Michel Chodkiewicz

Michel Chodkiewicz (13 May 1929 – 31 March 2020) was a French scholar of Sufism, particularly the works of Ibn 'Arabi.^[1]

Michel Chodkiewicz
Chodkiewicz at Editions du Seuil, 1987
Born	(1929-05-13)13 May 1929 Paris, France
Died	31 March 2020(2020-03-31) (aged 90)
Nationality	French
Known for	Scholar of Sufism
Children	Claude Addas

Biography

Michel Chodkiewicz was from the Chodkiewicz family, a noble family of the Polish aristocracy who settled in France in 1832. He was born in Paris in 1929 and completed most of his education there.^[2] Chodkiewicz converted to Islam at age 17.^[3] He began studying Ibn 'Arabi under the Romanian traditionalist Michel Valsan.^[1]

He served as Director-General and then President and CEO of Editions du Seuil from 1977 to 1989.^[1][4] In 1982, he became director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales where he conducted seminars on Ibn 'Arabi and Abd al-Karim al-Jili.^[1]

He died 31 March 2020 in the town of Les Hauts-d'Anjou.^[3]

Publications

• Émir Abd el-Kader, Écrits spirituels, presentation, translation and notes, Seuil, 1982; reprint 1994.
• Awhad al-Din Balyani, Épître sur l'Unicité absolue, presentation, translation and notes, Les Deux Océans, 1982.
• Le Sceau des Saints, Prophétie et Sainteté dans la doctrine d'Ibn 'Arabî, Éditions Gallimard, 1986; reprint 2012.
• Ibn 'Arabî, Les Illuminations de La Mecque, texts chosen from al-Futûhât al-Makkîya (in collaboration with W.C. Chittick, C. Chodkiewicz, D. Gril and J.W. Morris), Sindbad, 1988; reprint with subtitle Anthologie présentée par Michel Chodkiewicz, Albin Michel/Spiritualités vivantes, 2008.
• Un Océan sans rivage. Ibn 'Arabî, le Livre et la Loi, Éditions du Seuil, 1992.

Translations

• The Spiritual Writings of Amir 'Abd al-Kader (1982).
• The Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn Arabi (1986).
• Ibn 'Arabî: The Meccan Revelations (translation of selected chapters, 1988)
• An Ocean Without Shore: Ibn Arabi, the Book, and the Law (1992)