Published Work - Le Provocateur

President's Lecture Series: the life of Louis Massignon - Feature - Le Provocateur
Published in November 1, 2012 issue of Le Provocateur 

On Wednesday, October 24, students, faculty and vistors gathered in the Salon of La Maison to welcome Fr. Patrick J. Ryan, who visited to speak about Louis Massignon: A 'Catholic Muslim' and his intellectual journey as part of the President's Lecture series.

"I want to speak to you this evening about a most unusual Catholic, a scholar of Islam, whose life and career exemplify, for me at least, something very essential to the Catholic intellectual tradition, said Fr. Ryan. "A breath of vision that is catholic with a small 'c,' as well as catholic with a capital 'C.'"

Fr. Ryan is the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University. He is a native New Yorker and entered into the Society of Jesus in 1957; he was ordained a priest in 1958.

He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in English language and literature at Fordham University. He also earned his Ph.D. in the comparative history of religion with a specialization in Arabic and Islamic studies at Harvard University.

Fr. Ryan worked, for about half of his life, in West Africa, and spent most of his time in Nigeria and Ghana. Not only did he devote a lot of time overseas, but he has also held various positions at Fordham University. From 1983 to 1986, he taught Middle Eastern studies and from 1996 to 1998, he held the Loyola Chair in the Humanities position.

Fr. Ryan served as Fordham's Vice President for University Mission and Ministry from 2005 to 2009. In 2009, he became the second occupant of the McGinley chair.

"We live in a time of these United States, more than 11 years after the terrible events of September 11,2001," Fr. Ryan stated as he began his lecture. "It seems that many Americans feel free to speak very negatively about Islam, the faith of Muslims."

Fr. Ryan went on to discuss Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic radicalism and Islamic phoneticism, more commonly known as Islamism by discussing Louis Massignon.

Louis Massignon was born July 25, 1883, in a suburb of Paris. He was a French scholar of Islam and its history. His father, Fernand Massignon, was an agnostic and his mother was a devout Catholic.

Massignon was also a Catholic, but tried to better understand Islamd and the way it was viewed in the West.

In 1896, Massignon studied at Lycee Louis-le-Grand in Paris. This is where he met his classmate, Henri Maspero.

"Although the curriculum he followed concentrated on the Greek and Roman classics, Louis and his fellow student, after 1896, Henri Maspero decided that they themselves would eventually specialize in the study of non-western cultures," said Fr. Ryan.

Massignon and Maspero later became colleagues at the College de France in Paris.

Fr. Ryan continued his lecture by going into further detail about the people in Massignon's life. Joris-Karl Huysmans underwent a religious conversion later on in his life, which affected his novels.

"As a result, Huysmans was virtually the only believer in the circle of Fernand Massignon," said Fr. Ryan.

Massignon and Huysmans first met in the 1900s and heard the story of Huysmans' conversion to Catholicism. Massignon also learned about what Huysmans' devotion to St. Lydwine of Schiedam.

"His first degree, however, completed in 1902, when he was 19 was actually in French literature," stated Fr. Ryan. "It was only in 1903, after 10 months of military training, that Massignon first undertook the study of Arabic."

Massignon's first piece of undergraduate work concentrated on the literature of the 16th-century. His thesis concentrated on the topic of the reconstruction of the 16th-century Morocco of Leo Africanus.

"In Algeria at the time, Massignon led what he later called a 'very violent life.'"

Fr. Ryan continued on with his lecture by going into further detail of the life of Massignon.

Massignon experienced a spiritual revolution that marked him for the rest of his life. Massignon recalled having a visitation from God in May of 1908.

"The visitation of a stranger. The stranger to Massignon was God," said Fr. Ryan. "My inner mirror revealed him to me," said Fr. Ryan while quoting Massignon's experience of seeing God.

"Louis Massignon died not in the Holy Land as he had hoped, but in France on All Saints Day in 1962," stated Fr. Ryan.