By: Bheria | Date: May 29, 2025 | Muslimskeptic.com
I learned relatively late, just a month or so ago, that Yahya Michot had returned to his Creator the day after ‘Id al-Fitr.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.
Though his name might not be widely recognized among the Muslim masses in the Anglosphere, Yahya Michot was a very significant figure within Europe, both in his stature and scholarly depth. As one obituary observed, his expertise stretched across the breadth of many Islamic Studies, from theology and philosophy to literature. He was also a genuine polyglot, being fluent in French, English, Arabic, and Italian, as well as possessing a working knowledge of several other languages, including Turkish, Persian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Latin, and Greek.
Michot was born in Belgium in 1952 into a Roman-Catholic family. He embraced Islam in the 1970s, thereafter adopting the name “Yahya,” which was the Arabic equivalent of his given name, “Jean” (the French equivalent to “John”). He was educated at the prestigious Catholic University of Louvain, where he earned his PhD in Islamic Philosophy in 1981.
