LAMMENS, HENRI. - Jesuit, famous Islamicist, b. at Ghent on 1 April 1862, d. at Beirut on 23 April 1937. Having landed in Syria while still sixteen years old, he was then a professor at the University of St. Joseph in Beirut from 1882 until his death, except for the years 1908-19, during part of which (1911-14) he taught Arabic at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. L. became very well known for his studies on pre-Islamic Arabia, on the sirah, and on the figure of Muhammad.
His masterpiece: Fátima et les filles de Mahomet (Rome 1912) offered a new solution, generally accepted, to the historical value of the traditional sources of Islam. Also fundamental is his work: Le berceau de l'Islam, l'Arabie occidentale à la veille de l'hégire, I, Le climat, les Bédonins (Rome 1914). Of a character of high popularization, but very closely adhering to the sources, are the two manuals: La Syrie, précis historique (Beirut 1921) and L'Islam, croyances et institutions (ibid. 1926). L. collaborated assiduously in the Mélanges de l'Université de St-Joseph and in the Encyclopédie de l'Islam. Prof. G. Levi Della Vida called L. «one of the most distinguished historians of Islamic origins, a worthy companion of Wellhausen and of Caetani».
Bibliography
Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina
(from C. Spellenzen, Risorgimento e unità d'Italia, Milan 1851, p. 757)
LA MORICIÈRE, LOUIS-CHRISTOPHE-LÉON JUCHAULT de - Portrait. Wood engraving from a drawing from life.