profound devotion to Muhammad that exists primarily but not exclusive-
ly in Sufism: “There can be no doubt that the Muhammad of Islamic mysticism and devotion indicates
how close, in that area, Islam comes to the instincts, though not to the content, of Christian theology.”
Cragg, Muhammad, 58.
58. HI, 65.
First, Islam attempts to prove, “against all idolatry,” that the primitive
religion of the patriarchs—from Adam to Noah to Abraham—is “sufficient
for meeting all the social needs of man. All that is commanded is for reason
to adore the unique God of the natural law by faith, forever.”59 Massignon
explains that Medina was to be a city organized according to its faith in the
promises and sanctions of the one God, and it was to be ordered accord-
ing to honest contracts among honest God-fearing men. There would be no
need in Islam to placate the whims of false gods. Massignon notes, however,
that “fear of sanctions and of Judgment is not sufficient for maintaining or-
der among men. The patriarchal religion could not preserve men, despite
Enoch, from the growing sinfulness that the flood came to punish.”60 Islam’s
mission to idolaters is therefore valid but insufficient. The same is true of its
mission to the Jews: “Islam wants to prove, against Judaism, that the law of
Moses was meant for all people and all times and that for observing its [Ju-
daism’s] rigorous rules, faith suffices.”61 However, it also insists that there
is no need for “supernatural hope, no personal pact between God and one
nation to the exclusion of others, no right of filial primogeniture. [Islam]
wants to reduce the hope of men to the patient endurance of the Law.”62
Massignon, a Catholic Christian, endorses Islam’s critique of the Jewish re-
ligion in favor of universalism, but he argues that Islam fails to understand
either the messianic hope of Judaism or the special place of Israel in the
history of the divine plan. It fails to recognize that the special blessings and
hope bestowed upon Israel are in preparation for the Messiah to be born
of its race. Jewish hope anticipates both the Incarnation and the Redemp-
tion.63 Finally, “Islam wants to establish, against the Church, that God only
wills love among men themselves, that love is a thing too prostituted among
men for God to want to be loved by men. It wants to exclude from beatitude
any intuitive vision of the divine essence, and from holiness any union of
transforming love. It wants to reduce eternity to contentment of the body
and to pure thought in the intellect.” But Massignon objects, “this [state of
pure intellect] would be Hell, with the penalty of damnation64 but with-
out the punishment of the senses.”65 In other words, Islam’s mission to the

64. That is, the deprivation of the beatific vision.
65. Massignon, Examen, 60. Elsewhere, Massignon observes: “Every Muslim apologetic condemns
Church, unlike its missions to paganism and Israel, is not only insufficient,
but also invalid. Patience of the divine positive law (sabr) is not enough.
Human beings want to transcend the law, and the Church inspires desire
for the real kingdom, the Kingdom of God. Likewise, love among men is not
enough. Human beings want to love God; Massignon mentions as Muslim
examples Ghazâlî and Bistami, both engaged with Sufism. Human desire for
God is evidenced universally through sacred art, sacred music, and sacred
architecture, among which even the Ka’ba at Mecca should be counted.66
One might put it this way. Vis-à-vis its contacts with idolatry and with
Israel, Islam plays both positive and negative roles. Positively, it rejects false
gods and superstition and calls Israel to universality. Negatively, by its omis-
sions seen in the light of Catholic faith, it exposes both the inadequacy of
natural solutions to the problem of sin and the necessity of Israel’s prepara-
tory mission vis-à-vis Christ. In Les trois prières d’Abraham, Massignon ar-
gues for a positive mission of Islam vis-à-vis the Church,67 but in the Exa-
men, Islam’s role in that regard is strictly negative. That is why it is one of the
strongest divine proofs, the most permanent proofs of the truth of the Church,
or as one section title in the Examen states, “The role of Islam in world his-
tory toward the triumph of Christianity.” Islam mainly provides an opportu-
nity for the Church to fulfill its divine vocation. Historically, the remarkably
rapid expansion of Arab and Islamic civilization in the first centuries of the
religion’s existence is well documented. Massignon describes the expan-
sion under two aspects, military and intellectual, the former having caused
“vertigo” in the Byzantine emperors, and the latter having “seduced the
masters of Israel . . . and nearly conquered the theology of the Middle Ages
with Ibn Rushd and the nominalists.”68 On both fronts, the Catholic Church
alone was responsible for arresting the conquest. Militarily, Catholic Europe
launched the Crusades, at which “all the Christian nations came to receive
a baptism in blood before commencing the colonization of the world.”69
In “The Roman Catholic Church and Islam,” Massignon’s ecclesial pride is
amplified. He lists several benefits, spiritual and temporal, of the European
Crusades, including the solidarity effected among Christians living in Mus-
the idea of a Paradise of divine joy as too Christian.” See Massignon, “L’aridité spirituelle selon les au-
teurs musulmans,” in EM 2, 308.
67. It is in this sense that Massignon’s frequent references to Islam as the “evangelical lance”
should be taken. See Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 86.
lim lands, the hope offered to those same dwindling Christian communities,
the reunion of Eastern churches with the Roman see, the institution of new
feast days in commemoration of important battles during and beyond the
Crusades (e.g., Transfiguration of our Lord, commemorating the victory at
Belgrade [1456]; Our Lady Help of Victory, commemorating the victory at
Lepanto [1571]; Our Lady of the Rosary, commemorating the victory at Pe-
terwardin [1716]; and the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, commemorating
the victory at Vienna [1683]), the establishment of new devotions such as
local stations of the cross (because the via dolorossa in Jerusalem was inac-
cessible to Christians), and, finally, the founding of several new religious or-
ders, including the Trinitarians and Brothers of Mercy, as well as new apos-
tolates for existing orders.70 In “La conversion du monde musulman,” to that
list he adds the unity effected among Europeans of all classes by a common
cause; the prayer of the Angelus (in defense of the Incarnation); the pilgrim-
age to Compostella; the stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi; the numerous Arab,
Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopian, French, Italian, and Spanish martyrs
as well as numerous vocations (including St. Louis of France and St. Igna-
tius of Loyola); and even more religious orders, including the Lazarists and
the White Fathers.71 Intellectually, “only Catholic scholasticism was able
to stop [the Muslim advance],” and in one of his most explicit defenses of
the particularity of the Roman Catholic confession, Massignon argues that
it is basically still “Muslim textual criticism, reprised by Protestant exegesis
and enhanced by the printing press, which attacks the Church,” thus “every
Christian who wants to justify his faith in the face of the attacks of the Mus-
lim apologetic must return forcefully to the doctrines, morality, and sanctity
of the Catholic Church.”72
As a result, Massignon insists that “work[ing] for the conversion of
their Moslem brethren of the colonies of their mother country is, indeed,
an imperative duty upon the Catholics of every nation.”73 That is a position
much modified in Massignon’s mature writings, where he distinguishes
between conversions to the body and to the soul of the Church. However,
one sees here the complex interconnection of religion and politics, church,
state, and colonialism so prevalent in Massignon’s early works and in Eu-
70. Massignon, “The Roman Catholic Church and Islam,” The Moslem World 2 (1915): 130–34.
71. Massignon, “La conversion,” 49–50.
72. Massignon, Examen, 61. It is implied that the Catholic Church, at least in certain strains of
scholastic theology, rejected nominalism and literalist readings of scripture, which Massignon attri-
butes in part to the influence of Islam.
73. Massignon, “The Roman Catholic Church,” 138.
ropean discourse generally at the beginning of the twentieth century. Mas-

signon insisted it was the duty of imperial powers to provide their colonists
with a Christian education, and he argued that the Algerians would not
be fully French until they were also Christian.74 Although he also argued
that “France, who was the first to give the right of citizenship to the Jews,
owes it to herself to take, when the moment comes, the same initiative for
Islam.”75 Of course, even in his day, the French did not convert the Algerians
en masse, and the global Muslim population increased dramatically, all of
which Massignon explained to his readers by specifying that the Church
spreads gradually, spiritually, and sometimes undetected: “The Church, her
hands full of the spirit, sows seeds of eternal life and vivifies incessantly
the moral energy [of cultures] by the prayers of her saints. Without men
even perceiving it, the grace of these invisible intercessions slowly, progres-
sively perfects the education of humanity; the dough rises for the future
resurrections.”76 He may have in mind here, as he does in “The Roman Cath-
olic Church and Islam,” the apostolate of his friend and mentor, Charles de
Foucauld, who, “without hoping for immediate conversions, has lived for
twenty years in the Sahara a secluded life of hard penance, of perpetual ad-
oration, in order to prepare the way for the missionaries of tomorrow.”77 In
the spirit of Foucauld, he argues that “we must win Muslim souls by holi-
ness before we conquer them by doctrine,” and he implores missionaries to
concentrate on performing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy rather
than on disputing neuralgic theological points.78 This very important aspect
of Massignon’s thought finds full flowering in the institution of the Badaliya
sodality, to which I will turn in chapter 7.
As a conclusion to this section, I just mention that even in his earliest
works Sufism plays a central role in Islam’s mission to the world. Sufism is
not only exceptional but also privileged, for it actually cooperates directly,

75. Massignon, “What Moslems Expect: An Introductory Study of Moslem Demands,” The Moslem
World 12, no. 1 (1920): 24.
78. Massignon, “La conversion,” 51. For a succinct appraisal of the relationship between Massi-
gnon and Foucauld, including the continuities and dissonances of their respective understandings of
Islam, Arabic, France, Catholicism, and colonialism, see Hugh Didier, “Louis Massignon and Charles de
Foucauld,” ARAM 20 (2008): 337–53. For some key differences between the Badaliya, Massignon’s so-
dality, and the Foucauldian Union that have to do with Foucauld’s never having completely accepted
Massignon’s attribution to Islam of a positive role in the economy of salvation, see Paolo Dall’Oglio,
“Louis Massignon and Badaliya,” ARAM 20 (2008): 331–33.
though unknowingly, with the evangelizing mission of the Church. Mas-

signon argued that there are Sufi saints within Islam, and because of Islam,
who authentically practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, espe-
cially intercessory prayer. He concluded that certain Sufis “constitute ‘points
of insertion’ [for the Church], whereby the spiritual grafts of the apostles are
able to include the separated child [le sauvageon] of Islam so that it might
bear fruit for the Church.”79 As with his conviction that conversion depends
upon the authentic witness of Christians, so too his understanding of a spe-
cialized role for Sufism as a point of contact, or even as a kind of infiltration
within Islam by the Church, to borrow the militarized language of his day,
is an idea that Massignon fully developed, albeit along lines friendlier to
Islam at large, in the foundational documents of the Badaliya sodality, but
again, it is important to notice the seeds of that mature vision present in his
earliest writings.
A Note on Abraham, the Qur’an, and the Bible

I mention briefly two elements of Massignon’s early understanding of Islam
that he modifies or even reverses in his more mature writings, namely on
Abraham and on the relationship of the Qur’an to the Bible.
Abraham
Abraham would eventually become central to Massignon’s thinking about
the relationship between Christianity and Islam. However, in his earliest
works, such as the Examen, he rejects attributing any spiritual lineage to
Ishmael and Islam through Abraham:
IT translates in a tendentious way the prediction of the angel to Hagar (Genesis 16:12)
about the destiny of Ishmael. It should read: “He will be among men as the wild ass
among the animals (IT has ‘the leader of men’) [that is to say he will live in the desert]
his hand will be against all and the hand of all against him (IT has: ‘humbly extended
toward him’); and he will pitch his tents in the country of all his brothers (IT has:
‘in the greater part of the earth’).” This prediction, just like the one made by Daniel
about the empires and just like the benediction on Esau, only concerns the temporal
future of Ishmael’s descendants, as has been acknowledged in Christian commentar-
ies, which have located the military domination of the “Hagarians” in Islam since the

Armenian bishop Sebeos, contemporary of the first Umayyads, and the popes from
Urban II to Innocent III, up to the most adventurous apologists [for Islam] like G. Pos-
tel (1581) and Charles Forster (1829).80 Did Abraham obtain anything more from God
for the “son of his handmaid”? No, the sacred text specifies: Ishmael will be blessed,
he will found a great nation (17:18–21; 21:13) but God reserves to Isaac alone and to his
descendants the eternal heritage of his spiritual covenant with Abraham. This is af-
firmed even more solemnly at Mt. Moriah by the sacrifice asked by God of Abraham,
the offering of Isaac (22) at which a ram was substituted, a prefigure of the paschal
lamb of the Exodus and perhaps more strikingly of the supreme sacrifice of the Cross.
This is so clear that the Muslim apologetic, holding that all of Hebrew tradition has
been a lie, argues that it was Ishmael and not Isaac who was offered by Abraham: and
not at Mt. Moriah but at the Ka’bah. The Medina sûras serve as the foundation of this
theory by uncovering, as Snouck has shown, a commemoration of the sacrifice of
Abraham in the rituals of the Meccan hajj (Qur’an 2:121).81
Massignon’s position could not be more clear. Did Abraham obtain any-
thing more than temporal blessings for Ishmael? No. Ishmael, and thus the
Arab people and all Muslims, is effectively cut off from God’s spiritual cov-
enants. Although it would surprise readers of the later Massignon, this ap-
proach to Abraham is typical of the early Massignon. In “The Roman Catho-
lic Church and Islam,” he reviews the history of Islamic-Christian relations
according to a threefold mission of the papacy vis-à-vis Islam, namely “rul-
ing power (imperium), sanctifying power (ministerium), [and] doctrinal power
(magisterium),” and argues that “[j]ust as Ishmael has been excluded for
Isaac’s benefit, so the Mosaic synagogue and the Moslem community have
been excluded for the benefit of the Christian Ecclesia.”82 He notes with ap-
proval that even the rallying cry for the Crusades, “reiterated by thousands
of papal bulls up to the time of Nicholas V, especially those of Innocent III
and Honorius III,” was taken from Genesis 21:10: “Drive out the handmaid
[Hagar] and her son [Ishmael]!”83 In the next chapter, one encounters in
Massignon a very different approach to the question of Abraham, includ-
ing a much more sympathetic interpretation of the Abrahamic aspect of
the hajj.
80. L. M.’s note says “[Forster] recognized in the book of Daniel 8:23 a prophecy announcing Mu-
hammad.”
82. Massignon, “Roman Catholic Church,” 129–30.
83. Massignon, “Roman Catholic Church,” 129–130.
Qur’an-Bible
Despite his rather damning portrayal of the Qur’an according to the tradi-
tional Muslim apologetic, Massignon’s own reading of the Qur’an at this
early stage is difficult to pin down. On the one hand, from the beginning,
he finds in it authentic ground for mystical-spiritual development. For
example, “mystical union between the human soul and its Creator is not
wholly missing from the Qur’an.”84 On the other hand, he suggests that
there are several “historical themes” and “detached anecdotes” in the Qur’an
that “only a Christian can piece together [reconstituer].”85 The reader has
already encountered several examples, including the Qur’anic account of
the fall of Satan “for having refused to adore Adam,” which from a Chris-
tian point of view Massignon interprets not as punishment for disobeying
a strangely idolatrous request on the part of God, but as punishment “for
having refused to adore the future coming of the Redeemer in the flesh, the
Incarnation.”86 He also declared the Qur’anic “double purification of Mary,”
her immaculate conception and “spotless humility,” as unintelligible with-
out reference to the Annunciation, the miraculous birth of Jesus, and espe-
cially her role as theotokos.87 He reads in Qur’an 5:114–15 a nascent if “con-
fused” acknowledgement of the Eucharist that is only clarified by Catholic
teaching and practice.88
In “La conversion du monde musulman,” Massignon advances the fol-
lowing claim:
Their unique book, the Qur’an, amalgamates and condenses fragments of the Penta-
teuch, the Psalter, and the Gospel under a singularly elliptical form; this book, which
a superior constraint seems to seal, imprisons under literal and carnal ambiguities
the sources of grace overflowing in our sacred texts. It is as if the Qur’an were to the
Bible what Ishmael, the excluded, was to Isaac. At the same time, we note that if the
crucifixion of Jesus appears put in doubt there, still the virginity of Mary is affirmed;

87. Massignon, Examen, 54–55. See Qur’an 3:47, 66:12.
88. Massignon, “La conversion,” 54. Qur’an 5:114: “Jesus, son of Mary, said: O Allah, Lord of us!
Send down for us a table spread with food from heaven, that it may be a feast for us, for the first of us
and for the last of us, and a sign from Thee. Give us sustenance, for Thou art the Best of Sustainers. 115.
Allah said: Lo! I send it down for you. And whoso disbelieveth of you afterward, him surely will I pun-
ish with a punishment wherewith I have not punished any of (My) creatures.”
and both of them are honored therein, not only as prophets but as saints without sin.
And this can prepare certain pure hearts to invoke them preferably.89
The analogy Qur’an:Bible::Ishmael:Isaac is difficult to interpret correctly.

In light of his position on Abraham and Ishmael at the time, the analogy
would seem to exclude the Qur’an from any sense of inspiration, and it may
very well do exactly that. Just as Ishmael receives temporal blessings but
is denied any spiritual inheritance, so too the Qur’an touches on biblical
truths but lacks any accompanying grace. Then again, as Ishmael belongs to
Abraham, so too the Qur’an belongs in conversation with the Old and New
Testaments. Massignon even hopes that in and through the Qur’anic point-
ers, one day the “divinity of the Messiah” might be proclaimed in Arabic,
the “predestined language of grace, the language of the land of incense and
myrrh offered to the child Savior, of the land where one picks the palms of
the triumphal procession of the Church.”90 I am therefore inclined to sus-
pect a qualified and latent inspiration for the Qur’an, accessible via the po-
etic reading, in his early writings, but I admit that he only developed that
idea later.
Conclusion
Clearly the early Massignon emphasizes the difference between the Church
and Islam, and difference in that case is not to be celebrated. Massignon
even argues that any correspondence between the two religions—“the Im-
maculate Conception and the Nur Mohammadiyah” or “the rosary and tas-
bîh,” or even the “Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas and the Kalâm of
Averroes,” to name a few examples—is “a mere aberration, an adventitious

90. Massignon, “La conversion,” 51. The Church has never formally endorsed these ideas, but as
mentioned previously, one of Massignon’s students, Giulio Basetti-Sani, developed his teacher’s in-
sight. He argues there that if Christian theologians hypothesize that “the Koran is actually a revealed
book and that Mohammed is a genuine messenger of God,” and if they “apply the methods of criti-
cism and history, and keep in mind, too, the ‘analogy of faith’ which we use in the study of Sacred
Scripture,” then perhaps we may “classify the Koran as part of a supernatural economy which is rela-
tive and provisional but, nevertheless, acts as an instrument of salvation for a section of mankind
still involved in paganism, not yet ready to receive the gospel, and, in a mysterious manner, working
with the work of Christ and his Church.” Basetti-Sani recounts that at their first meeting, Massignon
encouraged his future student to abandon his hypercritical reading of Islam in favor of a friendlier
approach and left him with the words of Augustine, “Amor dat novos oculos,” as the guiding principle
for his research, Basetti-Sani, Koran, 39, 181. Basetti-Sani reinterprets many of the controversial (for
Christians) passages of the Qur’an in which the Trinity or the Incarnation is denied not as denials at all
but as rejections of false formulations on the lips of Arabian Jews.
growth” for Islam, “whereas in the structure of Catholic dogmas, they form
an integral part of a logical system. They form in Islam an historical and
personal feature of worship, in Catholicism a sacramental source of grace
precisely defined.”91 Where Islam differs from Christianity, Massignon de-
fends the latter and criticizes the former. Christians understand history as
developmental, progressive, redemptive, and open, that is, Jerusalem built
from the ruins of Babylon (as quoted in the last chapter). The Bible elevates
human history, intelligence, and love, integrating them with the divine life.
So too, the individual human being is drawn forth by the mystery of God
and invited to participate in the law of self-sacrificing love inherent in his-
tory, made explicit in the cross of Christ, and enjoined by the Church—dog-
ma to morals to mysticism. Muslims who subscribe to the traditional Muslim
apologetic view history as a series of disconnected events, each an opportu-
nity to accept or reject the divine will. However, the results are predestined.
The Qur’an reveals a Creator wholly transcendent and invites believers to
a strictly intellectual assent. Islam enjoys only a temporal, not a spiritual,
Abrahamic inheritance through Ishmael. Although it enjoys positive, cor-
rective missions vis-à-vis idolatry and Judaism, Islam’s mission vis-à-vis
the Church is strictly negative, exposing areas of potential evangelization
and demanding of the Church holy witnesses, except in the case of certain
Sufis, who constitute points of insertion, participants in the law of Christ
within the world of Islam.
At the conclusion of the Examen, after reminding his reader that apolo-
getics always call into question a person’s faith, Massignon argues that “the
hour comes, after reading, of collecting oneself and of understanding, rea-
soning and concluding.”92 He then provides a dramatic scenario in which
the soul of the reader, in conversation with two friends, one Muslim and
one Christian, must judge between the traditional Islamic and Christian
apologetics. The friends fall into now predictable categories. The Muslim
friend, as we have come to expect, emphasizes intellectual assent. He is un-
fazed by the reader’s struggle to judge. He knows that this person, like all
creatures, ultimately can only serve God and ultimately will necessarily do
so, whether by acceptance or rejection of the Muslim apologetic. All that
can be done has been done. Evidence of the divine Law was brought to his
attention. It should have clarified his mind and convinced him of his own

predestination. No further intervention is necessary, for all that remains is

to glorify God, who elects and who damns, who will judge this and every
creature. The Muslim friend has assisted peacefully in the triumphal pro-
cession of Destiny, in the certain victory of God.93
The Christian, in contrast to the Muslim, is filled with compassion
and anxiety about the judgment of his friend. The Christian’s job is to be
a neighbor. He must witness that in Jesus, human misery is assumed and
transfigured by the divine mercy, but he cannot impede the freedom of his
friend, who must judge and choose: “God, who created [this soul] without
its help also loves [this soul] too much to save it without its participation.”94
Still, the anticipation of the friend’s resolution constitutes at this moment
the cross for the Christian’s loving heart; God desires that the Christian im-
molate himself for this friend, make reparation for this friend, unite him-
self by desire and sorrow to the Passion of Jesus for this friend. And yet the
Christian waits: “The Church militant, [Jesus’s] faithful spouse, awaits his
return with prayer and holy tears; for even though she sees a soul to save,
she knows that the day of Glory has not yet arrived, the day when Jesus will
celebrate the eternal wedding feast with her in his Kingdom.”95 The Examen
thus concludes with Massignon’s own approach to the study of religious
texts in general, imploring the reader not only to read, to understand, and,
one might add, to dialogue, but also to judge and to choose.
Massignon himself confessed in a letter to Paul Claudel feeling tempted
by Islam; however, in the end he clearly judged and chose in favor of the
Church. He writes: “And when one day, tortured by temptations toward Is-
lam, almost believing that it held the truth, my heart was broken by the
thought that according to Islam the ‘apparent crucifixion’ of Jesus is a divine
punishment (!) inflicted on his Mother and his Apostles for loving him too
much (!!!—Muslim dogma). That evening, in Cairo, I understood: ‘Rather a
hell of sorrows by clinging to the fraternity of Jesus than paradise by loving
him less.’”96 The circumstances under which he wrote the Examen suggest
that he encouraged others to make the same judgment and choice. Still it is
worth recalling that some features of Massignon’s later, mature, and more

96. Massignon, Paul Claudel, Louis Massignon (1908–1914), ed. Michel Malicet (Paris: Desclée de
Brouwer, 1973), 157–58. Louis’s son Daniel told Maurice Borrmans that any temptations his father may
have felt were exceptional and fleeting. See Borrmans, “Aspects,” 115 n. 1.
open stance toward Islam also have their roots in this period. His emphasis
on the need for holy Christian witness anticipates the less doctrinally driv-
en conversation with Muslims in his later years. The recognition of Sufism
as cooperative with the Church anticipates his later understanding of the
law as already broadly available within Islam. Although he excluded Islam
as Abraham’s spiritual heir, still his reflections represent the beginning of
a long, evolving, and fruitful meditation on the role of Abraham in the re-
lationship between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and he will eventually
accept Islam’s Abrahamic claim. His treatment of the missions of Islam like-
wise indicates not a static position, but a moving understanding. Later, Mas-
signon will argue for a mutually complementary relationship among the
three “Abrahamic traditions.”
Therefore, one should treat the Examen and contemporaneous articles
not as Massignon’s final word on Islam—clearly they were not—but as an
exposition of the Christian eyes through which he would continue to seek
understanding of Islam’s relationship to the mission of the Church. In that
sense the Examen is a foundational text, in that it establishes Massignon’s
religious conversion as evidenced by his acceptance of all the key Catholic
teachings. It is also foundational methodologically and hermeneutically, for
his approach there is and continues to be one of faith seeking understand-
ing, and his faith, here established, orients his further understanding.
Islam: Massignon’s Positive Judgments
Five
ISLAM
Massignon’s Positive Judgments
Although he maintains a sharp distinction in his later writings between Su-

fism (still privileged) and the traditional Muslim apologetic (still criticized),
Massignon also displays sympathetic appreciation even for those aspects
of Islam that he so strongly refuted in texts such as the Examen. In other
words, his view evolved. One reason may be that his context shifted. His
conversion back to the Catholic faith was now decades old; some of the de-
fensive enthusiasm of the recent convert may have matured. Moreover, in
the 1930s and 1940s he was no longer primarily answering the charges of
anti-Christian polemics. Instead, he often was introducing to Catholic au-
diences, in Catholic journals, the admirable qualities of the tradition he
vowed to make better known and better appreciated.
Sympathetic View of Islam

Even though the Qur’an is still a “sign, not of union, but of separation” and
a purely “formal and permanent intellectual miracle,”1 and even though,
unlike Christianity and Judaism, the traditional Muslim apologetic focus-
es on external rites of worship rather than interior repentance and devo-
tion and thus is “ill equipped [to uproot] hypocrisy,”2 still one must admire
the way that its “light armor [and] lighter dogmatic baggage permits it to
adapt easily, always at least at first, to the most recent scientific advances
of the time in order to critique all ‘superstitions’ in the name of natural
1. HI, 89.
2. HI, 100.
134
Islam: Massignon’s Positive Judgments 135
religion.”3 In his later writings Massignon recognizes a universalist ten-

dency in Islam’s “natural religion” that is comparable to the universalism
in both Judaism, under the Noahide covenant, and the Church, under the
doctrine of the baptism of desire.4 Further, whereas he focused on the limits
of Muslim belief and worship in the early works, later he appreciates the
beauty and solemnity of Muslim prayer, including its “spontaneous hospi-
tality and fraternal charity.” He describes it as a kind of “militant monastic
discipline, svelte and sober,” aware of the “immaterial, sacred, and omni-
present divine transcendence.” Christians can recognize “in its simplicity”
the “patriarchal adoration of the earliest times,” a liturgical sobriety more
“vehement than the first Carmelites and the first Cistercians.”5
He especially esteems the role of pilgrimage (hajj), which he says “is
essentially a vow”6 that manifests a certain “catholicity”7 and that, in its re-
minder that all of life is a pilgrimage from birth to death (the only differ-
ence among people being that some accept this fact and become willing pil-
grims while others resist and are dragged along) has “something to say to us
Christians.”8 He even reflects favorably on Islamic art, which “does not seek
to imitate the Creator but to invoke him by His absence.”9 Islamic gardens
can “center” one’s attention, and mosques, which replace the “inanimate
bronze” of the Church bell tower with the minaret from which “the human
voice surges,” are completely “concentrated in [a] very spare style on the
qibla, the symbol of the orientation of the heart toward the One.”10 He now
extends even the possibility of “sanctification” to all Muslims, which he de-
scribes as a “unity of the person” that is “constructed in us by the divine
will” in response to one’s contemplation of the divine unity and transcen-
dence, tawhîd, and which would have been unthinkable, at least in refer-
ence to non-Sufi Muslims, in the Examen.11
Whereas in earlier writings he was relentlessly critical of the reductive
nature of the traditional Muslim apologetic, in later writings he cautions
3. HI, 101.
4. HI, 104.
5. HI, 110.
6. HI, 76. Elsewhere, he notes that pilgrims are required to make a vow of chastity during the Hajj.
See Massignon, Essay, 100 n. 48.
7. Massignon, “La foi,” 16.
8. Massignon, “La foi,” 14.
9. HI, 92.
10. Massignon, “Aspects and Perspectives of Islam,” in Testimonies, 67–68.
136 Islam: Massignon’s Positive Judgments
against oversimplifying the Islamic cult and seeing there only a kind of fac-
ile, insincere, even “slothful” submission to God.12 On the contrary, Islamic
prayer is to be admired precisely for the attitude it cultivates in the believer,
an attitude that was unimpressed by Nazi power during World War II and
remains unimpressed by any worldly power that fails to submit to the only
real power, that of God.13
Massignon’s affection for Muslims’ unshakeable faith in the one God
is captured by an old anecdote that he shared on more than one occasion.
The story is about a Muslim who undertakes the pilgrimage from his native
Baghdad to Mecca. He knows that he only has around twenty days to make
the journey in time for the sacrifice, and he knows that all the books of the-
ology and law recommend a pilgrim equip himself with enough provisions
to make the journey safely. Still, he brings neither camel, nor horse, nor suf-
ficient supplies. His friends admonish him about the danger into which he
has placed himself, and they remind him that Islam does not permit suicide.
The pilgrim, “confident that the divine will would not let him set out with-
out guaranteeing his safety, even miraculously,” responds: “If I die, let the
blood fall on my Murderer,” that is, God.14 For Massignon, there is a radical
seriousness of Muslim faith that is worth esteeming and even emulating.
In his later writings, Islam is to be admired for its insistence on the im-
portance of liturgy as the only really lasting thing, because of its potential
and orientation toward transfiguration.15 Massignon even highlights Islamic
pilgrimage (hajj) as a privileged and salvific practice, salvific because at hajj,
particularly at the culminating sacrifice, one “participates in the sacrifice of
Abraham,” which in Islam refers to the sacrifice of Ishmael at the Ka’ba. He
detects therein a Eucharistic motif. For Christians, Abraham’s sacrifice of
Isaac “prefigures the sacrifice of Christ,” and in Islam, “the sacrifice of the
lamb [also] brings salvation; the pardon of God descends, with His presence,
on all the assembled people.”16 The Abrahamic aspect of hajj is key particu-
larly because it is the only place, in Massignon’s opinion, where intercession
on behalf of sinners by the faithful is permitted. Intercession, or substitu-

14. Massignon, “La foi,” 15. See also “Le Salut,” 144.
15. Massignon, “Le Salut,” 145. In the opening lines of his essay on St. Christine the Admirable,
Massignon reminds us that the great cathedrals of the thirteenth century, “which will crumble one
day,” are worthless unless they point one to “works of holiness that will not perish: the sanctified
souls, veritable ‘invisible cathedrals. . . .’” “Christine l’Admirable,” 15–16.
tion, is the root of the Islamic abdâl, the chain of mystical substitute saints.
Obviously it is not, however, only the mystics who participate; at the hajj the
general Muslim population participates. He elaborates: “[T]he essential part
of the hajj is ‘Arafat (al-hajj: ‘Arafat); it is there . . . that God pardons everyone,
present and absent . . . , while taking into account the spiritual declaration by
certain individuals, pure and predestined Witnesses (shuhud) of a vow made
in humble and repentant adoration of the God of Abraham, Who, in order to
accept the figurative victims of the next day, is content with the ardent and
sacrificial contrition of these Witnesses: and rejoices in it (yubahi) with his
Angels.”17
In the Examen, Massignon contrasts the Eucharist with Muslim prayer
in order to celebrate the former and condemn the latter. Now, implicitly
perhaps, participation at ‘Arafat is analogous to participation in reception of
divine descent at the Eucharist.
Finally, in his later writings, Massignon draws his famous parallel be-
tween Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and the virtues on which they are
concentrated: “If Israel is rooted in hope, and if Christianity is vowed to char-
ity, then Islam is centered on faith.”18 He specifies that Islamic faith is rooted
in “a supernatural, nearly theologal [théologale], source”19 and that for Mus-
lims, salvation depends only upon faith, “faith that is truly theologal.”20 The-
ologal is a word rarely read in English, and even though French theologians
have long employed a distinction between théologique and théologale “in
order to stress the distinctive ways that mind and heart figure in the Chris-
tian life,”21 Massignon’s use of the term confuses many of his interpreters.
Pierre Rocalve asks: “Did he not misuse the word ‘theologal’?”22 In any case,
Massignon’s choice of theologal was quite deliberate. On the one hand, he
did not want to call the faith of Islam theological (théologique). That term
is reserved for a full and thematic articulation of Christian faith, including
confession of the principal Christian mysteries such as Trinity, Incarnation
of the Son, and Redemption. On the other hand, he is no longer content to
describe Islam’s faith as simply natural. Theologal functions for Massignon,

18. HI, 98.
19. HI, 67.
21. Romanus Cessario, “Capreolus on Faith and the ‘Theologal’ Life,” in Essays in Medieval Phi-
losophy and Theology in Memory of Walter H. Principe, CSB: Fortresses and Launching Pads, eds. James R.
Ginther and Carl N. Still (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2005), 136.
therefore, as an intermediary position. It has the sense of faith on the way to

being theological.23
Interestingly, part four, section one of the most recent English transla-
tion of the Catechism (2000) returns to the word theologal after having used
theological in the previous edition (1996). The topic is prayer, and the sub-
section is titled “Jesus teaches us how to pray.” Paragraph 2607 reads:
When Jesus prays he is already teaching us how to pray. His prayer to his Father is
the theologal path (the path of faith, hope, and charity) of our prayer to God. But the
Gospel also gives us Jesus’ explicit teaching on prayer. Like a wise teacher he takes
hold of us where we are and leads us progressively toward the Father. Addressing the
crowds following him, Jesus builds on what they already know of prayer from the Old
Covenant and opens to them the newness of the coming Kingdom. Then he reveals
this newness to them in parables. Finally, he will speak openly of the Father and the
Holy Spirit to his disciples who will be the teachers of prayer in his Church.24
I cannot help but connect Massignon’s usage of theologal with this pas-
sage from the Catechism, where a distinction is made between Jesus’s path,
meaning his life or his way of prayer, and his explicit teachings about the
Father and the Holy Spirit, which are revealed gradually, drawing first on
what his listeners already know of prayer before opening to them the new-
ness of the coming Kingdom. Contemporary thinkers who employ the term
theologal, including Romanus Cessario (and the medievals upon which he
draws) and Ignacio Ellacuría (and his interpreters), have a purely Christian
context in mind for its usage. Probably none would envision extending the
23. Cessario writes: “the former term principally signifies speculative study and learning, where-
as the latter is used to describe the actual practice of Christian faith”; the difference is the emphasis on
knowing versus living, as Cessario demonstrates by turning to Thomas Aquinas, who “would argue
that even a Christian who lacks charity—a person of dead faith—can be said to experience the begin-
ning of this [theologal] movement precisely because believing involves both intellect and will. This
holds true even if, as happens in the case of the person without charity, this experience entails the
contradiction of being affectively drawn toward an end that one does not love.” Cessario, “Theologal,”
136–37. Ignacio Ellacuría (1930–1989) is probably the most recent theologian/philosopher to employ
the term, which he adopted from his teacher Xavier Zubiri (1898–1983). For Ellacuría, the term indi-
cates “unity-in-difference” and shows “transcendence ‘in,’ not ‘away from,’ history.” Michael Lee, Bear-
ing the Weight of Salvation: The Soteriology of Ignacio Ellacuría (New York: Herder and Herder, 2009), 117.
It is “related to but distinct from theological. The latter deals with the study, formulation, and explica-
tion of the divine, while the former attempts to express the implicit ‘God dimension’ of reality.” Kevin
Burke, The Ground Beneath the Cross: The Theology of Ignacio Ellacuría (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown
University Press, 2000), 40 n. 48. Along with the seventeenth-century Anglican poet and theologian
John Donne (1572–1631), who used theologal to indicate the inauguration of a life lived with God, Ces-
sario, Aquinas, and Ellacuría all use theologal as a way of designating faith that is on the way either
from an unthematic to a thematic articulation or from a potency to actualization in charity.
24. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000), no. 2607.
term to non-Christian believers. But the Catechism tantalizingly uses theolo-

gal in the same paragraph in which the introduction of Christian mysteries
to the Jewish people is discussed. Massignon’s use of theologal is therefore
not abusive, although it is certainly innovative.
Since the term concerns living more than knowing and expressing cat-
egorical truths, it is no mere coincidence that Massignon uses theologal in
the same passages where he praises the authenticity of Islamic prayer. Such
would fit his understanding of Islam generally. During the middle and later
stages of his work, he often refers to Islam as producing catechumens of the
Church. For example, Islamic faith “makes catechumens out of our Mus-
lim brothers just as the hope in the Messiah makes catechumens out of our
Jewish brothers, with whom (and not only for whom) we ought to pray, be-
cause the fullness of the third theological virtue, charity, has been given to
us Christians.”25 Islam is at the door of the Church, and perhaps it has one
foot inside. However, it is not yet admitted to full and explicit Catholic com-
munion, awaiting perfection, perhaps eschatological, in Christian charity.
Hence its faith is theologal, not yet theological.
L’Hégire d’Ismaël
I turn now to what has been called Massignon’s credo of Islam, that is, his
judgments regarding key aspects of Islamic belief and practice, includ-
ing Muhammad and the Qur’an, judgments Borrmans calls “striking” and
“audacious.”26 I must say at the outset that the phrase is not Massignon’s.
Jean Moncelon organized part of his doctoral thesis under the heading Mas-
signon’s credo of Islam, and he addressed therein five points: the God of the
Muslims, the sincerity of Muhammad, the inspiration of the Qur’an, the mis-
sion of Islam, and the vocation of the Arabic language.27 Sidney Griffith then
adopted Moncelon’s schema, and much of the secondary literature has fol-
lowed suit. I do too, but I will not treat Massignon’s judgment that the God of
the Muslims is the God of the Christians, since I covered it in chapter 2. The
primary source for Massignon’s mature theological vision of Islam is his Les
trois prières d’Abraham. I focus on the central essay of the book, “L’Hégire
d’Ismaël,” which Michel Hayek has called “the key to the vault of all [Mas-

26. Borrmans, “Aspects,” 122.
27. Jean Moncelon, “Sous le signe d’Abraham: Louis Massignon, l’ami de Dieu (khalil Allah)”
(Ph.D. diss., Université de Paris X, 1990), 556.
signon’s] scholarly work” as well as his “spiritual testament.”28 In 1997 Cerf

published Massignon’s 1935 edition of the text, and that is the version to
which I most often refer and the one that I designate HI. However, there is
also an abridged and revised text that appeared in 194929 and again in a 1983
collection of Massignon’s essays,30 and then that shorter version was trans-
lated into English by Herbert Mason.31 When I refer to the later abridged edi-
tion, I quote from the English translation and refer to the full title, “The Three
Prayers of Abraham.” I have already described in chapter 2 the three epi-
sodes from Genesis involving Abraham to which Les trois prières d’Abraham
alludes, so I will provide here only a brief introduction to HI and the overall
structure of Les trois prières before turning to Massignon’s judgments about
the Qur’an, Muhammad, and so on.
“The expatriation of Ishmael” (HI) is the centerpiece of Les trois prières.
The title refers to Abraham’s dismissal of Ishmael and Hagar from his fami-
ly, but by calling this dismissal or flight a hijra (hégire), Massignon obvious-
ly means to connect it with Muhammad’s and the early Muslim commu-
nity’s flight from Mecca to Medina in 622 C.E. He translates hijra (hégire) as
l’expatriation, which indicates departure from one’s homeland or fatherland,
and he often refers to Ishmael as l’exilé, the exiled one. His choice is theo-
logically significant. It suggests that Ishamel—and by extension the Arabs
and therefore the Muslims—was expatriated, dismissed from the homeland,
but like Muhammad who returned to Mecca, Ishmael too—and by exten-
sion, again, the Arabs and therefore the Muslims—will one day return to
the homeland. Islam will assume its proper place at the Abrahamic table
alongside Jews and Christians.
HI is divided into eleven sections. The sections are not individually ti-
tled, but one could describe them roughly as follows. Section I pertains to
Ishmael’s exile from Abraham and from the spiritual paternity that Isaac
inherits. It includes Massignon’s exegesis according to the traditional four
senses of reading scripture. Section II argues for a historical connection be-
tween Abraham, Ishmael, the Arab people, Muhammad, and Islam. Section
III treats the limits of Muhammad’s mystical experience and its implica-
tions for Sufism as well as for the Church. Section IV discerns the Christian
28. Michel Hayek, “L. Massignon face à l’Islam,” in Louis Massignon, ed. Jean-François Six (Paris:
Éditions L’Herne, 1970), 189.
29. Massignon, “Les trois prières d’Abraham: père des croyants,” Dieu Vivant 13 (1949): 15–28.
30. Massignon, Parole Donnée, ed. Vincent-Mansour Monteil (Paris: Seuil, 1983), 257–72.
31. Massignon, “The Three Prayers of Abraham.”
seeds planted in pre-Islamic pagan Arabia, seeds that take root and grow in
Sufism especially. Section V examines the personality of Muhammad and
his sincerity vis-à-vis God’s command to preach. Section VI treats Salmân
Pâk, Muhammad’s advisor, whose Christianity Massignon insists he never
completely renounced, as well as early Muslim history around the question
of legitimate authority. Section VII examines the Qur’an. Section VIII exam-
ines the privileged revelatory mission of Semitic languages in general and
Arabic in particular. Section IX takes up the traditional Muslim apologetic
and its characteristic virtue, faith. Section X treats Islam as a community
of religious believers, a community Massignon designates an Abrahamic
schism, and Section XI turns to the history of Christian-Muslim relations as
well as the role of Islam vis-à-vis the Church at present and going forward.
Muhammad
Pierre Rocalve observes that “the personality of Muhammad is manifestly
not what most attracted Massignon in Islam.”32 The Qur’an, Hallâj, and the
mystical tradition constitute his way into Islam.33 That is not to say, how-
ever, that he did not give due consideration to Muhammad. In what follows,
I examine Massignon’s understanding of the prophet in three parts. First, I
treat his description of Muhammad as sincere and of Muhammad’s role as
that of a negative prophet. Second, I look more closely at how Muhammad’s
sincerity was demonstrated for Massignon in the event of the Muhâbala (or-
deal). Finally, I touch on Massignon’s exposition of Muhammad’s role vis-à-
vis the mystics of Islam, especially Hallâj.
Sincerity of Muhammad
In a section of the Examen in which Massignon critiques the traditional
Muslim apologetic’s tendency to collapse the natural law into the Qur’an, he
writes: “[As] the natural law, that is to say, the eternal law, directing the acts
and movements of men toward their proper end,” the “Qur’anic revelation

33. It is hardly unusual to treat Muhammad as of secondary importance to the Qur’an. As one
contemporary scholar puts it: “All aspects of Islamic faith and practice begin with the sacred scripture,
the Qur’an (‘recitation’), understood as the literal word of God revealed directly to Muhammad and,
through him, to the community” John Renard, Windows on the House of Islam (Berkeley, Calif.: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1998), 1. More unique is the centrality of mysticism in Massignon’s appraisal
of Islam.
reminds all people that engraved in their reason is the natural law which is
necessary and sufficient for them.”34 The Qur’an is a kind of divine reminder
or pointer to the natural law.35 Massignon argues from the Catholic position
that just as reason is necessary but not sufficient, neither is natural law suf-
ficient. He asks, “How will I discern the human law from the natural law?
How will it be proved to me that Islam is legitimate? Or that Muhammad is
trustworthy and true? Muhammad believed that a simple adhesion of hu-
man reason to its constitutive law was sufficient.”36 Massignon concludes
the section by referring to Muhammad’s insistence on the sufficiency of
natural reason as evidence of “his obstinate sincerity.”37
In HI, he attributes to Muhammad a much more positive “sincerity of-
ten impressive and undeniable.”38 In order to understand the significance
of that assessment, one must recall the long history of Christian vilification
of the prophet, wherein Muhammad was accused of having invented the
Qur’anic revelations for his own personal gain. With few exceptions, Mu-
hammad was considered quite insincere.39 Medieval European custom, as
early as the time of Guibert of Nogent (1055–1124), allowed that “it is safe
to speak evil of one whose malignity exceeds whatever ill can be spoken.”40
Therefore, “essential to the Christian campaign against Islam was the defa-

35. Such is the Islamic doctrine of fitra, from Qur’an 30:30 (“So set thy purpose [Muhammad]
for religion as a man by nature upright—the nature [framed] of Allah, in which He hath created
man. There is no altering [the laws of] Allah’s creation. That is the right religion, but most men know
not—“), which generations of orientalists, whom Massignon here follows, have identified as the prin-
ciple of “natural religion.” See Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 31. Where Christianity maintains a distinction
between natural law and natural religion, the comments of Rocalve as well as the previous Qur’anic
reference seem to suggest for Massignon a conflation between the two in Islam. See Anver Emon,
Islamic Natural Law Theories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Possibly natural law in Islam is
akin to Hittenger’s description of it as “the first grace,” by which he indicates a median point between
an overly predestinationist account that would seem to leave many people without access to salvation
and an overly pelagian account that would deny the need for the divine positive law and for revela-
tion generally. See Russell Hittenger, The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian
World (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2003), xi–xlvi.
38. HI, 78.
39. For Eastern perspectives, which sometimes provide more favorable accounts, see especially
Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008). See also Griffith, “‘Melkites,’ ‘Jacobites’ and the
Christological Controversies in Arabic in Third/Ninth-Century Syria,” and Samir Khalil Samir, “The
Prophet Muhammad as Seen by Timothy I and Some Other Arab Christian Authors,” in Syrian Chris-
tians under Islam: The First Thousand Years, ed. David Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 9–56, 75–106.
40. Rollin Armour, Islam, Christianity, and the West: A Troubled History (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis,
2002), 52; Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009).
mation of Muhammad,” and “Christian writers presented him as a lecher,

a man of violence, untrustworthy, and a deceiver who passed off his own
thoughts as the revelations of God. One account even reported that Mu-
hammad had been a cardinal in the Roman church who, frustrated over his
inability to attain his ambitions, fled to Arabia, where he founded the false
religion of Islam.”41 Further: “Because Islam rejected Jesus as Christians saw
him, [medieval] Christians concluded that Muhammad and his followers
were the enemies of Christ. At that point a circle in the reasoning appears.
Because the enemy of Christ would be someone very unlike Christ, it was
essential that the Christian program demonstrate how different Muham-
mad was and thus portray him as a great blasphemer who used religion to
justify his violence and sexuality. As to the claimed revelations, Muham-
mad either fabricated them or gained them during seizures.”42
It is worth noting, as an aside, that Massignon thinks the rumors of Mu-
hammad’s licentiousness, greed, and softness of character in fact originated
with early Muslims eager to justify their own and their political leaders’
lack of discipline and modesty:
Goldziher and Lammens have recently brought to light some traditional tales of the
luxury of [Muhammad’s] “court,” and of his and his Companions’ softness; the stories
are picturesque, but they first appeared as highly suspect polemical arguments, used
and probably invented by the shameful second-century A.H. school of muhaddithûn
most notably represented by Wâqidî (d. 207) and his “secretary” Ibn Sa‘d (d. 230).
These men were exclusively occupied in seeking apostolic precedents for licentious
sumptuousness, especially the silks, jewels, henna, antimony, and perfume of the
profligate governors and viziers on whose subventions the school survived.43
Unfortunately, such unhappy presentations of the prophet persisted

among Christians into the modern period (and continue to this day in some
circles), and very few positive descriptions of Muhammad by Catholics
can be found before Massignon. Such is the context in which the question
about Muhammad’s sincerity must be considered. It is telling that, directly
responding to the question, “Do you believe [Muhammad] was sincere?”44
Massignon distances himself from another prominent Catholic scholar of
Islam, the aforementioned Jesuit Henri Lammens (1862–1937). It is worth
repeating the relevant quotation:
41. Armour, Islam, 52.

42. Armour, Islam, 57.
I believe that [Muhammad] was sincere and that, as my old master Goldziher said to
me . . . “We must make of others what we would have them make of us.” The apolo-
getical skepticism, the scalpel wielded by H. Lammens in his studies on the Sîra, is a
doubled-edged sword. Why reserve to Islam, to Muhammad and to the Qur’an, the base
explanations by psychological or sociological fraud? The result is to cause the Muslim
apologists to translate into Arabic every pamphlet that, from Lessing to Couchoud, has
treated the Bible as a “grosse Täuschung,” Jesus as a mythical person, and the Church
as a consortium of priestly exploitation of the poor and the suffering.45
Massignon’s treatment of Muhammad is therefore a conscious break from

the entrenched pattern. He makes a deliberate judgment regarding the sin-
cerity of the prophet and a deliberate choice to put Muhammad and Islam in
the best light possible. In HI he focuses on Muhammad’s good-natured sim-
plicity, honesty, and humility. He reminds those Christians who unfavorably
compare Muhammad and Jesus that Muhammad only ever self-identified as
a “simple warner [who] claimed neither the sanctity of Moses nor the divin-
ity of Jesus, and [who] seems to have entrusted himself above all else to the
intercession of his distant ancestor Abraham in order to obtain from God the
salvation of his people, those who believed in his words.”46 Christians must
understand that “Muhammad founded a temporal State but Jesus never had
to govern a temporal state. The Muslims reproach us for having an imprac-
tical Law. Their Law is better proportioned to human means. Muhammad
did not govern by manipulation [calcul] but by the ingenuity of a contem-
porary of the patriarchal epoch of Abraham, and he believed he received all
this from God.”47 Muhammad willingly took advice, even criticism, from his
companions. He cultivated genuine friendships with Abu Bakr, Zeid, and his
first wife, Khadija. He wisely sought some authoritative control of meaning
by discussing the Qur’anic revelations with Jews and Christians.48 He dem-
onstrated the requisite religious sensitivity to discern “inspired poetry” from
divine revelation,49 and, contrary to common Western depictions, as head of
state he humbly admitted his limitations and was actually quite lenient in
his enforcement of the law.50 It is well known that upon his return to his na-
tive Mecca, having conquered the city, he was criticized for offering overly

46. HI, 68.
47. Louis Massignon, letter published in Ô Vierge Puissante, by R. Charles-Barzel (Paris: La Co-
lombe, 1958), 61.
48. HI, 78.
49. HI, 77.
50. HI, 77, 78.
conciliatory terms of peace to the Umayyads, whom he had just defeated,

who had rejected and persecuted him in the early days of his inspiration and
preaching, who, in Massignon’s opinion, eventually converted only out of
self-interest, and who would eventually attack his own grandsons. For this
Massignon calls Muhammad “an Abraham who would return to Ur.”51 He
was, according to Massignon, no mystic, and we know little about his interior
life, but “what the Prophet’s public life attests should be noted: proven will,
self-control, moderation and prudence, perspicacity and readiness to forgive,
patience and forethoughtfulness, in short all the capacity to maneuver of a
chief in war and a chief of state. His abilities were disciplined by the deepest
faith.”52
Muhammad as Negative Prophet

In “Le Signe Marial” and “Le Salut de l’Islam” he goes further. He not only
accepts the sincerity of Muhammad but recognizes the legitimacy of his
prophethood, albeit in a highly qualified way, when he refers, quite con-
troversially and provocatively, to Muhammad as a negative prophet. Michel
Hayek suggests that Massignon “returns so often to this formula, that we
must take it as expressive of his most profound intuition,” but two genera-
tions of interpreters have wrestled with the meaning of that phrase.53 Sid-
ney Griffith summarizes the various opinions: “[A]ccording to Robert Cas-
par, in the view of Massignon, Muhammad was a ‘negative prophet’ in the
sense that he ‘denied the false conceptions of the Christian mysteries, and
stood against the privileged.’ Pierre Rocalve explains the formula as indica-
tive of Muhammad’s ‘negative theology,’ which he further characterizes as
‘apophatic.’ Moncelon suggests that one should understand the phrase in
connection with Muhammad’s role in the Mubâhala.”54 Herbert Mason has
suggested that negative prophet may refer simply to Muhammad’s insistence
on the transcendence of God as witnessed in the first part of the shahâda,
that is, there is no god except God.55 Massignon seems to confirm this: “The
destruction of idols and forms by Islam is for me a witness; because it is not
executed by the hand of man, it is a negative witness of God.”56 Each of these
51. HI, 78.

53. Hayek, “L. Massignon,” 189.
55. Herbert Mason, personal letter to the author, November 2006.
56. Massignon, “La foi,” 14; emphasis added.
interpretations of Massignon’s category negative prophet is plausible, and

there is nothing about any one of them that is exclusive of the others. To
add my own emphasis, I think Muhammad is a negative prophet in the apo-
phatic sense—he emphasizes what God is not; he denies any associations
with God—but he is a negative prophet, because he affirms the transcendent
unity of God against all idolatry and, most important for Massignon, be-
cause he preaches the second coming of Jesus as well as the virginal and
holy perfection of both Jesus and his mother, Mary, even to the Jews. For
this Massignon admits: “I can only admire the mission of Muhammad to
Medina as a witness of this Marian sign.”57
In “Le Signe Marial” the interviewer presses: “Sincere, sure, but authen-
tic? What about the Christian martyrs killed for proclaiming ‘Muhammad
is a false prophet’?”58 After arguing that the Franciscans who went to Ceu-
ta and Marrakech, who spoke no Arabic and who knew little or nothing
about Islam, were more interested in expediting their own return to God
via “short cut,” that is, martyrdom, than they were in effecting conversions
through understanding and dialogue with Muslims, Massignon draws a dis-
tinction between a false prophet and a negative prophet:
To be a “false” Prophet, it is necessary to prophesy positively something false. A posi-
tive prophecy is generally shocking to one’s comprehension, being a reversal of ex-
pected human values. But Muhammad . . . can only be a negative prophet, which
he is, quite authentically. He never pretended to be either an intercessor or a saint.
Rather he affirmed that he was a Witness, the Voice who cries out in the desert, [who
announces] the final separation of the good from the bad, the Witness of the separa-
tion, for as an Arab, son of Ishmael, he is the son of the tears of Hagar, the tears of Eve
(at ‘Arafât), for “they who cry are they who know” the transcendent secret of the glory
of the just God.59
Muhammad is not a false prophet, nor is he a positive prophet, reversing

received expectations. He is a negative prophet.
Muhammad and the Mubâhala

Massignon specifies the sincerity of Muhammad by referring repeatedly to
the Mubâhala, or ordeal, or trial by fire. In HI, Massignon writes: “This scene

59. Massignon, “Le Signe,” 214. On the controversy, see John Tolan, St. Francis and the Sultan: The
Curious History of a Christian-Muslim Encounter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 6–11
[i.e., the Mubâhala] is very important. It is the only manifestation of the to-
tal faith of Muhammad in his mission, and it proves he only accepts as a
visitation of God to His creation the burning of criminals, as before Elijah
at Mt. Carmel.”60 The scene is elliptically recounted in the Qur’an as follows:
3:59. Lo! The likeness of Jesus with Allah is as the likeness of Adam. He created him
of dust, then He said unto him: Be! And he is. 60. (This is) the truth from thy Lord (O
Muhammad), so be not thou of those who waver. 61. And whoso disputeth with thee
concerning him, after the knowledge which hath come unto thee, say (unto him):
Come! We will summon our sons and your sons, and our women and your women,
and ourselves and yourselves, then we will pray humbly (to our Lord) and (solemnly)
invoke the curse of Allah upon those who lie. 62. Lo! This verily is the true narrative.
There is no God save Allah, and lo! Allah is the Mighty, the Wise. 63. And if they turn
away, then lo! Allah is Aware of (who are) the corrupters. 64. Say: O People of the
Scripture! Come to an agreement between us and you: that we shall worship none
but Allah, and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall
take others for lords beside Allah. And if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that
we are they who have surrendered (unto Him).
Incorporating the accounts in the hadîth, Louis Gardet fills out the story:
When the Muslim state spread down to the Yemen, the people of Najran sent an em-
bassy to Medina—seventy horsemen, fourteen nobles among them, led by the chief of
the artisans, the supervisor of the caravans and the bishop, all clad in their gala finery
of brocade. They came in among the people of the city and Mohammed allowed them
to go into the mosque and pray, turning towards the east. Then they were received
in audience. Mohammed upbraided them for believing in the divinity of Christ and
tried to convert them to Islam. The discussion became heated and Mohammed, in
line with the Koran, 3, 54 [3:61] proposed settling the matter the next morning by “or-
deal by execration.” At the meeting, the leaders of the Najran Christians declared that
they would not have recourse to this method. Terms were discussed and a pact signed
by which they placed themselves under the protection of Mohammed.61
60. HI, 80. See 1 Kings 18:16–45.

61. Gardet, Mohammedanism, 41–42. Gardet speculates that the Qur’anic rejection of the divinity
of Jesus, quoted previously, “bears directly on the human nature of Christ, [but] . . . Najranites were
Nestorians and, therefore, held that there were in Christ two distinct persons, one human and one
divine. Thus the point at issue on this famous occasion at Najran could not have been the pivotal
Christian mystery of the one divine person in Christ. No wonder the Najranites evaded the challenge.”
Gardet, Mohammedanism, 42. To my knowledge, Massignon himself never adheres explicitly to such
a theory, but Giulio Basetti-Sani repeatedly insisted that the Qur’an “condemns not the doctrine of
Chalcedon, but Monophysite and Nestorian formulations of the doctrine,” and that “nowhere in the
Koran is there a formulation of the orthodox doctrine (of Chalcedon and Constantinople) regarding
the Incarnation,” and that the “same is true of the Trinity.” Basetti-Sani, Koran, 136.
The Mubâhala for Massignon is a clear demonstration of Muhammad’s sin-

cerity.62 Agreeing to such an ordeal is not something one takes lightly. Mas-
signon sees in it “a manifestation of the total faith of Muhammad in his mis-
sion,” which includes testifying to the divine unity, tawhîd, no matter the
consequences. It provides for skeptical Christians an historical event at which
the prophet was willing to die in witness to his faith, even if it is also a “nega-
tion” of the Incarnation of Jesus.63
Massignon wonders: “Why did these Christians from Yemen . . . not dare
to accept this trial, as St. Francis would at Damietta . . . ? Why did Mohammad,
who sincerely summoned God to ‘descend,’ not obtain from them the proof
of the Incarnation?”64 The reference to St. Francis has to do with an episode in
1219 during the fifth crusade, when he reportedly went to Egypt, crossed en-
emy lines, and was received by the Sultan al-Kamil, whom he tried to convert
by offering once again to take up the trial by fire as proof of the Incarnation.
His offer was rejected: “St. Francis then declared himself ready to enter the fire
alone. Humbly he forewarned them that if the Lord did not assist him, those
present should attribute that to his sins, and not to consider it as a Divine
condemnation of Christianity. If, on the contrary, the power of God should
be miraculously manifested, by leaving him unharmed in the midst of the
flames, he asked the Sultan and his people to hear the message of God.”65 The
second, more daring offer, to stand the trial alone, was also refused, and he
returned to Italy, where he would eventually receive the stigmata.66
I return to the example of St. Francis in the next section; here I want to
62. Of great importance to Massignon is the significance of the four persons chosen by Muham-
mad to enter the trial at his side should the Christians agree. According to tradition, they were his
grandsons Hasan and Husayn, his daughter Fâtima, and his son-in-law ‘Alî. Gardet recalls that the
“story of this Mubâhala was specially cherished by the Shiites: there, in this solemn affirmation of
the unity of the divine nature, stood together the ‘five’ and the ‘people of the House.’ Miniatures por-
tray Mohammed facing the Najranites, folding in his cloak his four co-witnesses and guarantors, with
lightning flashing from his forehead.” Louis Gardet, Mohammedanism, trans. William W. F. Burridge
(New York: Hawthorne, 1961), 43. In his later years, Massignon became increasingly interested in Mus-
lim devotion to Fâtima, comparing it favorably to the Catholic hyperdulia lauded upon Mary. The
significance of the Marian apparition at Fatima, Portugal, was not lost on him. See especially Massi-
gnon, “La Mubâhala de Médine et l’hyperdulie de Fâtima,” in EM 1, 222–45; also “La notion du voeu et
la dévotion musulmane à Fâtima,” in EM 1, 245–64. Even the famous American bishop Fulton J. Sheen
(1895–1979) was aware of a Mary-Fâtima connection: “‘Fâtima peut être considérée en Islam comme
une figure de Marie, pour le second avènement de Jésus – comme Esther l’a été en Israël, avant le pre-
mier avènement’ (Mgr. Fulton Sheen).” BAL 9, 4.
64. HI, 80.
65. Basetti-Sani, Muhammad, 28.
66. See Basetti-Sani, Muhammad. On Massignon and the historicity of St. Bonaventure’s account
of St. Francis and the trial by fire, see Tolan, Saint Francis, 294–99. See also Paul Moses, The Saint and
focus on Massignon’s theological interpretation of this strange set of events.

Remember, his questions are Why did the Christians not accept the ordeal?
and Why did God not prove the Incarnation? He writes: “The ordeal found it-
self mysteriously postponed, or rather, it had to be realized little by little in
another way, in Islam itself, when, faced with incredible misfortunes, some
descendants of Muhammad, persecuted by their Muslim co-religionists,
like the prophets by the Jews, believing Muslims, mystics, perhaps Aboû’l
Khatâb, and certainly Hallâj, experienced in themselves the reality of the
holy visitation of the Spirit here below, under the form of a deifying call to
martyrdom.”67 The original event and St. Francis’s recapitulation mysteri-
ously prepare the ground for a long and slow march toward the possibility
of recognizing union with God in Islam, which would shed new light on the
question of Jesus’s divinity. The question of the Incarnation, and derivative-
ly of union, was raised by encounters with Christians, but the affirmation
must emerge from within the Islamic community. God meant for the truth
of the Incarnation to be realized little by little and from within Islam itself,
and the way the Incarnation will be realized in Islam is in and through its
mystics’ desire for union with God.
Muhammad and Mysticism

Many later Sufis make of Muhammad the first and prototypical Sufi, who
passed on spiritual and esoteric learning to ‘Alî and others in a kind of ap-
ostolic succession [isnâd] of mystical teaching. However, Massignon’s judg-
ment from his early works forward is that Muhammad was not a mystic.
Muhammad’s reception of the Qur’an, for instance, was characterized by
Massignon as “a vigorous impression of an idea of divinity, pure and simple,
abstract and naked, thus one.”68 Muhammad was not engaged in a personal,
experimental quest for union with God, as Massignon’s definitions of mys-
ticism demand. He was content to grasp the idea of divinity. To make the
point, Massignon adverts to a distinction within Islamic tradition between
the roles of prophets and saints. He writes: “At the height of his sanctity, in
the consummation of divine union, the saint is more than a prophet en-
trusted with an exterior mission to fulfill, delegated with a law whose ob-
the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Image
Books, 2009), especially pp. 208–21.
67. HI, 80.
servance he is sent to put into effect; the saint who has perfectly united
his will with the will of God is in everything and everywhere interpreting
directly the essential will of God, and participating in the divine nature,
‘transformed’ in God.”69
In Massignon’s reading, Muhammad was a prophet, but not a saint. His
religious experience amounted to instantaneous contacts with the Divine
Word, flashes of understanding, “like a flint when struck,” the content of
which was to be communicated verbatim. This was the “intellectual miracle”
by which Muhammad received the Qur’an. Each flash was a verse (âyah),
transcribed as it arrived, in the concise style of the Qur’an. However, “there
is no ‘discernment of spirits.’”70 Were Muhammad to practice discernment
in his communication of the Qur’an, then he might be guilty of associat-
ing partners (i.e., himself) to God (shirk). In fact, Muhammad so jealously
guarded the divine unity and so carefully resisted any hint of intermingling
of Creator and creature, that in that regard, as we have already seen, ac-
cording to Massignon’s reading he is comparable to Satan, Iblîs, in Islam. He
writes: “Two beings have been predestined to witness that the unity of God
is inaccessible, Iblîs before the angels in Heaven, Muhammad before the
men on earth; and both stopped half way: through love of the simple idea of
the Deity, which veiled God to them; and through abuse of the shahâda.” He
continues: “The one and the other defend, like two boundary marks of pure
nature, the threshold that the divine Spirit makes cross the sanctified beings
whom He introduces into Union through an unforeseeable and transnatu-
ral stratagem of love.”71 Massignon’s comment that both stopped halfway is
particularly important and in need of further explanation.
Massignon opens section three of HI with the following observation:
“Hagar was separated from Ishmael by ‘one bowshot’ [Gen. 21:16] in order
not to watch her son die. It was [to the distance of] ‘two bowshots or a bit
less’ that Muhammad, ‘at the hour when the star of the evening declines’
approached the place where the divine glory resides.”72 He is referring to an
episode in the prophet’s life known as the mi’râj, his ascension through the
heavens and approach to the divine essence. For Massignon the length of
two bowshots indicates not the proximity of Muhammad to the divine es-
sence, but rather that Muhammad either chose to refrain or was prohibited

71. Massignon, Passion 1, 30, 31, 363.
72. HI, 68; îsra/mi’râj—Muhammad’s night journey to Jerusalem/ascension to the throne of God;
see Qur’an 17:1, 60, 53:1–18.
from full access to God. Qur’an 53:6b–12 reads: “6b. [A]nd he grew clear to
view 7. when he was on the uppermost horizon. 8. Then he drew nigh and
came down, 9. until he was two bows’ length or even nearer, 10. and He re-
vealed unto His slave that which He revealed. 11. The heart lied not in what
it saw. 12. Will ye then dispute with him concerning what he seeth?”
According to Massignon, those verses indicate that Muhammad, out of
respect for the divine transcendence as well as holy and reverent fear of
God, chose not to go all the way, or to stop halfway, but as a Sufi proverb
reads: “He does not return who returns; that one having gone [only] half
way.”73 Explanations for Muhammad’s having gone halfway fall into three
categories. Muhammad either remained outside the “impenetrably dense
holiness” of God, or was really only privy to intercession by an unnamed
angel, or, if he was illuminated by the divine essence, then it was intellec-
tual illumination, not illumination of the heart (i.e., union).74
Patrick Laude has astutely and critically examined Massignon’s unique
interpretation of Qur’an 53:6–18. I quoted 53:6–12 previously; the remain-
ing verses read as follows: “13. And verily he saw him yet another time, 14.
by the lote tree of the utmost boundary, 15. nigh unto which is the Garden
of the Abode. 16. When that which shroudeth did enshroud the lote tree, 17.
the eye turned not aside nor yet was overbold. 18. Verily he saw one of the
greater revelations of his Lord.” Laude writes: “Massignon is less interested
in the symbolic suggestion of proximity implied by the Qur’anic expres-
sion ‘two bows’ length or even nearer’ than in the remaining distance that
it explicitly denotes.”75 Laude mentions a few early Sufi thinkers who, while
acknowledging the ultimate inaccessibility of the divine, nonetheless see
in this passage evidence of Muhammad’s having been graced with divine
proximity. However, he argues: “It is clear that Massignon tends to approach
the phenomenon of Muhammad in a way that emphasizes its specificity
vis-à-vis the Christic manifestation. The key concepts, here, are the inac-
cessibility of the Divine, and the consequent exclusion of the Prophet from
the ‘surrounding walls of Union.’ These traits contrast sharply with the im-
mediacy of the Incarnation in Jesus, and the discipline and path of mystical
union through Divine Love that constitutes His central teaching.”76 Hence
Massignon “understands the Prophet’s mystical vocation in light of, and in
73. One could say that, for Massignon, Avicenna went only halfway, while Ghazâlî went farther.
True mysticism demands going all the way. See “Avicenna,” 111–15.
74. HI, 69.
76. Laude, Pathways, 76. Rocalve also reminds the reader that Massignon himself emphasized the
parallel with, Hagar’s hegira. Both are situated within the context of a dis-
tance, a hegira precisely, that prefigures the spiritual identity of Islam and
calls for a completion.”77 Therefore, as Laude observes:
Unable to enter the Garden of the Abode, which is the “consummation” of Divine
Presence, the Prophet only bears witness to transcendence, as a second Abraham that
has not known Christ. The Christian outlook of Massignon detects in this distance,
symbolically expressed by the “two bows’ length” that separates him from his vision,
a sign of the incomplete character of the way that he opens for his community. This is,
paradoxically perhaps, the source of a spiritual nostalgia for union, which Massignon
will pursue in the spiritual paths of tasawwuf. Massignon’s Sufism is entirely situated
within the space of this distance, and the lack that it entails, a remark that has pon-
derous consequences for the way in which he approaches Islamic mysticism.78
That Muhammad did not achieve full union with the divine has at least
two major and converging consequences. First, his “exclusion from divine
union, like the exclusion of Moses from the promised land, prepared the way
for others by causing them to desire the supreme exodus [hégire].”79 To those
sensitive to its implications, Muhammad’s journey provides a taste of what
could have been and what might be. That is what Laude means when he says
that Massignon’s Sufism is situated in the distance that Muhammad main-
tained. Sufism is the intra-Islamic attempt to complete Muhammad’s unfin-
ished supreme hegira.
The second consequence of Muhammad’s refusal is that, because he did
not enter into union, he did not know the interior life of God; he did not
know the Incarnation as St. Francis did. He writes: “In the seraphic miracle
at Alvernia, associating the angelic nature with the crucifixion, the stigmata
of Francis appeared precisely as a supernatural and exquisite compensation
for the human failure of Muhammad.”80 St. Francis is the beneficiary of the
stigmata in part because he knew the Incarnation and in part because he
was willing to go all the way. He was willing to die for proof of the union be-
tween Creator and creatures. His willingness so closely identified him with
Jesus, including Jesus’s own willing surrender to death out of love for the
Father and his fellow human beings, that he bore Jesus’s wounds physically.
Though Muhammad too was once willing to take up the ordeal, he did not
limitations rather than the positive aspects of Muhammad’s religious experience. See Rocalve, Louis
Massignon, 49.
79. HI, 70.
80. HI, 70.
receive the stigmata, because, according to a certain circuitous logic, his was
a testimony against going all the way. Therefore, “it must be observed that,
left at the doorstep, dazzled, he . . . excluded himself from understanding, ab
intra, the personal life of God who would have sanctified him.”81 The im-
plication is that had Muhammad achieved mystical union with the divine,
then he would somehow have come to a realization of the truth of God’s
having entered history in Jesus. He would have known the Incarnation. He
would have known God as Trinity. Instead, “Muhammad remains a ‘specta-
tor’ of the Divine Nature but he does not enter the spiration of Love that is
the internal life of God,” and therefore the Qur’an rejects the Trinitarian God
of Christian belief.82 It is a fascinating claim to which I will return. Here I
simply reiterate that because Muhammad “was not inclined to conceive the
Fiat of the Immaculate one [i.e., Mary] . . . he could only mark and proclaim
the divine inaccessibility.”83 Such hesitation extends throughout Muham-
mad’s ministry. Massignon explains:
Invited to pray for sinners, he did not dare to intercede for all of them. He stuck to the
limits of his origin; he prays only for those of the Muslim community. If he rediscov-
ers engraved in his memory the decree enjoining each person to worship the Creator,
he does not liberate [dégage] the final sense of the precept; his will does not dare ad-
here to the counsel of the perfect life; he refuses mystical aspirations and silences
them under pain of death for all future Muslims.
This marks the importance and the scandal of every mystical vocation in Islam; it
is not permitted even to try to pass beyond the doorway where Muhammad stopped
himself, nor to penetrate this “holy light” promised long ago to Abraham as his true
inheritance. [The holy light] is enclosed under glass, zojâja, and against it the lov-
ing moths come and destroy themselves. Wanting to complete the nocturnal ascent
begun by Mohammad . . . causes one to fall under the sword of the Law. “The law of
Mohammad puts to death the holy ones [saints] of God” says a Muslim adage; and
it crucifies them.84 No one has better proved this than Hussein ibn Mansur Hallâj,
contemporary of Photios85 and Formosus,86 dismembered87 and put to the cross in
81. HI, 70.

82. Laude, Pathways, 80. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son through spiration.
83. HI, 70.
84. Massignon’s note 2 attributes the statement to Ibn Taymiyyah.
85. Photios I (815–897) was patriarch of Constantinople (857–867; 878–897).
86. Formosus (816–896) was pope (891–896); Massignon’s note 3 reads: “The year 896, that of the
vocation of Hallâj, is the year of the death of Formosus who authorized Blessed Bernon, founder of
Cluny where the crusade would be preached.”
87. Massignon’s note 4 reads: “‘intercis,’ The intercision in Islam corresponds to the stigmata in
Christianity, Hallâj (922) to Alvernia (1224). It was not Israel (where Jesus was crucified) but Islam
that provoked the stigmata in the Church.”
Baghdad in 922, to the cry of “his execution will be the salvation of Islam; let his blood
fall on our necks”; all the while, burning with spiritual fire, and offering himself to die
anathema for his brethren, he announced the destruction of the (Meccan) temple and
the cessation of figurative sacrifices; this true Hussein, who—moreso than his name-
sake, the grandson of the prophet, [who] dies voluntarily “for Justice” at Kerbela—is
the ransom [porte-rançon] [of Muhammad] and the sanjâqdâr [standard bearer] of
Islam: for his ecstatic death by full participation in Christ, by lawful incorporation
to his Spouse of blood, summons Islam to admit that the crucifixion was really real,
after 309 years88 of a “suspended sentence”; at the moment when the twelfth Alide
imam disappeared definitively, and when the official text of the Qur’an was fixed
without variation. “It is in the confession of the cross that I will die, I no longer worry
about going to Mecca or Medina.”89
Muhammad’s having stopped halfway causes various Sufis, like moths in

pursuit of a flame, to desire full union with God. However, Muhammad de-
creed that the light was ultimately inaccessible, and he forbade attempts at
realizing it, hence Massignon’s creative interpretation of the famous “light
verse” of the Qur’an: “24:35. Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.
The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in
a glass. The glass is as it were a shining star. (This lamp is) kindled from a
blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would
almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light. Al-
lah guideth unto His light whom He will. And Allah speaketh to mankind in
allegories, for Allah is Knower of all things.”
In Massignon’s reading, the key is that the light has been hidden under
glass. Undeterred, many Sufis seek the flame, even suffering death under
penalty of law. Hallâj finally completes the arrested spiritual journey of Mu-
hammad, for which he is tried, convicted, and executed. Massignon’s logic is
admittedly difficult to square with an historical-critical interpretation of the
Qur’anic verses under consideration, but plainly there is for him an undeni-
able and essential connection between the mystical life, the practice of sur-
rendering oneself completely to truth (i.e., Hallâj’s ecstatic cry anâ’l-Haqq, “I
am the Truth!” or “I am the Real!”), the achievement of union with God in
and through such surrender, and the truth of the Incarnation in Jesus.
As discussed in chapter 3, the Third Council of Constantinople, at which
was established the existence and union of two wills in Jesus, one human
and one divine, was for Massignon the explicit affirmation of mysticism.
88. Hallâj was crucified in the year 309 of the Islamic calendar.
89. HI, 70–72.
Any coordination of the human will with the divine will is thus grounded
in Christ. For Massignon, the mystic’s union, whether in Islam or Christian-
ity, was temporary, while Jesus’s union was permanent.90 As we saw, there
is a mutually confirming relationship between the Church’s teaching about
the union of human and divine wills in Jesus and Sufism’s adoption of Je-
sus as the mystic par excellence, the exemplar of union with God.91 Muham-
mad himself, however, according to Massignon, resisted and even forbade
what Hallâj and others would eventually embrace. However, it is important
to reiterate that Muhammad’s lack of mystical vocation did not preclude
Massignon from assessing many aspects of the prophet’s character and mis-
sion positively. He summarizes: “We cannot easily adopt Ghazâlî’s hypothe-
sis that Muhammad was at first a ‘passionate lover of his God,’ wandering in
solitude on Mt. Hira and drunk with desire for union. But we must not, like
many orientalists led astray by the fuqahâ’s partisan reasoning, deny the
sincere and lasting vehemence of Muhammad’s devotion, indicated by his
severe discipline and frequent supererogatory prayers after midnight (taha-
jjud). Like all true leaders, he was hard on himself, and sometimes even on
his harem.”92
Qur’an
As mentioned previously, Massignon’s comments concerning the Qur’an
even in HI could be quite pejorative. For example: “Among the intermediate
means in religion, some are sterile [caduc], like signs that are meant to be
surpassed; others are permanent (vows, sacraments), and they transform
us when we assimilate them. Like the black Stone, the Qur’anic text is an
accidental and sterile means.”93 More typical of his later writings, however,
is the high esteem in which he held the Qur’an. One of the clearest expres-
sions of that esteem occurs in an article he wrote on the Seven Sleepers of
Ephesus, a pre-Islamic Christian legend that is appropriated in Sûra 18 of
the Qur’an. Massignon writes: “By putting the three ‘Abrahamic’ religions
on the same plane (and thus apart from others), I envisage the existence
90. Massignon’s position on the temporary nature of mystical union has been debated: “[I]t
needs to be tested further, though, in the context of certain descriptions of the highest degree of ec-
stasy as a continuous experience.” Ernst, Words, 47.
91. For a brief summary of Jesus according to Sufi tradition, see Khalidi, The Muslim Jesus, 41–43.
93. HI, 89. However, as I indicated earlier, the pilgrimage, hajj, is a vow.
of an ‘inspiration’ of the Qur’an, denied generally by Christians and Jews

just as Israel denies the ‘inspiration’ of the Gospels.”94 Elsewhere he writes:
“The text of the Qur’an is presented as a supernatural dictation, recorded
by the inspired Prophet, an ordinary messenger responsible for the trans-
mission of this repository.”95 The phrase “is presented as” (se présente com-
me) could mean that only in the view of Muslims (or only in the Qur’an’s
self-understanding) is there something supernatural about the Qur’an or
something inspired about the prophet, but Massignon intends to clarify any
confusion by noting that the special thing about the Qur’an “is its character
of insinuating warning, its call to reflect, as it were, between the lines on a
major intention beyond the (minor) voice of the transmitting messenger:
hence its character as an ‘inspired’ text. I use this word here just as one says
of a journal article ‘it is inspired,’ meaning that by a very special technique
of the sentence our thought is drawn toward the real author of the article
beyond the personality of the one who signs it.”96
Sidney Griffith rightly asks, “Does he mean God, the real author of all
truth, wherever it is expressed, even in a scholarly article in a learned
journal?”97 Like Griffith, I am not completely certain, but I think his point is
as follows. Just as in a journal article one’s mind is brought beyond the au-
thor (minor voice) and perhaps beyond oneself, if the article is a treatment
in the theoretical realm to the truth (major intention) of the statement ut-
tered, in an analogous way, in reading the Qur’an one moves beyond Mu-
hammad (the minor voice) to the warning or invitation and to repentance
or conversion (the major intention). Earlier I referred to “L’Expérience mys-
tique et les modes de stylisation littéraire,” in which Massignon argues that an
anagogical reading reveals that the words of the Qur’an are like a “harpoon
destined to draw the soul to God.” I think that is the sense operative in Mas-
signon’s understanding of the Qur’an as inspired. The Qur’an, when read
properly, is effective toward conversion of heart and self-transcendence.
In HI Massignon goes beyond the basic admission of the Qur’an’s inspi-
ration and situates it in relation to the previous revealed books, the Hebrew
Bible and the New Testament. The Qur’an “is a very mysteriously condensed
and cycled (with frequent duplications) abridgment of historical anecdotes
(qisas) taken sometimes from Judeo-Christian sources, sometimes from the
94. Massignon, “Apocalypse,” 116.

95. Massignon, “Aspects,” 71.
96. Massignon, “Aspects,” 73.
contemporaneous political situation, and sometimes from the old Arab pa-
ganism (which is legitimate, since it is a matter here and there of simple
examples, ad extra, the Hagarians having been excluded from the messianic
privileges).”98 Although it seems to confuse some biblical characters and
scenes, “thus imprisoning under literal and carnal ambiguities what were
formerly sources of grace,” it also fills in the biblical picture in interesting
ways.99 For example, as the reader has seen several times, it relates that the
judgment of the angels (Jude 1:6; 2 Peter 2:4) is related to God’s invitation
for them to bow down before Adam, a scene that, for Massignon, prefigures
the Incarnation. Finally, the Qur’an “can be considered as a truncated Ara-
bic edition of the Bible, joined with some previously unpublished material,
catching up the descendants of Ishmael, and one can apply to it the rule of
conditional authority conceded to some decisions of the anti-popes, in the
limits where it could constitute the ‘scriptural rule of the Abrahamic schism,
of the excluded Hagarians.’ The Qur’an would be to the Bible what Ishmael
was to Isaac.”100 In his early works the Qur’an:Bible::Ishmael:Isaac anal-
ogy appeared to preclude from the Qur’an any sense of inspiration. How-
ever, here it seems to support a qualified sense of Qur’anic inspiration. The
Qur’an is a truncated Arabic edition of the Bible; it catches up the descendants of
Ishmael; it enjoys conditional authority; it even constitutes the scriptural rule
of the Abrahamic schism. The entire next chapter is really an exposition of
those key judgments and descriptions, so I will not belabor the point here.
For now, I simply concur with Sidney Griffith: “Here Massignon is obviously
. . . struggling with the effort to put the Qur’an in a positive light, in terms
which would be familiar to pre-Vatican II Catholics, and which would sug-
gest some positive valuation of it while at the same time recognizing the
not entirely satisfactory status of the Islamic scripture in Catholic eyes.”101
Arabic
Louis Gardet notes that Massignon’s engagement with Arabic was like
“searching for a secret” or searching for “the real.”102 Paul Nwyia argues
98. HI, 90.

99. HI, 91, 90.
100. HI, 89.
102. Louis Gardet, “Esquisse de quelques thèmes majeurs,” in Louis Massignon, ed. Jean-François
Six (Paris: Éditions L’Herne, 1970), 75. Real is a term controvertible with truth in Massignon’s thought
and in Islamic mysticism. In fact, scholars often translate haqq as real, truth, or even God, and all three
that Massignon’s fascination with Arabic was at the same time “linguistic,
semantic, philosophical, religious, and mystical.”103 Nwyia also highlights
Massignon’s belief that the study of language could lead to a grasp of the
thought structure of a particular people. As Massignon says, “It is the lan-
guage, in effect, that is the vivifying form of each culture, the thing that
personalizes it, allows it to endure, allows one to love it. One can vary the
material content of a culture but, in a given language, the order of the pre-
sentation of the idea, the ‘interior syntax’ of all living morphology, cannot
change.”104 In this regard, Massignon follows in the footsteps of many other
European philologists who focused on non-European languages.105 I am
concerned only to show, briefly, the way that Massignon’s vision of Arabic
affected his understanding of Islam vis-à-vis the Church and Israel.
St. Paul says that Jews (Massignon would include Semites generally) de-
mand signs or miracles, while Greeks demand reasons (1 Cor. 1:22). Interest-
ingly, “for Islam the miracle is verbal, it is the Qur’anic i’jaz; the essential thing
in Islam is the Arabic language of the Qur’an, a linguistic miracle.”106 Arabic is
the vehicle of divine communication and thus, as a language, sacralized. In a
limited way, this might echo the Christian understanding of the Incarnation
as sacralizing all of creation, for in Jesus all orders of creation are present.
There are no approved translations of the Qur’an, only interpretations in oth-
er languages, because the Arabic language itself is central to the revelation.
Andrew Rippin notes that the doctrine of the inimitability (i’jaz) of the Qur’an
is “tied to an understanding of the nature of the Arabic language” and that
the “Qur’an, according to its own statements (Qur’an 12/2, 26/192–5) has been
revealed by God in a clear Arabic tongue and, the argument is made, must par-
senses are involved in Hallâj’s ecstatic cry âna al-haqq. Paul Nwyia, “Massignon ou une certaine vision
de la langue arabe,” Studia Islamica 50 (1979): 125. Nwyia’s article is the most exhaustive study of Mas-
signon and Arabic, and I recommend it especially for his grasp of the technical aspects of Massignon’s
vision. He shows how Massignon’s love of Arabic was nurtured by personal friendships and experi-
ences, including his conversion, after which he prayed for the first time in Arabic.
103. Nwyia, “Une certain vision,” 127, 126, 128.
104. Massignon, “La sauvegarde des cultures dans leur originalité,” in vol. 1 of Opera Minora, ed.
Youakim Moubarac (Beirut: Dar al-Maaref, 1963), 205.
105. For example, the Sanskrit scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) believed “that lan-
guages are worth studying comparatively because the differences among languages correspond to the
differences among ‘peoples and races’—not so much peoples who might happen to (or learn to) speak
them, but the people who originally generated them.” For Humboldt, “language formation is a ‘task’
that each people or nation must ‘resolve’; it is an accomplishment of a people, an expression of their
intrinsic nature.” Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism
Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 159–60.
106. Massignon, “L’involution sémantique du symbole dans les cultures sémitiques,” in EM 2, 269.
take in all the features of that language.” He concludes: “This sort of argument
is difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate, due to the lack of contemporaneous
profane literature by which the rhetorical accomplishment of the Qur’an can
actually be assessed; the argument remains a dogmatic one.”107 Whether he
was led there by Islamic dogma or by his own study, conversations, prayer,
and meditations (it was likely by all these things), Massignon accepted the
fact of the religious mission of Arabic to the world. Just as the Qur’an com-
municates its message independent of the personality of Muhammad, so too
Arabic communicates “the idea that it wants to express without yielding un-
der the grasp of the speaking subject who announces it.”108
To understand its mission, it helps to consider Massignon’s description
of Arabic in HI, where he writes:
[Arabic] condenses and coagulates—with a certain metallic hardness, and sometimes
a hyaline refulgence of crystal109—the idea that it wants to express, without yielding
under the grasp of the speaking subject who announces it. It is a Semitic language,
occupying thus an intermediary position between the Aryan and the agglutinate lan-
guages; and if in the other Semitic languages, the presentation of the idea is already,
for reasons of grammatical texture, elliptic110 and gnomic,111 intermittent and jerky,
then in Arabic, the only one which subsists as the language of a civilization, these
traits are exaggerated so that the idea gushes from the gangue112 of the phrase like a
spark from pure-ground silicon.
Islam, by making Arabic its “liturgical” language, favored, in the extreme, this
compact and dense hardening, this skeletal abstraction. It is in Arabic, neither in
Hebrew nor in Aramaic, that Semitism takes consciousness of its own grammatical
originality: tri-literality fixes the roots, verbal syntax relative to the action and not to
the agent, trivocal morphology (to learn to vocalize is to learn to think; the vowel en-
livens the shapeless and inert consonantal text) with unique inflexion for the nouns
and the verbs, holds sway over the morphology of the lexicon and the syntax—it is
in Arabic that these traits affirm themselves best, under the impression of Islam.113
Arabic, even though it appears later in the evolution of Semitic languages,

is actually, according to Massignon, the purest example of the family. It rep-
resents a kind of return to an unadulterated pristine version; that sense of
107. Rippin, Muslims, 27.

108. HI, 93.
109. A glossy pink stone.
110. Extreme economy of expression.
111. Expression in any tense meant to convey an atemporal truth.
112. Residue, the commercially valueless material remaining after ore/mineral extraction from
a rock.
113. HI, 93.
return proves essential to Massignon’s understanding of Islam. In HI he fills

two pages with examples of the “hardening” that takes place as words or
their roots pass from Aramaic to Arabic. I list just a few: “‘to hope’ SBR [in
Aramaic], becomes sabara, ‘to endure’ [in Arabic]; ‘to redeem’ FRQ [in Ara-
maic] becomes faraqa, ‘to separate’ [in Arabic]” and from Hebrew to Ara-
bic: “BHL, ‘to terrorize’ (Hebrew) [becomes] ‘to calm’ (Syriac) [which then
becomes] ‘to damn’ or ‘to undo/absolve’ or ‘to implore’ (Arabic).”114 All of
this is meant to demonstrate “passing from Hebrew to Arabic, the return to
the original hardness,” not only in terms of the phonetics but also in terms
of the religious ideas the words communicate.115 With each transition, the
religious sense becomes more severe.
In Massignon’s analysis, Islam’s relationship to Christianity and Juda-
ism is isomorphic with Arabic’s relationship to Aramaic (or sometimes Syr-
iac) and Hebrew. Islam, even though it appears last in history, is a kind of
return to a pristine, naked faith that existed before the development of law
in Judaism and the proclamation of the divine mysteries in Christianity.
He writes: “Revelation, which is expressed and modalized only in Semitic
languages had its expansion [croissance] in Hebrew, then blossomed [épa-
nouie] in Aramaic beyond the thorny hedges of Israel in the ‘clothing’ of the
messianic lily [Matt. 6:30], and then found itself mysteriously calcinated in
clibanum missa116 in Arabic with the Qur’anic dhâriyât [winds], the burning
breezes of Judgment.”117 Israel marks the entry of revelation; the Church re-
ceives the development, the adornment, the perfection of the earlier revela-
tion through a dogmatic flowering like the lilies that clothe the grass; Islam
returns to a simple and absolute monotheism stripped of all adornment. It
returns to Abraham and to his naked faith, to “the patriarchal adoration of
the earliest times.”118 Massignon speaks of a movement of “temporal invo-
lution,” such that, “by a return to the most distant past,” Islam “announces
the closure of Revelation, the cessation of waiting.”119 It is therefore not just
a return. It is also the closure of a cycle and thus a completion. In what Sid-
ney Griffith calls an “eschatological scenario,”120 Massignon envisions the
celebration of the Eucharist in Arabic in the Holy Land as a kind of incorpo-
ration of all three traditions in one peaceful sacrifice:
114. HI, 94.

115. HI, 95.
116. “Thrown into the oven”; again, from Matthew 6:30.
117. HI, 94.
118. HI, 110.
119. HI, 65.
In this way will be accomplished the mission of the Arabic language, which has been
the tongue of Islam, “submission of the faith,” only in order to become one day the
language of salâm, of Peace, proclaimed by the Messiah returning to Éretz Israël
thanks to the victory of an Arab mahdî, issued from the witnesses of the Mubâhala.
Under its dense and hard appearance, the Arabic language has been from all times
predestined to articulate this final salutation, this last word of pardon. It will be the
language of the promulgation of the second Coming, for it is the language of the
countries of Job and of the queen of Sheba, from whence the caravans of camels car-
ried the incense and the myrrh offered to the child-Savior, the nard and the aromatic
ointments prepared for the anointing at his tomb, the palm leaves raised before his
royalty, here below one day, and on high forever.121
I will return to the notion of temporal involution in the following chapter,

but notice Arabic’s eschatological role in Massignon’s vision. It is the lan-
guage of the messiah (mahdî), the language of final peace (salâm), the lan-
guage of the Gentile-East come to be incorporated into God’s love through
the Christ, symbolized by the arrival of the magi.122
As a final note, I just mention that Massignon’s understanding of Arabic
also determined his preferred method for reading Scripture. The meaning
of a Semitic word, according to Massignon, is hidden in its root, and allow-
ing that meaning to leap forward is a spiritual as much as a hermeneutic
literary task. Patrick Laude observes: “Massignon refers to the Sufi notion
of tadmîn, which conveys a semantic implicitness, insertion, and involu-
tion—what the French Islamologist translates as ‘germinative burying’—to
allude to this self-enclosed seed of meaning that is productive of spiritual
understanding by implication, . . . akin . . . to a kind of secret conception, like
in the archetypical instance of Mary conceiving the Word. Therefore, when
relating this to Scripture, the matter is not to decipher analytically, nor even
to apply verses as moral formulae, but to bury a mystical seed within the
soil of the soul.”123 Semitic languages in general, and Arabic in particular,
lend themselves to a meditative, rather than prosaic or literal, reading.
121. HI, 111.

122. In a personal conversation, another scholar of Massignon expressed concern about his judg-
ment regarding the religious vocation of Arabic over and against the non-vocation of other languages.
The scholar raised the question, “What about the Greek of the Old and New Testaments, is it not also a
language of revelation?” Possibly in response, Massignon would argue for a canon within the canon,
an understanding of revelation as referring more strictly to the (Aramaic) words and actions of Jesus
and less strictly to the interventions of Paul or others in the case of the New Testament, for example,
though I am not aware that he ever does so.
Positive Mission of Islam

In his early works, Massignon assigned to Islam positive missions vis-à-
vis idolatry and Judaism but only a negative mission vis-à-vis the Church.
A negative mission is one that, through some deficiency or lack in Islam,
presents an opportunity for the Church to proclaim the Gospel. A positive
mission is one that, through some strength of Islam, validly critiques or in-
structs another tradition. In HI, Massignon identifies not only a negative
mission but also a positive mission for Islam vis-à-vis the Church. Nega-
tively, as we saw, the advance of Islamic civilizations into the Holy Land and
toward Europe, which partially provoked the Church’s calling of the cru-
sades, afforded the Church the opportunity to promote religious and class
unity, to receive martyrs, to found new religious orders, devotions, and feast
days, and to create a devotion to the Holy Land. Massignon adds in HI the
recovery of the crown of thorns and the sacred lance and the fact that, since
St. Francis of Assisi, “the skeptical eyes of a blasé world have cast their eyes,
with surprise, on hundreds of stigmatics. They have been able to touch the
supernatural wounds where the Crucified One, bleeding and suffering for
them in his Passion, witnesses to them the extent of his love for them.”124
He even praises the early, spiritually motivated—and often, like Joan of Arc
before them, misunderstood—crusaders.125
Then, in “The Three Prayers of Abraham,” he summarizes Islam’s posi-
tive mission:
Though Islam, which came after Moses and Jesus, with the Prophet Muhammad, who
was a messenger of the harsh tidings of the Last Judgment which awaits all creation,
constitutes a mysterious response of grace to Abraham’s prayer for Ishmael and the
Arabs: “I have heard your prayer” (for Ishmael), Arab Islam is not a desperate claim
made by those excluded from the covenant which will be rejected forever. Islam’s
mysterious infiltration into the Holy Land does not imply this. Islam indeed has a
positive mission. It reproaches Israel for believing itself privileged to the point of
awaiting a Messiah who is to be born of its race, a descendant of David according to
a carnal paternity. Islam affirms that he has already been born of it, though unrec-
ognized, of a predestined virginal maternity, and that he is Jesus, son of Mary, who
will return at the end of time as a sign of the Judgment. Islam also reproaches Chris-
tians for not recognizing the full significance of the Holy Table, and for not having yet
achieved that rule of monastic perfection, rahbânîya, which alone creates the second
124. HI, 117–18.

125. HI, 116.
birth of Jesus within them, anticipated by them in this advent of the Spirit of God, the
resurrection of the dead of which Jesus is the sign.
This double claim of Islam against the Jews and the Christians who abuse their
privileges as if they belonged to them by right and of themselves, this summons
which is as incisive as the sword of divine transcendence, whose unconditional rec-
ognition, and this alone, can perfect their vocation of holiness, is an eschatological
sign which ought to cause us to revive, with infinite respect, the second prayer of
Abraham, that of Beersheba.126
Islam will not be rejected forever. Islam is now a mysterious response of grace
to Abraham’s prayer for Ishmael (to be addressed fully in the next chapter).
Islam indeed has a positive mission. Islam makes a double claim against Jews
and Christians, because it belongs at the “Holy Table” with them. Christians
are obliged to take up Abraham’s prayer on behalf of Ishmael and his de-
scendants in order that God may bless them.
A key point of this passage, and the one that dominates Massignon’s
thought on the relationship of the Church and Islam from HI forward, is
that Islam’s positive mission to the Church entails calling Christians to a
life of holiness. In fact, it can perfect their vocation of holiness. He makes this
claim in various ways, and it usually revolves around the reference to rah-
bânîya, which requires a brief explanation. Qur’an 5:82b reads, “And thou
wilt find the nearest of them in affection to those who believe (to be) those
who say: Lo! We are Christians. That is because there are among them
priests and monks [râhib], and because they are not proud.” Qur’an 57:27
reads: “We caused Our messengers to follow in their [i.e., Noah’s and Abra-
ham’s] footsteps; and We caused Jesus, son of Mary, to follow, and gave him
the Gospel, and placed compassion and mercy in the hearts of those who
followed him. But monasticism [rahbânîya] they invented—We ordained it
not for them—only seeking Allah’s pleasure, and they observed it not with
right observance. So We give those of them who believe their reward, but
many of them are evil-livers.”
These texts are important to Massignon for many reasons. He believes
they justify the practice of monasticism within Islam, which he equates
with Sufism, despite the tradition to the contrary.127 Sufism, for instance, is
the desire to recover the perfect rule of life, as Massignon says of Muhâsibî’s
(781–857) Ri‘âya, “a book intended precisely to rediscover for believers
126. Massignon, “The Three Prayers of Abraham,” 14–15.

127. For traditions (ahâdîth) that reject the practice of monasticism in Islam, see Massignon, Es-
say, 99–104.
the ‘method’ (ri‘âya) that God had willed and the [Christian] monks had
lost.”128 Massignon also accepts the aforementioned Qur’anic passages quite
literally in the esteem they profess for Christian religious, the disappoint-
ment they profess toward Christian hypocrisy, and the hope they profess
that Christian monks will observe with right observance. That is what Mas-
signon means when he speaks of the second birth of Jesus in the long section
mentioned previously from “The Three Prayers of Abraham.” It is through
Christian holiness, Christian perfection, that Jesus is seen walking the earth
again in anticipation of his ultimate return. It is through an established rule
of life as well as vows to maintain such a life that God, through grace, per-
fects the soul. He asks: “[After thirteen centuries of Christian-Muslim en-
counter], who among us would dare to say that Christianity has found this
final Rule, teacher of sublime virtue, that would consummate men in uni-
ty, so that Islam could finally recognize there the living Gospel, the ‘fiat’ of
Mary actually lived . . . ?”129 In other words, Massignon thinks the Qur’anic
critique of Christians, at least on this score, is on the mark.
Islam perpetually calls one to surrender to the divine summons, to co-
operate with the divine plan, and, despite the failings of Muslims, Islam also
plays this role with respect to the Church. Massignon writes: “Islam exists
and will continue to survive because of its Abrahamic faith [and] in order
to force Christians to recover a method of sanctification more plain, more
primitive, more simple. I admit that Muslims [themselves] attain to this
state only very rarely, but it is our fault, because we have not yet shown to
them, in ourselves, that which they await from us, and from Christ.”130 They
have been waiting for centuries. If the simplicity of Islam was a problem for
Massignon in his early works, where it paled in comparison to the dogmatic
richness of the Christian tradition, in his later writings it is an asset that
potentially provokes the Church into fidelity to the Gospel. A favorite image
for Massignon in this period is of Islam as “the angelic lance that has stig-
matized Christianity.”131 That is, Islam menaces the Church by preventing
its mission to convert the world, thereby forcing the Church into ongoing
self-examination and self-critique.

129. Massignon, “Le Signe,” 221. According to Charles de Foucauld, such a “rule” must turn toward
Nazareth for the fiat of the annunciation and toward Ephrem and Gethsemane for the fiat of the Pas-
sion, if, like Abraham, one wishes to live in accordance with God’s will.
131. HI, 112.
I add two final notes. First, Massignon sometimes conflates Islam’s mis-
sion vis-à-vis the Church with its mission vis-à-vis Europe. For example, he
warns (eerily, given current events) that “Islam threatens to take the lead
of a general insurrection of the exploited against the superior scientific, fi-
nancial, technological oppression of a Europe without Messiah and without
God,” and that it may once again seize Constantinople, “the material symbol
of success . . . the city par excellence of Christian triumph.”132 The interde-
pendence of the religious and the national aspects of colonialism is as un-
deniable as it is complicated. His celebration of Islam’s simplicity was thus
not only spiritual but also cultural, and Massignon wonders whether the
Church of his day had become more interested in “exporting” to the Muslim
world “Western products” and “secular civilization” rather than “charity.”133
Second, as the reader knows, it was in an Islamic context and under the
protection and prayers of Muslim friends that Massignon converted to
Christ in 1908. In “Le Signe Marial,” decades later, he reiterates his debt to
Islam’s faith in the God of Abraham: “I hear a summons to superhuman
justice, which ascends, from believing, disadvantaged, colonized, despised
Muslims, and which awoke the Christian in me some forty years ago.”134
But he was not alone. As quoted earlier, Massignon attributed similar expe-
riences to Charles de Foucauld and Ernst Psichari. Islamic witness, at least
potentially and in some cases actually, awakens awareness of divine tran-
scendence, even leading souls to Christ, and that, for Massignon, may be
Islam’s greatest mission.
Conclusion
Massignon’s judgments regarding God, Muhammad, the Qur’an, Arabic,
and the mission of Islam can rightly be understood as theological doctrines
(as opposed to ecclesial doctrines, or dogma).135 They are provisional an-
132. HI, 114, 63–64. For more detail on this aspect of his thought, see Massignon, “Textes relatif à la
prise de Constantinople en 1453,” Oriens 6, no. 1 (1953): 10–17.
135. Some interpreters have rejected this line of thinking. According to Roger Arnaldez, Massi-
gnon never wished to be “mechanized,” organized, or systematized. It is therefore dangerous to make
an “article of faith” of what in Massignon might have been just an occasional expression or idea, for
in the end “Louis Massignon was not a professor of dogma but a master of life and thought.” Arnaldez
even felt Massignon’s writings “could be qualified as dangerous,” especially if one intended to inter-
pret them as doctrinal statements. See Arnaldez, “Abrahamisme,” 125. Georges Anawati also worried
that Massignon’s more enthusiastic “disciples” had perverted the “master’s” intentions by trying to sys-
swers to questions pertinent to theology. In that sense, and only in that

humble sense, one could say of Massignon’s five-point credo of Islam that
it represents an introduction or proposal of new doctrines to the Church’s
self-understanding, many of them still not received. The five points of this
credo are propositional and heuristic. They are orientating statements
that potentially invite the Church to fuller understanding. They are not
the statements merely of an expert in Islamic studies. They are statements
made quite deliberately in relation to Christian beliefs. There is no doubt
that Massignon intended for the wider Church at least to consider and in-
vestigate his conclusions regarding the validity of Islam. He circulated his
major tracts on the topic among prominent theologians, and he published
the summary of Les trois prières in Dieu Vivant, a journal widely read by
French Catholic intellectuals; a number of the articles to which I refer in
this chapter (e.g., “Le Signe Marial,” “Le Salut de l’Islam”) were even pub-
lished in popular Catholic periodicals. My aim has been not to defend each
of the five points (four points in this chapter, plus Massignon’s judgment
that the God of the Bible is the God of the Qur’an). Rather, it is has been to
exposit, to contextualize, and to elaborate them in order to show not only
Massignon’s convictions about Islam but also the development of those
convictions from the earlier stage of his life and work. In the next chap-
ter I will reflect further on the significance of Massignon’s credo and how it
opens the door for thinking about a Catholic theology of Islam.
tematize what were really “religious or intellectual intuitions expressed under a paradoxical form or
in poetic images.” Anawati, “Vers un dialogue islamo-chrétien,” Revue Thomiste 4 (1964): 605–6. More
recently, David Burrell has expressed similar caution, arguing that Massignon was “not himself a sys-
tematic thinker.” Burrell, “Mind and Heart at the Service of Muslim-Christian Understanding: Louis
Massignon as Trail Blazer,” Muslim World 88, no. 4 (1998): 277.
Islam: Abrahamic Schism
S ix
ISLAM
Abrahamic Schism
Guy Harpigny called the middle period of Massignon’s life and work his
Abrahamic cycle for good reason. In his writings about Islam in relation to
Christian faith during the 1930s and 1940s, Massignon articulated a simple
but profound thesis, that Islam is an Abrahamic religion. While Massignon’s
inclusive phrase “Abrahamic faiths”1 has become ubiquitous among enthu-
siasts of Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue, and while recent popes have
seemed to embrace the notion, still it is not the official position of the Catho-
lic Church.2 In its day, Massignon’s conviction was even more avant-garde. He
wrote that Islam is a “naked faith of childlike simplicity [enfantine], resigned
[resigné], lacking [sans] the flame of Jewish hope, smoldering [couvant] un-
der the ashes without the radiance of Christian love [dilection]; it witnesses to
the faith of Abraham, revived by Muhammad through an unshakeable and
ancestral conviction.”3 As such, Islam has “predisposed millions of men to a
sort of militant, svelte, and sober monastic discipline; it is not only a matter
of spontaneous hospitality and of fraternal charity . . . and of rigorously ob-
served fasting . . . but also, and above all, it is a contemplation, undertaken in
the hand of God, a quiet, immaterial, and sacred premonition of a pure omni-
present divine transcendence – in which the knowing Christian . . . recognizes
in its simplicity the patriarchal adoration of the earliest times.”4

2. At the universal level, dialogue with Jews is housed within the Pontifical Council for the Pro-
motion of Christian Unity, while dialogue with Muslims is housed within the Pontifical Council for
Interreligious Dialogue, along with dialogue with Hindus, Buddhists, and members of other religious
traditions (although the PCID does have a special commission for relations with Muslims).
4. HI, 110.
167
168 Islam: Abrahamic Schism
The main objective of this chapter is to explain Massignon’s designation

of Islam as an Abrahamic schism. Special emphasis will be given to Massign-
on’s reimagined complementary relationships between Israel, the Church,
and Islam. At the conclusion of the chapter I address some of the implica-
tions of Massignon’s vision for the Church’s mission among Muslims. I also
include a note on his understanding of Sufism both as the true Islam and as
the point of contact between the Church and Islam.
Abrahamic Schism
Islam “is almost an Abrahamic schism, like Samarian religion and Talmud-
ism were Mosaic schisms, like Greek orthodoxy was a post-Chalcedonian
schism.”5 Such is Massignon’s revolutionary description of Islam. For much
of the Church’s history, Islam was considered, at least by some, as pagan,
infidel, or, worse, Satanic, but from John of Damascus (675–749) forward, a
consistent designation for Islam was heresy.6 Massignon, however, argued
that Islam is not a heresy at all. It is not like Nestorianism, the position of
a community that knowingly rejected Chalcedonian Christology.7 It does
not distort the message of the Bible, “like certain American sects.” Rather,
Islam is “a true community, which can be judged as infidel neither by the
law of fear nor the law of grace—for, although formed after their dispensa-
tion, it has been provided an abridgment of the Bible that places it anterior,
not only to Pentecost, but to the Decalogue.”8 One aspect of his argument
here is parallel to his defense of Muhammad. He is no false prophet; he does
not positively prophesy something false, as indicated in the previous chapter.
Instead, Massignon invented the category of negative prophet to acknowl-
edge the difference, even the insufficiency, of Muhammad’s preaching while
maintaining both that it was not contradictory to Church teaching and that
5. HI, 107.
6. As “defined by Canon Law, heresy is ‘the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which
must be believed with divine and catholic faith,’” and for a long time it was assumed that this defini-
tion fit Muhammad and the movement he founded. See Fitzgerald, “Heresy,” 110. The view of Islam as
a heresy persisted at least into the first half of the twentieth century. For example, it is identified as
such in Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1938). The early view of Pierre
Jean de Menasce, who would later acknowledge Massignon’s contribution to the Church’s more posi-
tive view of Islam, would be typical: “The biblical revelation, although poorly known, is not unknown
[in Islam] and is formally rejected with respect to the essential truths: the Incarnation and the Trin-
ity.” Quoted in Anthony O’Mahony, “The Influence of the Life and Thought of Louis Massignon on the
Catholic Church’s Relations with Islam,” The Downside Review 126, no. 3 (2008): 187–88 n. 27.
8. HI, 107.
Islam: Abrahamic Schism 169
it served as authentic witness to the realities of God, judgment, Jesus’s vir-

gin birth, etc. By calling Islam an Abrahamic schism, Massignon employs a
similar logic. Islam does not represent a direct rejection of Christianity. That
is not to say Islam is just as Christian as the Greek Orthodox Church; that
would be absurd. The term schism must be understood analogously. Like
the Samaritans in relation to the Jews or the Greek Orthodox in relation to
the Catholics, Islam’s separation from Jews and Christians is less a function
of doctrinal dissent than it is a product of historic-geographic circumstanc-
es. The designation of Islam’s faith as theologal, of Muhammad as a sincere
and negative prophet, and of Islam as Abrahamic schism, with its scriptural
rule, therefore, all indicate an intermediate status for Islam.
Islam is Abrahamic, but it obtains only the conditional authority of a
schism, for as I quoted in the previous chapter, “One can apply to [the
Qur’an] the rule of conditional authority conceded to some decisions of the
anti-popes.” The reference to the anti-popes is instructive. The anti-popes
claimed the legitimate authority of the bishop of Rome and were, in fact,
for all sorts of reasons, supported by numerous bishops, cardinals, and im-
portant and powerful lay leaders. At certain times there has been genuine
confusion among Catholic believers about who was the true pope. Massi-
gnon compares the situation of the sincere Catholic believer who follows
the direction of an anti-pope to the sincere Muslim believer who follows the
Qur’an. The Catholic under the anti-pope has a great deal in common with
his fellow Catholics under the legitimate pope. If the latter enjoy the ben-
efit of explicit and proper apostolic succession, the former cannot be blamed
entirely for adhering to what he deems legitimate authority. Likewise, the
Qur’an has much in common with the Bible. Islam shares much with Juda-
ism and Christianity. There is no fault per se in the Muslim believer’s accep-
tance of the Qur’an as authoritative. Hayek reminds us that even Muham-
mad in his sincere rejection of the Christian mysteries “is not culpable. The
responsibility [for affirming and proclaiming the mysteries] falls upon the
Christians themselves.”9 In Massignon’s opinion, the problem is one of ig-
norance, not of willful rejection. As with the anti-popes, it is true that the
appearance of the Qur’an confuses the faithful, but in Massignon’s interpre-
tation, eventually the correct answers, the correct understanding of how the
two communities are related, will be sorted out, even if eschatologically. Pro-
visionally, he argues that, at the places where the Qur’an and the Church

(the Bible) are not in conflict, the Qur’an remains authoritative, as would,
presumably, an anti-pope, but in the case of apparent contradiction, there
are two possibilities. Either the Qur’an warrants correction, because the
Church alone has the benefit of full and explicit knowledge of revelation, or
some higher viewpoint must be sought that makes sense of the difference. I
am convinced Massignon was mainly trying to do the latter.10
The higher viewpoint that Massignon embraced was to see in Islam
the fulfillment, millennia later, of God’s blessings upon Ishmael through
his promise to Abraham. If, in his early writings, Ishmael is the beneficiary
of temporal blessings alone, in his later writings, Islam is a “mysterious re-
sponse of grace to Abraham’s prayer for Ishmael and the Arabs.”11 Through
Islam, the “genealogical and legal expectation of the Messiah, reserved to
Israel, from which Ishmael was excluded, is finished.”12 Islam “completes
geographically the rhyme of the Christian verse, whose quantity appeared
thus satisfied for a thousand years.”13 Each of these passages, drawn from
various of Massignon’s mature writings, indicates that Islam represents the
completion of a grand narrative. As indicated in the previous chapter, Mas-
signon introduces the category of temporal involution—a mathematical term
that has to do with evolution in reverse direction—in order to explain the
incorporation of Islam into the Jewish and Christian lineage:
By a movement of temporal involution, by a return-climb [une remontée] toward the
most distant past, inversely symmetrical to the growing messianic waiting of the Jews
from Isaiah to Herod, Islam announces the closure of Revelation, the cessation of the
waiting: like a cone of ember projected in advance by the final eclipse of all created
things. Expatriate himself, like Ishmael, in his “exile,” which is the reversal of the ban-
ishment of Hagar, Mohammad leaves Mecca for Yathrib [later Medina], a city where
there are tribes converted to Judaism, and of which the name signifies “reprimand.”
There, at their contact, the awareness of his genealogy became a desire for avenging
his race. Before God, he reclaims Abraham and vindicates for the Arabs their heritage
(inheritance), spiritual and temporal.14
Ishmael’s blessings are now both spiritual and temporal. Through the
appearance of Muhammad and the Qur’an, and especially through Muham-
mad’s dawning awareness of his Abrahamic roots, Islam returns humanity
10. Rocalve sees this “Christian choice” as problematic, because it imposes a Christian authority
on the Qur’an. See Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 38.
11. Massignon, “The Three Prayers of Abraham,” 14; emphasis added.
13. HI, 65.
14. HI, 65, emphasis added.
to the relevant episode in Genesis.15 Judaism and Christianity for centu-

ries focused on and celebrated their reception of the blessings and promises
made to Isaac and his lineage, but God always intended to continue and
then complete the older son’s narrative as well. It is only when Ishmael is
reincorporated into the Abrahamic saga that one can announce the closure
of Revelation. It is only when the banishment of Ishmael, and therefore the
Arab Muslim people, from the covenantal privileges has been reversed—
geographically by Muhammad’s journey from the Arab world of Mecca into
the Jewish community at Yathrib—that the Abrahamic cycle begun in Gen-
esis finally comes to its completion. Islam is not a heresy. Nor is it an abro-
gation of Christian teaching. It is the repatriation of Arab expatriates, a re-
turn of the exiled. That is why Massignon emphasizes geographical closure.
One imagines the descendants of an estranged son (the Arab people) finally
returning home and claiming their share of the family inheritance. Fam-
15. For a summary of the Islam as Abrahamism versus Islam as Ishmaelism debate, see Robinson,
“Abrahamic Religion”: 197–98; Harpigny, Islam et Christianisme, 89 n. 169; Joris-Karl Kuschel, Abraham:
Sign of Hope for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, trans. John Bowden (New York: Continuum, 1995), 219–
20. Eventually “the practitioners of the historical-critical methods of scholarship would systematically
rule out any plausible historical connection between Muhammad and the Arabs on the one hand, and
Ishmael and Abraham on the other.” Griffith, “Sharing,” 196. Presumably this is what led Anawati, gen-
tly criticizing Moubarac’s development of the Abrahamic thesis, to conclude that such a judgment was
“rather revolutionary.” Quoted in Rocalve, Louis Massignon, 24. As Neal Robinson states, either way,
“from a Christian perspective . . . the Abrahamic status of Islam is not dependent on the Arabs being
Abraham’s physical descendants,” for “after all, Christians maintain that they themselves are Abra-
ham’s spiritual heirs, not that they are descended from him.” Robinson, “Abrahamic Religion,” 199. Pim
Valkenberg agrees: “It is [the] reference to the faith of Abraham [i.e., not biological lineage] which in
my opinion is decisive for the use of his name in the dialogue between Christians and Muslims today.”
Valkenberg, “Does the Concept of ‘Abrahamic Religions’ Have a Future?” in Islam and Enlightenment:
New Issues, eds. Erik Borgman and Pim Valkenberg (London: SCM Press, 2005), 104. For the believing
Muslim, there is no question about the historicity of the Abraham-Ishmael-Arab-Muhammad-Islam
lineage. A recent biography of Muhammad by a respected Muslim scholar of Islam opens with the
biblical account of the births of Isaac and Ishmael and concludes: “Not one but two great nations were
to look back to Abraham as their father—two great nations, that is, two guided powers, two instru-
ments to work the Will of Heaven, for God does not promise as a blessing that which is profane, nor
is there any greatness before God except greatness in the Spirit.” Martin Lings, Muhammad: His Life
Based on the Earliest Sources (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International, 1983), 1. For the scholar of
religion who employs historical-critical analysis, such a connection is highly improbable. The believ-
ing Christian meets alternative possibilities. Massignon, like the pre-modern Church, simply assumed
the historicity of Abraham, Ishmael, and their relationship to the Arabs. It is worth noting that the fa-
thers of the Second Vatican Council endorsed neither Islam’s historical connection to Abraham nor its
spiritual claim to his blessing upon Ishmael. They referred instead to “Abraham, with whom the faith
of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself” (Nostra Aetate, 3) and to “the Muslims, who [profess] to hold
the faith of Abraham” (Lumen Gentium 16). However, the Council did not close the door on the matter.
It deferred judgment on Islam as an “Abrahamic faith” pending further research. Caspar, “La vision,”
139. Post–Vatican II documents and attitudes seem to nudge the Church forward on this question. See
Unsworth, “John Paul II,” 253–302.
ily life (Jewish and Christian history) has proceeded without this group, as
family life does. The estranged members have been caught up on key points
of family history (Jewish and Christian history and thought), but their re-
port (the Qur’an) was only a truncated edition or an abridgment of the full-
er narrative. In some ways the exiled descendants enjoy a keener sense of
what it means to be part of this family than do the acknowledged members
(Islam’s positive mission confirms Jesus as Messiah and rebukes both Israel
and the Church for failing in their vocations to holiness and universalism).
In other ways, the exiled descendants have much to learn about the signifi-
cance of their heredity.
The notion of temporal involution had an eschatological aspect for Mas-
signon; it also seems to have depended upon the particulars of the era in
which he wrote:
Since Columbus and Magellan, the cycle of global discovery has been completed, and
symmetrically the three Abrahamic expansions, namely the dispersion of the Jewish
Diaspora, the conquests of the Muslim Holy War, and colonization by Christian na-
tions, have [also] come to completion.
It seems that, by an Einsteinian curvature of time, the expansions are causing us
to return to the time of Abraham, father of all believers, and that the commandment
“Lèsh Lèsha” (“Depart from your city”) once again casts unskilled workers beyond na-
tional borders, in the wandering life of transhumances,16 the last believing pilgrims
in the apostolate of universal compassion.17
Massive refugee movements in the mid-twentieth century, due to wars and

various national realignments and redrawing of borders, was for Massignon
a sign of a new era, in which the lowly faithful, like Abraham once was,
were being asked to pick up and move to strange lands. In one sense this
was a tragedy, but in another sense it was a blessing. It presented an oppor-
tunity for all three Abrahamic faiths to return to a simple faith expressed
in hospitality, in welcoming these new strangers with dignity and respect.
After centuries of moving outward, centuries of conquest, the nations are
beginning to fold back in upon themselves as people migrate from colony
to fatherland, not as warriors but as simple workers, or, as Massignon would
say, pilgrims.
In 1958 R. Charles-Barzel published in her book Ô Vierge Puissant a
lengthy extract from a letter that Massignon wrote to her, dated from around
16. That is, seasonal movement of flocks.

17. BAL 10, 139.
the same time.18 There he argues in very succinct fashion the pillars of his
Catholic understanding of Islam. It provides a kind of theoretical framework
for the pastoral emphasis that dominates his letters and convocations to the
Badaliya sodality, explored in the next chapter. It is for that reason that pre-
vious scholars (especially Borrmans and O’Mahony) identified the letter as a
cornerstone of Massignon’s mature vision.19
First, Massignon claims that Christians are privy to a fuller revelation
than are Muslims, and he reminds Christians of the terrible responsibility
that accompanies their privileged position: “One must keep in mind, above
all else, that the Muslims have not yet received from God all the graces,
whether private or public-sacramental, which the Christians are redoubt-
ably privileged to have obtained. [The privilege is] redoubtable for them,
[especially] if they abuse it by scorning the Muslims to whom God has not
yet given [the graces].”20 He then summarizes for Charles-Barzel his under-
standing of Islam as an Abrahamic schism, that is, a religion of patriarchal
faith, reminding her of the necessity of conversing with one’s interlocutor
according to his status vis-à-vis God’s revelation: “In the history of human-
ity, we have three religious periods: 1) the state of nature, wounded by the
sin of Adam, corresponding to the patriarchal epoch; 2) the legal state that
begins with the Decalogue at Sinai; 3) the evangelical state that begins with
Christ and Pentecost. It is absurd to dialogue with a Jewish believer as if he
had arrived at the evangelical state; he is still under the Law of fear. In the
same way, it is absurd to dialogue with a Muslim as if he had arrived either
at the legal state or the evangelical state.”21 To expect one’s partner to accept
evangelical faith as a precondition for dialogue is a failed strategy.22
He specifies the status of Islam: “Islam is still in the patriarchal state, at
the time of Abraham. The fact that Muhammad preached 600 years after
Pentecost and that the Qur’an acknowledges Moses and Jesus, son of Mary,
does not preclude Islam from remaining in the patriarchal, rather primitive,
state, where the moral conscience, which is admirably enlightened on obe-
18. R. Charles-Barzel, Ô Vierge puissante (Paris: La Colombe-Éditions du Vieux Colombier, 1958).

19. Borrmans, “Aspects,” 128–32; Anthony O’Mahony, “‘Our Common Fidelity to Abraham Is What
Divides’: Christianity and Islam in the Life and Thought of Louis Massignon,” in Catholics in Inter-
religious Dialogue: Monasticism, Theology and Spirituality, eds. O’Mahony and Peter Bowe, 177–81 (Her-
efordshire: Gracewing, 2006).
20. Quoted in Charles-Barzel, Ô Vierge, 59.
22. Massignon’s approach echoes that of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Contra Gentiles, which
Massignon read. See D. Massignon, Avant Propos to Les Trois Prieres, 14.
dience to God, first served, and on the prohibition of idolatry, is not yet fully
illuminated on matters such as polygamy, concubinage, kidnapping, and
the ruses de guerre.”23 According to Massignon, none of this is surprising,
for spiritual and moral development is gradual, no less for Christians than
for Muslims: “Even the Christians, already arrived at the evangelical state,
have been slow to condemn those things mentioned above. Alas! They still
practice them, knowing it is evil to do so, whereas it is only by contact with
us that the Muslim masses even realize such things are evil.”24 Only when
they realize the immorality of such acts are Muslims fully culpable for
committing them. Therefore, because he remained in the patriarchal state,
where such things were permissible, Muhammad could “ingeniously prac-
tice ruses de guerre and the most atrocious acts of vengeful retaliation with
an untroubled conscience.”25 Even on “the question of women,” Muham-
mad’s practice of maintaining a harem was not fully blameworthy, for he
was practicing “the polygamy of the Patriarchs before the Law.”26 Besides,
the comparison of Christian and Muslim moral tenets is unfair, because
“Muhammad founded a temporal state, whereas Jesus never had to govern
a temporal state”; in fact, “Muslims reproach us for having an impracticable
Law,” for they argue that “their law is more proportioned to the capacity of
the average person.”27 All of this, for Massignon, mitigates the apparent de-
ficiency of Muslim morality when compared with Christian morality.
It is uncontroversial in Catholic theology to acknowledge that at any
given time different individuals, communities, or geographic regions may
have achieved different levels of intellectual, moral, or even religious ma-
turity. That assumption has grounded centuries of missionary activity. Mas-
signon raises a much more troubling question: “How could God allow the
Christian East to regress from the evangelical state to the patriarchal state
through the arrival of Islam?”28 It is one thing to acknowledge, even to ex-
cuse, the deficiencies of Islam. It is quite another thing to grapple with the
historical reality that this supposedly inferior tradition has largely replaced
God’s favored people (the Church) from the homeland of His Son. Massi-
gnon’s answer is twofold. He first proposes an analogy between Islam’s re-
lationship to Near Eastern Christianity and Protestant Christianity’s rela-

28. Quoted in Charles-Barzel, Ô Vierge, 60; emphasis added.
tionship to Western European Catholic Christianity. He writes: “It is a bit

like God permitting the Germanic West, with the Protestant Reformation,
to regress from the evangelical state to the legal state by substituting the
Bible for Jesus as the ‘Word of God.’ Just as the Protestants have maintained
some precious evangelical elements, some hints of our sacraments as well
as the veneration of the text of the Gospels—albeit to the detriment of the
person of Jesus and his mother—so too Muhammad received in the Qur’an
not insignificant elements from beyond the patriarchal state, including the
invocation of the blessed names of Jesus, Mary and [John] the Baptist.”29
Other elements include the importance of the Temple in Muhammad’s
night journey (‘isrâ) to Jerusalem and the importance of Abraham’s near
sacrifice of his son, which connects the hajj with the Jewish Passover, and
which is therefore a “symbol of the Crucifixion.”30 In other words, as Prot-
estant Europe remains Christian in spite of its theological shortcomings, so
the heavily Muslim majority Middle East retains an authentic Abrahamic
faith in God in spite of its shortcomings. The proof is in the fruit of Muslim
living: “Among the Muslims there are pure consciences for whom Jesus and
Mary and the Passover of Hajj have been sources of interior sanctification—
you’ve met them yourself—even if they are not, as they are in Christian cas-
es, sources of public-sacramental sanctification.”31
Massignon’s letter to Charles-Barzel closes with a reminder of the posi-
tive role that Islam plays in providential history: “Islam is a great mystery
of the divine will, the just claim [revendication] of the excluded, those ex-
iled to the desert with their ancestor Ishmael, against the ‘privileged ones’
of God, Jews and above all Christians who have abused the divine privi-
leges of Grace. Islam is the ‘divine lance’ that, by the Holy War, stigmatized
Christianity.”32 God permits the aspects of Islam most objectionable to
Christians—that is, “holy war” and the near extinction of Christianity in the
Holy Land—in order to extract from them a greater good, namely humil-
ity and sanctity as well as gratitude and generosity in relation to the divine
favors they have received. Islam stigmatizes the Church. Understood posi-
tively, Islam is one of the means by which the Church receives the stigmata,
thereby uniting it more closely and more authentically with Christ, à la
St. Francis of Assisi after his famous encounter with the Sultan.

31. Quoted in Charles-Barzel, Ô Vierge, 60–61.
The higher viewpoint Massignon sought was to envision a complemen-

tary relationship among the three religions. He writes: “If Israel is rooted in
hope, and if Christianity is vowed to charity, then Islam is centered in faith.
Islamic practice is above all a recall of a credo, while Jewish practice ritual-
izes the commandments flowing from the Covenant, and Christian practice
. . . employs sacraments in order to sanctify through virtue.”33 Israel specially
emphasizes messianic hope, reminding Christians and Muslims that our es-
chatological longings have not been fully realized in this life and that our re-
ligious obligations are rooted in our relationship with a personal God. Chris-
tianity specially emphasizes charity, a sacramental-incarnational worldview,
and the possibility of spiritual perfection, teaching Jews and Muslims that
the law of the cross—self-sacrificial love of others—unlocks what Mas-
signon will eventually call the secret of history. Islam specially emphasizes
faith, reminding Jews and Christians of the universal, simple, ongoing and
legitimate patriarchal worship and trust of the absolutely transcendent
One. Massignon writes: “Islam has a very simple creed: faith in God, his at-
tributes, and his names, faith in the angels, the revealed books, the proph-
ets, the final Judgment, and the decree of predestination, which determines
our actions.”34 In summary: “A sacred text contains the elements of an ideal
of the common life; for Israel, the Torah and the Psalms, and the prophetic
theme of the Betrothed; for Christianity, the Gospels, especially the Beati-
tudes and the sacramental theme of the Passion; for Islam, the Qur’an evokes
the Register of Destiny, a discontinuous enumeration of previously unap-
preciated preaching, provoking the divine chastisement of unbelievers, fore-
runner of the pangs of Judgment.”35 And, on Islam as a return:
The Qur’an returns to revelation before Moses; it is not the Christian biblical idea of
the “Body of Christ,” of precursor prophets and friends of the Holy of Holies, of cate-
chesis, genetically fructifying the practice of precepts, thanks to parables [and] coun-
sels of the perfect life, until Union [with God]. It is also not the Jewish idea of a special
[national] covenant, of the promise guaranteed by the ceremony of the Mosaic law,
and anticipatingly enjoyed in the Psalms. No, [the Qur’an] is a simple recall, by a war-
ner, to the primitive covenant of humanity and of humanity’s frightful final Judg-
ment, by the decree which predestined it36 and by the sanctions37 that sealed it. . . .38
33. HI, 98.

34. HI, 98.
35. HI, 89–90.
36. That is, the mîthâq.
37. That is, the Qur’anic precepts.
38. HI, 91–92.
Massignon’s formulation is not without problems. In history, Islam fol-

lows Christianity chronologically. Islam sees itself not simply as comple-
menting but also correcting Christians, for example in their overzealous
devotion to Jesus. Still, at a pastoral level, Massignon believes that if the
Church could extend hospitality and welcome Muslims home as rightful
heirs of Abraham, then Christians and Muslims could discuss construc-
tively and fraternally the neuralgic differences that divide them.39 His ap-
proach enjoys the basic advantage of honoring Islam’s self-understanding
(Q 3:67), which claims Abraham “was not a Jew, nor yet a Christian; but he
was an upright man who had surrendered [to God].” That is, he was muslim
in the generic sense of the term. He embodied humanity’s primordial re-
lationship with the Creator through surrender and trust. The Israel-hope,
Church-charity, and Islam-faith structure of complementarity is designed
to help Christians imagine a different relationship going forward, one in
which Muslims are welcomed home and the Church is authentically catho-
lic. Massignon’s attempt at implementing this imagined relationship is the
focus of the next chapter on his understanding of Church.
Implications for the Church’s

Mission among Muslims
For Massignon, the Church’s mission to Islam does not mean bringing
something radically other to the Muslim people. That approach has not
worked in Islamic lands anyway, nor will it work, because it operates on a
faulty supposition:
If the missionary imagines himself bringing faith in the God of Abraham to the “idola-
trous infidels of Muhammad”—as we thought in the Middle Ages—if he supposes that
“faith in the mystery of God (‘îman bi l-ghayb),” is reduced among Muslim believers to
the arithmetical faith in Unity of the mathematician, if the missionary imagines him-
self bringing to [Muslims] the Spirit of Love, expecting not to find it in their hearts,
thinking that it does not belong to them, that he can bring it as if in a suitcase, like
some bonbons that a thrifty shopkeeper reserves for his lower class clients, he would
be ill-advised to export [that way of thinking about the Spirit] to the land of Islam.40
Paolo Dall’Oglio has argued that with the mature Massignon “there is a shift
from a missiology of the Triumph of the Church, which is parallel to colo-
39. In that respect, one wonders about the conversation between Isaac and Ishmael at the burial
of their father, Abraham.
nialism, to a missiology of Humility which is the opposite of colonialism.”41

Anthony O’Mahony credits Massignon with inspiring “the explicit recast-
ing of western missionary effort . . . as one of finding Christ even more than
preaching him.”42 Joseph Maréchal (1878–1944), a Belgian Jesuit psycholo-
gist, theologian, and friend of Massignon, included a chapter on Hallâj in
his book on the psychology of the mystics; he was convinced by his study
that the Church must approach Muslims with an invitation not “to a harsh
rupture with the past,” but to an “unfolding . . . higher comprehension.”43
Massignon would add that not only Islam but also the Church is called to
that higher comprehension, one that humbly recognizes a distinct and posi-
tive role for Islam in the economy of salvation. If Islam is an Abrahamic
faith, then Catholics must approach Muslims “as brothers in Abraham, born
not of the same blood but of the same spirit of faith and sacrifice.”44 Mis-
sionary work among Muslims is first and foremost for Massignon a work
of hospitality, a welcoming home of separated brethren, an incorporation of
the Hagarian members of the Abrahamic family.45
In the introduction to his aptly named volume L’hospitalité sacreé,
Jacques Keryell demonstrates the centrality of hospitality to Massignon’s
spirituality: “Hospitality, received and given, became the axis of his life,
thought, and action. It was, for him, founded in God Himself, within the
Trinitarian Life ‘where God is at the same time the Guest [l’Hôte], the One
Who extends hospitality [l’Hospitalier], and the Home in which hospitality
is extended [l’Foyer].”46 He helpfully compiles several of Massignon’s most
41. Dall’Oglio, “Badaliya,” 334.

42. Anthony O’Mahony, “Louis Massignon, the Melkite Church and Islam,” ARAM 20 (2008):
269–70.
43. Joseph Maréchal, Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics, trans. Algar Thorold (London: Burns,
Oates and Washburne, 1927), 279.
45. For Karl-Josef Kuschel, acceptance of Islam’s Abrahamic legitimacy begins with the Church
interpreting Genesis in the following five ways: “1. . . . That Ishmael and his descendants exist at all . . .
is not in accord with human purpose but with God’s plan. 2. . . . Ishmael bears the sign of God’s cov-
enant that Jews also bear. 3. Ishmael’s descendants, too, stand under God’s special blessing. Thus any
exclusivism of blessing for Israel is done away with—not only through the existence of children of
Abraham among the disciples of Jesus Christ but also through that of children of Abraham among the
disciples of the Prophet [Muhammad]. 4. . . . [J]ust as Abraham went into exile from his homeland at
God’s bidding, so Ishmael went into exile in the wilderness at the bidding of God and his father. Just
as Abraham was promised fertility and descendants by God, so too was Ishmael. 5. . . . Ishmael’s fate
enigmatically anticipates the ambiguous relationship of Jews and Christians to their brother religion,
Islam. In despising and rejecting the descendants of their brother Ishmael, they once again drive ‘Ish-
mael’ into the wilderness.” Kuschel, Abraham, 209.
46. Keryell, L’hospitalité, 25.
poignant remarks about hospitality. For example, in “L’Occident devant

l’Orient: Primauté d’une solution culturelle,” Massignon writes: “The first
contact between two primitive and hostile civilizations depends upon the
principle of hospitality. Hospitality means supposing that the stranger, the
enemy, all the same, has something good to offer us.”47 In “L’honneur des
camarades de travail et la parole de vérité,” he writes: “The meal of hospital-
ity prefigures the extension to all of humanity the last Supper, where a cer-
tain outlaw, condemned in our place, extended to us the bread and wine of
divine hospitality.”48 Finally: “All hospitality that is not salvific is derisory;
all substitution that is not healing [guérrissante] and liberating [libèratrice]
is but a delusion [leurre]; every word of welcome that does not offer resur-
rection to the expatriated is nothing but literature.”49 However, as indicated
in chapter 1, Massignon never developed a theory of hospitality; it was for
him a concrete virtue.
Of particular interest is Massignon’s understanding of hospitality in rela-
tion to Muslims, from whom he claimed to have learned the virtue. Recall
his indebtedness to the Alussy family of Baghdad, who sponsored and sup-
ported him, prayed for his safety, and vouched for him, securing his release
from Ottoman custody.50 His vision of Islam demanded that he (and the
Church in its mission) reciprocally extend hospitality to Muslims in a privi-
leged manner. He writes: “The exercise of hospitality, axial in ‘Abrahamic’ Is-
lam, is axial for the Badaliya. For it is the Poorest of the Poor, the Expatriated
par excellence, God, whom we are expected to receive, hidden, ‘substituted’
in the most defenseless of our foreign guests; here in France, the North Af-
rican Muslim workers.”51 Again: “For this abandoned people, there is only
one work of mercy; hospitality; and it is by this alone, not through legal ob-
servances that we cross the threshold of the sacred. Abraham showed it to
us. Let’s seek it therefore with Abraham among the Muslims, whom we are
driving into the most atrocious despair, in the accursed City where we push
them, the City of Essential Rejection, the City of the Denial of that Hospital-
ity which was asked of Lot. That is the last spark of faith.”52 For Massignon,
47. Quoted in Keryell, L’hospitalité, 26.

51. BAL 15, 313–14.
52. Massignon, “At the Limit,” in Testimonies, 55. He found Christ, however, not only among the
Muslims. Jacques Keryell quotes an unpublished conference presentation in which Massignon speaks
of his experience as a visitor to prisons in France: “There is no longer any presence of God in the
hospitality is the basis for the final judgment.53 It is crucial to note that he
identified Muslims as the poor and the least of his day, and in a creative vari-
ation on Matthew 25, he writes: “At the hour of judgment, Christ will say to
us, under the appearance of a Muslim brother, Marid’to falam ta odni, ‘I was
sick, and you did not visit me; I was unjustly treated by your brothers, and
you did not compel them to render justice unto me.’”54 As with liberation
theologians’ privileging of the poor, Massignon made a fundamental option
for Muslims. Such an attitude was, and remains, revolutionary. Muslims are
not an obstacle to be overcome; they are not even primarily a people to be
converted. Muslims are the least among us; they are to be welcomed home
and offered hospitality, which is to say they are to be served.
That is not to say Christians should abandon their beliefs. The Church
remains bound to preach the Good News, to communicate the full doctrinal
elaboration of creedal Christian faith. In “Le Salut de l’Islam,” the article in
which Massignon is most directly concerned with the question of the salva-
tion of Muslims, he acknowledges that beyond a new hospitable orienta-
tion, beyond acceptance of Islam as an Abrahamic brother, there remains
the problem that Islam’s faith is merely theologal, to borrow his own term.
Even if sûra 112 and other Qur’anic passages can be interpreted as not refut-
ing the Christian mysteries of Trinity, Incarnation, and Redemption, they
do not affirm them either, and recognition of those mysteries is necessary
for a full and explicit—theological—faith. He asks, “In a more precise way,
along what axes could one extend and perfect the orientation [démarche] of
Islam? Under what conditions could the fullness of the gift of Salvation be
realized and revealed little by little to this warrior and faithful people? How
can we ease, or rather, how can we liberate their own vision of salvation
from a certain spirit of servitude?”55 His answer may surprise the reader. It
authentically Christian city, except perhaps among the visitors to prisons. I became a prison-visitor
and I must say that I found the presence of God much more there in prison than among free people
and among the people of power. This kind of presence of God in the city, under a paradoxical form,
appears next to [arrive à travers] sin by a certain solidarity that reproaches honest people vis-à-vis sin-
ners.” Quoted in Keryell, Jardin donné, 152–53. Dorothy Buck echoes Keryell’s point when she reminds
the reader that Massignon “discovered that his own Christian religious experience was enhanced
rather than threatened or diminished. He called this engagement with the Muslim community, ‘sacred
hospitality.’” Buck, Dialogues, 205.
53. Keryell, L’hospitalité, 25.
55. “Le Salut,” 147. On the Arabs as a “warrior and faithful people,” Massignon writes: “Abraham
consented to [the] exile [of his son Ishmael] in the desert, provided that Ishmael’s descendants could
survive there, endowed by God for their life in this world with a certain privileged perpetuity which
distinguishes that Ishmaelite Arab race with a vocation to the sword, to ‘iron, wherein is mighty pow-
may even strike us as counterintuitive, given his desire for fraternity and
common worship. He argues that “our ‘witness’ must include [a lived] faith
in the Trinity.”56
Why Trinity? It seems an obstacle rather than an opportunity, but Trini-
tarian faith witnesses to “the dynamism of the divine life.” The Muslim al-
ready “has the sense of the sovereign will of God.” Even more profoundly,
he has the sense of God as “pure Act.”57 It is not necessary to bring to “our
brother” the “God of the philosophers who is Act,” as the structure of the
Summa Contra Gentiles shows Thomas Aquinas already knew in the thir-
teenth century.58 Instead, one must offer the “sovereignly vital and beauti-
ful revelation of Trinitarian truth, of the procession of love by which we
have been invited to participate in Faith.”59 But the only way to offer this
Trinitarian faith is for Christians to draw upon God as their only source so
that “his transcendence can manifest itself by a mystery of love,” for Trini-
tarian faith allows us to participate “in the procession of love,” and the
“Charity of God is mediated by our charity.”60 By embracing and appropriat-
ing in their lives the particularity of the triune God—that is, by participat-
ing in the life of the Spirit who proceeds in love from the Father and the
Son—Christians call “the children of the world to realize their condition as
children of God.”61
In its particular relations with Islam, the Church must first “alleviate the
Muslim’s concerns to establish his Arab filiation with . . . Abraham by assur-
ing him through witness and proof of the divine Paternity from which he is
no longer excluded.”62 Then, by living the missions of the Son and the Spirit,
the Church incorporates the historical Abrahamic lineage of the three faiths
in a higher spiritual orientation toward the one true God. Ultimately it is
not about one’s relation to Abraham; it is about one’s relationship with and
participation in the life of God. If the Examen is an apologetic and doctrinal
er’ (Qu’ran 57:25), which, with the birth of Islam, held sway over the idolaters. Against the latter, im-
placable holy war has been declared so long as they do not confess that there is only one God, the God
of Abraham—‘the first Muslim.’” “The Three Prayers of Abraham,” 13.
58. Aquinas also already knew that “the notion of generation in Islam has always been taken in
a physical [and therefore problematic] sense.” Joseph Ellul, “The Issue of Muslim-Christian Dialogue:
Nostra Aetate Revisited,” Angelicum 84 (2007): 369.
60. “Le Salut,” 147. Of course, Massignon had long argued that a “dynamic” sense of God existed
within Sufism, especially in Hallâjian thought. See “Notion de ‘l’essentiel désir.’”
defense of Christian faith vis-à-vis Islam, then HI is a pastorally oriented

embrace of what is good in Islamic belief and practice as well as an invita-
tion to Muslims (and Jews) to reimagine together a common Abrahamic
faith with respective and distinctive emphases, all the while maintaining
the Church’s privileged position. In a sense, Massignon’s vision anticipates
Jacques Dupuis’s notion of mutual asymmetric complementarity.63
I will conclude this section with some of Massignon’s more practical rec-
ommendations. The first is for the Church to reclaim awareness of its uni-
versal mission. In this context, as I mentioned at the beginning of the book,
Massignon famously calls for a “Copernican revolution” in the Church’s
wider ecumenical mission, wherein one would “rediscover God at the cen-
ter of the world.”64 As I wrote there, that meant for Massignon being fully
aware that the mission to the world is God’s, not the Church’s. A second
recommendation is that Catholics must pray. That is, “rather than export-
ing Western products,” Christians intentionally must substitute themselves
on behalf of Muslims. They must “assume their sins and their insufficien-
cies.” Christians must “suffer in their place, even suffering the limits of
their dogma or their canonical practices.” They must assume their “intel-
lectual poverty, their scholasticism, their canon law.” Massignon quotes
Charles Péguy: “When one loves, then one becomes dependent upon the
beloved.” He continues: “Well then! Let us enter into dependency upon Is-
lam through substitution,” for “one saves people only by entering the axis of
their birth. Thus Islam will be saved only when believing souls interiorize
it.” Christians must pray and substitute themselves even for the “millions
of Muslims” who have already “died outside the Church.” Christians must
see themselves as “living descendants” willing to assume the place of “the
generations already judged.” He concludes: “Let us join ours to the sum of
supplications of which God cannot but take notice, responding to what is
lacking with the fullness and catholicity of the Church.”65
By praying specifically for Islam and for Muslims, whatever “ambiva-
lences” may exist “might be elevated” and “the spiritual nature of the acts
of Islam, of the pilgrimage, of adoring surrender, might be affirmed bit by
bit.”66 Such is the importance of Christians interiorizing Islam, as members
63. Jacques Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue (Maryknoll, N.Y.:
Orbis, 2001), 255–58.
65. All quoted material in this paragraph is from “Le Salut,” 146.
of the Badaliya were wont to do. More important, in its prayer “the Church
itself will be elevated by the unshakeable faith of the descendants of Ish-
mael in the God of Abraham.”67 Catholic prayer not only recommends Mus-
lims to God but it also helps Catholics themselves realize the authenticity of
Islamic faith and communion. The Church, if she pays prayerful attention,
can be inspired and uplifted by the faith of Muslims.
Next, Catholics must put their prayer into action. They must live holy
lives. They must recall the rahbânîya. Muslims are watching, waiting to see
whether Christians will finally live according to an authentically evangelical
Rule of life. He writes that “for Muslims (for Ibn ‘Arabî above all) Christ is
the Spirit of the unique Rule of the perfection of life,” and if anything “at-
tracts the profound instinct of Muslims toward us”—and this is the Catho-
lic advantage vis-à-vis the Protestants—it is undoubtedly “our Religious
contemplatives.”68 How to establish this rule? Christians must live Marian
lives. As did Mary, they must answer “yes” to the divine will. As did Mary,
they must conceive the word of truth in themselves, and then they must
birth or communicate it. They must also, as we saw in chapter 2, ask Mary
to intercede for virile Muslims.
Sufism and the Church

It is no secret that Massignon hoped for an eventual acceptance among
Muslims of key Christian doctrines, and yet with Islam “it is not a matter of
simple conversion . . . as with pagans, nor is it the ‘return of the lost sheep’
as with Israel.” Instead, it is a matter of “the repatriation of the Hagarian
expatriates, of the readmission of the excluded goats, chased to the desert
long ago.”69 It is not a matter of simple conversion, because Muslims have
been exposed to and influenced by the Church for generations, and because
there already exist aspects of Islam that independently echo central teach-
ings and practices of the Church. Massignon refers to the ways in which the
Church is already present to Islam as the “many forms of the Good News
of Christ” that “Islam has received,” and he divides those forms into two
categories, exterior and interior.70 The exterior signs of the Church include

68. Massignon, “Le Signe,” 15. Qur’an 5:82 reads: “And thou wilt find the nearest of them in af-
fection to those who believe (to be) those who say: Lo! We are Christians. That is because there are
among them priests and monks, and because they are not proud.”
69. HI, 109–10.
70. HI, 107.
the presence of Christian convents and monasteries as well as their icons,

particularly Marian icons, in Muslim lands. Christian and Muslim pilgrims
alike—particularly Muslim women, according to Massignon—frequently
pray before them. The icons thus become “the source of innumerable mate-
rial and spiritual graces,” and, as we saw, Massignon anticipates that “this
Marian intercession on behalf of Muslim women will have greater and
greater effects in the future.”71 The Church is also present in the corporal
“works of mercy exercised by Christians in Muslim countries,” including the
work of doctors, teachers, and founders of schools. The latter are respon-
sible for the “dissemination of translations of the Bible in Muslim coun-
tries,” and although this is often “undertaken primarily by Protestants” so
that the conversions they bring about “would be like the Arian conversions
among the Barbarians,” still the presence of the Bible serves “to complete
the Qur’anic data.”72 Massignon emphasizes that the Bible, the intercession
of Mary, and Christian works of charity are not only present but also effec-
tive among Muslims. The Qur’anic treatment of Jesus and Mary, the call to
sacrificial intercession at the hajj, even the veil worn by Muslim women,
which Massignon considers a reminder of the Christian call to chastity and
virginity,73 are all examples of ways that key aspects of Islam already, if la-
tently, appropriate Christian teaching and practice. It is “above all,” how-
ever, “within Islam itself that eminent graces, planted directly by the Holy
Spirit, have come to germinate here and there heroic, ascetic, and mystical
vocations, lives of nocturnal prayers and fasts.”74 He continues:
They alone can exorcise both the Arabian desert of the impure spirits that infest it
and the Muslim world of its perpetual obsession that obliges it before each prayer to
recite a prophylactic invocation “against Satan the Stoned” and to carry on the body
talismanic verses of the Qur’an. These examples, these penitential and holy lives, are
not simply imitations of Christian monasticism nor the anticipation of an evangeliza-
tion which would fracture the old Muslim bloc into finally Christianized nations. If
one attends to the flight of pure devotion exhibited in the beginning by the Ethiopi-
ans, then by ‘Othman-b-Maz’oûn, Salmân and Hodhayfa, by Hasan Basri and Râbi’a,
and ending with Ma’roûf Karkhî and Bayézid Bistâmî, devotion that intercedes for the
common good (salâh al Omma), resulting even in anathematized and crucified death,
as with Hallâj, and if one reflects on the self-abnegation of pious leaders such as ‘Alî,
71. HI, 107.

72. HI, 108.
73. HI, 107.
74. HI, 108. L. M.’s note 4 reads, “Importance of nocturnal prayer (tahajjod) for Muhammad at the
beginning (Qur’an 76:26).”
Hussain and Zayd and on the social vocation of men like Ibn Hanbal, Ghazâlî, and
Niyazi Misri, then one glimpses the profound truth of the program that was fixed by
the first Muslim mystics, Antaki, Mohâsibi and Jonayd, whose purpose was to real-
ize the monastic life, rahbânîya—“conform to the good pleasure of God”—which was
first sketched by the Christian hermits of whom the Qur’an speaks in a famous verse
(47:27). Those Muslims set out to perfect and to practice the rule of life (ri’âya) that
the Christians did not perfectly follow. It was for them, and is always, about founding
under the sign of Jesus, son of Mary, “seal of the saints,” the true Islam, the one of the
voluntarily excluded ones, the spiritual expatriates, prefigured by the Arab patriarch
Ayyoûb (Job) before Abraham, the Muslim community of the end times, wherein the
supreme emigration [hégire] must coincide with the second coming of Jesus, and that
must complete the mi’râj of Muhammad. For “Islam began in the expatriation to Me-
dina and it will conclude in the expatriation to Jerusalem [the first and final qibla]
and blessed are the members of community of Muhammad who expatriate them-
selves,” says the hadîth al ghorba.
It is upon this foundation that indirectly the [Khadiric] movement of the Mus-
lim congregations—unfortunately distracted by the quest for mechanical ecstatic
techniques—has realized authentic sacrifice and prayers. And it will be the ground of
the final junction between Islam and Christianity, since, as Ursula Benincasa [1547–
1618]75 and Charles de Foucauld, following Raymon Llull [1232–1315], thought, it is
only by the establishment of an order of cloistered contemplatives in Muslim lands
that the entente will be realized; in this “Abbey of divine love” about which Mary of
the Valleys [d. 1656]76 and Shustarî (who called it the “Convent of Wine” consecrated
and reserved in Islam for paradise) have spoken.77
There are several key points in that long and extremely important quo-
tation. First, the mystical vocations and lives of Muslim saints are seeded
by the Holy Spirit. They represent not merely natural or human striving to-
ward God, they respond to direct prompting from God. Second, the hero-
ism, piety, and sanctity of extraordinary persons have always served to pu-
rify Islam from within. That is the heart of Massignon’s approach and the
fruit of his interiorist disposition. As I quoted earlier, it is not a matter of
the Church converting Muslims as though they knew nothing of the one
God. It is a matter of observing, tending, and nurturing what the Holy Spirit
has planted. Third, authentic Sufism constitutes what Massignon calls true
Islam. It is an interiorized, intentional Islam that focuses on the common
good and seeks personal relationship with God. Fourth, Sufism directly an-
75. Foundress of the Theatine nuns.

76. Exorcised of demons by St. John Eudes (1601–1680).
77. HI, 108–9.
swers the challenge issued by the Qur’an to Christian monks who have not
lived up to the goals they set for themselves. The Muslim Jesus is the mystic
or saint par excellence, the “seal of the saints,” and the spiritual guide of the
willing expatriates, the true Muslims. Thus, the entire Sufi project is colored
with a Christian characterization.78 Notice, however, that the characteriza-
tion is derived from strictly Muslim sources, for example, Qur’an and Sufi
tradition. In Massignon’s interpretation, Sufism and Christian monasti-
cism cannot be seen as two completely separate entities, for in the Qur’anic
worldview they are interrelated, mutually mediated attempts at achieving
the perfection to which God calls all humans. For that reason, Massignon
invokes the memory of Llull, Benincasa, and Foucauld and encourages the
establishment of Christian monasteries among Muslims. They potentially
stimulate Muslim desire to perfect the “rule of life” and simultaneously wit-
ness that any Christian-Muslim integration (without denying real differ-
ences) will be based upon authentic selfless sacrificial love and desire for
union with God. There is the ground of the final junction between Islam and
Christianity. It is difficult to interpret Massignon’s invocation of Mary of the
Valleys and Shustari and their respective calls for an abbey of divine love and
a convent of wine. It could envision a tertium quid, an actual contemplative
community in which Muslims and Christians work and pray together. Or
he may have in mind that independent but likeminded, mutually influ-
encing, and increasingly cooperative communities must arise simultane-
ously among Christians and Muslims. His Badaliya sodality (discussed in
the next chapter) certainly pointed in that direction. The members interior-
ized aspects of Islam, hosted discussions and meals among Christians and
Muslims, and organized joint projects of social activism. The Jesuit Paolo
Dall’Oglio’s Syrian monastery, Deir Mar Musa, witnesses to Massignon’s vi-
sion today: “It is a shared [between Louis Massignon and Mary Kahil] dream
of a Monastery of Love in which contemplative men and women share in
silence, contemplation, and hospitality, a central ‘Abrahamic,’ Arab, Middle
Eastern and evangelical concept for Islam.”79
On authentic Sufism as the Islamic partner in the entente between the

79. Dall’Oglio, “Badaliya,” 335. Father Paolo Dall’Oglio was exiled from Syria in 2012 for criticiz-
ing the government’s heavy-handed response to popular demonstrations on behalf of democratic
reforms. In July 2013, he clandestinely reentered Syria, probably to negotiate for the release of jour-
nalists held captive by the group that would come to be known as ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant). Dall’Oglio himself was kidnapped on that occasion and has not been heard from since.
Massignon would consider him a modern representative of the abdâl.
two traditions, I return to the comments of Joseph Maréchal, who under-

took a close reading and evaluation of Massignon’s Passion as well as the
question it raised about the possibility of mystical graces being present in
Islam. He was convinced by it that mystical grace is present outside the vis-
ible Church. He even concluded that in the Sufis it is quite likely that God’s
intention “was to keep open, in the very edifice founded on the Koran, a
door towards supernatural faith, and consequently to safeguard the indi-
vidual possibility of salvation for [Muslims] of good will.”80 His work and
his “nuanced but positive judgment”81 was essential for the Church’s posi-
tion on the possibility of extra-ecclesial grace, and it was cited approving-
ly by other of Massignon’s theologian friends, including Charles Cardinal
Journet, Jacques Maritain, and Jean-Muhammad Abd-el-Jalîl.82 Maréchal
closes his chapter on Hallâj with the following remarks:
Although M. Massignon scrupulously confines himself to the domain of Oriental phi-
lology and religious history, his studies of [Muslim] mysticism, by opening out unex-
pected and very general perspectives on the ways and means of supernatural Provi-
dence, suggest—discreetly, and between the lines—a possible improvement in our
methods of apostolate in relation to those great organized religions, such as Moham-
medanism (why, mutatis mutandis, should we not add Hinduism and Buddhism?)
which so far seem hermetically sealed against Christian influence. Would it not be
worth the trouble to seek, more attentively than ever, with exact science and wholly
evangelic charity, for the “stepping-stones” which God has probably provided by his
grace in these vast religious milieux? So that a Muslim (or Hindu) of good faith, in-
vited to enter the true home of the common Father, should not have the impression
that he is being called upon to deny his race and traditions and to dwell in a strange
house? How many barriers would fall of themselves, if he could foresee in the Chris-
tian faith not a harsh rupture with the past, but the unfolding, the higher compre-
hension, the unhoped-for arrival of all the good that his ancestors obscurely desired.
Would it be overbold to suppose that M. Massignon—since he recalls, in his dedi-
cation, the holy memory of Fr. Charles de Foucauld, the hermit of the Sahara, apostle
and victim of the Bedouins—has more than once, while writing so many learned pag-
es, given thought to the actual problems of the apostolate, which those pages impose
so strongly on our attention, though no formal mention of them is made?83
80. Maréchal, Studies, 277–78.

81. Caspar, “La vision,” 133. Caspar includes other favorable reviews by Catholic theologians of
L. M.’s early work, for example, Synave and Elisée. He also mentions the disapproval of Lammens,
Chidiac, and Cayre.
82. Gardet, “Esquisse,” 78.
83. Maréchal, Studies, 278–79. Massignon writes approvingly of Maréchal’s “transposition into a
Christian philosophy” of his own analysis of the mystical states of Hallâj in “Notion de ‘l’essentiel dé-
sir,’” 453.
No, it would not be overbold to suggest such a thing, since his entire Badali-
ya project was dedicated to a reimagining of the Catholic missionary en-
deavor among Muslims. But that is the subject of chapter 7.
Conclusion
Islam is an Abrahamic religion, or, in relation to the Church, an Abraha-
mic schism. God’s blessings upon Ishmael in Genesis were not simply tem-
poral; they were also spiritual. Islam’s appearance and sustenance in his-
tory indicates the return of the exiled Hagarian lineage to claim its rightful
place among the descendants of Isaac, namely Jews and Christians, at the
Abrahamic table. Islam must be thought of primarily not as a rejection of
Christianity, but as a reminder of the validity of patriarchal Abrahamic faith
in the absolutely transcendent One. In that sense, one can even say that
Islam has a positive religious mission vis-à-vis the Church. Like the lance in
the side of Jesus, Islam continually hounds and stigmatizes the Church, re-
minding her of her privileges and admonishing her to realize the lofty stan-
dard of Christlike living that she set for her members, especially by estab-
lishing and faithfully following a rule of life that would allow Christ to be
born again among us. The Church, in its relations with Muslims, ought first
and foremost to extend hospitality toward the exiled brethren. She ought to
welcome the Muslims home. Only after convincing her Muslim neighbors
that she concedes their rightful Abrahamic claim should the Church pre-
sume to teach Muslims about the Christian mysteries to which they have
not been privy. Until then, the Church can recognize the conditional au-
thority of the truncated or abridged Arabic edition of the Bible, the scrip-
tural rule of the Abrahamic schism, the Qur’an.
Finally, the Church must recognize in Sufism a Christological orienta-
tion within Islam itself. Massignon once made this astonishing confession:
“We discover the ultimate meaning of the word ‘Islam,’ surrender [aban-
don], in the martyrdom of an al-Hallâj.”84 Hallâj is the epitome of Islam for
Massignon, but he is also the proof that Sufism derives from the ground of
the final junction between Islam and Christianity.
Massignon’s is not merely a traditional theology of religions or missiolo-
gy thought out in terms of the preparatio evangelica. In that theory, the seeds
of the Word are scattered among the world’s religions such that in their de-

sire to achieve holiness, non-Christian practitioners, usually unknowingly,

participate in a dynamic vector toward Christ and toward the Church. That
may be true of Islam as well, and as we saw, Massignon did write about Is-
lam’s preparatory role in general terms. For example, his qualification of Is-
lam as childlike predicts a maturation in the hope of Israel and the charity of
the Church, and the image of embers portrays Islam as ripe with potential,
awaiting actualization in the flame and radiance of Jewish and Christian
belief. However, even in those examples, Islam cannot simply be lumped
in with other non-Christian religions. Islam shares with the other two com-
munities both monotheistic faith in the one true God and attachment to
Abraham. The Word, as well as the Spirit, is present to Islam not only invis-
ibly, that is, not only as the dynamic thrust toward unrestricted loving and
knowing (which is how a seeds-of-the-Word theology usually understands
the relationship of non-Christians to Christ and the Church). The Word is
also at least partially visible in the Qur’anic accounts of biblical prophets
and narratives, in the holiness of Jesus and Mary, in the importance of Jeru-
salem, in the belief in God and the final judgment—all the things that make
the Qur’an, in Massignon’s opinion, a truncated Arabic edition of the Bible.
Church: Badaliya
S even
CHURCH
Badaliya
Louis Massignon was, after his return, a dedicated member of the Catholic
Church. Solicitous of ecclesial approval for his various projects, he met with
several popes, befriended a future pope, and enlisted the assistance of vari-
ous bishops and priests in his efforts toward Christian-Muslim understand-
ing and other concerns. Pope Pius XI even reportedly said to him, “You are
in fact a Muslim Catholic.”1 However, he could certainly be critical of the in-
stitutional Church. He transferred to the Melkite rite, at least in part in order
to escape what he perceived to be excessive bureaucratic foci and a too-easy
relationship with political power in the Roman Church, although the trans-
fer mainly facilitated his desire to pray the liturgy in Arabic in order to re-
main close to the tongue of Jesus (in anticipation of the eschatological ban-
quet), to the Church of the Middle East, and to his Islamic apostolate. Still,
whatever reservations he entertained, and despite his global scholarship
and interreligious interests, he remained committed to the Catholic Church
in all its particularity.
At one point in the Examen, Massignon’s interlocutor Ibn al-Torjoman
takes the separation of the various churches as evidence of the lack of any
real authority in the universal Church. Massignon, sensitive to the charge,
especially from a Muslim, whose community is centered on a single text
and a basically uniform set of canonical practices, emphasizes the interpre-
tative authority of the magisterium:
1. Georges Anawati, “Louis Massignon et le dialogue Islam-Chrétien: souvenirs personnels,” in

Louis Massignon et le dialogue des cultures, ed. Daniel Massignon (Paris: Cerf, 1996), 266. For Massig
non’s own notes on the audience on July 18, 1934, see Massignon, Les Trois Prières, 191–93.
190
Church: Badaliya 191
The Church in nineteen centuries has never been deprived of the effective presence
of a teaching authority, which rests with the Popes in the Roman Apostolic Chair. This
authority is legitimate because its founder, St. Peter, the first to announce the Messiah,
was expressly invested with the doctrinal magisterium three times by Jesus himself
(Luke 22:31; Matt. 26:18; John 21:15). The infallibility of his orthodoxy is guaranteed by
the invisible Holy Spirit who guides the Church through its various levels of hierarchy
and who especially assists the Pope in his exposition of the deposit of the faith.2
Massignon was a man of his time, and the most proximate council was the
First Vatican Council, at which papal infallibility, under all the prescribed
conditions, was affirmed as dogma. Still, it is instructive that he so force-
fully defends Roman hierarchical authority, an enthusiasm not always as-
sociated with those who work for ecumenical and interreligious fellowship.
By the time of his later writings, Massignon’s notion of the Church had
expanded. He maintained his commitment to the hierarchical and sacra-
mental life of the institutional Church but distinguished what he called the
body and the soul of the Church. That distinction allowed him to incorporate
to the soul of the Church persons who were not explicitly Catholic or even
Christian. The criterion for such inclusion was sanctity, which in Massign-
on’s understanding meant conformity, whether knowing or unknowing on
the part of the saint, to the life, teachings, and passion of Christ. The soul of
the Church, therefore, was a collective of saints—as described in chapter 3,
that is, the fulfillment of substitute spirituality—and the sodality that Mas-
signon founded with Mary Kahil, the Badaliya, had as one of its aims the
conversion of Muslims to Christ, but from within Islam, without necessar-
ily explicit conversion to the body of the Church. I begin this chapter by
returning to Massignon’s notion of sanctity and its connection to substitute
2. Massignon, Examen, 37. By way of contrast, Massignon criticizes the traditional Muslim un-
derstanding of teaching authority. He writes: “1) ‘the authority of the ancients’ (Salaf) is weak when
one considers the discussion of the Companions of Muhammad. 2) ‘personal sentiment,’ wherein the
evidence is too individual. 3) universal consent (ijma’), which has never been realized in a council of
ulemas. [However,] whatever the Church teaches by pontifical authority is corroborated by tradition,
by the conviction of the saints throughout history and by the absence of contradiction among doctri-
nal and moral pronouncements promulgated by the thousands during nineteen centuries as much by
the ecumenical councils as by the popes.” Examen, 37 n. 49. From a political perspective, Massignon
found the lack of clear centralized authority in Islam equally problematic. As he reports it, so did
many Muslims themselves. In 1920, in a list of Muslim “demands,” he includes the re-establishment
of the caliphate: “The Moslems are doubtless willing (and they have proved it) to be loyal subjects,
and faithful citizens of foreign states; but, in order to have the assurance of the Divine mercy and to
persevere patiently in the united observance of their faith, they need to know, to proclaim and to have
it recognized that somewhere on this earth there is a Muslim chief whose authority comes from God
alone, who maintains the prescribed rules intact and punishes illegal acts in accordance with the text
of the Koran.” See “What Moslems Expect,” 16.
192 Church: Badaliya
spirituality, but I focus on his notion of the real elite, the collection of holy
persons across confessional boundaries. Then, I introduce his work in the
Badaliya, which best represents Massignon’s vision for the Church at large.
I include a treatment of the sensitive and controversial question of explicit
conversion to the Church through sacramental baptism of Muslims who
may experience an interior conversion to Christ. Finally, I conclude with a
note on the increasing importance in Massignon’s scholarship and personal
spiritual discipline of holy Christian-Muslim bridge figures, including the
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, Salmân Pâk, Fâtima, and Hallâj.
Real Elite
In the Examen, Massignon explained the Christian understanding of the
possibility for transformation of suffering and evil through self-sacrificial
love as the law revealed by Jesus and communicated in and through the
Church’s sacraments. In his later writings, he refers to that same dynamic
as the secret of history, whose realization he discovers within a horizon that
has expanded when compared to his early reflections on the law. Reflecting
on the social disruption often caused by substitute saints, he writes: “The
impact of ‘heroic compassion’ on most of our human, traditional, and leg-
endary records (and legend is an immediate projection of the event in the
world of symbols), shows that there is the secret of history, and that this se-
cret is disclosed only to an elite, tested only by men of sorrow and compas-
sion, born to assume the blind anguish of living multitudes and to under-
stand and announce its transcendental glory.”3 The secret of history reveals
that evil cannot be overcome by power or violence. Instead it can only be
transformed through redemptive suffering, or extreme compassion, or lov-
ing substitution, all of which for Massignon refer to the same reality. Only
persons of sorrow and compassion willing to assume the blind anguish of oth-
ers can orient the rest of us toward transcendental glory.
What does Massignon mean by elite, a term that conjures all sorts of
meanings for different people? In an article written in 1959, “The Notion of
‘Real Elite’ in Sociology and in History,” Massignon explains what he means
by real elite by way of contrast with those people normally perceived to be
the elite of a given society.4 About the latter he writes:

4. In the same year he published “Transfer of Suffering”; both articles directly draw upon and
expand the opening sections of BAL 10.
There is an inequality among men; a minority exists in every epoch and in every
group. The cohesion of this minority has been sustained in a lasting and almost mag-
netic fashion by its “historical basis of reaction,” its social vitality and action of per-
suasion. We read in Ecclesiastes of a certain person who suddenly showed himself
capable of saving everything when the city was threatened, but fell back again into
obscurity when the danger subsided. Posterity is grateful to them, to these superior
men, these animators, pace-setters, inventors, and discoverers. They are the “great
men” inscribed on Auguste Comte’s universal calendar of positivism and, more re-
cently, celebrated on the international calendar of UNESCO. But the cult of such men
dies with the earthly cities which they have made flourish through some accidental
invention (vanishing like the epidemic that it has wiped out) without much regard
for their true personality.5
Such are the heroes of secular society, but they are not, for Massignon, the
real elite. Neither are royalty, politicians, intellectuals, priests, the wealthy,
the famous, etc. The real elite often go unnoticed during their own lifetime.
Not content simply to fend off suffering, as are the great men mentioned
in the long quotation previously, they go further, identifying with, assum-
ing, and transforming suffering. Distinct from the men and women whose
inventions may long benefit societies but whose personalities remain vir-
tually irrelevant, the real elite (“Hindus call them mahatmas, Arabs abdâl,
and Christians saints”), once discovered, are remembered precisely for the
personalities they formed under the extraordinary trials they voluntarily
accepted.6 Massignon continues: “If their posthumous renown gives to their
name a special glory, it is not because of their posthumous life, which spirit-
ists and theosophists have not been able to establish with certainty, but to
their apotropaion character. That is to say, they are not isolated in time but
become part of a homogenous series, bearing witness to the same certitude
about the efficacy of spiritual means in improving corrupted social and po-
litical situations with their sense of compassion for the universal.”7 Those
who manifest sanctity are in relationship with each other in a community
of saints that transcends cultural and temporal boundaries. They are apo-
tropaic, that is, healing and protective elements, which for Massignon is evi-
dence of the divine hand at work. God chooses His servants, and through
those servants God heals and redeems a largely unaware population of sin-
ners. The effects are often noticed only in hindsight. The apotropaic saint,
5. Massignon, “The Notion of ‘Real Elite,’” 57–58.

6. Massignon, “The Notion of ‘Real Elite,’” 58.
7. Massignon, “The Notion of ‘Real Elite,’” 58.
by giving herself completely to the service of others in the particular situa-

tion at hand, takes cognizance of her role in the history of redemption un-
folding hic et nunc (here and now, a favorite phrase of Massignon’s) in and
through her life. These saints respond affirmatively and concretely to the
divine fiat so frequently emphasized in the BAL:
But posing this philosophical hypothesis is not enough. We cannot grasp the notion
of a real elite without recourse to an observation of human history. For example,
there is a number, probably a fixed and limited number—archetypal, Jung would
say—to which we can reduce the mass of themes in the universe as they might be
catalogued by such folklorists as Aarne-Thompson. This limited number is that of
dramatic situations endowed with a viable catharsis in a given social context. The
elite becomes aware of these crises and finds in their outcome a recapitulation of its
own definitive personality over and above the arbitrary schemes of philosophies of
history. It is in such a heroic act that the elite affirms itself; an act endowed with an
axial, communicative, and transsocial value, an act which is capable of raising the
mass, of giving value to interested acts, as “in a series” (profitable virtues, mercenary
acts, mediocre appetites, leprous sins). The heroic elite is linked to these deeds only
by its suffering in truly redemptive compassion for the universal.8
In his intercession on behalf of Sodom, by his intercession on behalf of

strangers, and by his establishing and revealing the fact of God’s mercy on
behalf of the hidden just ones of a community, Abraham was a paradigm
of substitute sanctity. In his near sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham participated,
in an anticipatory way, in the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus. Abraham was,
for Massignon, the first person of record to shed light on the secret of history.
But just as Abraham anticipated what would be revealed fully in the mis-
sion of Christ, so too sanctity continues after Christ’s death and resurrec-
tion, and not only among Christians, not even only among Jews, Christians,
and Muslims, but universally.9 For example, Gandhi figured among his fa-
vorite modern examples of the real elite.10
In his preface to the second edition of the Passion (dated the day of his
death, which suggests that it truly was a lifelong study), Massignon pro-
8. Massignon, “The Notion of ‘Real Elite,’” 62–63.

9. In his later years, Massignon spent some time investigating Indian spirituality and religious
texts (he studied Sanskrit as a university student), and he even wrote a piece on the religious his-
tory of Japan. For observations on “Shinto-Moslem correspondences,” see Massignon, “Meditation of
a Passerby on His Visit to the Sacred Woods of Ise,” in Testimonies, 165–72. For a short study of a San-
skrit text, see Massignon, “The Temptation of the Ascetic Çuka by the Apsara Rambha,” in Testimonies:
173–78.
10. See Krokus, “Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism in Louis Massignon’s Appropriation of Gandhi
as Modern Saint,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 47, no. 4 (2012): 525–40.
poses nine “working hypotheses” for examining the religious history of an

individual or a group. They are relevant here because they essentially con-
stitute the means for recognizing the real elite in a given time and place, for
understanding the “dramatic situation,” the pressing question, or the matter
of injustice in which some saint finds herself, and for working out the rela-
tionship between the saint and her community. I will highlight just a few
of the more salient points. First, there is a two-tier structure to history, that
of the real elite—the extraordinary persons who suffer to resolve particular
spiritual problems on behalf of a wider community, and who are thereby
joined to extraordinary persons of other times, cultures, and religions in a
homogenous lineage—and the popular history, the ordinary persons, joys,
and pains of the community; but the two histories are intimately related to
each other, such that the lives of the elite incorporate or sublate—often in
one person and lifetime—the trajectory and orientation of the wider com-
munity.11 The real elite, that is, the saints (or abdâl or mahatmas), are fore-
runners of the wider community, and in Massignon’s vision they drive his-
tory toward its final end. The apotropaic saints represent what has come to
be called a realized eschatology. In other words, for Massignon, sanctity is
never “only a solitary reaching beyond, but a sublimation not discontinu-
ous with the . . . gamut of mercenary virtues, calculated actions, mediocre
desires, sins, and crimes.” There is always “solidarity of the afflictions of the
mass with the redemptive, saving, and holy suffering of a few heroic souls.”12
Second, the righteous suffering of the few also provides to the many a
homeopathic dose. This is true in at least two senses. First, holiness is con-
tagious. Massignon gives the example of Gandhi, whose postmortem pop-
ularity had faded in India but whose mission was discovered and appro-
priated in communities all over Europe. One need think only about Mary,
Abraham, and Francis of Assisi, whose lives attract participant followers
to this very day. The paradigm for Christians remains Jesus, of course, in
whose realization of Redemption all the saints participate. That leads to the
second sense in which sanctity is homeopathic. God mediates Redemption
through Jesus; the substitute apotropaic saints comprise the mystical body
of Christ (either pre- or post-Jesus), thereby mediating an offer of Redemp-
tion to others, and the effects can be immediate. In concrete ways, probably
hidden and unnoticed by most, the holiness of saints affects the communi-
11. Basetti-Sani calls this Massignon’s “teleological and supernatural-judgmental conception of

history.” Basetti-Sani, Louis Massignon, 85.
12. Massignon, Passion 1, lxii.
ties in which they live. The saints elevate the masses. Collectively they are
for Massignon akin to the principle of Archimedes, to which I referred in
chapter 1, that is, the fulcrum that elevates the world. For example, Hallâj’s
execution brought opposed factions together into a unity; Abraham’s inter-
cession for Sodom was granted, though the righteous could not be found;
subsequent to Jesus’s crucifixion, the Holy Spirit was sent to the apostles at
Pentecost and the sacramental life of the Church was born; Gandhi’s death
on behalf of Hindu-Muslim unity in India inspired movements of nonvio-
lence globally.
Massignon opens “The Three Prayers of Abraham” by reflecting on this
theme, nominating three persons as the holy ones of his own generation:
“J. K. Huysmans, Léon Bloy, and Charles de Foucauld—all three of them, in
their return to God, were characterized by a discipline of fasting and prayer
that was among the starkest and harshest that the Latin West has known,
and also the closest to the great immemorial asceticism of the East. I refer
to the discipline of La Trappe . . . [that is] humanity’s ultimate recourse.”13
He argues that the health of a Christian society is directly proportional to
the health of its contemplative monasteries: “When the monasteries of the
strict observance become weak, as was seen in France before 1789 and in
Russia before 1917, society begins to collapse.”14 That is, authentic ascetics
and contemplatives serve as the abdâl, the apotropaic saints, guaranteeing
the health of the wider community to which they belong. The Church needs
more than monks and clergy, however; the Church needs holy laypeople:
These three cited witnesses [Huysmans, Bloy, and Foucauld] are counted as laity
(Foucauld became a priest only at age forty-three and as such remained secular and
alone). Such is the way. Certainly, it would be desirable in these days of social action
to be able to rely upon the public testimonies of communities constituted and conse-
crated for this purpose. But it is precisely the abuse of their privileges which fossilizes
them and deprives us of their help. A testimony is worth something only when it is
personal, committing a name that is ordinarily unknown during the man’s lifetime.
Bloy and Foucauld experienced something like this; and though Huysmans knew
such notoriety late in life, it came when he was already terminally ill with cancer.15
With the Badaliya, Massignon emphasized the need to participate in that

mediation of Christ’s offer of Redemption hic et nunc among Muslims. As
we will see, that does not necessarily mean seeking external conversions. It

might mean locating substitute saints within Islam and encouraging imita-
tion of those saints by other Muslims. Ultimately the Badaliya was about
increasing the ranks of the real elite, which is to say, for Massignon, the soul
of the Church.
Badaliya
François Mauriac fittingly observed of Massignon’s last years: “I know of
no more striking example of knowledge transformed into love.”16 Knowl-
edge transformed into love: although Massignon the scholar was also always
Massignon the religious-social activist, he was particularly keen in the last
stage of his career—roughly 1950 to 1962, which Guy Harpigny refers to as
the “Gandhian cycle” (alternatively the “Franciscan cycle”)—to witness to
his love for Muslims and for Islam; that is, to put into action his vision for
Christian-Muslim fraternity.17 For example, from 1947 to 1962 he was in-
volved with the Comité Chrétien d’Entente France-Islam.18 In 1953 Massi-
gnon, with François Mauriac, George Izard (1903–1973), and Charles-André
Julien (1891–1991), founded the France-Maghreb Committee, whose pur-
pose was to champion human rights and respect in the French African
colonies. That same year he began a practice of fasting every first Friday
of the month in order to bring about a “serene peace” in the Middle East.
In 1954 he accepted the presidency of the Committee for the Amnesty of
Overseas Political Prisoners. Also in 1954 he invited Muslims to join a tradi-
tional Breton pardon and pilgrimage to the Chapel of the Seven Sleepers in
Vieux-Marché, Brittany, in which he participated every year until his death.
In 1958, as he began a presentation on the life of Charles de Foucauld, he
was physically attacked by people who judged his sympathy for Algerian
rights treasonous, and in 1960 he was arrested twice for public demonstra-
16. Quoted in Gude, Crucible, 247.

17. I have written about Massignon’s understanding of Gandhi elsewhere. See Krokus, “Christian-
ity, Islam, and Hinduism.” See also Camille Drevet, Massignon et Gandhi: La contagion de la vérité (Paris:
Cerf, 1967). Sidney Griffith compared the biographies of the contemporaries Louis Massignon and Said
Nursi (1877–1960), a Turkish Muslim intellectual who grasped for a positive account of Christianity ac-
cording to Islamic understanding. He notes that “after their conversion experiences, both men devoted
the long, middle spans of their careers to intense study, writing, and spiritual development. Then, in
the final phase they both turned to political and social action and effectively inspired their followers,
from deeply religious motives, to bring their testimonies of faith to bear on the problems of public life
in their countries.” Griffith, “Bediüzzaman Said Nursi and Louis Massignon in Pursuit of God’s Word: A
Muslim and a Christian on the Straight Path,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 19, no. 1 (2008): 8.
18. See Peretti, Comité Chrétien.
tions against French abuses of Algerian prisoners and protesters (at least
once with Jean-Paul Sartre [1905–1980]). It was during this time that Pope
Pius XII approved, in private audience, Massignon’s request to transfer to
the Melkite Greek-Catholic rite, and in 1950 he was ordained a priest in Cai-
ro, not without some controversy, in the same Melkite rite of the Catholic
Church.19
The most theologically significant expression of Massignon’s vision dur-
ing this period was the sodality he and Mary Kahil founded, the Badaliya,
whose statutes received formal recognition (imprimatur) from the Melkite
auxiliary patriarch Pierre Kamel Medawar in 1947 and whose approval was
renewed in 1959 by Pope John XXIII. Badaliya means “substitutes” in Arabic.
It is the plural of abdâl, the substitute saint, the one who, chosen by God,
offers herself in the place of, or for the protection of, another. The Badaliya
sodality was the organ Massignon developed in order to participate inten-
tionally, concretely, and ecclesially in a Christian mission of substitution for
Muslims. It would enact the new relationship between Christians and Mus-
lims that he imagined, as I described in the previous chapter. The Badaliya
would live the Trinitarian missions of self-emptying love and knowledge as
the means for inviting, attracting, and welcoming Muslims, and they would
become spiritually dependent upon Muslims by offering their own lives to
God as a way of redressing in love whatever might be lacking in Muslim
prayer and belief.20
The Badaliya sodality originated in Massignon’s personal vow of mysti-
cal substitution in 1909, a year after his own conversion, on behalf of his
Spanish friend Luis de Cuadra, who had converted from his native Roman
Catholicism to Islam.21 Borrmans calls this “a first substitution.”22 Massign-
19. Rome hesitated to allow Uniate churches to ordain men who transferred from the Roman rite,
especially married men. As Massignon was being ordained in Cairo, Rome’s denial of permission arrived
via post at the patriarch’s headquarters in Beirut. It was agreed by all involved that Massignon would
have no public priestly ministry, and that as far as possible his ordination would be kept secret. Ordina-
tion proved more an expression and extension of Massignon’s personal spirituality than it was an eccle-
sial office. For a full account of the circumstances of Massignon’s ordination, see Anthony O’Mahony,
“Louis Massignon as Priest: Eastern Christianity and Islam,” Sobornost 29, no. 1 (2007): 20–34.
20. In this section, I am largely dependent upon Maurice Borrmans’s introduction to the recently
published BAL (Borrmans is, in turn, considerably dependent upon Jacques Keryell’s compilation of
texts, correspondence, and interviews related to the Badaliya in L’hospitalité). Borrmans, “Aux origines
de la Badaliya,” in Badaliya: Au Nom de l’Autre, eds. Borrmans and Françoise Jacquin, 19–48 (Paris: Cerf,
2011).
21. On the early romantic nature of Massignon’s relationship with Cuadra, see Gude, Crucible,
21–22.
22. Borrmans, “Aux origines,” 19.
on intended his intercession to bring Cuadra back into the Catholic fold. In
1912, while offering lectures in Islamic philosophy at the new University of
Cairo, Massignon met and formed a friendship with Mary Kahil, an Egyp-
tian Melkite Christian, whom he invited to participate in his offering on be-
half of Cuadra, seriously ill with typhus and presumed to be near death.23
Kahil recalls: “Massignon said to me: ‘You are sad because Luis [de Cuadra]
is going to die; so make a sacrifice for him! Sacrifice your life.’ I said to him:
‘What? Sacrifice my life? Me?’—‘Yes, offer your life that Luis might be con-
verted.’ In that way, together, we made the vow . . . [and] that was the begin-
ning of the Badaliya.”24 The seed was sown. Massignon and Kahil were out
of contact for some years, but in 1934 Massignon, then a third-order Fran-
ciscan, having taken the name Ibrahim, brought Kahil to the abandoned
Franciscan church at Damietta, where St. Francis offered to take up the trial
by fire in order to witness to the Incarnation, and there “Massignon and Ka-
hil vowed together to offer their lives for the Muslims ‘not so they would be
converted, but so that the will of God might be accomplished in them and
through them.’”25 The original offers of substitution for Luis de Cuadra were
formalized and expanded to include all Muslims. Such a commitment was
difficult for Kahil, whose native Arab-Christian family had suffered exclu-
sion and persecution at the hands of Muslim majorities. In a conversation
reported by Kahil herself, Massignon reminds her that her “vocation” is “to
work with Muslims.”26 Kahil expresses sadness and anger at the disappear-
ance of the ancient Christian population from Damietta. Massignon then
instructs her: “You are marked for a vow. Make a vow . . . of loving [Mus-
lims]”; but Kahil demurs: “It is impossible.”27 However, Kahil finally surren-
ders: “Then he told me that there is nothing closer to hate than love: ‘Make
a vow of giving your life for them.’ In an exalted state that is impossible
to reproduce, I did it. I made a vow to live for them, to stand in their place
before the throne of Jesus, and for the rest of my life and forever to beg
23. In 1913 Massignon arranged for a friend, a Franciscan priest, to visit Cuadra in the hospital
with the hope of converting him. Although he confessed his sins, apparently it was only to appease his
mother’s concerns: “[Massignon’s] failure to effect his friend’s conversion, and Cuadra’s seeming hy-
pocrisy of going through the motions of confession, all weighed heavily on Massignon. He wondered
if his offering had been rejected by God.” Gude, Crucible, 79. It is worth considering whether the imag-
ined interpersonal exchanges at the end of the Examen reflect Massignon’s conversations with Cuadra.
In 1921, Cuadra committed suicide in a Spanish prison.
24. Quoted in Borrmans, “Aux origines,” 20.
26. Quoted in Borrmans, “Aux origines,” 29 n. 3.
that they may receive the light. Then Massignon took me by the hand and
made the same vow.”28 Borrmans notes: “Henceforth both were consecrated
to an evangelical witness of Christian life in compassion and substitution
for their Muslim friends and compatriots.”29 The letters exchanged by Mas-
signon and Kahil in the aftermath reveal their shared love of God, enthusi-
asm for the project, and deepening spiritual bond.30
Their personal vow and offering was officially sanctioned later that year
(1934) by Pope Pius XI, and the statutes were formally approved in 1947 by
Melkite Auxiliary Patriarch Kamel-Pierre Medawar, and then by Pope Pius
XII. In the meantime, Massignon and Kahil gathered a core of sympathetic
Christians to the sodality. Early participants included Jean-Muhammad
abd-al-Jalil, Maurice Zundel (1897–1975), Jean-François Six, Youakim Mou-
barac, Jean-Pierre de Menasce, Monsignor Achille Glorieux (1910–1999)—a
personal friend of Giovanni-Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, who
also associated with the Roman Badaliya—and Georges Anawati, among
others.31 The group was centered in Cairo and was meant especially for
Eastern Christians living among Muslims, although Latin Christians par-
ticipated from the beginning. Among the activities sponsored by the group
was a series of presentations and discussions of Christian-Muslim relations
called Tuesdays at the House of Peace (Les Mardis de Dar es Salaam), which
took place at a property attached to the church of St. Mary of Peace in Cai-
ro. Satellite groups formed in other cities, including Paris, naturally, but
also Beirut, Damascus, and Rome. The groups were to meet weekly (later
monthly) for prayer, to plan, and to report on the activities of the members.
From 1947 until his death in 1962, Massignon directed the sodality—though
he consistently referred to himself merely as “one of the members from our
Paris group”—and he wrote and distributed to the membership fifteen an-
nual letters in which he explained the philosophy of the Badaliya, encour-
aged the members in their efforts, reported on particular crises in need of

29. Borrmans, “Aux origines,” 28.
30. The relationship between the married Massignon and the unwed Kahil was not without ten-
sion. Massignon once wrote: “My heart is full of joy, even to dying. Do you believe me, my friend? Do
you notice (despite your reproaches) that I too am human and not always the pontificating professor,
preaching mystical substitution and the renunciation of all creation? Jesus must teach me to love you
well . . . for I am his messenger to you.” Quoted in Borrmans, “Aux origines,” 32 n. 1.
31. Borrmans, “Essai d’une ‘Badaliya Nouvelle,” in Badaliya: Au Nom de l’Autre, eds. Borrmans and
Françoise Jacquin (Paris: Cerf, 2011), 330. Arij A. Roest Crollius reports: “Paul VI, the pope, said: ‘We
are also the Badaliya.’” Roest Crollius, “Ce que la Badaliya signifie pour moi,” in Badaliya: Au Nom de
l’Autre, 359.
their concentrated prayer and support, and reported various accomplish-

ments of the members, including pilgrimages, publications, conferences,
and interventions. He also wrote ninety-one “convocations,” communica-
tions between annual letters.32 After Massignon died, Youakim Moubarac
assumed leadership of the Badaliya, but the sodality ceased to exist in any
formal sense within a few years.33
Three basic emphases emerge from the BAL. First, while the Badaliya
was thoroughly Christian in its outlook and outreach, seeking nothing less
than the salvation of Muslims through relationship with Jesus Christ, it was
revolutionary in its approach, privileging the experience of Eastern Chris-
tians and eschewing the expectation of external conversions in favor of
joining Muslims interiorly to the soul of the Church. Second, Badaliya mem-
bers were called upon to substitute themselves for their Muslim neighbors;
they practiced radical solidarity with both Eastern Christians and Muslims,
thereby overturning received Western colonial-missionary attitudes. Third,
the means employed by Massignon included openness, sensitivity, and, ul-
timately, Christian appropriation of Islamic beliefs and practice. In order to
highlight these three emphases, I focus primarily on BAL 1 (including the
Statutes) and BAL 10, which summarizes a decade of Badaliya activities and
presents Massignon’s mature understanding of the substitution spirituality
that underlay those activities.34
BAL 1, written in 1947, reprises and elaborates much of what is writ-
ten in the Statutes, and is titled Explanation of the Badaliya (Explication de
la Badaliya). It opens under the heading The call and the place (l’appel et le
lieu), which undoubtedly refers to the medieval practice, made widespread
in the later Ignatian spiritual exercises, of beginning meditative prayer
with a “composition of place” (compositio loci); in other words, the open-
ing of BAL 1 is deliberately meditative.35 However, instead of inviting the
32. See BAL.

33. For a more intricate history of the foundation and operation of the Badaliya, including the
influence of the group upon major Catholic thinkers and hierarchs, and also the difficulty of main-
taining the sodality in the absence of its charismatic founder, see Borrmans, “Essai,” 329–48. For a
description of the founding of the Badaliya in the words of its founders, see Keryell, L’hospitalité. Doro-
thy Buck, inspired by Massignon’s witness, established a new chapter of the Badaliya in Boston, Mas-
sachusetts. See Buck, “Badaliya,” http://stpaulparish.org/social-justice/badaliya/.
34. The editors of the recently published Badaliya letters and convocations attached the original
statutes of the Badaliya—that is, the text for which Medawar provided the imprimatur—to the first
annual letter, so that they now function as a kind of preamble to the first letter. However, I refer sepa-
rately to the “Statutes” and to “BAL 1.” On the statutes, see also Keryell, L’hospitalité, 371–72.
35. The compositio loci involves placing oneself in some particular setting, usually a scene from
the Gospels, and allowing oneself to be present to the persons and events therein, especially to the
reader to encounter Christ as one normally would in Christian meditation

(though that is certainly the ultimate goal) Massignon’s letter asks readers
to center themselves in the place and time of the founding of the Badaliya,
thereby inviting them prayerfully to appropriate the vocation of Massignon
and Kahil and to participate in their compassion for those who have not
yet received the fullness of revelation. The opening lines even suggest that
Massignon is conducting a guided meditation: “Let us come to the place,
slowly, meditating, in the land of Islam, in Egypt; let us compose for our-
selves . . . this human place of election where we received our vocation, . . .
where the invisible Spirit of consolation and truth touched us, once and
forever, with the desire to heal hearts broken by the silent absence of God,
having become deaf to the One who appears to have retreated from their
lives, the lost sheep in the desert (dâllat), in the land of Islam.”36 Massignon
then recalls the events of the sodality’s foundation, which I described ear-
lier, including the vow made on behalf of Luis de Cuadra, here referred to
as an apostate friend (un ami renégat), his decision to become a Franciscan
tertiary, and his and Kahil’s intention to dedicate themselves to St. Francis’s
mission of hospitality and charity. He emphasizes the role of the Badaliya in
encouraging Eastern Christians, especially Arabophone Christians, in their
“true mission,” reminding the members that God will judge them according
to the dignity and charity with which they conduct themselves as guests
among the Muslims.37
The Statutes reveal how thoroughly Christian an organization the Badali-
ya was from its earliest conception. The goal of that “union of prayers” was
to facilitate “the manifestation of Christ in Islam,” to enable the Holy Spir-
it’s “groundwater of grace” to “well up,” and to seek the “incorporation” of
Muslims “to the Church.”38 The presence of Badaliya members in Muslim
communities would recall and extend the medieval examples of St. Francis
of Assisi, St. Louis IX of France (1214–1270), and the Mercredarians, who of-
fered to take the place of imprisoned Christians during the Crusades, and
person of Jesus. In doing so, “one can see that being present is two-sided. The person who contemplates
makes him- or herself present with respect to the mystery—but that mystery is of a person already
present, here and now, and indeed in a unique way, to the person contemplating. The mystery thus
contains not so much an event from the life of Christ that might reveal the working of God, but the
person of Jesus Christ himself, present in a fixed geographical and temporal context.” Nicolas Stan-
daert, “The Composition of Place: Creating Space for an Encounter,” The Way 46, no. 1 (2007): 10.
36. BAL 1, 57.
37. BAL 1, 58.
38. BAL Statutes, 51–52.
they were called to “perfect and to complement the passion of Christ vis-à-
vis [the Muslims]” by accepting the trial by fire Muhammad offered to their
seventh-century ancestors. In all of this, as the heading of section two of BAL
1 suggests, the Badaliya intended to accomplish The blossoming of Jesus, son
of Mary, in Islam (Zuhûr ‘Issä-ibn-Meryem fî ‘l-Islâm).39 They would seek Mus-
lims’ “slow configuration . . . [and] incorporation to Christ, who wants, bit by
bit, to win everyone.”40 Badaliya members were to strive for personal sanc-
tification, “aspiring to become another Christ (like living Gospels),” in order
that Muslims might “recognize Him through us.”41 Finally, they prepared to
suffer rejection, persecution, even martyrdom, as Christ demanded and as
Foucauld received.42
However, despite the traditional vocabulary he employs, Massignon in-
sists in the Statutes that the “Badaliya is distinct from other associations and
leagues of prayer that exist in Europe.”43 For one thing, the Badaliya was
not one more Western Christian solution to the problem of Islam. Badaliya
Christians were not Western Europeans bringing Christ from afar in a pack-
age that included European political, military, and economic domination.
The focus was on support for Middle Eastern Christians, who because of
the “Muslim conquest have been reduced to a ‘little flock,’” and who must
therefore “follow the example of the Word made flesh, living among [Mus-
lims] daily, mixing with their lives . . . as salt is mixed with food in order to
add flavor.”44 In the first section of BAL 1 he adds: “With these Christians,
still tolerated in Muslim lands because they continue to speak and pray
in Arabic, we identify ourselves in love, we Christians, whether western
or eastern, Latinized or Hellenized.”45 From the inception of the Badaliya,
Massignon envisions Christians and Muslims living together rather than
Christians replacing or expelling Muslims. Even more distinctive from Eu-
ropean leagues of prayer, however, was that the “promotion of the manifes-
tation of Christ in Islam” and “desire for the incorporation of Muslims to the
Church” did “not necessarily mean external conversions.”46 Rather, it was
enough to increase the number of Muslims who “belong to the soul of the
39. BAL 1, 58.

40. BAL 1, 59.
41. BAL Statutes, 52.
45. BAL 1, 57–58.
46. BAL Statutes, 54–55.
Church” and who therefore “live and die in grace.”47 Such an attitude was
revolutionary.
The question of conversions remains a sensitive one. In section four
of BAL 1, which is titled Substitution realized (la substitution réalisée), Mas-
signon writes: “The most profound apostolate is not trying hard to ‘convert’
from the outside, [which derives from] an attitude that misrepresents [trav-
estit] and renders odious the Christian zeal for souls.”48 Success is not de-
pendent upon our ability to manipulate the statistics of religious identifica-
tion in our favor; rather “it is God alone who converts the other when He
reconciles him, interiorly, in the solitude of his heart. It is enough for us to
be axially substituted for this consoled soul.”49 Here one finds a real evolu-
tion from Massignon’s reflections on conversion in his early years where
he linked salvation with explicit and sacramental conversion to the Roman
Catholic Church. It is now sufficient to know that Muslims who have con-
verted interiorly, in their hearts, can live and die in a state of grace, attached
to the soul of the Church.
Rocalve rightly asks: “Can we really say it is not a matter of [exterior]
conversion when one envisages the possibility of bringing Muslims to rec-
ognize the Incarnation and the Cross?”50 It is true that Massignon never re-
jected explicit conversions altogether, but conversion to another religious
tradition is never simply a matter of adherence to a new set of doctrines.
It requires new institutional and ritual involvement as well.51 Massignon’s
hesitation vis-à-vis what he called exterior conversions meant that, while he
did hope Muslims would realize the truth of Christian teaching about Je-
sus, he nonetheless would not insist on a change of institutional allegiance.
What if a Muslim sincerely sought baptism? As it remains today, so it was
a live question then. In BAL 4 Massignon writes: “The question is posed—
at least three times this year [1950]—whether the Badaliya members may
arrange for the baptism of those for whom they ‘substitute’ themselves.”52
He answers cautiously: “We have neither required it nor refused it, but we

48. BAL 1, 62.
49. BAL 1, 62.
51. Sidney Griffith wrote that as they were for Thomas Merton, so too for Massignon, “other re-
ligions were other people, and not just sets of other doctrines.” See Griffith, “Thomas Merton, Louis
Massignon, and the Challenge of Islam,” The Merton Annual 3 (1990): 169. On the friendship of Massi-
gnon and Merton, see also Herbert Mason, “Freundschaft im Angesicht des Friedens. Mein Briefwech-
sel mit Merton und Massignon,” Geist and Leben 3 (2015), 308–18.
52. BAL 4, 74.
must insist that any neophytes exhibit discernment and maturity in their
desire.”53 If those conditions were met, then a member of the Badaliya could
satisfy the would-be convert’s petition, arranging for baptism according to
local ecclesiastical norms, “for we desire to become One in Christ forever
and at any price.”54
Massignon was criticized for his position on conversions by both Muslims
and Christians. In BAL 13 he explains that Les Mardis de Dar es Salaam were
“attacked by a fatwa of al-Azhar” as advancing a “missionary agenda [mission-
narisme] camouflaged in scientific orientalism.”55 Disappointed, he responds:
“The Badaliya does not seek the ‘exterior conversion’ of its non-Christian
friends; it asks them to deepen, by an ‘interior conversion’ on the axis of the
God of Abraham, their present confessional position (see the autobiography
of Al-Ghazâlî) by a meditative and ascetical rule of life, which is susceptible
to engendering in them the Face ‘that was formed in Mary, of Jesus’ at the
very depths of their Muslim heart, the Face that will cast [mouler] itself in
them through a ‘baptism of desire.’”56 His position was equally misunder-
stood by Christians. He writes: “Apropos baptism, we are also attacked by
certain Christian brothers who call us ‘Qur’anizers’ and who would have us
work on our friends in order to administer sacramental baptisms.”57 In re-
sponse, Massignon reminds his critics of the dubious effectiveness of bap-
tisms of Muslims in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Spain, and he highlights
the story of Philip and the conversion of Queen Candace’s Ethiopian eunuch
(Acts 8:26–40): “It was only after the eunuch understood the passage of Isaiah
on the sacrifice of the lamb that Philip could baptize him in the sign of the
sacrificial Cross. Until the adult desires to be clothed in the Blood of Christ
and in the Fire of the Spirit (the eastern Church does not separate Confirma-
tion and Baptism), it is wise to defer sacramental baptism.”58
The main thrust of Christian mission is, therefore, not to increase mem-
bership in a club; it is to win a decision for, and to encourage participation
53. BAL 4, 74.

54. BAL 4, 74–75. On the conversion, baptism, and ordination of Jean-Muhammad Abd el-Jalil,
for whom Louis Massignon served as godfather, see Massignon, Massignon–Abd el-Jalil: Parrain et fil-
leul, 1926–1962, ed. Françoise Jacquin (Paris: Cerf, 2007).
55. BAL 13, 251. Massignon also defended Charles de Foucauld, and the Badaliya through associa-
tion with Foucauld, against charges that he was a French spy: “Foucauld is not the qiddîs al-jâsûsiya,
the patron saint of Franco-Christian espionage in the Sahara; he is the hermit, martyred by the Mus-
lim Berber [Hoggar], his dakhîl, his guest, hostage, and ransom.” BAL 1, 63.
56. BAL 13, 251.
57. BAL 13, 251.
58. BAL 13, 251.
in, the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of a person, namely Jesus
Christ. Until a Muslim knows in wide-eyed and clear-headed fashion what
he is getting into, until he explicitly desires the blood of Christ and the fire of
the Spirit, it is wise to cultivate conversion from within Islam, using Islam-
ic resources such as the authentic vocations to mystical union among the
“friends of God,” hoping to develop slowly the face of Jesus in “their Muslim
hearts.”59 Massignon summarizes his position very clearly elsewhere:
Conversion is not a certificate of passage that we paste on the conscience of someone
else. It is the thorough search for whatever is most noble in their religious loyalty
and which our presence wants to bring about in them, in the course of a common la-
bor, provided always that our mask of substitutes makes us become really “theirs,” by
means of compassion, the transferral of suffering and, let us boldly add, of hope. We
are not talking about abandoning Christianity for Islam or the Western bloc [NATO]
for the Soviet bloc [Warsaw Pact]. Forma servi accepta [having accepted the form of
a slave], we must work to make sure that they find liberation within themselves,
accepting in their soul that image of the insulted Christ, the Redeemer, which has
moved us to love them and, if necessary, to give them everything we own.60
Necessary to give them everything we own: Massignon consistently was more

concerned about the authenticity of Christians’ generosity and humility
toward Muslims than he was about the Muslims’ response. He constantly
pushes Badaliya members to perform the “works of mercy,” by which he
means “responding to [Muslims’] ‘cry for justice’ (sahya bi-l-haqq) by enter-
ing into their most difficult cases of conscience when their friendship en-
trusts them to us.”61 Badaliya members must “cry for them the tears of Mary
prefigured in the tears of Hagar.” They must also “rejoice with them, suffer
with them in what they lack, and above all be worthy of carrying [apporter]
them. ‘Langueres [sic] nostros Ipse tulit’ [He has borne our griefs]; this justi-
fies God for it is his apparent harsh treatment of them [the Muslims] that
touched us and brought us close to them.”62 Finally, echoing the conclu-
sion of the Examen, he writes: “He does not want to save them without us.”63
Therefore we must “substitute ourselves” by “paying a ransom on their be-
half and at our expense.”64 In a word, in the Badaliya Massignon cultivated
Christian solidarity with Muslims.
59. BAL 13, 251.

60. Quoted in Basetti-Sani, Louis Massignon, 108–9.
61. BAL 1, 59.
62. Isaiah 53:4; BAL 1, 60.
63. BAL 1, 60.
Solidarity is easier said than done. Resistance and rejection are real pos-
sibilities, so he quotes encouragingly from the last letter he received from
Charles de Foucauld. Foucauld told Massignon (and now Massignon tells
the Badaliya) to “go to the front,” by which he means “never hesitating to
request the posts where the danger, the sacrifice, and the [required] loyalty
are the greatest: as for the honor, let him who wants it have it, but the dan-
ger and the pain, let us always be the ones to accept them.”65 Then, with an
important turn of phrase that I revisit later on, Massignon comments: “That
is the true jihâd akbar [greater jihâd] of the Arabs, the ‘holy war,’ waged
deep within oneself, suffering the very problems for which one seeks re-
pair and wants to atone.”66 As we can see, Massignon regularly employed
military terminology, but he turned the meaning of that terminology on its
head. War is to be waged against internal, rather than external, enemies.
The Badaliya is positioned on the front lines not to win the honor of having
drawn first blood, but to render itself deliberately vulnerable to rejection
and disappointment. He effectively challenged the colonial-missionary log-
ic of the day, arguing that charity must never be “tactical, annexationist [an-
nexionniste], colonialist; neither Hellenist, nor Latin; neither Franciscan, nor
Jesuit, nor Foucauldian.”67 There is no grand strategy for success here, there
is only love; but for Christians, the possibility of salvation depends upon
the character of that love: “We will receive above, said Foucauld, what we
gave below.”68 According to Massignon, the members should refrain even
from emphasizing their role as members of the Badaliya. If the diocese in
which they find themselves comprises a native Arab hierarchy and is sym-
pathetic to their aims, then they should simply support the efforts of the
local church.69
The emphasis on process over results culminates in section three of
BAL 1, titled The Means that Become the End (Le moyen qui devient fin), where
Massignon defines the term Badaliya as follows:
“Badaliya,” in Arabic, means “replacement, exchange with the soldier whose lot was
drawn [tiré au sort]”; it also means to become one of the “abdâl,” one of the humble,
hidden, and rejected cornerstones of the Community of true Believers in the God of
65. BAL 1, 59. This was a response to a letter during World War I in which Massignon asked Fou-
cauld’s counsel regarding the possibility of a transfer from the Ministry of Information to an infantry
brigade at the front.
66. BAL 1, 59–60.
67. BAL 1, 62.
68. BAL 1, 62–63.
69. BAL 1, 62.
Abraham, who, imitating Abraham in his intercession, share with him, according to
the immemorial legend of Islam, from age to age, the overwhelming (and obscure)
honor of participating in the reconciliation of the sinful world with its judge. For that
is our vocation, to rediscover the primordial word of divine love to which our hearts
were predestined, to recognize it in the call of those whom we go to help, and to re-
spond to it by witnessing to the Tawhîd 70 among them, rendering “a purer meaning
to the words of the Arab tribe.” [We do this] in order that the saving mission of this
language, the last evoked in the Pentecost story, is brought to perfection in Arabia
where St. Paul commenced the Bishâra71 that responds to the Sayha bi’l-Haqq 72 of the
oppressed and the excluded, to their clamor for justice.73
For Massignon, the means become the end. The critics condemned Badali-
ya members for failing to secure more baptisms among Muslims, but that
is to focus on the end. Massignon focused almost exclusively on the means,
organizing “a response of heroic love to the objections” of Islam.74 Not he-
roic answers, but heroic love. If the means—love, intercessions, prayer, and
substitution—were undertaken sincerely, then the end would take care of
itself. As the section title indicates, the means would become the end. A lov-
ing, prayerful, fraternal, Abrahamic, interceding community of Christians
and Muslims would be formed. Only then, after suspending concern for
the end in favor of purifying the means, would it become clear that “the
Incarnation really took place.”75 Only when “compassion for our brothers”
becomes an end in itself will Muslims recognize the wisdom of the cross.76
When God became human, He rendered Himself vulnerable to criticism,
rejection, persecution, suffering, and murder, all of which He experienced,
not out of desire for honor, but out of authentic love for His wounded, sin-
ful creatures. The Badaliya was thoroughly Christian not fundamentally
because it depended upon Christian liturgy or because it was approved
by the Catholic hierarchy, although all of that was essential, but because
it attempted to embrace and advance God’s self-emptying love toward and
identification with God’s people, in this case specifically the Muslims. The
Badaliya put into practice Massignon’s first step of welcoming to their right-
ful place at the Abrahamic table the exiled descendants of Ishmael.
70. Divine unity.

71. The Good News.
72. The outcry for justice in witness to the God of Truth.
73. BAL 1, 60–61.
74. BAL 1, 63.
75. BAL 1, 63.
76. BAL 1, 63.
Substitution as spiritual disposition demands regular spiritual training.

At a minimum, the members of the Badaliya were expected first of all to
adopt Massignon’s practice of reciting the thrice-daily Angelus in conjunc-
tion with the three prayers of Abraham, offering the morning Angelus, in
conjunction with Abraham’s prayer for Isaac, for the Jewish people “and
what he called the sin against hope”; the noon Angelus, in conjunction with
Abraham’s prayer for Ishmael, for the Muslims “and what he called the sin
against faith”; and the evening Angelus, in conjunction with Abraham’s
prayer for Sodom, for what he called “the sin against charity.”77 Massignon
wanted members to be present regularly to “the fiat of Mary, the mystery
of the Incarnation that Muslims deny” during “those same hours when the
call to prayer from the muezzin calls [the Muslims’] hearts to worship the
one God of Abraham.”78 They were also to meet weekly (later monthly), on
Friday, “the day of the Passion of Christ, which is also [the Muslims’] meet-
ing day.”79 They were to begin each meeting with fifteen minutes of adora-
tion in the chapel, and they were to include a recitation of Psalm 117 (in
Arabic, if possible), some spiritual reading, “preferably from the writings of
Father Foucauld,” commentary on the reading from the members, a read-
ing of the previous meeting’s minutes, “discussion of theoretical and practi-
cal problems” related to the group’s mission, some reading on Islam, and
recitation of the Ignatian suscipe (in Arabic, if possible).80 The whole meet-
ing was to last not more than one hour, including the time for adoration.
More fundamentally, they were expected to adopt “an entirely benevolent,
affectionate, considerate, and truly fraternal attitude [toward Muslims], as
far as prudence allows,” which “requires deep penetration,” “fraternal un-
derstanding,” and “careful consideration” of the lives of Muslims “past and
present, whom God has placed in our path.”81
Badaliya members were also asked to make their love for Muslims ex-
plicit and intentional in their celebration of the Eucharist. Under the final
heading of section six in BAL 1, “to prove to him that we desire him, by dy-
ing,” Massignon develops the Eucharistic theme. In the opening sentence

80. BAL Statutes, 56. The suscipe is a prayer composed by St. Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556): “Take,
Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, All I have and call
my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you
will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.”
of the section, he writes: “If it is true, my God, as You said Yourself, that to
die proves our love completely to those for whom we die, then let us medi-
tate together on how to die with Him in order to prove how much God de-
sires [the Muslims].”82 Then he suggests that dying with Christ demands a
firmer attachment to the sacrament of the Eucharist. It is in the Eucharist
that Christ allows his real physical presence to be utterly destroyed through
the assimilation of the accidents of bread and wine in the digestive pro-
cess, in order to share life with the one who consumes Him. The Christian
is asked to give his own life for others, and in this way, “[Jesus] no longer
suffers in Himself but in his members who have experienced [qu’a touché]
his agonizing humility and who suffer more cruelly in his place the insults
and contempt that no longer reach him from the spiteful idiot [sotte mé-
chanceté] who cannot tarnish the radiant truth.”83 It was “Hallâj and Gan-
dhi” who helped Massignon to understand the Eucharistic nature of hospi-
tality, to understand that “hospitality shared amongst companions in work
and in honor is the prefiguration of the extension of the Last Supper to all
mankind.”84 The celebration of the Eucharist illuminates the aspect of re-
demptive suffering inherent in the Christian life:
Physical death, which comes to silence every voice here below, cannot take hold of
our witness, and the expansion of its echo in every direction no longer preoccupies
us. He takes us; He has already taken us alone with Him alone. The one who will
cause us to die has already paid the price in blood, this Diyà85 of the Arabs “that falls
to the Murderer.” The élan of compassion that unites us together to the origin causes
us to be thrilled with hope. The sad humiliation will pass. It will lead us from the In-
carnation across pure faith in the transubstantiation of the intelligible species toward
the direct peace of divine glory. We recognize him who was made a sign, in suffering
with his Cross, in the Holy Sacrament where he is annihilated, resurrected, trium-
phant, glorious.86
The same One who created every person and who will cause every person to
die underwent death Himself, and He gave Himself to the world in perpetuity.
The sentence in which Massignon writes that Jesus “has already paid
the price in blood” and refers to the Diyà of the Arabs is a double reference
to Islamic tradition. Recall the story of the Sufi about to undertake the pil-
82. BAL 1, 63.

83. BAL 1, 64.
85. Blood money.
86. BAL 1, 64.
grimage from Baghdad to Mecca who was ill prepared in terms of provi-
sions but whose attitude suggested total abandonment to God: “If I die, let
the blood fall on my Murderer.” Probably Massignon means here to invoke
that same reference. It is in giving oneself completely to God, in surrender-
ing to God the consequences of one’s services, that one comes to realize
hope. That is the lesson of the Incarnation and the Eucharist. Second, having
“already paid the price in blood” is a favorite reference of Massignon’s from
the life of Hallâj. In fact, that saying was the first to strike his curiosity about
this mystic and martyr. The context is Hallâj’s execution, when, as was the
custom, before being crucified his arms and legs were severed. Here is a re-
construction of the scene:
In the account of ‘Attar . . . [Hallâj] is said to have “rubbed his bloody amputated hands
over his face, so that both his arms and his face were stained with blood.”
“Why did you do that?” people enquired.
“Much blood has gone out of me,” he replied.
“I realize that my face will have grown pale. You suppose that my pallor is be-
cause I am afraid. I rubbed blood over my face so that I might appear rose-cheeked in
your eyes. The cosmetic of heroes is their blood.”
“Even if you bloodied your face, why did you stain your arms?”
“I was making ablution.”
“What ablution?”
“When one prays two rak’as in love,” Hallâj replied, “the ablution is not perfect
unless performed in blood.”87
Ablution is the ritual cleansing that Muslims perform before praying

(salât). The two rak’as refer to the prostrations made during the prayer. The
sense is that full purification, full union with God, full unification of the
soul, is effected in the blood of martyrdom as manifest in the example of
Christ. Apparently Massignon placed an inscription of this verse on the cof-
fin of an Algerian demonstrator who was killed by French police. Both of
these references, to the Sufi pilgrim and to Hallâj, show Massignon’s belief
that the saints of Islam could and did participate in the Passion of Christ as
much as did Christian saints.
Therefore, one of the ways Massignon brought members to a deeper
understanding of Islam was to pepper the BAL with Arabic and Islamic
phrases, suggesting contact points between the two traditions. I mentioned
previously his description in BAL 1 of sanctification as al-jihâd al-akbar, or
87. Mason, Al-Hallâj, 30.

the greater jihâd. That is how Sufis would characterize the process of in-
ner purification that accompanies the soul’s striving toward union with
God. There is a hadîth in which Muhammad, returning from the battlefield,
tells his companions that while they have completed the lesser, or outer,
struggle of the battlefield (al-jihâd al-asghar), they now must return to the
greater struggle of self-purification (al-jihâd al-akbar).88 Elsewhere in BAL 1,
Massignon encourages the members to share in a “full acceptance of the
Will of God, tawakkul, islâm, ikhlâs, a poor and adoring khalwa . . . renounc-
ing everything but the Marian ‘fiat,’ the kun, in the House of the family of
Nasâra, at al-Nâsira, Nazareth.”89 Tawakkul, which refers to complete trust
in God, and ikhlâs, which refers to sincere devotion, are common terms in
Sufi manuals. They typically appear among the maqamat (stations) or ah-
wal (states), that is, the various levels or degrees of spiritual maturity to be
achieved by the Sufi en route to union with God. Islâm and taslim, which
derive from the same Arabic root, refer to complete surrender or acknowl-
edgment of God’s universal presence, guidance, and just authority, the very
goal of human existence, according to the Qur’an. In another place, Massi-
gnon identifies the Holy Spirit with the “Rûh Allâh, identical, for Islam, with
Issa ibn Meryem”; he lauds the basmala, “In the name of God,” the Muslim
invocation that precedes almost every sûra of the Qur’an and is ubiqui-
tous in daily Muslim life; he praises the Muslim spiritual principle ibtighâ’
mardât Allâh, “the desire to satisfy God”; and he even mentions the khalwat
al-arb’in, the Sufi forty-day retreat.90 Examples could be multiplied indefi-
nitely. The point is that Massignon fairly regularly employs Islamic religious
categories and terminology to communicate with the Christian Badaliya
membership, for many of whom such terms would be foreign.91
The purpose for doing so, besides having become natural for Massi-
gnon (to which a reading of any of his later writings attests), was to facili-
tate among the membership at least an imaginative adoption of a Muslim’s
perspective; that is, to begin to cultivate in them what Basetti-Sani called
an “internalization of Islam.”92 As mentioned at the beginning of the book,
88. John Renard, Seven Doors to Islam: Spirituality and the Religious Life of Muslims (Berkeley, Calif.:
University of California Press, 1996), 11.
89. BAL 1, 58.
90. BAL 1, 58–59.
91. Sidney Griffith demonstrated how indebted to Islam all Arabic religious language is. See
Griffith, Bible.
92. Basetti-Sani dedicates the second half of his book to Massignon’s “internalization of the five
pillars of Islam.” Basetti-Sani, Louis Massignon, 103–60.
Massignon once wrote: “Al-Hallâj said that to comprehend something else

does not mean to annex it, but rather to be transferred, through decentral-
ization of ourselves, into the very center of the other thing in question. . . .
We can help ourselves understand only by entering into the system of the
other thing.”93 One could say that the Badaliya sodality was an extension of
the Pauline program in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23:
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win
the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the
law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I
might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the
law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win
those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have
become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the
sake of the Gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
“To the Muslims, I became a Muslim” in order to win the Muslims, but
to become a Muslim, for Massignon, means to enter into the system of Is-
lam.94 Here one finds on the personal-practical level a transposition of
Massignon’s interiorist methodology as a scholar. He argues that, in order
to understand the content of a mystic’s reflection, one must at least hypo-
thetically put oneself in the mystic’s place. One must personally redo the
relevant moral experiment. Here, in order to enter the system of Islam, one
must put oneself in the Muslim’s place, even to the point of adopting, at
least hypothetically or imaginatively, the Muslim perspective on Jesus and
Christianity. For example, Massignon’s reference to the Nasâra in the previ-
ous quotation is an acceptance of the common Qur’anic title for Christians,
namely the Nazarenes. It may seem simple enough, but actually it is com-
plicated, because the Nasâra are regularly criticized in the Qur’an for devi-
ating from the message of Jesus and making false claims about Jesus and
God, especially about the Trinity and Jesus’s divinity.95 As we saw, ‘Isa of the
Qur’an is not divine, and he is not the Son of God; he was not even crucified.
Yet, as we saw in the chapter on Christ, in order to affirm the Qur’an’s posi-
tive account of Jesus, Massignon wrote: “In his Agony, Jesus is very much
the Muslim Issa ibn Meryem, robbed of all divinity.”96 Accepting the Qur’anic

94. Basetti-Sani, Louis Massignon, 105.
95. For example, Qur’an 5:82, 4:171, 5:72–75, 5:116, 19:88–93, 23:91, 112:1–4. See McAuliffe, Qur’anic
Christians.
96. BAL 1, 64.
designation Nazarenes for Christians works the same way. The Badaliya,
here representative of the Church, in another kind of Copernican shift, ac-
cepts its place as part of the Muslim landscape. It therefore grants to Islam
a certain authority, but it does so in order to invite further reflection on the
significance of al-Nâsira as the place of the Marian fiat, the place of the In-
carnation. For Massignon, the traditional Muslim perspective on Christians,
as on Jesus, is not sufficient, but it is legitimate.
From the tenth through the fifteenth letters of the BAL (1956–1962), a
significant portion of each text was dedicated to a Moral Report (Rapport
moral) for the previous year, which was structured according to the five
pillars of Islam: witness or profession of faith (shahâda), prayer (salât),
almsgiving (zakât), fasting (sawm), and pilgrimage (hajj). The purpose of
organizing the report that way was to show how “our spiritual and mate-
rial assistance to our Muslim friends by our humble works of mercy” al-
lows one to “intensify . . . the five pillars [plans] of their social and religious
life.”97 Typically, the moral report of each communiqué was a chance to list
the Badaliya’s activities according to those five pillars, loosely interpreted.
For example, in BAL 14, which summarizes the previous thirteen years of
activity, Massignon mentions visiting Arab refugees in the Holy Land and in
France, praying outside the Paris mosque in solidarity with Muslim work-
ers in Paris, arranging proper funerals for Muslims killed by French police,
setting up a Christian-Muslim pilgrimage to the Chapel of the Seven Sleep-
ers in Brittany, fasting in solidarity with Muslims during Ramadan and es-
pecially for an end to French-Muslim violence, visiting Muslims in various
prisons, lobbying for the reinstatement of the Sultan of Morocco, raising
money for many causes, including a hospital in Tokyo, protesting against
prisoner camps for North Africans in France, and much more.98
Witness (in French témoignage, in Arabic shahâda) refers principally
to the public testimony of Muslim faith, There is no god but God, and Mu-
hammad is the messenger of God, but in the case of the Badaliya, the cate-
gory of witness included all the ways that members publicly demonstrated
their faith, usually in relation to Muslim welfare. Massignon might men-
tion marching in protests or presenting at conferences, publishing books
or articles, securing audiences with members of the hierarchy, meeting
with Muslim intellectuals or prayer groups, etc. A unique and specific goal
97. BAL 10, 155.

98. BAL 14, 267–79.
of witness was to “persuade our Muslim brothers in Egypt and Syria that
Christianity is ‘native’ to Arab countries,” in a way reminding them of the
Qur’anic legitimacy of the Nazarenes.99 Almsgiving in Islam, zakât, refers to
the obligatory charity tax on every able Muslim for distribution among the
needy of the community. In the Badaliya it referred to various projects in
need of funding, including support for North African refugees, restoration
of churches and monasteries, and assistance to Arab-Christian communi-
ties. It also meant working for the end of legalized prostitution instituted
by French officials in Algeria and Morocco.100 Fasting, sawm, in Islam refers
principally to the obligatory fast during the month of Ramadan in prepa-
ration for the commemoration of the descent (tanzîl) of the Qur’an. In the
Badaliya it referred principally to the fasts undertaken by members on the
first Friday of each month with the intention of securing from God a just
and “serene peace” in the Middle East. Massignon also listed numerous ad-
ditional fasts undertaken (at least by him), sometimes in concert with the
Friends of Gandhi, sometimes with the main Foucauldian group, the Union,
and often with Jewish friends on Yom Kippur. Pilgrimage, hajj, of course
refers first to the annual pilgrimage to Mecca where, according to Muslim
understanding, Abraham and Ishmael built the Ka’ba. Every adult Muslim
who is able to do so physically, financially, psychologically, relationally, and
so on is obligated to make the journey at least once in his or her lifetime.
The rite also includes the intercessory sacrifice that commemorates Abra-
ham’s near sacrifice of his son. In the BAL, Massignon listed the destinations
members reached as pilgrims in any given year, and they span the globe.
One deserves special mention, an annual pilgrimage with invited Muslim
guests to the chapel of the Seven Sleepers at Vieux-Marché (Plouaret) in
Brittany, about which I say a word in the following discussion.
Prayer, or salât, represented the most controversial aspect of the Badali-
ya’s appropriation of the pillars of Islam. Muslims are required to pray five
times per day (approximately at dawn, noon, afternoon, dusk, and night),
performing a series of prostrations and reciting certain formulae and
Qur’anic passages. In addition to adopting Massignon’s thrice-daily recita-
tion of the Angelus, according to BAL 10, Badaliya members also celebrated
mass each Friday during the Islamic month of Ramadan and particularly
on the Night of Power (laylat al-Qadr), when the revelation of the Qur’an is
99. BAL 11, 187.

100. BAL 7, 93.
traditionally understood to have begun, which is celebrated on one of the

last odd-numbered nights of Ramadan. During mass, Badaliya members
were to share in the Muslims’ “hope in ‘the descent of divine mercy.’”101
At one point they also began to open their meetings by praying the Fâtiha.
The Fâtiha (Q 1:1–8) is the opening sûra and prayer of the Qur’an, and it
constitutes the foundation of all Islamic liturgy: “1:1 In the name of Allah,
the Beneficent, the Merciful. 2. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, 3. The
Beneficent, the Merciful, 4. Master [King] of the Day of Judgment. 5. Thee
(alone) we worship. 6. Thee (alone) we ask for help. 7. Show us the straight
path, 8. The path of those whom thou hast favored; Not the (path) of those
who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.”
Even more controversial than Christians praying the fundamental Is-
lamic prayer was that they did so before a crucifix. Massignon writes: “Since
November 2nd [1956], at each monthly meeting, we have said, in Arabic, the
Fâtiha, the Muslim prayer of recourse to the King of the Day of Judgment,
Mâliki yawm al-Dîn: before a crucifix, in order to identify better this Judge,
whom, like us, they await.”102 In a letter of 1956 to then Archbishop J. B. Mon-
tini, Massignon confides his determination to continue the practice until his
death.103
Praying the Fâtiha before a crucifix is a powerful, concise, and effective
image. It captures the translation of Massignon’s vision into action. First,
Muslim prayer, derived from the Qur’an, in and of itself is valid, even legiti-
mate, for Christian practice. That much is evident by the Badaliya’s adop-
tion of the Fâtiha. However, it is only completed or perfected, or, in a partic-
ularly Massignonian vein, only “blooms” when recited before the crucifix,
in explicit orientation toward Christ. The Qur’an speaks of the “Judge,” but
the Church knows who that Judge is. Abrahamic faith in the Day of Judg-
ment makes “catechumens” of the Muslims, “with whom (and not only for
whom) [the Church] prays, we to whom the fullness of the third theological
virtue, Charity, has been given.”104 Massignon was aware of the controversy
such practice generated. In BAL 10, he defends himself, arguing that praying
the Fâtiha is not a communicatio in divinis (communication in divine things,
typically sharing of sacraments between Catholics and non-Catholics),
101. BAL 10, 156.

102. BAL 10, 156.
103. Quoted in Keryell, L’hospitalité, 298–99.
104. BAL 15, 312. Likewise, hope in the Messiah makes catechumens of the Jews.
but rather represents only a commercium105 in spiritualibus (Catholics and

non-Catholics sharing spiritual things such as prayer or meditation).106
Borrmans attempted to justify Massignon’s efforts to interiorize Islam in his
last years, arguing that they were “in total coherence with his faith in Jesus
Christ.”107 Nonetheless, Massignon undoubtedly raised a few eyebrows, es-
pecially among his critics.
The reader will recall from chapter 3 that Massignon described substitu-
tion as a process of absorbing the anger, the insults, and even the violence
directed at another. All the while, the Christian knows that Christ substi-
tutes himself for all of us. He wrote: “As Gandhi already signaled . . . the ‘ser-
vant of order’ drops his chosen victim and turns his hatred against those
of us who interposed ourselves; he picks up stones (or a grenade) against
us and blocks his ears. Or, even better, he solicits witnesses from the press
in order to mutilate our words, which they transform from prayer into
blasphemy.” In the context of the Badaliya, this meant standing in specifi-
cally for Muslims, “the most harshly treated by God among the children of
Abraham.”108 To understand Massignon’s description of Muslim oppression,
one must imagine the increased hostility felt and expressed by Europeans
toward Muslims as the tensions between France and its North African colo-
nies evolved into violence, bloodshed, and war. Massignon demonstrated
and protested on behalf of justice for and humane treatment of Algerian
prisoners of war, for which he received blows, physically and in the press,
from various servants of order. On February 17, 1958, while giving a lecture
on Foucauld, Massignon was physically attacked by young men who op-
posed his position on the treatment of Algerians.
Today one might imagine being a Christian in New York City immedi-
ately following the attacks on the World Trade Center by al Qaeda terrorists
in 2001, or a French Christian after the 2015 and 2016 ISIS attacks in Paris,
defending the good nature of Islam and the simple pious faith of Muslims.
It is not difficult to imagine the anger and accusations of naïveté to which
one could be subjected in person as well as in the press and from the pul-
pit. Massignon’s experience in France during the Algerian war would have
some resonance with those examples; he was doubly considered a traitor,
against his country and his church. Whatever one makes of the status of
105. Massignon likely meant communicatio.

106. BAL 10, 155.
107. Borrmans, “Aspects,” 130.
108. BAL 10, 147.
Muslims then or now as the least among us, the hostility and mockery that
one receives for defending Muslims is unfortunately self-evident.
Christian-Muslim Bridge Figures

I conclude the chapter by noting that a natural outcome of Massignon’s
internalization of Islam was his increased devotional and scholarly in-
terest in what one might call Christian-Muslim bridge figures. Obviously
his focus on Jesus in both the Christian and Muslim perspective was con-
stant; he likewise never ceased reflecting on the key role of Abraham for
Christian-Muslim understanding, and we have seen how central Mary was
for his understanding of spirituality, as consent to God’s offer of the Word,
among both Christian and Muslim mystics. In that regard, Massignon was
highly involved in the effort, with the Latin archbishop of Smyrna, Gi-
useppe Descuffi, to promote among Christians and Muslims devotion to
Mary at Ephesus, closely following the archaeological discovery of a house
there claimed to have been her home (with John the Evangelist) after the
death of Jesus.109
Less known is Massignon’s work on two Muslim figures, Salmân Pâk and
Fâtima.110 Salmân Pâk, or Salmân the Pure, is traditionally counted among
Muhammad’s earliest followers, among the prophet’s closest friends, and, as
a Persian, among the first non-Arab converts to Islam. Before he met Mu-
hammad, Salmân is traditionally thought to have been a Christian (prob-
ably Nestorian, and possibly of Zoroastrian background) who sought direc-
tion from various Christian spiritual masters. Massignon argued, against
other orientalist scholars, for the historicity of Salmân, and he argued
“rigorously” that though Salmân “sincerely converted to Islam,” he did so
“without denying Christ.”111 Acknowledging the idiosyncrasy of Massign-
on’s interpretation, Destremau observes that he aspired to imitate Salmân,
109. See Andrew Unsworth, “Louis Massignon, the Holy See and the Ecclesial Transition from
‘Immortale Dei’ to ‘Nostra Aetate’: A Brief History of the Development of Catholic Church Teaching on
Muslims and the Religion of Islam from 1883 to 1965,” ARAM 20 (2008): 299–316. Massignon founded
Les Amis d’Éphèse et d’Anne-Catherine Emmerick (1774–1824), whose visions were central to the dis-
covery of the house at Ephesus. See Harpigny, Islam et Christianisme, 201–8.
110. Massignon, “La Mubâhala”; “La notion du voeu”; “L’Oratoire”; “Salmân Pâk et les prémices
spirituelles de l’islam iranien,” in EM 2, 576–613; “La ‘Futuwwa’ ou ‘pacte d’honneur artisanal’ entre
les travailleurs musulmans au Moyen Âge,” in EM 2, 613–39; “Nouvelles recherches sur Salmân Pâk,”
in EM 2, 639–42.
a Christian who “witnessed to the sincerity of Muhammad.”112 Salmân, like

Fâtima, as seen in the following quote, was therefore important for expand-
ing the horizon of Islam from within. Patrick Laude observes:
This universalizing aspect of Salmân’s function appeared symbolically in an episode
of the Battle of the Trench (al-Khandaq). Having convinced the Prophet to dig a de-
fensive trench around Medina and working himself on this task, Salmân tries to ex-
cavate a rock which he could not break. The Prophet seizes an axe and makes a spark
spring forth from the stone three times. He then explains that each of the sparks has
given him a vision of the area of expansion that would be opened to Islam: the South
towards Yemen, the Maghreb and the West. Salmân thus became the symbolic initia-
tor of the universalization of Islam.113
Fâtima was the daughter of Muhammad and the wife of Muhammad’s

cousin ‘Alî, and Massignon compared the widespread (especially Shi’a) de-
votion to Fâtima with Catholic devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Laude
observes: “Massignon considered [Fâtima] as having been substituted for
Amina [the mother of Muhammad] and as ‘thakla’ (the mother deprived of
her son) at the death of the Prophet just like the Virgin, mater orbata, after
the Crucifixion.”114 Fâtima was “the only member of the Ummah who, at
the time of Muhammad’s death, conceived of the mission of her father as
incomplete.”115 Fâtima is among those most responsible for opening Islam
in non-Arab universalist directions “vis-à-vis the Bayt (the Household) and
its ‘clients.’”116 She is nicknamed the umm-abiha, the mother of her father,
because she hoped to allow the prophet, after his death, to be “reborn in
her heart,” to “reenter the maternal bosom.”117 In some extremist Shi’a sects,
she is even divinized, which “suggests to Massignon a parallel with Mary
as Theotokos or Mother of God.”118 However, whereas the fiat of Mary an-
nounces the Incarnation, Fâtima’s spiritual participation in the rebirth of
the prophet only reminds the sensitive soul of what took place in Mary’s
conception of Jesus.119
Most significant among the bridge figures occupying his attention were

113. Laude, Vow, 172.
114. Patrick Laude, “Géographie spirituelle et espace oecuménique chez Louis Massignon: Jéru-
salem, Éphèse, Isé,” in Louis Massignon au coeur de notre temps, ed. Jacques Keryell (Paris: Karthala,
1999), 241.
the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. As Rocalve observes, all of Massignon’s fa-

vorite religious themes converge in their legend. He notes that on the Chris-
tian side, one finds the notions of hospitality with an emphasis on com-
passion, substitute spirituality (expiation), Marian emphasis on assent to
the divine fiat, the cross, and final judgment. On the Islamic side, one finds
hospitality with an emphasis on faith (tawhîd), witness with an emphasis
on the sacredness of a given word, testimonial mysticism, and, again, final
judgment.120 The Sleepers also provided for Massignon another concrete
way of bringing together Muslims and Christians in prayer and pilgrimage.
I have written extensively elsewhere about Massignon and the Seven Sleep-
ers, so I will only briefly mention their story and the pilgrimage of venera-
tion he expanded at Vieux-Marché in their honor.121
According to the Christian account, seven young men inhabiting the
palace of the Roman Emperor Decius (201–251) refused to sacrifice before
the idols, fled the city, and hid in a cave in a neighboring mountain, where
they prepared for death, absorbed in prayer, finally falling asleep. Having
discovered them, Decius ordered the cave sealed with large stones to bury
them alive. Three hundred seventy-two years later (in most versions), a
local shepherd removed the stones. The cave was thus reopened, and God
awakened the youths, who thought they had slept only one night. One
re-entered Ephesus and was amazed to find crosses placed over the city’s
gates. When he bought bread and paid for it with coins of Decius’s time, the
market people brought him before the bishop and the prefect, who both
questioned him. After hearing the whole story, the bishop understood that
they had been asleep since the time of Decius. Emperor Theodosius (401–
450) then came to Ephesus, and the saints recounted their story once again;
afterwards, they fell asleep once more, this time in death. The legend, based
upon historical events, probably served to resolve a resurgent controversy
about the resurrection of the body.122 The Seven Sleepers are remembered
in the calendars of the Latin, Syrian, Maronite, Copt, Armenian, Ethiopian,
and Byzantine churches, though today they are celebrated more actively in
the Eastern churches than in the Western. In many Orthodox and Byzan-
tine Catholic churches, there are two feast days, August 4 and October 22,

121. Christian Krokus, “The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus: Toward a Christian-Muslim Comparative
Theological Reading,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 17, no. 1 (2017).
122. Ernest Honigmann, “Stephen of Ephesus (April 15, 448–October 29, 451) and the Legend of
the Seven Sleepers,” Patristic Studies 173 (1953): 125–68.
perhaps commemorating separately the sleepers’ resuscitation and presen-

tation before the emperor, and they are memorialized in troparia at both
matins and vespers in the Byzantine office. There are at least fifty Christian
chapels, churches, or shrines dedicated to the Seven Sleepers in places as
varied as Ephesus, Rome, Sudan, Russia, and, of course, Brittany.
What makes the sleepers relevant is that sûra 18 of the Qur’an, titled
al-kahf, “The Cave,” contains almost twenty verses dedicated to them. The
outline is similar, with some notable variations: no historical context is
provided; their dog (named Kitmir in later versions) serves as guardian,
stretched out before the cave entrance; the young men are morally perfect-
ed in their sleep, after which God exposes them to the town as proof that
the hour of judgment and resurrection is determined by God alone; and,
in conclusion, the reader is reminded that those guided by God are guided
rightly, while those dismissed by God are lost. There are at least forty Mus-
lim shrines around the world, and it should be noted that the cave at Ephe-
sus continues to draw pilgrims from both religions.123 Also, there has been
a tradition of reciting sûra 18 before the noon prayer each Friday in many
mosques around the globe.124
Massignon discovered, especially in Sunni mystics such as Saul Tus-
tari, Hallâj, Shushtari (thirteenth century), and even the philosopher Ibn
Sina (eleventh century), an understanding of the legend as a lesson about
perfect abandonment to God, vindication in justice at the final hour, and
the protection of God’s servants. He was reminded that the Seven Sleepers
could represent more than a miraculous conclusion to a controversy over
the resurrection of the body; they also witness that resurrection is intimate-
ly linked to abandonment to God, that in our submission God perfects us,
and that God determines the when and where of our sleeping and rising.125
The discovery of prolific devotion to the Seven Sleepers in both traditions,
the shared eschatological hope in the resurrection, and the emphasis on re-
storative justice—justice is the perfection of love—led Massignon, from 1954
until his death in 1962, to invite Muslims to join an already existing Breton
pardon at the Chapel of the Seven Sleepers in Vieux-Marché. The Muslim
contingent at the Breton pilgrimage grew in size every year and comprised
some intellectuals and religious leaders, but was mainly made up of North
123. The tombs are now protected by a chain-link fence and barbed wire (as of June 2012).
124. See Massignon, “Le culte liturgique.”
125. See Massignon, “Les ‘Sept Dormants’”; “Éphèse et son importance.”
African migrant laborers. The pilgrimage included Catholic liturgies as well

as recitations from sûra 18 of the Qur’an, and Massignon called those rituals
the “rites of Abraham.” It allowed both groups to act as guest and host (the
same word in French, l’hôte) and to learn from each other. As a pilgrimage, it
emphasized the aspect of journey, of going somewhere together as siblings,
for, as O’Mahony reminds us, Louis Massignon “could not conceive of God
and the relationship of God to humanity except as movement, déplacement,
incarnation.”126 Walking, talking, and praying concretizes the journey and
provides the time and space to ask questions of one another. As substitu-
tion, the Seven Sleepers represent the witness to truth who follows through
on his vow and vocation despite a hostile destiny.
Conclusion
I conclude with a word about Hallâj as a Muslim-Christian bridge figure. In
1932 Massignon wrote an extraordinary prayer in remembrance of Hallâj.127
It opens with a plea to the Lord to “remember this spiritual son of Abra-
ham,” whose passion was configured to Christ’s. It then reviews key char-
acteristics and events from the life of this “martyr of the Cross,” including
the unmistakable similarities between the betrayals, trials, convictions, and
executions of Jesus and Hallâj. Massignon then includes a litany of saints
with their feast days, including Abraham, Moses, other biblical figures such
as John the Baptist, Lazarus, and the three magi, a number of Arab saints,
martyrs, and confessors born into an Islamic context, and those whose lives
intersected with Islam in some significant way, asking, “Remember, my
God, the prayers of your Saints in the land of captivity and in the Muslim
world.” He concludes with the following incredible words about Hallâj and
his companions:
Remember also, Lord, those who prepared, understood, and justified the apostolic de-
sires of this man, pilgrim to your Holy Sepulchre one Good Friday evening, herald of
your second coming under the aspect of the Sovereign Judge.
His teachers: Hasan Basri, Râbi’a, Antâki, Mohâsibi, Jonayd.
His friends: Ibn’ Atâ, Nasr, Shâkir.
126. Anthony O’Mahony, “Louis Massignon, the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and the Christian
Muslim Pilgrimage at Vieux-Marché, Brittany,” in Explorations in a Christian Theology of Pilgrimage,
eds. Craig Bartholomew and Fred Hughes (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 130.
127. Massignon, “Pro Hallagio,” in EM 1, 76–79.
The guardians of his memory: Ibn Khafîf, Shiblî, Fâris, Nasrabâdhî, Ibn’ Aqîl,
Ghazâlî, ‘Aynal qodât Hamadhânî, Sohrawardî of Aleppo, Baqlî, Nesîmî, Niazi.
And the poor black slaves of Râs el Fellâhat buried in proximity to his tomb in
Baghdad.
In order that one day the Church might remember him. Amen.128
Massignon’s prayer for the inclusion of Hallâj in the communion of saints

fittingly captures his expanded notion of Church as the collection of the
real elite, Christic substitute saints, abdâl, spiritual sons and daughters of
Abraham, attached to the soul of the Church. It is my understanding that he
even tried to initiate Hallâj’s cause formally at the Vatican, and Louis Gardet
reports that on the eve of his death, Massignon requested that his students
(presumably Christian, as Gardet was) “continue to make Hallâj known.”129
However, it is important to stress that Massignon “did not present al-Hallaj
as a pseudo-Christian, or an ‘anonymous Christian,’ to use Rahner’s phrase;
rather, he suggested that al-Hallaj was an authentically Islamic figure, and
his existence within the Islamic community was clear evidence that the
grace of Christ was as real outside the Christian community as inside it.”130
The organization and direction of the Badaliya represented the prin-
cipal means for implementing the theological architecture of Massignon’s
understanding of Islam in the light of Christian faith. The BAL reveal a thor-
oughly Christian approach to Muslims often couched in traditional Chris-
tian language, but they also reveal a revolutionary attitude with respect to
mission, measuring success by the occurrence of interior rather than exte-
rior conversions among both Christians and Muslims. Further, the BAL re-
veal a creative reimagining of the relationship between Christians and Mus-
lims expressed in innovative experiments, such as the use of Sufi categories
and stories to explain basic spiritual concepts to Christians, the adoption of
Massignon’s practice of a thrice-daily Angelus offered in conjunction with
the three prayers of Abraham, the internalization of the five pillars of Islam,
and the regular recitation of the most basic Islamic prayer, the Fâtiha, be-
fore a crucifix.
Islam is a religion of the patriarchal Abrahamic stage, though it is privy
to elements of post-Abrahamic revelation. Badaliya members were encour-
128. Massignon, “Pro Hallagio,” 79.

129. Louis Gardet, “La présence de Louis Massignon,” in Mémorial Louis Massignon, ed. Youakim
Moubarac (Cairo: L’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1963), 69.
130. Goddard, History, 204.
aged to accept the authenticity of Muslim prayer, practice, and relationship

to God while patiently learning how and where the face of Christ might
blossom from within Islam. The Badaliya focused almost exclusively on
practicing self-denying love and solidarity toward Muslim friends. Massign-
on’s critical eye was trained much more directly on the Christian Badaliya,
encouraging, admonishing, and correcting its members in their redoubtable
responsibilities, privileges, and prospects for salvation. It is fair to say that
he was more forgiving of Muslim shortcomings than he ever was of Chris-
tian ones.
The particular activities and approach of the Badaliya expressed Massign-
on’s substitute spirituality, which he learned from Huysmans, Bloy, and other
modern writers and thinkers, but which he primarily encountered and ap-
propriated in the witness of Hallâj and the teaching, passion, death, and res-
urrection of Jesus. Massignon believed in the efficacy of intercession and the
validity of offering to accept the pains, humiliation, and inadequacies of one’s
beloved neighbor. Substitution is a matter of radical and concrete hospitality
toward, and solidarity with, the least among us, and sanctity involves doing
so in the extreme. Massignon’s understanding of history can be summarized
as the real elite’s assumption, interior incorporation, and purification of the
suffering of a wider community, all in response to God’s loving and justifying
invitation. Accordingly, he sought out, studied, and introduced examples in
history of suffering substitutes, including Abraham and Mary, but also such
figures as Joan of Arc and Christine the Admirable, Fâtima and Hallâj. In his
later years, he focused increasingly on Christian-Muslim bridge figures who
also exhibited the qualities of substitute sanctity, such as Salmân Pâk, Fâtima,
and the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
For Massignon, the potential for sanctity, the potential for authentic
relationship with and in response to God, and the potential for being the
means by which God administers homeopathic doses to a sinful and suf-
fering community were universal. The secret of history is available for rec-
ognition and participation by Christians, Muslims, and others. The designa-
tion of Muslims as catechumens is decisive. Massignon’s Badaliya functioned
as an expanded vision of Church, such that Christians and Muslims (and
Jews) would recognize in one another Abrahamic brethren and would en-
gage in mutual and complementary relationships that involved esteeming
one another, interceding for one another, correcting one another, and draw-
ing out one another’s strengths. If Massignon maintains the doctrinal and
apostolic superiority of the Church, it is only because of the Church’s privi-

leged knowledge of the Incarnation, a privilege that should evoke not pride
but humility in its members. Muslims must stigmatize the Church with the
evangelical lance in order to prod Christians out of complacency and to-
ward the holiness that is demanded of them. Christians must study, under-
stand, and appropriate Islam in order to recognize the continuing validity
of patriarchal Abrahamic faith and also to recognize in the Sufi tradition a
Christic impulse to be nurtured toward questions about the possibility of
union with God, and thus toward further questions about the Incarnation.
Christians will only accomplish this task through love.
Conclusion
CONCLUSION
Among my hopes for this book is that it will facilitate a wider theological
conversation about Louis Massignon’s work, and in so doing will partially
have answered, but mainly have echoed, Herbert Mason’s call from nearly
thirty years ago: “Just as there are many dimensions to Massignon the Is-
lamicist . . . so are there many dimensions to Massignon the Roman Catho-
lic, of which I [hope] my remarks may direct readers to a fuller examina-
tion of his thought through his own works.”1 I began by wondering whether
a serious recovery of Massignon’s sympathetic understanding of Islam
was naïve. At its conclusion, I remain convinced that it is not. At the very
least, Massignon’s own evolution models stages of any authentic dialogue
(though not necessarily always in the same order), from passionate interest,
to recognition of genuine differences, to understanding the religious other
in the terminology and categories of one’s own tradition, to an engagement
with the other in mutual fraternity and love. Massignon’s work demon-
strates the value of grounding interreligious dialogue in scholarly learning,
and it charts a path for the Church that is both Christian and knowledge-
able about Islam, in contrast to many current approaches that sacrifice one
or the other essential dimension.
Certainly this is not the last word on Louis Massignon. There remains
much to be said about his rich and varied friendships and his own spiritual
life and practices of prayer. That will demand a fuller exploration of his per-
sonal correspondences and diaries, while I privileged his published scholarly
works. There is also more to be discovered about the extent of his influence
on the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.2 The Council fathers did not

2. For instance, Gavin D’Costa has recently written: “There is a significant trend in recent scholar-
226
Conclusion 227
endorse all of Massignon’s views; neither Lumen Gentium nor Nostra Aetate
says anything whatsoever about Muhammad or the Qur’an, and each is non-
committal about Islam’s Abrahamic status. Were his positions on those top-
ics seriously considered? Again, a fuller investigation of the correspondence
and diaries of the relevant experts will provide much-needed clues.
There are important tensions and underdeveloped aspects of Massign-
on’s work that demand fuller treatment and critique. His Pascalian prefer-
ence for the God of revelation, the God of Abraham, and the God of the mys-
tics over and against the God of the philosophers, for example, runs against
the traditional Catholic position, which insists that the God of Abraham
(and the God of the mystics) is the God of the philosophers.3 His descrip-
tion of Muhammad as a negative prophet implies the validity of post-Jesus
prophecy, but he does not work out a fully developed prophetology. There
is work to be done on his understanding of the relationship between revela-
tion and time, in order to understand better his employment of the category
temporal involution, whereby Islam folds back on the earlier revelations and
constitutes, in effect, an Abrahamic, pre-Mosaic phenomenon. Especially
in the light of the relevant comments in Dominus Iesus, Massignon’s dec-
laration of a qualified inspiration and conditional authority for the Qur’an
deserves further attention and should be brought to bear on current theo-
logical questions related to religious pluralism. The tension in his treatment
of Sufism both as exceptional and as the true Islam is not fully resolved,
and finally, some have expressed wonder at how Massignon “reconciled the
Christian Trinity and Islamic Absolute Monotheism.”4
Some of Massignon’s judgments have come under criticism among ex-
perts in Islamic studies. They include his pronouncement that Muhammad
was not a mystic, his allegorical interpretation of the Qur’anic judgment of
the angels as a prefiguration of the Incarnation, his rehabilitation of Hallâj
as a Muslim exemplar, and his preference for Hallâj over and against Ibn
‘Arabî, which he portrays as a preference for a self-emptying mysticism of
witness, love, and concern for this-worldly justice over an intellectualist,
speculative, and quietist mysticism. All such judgments deserve continued
ship to explain the changes in the Council as the influence of Massignon. While there is some truth to
this claim, the case as it stands is possibly overstated.” D’Costa, Vatican II, 165.
3. One might compare his position with that of his students and colleagues, Georges Anawati and
Louis Gardet, who paid more attention than he did to the important medieval philosophical exchanges
among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, especially on the nature of God. See Anawati and Gardet, Introduc-
tion à la théologie musulmane: Essai de la théologie comparée (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 1948).
4. Mason, “Catholicism and Islam,” 205.
228 Conclusion
scrutiny. As with all great thinkers, Massignon’s understanding, conclu-

sions, and expressions were constantly evolving.5 He suffered no illusions
that he had uttered the last word on the relationship between Islam and the
Church, which presents an opportunity to engage more intentionally with
his many creative proposals.
There are important scholarly conversations to be pursued between
Massignon and other thinkers about key aspects of his thought. His Hallâjian
understanding of mysticism, which highlights particular experiences, ought
to be compared and contrasted with the work of William James (1842–1910),
with which it seems to resonate. It should also be read in conversation with
St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582), whose last room of the interior castle seems
to downplay the importance of shocking experiences in a mature religious
life. Her view would seem (hypothetically, if she were familiar with the Sufi
tradition) like that of Sarrâj, to suggest that experiences of shath are finally to
be transcended.6 Massignon’s scholarly method and his cognitional theory,
including both the experimental emphasis in his own work and the nomi-
nalist reading of the Qur’an that he criticizes in the traditional Muslim apol-
ogetic, may be illuminated by engagement with the writings of Bernard Lo-
nergan on method, cognitional theory, and epistemology.7 His preference for
the God of revelation over and against the God of philosophy might also be
illuminated by Lonergan’s treatment of the realms of common sense, theory,
and interiority. There is an obvious conversation to be had between Mas-
signon—who attempted to reverse a pattern by which Muslims have been
(and continue to be) scapegoated by Western Christian societies, instead en-
couraging Christians to offer themselves as willing victims in the place of the
scapegoated Muslims—and the work of René Girard (1923–2015), who has
written extensively about the phenomenon of scapegoating and the origins
of religious rivalry and violence.8
5. Sometimes we hold comparative studies to impossibly high standards, expecting them to pro-
vide a neat and settled classification of the other religious tradition, but as Francis Clooney has noted:
“Theologians not engaged in comparative work are quite often willing to be tentative in their conclu-
sions, which remain open to revision and correction, and there is no reason to demand speedier prog-
ress of comparative theologians.” Clooney, Hindu God, 12.
6. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Pen-
guin, 1982); Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle: Study Edition, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodri-
guez (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 2010). A more contemporary interlocutor repre-
sentative of a gradualist understanding of mysticism might be Michael Buckley, Denying and Disclosing
God: The Ambiguous Progress of Modern Atheism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004).
7. Lonergan, Insight; Method.
8. René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2001); Violence and the Sa-
cred (New York: Continuum, 2005).
Conclusion 229
Michel Hayek has written that Massignon never “succeeded in resolving

certain contradictions,” and that he “suggested different lines of research
without privileging any except his conviction that Islam has a providen-
tially positive vocation.”9 That is fair enough, but to say that there remains
work to be done is not to diminish Massignon’s extraordinary achieve-
ments. His lifetime of careful and detailed linguistic, religious, and philolog-
ical research into the biographies of mystics and the technical vocabulary of
centuries of mystical discourse, which demonstrated to a mainly Christian
audience not only the presence of authentically holy lives within the Islam-
ic tradition but also the dependence of those lives upon the Qur’an and the
insights of previous Muslim generations, remains revolutionary for its sug-
gestion that those holy lives develop not despite but because of Islam. Mas-
signon provided a framework for thinking about Islam, Judaism, and Chris-
tianity as involved in a mutually mediating nest of relationships whereby
the virtuous emphases of each tradition—faith, hope, and charity, respec-
tively—bring out the best in the others, both anticipating and extending
the language of mutuality in relation to the Church’s self-understanding so
prevalent in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.10 He witnessed
how the Church might do its part to replace the centuries-long rivalry be-
tween Christians and Muslims with a new relationship built upon fraterni-
ty, hospitality, and friendship, challenging Western Christians in particular
not to treat the peoples and lands of Islam as markets to be exploited or
cultures to be replaced with a secularist ideology, but to acknowledge the
Abrahamic legitimacy of Muslims and to see in the seriousness of Muslim
faith a provocation to a more humble, simple, authentic appropriation of
the Gospel. Fully aware of the risks, the obstacles, and the inevitable disap-
pointments involved, he advocated Christian solidarity with Muslims, who
are perhaps even more feared and despised in the West today than they
were when Massignon was alive.
Louis Gardet once wrote that Massignon “did not ‘judge,’ even in the

10. John Dadosky highlighted the language of mutuality in the documents of the Second Vatican
Council, the implications of which call for a new model of Church that adequately accounts for the
Church’s relations ad extra. He developed a new model of the Church as Friend, whereby the Church
more authentically becomes and knows herself in and through conversation with secular and religious
Others. See Dadosky, “The Church and the Other: Mediation and Friendship in Post–Vatican II Roman
Catholic Ecclesiology,” Pacifica 18 (2005): 302–22; “Methodological Presuppositions for Engaging the
Other in the Post–Vatican II Context: Insights from Ignatius and Lonergan,” Journal of Inter-Religious
Dialogue (2010): 9–24.
230 Conclusion
name of erudition, the moral, social, and spiritual values of Islam, which
he was able to understand so profoundly; [rather he proceeded] by loving
them with all his lucidity as a scholar and Christian, by re-situating them,
as a Christian, under a light which does not judge, but fulfills. That is the
source, it seems to me, of his numerous and very deep friendships with
Muslims.”11 Massignon’s heart would surely break in the face of both the
contemporary atrocities committed in the name of Islam and the related
fear-mongering and demonization of Muslims in the name of Western se-
curity and capitalist interests. Yet I am convinced he would remain commit-
ted to patient, careful, and scholarly study of the sources, the traditions, and
the saints of Islam. He would not shy away from decrying the monstrous
distortions of that religion, but neither would he abide the strange collu-
sion between those distortions and their Western anti-Islamic ideological
counterparts. Both work to ignore and to erase the rich, learned, humanist,
and spiritual traditions of Islam. He would remain committed in hope to
the wholly transcendent God of justice and truth who invites humanity to
practice compassion rather than violence, whether in activism or in schol-
arship, and he would urge us to do the same.
11. Gardet, “Esquisse,” 78.

Bibliography
Main Works by Louis Massignon

Akhbar al-Hallaj: recuel d’oraisons et d’exhortations du martyr mystique de l’Islam
Husayn ibn Mansur Hallaj. Edited and translated by Louis Massignon and Paul
Kraus. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1957.
Badaliya: Au Nom de l’Autre. Edited by Maurice Borrmans and Françoise Jacquin.
Paris: Cerf, 2011.
Écrits Mémorables (2 vols.). Edited by Christian Jambet, François Angelier, Fran-
çois L’Yvonnet, and Souâd Ayada. Paris: Robert Laffont, 2009.
Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane. Paris: Geuth-
ner, 1922; Cerf, 1999.
Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism. Translated by
Benjamin Clark. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003.
Examen du “Présent de l’homme lettré” par Abdallah Ibn al-Torjoman. Rome: Pontifi-
cio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica, 1992.
Opera Minora (3 vols.). Edited by Youakim Moubarac. Beirut: Dar al-Maaref, 1963.
Parole Donnée. Edited by Vincent-Mansour Monteil. Paris: Seuil, 1983.
The Passion of al-Hallâj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam (4 vols.). Translated by Herbert
Mason. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982.
La Passion de Husayn ibn Mansûr Hallâj: Martyr mystique de l’Islam exécuté à bag-
dad le 26 mars 922; Étude d’histoire religieuse (4 vols.). Paris: Geuthner, 1922;
Gallimard, 1975, 2010.
Testimonies and Reflections: Essays of Louis Massignon. Selected and translated by
Herbert Mason. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989.
Les trois prières d’Abraham. Paris: Cerf, 1997.
Other Works by Louis Massignon

The Encyclopedia of Islam, 1st ed., s.v., “Tasawwuf.” Leiden: Brill, 1913–36.
Le Maroc dans les premières années du XVIe siècle; tableau géographique d’après Léon
l’Africain. Algiers: A. Jourdan, 1906.
Massignon–Abd el-Jalil: Parrain et filleul, 1926–1962. Edited by Françoise Jacquin.
Paris: Cerf, 2007.
231
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Paul Claudel, Louis Massignon (1908–1914). Edited by Michel Malicet. Paris: Desclée de
Brouwer, 1973.
“The Roman Catholic Church and Islam.” The Moslem World 2 (1915): 129–42.
“Le Salut de l’Islam.” Jeunesse de l’Église 13 (1947): 140–49.
“Textes relatif à la prise de Constantinople en 1453.” Oriens 6, no. 1 (1953): 10–17.
“Les trois prières d’Abraham: père des croyants.” Dieu Vivant 13 (1949): 15–28.
“What Moslems Expect: An Introductory Study of Moslem Demands.” The Moslem World 12,
no. 1 (1920): 7–24.
Works by Other Authors

Abd-el-Jalil, Jean-Muhammad. Marie et l’Islam. Paris: Beauchesne, 1950.
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Index Index
Index
Abd el-Jalil, Jean-Muhammad, 2, 84n4, 187, of Muslims, 126, 203–6; criticisms of,
200, 205n54 205; definition, 102–3, 207–8; difference
Aboû Qolâba, 109 from other sodalities, 126n78, 203–4;
Abraham: and blessings upon Ishmael, founding, 1, 41, 197–201; importance of
127–28, 130–31, 162–63, 170–71, 177–80, Eucharist, 209–10; major themes, 201;
188–89; faith in one God, 60, 75–77; and papal approval, 15–16; prayer of Fâtiha,
hajj, 136–37; historicity of, 32–33; and 215–17
hospitality, 19n2, 80–81, 82; and Mary, Basetti-Sani, Giulio, 3n7, 8, 19, 25n30,
80–81, 82; relationship to Ishmael, Arabs, 26n34, 92n23, 92n24, 116n28, 130n90,
Muhammad, 90, 92n24, 171n15; as sub- 139n25, 147n61, 148n65, 148n66, 195n11,
stitute witness, 70, 78–79, 136–37 206n60, 210n84, 212, 213n93, 213n94
Al-Ashâri, 109 Benincasa, Ursula, 185, 186
Al-Ghazâlî, 49–51, 54, 58, 65n70, 72, 77, 91, Bergoligo, Jorge Mario. See Francis, Pope
93–94, 115n24, 124, 151n73, 155, 185, 205, Beylié, Leon de, 11n28
223 Binger, Louis Gustave, 11n28
Alussy family, 11, 13, 179 Bloy, Léon, 15, 100, 101–2, 107, 196, 224
Amr Makki, 65 Borrmans, Maurice, 16n44, 34n64, 35n66,
Anawati, Georges, 2, 4, 16, 46, 76n111, 44, 132n96, 139, 173, 198, 200, 201n33, 217
165n135, 171n15, 190n1, 200, 227n3 Buck, Dorothy, 53, 179n52, 201n33
Antoinette, Marie, 56, 102 Buckley, Michael, 228
Aquinas, Thomas, 51–52, 85n7, 118n40, 130, Burrell, David, 3n7, 165n135
138n23, 173n22, 181
Arabic: i’jaz, 158–59; in relation to Hebrew Caspar, Robert, 2, 41n88, 43n92, 44n95,
and Aramaic, 159–61; in relation to rev- 117n32, 171n15, 145, 187n81
elation and mysticism, 31, 46–47, 92–93, Cessario, Romanus, 137n21, 138
108n1, 120–21, 130, 139–41, 157–61, 190 Charles-Barzel, R., 172, 173, 175
Arnaldez, Roger, 21, 36, 46, 165n135 Christ: biblical humanity, 84–86; in Qur’an
Attar, Farid ad-Din, 65n70, 71, 211 (‘Isa ibn Maryam), 84–89; as redeemer,
Augustine, 34, 50–51, 52, 62–63, 72, 97n41, 99–100; in relation to Hallâj, 93–94; as
130n90 Son of God, 94–99; virgin birth in Qur’an
Averroes, 112, 130 (sign of two), 86–89
Avicenna, 48–51, 58, 72, 151, 221 Christine the Admirable, 56, 102, 136n15,
224
Badaliya: approach to (solidarity with) Church: distinction between body and soul,
Islam, 9, 127, 173, 177–79, 201–3, 206–9; 191–92; Eucharist, 41–42, 98–99, 105–7,
appropriation of Islamic terminol- 129, 136–37, 160–61, 209–11; sacraments,
ogy, 211–14; appropriation of pillars of 36, 41–42, 44–45, 98–99, 191–92, 215–16;
Islam, 182–83, 186, 214–17; conversions teaching authority, 36, 42, 44, 133, 190–91
241
242 Index
Clark, Benjamin, 20n10, 26, 34n64, 113n16 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 16, 102, 103, 194, 195,
Claudel, Paul, 15, 101n54, 132 196, 210, 217
Clooney, Francis, 35, 36n69, 228n5 Gardet, Louis, 2, 4n10, 41n88, 46, 147–48,
Cloots, Anacharsis, 24 157, 187n82, 223, 227n3, 229, 230n1
Coakley, Sarah, 57 Gendarmes de l’ordre public. See Servants of
Collège de France, 2, 16, 21, 110 order
Comité Chrétien pour l’entente George-Tvrtković, Rita, 3n5
France-Islam. See André de Peretti Girard, René, 228
Communicatio idiomatum, 39–40, 92–93, Glorieux, Achille, 200
95–96 God: of Abraham (Pascal) vs. of philoso-
Copernican revolution, 42–44, 52–53, phers, 46, 50–51, 227; and the feminine,
60–61, 68, 182, 214, 222 55–58; as one, 76–78; relationship
Corbin, Henri, 2, 108n1 between Allah and Dieu, 74–76; and
Cornille, Catherine, 19n2 religious experience, 48–55; as Triune,
Cragg, Kenneth, 116n30, 122n55 81–82; and witness, 58–64
Crollius, Arij, 200n31 Goddard, Hugh, 2n3, 223
Crusades, 106, 124–25, 128, 153n86, 162, Goldziher, Ignaz, 20, 121n54, 143–44
202–3 Gospel of Barnabas, 22
Cuadra, Luis de, 12n32, 198–99, 202 Gréa, Dom Adrian, 100n51
Griffith, Sidney, 2n2, 3n7, 5, 13, 22n24,
Dadosky, John, 35n67, 229 27n42, 34n64, 110, 116, 139, 142n39, 145,
Dall’Oglio, Paolo, 126n78, 177–78, 186 156, 157, 160, 171n15, 197n17, 204n51,
Daniélou, Jean, 15 209n77, 212n91
Dansaert-Testelin, Marcelle, 15 Griffiths, Richard, 100n53, 101, 102n59
Day, Dorothy, 7–8 Gude, Mary Louise, 3n7, 9n21, 11n29, 12n30,
D’Costa, Gavin, 2n4, 3n6, 226n2 101, 179n50, 247, 198n21, 199n23, 199n25
Déplacement. See Copernican revolution Guibert of Nogent, 142
Derrida, Jacques, 19n2
Descuffi, Giuseppe, 2, 3n5, 218 Hafiz, 69
Destremau, Christian, 9n21, 11n28, 12n30, Hagar, 27, 56, 78, 127–28, 140, 146, 150, 152,
17n45, 101n58, 110n3, 218, 219n112 157, 170, 178, 183, 188, 206
Dominus Iesus, 227 Hallâj: anâ al-haqq!, 1, 65–67, 74, 154,
157n102; difference from Ibn ‘Arabi,
Ellacuría, Ignacio, 138 72–74; execution, 68–72, 210–11; impor-
Emmerich, Anne Catherine, 106 tance for Massignon’s understanding of
Ernst, Carl, 65, 66n74, 66n75, 69, 70n89, 71, God, 64–72; intercession for Massignon,
73n99, 155n90 13, 14–15; interiorization of pillars of
Islam, 113–14; as ransom of Muhammad,
Fâtima, 56, 105n71, 108n1, 148n62, 192, 153–54; in relation to Jesus, 93–94; as
218–19, 224 subject of Massignon’s scholarship, 1, 2,
Finn, Arthur Henry, 32n56 11, 14–15; understanding of Iblîs, 73–74,
Fitzgerald, Michael, 76n110, 168n6 90–91; understanding of mysticism, 29,
Foucauld, Charles de, 3, 10, 14, 15, 33, 100, 31, 39n78, 53
107, 126, 164n129, 165, 185, 186, 187, 196, Hajj, 69, 71, 113, 128, 135, 136–37, 155n93, 175,
197, 203, 205n55, 207, 209, 217 184, 214, 215
France-Maghreb Committee, 197 Haqq, 1, 65, 66, 67, 74, 82, 154, 157, 158, 206,
Francis of Assisi, 74, 106, 125, 148–49, 208
152–53, 162, 175, 195 Harpigny, Guy, 5, 9n21, 13–14, 34n64,
Francis, Pope, 8–9 81n126, 83, 99, 110n3, 167, 171n15, 197,
218n109
Index 243
Hasan of Basra, 29, 184, 222 Jomier, Jacques, 4n10, 76

Hayek, Michel, 16, 139–40, 145, 169, 229 Jourdan, François, 76n112
Hefling, Charles, 37n72 Journet, Charles, 15, 187
Homosexuality, 12n32, 79–80, 198n21 Julien, Charles-André, 197
Hospitality: importance for Louis Mas- Junayd, 65, 67, 68, 97n41, 185, 222
signon, 11–13, 18–20, 44, 53, 56, 76–81,
178–80, 186–88, 210, 220, 224, 229; in Kahil, Mary, 1, 16, 186, 191, 198–200, 202
Islam, 76–77, 167, 172 Keryell, Jacques, 9n21, 11n28, 12n30, 178,
Huysmans, Joris-Karl, 13, 100–101, 102, 179n52, 180n53, 198n20, 201n33, 201n34
107,196, 224 Kripal, Jeffrey, 12n32, 80n124
Krokus, Christian, 2n4, 85n7, 75n109,
Iblîs. See Satan 105n76, 121n54, 194n10, 197n17, 220n121
Ibn ‘Aqîl, 91, 223 Kuschel, Karl-Josef, 171n15, 178n45
Ibn ‘Arabî, 72–74, 77, 81, 89n15, 93, 94, 183
Ibn Hanbal, 109, 112n11, 185 Lagrange, Albert Marie-Joseph, 6
Ibn Hazm, 22 Lammens, Henri, 20, 143–44, 187
Ibn Rushd. See Averroes Laude, Patrick, 3n7, 55–56, 57, 58, 59n52,
Ibn Sina. See Avicenna 72–74, 81n127, 105n71, 151–52, 153n82,
Ibn Taymiyyah, 22, 65n70, 69–70, 109, 161, 219
153n84 Lauzière, Henri, 109n2
Ignatius of Loyola, 125, 209 Law of the cross, 105–6, 119–20, 131–33, 176,
Intercession. See Substitute spirituality 192–94, 224–25
Isa ibn Maryam. See Christ Lawrence, T. E., 15
Islam: as Abrahamic schism, 5, 91, 141, 157, Leo Africanus, 10, 11n28
168–77; Abrahamism vs. Ishmaelism, Les Amis d’Anne Catherine Emmerick, 17,
171n15; authority within, 191n2; as de- 218n109
ism, 114, 116–17; fitra, 142n35; as heresy, Les Amis d’Éphèse, 17, 218n109
168–69; as lance that stigmatizes the Les Amis de Gandhi, 16, 17, 215
Church, 1, 124, 162–64, 175, 188, 225; Les Mardis de Dar es-Salam, 4n10, 200, 205
Massignon’s preferential option for, 8–9, Llull, Raymon, 90n19, 185, 186
19, 179–80, 217–18, 224–25; missions Lonergan, Bernard, 4, 35n67, 39n80, 97n41,
vis-à-vis idolatry, Israel, Church, 122–27, 105n76, 117n35, 118n40, 228, 229n10
162–65; as natural religion, 111–12, 113, Louis IX of France, 125, 202
115–16; notions of time, 61–64; as patri- Lumen Gentium, 2, 75, 171n15, 227
archal religion, 77, 92n24, 123, 135, 144,
160, 167, 173–76, 188–89, 223–24; as proof Madigan, Daniel, 120n51, 121n54
of Christianity, 122–24; as regression Madkour, Ibrahim, 2
from Christianity and Judaism, 174–75; Makdisi, George, 2
in relation to Judaism and Christianity, Marcel, Gabriel, 15
160–61 Maréchal, Joseph, 178, 187–88
Izard, George, 197 Maritain, Jacques, 6, 15, 101, 187
Mary: annunciation as archetype, 53–55,
James, William, 228 57–58, 62; immaculate conception, 42,
Jesus. See Christ 86–89, 94, 107, 129–30, 153; Qur’anic sign
Jihad, 207, 211–12 of two, 86–89; in relation to Abraham,
Joan of Arc, 56, 102, 162, 224 47, 70, 81, 82; reputation at Nazareth, 59,
John XXIII, Pope, 16, 41, 198 78n119, 90
John of Damascus, 168 Mary of the Valleys, 185
John of the Cross, 7, 8, 39n78, 47 Maryam. See Mary
John the Baptist, 88, 175, 222 Mason, Herbert, 3, 9n21, 10, 12, 13, 17, 19n4,
244 Index
Mason, Herbert (cont.) and mysticism, 149–55, 227; as negative

20n11, 21, 22n21, 45n98, 47, 66n77, 67n80, prophet, 4–5, 145–46, 168–69, 227; sincer-
71n92, 73, 74n100, 83n1, 118n40, 140, 145, ity, 141–45, 148, 218–19
204n51, 211n87, 226, 227n4 Muhâsibî, 67, 163
Maspero, Gaston, 10 Muslims. See Islam
Maspero, Henri, 10
Massignon, Daniel, 6, 12n31, 15, 110, 132n96 Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, 73n74
Massignon, Fernand. See Pierre Roche Nazzâm, 91
Massignon, Genevieve, 15 Neumann, Thérèse, 106
Massignon, Louis: attraction to Islam, 132; Nicholson, Reynolds, 25–26
biography, 9–17; Christian commitments, Nostra Aetate, 1, 2, 9, 43n92, 75, 86, 117n32,
36–42; and colonialism, 44, 56, 124–26, 171n15, 181n58, 218n109, 227
165, 172, 177–78, 201, 207; complemen- Nursi, Said, 197n17
tary relationship of Abrahamic religions, Nwiya, Paul, 16, 157–58
170–71, 176–77; concern for orthodoxy, 4,
6–7; conversion experience, 12–14, 47–64, O’Mahony, Anthony, xiv, 3n7, 168n6, 173,
101, 133, 134; and the feminine, 55–58; 178, 198n19, 222
importance of experimentation, 29–30;
inclination toward religious originality, Pacelli, Eugenio. See Pius XII, Pope
25, 30–31; influence on Vatican II, 2–3; Palacios, Miguel Asin, 3n6
interiorist method, 18–19, 25–30, 44–45, Paul VI, Pope, 2, 16, 41, 200
185–86, 213; orthodoxy questioned, 3–4; Paul of Sidon, 91
prayer for Hallâj, 222–23; and Second Peretti, André de, 16, 197n18
Vatican Council, 2–3; senses of Bible, Pilgrimage to chapel of Seven Sleepers
26–27; senses of Qur’an, 27–29, 113–14; at Vieux-Marché, 17, 197, 214, 215, 220,
stages of history, 173–75; as theological, 221–22
6, 34–36; understanding of mysticism, Pius XI, Pope, 15, 26n37, 41, 75, 190, 200
48–53; understanding of Salafism, 109n2; Pius XII, Pope, 15, 41, 75, 198, 200
understanding of sanctity, 103–5, 191–95 Plumey, Yves, 3n5
Massignon, Marie Hovyn, 10 Point vierge, 31, 53–54, 58, 59, 60, 67–68, 82
Massignon, Yves, 15
Mauriac, François, 15, 197 Qadi Iyâd, 22
Maximos IV, Patriarch, 3, 41 Qur’an: conditional authority of, 156–57,
Medawar, Pierre-Kamel, 2, 41, 198, 200, 169–70, 188, 227; historicity, 120n52; as
201n34 inspired, 5, 129–30, 155–57, 227; judg-
Meister Eckhart, 47, 104 ment of the angels, 86, 89–92, 100n51,
Menasce, Pierre Jean de, 15, 168n6, 200 150, 156–57, 227; modes of interpretation,
Merton, Thomas, 15, 53n23, 204n51 110–14; rejection of Christian beliefs, 84,
Moncelon, Jean, 9n21, 139, 145 88–89; relation to Bible, 129–30, 156–57
Monteil, Vincent, 9n21
Montini, Giovanni Battista. See Paul VI, Rahner, Karl, 117n35, 223
Pope Ratti, Ambrogio. See Pius XI, Pope
Moses, Paul, 148n66 Real elite, 192–97
Moubarac, Youakim, 16, 171n15, 200, 201 Renan, Ernst, 33, 38–39
Mubâhala: in Islamic tradition, 147; prepa- Reynolds, Gabriel Said, 120n52
ration for union/incarnation, 148–49 Rippin, Andrew, 92n24, 111n9, 121n54, 158,
Muhammad: and Abraham, 144–45, 151–53; 159n107
Christian defamation of, 142–43; com- Robinson, Neal, 3n7, 171n15
pared to Iblîs, 150; experience of Qur’an, Rocalve, Pierre, 5, 6n16, 11n28, 19n5, 34n64,
150; and Mubâhala, 88–89, 146–49, 161; 35n66, 73n97, 75n106, 108n1, 109, 113, 114,
Index 245
115n27, 121n53, 124n67, 137, 141, 142n35, Substitute spirituality: importance for Mas-
145, 151n76, 170n10, 171n15, 204, 220 signon, 100–106; in relation to Muslims,
Roche, Pierre, 10, 101 177–83
Roncalli, Angelo. See John XXIII, Pope Sufism: Hallâj as pinnacle, 64–65; nexus of
Rumi, Jalal ad-Din, 47, 65n70, 114n18 Islam with Church, 183–88; work of Holy
Spirit, 184–85
Sahl of Tustar, 65, 113 Sussman, Violet, 56
Said, Edward, 44
Salmân Pâk, 32, 108n1, 141, 184–85, 192, Talbi, Mohamed, 2
218–19, 224 Temporal involution, 160–61, 170, 172, 227
Sarrâj, 65–66, 228 Teresa of Avila, 228
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 198 Theologal, 116, 137–39, 169, 180
Satan, 8, 73–74, 87–91, 122, 129, 150, 168, Tolan, John, 146n59, 148n66
184, 228 Toland, John, 24
Scelles, Jean, 16 Traditional Muslim apologetic: on Creator
Schloesser, Stephen, 100n53 vs. creature, 117–19; on divine word,
Second Vatican Council, 1–2, 2–3, 4, 75–76, 120–22; on Islam’s missions, 122–27, 131;
117n32, 157, 171n15, 226 main characteristics, 114–27; on provi-
Secret of history. See Law of the cross dence, 119–20
Sells, Michael, 73n97, 89n15
Servants of order, 104, 105n71, 217 Unsworth, Andrew, 3n7, 75, 171n15, 218n109
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, 17, 32, 155, 192, Urvoy, Marie Thérèse, 3n8
219–22, 224
Sfair, Pietro, 3n5 Valkenberg, Wilhelmus, 171n15
Shâfi’î, 91 Vatican II. See Second Vatican Council
Shariati, Ali, 2
Shath, 65–69, 228 Waardenburg, Jacques, 18n1, 30–31, 35n67
Sheen, Fulton, 148n62
Shibli, 69, 223 Yahya, Osman, 2
Six, Jean-François, 200
Snouck-Hourgronje, Christiaan, 113n16, 128 Zubiri, Xavier, 138n23
Spiro, Jean, 22–24, 33, 110 Zundel, Maurice, 200
Stigmatics, 106, 125, 148, 152–53, 162
V
The Theology of Louis Massignon: Islam, Christ, and the Church was designed and typeset
in Frutiger Serif by Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was printed on
60-pound Sebago IV B18 Cream, and bound by Maple Press of York, Pennsylvania.

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THE THEOLOGY OF

The Catholic University of America Press

Frontispiece: The Cave of the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus, watercolor by

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Foreword by Sidney H. Griffith ix

1. Louis Massignon: Method 18

2. God: Visitation of the Stranger 46

3. Christ: Substitute Spirituality 83

4. Islam: Traditional Muslim Apologetic 108

5. Islam: Massignon’s Positive Judgments 134

6. Islam: Abrahamic Schism 167

7. Church: Badaliya 190

ers of English firsthand access to Louis Massignon. A biography in

time of crisis between Muslims and Christians, especially in the

of the cave of the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus appears on the frontis-

scholar, to Massignon the activist, and, in a way I simply could not

BAL Badaliya Annual Letters

HI “L’hégire d’Ismaël” (Les trois prières

IT Abdallah Ibn al-Torjoman

Anticipating the vision of Nostra Aetate, Louis Massignon (1883–1962) imag-

(1887–1985), the auxiliary to Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV (1878–1967).5

5. Rita George-Tvrtković’s forthcoming article on the Council’s appropriation of the shared

gious pluralism will want to engage, whether by appropriation or correc-

The story of the Examen’s publication is similar. Already in his own

A Note on the Contemporary

She was responding to accusations of naïveté or even treason in relation to

Pope wishes.”19 Anticipating Francis’s sympathy, Massignon continuously

22. Mason, Memoir, 27.

the work before his competition, a team of German archaeologists, could

After his conversion, his attempts at understanding Islam had a feeling

39. Harpigny, Islam et Christianisme, 60.

as Christian-Muslim friendship. This group would take on increasing signifi-

45. Destremau, Louis Massignon, 487.

Louis Massignon’s method was sophisticated. He demonstrated a master-

Love of Textual Truth

7. Sîra rasul Allah, that is, biographies of the messenger of God.

by scores of Orientalists directly or indirectly under his tutelage.”12 Fur-

12. Mason, foreword to Passion of al Hallâj, xxxviii.

17. Massignon, Examen, 2.

hispano-moresque del’Évangile islamisant de Barnabe,” Islamochristiana 8 (1982): 159–83; R. Stichel,

Supposed methodological neutrality is almost never neutral in fact.

27. Massignon, Examen, 1–2.

case, so he recommends that scholars employ the four classic senses of

39. Massignon, “Soyons,” 42.

Read literally, the Qur’an is a memorandum. Read morally, the Qur’an is an

44. Massignon, Passion, 3, 4.

That is why the word experimentation is so important for Massignon. In

46. Massignon, Passion 3, 30.

particular. To increase understanding, one must clean up one’s life, examine

51. Massignon, “Note Liminaire,” in Les trois prières, 23.

Whereas many scripture scholars in Massignon’s generation and today

52. Massignon, “Note Liminaire,” in Les trois prières, 24.

Massignon’s Work as Theological

61. Massignon, Examen, 16.

65. Massignon, “L’expérience mystique et les modes de stylisation littéraire,” in EM 2, 300.

in those other traditions about theological issues of shared concern. Theolo-

69. Clooney, Hindu God, 10.

tions; but this is an unjustified presupposition.”74 His point is clear, namely

74. Massignon, Examen, 28.

Although his explanation of the communicatio idiomatum is a bit peculiar,

86. HI, 98.

devotion to Mary at Ephesus, his attachment of a Muslim-Christian pil-

Parallel to his conviction that dogmas of various religious traditions must

89. Massignon, Examen, 37.

HI “L’hégire d’Ismaël” (Les trois prières