A Man for Others: The life and times of Lebanese Jesuit Henri Lammens (1862-1937)

The mere mention of Henri Lammens, Society of Jesus (SJ), provokes unease, notorious as this militant "priest-scholar" has become in postcolonial circles. Yet his failings notwithstanding, Lammens has been a victim of the academic conceits and biases of postmodernist postcolonialists throu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Middle East and Africa 2018-04, Vol.9 (2), p.213-236
Main Author: Salameh, Franck
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arab nationalism
Christians
Crusades
Edward Said
French Mandate
Henri Lammens
identity
Islam
Jesuits
Lebanon
Memories
Orientalism
Postcolonialism
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Summary:The mere mention of Henri Lammens, Society of Jesus (SJ), provokes unease, notorious as this militant "priest-scholar" has become in postcolonial circles. Yet his failings notwithstanding, Lammens has been a victim of the academic conceits and biases of postmodernist postcolonialists through whose prisms he often emerges as a cantankerous, inflammatory, Christian polemicist, hell-bent on defaming an otherwise blameless, innocent, beatific Islam. This article suggests that a more nuanced gaze be cast at Henri Lammens, the man and missionary, before judging his scholarship; a corrective of sorts, shedding light on the life and times of a Belgian boy, who traveled East at the tender age of fifteen, who fell into the snare of Near Eastern Christians, and who set out to write their history and restore their suppressed memories-doing so not without the passion and affection of the neophyte.
ISSN:2152-0844
2152-0852
DOI:10.1080/21520844.2018.1500240