Jean Mohamed Ben Abdejlil

Biography

Mohamed Ben Abdeljlil was born in Fez, the spiritual city of Morocco, and begins by learning the Koran at the University of al-Karaouine and accompanied his parents with 9 years old on a pilgrimage to Mecca. In 1922 he entered at Gouraud High School, where he graduated in 1925, while a resident of the Foucault school run by Franciscan fathers in Rabat. It was at this time that Mohamed developed an interest in Christian religion. Born into a family of Muslim notables of Fez, Mohamed Ben Abdejlil, who had made the Hajj to Mecca with his father, converted to Catholicism and was baptized on April 7, 1928 in the chapel of Franciscan college of Fontenay-sous-bois, taking the Christian name Jean, with sponsor of French orientalist Louis Massignon. This conversion causes at the time of sending to Paris a confidential note of French intelligence services in Morocco, who fear it causes problems in the Protectorate. In 1929 Jean Abdejlil entered in the Franciscan Order. In 1930 he published anonymously in the journal En terre d’Islam, calls "offering the faithful to devote Friday to pray for our distant brothers", originally a "League for Friday prayers to the conversion of Muslims." Later, he also writes a "Novena for the conversion of Muslims". In 1935 Abdejlil was ordained Roman Catholic priest. In 1936 he was named professor at Catholic Institute of Paris. Abdejlil resigned in 1964, already hit by a tongue cancer and retired to the Saint Mary-Rose convent. In 1966 he was received by Pope Paul VI. Father Jean Mohamed Ben Abdejlil died on November 24, 1979.