Henri Lammens

Education and career as a Jesuit

Born in Ghent, Belgium of Catholic Flemish stock, Henri Lammens joined the Society of Jesus in Beirut at the age of fifteen, and settled permanently in Lebanon. During his first eight years in Lebanon, Lammens mastered the Arabic language, as well as Latin, and Greek, and he studied philosophy at the Jesuit-run Saint Joseph University in Beirut. Between 1886 and 1891 he taught the Arabic language at the same university. His early published writings are on the subject of Arabic language. Starting in 1903 he taught Islamic history at the Oriental Studies Department at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. In 1907 he went to the Jesuit-run universities at Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt to do the same, and returned to Beirut in 1919. He also lived in Rome for a while.

Lammens on The Koran

″Au point de vue philologique, le style est d'une remarquable perfection, dans celle première œuvre en prose de la littérature arabe et il n'y a pas lieu de s'étonner qu'il ail servi de canon pour fixer les règles de là grammaire nationale.″

i.e. ″From the point of view of philology, the style is of remarkable perfection, in that first prose work of Arabic literature, and it is not surprising that it has served as a canon for fixing the rules of National grammar.″

(La Syrie Précis Historique, Vol. 1, p. 162, Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1921).

″From the point of view of philology, the sentences run flowingly, especially in the post-Hijran Sûras, and this first prose work of Arabic literature achieves a remarkably finished style. Some Orientalists have alleged that it has been touched up in order to bring the language to the standard of perfection set by the pre-Islâmic poets. On the other hand, Dr. Tâhâ Hussain argues that the ancient divâns were adapted to the Qurayshî dialect, that of the Qorân.

″In that case we must suppose that these purists in their revision have paid no attention to the extremely primitive rhymes of the most recent Sûras and above all that they have passed over slight faults of grammar and style which it would have been so easy to rectify. (Qorân 20, 66: inna followed by a nominative; Qorân 49,9: dual subject of a plural verb). In Qorân 2, 106; Qorân 4, 40-41, the predicate is singular in the first clause of the sentence, and in the plural in the second although relating to the same grammatical subject. In Qorân 27, 61; Qorân 35, 25, passim, Allah speaks in the third person; then, without transition, in the first. Thus in Qorân 2, 172, the celebrated philologist Al-Mubarrad read al-barr instead of al-birr, in order to avoid this singular construction: “piety is he who...”

″In spite of all this there is no occasion for surprise in the fact that the Qorân, especially the Medinese Sûras with, their more polished phrases, less interspersed with ellipses and anacolutha than the pre-Hijran ones, has served as the standard for fixing the rules of national grammar.″

(Islam Beliefs and Institutions, Engl. translation by Sir E. Denison Ross, pp. 40–41, London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1968). (The sentence mentioning Dr. Tâhâ Hussain occurs in the Third "Revised & Augmented" French Edition of this book, Beirut, 1943).

Lammens on the Initial Expansion of Islam

″[Rapid] Sandification [of parts of Arabia], desertification, cosmic and climatological evolution? In our view, Islamic expansion involves an even more down-to-earth explanation: It was born of an irresistible penchant for raiding (l'irrésistible penchant à la razzia) which animated all the Arabs. The success of these tumultuous incursions, due to a better military organization, belatedly suggested to them the idea of occupation and conquest, an idea absent at the beginning.″

Le Berceau de l'Islam: l'Arabie occidentale à la veille de l'hégire, Vol. 1: Le climat, les Bédouins, Rome: Sumptibus Pontificii Instituti Biblici, 1914, p. 177)

Lammens on the Universality of Islam as a Religion

From: Etudes Sur le Règne du Calife Omaiyade Mo`awia Ier, Troisième Série, Beirut, 1908, pp. 421–22 (footnotes renumbered):

Lammens on the Conflict between Regressive and Reformist Muslims

"L'Islam se trouve à la croisée des chemins. Il devine vaguement que le moment est venu de jeter du lest... C'est lui qui isole les musulmans de la société contemporaine. C'est lui qui, dans les pays non-musulmans, les empêche d'obtenir le privilège qui leur est offert, l'entière égalité civique. Le livre d'Abderraziq leur suggère qu'ils peuvent en sûreté de conscience envisager la refonte d'une législation où leur Prophète n'a eu en vue ni tous les temps ni tous les lieux. C'est ce que pense également une élite musulmane."

i.e. "Islam has arrived at the crossroads. It vaguely senses that the moment has come to make concessions... Because of it, the Muslims in contemporary society stand isolated. It is the one which prevents them in non-Muslim countries from obtaining the privilege that is offered them: full civic equality. The book of Ali Abdel Rāziq [al-Islām wa Usûl al-Hukm, Cairo, 1925] suggests them that they can, with surety of mind, envisage the redrafting of a legislation where their Prophet had not in view all the times and all the places. This is how the Muslim elite also think."

(From: La crise intérieure de l'Islam, in: Études, Vol. 186 (1926), pp. 145-6).

"With the exception of the old conservatives, all Muslims are conscious of the urgent need to carry out reforms and come to terms with modern progress. But each party envisages the transformation in its own way... The Moslem World [Volume 13, Issue 3, (July 1923), p. 285] speaks of 6 to 10 million Muslims who are alleged to have adopted Western Culture and to have broken with the traditional type of ancient Islamic Orthodoxy so completely that they may be classed as modern Muslims. We do not know on what data these summary calculations are based, but it would be just as rash to deny the internal crisis through which Islam is passing as to attempt at the present time to prophecy its issue."

(Islam Beliefs and Institutions, Engl. translation by Sir E. Denison Ross, pp. 224-5, London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1968).

Lammens' writings on medieval Islam

He published a series of studies on the Umayyads and several on Pre-Islamic Arabia (including Etudes sur le regne du calife Omaiyade Mo'awia ler (1908), Le berceau de l'Islam; L'Arabie occidentale à la veille de l'Hegire (1914)), and on the history of Islam during the lifetime of the Prophet Mohammed (including Fatima et les filles de Mahomet; Notes critiques pour l'etude de la Sira (1912)). He contributed many articles to the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, as well as to various learned journals.

His contributions to the early history of Islam are considered influential among Western historians of Islam; and yet he has often been criticized for his skewed portrayal of some historical issues. It is acknowledged "that Lammens provided the study of the Sîra with a new basis" ("Er hat das ganze Sîraproblem auf eine neue Basis gestellt"); and "none would underestimate his contributions on the history of the Umayyads." Lammens was very well read in medieval Arabic writings, and he used this knowledge to good effect to produce evidence-based history reports. At the same time, however, he had a very negative view of Islam, which, in his view, had a unique political dimension that had adversely affected the development of the Arab world. Also, throughout his years living in Lebanon and Egypt, in addition to a very pro-Christian bias, he had a "commitment to European imperialism and a belief in the superiority of Western civilization". Numerous historians during his lifetime deplored the overly hostile attitude against Islam transpiring in his books.

Writing in 1926 Arthur Jeffery notes "Lammens has not yet given us his "Life," which should be epoch-making when it appears."

Lammens wrote a book-length biography of the Prophet Muhammad, but it has never been published, reportedly by express orders from the Vatican, "for its publication would have caused considerable embarrassment to the Holy See."

The historian Patricia Crone gives an example [] to demonstrate Lammens’ method of work:

In his monograph La Mecque à la veille de l'Hégire, Lammens, speaking about the trade between Mecca immediately prior to Islam’s emergence and Africa, claimed that “apart from gold-dust, Africa supplied [to Mecca] above all ivory and slaves,” (“Outre la poudre d’or, l’Afrique livrait surtout de l’ivoire et des esclaves” p. 204).

To support this claim, Lammens provided the following three references (Crone’s analysis of each reference is also given):

1. Pliny, Natural History, vi, 173, which in fact describes a trading center in East Africa to which ivory and other things were brought some 500 years before the rise of Mecca. Thus the reference is to the wrong time (i.e. 500 years before the rise of Mecca).

2. Fraenkel, Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen, p. 177, which in fact conjectures that the King of Hîra bought Ethiopian ivory and slaves as well as leather in Arabia. Thus the reference is to the wrong place (i.e. Kingdom of Hîra).

3. Theodor Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, 46, which in fact merely states in general terms that the Meccans traded with the Ethiopians, from whom they brought slaves and other goods. This reference mentions Mecca, Africa and slaves but fails to mention ivory.

Other Historians' views of Henri Lammens

da:Frants Buhl, a biographer of the Prophet Muhammad, remarks:

Maxime Rodinson, a biographer of the Prophet Muhammad, characterized Lammens as follows:

Louis Massignon criticized Lammens for 'misinforming' his readers with his 'far too cynical and disparaging study' of Hazrat Fatima.

The authors of The History of the Qurʾān have the following to say:

″Lammens’ main mistake is that, for no apparent reason, he generalizes correct, individual observations, partly already made by others, and inexplicably overextends them as a principle.″

C.H. Becker [1] examined Lammens' studies in a special article. He points out that the skepticism of Lammens, though great, does in fact not go far enough, as it leaves him with a somewhat naïve faith exclusively in all those stories reported in the Islamic tradition which portray Muhammad, his family, his political dealings, etc. in a bad light even when motives and tendencies explaining them are quite obvious.

Writing in 1926, Arthur Jeffery [2] placed Lammens among those scholars who practiced "Advanced Criticism" of Muhammad's life, whose dominant note was "back to the Koran." He spoke of Lammens approach as "more monographic than biographic" and anticipated a Life of Muhammad written by Lammens to be "epoch-making".

Joseph Schacht [3] writes: ″[M]y investigation of legal traditions has brought me to respect and admire his [Lammens'] critical insight whenever his ira et studium were not engaged.″

Schacht continues: ″the reaction to Lammens's one-sided thesis ought not to have left to a reversion from historical criticism,″

In 1969 the English translation of an interesting Russian book [4] was published simultaneously from New York (Praeger), London (Pall Mall) and Jerusalem (Israel Universities Press). This book is unique in that the author, E.A. Belyaev [5], attempts to explain the origin of Islam from a Soviet Orthodox Marxist-Leninist perspective.

Speaking about Lammens, Belyaev has the following to say:

″[An] outstanding orientalist specializing in pre-Islamic Arabia was Henri Lammens, an exceptionally erudite scholar of the first part of the twentieth century who was particularly intimately acquainted with Arabic historical and literary works of the feudalists period, as well as with the relevant European literature. His numerous printed works should be handled with caution, however. An active Jesuit and missionary in the Arab Orient, as well as a professor at the Catholic University of Saint-Joseph in Beirut, his scientific writings and pedagogic activities reveal extreme religious intolerance in regard to Islam, and an obvious overestimation of the historical role of Christian Arabs, so that to the present-day Moslem intelligentsia Lammens seems an odious figure. Nevertheless, as long as a critical approach is retained, his works are highly valuable for their tremendous variety of material (from numerous Arabic sources as well as from European scholarship). His richly documented monograph The Cradle of Islam, deals with the historical geography of western Arabia and the life of its society, using the data of pre-Islamic poetry with a scope and depth unique to Lammens.″ (Arab Islam And The Arab Calphate[6], pp. 24, 25).

Other writings

Lammens was also a frequent contributor to the popular Beirut-based scholarly journal, al-Mashriq. In a review of the Maronite priest and scholar Fadl Allah Abu Halqa’s 1890 historical geography textbook, for instance, he critiqued ABu Halqa for his ignorance of the classical languages, including Greek, Hebrew and Syriac.

Henry Lammens published one of the earliest in-depth pieces on Zionism in Arabic in 1899 in the journal al-Mashriq, titled “The Jews in Palestine and their Settlements.” He surveyed the existing Zionist settlements, dividing them into five categories: Jaffa and its surroundings, Jerusalem and its Surroundings, Safed and Bilad al-Bishara (i.e. the Galilee), Haifa and its surroundings, and the Hawran and Transjordan (‘Abr al-Urdunn). His tone was dry and detached, seemingly indifferent to the whole matter. He made no mention anywhere that the Jews were interested in establishing an independent government in Palestine. His only point of criticism was that the Jews had violated orders of the Sultan in establishing their colonies. His only source was a report published in the Istanbul-based, Journal of the Palestine Association.

Works

(List incomplete)