Louis Massignon and Jihād

through de Foucauld, al-Hallāj and Gandhi

Padre Paolo Dall’Oglio

Louis Massignon, in his late years, found in Gandhi a complete and complementary expression to his views with regard to his evangelical commitment towards Islam in the framework of a comprehensive view concerning the entire history of Humanity.[1] It has been also established that Charles de Foucauld played a crucial role in Louis Massignon’s spiritual and social commitment.

The impact of de Foucauld’s spiritual strength on Massignon

Massignon felt that de Foucauld was, along with al-Hallāj, among the intercessors who were granted from God that Massignon should be saved from death in Bagdad in 1908 and return to faith in God and His Christ.[2] Subsequently, Massignon had a strong desire to dedicate his life to Christ and to the service of His Gospel with that ascetic in the desert of Algeria.[3]

Despite this fact, his spiritual discrimination and the circumstances related to his life led Massignon to marriage and a total commitment to a scholarly career.[4] The experience of moral disorder before his conversion—homosexuality in particular—, connected with orientalist aestheticism, played a considerable role in Massignon’s development in the building of his symbolic world and moral views.[5]

Nonetheless, the link remained very powerful between Louis and Charles in the years preceding the First World War. It seems to us that the element uniting their thoughts and feelings is their strong desire to live the love of Christ for all people, particularly Muslems. At the beginning, this desire remains for Massignon, on the theological level, a classical missionary one, though new in terms of methods and dimensions, due to Foucauld’s meditation on the Mystery of Christ’s life in Nazareth.[6]

Foucauld’s call was simply to renew this forgotten dimension of the Christian message for the redemption of Humankind, that is, the life of the Holy Family in Nazareth. This call constitutes, psychologically more than theologically, a turnabout in the list of priorities of Christian missionary work. Nonetheless, Foucauld, we believe, was a by-product of his times, as it were, and adhered, intellectually and politically, to French colonialism. In it, he saw an opportunity and a duty to educate people and introduce them into civilisation and Catholicism. He worked for those objectives during his stay in Algeria, constituting at the same time a new voice and a unique testimony, quite different from mainstream missionary work. Foucauld did not ignore the good faith of most of the missionaries there at the time, but, in a very practical way, he was a deep critic of the methods of Catholic missions in the context of their alliance with colonialism.[7]

Foucauld was above all a soldier and his thinking remains somewhat militaristic till the end of his life. This is quite obvious from the stand he took during the war, especially in his letters to Massignon. In a now famous letter to Massignon, written on December 1^st 1916, he praised him and agreed with his decision to enlist in the frontline. Foucauld himself wished to die,[8] considering martyrdom the worthiest thing he could ask the Lord for, and thus he wished the same for his friend. He saw in the war an opportunity to offer one’s soul in love for God and the neighbour. He did not look for honours, not even the honour of martyrdom, but for danger, suffering and perfect self-sacrifice with simplicity and humility, seeing this as a duty towards the soul’s Bride. Foucauld asked Massignon to give away his life for the sake of God in union with the Eucharist of Lord Jesus in the hands of the Virgin Mary. On the same day Foucauld wrote this letter to his friend, he died by the hands of Muslem mujahidīns.[9]

When Massignon enquired about the death of Foucauld while he was in the front on January 27^th 1917, he considered that his friend found the Path and attained the Goal. He had died as a host and a hostage for the sake of Muslem Tuaregs. Massignon will later compare Foucauld to Hallāj, assuming that, in accepting weapons in the hermitage, he declared his killing lawful, so that he could die as a martyr by the hands of Muslem mujahidīns without making them responsible for killing him. Likewise, al-Hallāj, in his sayings and acts, had violated the letter of the sharī‘a and given the legal excuse to kill him in love for the Community (umma) and for the sake of its reformation. Massignon will later admit that he volunteered in the front in expiation for not going with Foucauld to the desert.[10]

It seems to me that, with the death of Foucauld, begins a new chapter in Massignon’s spiritual and intellectual evolution. He had started to doubt the mission of colonialism, especially that he saw that France and England did not fulfil their promises of independence to the Arabs. It was a part of Massignon’s role and aim, in meditating on Foucauld’s life and death, to defend the good will of his friend, so that this martyr would not become a symbol of Catholic colonialist thought. In fact he considered himself the heir of Foucauld’s original spirituality, originating in Nazareth.[11]

Jihād in Massignon’s meditation on Islamic spirituality

There is a link and a parallelism between Massignon’s delving into basic Islamic spiritual concepts and his Christian spiritual life through his studies of and meditation on Sufism, particularly through the amazing spiritual link between his soul and al-Hallāj’s. Thus, Massignon came, little by little, to live his Christianity starting from Islamic concepts and Arabic expressions. It is clear, for instance, that, for him, the greater jihād (the jihād of the soul) is the Islamic term for asceticism and strife on the path of holiness and discipleship of Jesus. He found the concept of futuwwa (knighthood) in Islam a parallel to the concept of the vow of the Crusaders to recover Jerusalem.[12] For him the murābitūn (Marabouts) are akin to the Crusader knights;[13] the mutasawwef (ascetic), committed to the greater jihād, is the Muslem peer of the monk who lives evangelical vows.[14] There is also a parallelism between the Islamic hajj to Mecca and the Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the concept of ritual consecration (ihrām).[15]

The origin and source of both pilgrimages is Abraham, the Friend of God (al-khalîl), and it is easy to compare his relation with Ishmael and Mecca with his relation to Isaac and Jerusalem. Abraham is also the archetype of the Emigrant (muhājer) who abandons himself to meet God in full self-commitment (tawakkul).[16]

It is therefore clear that Massignon, in his study of al-Hallāj, did not only study Sufism, but also the mystical way to meet God as a son of the Church. In al-Hallāj’s “Unity of Testimony” (wahdatu-sh-shuhūd) he found the acme of spiritual emigration and Union with God in the completion of a jihād by offering oneself as a sacrifice. The sacrifice is on the line of the immolation for the remission of sins that takes place at the station at ‘Arafāt during the hajj. Using the same concepts, he meditated on his union with God in Christ through Faith, after the fashion of the “Yes” pronounced by Mary.[17]

Massignon criticised Islamic gnosticism in post-hallājian Sufism, especially in the person of Ibn ‘Arabī and his concept of Unity of Being (wahdatu-l-wujūd) that he considered a kind of narcissistic introversion.[18] He also pondered over Western civilisation, which casts aside the relation with God, as a result of several forms of atheism, and distorts the dogma of Incarnation insofar as man becomes the object of a narcissistic worship and has no longer the openness to meet with the transcendent God and receive the guest and the stranger. In this sense, the intercession of Abraham for Sodom and its people includes the materialistic modern civilisation as well as the shut-in Islamic tradition in a spiritual deviation. This view links many of Massignon’s ideas, from the time of his conversion until his non-violent jihād towards the end of his life. His painful experience became a means to interpret spiritual currents and realities, in the East as well as in the West.

It is obvious that the Islamic armed jihād, even when it is considered morally licit, as in the case of the fight against colonialism, inevitably leads to a tension and a friction with Christiandom which will practise from its side other kinds of “holy wars” in the name of the interests of Western civilization, if not anymore in the name of Christianity.

Ascetic Islam

On the spiritual level, however, if the faithful seeks to gain the favour of God by the jihād of the soul, there is no opposition whatsoever between the jihād of the Muslem and the jihād of the Christian; for they both aspire towards the same aim. When Massignon studied the view of Islam on monasticism, he proved the hadīth “No monasticism in Islam” to be a late and apocryphal one. He showed that the Kuranic concept of monasticism is a positive one:

Then, in their work, we followed them up with [others of] our apostles: We sent after them Jesus the son of Mary and bestowed on him the Gospel; and we ordained in the hearts of those who followed him compassion and mercy. The monasticism which they invented for themselves, we only prescribed for them for the seeking for God’s favour, but that they did not foster as they should have done. Yet we bestowed, on those among them who believed, their [due] reward [...]. (Sûratu-l-Hadîd, 27)

Monasticism is in fact a form of soul jihād. The proof to this is the later hadīth which says that, in Islam, monasticism is the jihād fī sabīli-l-lāh, the “holy war”. Massignon noticed the equivalence between the chastity of the monk and abstinence from sexual intercourse during the hajj. Also the practice of Islamic retreat (khalwa) implies the observance of chastity.[19] This is what we see in the case of al-Hallāj who observed perfect chastity during long periods of his life. In any case, chastity of the heart is the conditio sine qua non of meeting with God because “the Secrets of our souls are virgin” (asrārunā bikrun).[20] We see Massignon meditating on al-Hallāj’s journey to serve the Islamic message beyond the boundaries of Islamic territory and the fortresses of murābitīn. Al-Hallāj lived his jihād in going twice in mission to India and also in making twice the pilgrimage to Mecca.[21]

The sweat of the heroes

Martyrdom during the jihād fī sabīli-l-lāh is the exact equivalent of the pilgrimage sacrifice.[22] Canonical prayer, in war, consists of two prostrations; and, during the pilgrimage, at the station of ‘Arafāt, prayer also consists of two prostrations. For Sufis, prayer in the state of Divine Love (‘ishq) consists also of two prostrations provided that the ritual ablution (wudū’) is performed with blood.[23]

In ‘Arafāt there is equality between man and woman: the greater jihād, that of the soul, is one for both. Hajj is the jihâd of women[24] and they also perform it through the service of the poor, the protection of orphans, guests and strangers.[25] It is quite obvious that al-Hallāj, in offering himself, wanted to accomplish both: jihād and hajj.[26] When he was being whipped, after four hundred whip strokes, he screamed: “Now Constantinople is conquered!”[27] He performed the ablution with his bleeding arms before crucifixion. As the sweat of heroes is blood[28] (as in the Mount of Olives, Luke, 22, 44), so the martyr does not need to be washed after his death because he has purified himself in his blood. Al-Hallāj is a martyr in jihād, who has been killed by God.[29] Massignon sees clearly the parallelism between the death of Christ on the Cross and the death of al-Hallāj along with the abdāl, mystical substitutes and intercessors, for the sake of the reformation and forgiveness of the Community’s (umma). Both the death of Christ and the death of al-Hallāj have an eschatological dimension. The abdāl, in offering themselves, postpone the Hour of Judgment because of their Abrahamic intercession.[30]

Al-Hallāj between Massignon and Gandhi

It is the personality of Hallāj, or rather Massignon’s view of it, which opens to us the understanding of Massignon’s spiritual evolution. In order to understand the link, in Massignon’s meditation, between Sufism and his embracement of Gandhi’s views regarding the “struggle for Truth” (satyagrāha) and non-violence (ahimsa), we have to recall al-Hallāj’s saying “I am the Truth” (anā-l-Haqq).[31] In this perspective, al-Hallāj is the Sufi who wanted to give to his spiritual life and testimony a social dimension. He wanted to share his experience not only with an elite of chosen ones, but with the masses also, and to trigger a spiritual evolution of social life towards justice. In this respect, he reveals God, unveiling his spiritual states, and in so doing constitutes a threat to the Islamic society built on the religious law. In the same manner, Gandhi, with his jihād, as it were, represented a threat both to the colonialist society and to the Hindu cast system; in fact he was killed because of his call for pacific coexistence and mutual respect among all Indians: Hindus, Muslems and others.

Massignon mentioned that in East Bengal some people call al-Hallāj the “Master of Truth” (satya pîr) and revere in him the Presence of God.[32] No wonder, therefore, that those people became later ardent followers of Gandhi, resisting the partition of India.[33]

Massignon found in Gandhi answers to his queries about the role of the spiritual elite in human society and the possibility of breaking through the circle of exclusion of the masses. He saw in him an attitude capable of lifting the masses to the level of conscious spiritual maturity. Gandhi never used the masses for the sake of a cause; rather, he served them by making them aware of their great call for the sake of Truth itself.[34]

Social and personal jihād

In Massignon there is a desire to harmonize personal jihād and social jihād in concordance with the methods of jihād in all its dimensions. With Gandhi, he considered the vow (vrata) as the origin of jihād, the essence of vow being God as Truth.[35] The vow, as Massignon often said, is related to the soul of the individual through its feminine aspect, and the model of this vow is the attitude of the Virgin Mary in the mihrāb of Zachary.

Massignon saw in Gandhi the man who linked and united, in a practical fashion, the spiritual experience of India and the Gospel, to which he was introduced through Tolstoy. Asceticism then becomes an act of compassion, as it is for Pachomius and Basilius.[36] The attitude of a person who has taken a vow is that of one who is ready to die for Truth. This is why Gandhi said that whoever is afraid of death cannot undertake this fight. Massignon considers that there is an Islamic element in Gandhi’s attitude at the end of his life, as he opened himself to the relationship with the One transcendent God, and through fasting and pilgrimage was made ready for the final pure sacrifice.[37]

The Hindu observance of chastity (brahmachāria) before marriage has become for Gandhi a vow completely appropriate for the non-violent jihād for Truth; for it raises one’s life to the level of its highest horizon. Massignon agrees with Gandhi and approves of his observance of chastity even in marriage.[38] These considerations on vow and chastity are in line with his meditation on Abraham’s intercession for the people of Sodom.[39]

Global jihād

Massignon became the President of the Friends of Gandhi association in Paris, visited political prisoners, defended the persecuted, bore irony and beating in his jihād for Peace and the independence of Algeria, defended the rights of Arabs in Jerusalem, widened his heart to all humanitarian causes, praying and going on pilgrimage for the sake of the crucial causes of his generation. We also find him living his Oriental Ministry in an Abrahamic fashion and offering himself as sacrifice with Christ as a witness for Truth.

It was with great emotion and solace that I visited, tracing Massignon, with an Indian Muslem friend, Birla House, the place in Delhi where the martyrdom of the Mahatma took place. There we evoked, as Massignon did several times, the last days of Gandhi, with his painful refusal of the partition of India and the displacement of millions of Muslems and Hindus. Gandhi declared at the time that he would emigrate to Pakistan to live there among the minority, rather than remain among a majority that was not willing to offer sacrifices for the unity of India. In fact he stood in solidarity with the Muslem minority of Delhi, visiting with them, on foot, their holy places. Then he died by the hand of those who refused this holy attitude, pronouncing the Holy Name in Sanskrit, and thus fulfilling his vow and becoming, as Massignon said of him, “a man of sorrow”.[40]

For Massignon it is not enough to consider Gandhi the creator of a method of social and humanitarian struggle; in fact, his is not a method, but rather a spiritual and mystical attitude before being applied to political struggle.[41]

With his Gandhian attitude, Massignon widened his human solidarity to the remotest parts of the world. His reports on his pious visits to some holy places even in Japan testify to this fact.[42] Thus the horizons of the Badaliya (the Christian group he founded, consecrated to intercession for Islam) widened with the widening of Massignon’s horizons, while saving the roots of his vow with Marie Kahil in Damietta.[43] It would be worth mentioning that the third member of the Badaliya was a Jesuit priest in Cairo, F. Christophe de Bonville.[44]

So, considering Islamic jihād today, and trying to be realistic in regard to current painful and tensed circumstances, it is my opinion that one cannot put aside Massignon’s spiritual stand toward the Islamic World.

Massignon’s mystical non-violence

If we want to understand Massignon’s mystical attitude after his commitment to non-violent struggle for justice, we must once again refer back to de Foucauld. Despite his contradictions due to the historical circumstances in which he lived, he remains, in the Church of last century, the person who represented the will to return to the heart of the Gospel of Jesus, to the source of Christ’s attitude, to the silence and humility of Nazareth.

Massignon was able to make the link, through the testimony of al-Hallāj, between the attitude of his friend and guide Charles de Foucauld and Mahatma Gandhi’s spiritual and political experience.[45] In al-Hallāj he saw man who gave to the spiritual dimension and experience of his existence a manifest role in the life of Islamic community.[46] Starting from al-Hallāj’s experience, Massignon elaborated, through his practice of jihād, his political project and his theory of history. For him it is the chain of sacrificed individuals (abdâl) which pushes the spiritual historical movement forward.[47] They pay the price to neutralize sin, in order to build the spiritual unity of Humankind in view of the Day of Judgment, the day of Resurrection, when the Covenant is fulfilled.[48] I see in Massignon one of these abdâl, along with de Foucauld, al-Hallāj and Gandhi.[49]

Communities

Gandhi had founded ashrams for people committed to non-violent struggle, observing chastity, asceticism and a life of solidarity and respect for Nature. Massignon knew well the Gandhian Christian ashrams founded by Lanza del Vasto in France. With a deep understanding of anthropological evolution during last century, Massignon was sharply aware of the spiritual and political evolution in the relation between men and women. Thus he drew a significant link between Gandhian ashrams and contemplative Christian monasteries. So he emphasised the need for the protection of spiritual places, with artistic and historical importance, in the vicinity of Islamic cities[50] and he saw a symbolic connection with hermitages of the Eastern monasteries in the desert. These holy places are feminine, related to Mary, to Ephesus[51] and to Fātima az-Zahrā’.[52] Massignon saw in the common life of John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, with Mary in Ephesus the model of the attitude that will bring Humanity to salvation and the Church to holiness. He wished the foundation of monastic communities[53] in which contemplative men and women would stay together, in a spiritual jihād, in a “no man’s land”. There, they would be saved from all evil by the Sacred, Mystic, and Heeling Presence of God, fulfilling their Vow for the sake of Truth by acts of compassion, the first of which is Hospitality to the Stranger.[54] They want to give testimony, with the Virgin, John and the Magdalene, to the spear thrust in the side of Christ from which the Church is born.[55] Islam, says Massignon, is the thrust, and the spear is jihâd.[56]

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_____________ , Annuaire du monde musulman (Préface), Paris, 1955.

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-          Vol. I. « Le mirage byzantin dans le miroir bagdadien d’il y a mille ans », 1950.

-          Vol. I. « La futuwwa ou ‘pacte d’honneur artisanal’ entre travailleurs musulmans au Moyen-Âge », 1952.

-          Vol. I. « La notion du vœu et la dévotion musulmane à Fatima », 1956.

-          Vol. I. « L’oratoire de Marie à l’Aqça vu sous le voile de deuil de Fatima », 1956

-          Vol. III. « Les trois prières d’Abraham », 1949.

-          Vol. III. « Le pèlerinage », 1949.

-          Vol. III. « Gandhian Outlook and Techniques », 1953.

-          Vol. III. « L’exemplarité singulière de la vie de Gandhi », 1955.

-          Vol. III. « Un vœu et un destin : Marie-Antoinette », 1955.

-          Vol. III. « La signification spirituelle du dernier pèlerinage de Gandhi », 1956.

-          Vol. III. « Le Vœu et le destin », 1957.

-          Vol. III. « Méditation d’un passant sur sa visite aux bois sacrés d’Isé » (English text), 1959.

-          Vol. III. « Foucauld au désert devant le Dieu d’Abraham, Agar et Ismaël », 1960.

-          Vol. III. « L’honneur des camarades de travail et la parole de vérité », 1961.

-          Vol. III. « Allocution à l’occasion du 13e Anniversaire de la mort de Gandhi », 1961.

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_____________ , Examen du « Présent de l’homme lettré » par Abdallah Ibn Al-Tarjoman. Rome, 1922.

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-          « Entre la violence et la mystique », Yvonne Chauffin

-          « Le signe marial », entretien avec Louis Massignon

-          « Sa spiritualité », Roger Arnaldez

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______________ , L’aventure de l’Amour de Dieu. Paris, 1993.