Content area
Full text
Louis Massignon. The Crucible of Compassion. By Mary Louise Gude. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 1996. Pp. xii, 283. $34.95.)
Mary Louise Gude's admirable biography of Massignon is the only one in English (a French life appeared in 1994) despite his international reputation as an Oriental scholar, a religious mystic, and a social and political activist who devoted much of his life (1883-1962) to promoting understanding between Islam and Christianity and, in a larger context, between the Arab world and the West. The work appears at a sadly opportune moment, when with increasing violence and fanaticism the need to achieve such understanding becomes even greater than in the past. Gude records in detail Massignon's career as one of the greatest Arab scholars of his time, dwells on the profundity of his religiosity which co-existed with social and political activism as evidenced in his attacks on colonialism and social injustice, and in his heroic efforts, despite fierce accusations against him as "anti-French" and"Communist," to bring peace to Algeria. Massignon's family belonged to the "grande bourgeoisie." His father, an agnostic, successfully practised sculpture under the pseudonym of "Pierre Roche." His mother, a devout Catholic, gave her son...