Louis Massignon: Christian Ecumenist

From October to December in 1952 Louis Massignon lectured on Islam in the United States at the University of Chicago, at Columbia, Harvard, Notre Dame, the Catholic University of America. Between Massignon and the American scholars who then discovered him there was the deepest respect. Ten years after his death in 1962 the American public is better qualified to appreciate the personality and the spirit of Louis Massignon. He had a penetrating insight into the problems which now beset us. His analysis concerning the problem of Palestine and the relations between the Israelis and the Arabs, his preoccupation with the defense of the oppressed and politically persecuted, his philosophy of non-violence in the spirit of St. Francis and of Gandhi, the dialog between Muslim and Christians -- are all problems that deeply concern us today and on which he sheds a great deal of insight.