Statesman, Journalist, and Author
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In 1922 I left my native country,
Austria, to travel through Africa and Asia as a Special Correspondent to some of
the leading Continental newspapers, and spent from that year onward nearly the
whole of my time in the Islamic East. My interest in the nations with which I
came into contact was in the beginning that of an outsider only. I saw before me
a social order and an outlook on life fundamentally different from the European;
and from the very first there grew in me a sympathy for the more tranquil- I
should rather say: more mechanized mode of living in Europe. This sympathy
gradually led me to an investigation of the reasons for such a difference, and I
became interested in the religious teachings of the Muslims. At the time in
question, that interest was not strong enough to draw me into the fold of Islam,
but it opened to me a new vista of a progressive human society, of real
brotherly feeling. The reality, however, of present day Muslim life appeared to
be very far from the ideal possibilities given in the religious teachings of
Islam. Whatever, in Islam, had been progress and movement, had turned, among the
Muslims, into indolence and stagnation; whatever there had been of generosity
and readiness for self-sacrifice, had become, among the present-day Muslims,
perverted into narrow-mindedness and love of an easy life.
Prompted by this discovery and puzzled by
the obvious in congruency between Once and Now, I tried to approach the problem
before me from a more intimate point of view: that is, I tried to imagine myself
as being within the circle of Islam. It was a purely intellectual experiment;
and it revealed to me, within a very short time, the right solution. I realized
that the one and only reason for the social and cultural decay of the Muslims
consisted in the fact that they had gradually ceased to follow the teachings of
Islam in spirit. Islam was still there; but it was a body without soul. The very
element which once had stood for the strength of the Muslim world was now
responsible for its weakness: Islamic society had been built, from the very
outset, on religious foundations alone, and the weakening of the foundations has
necessarily weakened the cultural structure -and possibly might cause its
ultimate disappearance.
The more I understood how concrete and
how immensely practical the teachings of Islam are, the more eager became my
questioning as to why the Muslims had abandoned their full application to real
life. I discussed this problem with many thinking Muslims in almost all the
countries between the Libyan Desert and the Pamirs, between the Bosphorus and
the Arabian Sea. It almost became an obsession which ultimately overshadowed all
my other intellectual interests in the world of Islam. The questioning steadily
grew in emphasis -until I, a non-Muslim, talked to Muslims as if I were to
defend Islam from their negligence and indolence. The progress was imperceptible
to me, until one day -it was in autumn 1925, in the mountains of Afghanistan -a
young provincial Governor said to me: "But you are a Muslim, only you don't
know it yourself." I was struck by these words and remained silent. But
when I came back to Europe once again, in 1926, I saw that the only logical
consequence of my attitude was to embrace Islam.
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So much about the circumstances of my
becoming a Muslim. Since then I was asked, time and again: "Why did you
embrace Islam ? What was it that attracted you particularly ?" -and I must
confess: I don't know of any satisfactory answer. It was not any particular
teaching that attracted me, but the whole wonderful, inexplicably coherent
structure of moral teaching and practical life program. I could not say, even
now, which aspect of it appeals to me more than any other. Islam appears to me
like a perfect work of architecture. All its parts are harmoniously conceived to
complement and support each other: nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking,
with the result of an absolute balance and solid composure. Probably this
feeling that everything in the teachings and postulates of Islam is "in its
proper place," has created the strongest impression on me. There might have
been, along with it, other impressions also which today it is difficult for me
to analyze. After all, it was a matter of love; and love is composed of many
things; of our desires and our loneliness, of our high aims and our
shortcomings, of our strength and our weakness. So it was in my case. Islam came
over me like a robber who enters a house by night; but, unlike a robber, it
entered to remain for good.
Ever since then I endeavored to learn as
much as I could about Islam. I studied the Qur'an and the Traditions of the
Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him); I studied the language of Islam and
its history, and a good deal of what has been written about it and against it. I
spent over five years in the Hijaz and Najd, mostly in al-Madinah, so that I
might experience something of the original surroundings in which this religion
was preached by the Arabian Prophet. As the Hijaz is the meeting centre of
Muslims from many countries, I was able to compare most of the different
religious and social views prevalent in the Islamic world in our days. Those
studies and comparisons created in me the firm conviction that Islam, as a
spiritual and social phenomenon, is still in spite of all the drawbacks caused
by the deficiencies of the Muslims, by far the greatest driving force mankind
has ever experienced; and all my interest became, since then, center around the
problem of its regeneration.
About the author: Muhammad Asad,
Leopold Weiss, was born in Livow, Austria (later Poland) in 1900, and at the age
of 22 made his visit to the Middle East. He later became an outstanding foreign
correspondent for the Franfurtur Zeitung, and after his conversion to Islam traveled
and worked throughout the Muslim world, from North Africa to as far East as
Afghanistan. After years of devoted study he became one of the leading Muslim
scholars of our age. After the establishment of Pakistan, he was appointed the
Director of the Department of Islamic Reconstruction, West Punjab and later on
became Pakistan's Alternate Representative at the United Nations. Muhammad
Asad's two important books are: Islam at the Crossroads and Road to Mecca. He
also produced a monthly journal Arafat. At present he is working upon an English
translation of the Holy Qur'an. [Asad completed his translation and has passed
away. -MSA-USC]
