Naissance médiatique de l'intellectuel musulman en France (1989-2005)

I. the Moslem intellectual of avant-garde

The first figure of the Moslem intellectual who can be distinguished is that of the intellectual avant-gardist. On the four categories which we defined, this one is undoubtedly oldest. We in general find in this field of the personalities having acquired a intellectual legitimacy in a various- way by the means of an artistic activity or political- but whose attachment with Islam was not the springboard towards notoriety. Their posted faith is right one their identities. We can separate among them the converted French and the intellectuals originating in the Moslem world. Gathered under the same category, these two can appear opposite. Indeed, the first went from the avant-gardism towards Islam, the seconds, on the contrary, from Islam towards the avant-gardism. But they meet bus for each one, their avant-gardism takes precedence over their Islamite. It is what distinguishes them from the three other figures that we will study thereafter.

A) The French intellectual converted with Islam

Paradoxically, the French intellectual converted with Islam, although often presented in an exotic way, even marginal, is surely the oldest figure of the palpable Moslem intellectual in the media. He is frequently exposed like the single possible link between the Moslem community and the French company. Nevertheless, the representation is partial because these converted acquired the statute of intellectual independently of their membership of Islam. Here undoubtedly why these Moslem intellectuals tend to see their media role restricting with the profit of what one could qualify by contrast of « intellectual Moslems ».

1) Intellectuals before being converted.

The converted Moslem intellectuals obtained the posture of intellectual independently of their beliefs, them « dubbing » being generally former to their change of faith. Several features make these converted with the Islam of the intellectuals avant-gardists : they are it in particular by their sphere of activity, but also by the mystical character of their conversion like by their attraction for the Sufism, spiritual Islamic religion connects.

Sociologiquement initially, it is among the high social categories that conversions were primarily anchored to Islam until the beginning of the years 1990. Among these great figures of converted, much have a sphere of activities which makes them personalities avant-gardists. We find there for example the choreographer Maurice Béjart (born in 1927) or much of academics « orientalists » such Eva de Vitray (1909-1999), Roger Garaudy (born in 1913), Michel Chodkiewicz (born in 1929) and Eric Geoffroy. As for Vincent Monteil (1913-2005), before becoming it « the last of the large orientalists^11(*) », it is described by the press like one « Lawrence of French Arabia^12(*) ». It is true that Mansour Monteil, by its name of conversion, former officer of the indigenous businesses, dedicates a great admiration for the British colonel, devoting a biography in particular to him^13(*). But with the difference of its hero, it converts with Islam in 1977 in Nouakchott (Mauritania), making a little more coherent its attachment with the indigenous populations and its various engagements near them.

If these converted belong socially to raised intellectual spheres, their conversions all the more appear avant-gardists that the spiritual justification of the choice to generally enter the oumma premium. Maurice Béjart challenges the term besides of « conversion », preferring that to him of « initiation ^14(*)». Also let us note that it at a these converted there kind of attraction for the continuity of the prophetic revelation. The philosopher Roger Garaudy, become Roger Rajah Garaudy in 1982, presents his choice like one énième change of faith after having passed by Catholicism and Communism. In the same way, Michel Chodkiewicz explains his conversion like « result of a personal research started as of adolescence (...) because Catholicism [him] did not bring satisfactory answers^15(*) ». Eric Younès Geoffroy, today professor of islamology in Strasbourg, lengthily attended temples Tibetans before making his profession of faith. Islam being chronologically the last great monotheism, it is not astonishing to find among its faithful many people being at the end of a long spiritual search. Conversion with Islam is thus not inevitably the fruit of a disappointment with respect to the religion or the religious culture of origin, but rather that of the search for a revelation which is complete and total. Besides Eva de Vitray explains thus his change of faith operated in 1950 :

« In any event, Islam obliges to recognize all the spiritual communities, all the former prophets. Islam is the common denominator to all the religions. One does not convert with Islam. One embraces a religion which contains all the others^16(*). »

Also let us notice that a certain number of the converted intellectuals are researchers whose object of studies is the Moslem world or Islam. We can thus suggest that a certain attraction for the studied object operated in these scholars. This attraction could be political or mystical. Roger Garaudy and Jean-Wolf Herbert (1941-2005) for example, they were allured by the militancy pro-Arabic and the support of the Third World before converting. Others on the other hand had a metaphysical and esthetic approach of Islam. It is the case in particular among the specialists in the Sufism which, in the line of intellectuals orientalists such Rene Guenon (1886-1951) converted in 1912, embraced Islam after the study of spiritual and philosophical texts Moslem. Michel Chodkiewicz, explaining that « there was combination of the intellectual interest for the richness of the Islamic tradition with the meeting of exceptional people^17(*) «, devoted a work to Ibn Arabi, large thinker soufi of Andalusia of XIIIe century^18(*). The same mechanism operated at Eva de Vitray, with whom meetings have « fact of knowing Ibn Arabi, Rumi and other large thinkers of the Islam of the Middle Ages ^19(*)». It is besides the auteure of forty works on this mystical branch of Islam and the spiritual Master of the brotherhood of the dancing dervishes Rumi (XIIIe century)^20(*).

The model of converted with the Islamic religion at the end of the years 1980 is thus that of a personality of high social category and to the spiritual questioning and complex metaphysics. It is what makes of him an intellectual avant-gardist. We can ask all the same to us whether, under the posted spiritual reasons, other interests intended to start again an image can exist. Rock Cherqaoui, author of a book on converted with Western ground Islam, explains why « if conversion proves to be paying in this medium [intellectual], it is that obeying the laws of the media, it grants some price to displacements and reversals ideological and spiritual suitable to regild a public image^21(*) ».

Lastly, we can suggest a last argument consolidating the idea of avant-gardism of these changes of faith. These conversions are indeed early and appear in shift with an opinion still quite sensitive to the cold with regard to a religion source of all the phantasms. It can be felt in the press like paradoxical being presented at the same time in the form of an intellectual and as converted at Islam. Thus, reacting to the defense of Khomeini per Vincent Monteil, Vincent Red-headed written in the World :

« Such a misinterpretation is not worthy of the eminent intellectual who was Monteil. They is clean fanatics of any hair to arbitrarily replace the justice of God. Vincent Monteil undoubtedly did not admit it, but Vincent Mansour... alas! ^22(*) »

That the change of faith is justified by spiritual, political factors or purely materials, any harmony in any case to make these converted intellectuals avant-gardists and into shift over their time. But, force is to note that their media role as a Moslem intellectual is partial and even tends to be restricted.

2) A rather restricted media role and in breathlessness 

Being, at the beginning of our period, almost the only important figures of Moslem intellectuals in the media, these converted avant-gardists inevitably have a role of representatives of the Moslem community, but this role remains very limited.

Their intervention in the press makes it possible nevertheless to present an original point of view on the topicality. Converted allured inter alia by the support of the Third World sometimes pointed out themselves by some overflows in their analyzes. If Jean-Wolf Abdelhalim Herbert supports the Iranian revolution initially^23(*), Roger Garaudy is condemned in 1998 for dispute of crimes against humanity because of his book the myths founders of the Israeli policy. In the same way, Vincent Monteil, fascinated by the character of the Khomeiny Imam, is distinguished from the majority of the others converted into defending this last when it launches a fatwa condemning Salman Rushdie :

« The World devotes to «the Rushdie business» a place which would be justified if the word were given, in an equitable way, with the arguments of those- of which I am- which thinks that the freedom of expression does not make it possible to defend and spread a book whose blasphemies disturb the law and order and encourage with hatred and racial and religious discrimination^24(*). »

This intransigence of certain neophytes is also found in the debates on the Republic and Islam. Youssouf Leclerc, former president of the national Federation of the Moslems of France (FNMF), created initially to give a visibility to the converted French, denounce in 1990 « the moderate ones which deforms Islam, by calling upon Islam^25(*) ». This figure of converted intransigent A now replaced by that of Thomas Milcent, very mediatized under the pseudonym of « Doctor Abdallah », become the symbol of the fight against the law prohibiting the wearing of religious signs at the school.

But these partisans of a hard Islam constitute a minority of the French intellectuals allured by Islam. As we saw previously, much are attracted by the mystical values of this religion. They are thus in general presented like the partisans of an alleviated Islam. Michel Chodkiewicz, called « converted against the integrist ones », of which the woman « is not buckled », explains that it is it « vocation even » of Islam to be « opened ^26(*)». To the moment of the Rushdie business, whereas he is a chairman of the editions of the Threshold, he brings publicly, and on several occasions, his support for Christian Bourgeois, editor of the Satanic Verses. With Eric Geoffroy, Michel Chodkiewicz is even solicited to represent the currents soufis in the installation of the Islam of France in order to counterbalance the weight of the federations considered to be too retrograde in the consultation.

Michel Fox, with his review Islam of France, is also a burning promoter of an easing of the Koranic message to adapt it to Western modernity : « Time had just chosen between Islam religion, enraciné in a secular Moslem wisdom, and the political Islam appeared at the beginning of the XXe century^27(*). » Opponent « political Islam and Islam religion », Michel Renard estimates that « the Islam of France cannot be exonerated from a necessary theological clarification^28(*) ». If the intellectuals converted with Islam thus call mainly with a aggiornamento, they can only accompany it because they are not presented as legitimate to carry out themselves a reform which must be made interior, their statute of converted driving back them in a posture eternally external partly with the Islamic tradition^29(*). At the hour when the media pressure requires Islam a concrete reform, they are not thus any more of the essential interlocutors.

So the converted intellectuals are generally the object of investigations on their choice which intrigues, as indicate it the majority of the titles of the files which are devoted to them : « voyages among converted^30(*) », « secrecies of converted^31(*) ». Thus, the book of talks with Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch, starts as follows :

« Before to have even had time to reflect, the first question which rose in us, Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch, is as follows : how a young woman born in the French and high aristocracy in the chocolate éclairs it could be done Moslem ? That it occurred and why^32(*) ? »

Converted thus are more solicited to explain their choice that to express an opinion of Moslem. But this already restricted role as a Moslem intellectual is packed still a little more owing to the fact that the changes of faith, which were practiced formerly mainly in the elite, tend to be popularized in the lowest fringes of the company. For Xavier Ternisien, author of a study on the panorama of Islam in France, we passed from « converted intellectual » with « converted proximity^33(*) ». Of course, the observation is to be relativized, the figures given by the media on the matter being at the very least problematic. Indeed, since 1986, the New Observer indicates the figure to us of « two hundred and thousand French converted with Islam^34(*) ». In 1999, the World in advertisement « fifty thousand^35(*) ». It is thus obviously complex to count converted. But this supposed breathlessness of conversions to Islam, in particular among the French elite, is perhaps another explanation, sociological this time, of the media obliteration of the intellectual converted avant-gardist, leaving little by little the place to the Moslem intellectual of Moslem origin.

The intellectual converted with Islam always had a partial media role as a Moslem intellectual from his legitimacy acquired above all by his avant-gardism. However its influence ceases being reduced as a skin of sorrow for reasons which are as well media- waiting of the press and the French company with regard to Islam changing- only sociological- converted, fewer, being found in the lowest fringes of the companies while, we will see it, an elite resulting from the Moslem world takes on the contrary form.

* ¹¹ Sadek Sellam, «  Vincent Mansour Monteil (1913-2005), the last of the large French orientalists  », Oumma, 14/3/2005.

* ¹² Nicole Zand, «  Lawrence and Monteil of Arabia  », the World, 31/7/1987.

* ¹³ Vincent Monteil, Lawrence of Arabia, the fatal greyhound (1888-1935), Hatchet, 1987, 332 p.

* ¹⁴ Rosita Bushel, «  Maurice Béjart, 50 years of childhood  », the World, 27/11/2004.

* ¹⁵ Claire Brière, «  One converted against the integrist ones  », the New Observer, 7/2/1986.

* ¹⁶ Cherqaoui rock, From one faith to another  : conversions with Islam into Occident, Threshold, 1986, p. 20.

* ¹⁷ Claire Brière, «  One converted against the integrist ones  », COp cit.

* ¹⁸ Michel Chodkiewicz, the seal of the saints, prophecy and holiness in the doctrines from Ibn Arabi, Gallimard, 1986, 231 p.

* ¹⁹ Henri Tincq, «  The Al ways are impenetrable  », the World, 15/1/1990.

* ²⁰ It is the auteure in particular of an Anthology of the Sufism, (Albin Michel), 360 p.

* ²¹  Cherqaoui rock, From one faith to another  : conversions with Islam into Occident, COp cit., p. 189.

* ²² Red-headed Vincent, «  Verses, answer to Vincent Mansour Monteil  », the World, 5/4/1989.

* ²³ Cf Herbert Jean-Wolf, «  The mobilizing force of a spirituality  », The Diplomatic World, September 1984.

* ²⁴ Vincent Monteil, «  Biblical arguments, verses  », the World, 23/3/1989.

* ²⁵ Henri Tincq, «  The Al ways are impenetrable  », the World, 15/1/1990.

* ²⁶ Claire Brière, «  One converted against the integrist ones  », COp cit.

* ²⁷ Michel Fox, «  Political Islam or Islam religion  », Release, 2/10/2001.

* ²⁸ Ibid

* ²⁹ Cf left II.

* ³⁰ Henri Tincq, «  Travel among converted  with Islam «, the World, 8/12/1999.

* ³¹ Claire Brière.,  «  The secrecy of converted  », the New Observer, 7/2/1986.

* ³² Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch (Discussions with Rachel and Jean-Pierre Cartier), Islam, the other face, Albin Michel, 1995 (1ère edition  : 1991), p. 11.

* ³³ Xavier Ternisien, France of the mosques, Albin Michel, 2002, p194. 

* ³⁴ Claire Brière, «  One converted against the integrist ones  », COp cit. 

* ³⁵ Henri Tincq, «  Travel among converted  with Islam «, COp cit.