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The Catholic Historical Review 88.1 (2002) 170-171



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Le voyage en Mésopotamie et la conversion de Louis Massignon en 1908


Massignon, Daniel. Le voyage en Mésopotamie et la conversion de Louis Massignon en 1908. (Paris: Editions du Cerf. 2001. Pp. 84 and 4 planches. 70 F paperback.) [End Page 170]

In Le voyage en Mésopotamie et la conversion de Louis Massignon en 1908, Daniel Massignon, the scholar's son, juxtaposes his father's account of his dramatic 1908 conversion with documents about the same event, unearthed in the early 1980's from the archives of the Quai d'Orsay (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

Because Louis Massignon's own account of the conversion remained within his family and because he spoke publicly of his conversion only in an elliptical fashion, the documents discovered confirmed details of the event, which had long remained unclear and thus open to disbelief. In drawing both on the personal account of Louis Massignon and on the official documents concerning his father's aborted expedition in the desert, return to Baghdad, and repatriation to France, Daniel Massignon provides the most complete summary of the actual sequence of events.

From March 22, 1908, when Louis Massignon set out from Baghdad on an archaeological expedition, until his return to France in mid-July, his movements are here reconstructed step by step. At the end of April, exhausted by the desert heat and suspected of being a spy, Massignon was forced to return by steamer to Baghdad. During that trip, he raised concern among the boat's passengers and crew because of very erratic behavior, all of which was documented. At one point he attempted suicide. This behavior served as a backdrop for the "Visitation of the Stranger," the mystical experience that triggered the conversion.

After analyzing and synthesizing in great detail the two sets of documents, Daniel Massignon summarizes his findings in a probable chronology of events and their context. This is a valuable text for students of Louis Massignon andofreligion because it provides a basis in fact for what was so long considered to be the stuff of legend.

 



Mary Louise Gude, C.S.C.
(University of Notre Dame)

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