Jean-Louis Michon

Jean-Louis Michon (1924-2013) was a French traditionalist writer, editor, translator, Arabist, and artistic consultant who specialized in Islam in North Africa, Islamic art, and Sufism. He was associated with both René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, and lived and worked in several countries both as a teacher and as a consultant on the reestablishment of traditional arts and crafts, including architecture.

Following his high school and initial university studies, Michon’s early interest in comparative religion and Islam took him to Damascus, Syria, where he taught high school from 1946 to 1949. While there, he studied Arabic and immersed himself in the beauty and harmony of Islamic civilization. Once back in Europe, he obtained a degree in architectural drafting in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1952. Around this time he began a long association with eminent thinkers of the school of “perennial philosophy”, such as Frithjof Schuon and Titus Burckhardt.

After marriage and the birth of a daughter, he began a career with a variety of United Nations agencies, first as a freelance editor and translator and finally, over a period of fifteen years (1957-1972), as a permanent senior translator for the World Health Organization in Geneva. These assignments gave him the chance to visit many countries, a number of which belong to dār al-islām (“the world of Islam”).

It was also during this period that Michon obtained a PhD in Islamic studies at Paris University (Sorbonne). His thesis was on the life and works of a scholar and spiritual guide of great renown from the north of Morocco, Shaykh Ahmad Ibn ‘Ajībah al-Hasanī (1747-1809), whose Autobiography (Fahrasa) and Glossary of Technical Terms of Sufism (Mi’raj al-tashawwuf ilā haqā’iq al-tasawwuf) Michon translated from Arabic into French (1982; 1974 and 1990). Michon’s French translation of the Fahrasa of Ibn ‘Ajībah has been translated into English by David Streight (1999).

From 1972 to 1980, Dr. Michon was Chief Technical Adviser to a series of joint programs of UNESCO, the UN Development Program, and the Moroccan government, to be carried out in Morocco. These programs were for the preservation of traditional arts and crafts, and included the establishment of a broad survey of cultural property, covering inventories of national monuments and sites, museum holdings, and folk arts and traditions. His mission coincided in time with one entrusted to Titus Burckhardt for the preservation of the old city of Fez, which explains why Michon was invited by the Temenos Academy to share with the public both his personal memories and some documentation as a tribute to Burckhardt’s unique personality and long and close relationship with Morocco.

After retiring from the UN civil service in 1980, Dr. Michon continued translating, including a French version of Martin Lings’ book Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, and a French rendering of the Koran (see www.altafsir.com).

He continued to consult on projects related to the preservation of Islamic cultural heritage. Dr. Michon regularly participated in international conferences and symposia, and over the years gave many lectures on subjects connected to the value of art as a means of communication between people who belong to different cultures, as well as on the necessity of protecting traditional arts and crafts everywhere in the world.

In addition to all these studies and activities, Dr. Michon also continued to work out in the field: in Morocco, on a UNESCO project for the creation of a school of traditional arts and crafts in Fez, on the preparation and publication of the Directory of Moroccan Handicrafts, on the creation of CERKAS (Center for the Rehabilitation of Southern Kasbas) in Ouarzazate, and on proposals for the rehabilitation of Ksar Aït Ben Haddou (entered on the World Heritage List in 1986); in Oman, on the restoration of the citadel of Bahla; in Bahrain, on the inventory of historical sites; and in Uzbekistan, on the evaluation of the state of conservation of historical sites in Itchan Kala, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Shahrisabz.

Adapted from Jean-Louis Michon, Introduction to Traditional Islam, Illustrated: Foundations, Art, and Spirituality (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2008), p. 155.