The recent opening across the United States of the much praised French film “Of Gods and Men” is an important event. As a fraternal love story wrapped in a horror story, it offers much reason for hope, as well as room for despair, depending on the lens of the viewer.
My lens is one of hope, based on six years of research and writing “The Monks of Tibhirine,” the book French director Xavier Beauvois called his “bible” for making his movie about Christian-Muslim friendship. My hope is also based on knowing the back story that goes untold in an otherwise excellent film focusing on the monks’ struggle to be true to their Trappist vows of poverty, charity, and stability when faced with their fear of a brutal death.
Some people today might say that Christian-Muslim love is an oxymoron. Yes, there are Muslims who preach hatred of the Christian West, even though fewer and fewer in the West (outside the US) are practicing or even professing Christians. There are no Muslims I have heard of who preach hatred or even disrespect for Jesus Christ, who is a much revered and sinless prophet in Islam.
There is, however, an active Christian minority that preaches hatred of Islam and regularly insults the Prophet Muhammad. Elements with political agendas on both sides benefit from blackening the other, and the media have been willing accomplices to this downward phobic spiral. “Of Gods and Men” is film that could help right perceptions.
Despite pleas in 1996 from both French and Algerian authorities to leave for a safer place when threatened by Islamic extremists, the monks remained at their remote monastery in Algeria’s Atlas Mountains out of deep sense of commitment to their extended family of villagers who depended on them for moral, medical, and material support. Like their neighbors, the monks trembled with fear at night. They argued among themselves: does the Good Shepherd abandon his flock when the wolves come? Does a mother abandon a sick, infectious child? Does their vow of poverty allow for them to flee to safer ground when their friends cannot?
When seven of the monks were kidnapped, it was not their neighbors who did it. Instead, it was a contract job that employed a group from outside the area to take the monks away from their dangerous situation—to be traded, in effect. But something went wrong along the way. Of one thing I am certain: killing them was not the plan. If that had been the case, they would not have been schlepped around the country for two months nor would negotiations for their release have taken place. Yet for some viewers, I suspect this will be seen as simply another “bad-Muslims-kill–good-Christians” story—exactly what the abbot of the monastery feared when he wrote his last testament, read at the end of the film.
The film works very well dramatically as a struggle between faith and fear. By necessity it leaves out important and broader story components. The tenacious commitment of Abbot Christian de Chergé (played by Lambert Wilson) to serve God in Algeria had been formed in him as a soldier serving in the French army during the Algerian war for independence from 1954 to 1962, when his life was saved by a Muslim friend, an Algerian policeman named Mohammed who faced down local rebels who wanted to shoot Christian one day when they were taking a walk—a time when they would discuss their faith.
That friendship cost the Algerian his life the next day. For Christian, Mohammed’s sacrifice was a gift of love reinforcing his belief that the spirit of Jesus Christ resides in all his children. For the rebels, the friend of my enemy is my enemy.
The film doesn’t have room to tell about the seventy-plus imams who, based on the same logic, were assassinated in the 1990s for denouncing what the terrorists were doing in the name of Islam. The terrorists themselves could show respect for the monks. In a dramatic scene in the film, Saya Attia, head of the terrorist group that intruded upon the monastery on Christmas Eve 1993 with demands for medical help, apologizes to Christian for disturbing their celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Left out are the leader’s final words to Christian when he extends a hand in friendship: “We don’t consider you foreigners…you are religious.”
Nor does the viewer know that the tiny hamlet of Tibhirine was inhabited by families whose homes in the mountains had been bombed by the French during the war for independence. They had fled to the protection of the monastery, a holy place where the Christian “marabouts” (Arabic for religious teachers) sheltered them until they could build their own homes.
I have one regret about the film. It might have ended on a more positive note for Christian-Muslim relations by showing the genuine remorse of much of the Algerian population. Archbishop Henri Teissier of Algiers received sacks of letters from ordinary Algerians after the monks’ deaths were confirmed. The letters expressed a deep sense of solidarity with the monks as well as a sense of shame that was captured by this one: “No matter what has happened, we truly love you. You are part of us. We have failed in our duty—to protect you, to love you. Forgive us…You must accomplish your divine mission with us. I believe it is God’s plan.”
Universal fraternal love is the essence of Christianity and all true religion. Otherwise, religion degenerates into celestial nationalism. Christian himself frequently said that if religion doesn’t help us to live together, it is worthless.
The idea may seem laughably naïve in a post-9/11 world. Love, however, has nothing to do with sentiment and everything to do with good will, justice, empathy, and respect for others. Like their Savior, the monks’ lives were not taken. They were gifts of love.
John W. Kiser is the author of “The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria” (St. Martins Press, 2002).
5 Responses to “John W. Kiser: Christian-Muslim Love”
“There are no Muslims I have heard of who preach hatred or even disrespect for Jesus Christ, who is a much revered and sinless prophet in Islam.”
While this maybe true in some respects, the Koran teaches that Christ was a prophet among many rather than the Son of God. But beyond this theological dispute, the author is presenting the “tolerance” of Islam in speech while thousands of Christians are being slaughtered in their places of worship in Iraq, Egypt, Ethiopia…and on and on.
This is not even regarding the oppression of Christian minorities in dozens of Muslim countries from the Kingdom of Saud to Pakistan to Iran.
I agree with you about the movie; however, your insights on the tolerance of Islam on the ground with their Christian neighbors and countrymen, rather than in mere words in the Koran, is severely lacking critical context of the harsh reality.
Thanks for your comments John ! More on the movie in my latest book (in French) : ‘Secret des hommes, secret des dieux’, Presses de la Renaissance, prefaced by Xavier Beauvois, already Prix Spriritualités d’aujourd’hui 2011.
Anyhow, this film is an amazing and huge gift to honor our seven brothers and moreover succeed to stir people here!!
Choices were made, so repectfully!
Thanks again to all the team!
One of the points that should have emerged in the book, The Monks of Tibhirine, is the difference between Islam as a religion and Muslims as they do or do not practice their religion. Marshall Hodgson distinguished Christianity from Christendom, just as he distinguished Islam from Islamdom.
The underlying question is whether there is a transcendent essence in either Christianity or Islam. Hans Kung wrote tomes on this question examining Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He concluded that no religion exists as an essence and that every religion is the accumulation of contextual adaptation to the here and now. According to this theory, Islam is what Muslims do, including all that is universally recognized as violating global or any other kind of ethics, and regardless of the political, economic, and sociological factors as extenuating circumstances. Therefore Islam changes from one century to the next and from one country to another.
Unfortunately, extremist Muslims, as well as extremist Christians and Jews, often have adopted a victim mentality, which can lead to arrogance, even though the scriptures of all world religions condemn arrogance as the worst of all sins, because it is incurable (only a humble person can admit one’s own arrogance).
The monks of Tibhirine tried to follow a life of humility before God, as do most of the Sufi Muslims (though not all). Are they part of the essence of anything? This is addressed in my book, The Natural Law of Compassionate Justice, available on Amazon.
John, congratulations for the way this story now plays out on big screens and with wide audiences. You sleuthed it long before the cameras came rolling through. It is a righteous parable of the better paths in interfaith relations, tragic griefs notwithstanding. We are finding the spirit of Jesus echoing and resonating in many new orbits, some far afield from the traditional paths of religious communities. Yet the classic appeal to human dignity amid differences is irresistibly attractive. Let us all take heart!
----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Donald Nunraw ... Sent: Sat, 21 May, 2011 18:43:10
Subject: Full WikiThere is work yet to check the Full Wiki detective account of the deaths of the Seven Monks of the Monastery of Our Lady of Atlas at Tibhirine, Medea, Algeria.
Tibhirine Notre Dame de L Atlas in Medea Google2008
Who murdered the beheaded French monks of Tibhirine?
In May 1996, the heads of seven French Catholic Cistercian-Trappist monks1, kidnapped two months earlier from their monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria, were found by a roadside, some hanging from trees in plastic bags. Their murders remain unsolved, despite initial official claims that Islamic extremists were responsible.
The tragedy is the subject of the French film 'Des hommes et des dieux', (English title: 'Of Gods & Men'), a huge box-office hit which has clocked up more than 2.5 million cinema admissions since it was released in September.
An ongoing French judicial investigation is exploring the theory that they were mistakenly murdered in an attack on their hostage-takers, in a presumed Islamic extremist group's camp in the desert, by Algerian army helicopter gunships, and their bodies mutilated as part of an appalling subsequent cover-up. In the first of a two-part report, we return to the moment when Mediapart first revealed the astonishing evidence uncovered by the investigation, and the many further very disturbing questions it now raises about the involvement of both Paris and Algiers in disguising the horrific blunder.
It was in July 2009 when Mediapart published extracts from the deposition before French magistrates Marc Trévidic and Philippe Coirre of a key witness, French Army General François Buchwalter, former defence attaché of the French Embassy in Algiers, who had until then never spoken about the case.
This high-ranking officer stated that the monks were indeed the unintended victims of a desert raid by Algerian army helicopter gunships. More importantly, he stated that he had reported this information to the French authorities and was asked to cover up the affair. They "implemented the black-out requested by the [French] ambassador," the general revealed.
The seven French Trappist monks disappeared from the Tibhirine monastery, about 90 kilometres south of the capital Algiers, in the Medea region, on March 27th 1996. The kidnapping was claimed, on April 18th, by Armed Islamic Group (GIA)1 Emir, Djamel Zitouni.
In a communiqué, he demanded the release of a group of Islamist rebels in exchange for the monks. After nearly a month, on May 23rd, 1996, a report by a radio station in Tangiers, Morocco, announced that the seven monks had been killed two days earlier, stating this was because the French authorities refused to negotiate.
A week later, on May 30th, the Algerian authorities announced the discovery of the monks' remains on a road near Medea. Only their heads were ever recovered, a fact the Algerian army tried to dissimulate.
Over the years, after a number of revelations by former Algerian military personnel, the theory that the Algerian army was in some way implicated in the affair gained in credence. In France, the inquest opened by the Paris public prosecutor and first led by anti-terrorist magistrate. Jean-Louis Bruguière.
The enquiry largely became dormant until Bruguière left his job in 2007, when he was replaced by magistrates Marc Trévidic and Philippe Coirre. In concert with Patrick Baudoin, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs in a civil suit joined to the case, the two magistrates relaunched the investigation.
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1: Dom Christian de Chergé, Prior of the community, 59 (years old). Brother Luc Dochier, 82. Brother Bruno Lemarchand, 66. Father Célestin Ringeard, 62. Brother Paul Favre-Miville, 57. Brother Michel Fleury, 52. Father Christophe Lebreton, 45.
2: The FIS Islamic Salvation Front won the first round of legislative elections in December 1991. The army stepped in to prevent it winning the second ballot and the FIS was dissolved in January 1992. The GIA, Armed Islamic Group, arose at that time to support the FIS. Ten years of civil unrest ensued.
20 Oct 2010
French archbishop murdered soon after
It was in this context that, on June 25th, 2009, General Buchwalter, who had been defence attaché to the French Embassy in Algiers from 1995 to 1998, was summoned for questioning.
In an astonishing series of revelations, extracts of which are published here, the general began his testimony on the subject of Roman Catholic Archbishop of Oran, Monsignor Claverie, who was murdered in a bomb blast on August 1st, 1996.
"Did Mgr Claverie, indicate that he knew something about the death of the monks?" magistrate Marc Trévidic asked the general.
"I think he even wrote that," Buchwalter confirmed.
"What did he tell you?" the magistrate asked.
"He thought the Algerian authorities were implicated," the general replied.
"I think there is a link between the insistence of Hervé de Charette [then French Foreign Minister] on going to Tibhirine and the assassination [of the archbishop]," he added. "I saw how infuriated the Algerian Foreign Minister became when Hervé de Charette modified his schedule to go to Tibhirine. The Algerians battled for hours and hours to oppose the trip," the general said.
"Why would the Algerian authorities hold Mgr Claverie responsible for this trip?" the judge queried.
"You know how he died," the general retorted. "He changed his ticket at the last minute. Very few people were informed. The authorities didn't appreciate his freedom of expression regarding either the Islamists or the Algerian powers that be."
General Buchwalter then came to the subject of the Tibhirine monks. "Is it true that some Algerian authorities wanted [their] departure?" asked Marc Trévidic.
"That's right. The Medea wali1 had asked the Tibhirine monks to leave and their refusal had greatly annoyed the authorities," he answered.
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1: Algerian provincial governor.
'He said their bodies were riddled with bullets'
Then the general continued: "This is difficult for me because it is something I was asked not to talk about," he began. "I had spoken to Father Veilleux [one of the current civil parties and who discovered that the coffins contained only the monks' heads], to Mgr Teissier and to the ambassador. Just so you understand, I have ties of friendship with several Algerian officers who trained at Saint Cyr1 and it was in this capacity that I met someone whose name I would rather keep quiet because it's possible his brother is still in Algeria."
This anonymous source, according to General Buchwalter, "had a career as an officer then became a businessman in Algeria. He ran a bus company and I saw him often. He was a friend."
"Several days after the monks' funeral, he told me something that his brother had told him in confidence," the general continued. "His brother commanded one of two helicopter squadrons posted in the First Military Command which is headquartered at Blida. His brother was flying one of the two helicopters during a mission in the Blida Atlas [mountain range], between Blida and Medea. This was a cleared zone and the helicopter crew saw a bivouac. As this was a cleared zone, this could only be an armed group [of rebels]. So, they fired on the bivouac. Then they landed, which was quite courageous because there could have been survivors. They took some risks. Once on the ground, they discovered that they had shot [among others] the monks. The monks bodies were riddled with bullets. The Blida CTRI [local Algerian secret services outpost] was informed via radio."
A subtitled clip from the film 'Of Gods & Men'.
General Buchwalter said there were probably "about a dozen armed men" in the helicopters, adding that he remembered having met, after the funerals, "a gendarmerie doctor2 attached to the French Embassy" and whose name he had "forgotten."
"He had a lot of trouble talking to me about it because the ambassador had made him promise secrecy. I asked him if he had seen the bodies, since my friend told me they were riddled with bullets, and that's when he told me there were only the heads [...] He told me that the heads had spent a long time in the ground, that it was dreadful," the general said.
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1: The French military academy.
2: "medécin du renfort de gendarmerie" in the original French.
Who murdered the beheaded French monks of Tibhirine?
The general put forward a theory that has also been advanced by former Algerian military personnel: once the Algerian army discovered its appalling error, it organised a sordid cover-up by decapitating the monks in order to steer suspicion towards the Islamist rebels. The bodies were then disposed of they have never been found in order to erase all forensic evidence, such as the numerous bullet wounds, that could implicate the army.
Furthermore, if the general is to be believed, all this was known to the French authorities. His last two answers to the judge are as short as they are unambiguous: Trévedic asked him:
"As the defence attaché, did you report back, in writing, on what you had learned about the Tibhirine monks from your friend the businessman?"
"Yes." Buchwalter answered.
"Was this report sent to the same authorities as usual?" Trévedic then asked.
"Yes. But there was no follow-up. They implemented the black-out requested by the ambassador," the general replied.
Patrick Baudoin, lawyer for the plaintiffs in the civil suit, said the officer's revelations were "extremely" credible. "They highlight the lies of the Algerian authorities but also the complicit silence of the French state," he said.
The investigation continues and Mediapart has since published secret French intelligence documents that detail the ambivalent role of Algerian intelligence during the kidnap crisis, which we present in the second of this two-part report.
English version: Patricia Brett
Tibhirine monk murders and 'bitter' reports of a super-spy
In March 1996, seven French Cisterian Trappist monks1 were kidnapped from their monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria. Their heads were found two months later, on a roadside in the same region, close to the town of Médéa, some hanging from trees in plastic bags. Their murders remain a mystery, despite initial official claims that Islamic extremists were responsible. An ongoing French judicial investigation is exploring the theory that they were mistakenly murdered by Algerian army helicopter gunships, during an attack on a desert camp of suspected Islamic extremists, and their bodies mutilated as part of an appalling cover-up.
Mediapart's report on the astonishing testimony of a French army general suggesting that both the Algerian and French authorities had disguised the blunder was presented in the first of this two-part report. Here, we reveal how French intelligence reports at the time indicated that the Algerian authorities were "slow" in dealing with the hostage taking and displayed a certain "tolerance" towards the Islamic extremist believed to be behind the kidnapping.
Monks of Tibhirine; victims included Father Christophe, 2nd. from right. [above]
Uncovering the ambivalent role played by the Algerian secret services is central to the investigation led by Paris-based magistrate Marc Trévidic. The monks were kidnapped at the height of the conflict between the Algerian state and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA)2, and it was long held previously that the GIA was responsible for the killings.
Several reports of the French counter-espionage services, declassified at the request of Judge Trévidic, indicate that blame for the massacre may not lie with the GIA alone. Mediapart has consulted the documents, composed of three 'confidential defence' reports written by General Philippe Rondot, who was at the time assigned to the Direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST, now called the DCRI),3 the French secret service responsible for counter-espionage and internal security. As such, the general was on the front line during the kidnapping and the ensuing assassination of the Tibhirine Monks.
Now retired, General Rondot was heard as a witness on Monday September 27th, 2010, by Judge Trévidic. He was summoned to explain reports he made at the time of the events and which he himself qualified as "bitter musings". In these, he noted the "visibly slow progress" of the Algerian secret services in the management of the affair and their "relative tolerance" towards one of the main leaders of the GIA, Djamel Zitouni, to whom the taking and killing of the monks is officially attributed.
The seven monks were kidnapped from the Trappist monastary at Tibhirine, located 90 kilometres south of Algiers, in the Medea region, during the night of March 26th to 27th 1996. Their heads were found several weeks later, at the end of May, on the side of a road. Their bodies were never found.
Nearly 15 years after the events, no legally-proven truth has emerged from the thick fog surrounding the causes of the massacre. The theory that Islamic rebels are responsible is supported by Algiers and was upheld for years by the first French anti-terrorism magistrate to handle the case, Jean-Louis Bruguière. But this view is seriously flawed, for at least two reasons.
Firstly because, in July 2009, the former military attaché to the French Embassy in Algiers, General François Buchwalter, told investigating magistrates that he had information revealing that, after they were kidnapped, the monks were the unintended victims of an attack on a desert camp by the Algerian army. He was asked by French diplomats to keep his revelations to himself, he further stated.
The second reason is that many clues tend to show that two of the principal terrorists held responsible for the monks disappearance, Djamel Zitouni, a GIA Emir, and his deputy, Abderrazak El-Para, maintained ambiguous relations with the Algerian authorities. At best, the government showed them a degree of laissez-faire, at worse they were agents of the military apparatus, infiltrated into the heart of the GIA in order to manipulate it, no matter what the cost.
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1: Dom Christian de Chergé, Prior of the community, 59 (years old). Brother Luc Dochier, 82. Brother Bruno Lemarchand, 66. Father Célestin Ringeard, 62. Brother Paul Favre-Miville, 57. Brother Michel Fleury, 52. Father Christophe Lebreton, 45.
2: The FIS Islamic Salvation Front won the first round of Algerias legislative elections in Dec 1991. The army stepped in to prevent it winning the second ballot and the FIS was dissolved in January 1992. The GIA, Armed Islamic Group, arose at the time to support the FIS. Ten years of civil unrest ensued.
3: The DST merged with the 'Direction central des renseignements généreaux' in 2008 to become the 'Direction central du renseignement intérieur'.
Tibhirine monk murders and 'bitter' reports of a super-spy
A reading of General Rondot's declassified reports received by Judge Trévidic earlier this year raises serious questions over the behaviour of the Algerian security forces during the Tibhirine events.
Titled 'Operation Tibhirine', the first of these reports is dated April 8th, 1996. It consists of the spymaster's mission report of a trip to Algiers on April 5th to 7th, several days after the monks' disappearance was announced. The document, like the others, is addressed to prefect Philippe Parant, then head of the DST.
General Rondot's reports (in French only).
General Rondot quickly realised that for the Algerian secret services, with whom he had constant relations, "the priority given to the survival of the monks hampers the force of the search, hence the visibly slow progress in collecting and exploiting information".
Working with Philippe Rondot was the head of the DCE, the Algerian counter-espionage upon which France's DST was at the time especially dependent for information. Too dependent, perhaps. In his first report, the French intelligence officer observed that "although the DCE's cooperation appears to be real as long as one plays by Algiers rules, it must be noted that they remain our only operational source in the field." The report concluded, somewhat pessimistically: "We must remain cautious in our analysis and wary of the product delivered by the DCE, while preparing for the worse."
A month later, on May 10th, 1996, General Rondot produced a second report. The tone is drier and, at times, sharper. The title speaks for itself: '(Bitter) Musings on the handling of the Tibhirine monks affair and proposals (despite it all) for action'.
General Rondot's 2nd report (available in French only).
The monks had not yet been found and anxiety was rising. "We have been waiting since April 30th " he complained. "Meeting after meeting, we have been content to bounce around hypotheses but without defining, in a well-judged and precise manner, what approach we should adopt," he added.
"We can't keep playing this waiting game," he said, complaining again of the DSTs "dependence" on the "Algerian services" whom, he said, "no doubt have other priorities [political and internal security] that differ from ours regarding the survival and the liberation of the monks." The general takes his argument even further: "They can be, in fact, tempted to brutally solve what they consider to be a side story1 (as it's been called) which is impeding normalisation of Franco-Algerian relations (of which the GIA is well aware)."
Figure 2The tragedy is the subject of the French film 'Des hommes et des dieux', (English title: 'Of Gods & Men')
The tragedy is the subject of the French film 'Des hommes et des dieux', (English title: 'Of Gods & Men'), directed by Xavier Beauvois, starring Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale. It centres on the intense and anguished soul-seraching imposed on the monks in the period running up to the kidnap, when they must decide whether they give in to threats of violence against the monastery and move away from their mission, or stay.
General Rondot's language is unambiguous: "General Smain Lamari told me from the beginning that it would be long, difficult and dangerous. Such is the case," the general said in this second report. He mentioned his unease due to the equivocal attitude of his principal contact in Algerian counter-espionage. "We will not forget either that, among the number of prisoners to be freed, figures Abdelhak Layada, imprisoned in Algeria and it appears unlikely that the government is ready to give in with this case," he wrote. "But the comments made both by General Smain Lamari and the Islamists on this subject are ambiguous," he added.
Figure 3'Tolerated': Djamel Zitouni.
'Tolerated': Djamel Zitouni.
For Philippe Rondot, the only outlet possible is to make direct contact with the GIA "to find out what's really at stake in this hostage-taking", which implied a lack of clarity and information from Algerian officials. "I'm willing to take the risk," he concluded.
His third and last report, dated May 27th 1996, is a blatant admission of failure; the monks were officially dead but their bodies were yet to be found.
Once again, the general allowed his bitterness towards the Algerian secret services to seep through. Cooperation between the DST and the DCE has been continuous, even if it was too often necessary to badger our Algerian contacts," he noted. "On the other hand, one couldn't claim that the help of the Algerian services was a deciding factor since our seven monks lost their lives. The forces of law and order were defensive rather than offensive in this situation."
Genearl Rondot's 3rd report (in French only).
"In truth," General Rondot continued, "in Algeria's bloody war, the fate of the seven monks was not considered by Algerian military leaders as any more important than the fate of anyone else, even if Franco-Algerian relations were to suffer from the poor handling of the affair or, even worse, from a fatal outcome."
Finally, the general delivers his verdict: "For very (too) long, and for tactical reasons, .and his groups benefited from a relative tolerance on the part of the Algerian services: he helped (probably involuntarily) to engineer the splintering of the GIA and to foment internal strife between the armed groups."
Rondot observed: "In order to remedy this failure, the DCE must eliminate, by all means available, Djamel Zitouni and his cronies. It is our duty to encourage this and perhaps even to impose it." Djamel Zitouni died in July 19961, a month after the funeral of the Tibhirine monks, leaving a mystery that continues over the true conditions under which the Trappists met their ghastly fate.
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1: Akin to a regional war lord (emir), Zitouni organised, among other actions, the hi-jacking of an Air France flight in December 1994. He was killed by followers of the emir of the Medea region with whom he had a long-standing feud.
The Monks of Tibhirineis the true story of Christians willing to die serving a Muslim flock during the political nightmare that unfolds in Algeria during the 1990s. The decapitation of seven French Trappists kidnapped from their monastery in the village of Tibhirine provides the thread for this real life drama of sacrificial love-of Christians who put their lives at risk for their Muslim friends, and Muslims who risk death for Christians
Pulitzer Prize winner William W. Warner calls John Kiser’s newest book, The Monks of Tibhirine, “...a must read shocker for those unaware of recent Algerian history. ...beautifully written.”
William W. Warner, Pulitzer Prize winner, Beautiful Swimmers
This book is not the first written about the monks of Tibhirine... but it could well be the best among all those written in any language so far.
Gilles Nicolas, Priest in Diocese of Algiers
"Couldn't be more timely. A fascinating tale of Trappist monks swept up in a story of militant Islam."
Leslie Cockburn, Producer, 60 Minutes
"An extraordinary and uncannily timed book about real modern martyrs as opposed to the current vulgar variant. A tragic story, thoroughly reported and beautifully rendered with compassion and grit."
Christopher Buckley, Author, The White House Mess
“Kiser builds up the drama leading to the monks death with the skill of a novelist... His painstaking characterization of each monk makes this an incredibly emotional story.”
The Monks of Tibhirine is the true story of Christians willing to die serving a Muslim flock during the political nightmare that unfolds in Algeria during the 1990s. The decapitation of seven French Trappists kidnapped from their monastery in the village of Tibhirine provides the thread for this real life drama of sacrificial love-of Christians who put their lives at risk for their Muslim friends, and Muslims who risk death for Christians.
A follow-on book to the Monks of Tibhirine is now available. Commander of the Faithful: Life and Times of Emir Abd el-Kader (Monkfish Books) is the story of a Muslim monk (Sufi) who led the resistance against the French occupation of Algeria that began in 1830. See http://www.truejihad.com
Choices were made, so repectfully!
Thanks again to all the team!