Editing Maxime Rodinson (section)

== Biography ==

=== Family ===
The parents of Maxime Rodinson were Russian-[[Polish Jew]]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"/>

===Early life and education===
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" />

===Syria and Lebanon (1940–1947)===
In 1940, after the beginning of the [[Second World War]], Rodinson was appointed to the French Institute in [[Damascus]]. His subsequent stay in Lebanon and Syria allowed him to escape the [[persecution of Jews]] in [[Vichy France|occupied France]] and extend his knowledge of Islam. His parents were murdered in [[Auschwitz]] in 1943. Rodinson spent most of the next seven years in Lebanon, six as a civil servant in [[Beirut]] and six months teaching in [[Sidon]] at the Maqasid{{dubious|Means what? As in WP article on maqasid? So an Islamic school?!!|date=March 2016}} high school.<ref name = "Young">{{cite web |first=Michael |last=Young |url=http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2004/May-27/95172-some-thoughts-on-the-death-of-anti-marxist-maxime-rodinson.ashx |title=Some thoughts on the death of 'anti-Marxist' Maxime Rodinson |work=[[The Daily Star (Lebanon)|The Daily Star]] |date=27 May 2004 }}</ref>

===Professor of Oriental Languages and Marxist without a party===
In 1948, Rodinson became a librarian at the [[Bibliothèque Nationale]] in Paris, where he was put in charge of the Muslim section. In 1955, he was appointed director of studies at the [[École pratique des hautes études]], becoming a professor of [[Ge'ez language|classical Ethiopian]] four years later. Rodinson left the [[French Communist Party|Communist Party]] in 1958, following [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s [[20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|revelations of Stalin's crimes]]<ref name="Young" /> amid accusations of using the association to further his career, but nonetheless remained a [[Marxist]]. According to Rodinson himself, the decision was based on his [[agnosticism]], and he explained that being a party member was like following a religion and he wanted to renounce "the narrow subordination of efforts at lucidity to the exigencies of mobilization, even for just causes."

He became well known when he published ''[[Muhammad (book)|Muhammad]]'' in 1961, a biography of the prophet's life written from a sociological point of view, a book which is still banned in parts of the Arab world. Five years later, he published ''Islam and Capitalism'', a study of the economic decline of Muslim societies. He participated with other colleagues committed to the left ([[Elena Cassin]], [[Maurice Godelier]], [[André-Georges Haudricourt]], Charles Malamoud, [[Jean-Paul Brisson]], [[Jean Yoyotte]], Jean Bottero) in a [[Marxism|Marxist]] think tank organised by [[Jean-Pierre Vernant]]. This group took on an institutional form with the creation, in 1964, of the ''Centre des recherches comparées sur les sociétés anciennes'', which later became the ''Centre [[Louis Gernet]]'', focusing more on the study of [[ancient Greece]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vernant Jean-Pierre |url=https://www.ex-pcf.com/index.php/liste-alpha/215-vernant-jean-pierre |access-date=2022-01-25 |website=www.ex-pcf.com}}</ref> He was awarded the 1995 Prize by the Rationalist Organisation.{{dubious|What's that?|date=March 2016}}

Rodinson died on 23 May 2004 in [[Marseille]].