How much time are you willing to sacrifice in search of the truth?
How long will you travel?
How much time will you give?
Not many people could truly explain
the pains and sacrifices needed for the pursuit of knowledge.
Not many people.
Except Muhammad Asad.
His story more than anyone personified the crossroad between East and West during a time
which continues to impact Muslims till today.
This is his story.
Before he was Muhammad Asad he was Leipold Weiss.
An austrian Jew that came from a long line of rabbis.
Born at the dawn of the 20th century,
he spent his childhood comfortably in early modern European cities
and countryside homes.
Although his grandfather was a strict Orthodox Jewish rabbi,
his father was very much non-religious.
As with the case of men who grew up around the turn of the century in Europe
although they weren't religious,
Muhammad's parents gave him a thorough education in the studies of the Old Testament and the Talmud.
By the age of 13 Asad spoke Hebrew with 'great fluency'
as well as some Aramaic.
Muhammad like his father grew apart from his faith
as he felt that God of the Old Testament
was strangely preoccupied with the destinies of one particular nation – the Hebrews.
He goes on to mention that the God of the Old Testament appears ‘not as the creator and sustainer of all mankind but,
rather, as a tribal deity adjusting all creation to the requirements of a "chosen people".
This led Weiss to drift into agnosticism,
rejecting all forms of institutional religion
and regarding as nothing more than a series of restrictive regulations.
After the first world war, Europe experienced a traumatic shock to the collective psyche
which re-evaluated its sense of ethics.
In the absence of any reliable standards of morality,
nobody could give us young people satisfactory answers to the many questions that perplexed us.
In 1920 Muhammad found some success in a career of journalism in Prague.
and enjoyed a bohemian lifestyle with his circle of intellectual friends.
Despite the lavish lifestyle he lived,
Muhammad felt that there was something lacking in his life
and he felt deeply unsatisfied.
So he was delighted to hear from Dorian,
a psychiatrist student of Sigmund Freud
when he invited him to join him in Jerusalem.
This enticed Muhammad.
So in 1922 he quit his job at the United Telegraph
and decided to leave Europe for the East.
As soon as he landed in Alexandria, Egypt,
and made his way to Palestine by train,
he felt a sense of marvel at the Arabian landscapes, cultures,
smells and sounds, it was here where Asad was first exposed to Muslim religious customs
and also the coexistence of Arabs and Jews.
Before coming to Jerusalem Muhammad had the impression
that the arabs only nomads in desert tents and idyllic oasis dwellers.
This was because most of what he read about Palestine
was written by Zionists.
‘From the very beginning, I had a feeling that the whole idea of Jewish settlement in Palestine
was artificial, and, what was worse,
that it threatened to transfer all the complications
and insoluble problems of European life into a country
which might have been happier without them.
The Jews were not really coming to it as one returns to one’s homeland;
they were rather bent on making European aims.
In short, they were strangers within the gates.
Muhammad realized that it was the Arabs
who were being imposed upon and were rightly defending themselves
against such an imposition.
After becoming a special correspondence of a german newspaper,
Muhammad was allowed to explore this newfound culture,
as he explored the Muslim world, he built a sense of deep sympathy and admiration for its people.
He explains it as such: "I became increasingly aware of an absorbing desire
to know what it was that lay at the root of this emotional security
and made Arab life so different from the European:
and that desire seemed to be mysteriously bound up with my own innermost problems…
I began to read intensively about their history, culture, and religion.
And in the urge I felt to discover what it was that moved their hearts and filled their minds and gave them direction,
I seemed to sense an urge to discover some hidden forces that moved myself,
and filled me, and promised to give me direction…"
However he also became aware of the oppressive colonial forces
of the British in Egypt and the French in Syria and the Italians in North Africa.
He felt deep sympathy for the Arab Muslims who were losing their rich culture
and further for religious intellectualism under the tyranny of colonial forces.
By the time he reached the snowy mountain valleys of Afghanistan,
he had immersed himself in the teachings of the Quran and the prophets.
While staying as a guest in a local governor's castle,
the governor was romanticizing the rich history of the Muslims
and the abundance of Muslims around the world.
Muhammad was annoyed by this romanticism, without helping himself Muhammad commented:
"But you are many, but your faith is small."
The hosts look at Asad with astonishment,
he goes on to explain,
"How has it come that you Muslims have lost your self-confidence?
That self-confidence which once enabled you to spread your faith
in less than 100 years from Arabia westward as far as the Atlantic and eastward deep into China.
And now surrender yourself so easily so weakly to the thoughts and customs of the West.
Why can’t you, whose forefathers illumined the world
with science and art at a time when Europe lay in deep barbarism and ignorance, summon forth the courage
to go back to your own progressive, radiant faith?
How is it that Ataturk, that petty masquerader who denies
all value to Islam, has become to you Muslims a symbol of "Muslim revival"?
The government's response to this sudden barrage of questions was truly amazing.
He said: "But- you are a Muslim…".
Muhammad burst into laughter and quickly dismissed this notion.
The governor further added: "You are a Muslim, only you don’t know it yourself…"
This would stay with Muhammad for the next several months
until he would return to Europe and eventually become a Muslim
just as the governor said.
Eager to return to the East Muhammad left his home in Europe
for the last time in 1927 and made the Hajj pilgrimage.
His life from then on as a Muslim was dedicated
to the pursuing of knowledge through the Islamic sciences
which took him all over the Muslim world.
Unlike most individuals who became Muslim they stopped their search for the truth
and remained complacent.
Muhammad's journey only began.
From the point of his submission to Islam, Muhammad would go on to do extraordinary things
and meet equally extraordinary people through his travels and study.
He met some of the most prominent Muslim figures of his day,
he would eventually become friends with King Abdul Aziz
and on one occasion take on a secret mission for the King.
Also he met Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi the legendary leader in Libya
and would also carry out a dangerous mission for Senussi
to make contact with none other than Omar Mukhtar.
Arguably the most important Mujahhid in the modern era.
Arriving in British India he met and befriended the great poet Muhammad Iqbal,
an intellectual giant in his time.
He would convince Asad to stay in British India
and work with him on securing rights for Muslims in hindu majority India
and go on to assist in the creation of Pakistan.
Asad would transition between different political roles
and would leave Pakistan and would eventually find his final resting place in Grenada, Spain.
He passed away in 1992 at the age of 91.
Muhammad Asad's legacy served as an inspiration to all Muslims
from the West and the East.
Although Asad's story served as a beautiful representation of islam and its teachings,
it also sheds light on the complicated modern history that plagued Muslims in the early twentieth century
which ramifications continue to influence the declining condition
of the Muslim Ummah.
Asad experienced some frustration from the Muslims that have left the Sunnah of the Prophet and the teachings of the Quran.
Indeed, Muhammad Asad’s story is astonishing, to say the least.
An Austro-Hungarian-born Jew that went to Arabia and lived with Beduins,
only to become a Muslim.
This is all due to one simple desire, the search for truth.