The Sufi and the Friar

A Mystical Encounter of Two Men of God in the Abode of Islam

Minlib Dallh

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781438466187
  9781438466170
• eBook ISBN:
  9781438466194
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christliche Theologie

An investigation of the spiritual encounter between a twentieth-century Dominican friar and an eleventh-century Afghani Sufi master.

This book explores the profound spiritual encounter between Serge de Beaurecueil (1917–2005), a twentieth-century French Dominican friar and Christian mystic, and the eleventh-century ?anbal? Sufi master Khw?ja 'Abdull?h An??r? of Her?t (1006–1089). De Beaurecueil lived much of his Christian discipleship in Cairo and Afghanistan, where he became the foremost expert on the life and thought of An??r?. His mystical conversation and scholarly engagement with An??r?, his experience of Islamic hospitality, and the transformation of his own practical spirituality or praxis mystica through his experience of dwelling in the abode of Islam provide us with not only a magnificent and luminous meditation on the hidden and abiding presence of God among Muslims but also a contemplation on the quandary of genuine engagement with and openness to the religious other.

1

Serge de Beaurecueil, OP (1917–2005)

A Life Curve

… of course, your task is not to engage in the conquest of Islam, not even try to convert a few individuals here and there separated from the Muslim community. On the contrary, you must give yourselves utterly to an in-depth study of Islam, its doctrines and civilization. This is a long and abiding apostolate of institutional quality.1

One of the jewels of Cairo, the city of a thousand minarets, is known as “Islamic Cairo” in the neighborhood of ‘Abbāsiyya. In this part of the city, visitors marvel at Cairo’s Islamic heritage, which is a world of famous gates, medieval forts, shrines, and century-old marketplaces. Above all, the vicinity is filled with Fatimide, Mamluk, and Ottoman mosques; and mausoleums with breathtaking architecture. Another point of reference nearby is the quarter of Gamaliyya, where Naguib Mahfouz (d. 2006) locates the scenes of his major work of fiction. His Nobel Prize–winning novel, Midaq Alley (zuqāq al-midaq), is set in an alley in Khān al-Khalīlī (a major bazaar) in Islamic Cairo.

Indeed, in this historical district of ‘Abbāsiyya, the Dominican friar, Antonin Jaussen (d. 1962), built an impressive Dominican priory at 1st Maṣnā‘ al-Ṭarābīsh Road, about a mile away from al-Azhar’s Mosque and University. Today the precious jewel of the priory is the library of the Dominican Institute of Oriental Studies (IDEO),2 named after one of the founding members of the institution, Georges G. Anawati (d. 1994). It is within the walls of this priory and its library that Brother Serge de Laugier de Beaurecueil would start a unique journey that would lead him to Afghanistan in the footsteps of ‘Abdullah Anṣārī. Correctly, Dominique Avon remarks, “within the vast field of Islamic mysticism, Serge de Beaurecueil cuts a path of astonishing originality.”3

Borrowing from J. J. Pérennès’s book Passion Kaboul: Le père Serge de Beaurecueil, this biography studies de Beaurecueil’s family background and focuses on the social and theological backgrounds that influenced his Dominican formation. The chapter is divided into four sections: first, de Beaurecueil’s early life in Paris; second, his Dominican formation at Le Saulchoir; third, the establishment of a Dominican center of study in Cairo; and, last, his scholarly endeavor at the IDEO.

I. A Wounded Privilege

1. Negotiating an Aristocratic Childhood

On August 28, 1917, Serge Emmanuel Marie de Laugier de Beaurecueil was born into an aristocratic family in his maternal grandfather’s house. His birthplace was the luxurious district of Paris (16e arrondissement) at 42, Rue Copernic, the present location of the Lebanese Embassy. His father was le Comte Pierre de Laugier de Beaurecueil, a thirty-three-year-old cavalry officer, away on the battlefields and trenches of World War I at the time of his birth. His mother, Roberte de Quelen, came from a family of wealthy Drogomans (interpreters) of the Ottoman Empire who had settled in Istanbul for generations.4 De Beaurecueil gives a quick look at his genealogy: “My family formed a surprising genetic melting pot, a mix of Provençal and Brittany, Corsican and Polish, and all from an aristocratic lineage, with a good dash of Jewish blood. My grandmother’s maiden name was Oppenheimer.”5

Unfortunately, the privileges of an aristocratic heritage did not guarantee a happy childhood. His parents married in 1914 and divorced in 1931. Three children were born out of this unhappy marriage: Serge, born in 1917; his sister, Antonia, born in 1920; and younger brother, Raoul, born in 1922. Antonia became a hermit in the Benedictine Order in the region of the Drôme, and Raoul a social worker in Paris. Pérennès remarks about Serge’s parents:

The couple was certainly from aristocratic stock but sadly unhappy. They did not get along for multiple reasons: their marriage was arranged as it was often the case in certain circles at the time. Above all, the mother, a very beautiful woman, was capricious, wounded herself by a difficult childhood.6

Hence, de Beaurecueil spent most of his childhood and youth with the stigma of a child born into a privileged yet broken family. Catholic aristocratic circles of the time were comfortable, bourgeois, and religiously conservative. Divorce or birth out of wedlock was an anathema. In their case, de Beaurecueil and his siblings paid a tremendous price even though they had nothing to do with their parents’ divorce. They could not enjoy a regular childhood where they invited peers to their house or visited others.

At this point, a brief exposé on the relation between de Beaurecueil’s childhood misfortune and his later attachment and care for children in dire situations is in order.7 The friar’s early life was marked by the neglect and absence of his mother, the authoritative and military discipline of his father, and the regime of boarding schools. Even later in life, he recalls, “In a broken family like ours, children must be sent away. Hence, I followed my fate. It was the beginning of a wretched childhood for children born to a divorced couple. Even at the age of seventy five, the memories of this period still burn vividly.”8 Obviously his childhood woes had a lasting impact on him. Perénnès believes that Serge’s childhood story is the key to understanding his entire life and his spontaneous affinity with children in difficult situations.9 There are reasons to believe that the divorce of his parents, the stigma he endured, his mother’s indifference, and lack of care sparked in him a compassion for the afflicted.

Later in life, he would show a natural disposition, a remarkable tenderness and care for children and youngsters. He seemed to have turned this traumatic childhood experience around. Pérennès remarks, “Born into a divorced family, he has always loved children, maybe trying to give something he never experienced himself.”10 Throughout his life, children’s hospitals would remain one of his favorite locations for ministry. However, this view is a little far-fetched. Unlike Serge, his brother, Raoul, and sister, Antonia, who suffered the same fate, did not exhibit such a disproportionate attachment to suffering children. Seldom did Serge himself link his care for children to his own childhood experience. It is safe to argue that the friar’s childhood experience alone fails to explain fully his utter dedication to suffering children in his mature age.

Therefore, the influence of his difficult childhood needs not to be exaggerated but kept in due proportion. Although it is tempting to read too much into these experiences of his early days,11 I believe that his premature choice to join a religious order, his decisive will to go as far as possible from the aristocratic Catholic milieu of Paris, and his utter compassion for suffering children were the result of a web of reasons and circumstances. Understandably, he was reluctant to open the pages of his early life and entertain the memories of his relationship with his mother. Now and then, he would volunteer a few facts about his parents, a grandfather, and an uncle, but astonishingly little about his mother. Later chapters tease out the different aspects of the influence of his childhood on the mature Serge.

At any rate, two words summarize his early childhood: fear and dream. These sentiments fueled an unquenchable desire to go as far as possible from Paris.12 For certain, the longing to go away stems mainly from a lonely childhood experience. He refers to it as “a wretched childhood.” In dreams he found the remedy against fear and loneliness. He hoped for a journey that would take him away from France, from all that his childhood symbolized.13 For example, he saw himself as the son of an Indian Rajah in exile and hoping to return home one day.14 He said to himself, “I had to dream to keep my mind away from family matters and school work.”15 During this ordeal, he found solace in the world of his books as well. His childhood dreams, born out of cultural and religious stigma, would find an echo in his religious zeal for foreign lands and peoples. Here lies, in my view, his deep-seated longing to travel the world and visit remote lands. Egypt and Afghanistan would fulfill such a yearning.

Serge’s early childhood traumatic years and his determination to run away explain his impetuous wish to join a religious community. These two factors sowed the seeds of a deep longing, a search for otherness, and a will to go to mission lands. He sought to leave his country, family, and friends and go to unforeseen destinations. His life would be marred by points of departure. No wonder he was mesmerized by the patriarch Abraham, who was called to leave all beyond and trust in God’s providence on his journey to unknown destination. It is probable that this earlier experience of uncertainty and ambiguity would facilitate his encounter with the religious other and later his mystical conversation with Anṣārī’s work. As his life journey unfolds, his entire epistemology and hermeneutic of the religious other took root at Le Saulchoir, continued in Cairo, and blossomed in Kabul.

To return for a moment to his early life, under the care of his grandfather, his early schooling and secondary education took place at the most prestigious and elite schools in Paris. After Saint Croix de Neuilly, he went to l’École de Gerson and then to Lycée de Janson de Sailly where he earned his Baccalauréat. Maybe the only laudable aspect of his childhood was the prestigious schools he attended. Early on he developed a fascination for foreign places and languages. At twelve he started learning Russian, and at fourteen he enrolled in Arabic classes at Lycée de Janson de Sailly. He passed his baccalaureate in philosophy with Arabic as a third language.16 The dream of a future life in a distant land and the desire to stay as far as possible from married life and aristocratic Paris might have opened a window to religious life. He recalled his dream to join a religious community at a tender age:

I dreamed a future far away from all my surroundings, and henceforth my desire to join a religious community. I said to myself: I will never marry because marriage is a recipe for disaster. I would go as far as possible and within my childlike logic, I convinced myself that if Jesus gave his life for me, I must as well give mine for his sake.17

2. An Unexpected Call to a Life as a Dominican Friar

De Beaurecueil spent some of his holidays in Vaulogé in the region of Sarthe at the castle of his uncle de Carini. In spite of his fear of dark stairways and nocturnal sounds, he paid attention to a painting of John of the Cross18 holding a jug of water and a dry loaf of bread in his prison cell. The holiness and austere demeanor of John of the Cross deeply impressed the young man; with the naiveté of a teenager, he confesses:

In addition there was The Life of the Saints, which I read constantly at my uncle de Carini’s castle on Thursday night after the Boy Scouts’ meetings. John of the Cross, in his prison cell, was in ecstasy, and wearing a frock and a white cloak. He was locked up by his Carmelite brothers, who found him too dangerous and subversive. I decided to be a Carmelite.19

This spontaneous desire remained a childlike dream but points to a deep-seated search or restlessness. Nevertheless, at the age of thirteen, during a summer vacation at Mer-les-Bains in Normandie, he met a strange person, Père Aquity. This fortunate encounter would change the course of his life and alter his dream to join the Carmelites. De Beaurecueil recounts his meeting with Aquity:

At the young age of thirteen, we went to a summer vacation at Mer-les-Bains in Normandy. It was our introduction to the sea. At our hotel, there was a priest with a long beard, Père Aquity, who was also on vacation, and always ate alone. I will never forget his name. One day, while it was too cold to swim, he invited me to walk to the statue of the Blessed Mother in the hills. On the way, he ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration and Style
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Serge de Beaurecueil, OP (1917–2005): A Life Curve
• Chapter 2 De Beaurecueil: Heeding Anṣārī’s Call
• Chapter 3 De Beaurecueil: A Premier Scholar of Anṣārī’s Works
• Chapter 4 De Beaurecueil’s Pastoral Mysticism in Kabul
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover