Maxime Rodinson: Difference between revisions

| alt =

| spouse =

| partner =

| website =

| thesis_title =

| thesis_year =

| doctoral_advisor =

| academic_advisors =

| notable_students =

| notable_ideas =

| signature =

| signature_alt =

'''Maxime Rodinson'''{{efn| (<small>French pronunciation:</small> {{IPA-|fr|ʁɔdɛ̃sɔ̃|}}.}}; (26 January 1915 – {{Snd}}23 May 2004) was a French historian and sociologist. Ideologically a [[Marxist]] [[historian]], [[sociologist]]Rodinson andwas a prominent authority in [[oriental studies|orientalist]]. He was the son of a [[Russians|Russian]]-[[Polish people|Polish]] clothing trader and his wife, who both were murdered in the [[Auschwitz concentration camp]]. After studying oriental languages, he became a professor of [[Ge'ez]] at the [[École pratique des hautes études]]. He was the author of a body of work, including the book ''[[Muhammad (book)|Muhammad]]'', a biography of the Prophetprophet of [[Islam]] .

Rodinson joined the [[French Communist Party]] in 1937 for "moral reasons"{{fact|date=April 2024}} but was expelled in 1958 after criticizing it. He became well known in France when he expressed sharp [[criticism of Israel]], particularly opposing the [[Israeli settlement|settlement policies]] of the Jewish state. Some credit him with coining the term ''[[Islamofascism|Islamic fascism]]'' (''le fascisme islamique'') in 1979, which he used to describe the [[Iranian revolutionRevolution]].

The parents of Maxime Rodinson were Russian-[[Polish JewishJew]]ish immigrants who were members of the [[French Communist Party|Communist Party]].<ref>[http://lhomme.revues.org/index1546.html L'homme. Jean-Pierre Digard: Maxime Rodinson (1915-2004)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727213653/http://lhomme.revues.org/index1546.html |date=2011-07-27 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.republique-des-lettres.fr/10484-maxime-rodinson.php La République des Lettres. Noël Blandin. Biographie : Qui est Maxime Rodinson?]</ref> They arrived in France at the end of the 19th century as [[refugee]]s from [[pogroms]] in the [[Russian Empire]]. His father was a clothing trader who set up a business making waterproof clothing in the [[Yiddish]]-speaking part of [[Paris]], called the [[:fr:Pletzl|Pletzl]], in the district of the [[Le Marais|Marais]]. They became port-of-call for other Russian exiles, most of them revolutionaries hostile to the [[Tsarist regime]]. His father tried to unionise and organize educational and other services for his [[working-class]] [[immigrant]] group. In 1892, he helped to establish a community library, containing hundreds of works in [[Yiddish]], Russian, and French.

In 1920, the Rodinsons joined the [[French Communist Party|Communist Party]] and as soon as France recognized the [[Russian SFSR]], in 1924, they applied for [[Soviet]] citizenship. Rodinson grew up in a fervently [[Communist]], non-religious and [[anti-Zionist]] family.<ref name ="Johnson"/>

Rodinson was born in Paris on 26 January 1915. Neither he nor his sister learned Yiddish. The family was poor, so Rodinson became an errand boy at the age of 13 after obtaining a primary school certificate. But his learning thrived through borrowed books and obliging teachers who didn't demand payment,<ref name ="Johnson">{{cite news |first=Douglas |last=Johnson |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jun/03/guardianobituaries.france |title=Maxime Rodinson, Marxist historian of Islam |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=3 June 2004 }}</ref> and Rodinson began to study [[oriental languages]], at first on Saturday afternoons and in the evenings.

In 1932, thanks to a rule allowing persons without academic qualifications to take the competitive entrance examination, Rodinson gained entry to the Ecole des Langues Orientales and prepared for a career as a diplomat-interpreter. He studied Arabic but later, preparing a thesis in [[comparative Semitics]], he also learned [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], which surprised his family. In 1937, he entered the National Council of Research, became a full-time student of [[Islam]], and joined the [[French Communist Party|Communist Party]].<ref name="Johnson" />

===Support for Palestinian [[self-determination]]===

in the ardour of the [[ideological]] struggle against [[Zionism]], those Arabs most influenced by a Muslim religious orientation would seize upon the old religious and popular prejudices[[prejudice]]s against the Jews in general

Rodinson's work combined [[sociology|sociological]] and [[Marxism|Marxist]] theories, which, he said, helped him to understand "that the world of Islam was subject to the same laws and tendencies as the rest of the human race." Hence, his first book was a study of [[Muhammad]] (''[[Muhammad (book)|Muhammad]]'', 1960), setting the Prophet in his social context. This attempt was a rationalist study which tried to explain the economical and social origins of Islam. A later work was ''Islam and Capitalism'' (1966), the title echoing to [[Max Weber]]'s famous thesis regarding the development of [[capitalism]] in Europe and the rise of [[Protestantism]]. Rodinson tried to rise above two prejudices: the first one widespread in Europe that [[Islam]] is a brake for the development of capitalism, and the second one, widespread among Muslims, that Islam was [[egalitarian]]. He emphasized social elements, seeing Islam as a neutral factor. Throughout all of his later works on Islam, Rodinson stressed the relation between the doctrines[[doctrine]]s inspired by [[Muhammad]] and the economic and social structures of the Muslim world.

Rodinson also coined the term ''theologocentrism'' for the tendency to explain all [[empirical]] phenomena in the Muslim world with reference to Islam, while ignoring the role of "historical and [[social conditioning]]" in explaining events.<ref name="RodinsonVeinus2002">{{cite book|author1= Maxime Rodinson |author2= Roger Veinus |title= Europe and the Mystique of Islam |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Ejvdf8OIrsEC&pg=PA105 |date= 23 November 2002 |publisher= I.B.Tauris |isbn= 978-1-85043-106-0 |pages= 104–108}}</ref><ref name="Rahnema2011">{{cite book|author=Ali Rahnema |title= Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics: From Majlesi to Ahmadinejad |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hzTzAuk1D-8C&pg=PA29 |date= 6 June 2011 |publisher= Cambridge University Press| isbn= 978-1-139-49562-2 |page= 29}}</ref><ref name="Jung2006">{{cite book|author= Dietrich Jung |title= Democratization and Development: New Political Strategies for the Middle East |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=wQXGAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA185 |date= 5 August 2006 |publisher= Palgrave Macmillan |isbn= 978-1-4039-8343-5 |page= 185}}</ref><ref name="Abukhalil2011">{{cite book|author= As'ad Abukhalil|author-link= As'ad Abukhalil|title= Bin Laden, Islam, & America's New War on Terrorism |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=eKn2rwNNWJoC&pg=PA19 |date= 4 January 2011 |publisher= Seven Stories Press |isbn= 978-1-60980-175-5 |page= 19}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|I have no wish to deceive anyone ... I do not believe that the Koran is the book of Allah. If I did, I should be a Muslim. But the Koran is there, and since I, like many other non-Muslims, have interested myself in the study of it, I am naturally bound to express my views. For several centuries the explanation produced by Christians and rationalists has been that Muhammad was guilty of falsification, by deliberately attributing to Allah his own thoughts and instructions. We have seen that this theory is not tenable. The most likely one, as I have explained at length, is that Muhammad did really experience [[sensory phenomena]] translated into words and phrases and that he interpreted them as messages from the [[God in Abrahamic religions|Supreme Being]]. He developed the habit of receiving these revelations[[revelation]]s in a particular way. His sincerity appears beyond a doubt, especially in [[Mecca]] when we see how Allah hustled, chastised and led him into steps that he was extremely unwilling to take.}}

* ''Europe and the Mystique of Islam'' (2002) {{ISBN|1-85043-106-X}}, translation of 'La Fascination de l’Islaml'Islam,' 1980

* [[Islamic scholars]]

[[Category:Anti-ZionistJewish JewsFrench anti-Zionists]]