k'r"ks..-39: 2~2000lPlO . l~~ 131

A Matter of Love: Muhammad Asad and Islam

Introduction

ISMA'n.mRAIitM NAWWAB

~I tho" nor how God SlriJm lIN par..bk of A good 'UKTfd?- liler 4 good tf'«, firmly room/, With br4ncoo """hing in/(! the sky, II yields iN /11<;141 4U limrs By the /raw 0/ its St4sl4irKT ....

(TM Holy Qur'On, Ibr.ihim 1-4,2+25).'

Two roads diverged in }krlin in the 1920$: a well-worn on~ to th~ wnt, th~ other, rarefy travelled, to the ~ast. Leopold Weiss, a young gifted J~wish wriu.r, tr.lvrUer and linguist with a thorough kno .... ledge of the Bible and the Talmud and with dup roou in EUTOp"an cultu .... took the road eastward to Makluh ;>$

Muhammad Aw, a name tlut ~ to stand high On the roll of twentieth­«ntury English_writing Muslim scholan and thinken.

The Story of how Asad walked out of Berlin and away from the West into tM f.-.:<:dom of a new spiritual life il best told in his own wonU and in a simile cast in the Old Testament:' "After all, it WllS a matter of love; and love is composed of many thin!;S; of our desires and our londines., of our high aims and our shortcomings, of our strengths and our weaknesses. So il W;>$ in my ~. Islam = over to me liu a robber who cnten a hollSC' by night; but, unlike a robber, it enten.:! to remain for good".'

The bare outline of MuJ:tammad As:ad'. life is no less intriguing than the twistS and turnS of an Ag:nha Christie mystery novel. It il an absorbing tale of an inquiring mind who set off on a career in journalism, proceeded to search

'n. Mnup 0{ tho q".'';'', .,...,sI",,J md <Kplained by Muhammod Aud (Gibnlt= Dar .!-Andalw., 19~). )76. modiflCd by th. ",,11>0,.

'Boinr; tho...,..y.Iy ... ned io "'" Hob, .... SibI<, Aud·, imavrr at .im .... amko.ly dr. .... upon iu po ..... fulliteruy 'UUU'''. io thi. caS< upon Obadiah 5 (Kinl Jama V<nioo.): ·If thievn <om< to tb~, ;r roblw:fI by niplt .. .. • A 0.,;";'" ornuld puh"!,, bV. bom me", f,mjli", with !he N .... T ... :unmt'." ... thid m "'" .. i&ht .... • Q 1' .... 3: 10) .

'A.ad. "fOR"""d·, (19H), 'J..m oil tho Co_" ,.r~ f""n ..... th , ... edn. (Gibnltor. Dar al-AndaIIlI, 1~12), I!. (Fir. pubfub.d, Ddhi and Lahore: Anf .. Publication .. I~H) ,

for truth md ended hi, voy.gc of discovery by embracing Islam .nd interpreting it to its Own adherents and to the West.'

Ail:lld's Early Yean

Asad w"" born Leopold Weiss in July 1900 in the city of lvov (lemberg), Galicia, nOw in Poland, and then part of the Austrian Empire. The second of three children, he w"" the d=ndant of • long line of rabbis, which w"" broken only by his father who did nOt emu the nbbinate but became a barrister. A.ad himself received a thorough religious education that would qualify him to keep alive the fomily's r.bbinical tradition. At m early age, he had become proficient in Hebrew and also w .. familiar with Aramaic, H e had studied the Old Testament in the original .. well"" the text and commentaries of the Talmud: the Mishll4 and Gtm"T", He . lso had delved in the intricacies of Biblical exq;esi~: the T"rg"m'

His family moved to Vienna, where fourteeo-year-old A.ad ran away from IiChool and tried unsuccessfully to join the Austrian army 10 fight in the First World War, no sooner h.d he ~n finally officially drafted, Ihan his juvenile expectations of milimy glory faded with the coll.pse of the Austrian Empire.

After the Wu, he pursued philo.nphy and the history of an .t the University of Vienn., but Ihese studies failed to quench his spiritual thirst and he abandoned them 10 se..k fulfilment elsewhere.' Vienna .t that time was one of the most intellectually and culturally stimulating European cities. It w"" the engine of burgeoning .nd interrelated, new, glinering perspectives on man, language .nd philowphy. NOI just in academic ifl$litutions, but even ;1$ calk reverberated with lively debales centred On Psychoanalysis, logical positivism, linguistic analysis and semantics. This w"" the period when the unpr~ted views ond distinctive voices of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and ludwig Wit'l,;efl$lein filled the V;elUlese air, ""hoing round the world with a profound, momentous effect on many ""pects of life ond thought. A.ad had. ringside seat on these exciting discussions; though he was impressed by the originality of those pioneering spirits, their major CQnclusion• leh him umatilfied.

'rhi. i •• n .tump,.o .new .. ' ..... xpanded IIUdy 01 A...d'. lif<.nd IhO\1~'. Ii< .. , ... :uulytic.J look at A...i and h;' '-'O,k. i. lono .. ed by on .ntholosr 01 .. ,,,,,'" compiled ..,d <dit<d lrom h .... ,ttin&, from 1914 101m. Ih. b.lI<1 to ~, .• ' ''" ,ude, Ih. OI'1"'nuni,y '0 lill.D di,<Ct]y '0 A»d', unfolteml .-oKe.

~.Ji.., Ruth ...... "Mulummad A..d: Amb .. <ado, of hI"",'. A .. bU.· :no. fJ.mi< Wc.u IttvWw. $q>t.mbe. 19!1. 59. 11. .. is 0 '<pOn of I wide· ..... ""'" ",,,,lid in"",;'" with A..d in • ."..,..]iv011 .nd bold ""V,in. (19n_I~t7) th ....... i2w>ched from L>ndon by El)"ptw,.bom Saudi ... ,it.r ... d publUbe' MulwIUDad Salih .1·Din Ind edited by F .. ~i 'Ushmin_ In • ... ~eDI;""" of the nucuine. A..d disru~ !I<Y.ro] ·,"C,.".bl< <rro,,- made in Ibe ' <pO" and commen,ed On .. <h 01 Ihem. ra.,ification", Octobe. 1'181. p_ 4)_

• Asad. :no. It...d '" Mm:~ 4[n , ... ..2. .. «pl. (Gib,..] .. " Dor .J.A,"uh ... 19'1l), S!. (Fi'" published. L>ndon, Mu R<inhor.t.. 19S4).

'" Asm left Vienna io 1920 ond trowelled in Celllr. ! Europe, where he did

"oil manner of shori-livM job$"' bdo,", arrivinj\ in Berl in. Here, M inj\eniously secured entry in the world of journilism, when his determination led him-. mere tdephonist working for a wire ISI:rv;(t--to a scoop that I"<'vealed the presence in B..rlin of M.ks;m Gorky's wife who was On " steret mission 10 .ali,i! aid from the Wen for" Brobdingnagian famine ravaging Soviet Russia.

At this s\:lge, A,ad, like many of his generat ion. livM in the dark depths of agnosticism, having drifted away from his Jewish moorings despite his rigorous religious nudies. He left Europe for the Middle East in 1922, where he came to know and like the Arabs and w;U struck by how Islam shone on their everyday life wilh exisunti . l mnlling. spiritual strength and innu pc""". He nnw hecarn<-at th~ incredibly youn~ a~~ o f 22-<>. wrrrsp')fid~nt for th~ Frank/urfer Zeirung, on~ of most prrsti~ious n~W$pap~rs of Germ;my ~nd Europe. As a jourrulin, he tr.lvdled extensively, intermingled with the oornmOn ImIn, held discussions with the Muslim intelli~entsia, and met several regional heads of Slate, in "the countrirs ~w«n the lihy;m IXsert and the snow-cowred peab of the Pamirs, bftw«n the Bosporus and the Arabian 5..a":' Palestine, Egypt , Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Asad Embraces Islam

During his travels and through his readings, Asad's inter"""t in, and understanding of, Islam, its scripture, history and pwplrs incr~ascd, hl1l, being ;U\ .gnostic, he could not :occept that God spoke to :>.nd ~uided man via revelation. Back in Berlin from the Middle E;u!, and now married, all his doubts were cleared in .. spiritual, d~rifying epiph:>.ny-reminis~nt of the experience of some 01 the earliest Muslims-which he narr.lled in a nriking pasS.1ge that he wrote $Ome thirty yem; .her this turning-point in his life:

One d'y-i, W," in September 1926-8$:1. and I found oun.lvd , ,,,veili n, in ,he Berlin ,ub"""y. It wa. an upper·d." compartment. My eye fell C"1su.Uy on . well· dr .... d man opposite me, apparently a ",eU·t...oo.busine .. ma ... with. beautiful bride .... on hi. knees and a large diamond ring on hi. hand. I thought idly how welllh~ portly figure of Ihis man fined into the picture of prosperity which one encountered everywhere in Cent",1 Europe in those days: a prosperity the more prominent:os il h.d come aftcr years of innation, ... hen.1l ~onomic lile had ~n topsy·turvy and sh.bbine .. of appc''''''''' thc rul •. Mon 01 ,he p«Iple were now well dmsed and ... ell led, and the man opposite me .... .s therelore nO exception. But when I looked" his face, I did nOt =m to be looking"" happy bce. He appeared 10 be worried, and not merely worried but acutely unh.ppy, with ey .. storing v.cantly ahead . nd the COrne" of his mouth d",wn in as il in pain-but not in bodily p.in. Not "".ntin~ 10 be rude, I tumed my eY'" away .nd saw ntxt

'Ibid.. 62 . • A~. "Fo" ... ord". C"",,",,,,,,,. !()..! I.

os.

to him. lady of SOme depnce_ Sh. .lso !wi • ., .... ngdy unluppy txprnsion on her f.~, os if conumplating or experiencing .omething that c>u~ he, pain; n ..... rthelen, her momh .... s fixed in th. stiff semblance of •• mil. which, I Wl.S

certain, must hav. been h.bin,a! . And then I bq.tn (0 look around .1 ill othtr foe", in the computment_ faccs helon;ing ",ithoutexception 10 ",. lI..dr...w, weI!· fed people: and in almost every One of ,hem I could disam an up ...... ion of hiddoon .uffering. .0 hidden th.t the 0"'''''' of the f. ce seemed 10 be quite unaw. r. 0{ it _

This was indeed stn.oge. I had never belo," _n '0 many unhappy f:lC<"S around me, Or waS i, porlups that I had nev" before looked for wlul "'as now.o loudly .pe.king in theml The impression wI. <0 strong ,1..1 I mentioned iliO FJ .. ; and ,he too began 10 look around with If", careful er" of • painter accustomed 10 .tudy human f.ature •. Then .he turned 10 me, aston;,hed, . nd said: 'You are ri~t. Th~ ~1I1ook .. though th.y .... re .uff .. ing torments of hen .. .! wonder, do they know them .. lves what i. going On in ,hem'?

I knew that they did nOl-for o.he ..... i ... hey could nOi go on ",osting their lives ••• hey did, without any faith in binding truths, ""ithout .ny goal beyond ,h. desire to ra;.e .h.ir own '".nd.rd of livin,', ",ithout any hopes other than h.ving more mater;. l amenities, more gadgets, and perhaps more power ...

When we '"turned home, I happened to gl ance at my dc$k On which l.y open • copy of ,he Koran I had been .. ading earlier. Mechonic.Jly, I picked .he book up to put it away, but JUSt 01$ 1"'01$ .bout 10 d"... it, my eyes fell on the open page be!o," me, and I read:

'Yo ... ,,'" oJ,..wd by g,..,.,J for .. ",,,. "nd ""'.-. umil yo ... go down III YO"'T gr"....,; Nay, bur yo ... will ",me to lenow! A nd <met! "pin: N"Y, bIo. YO" wiN rom. to IenI"JUlI Mry, if you bu. len.,., " with u,.. lenow/trig. of aruinry, Yo ... """,/d ind«J 1ft rk bJl YO" "". in. In r;me, ind=J, you ""'II 1ft.1 ",jib r~ tyt of arujnry: And <m w.r D..y you ",ill be .. .JuJ.ro., yo ... b.wt do,", ,,>jlb:h. bocm of lifo'. '

For a moment I ..... $p«<:hl .... I lhink lhat the book shook in my hand •. Then I handed it to EI ... 'Read thi •. Is. it no! an anSwer to what w, ... w in the .ub""ay'l

It was an an.wer so decisive that all doubt """ .uddenlya. an end. I knew nov, ~nd any doubt , ,h.t it "''' a God·in.pired book I was holding in my hand: for although it had been placed before man over ,hineen een,urie. ago, il dearly anticipatfCI som ... hing that could have become true only in this complicated, mechanized, phanlom·ridlkn age of <>un.

'Tit< Qur'in, 102: I_I. The .",,,,lotion of thi< .hon ,;'.oh .h ••• pparn! oripWlr iD 1ht R04d '~Mt«. iD 19~ .... la'<r improved by A..d in hi< 1ht M .... g< ",tho q...\in. Tbe prCkDt version i •• synthe';. of the ben of both lenderinp. (lIN'. note).

'50

At .11 tim .. people had known greed: but at no time before greed had outgrown a m.~ eagerness to acquire thing. and become an obocssion <lUt blurred 1M sigh. 01 everything else: an ;rr .. i"ibl. <nvin, to ~t. to do, to contrive mo .... and more-mO .... today than yesterday, ~nd more tomorrow than today : a demon riding on Ih. neck. of men and whipping tbeir h ..... ,. forwud tow",i g~1I ,h., uuntingly gli"", in tbe di".nce but dissol~ into contemptible nothingn ... as SOOn OS they are ..... ched, al ..... Y' holding oul the promise of ne"" goal< .head-go.!s •• iIl more brilli.nt, more tempting .. long as they Ii. n" the horiron, and bound 10 wither into furth .. nothingness a. <000 a. they come wi,h;n grosp: and dU.1 hun,. r, th.t insatiable hunger for ever new go.l. ",.wing 0' man', soul : N..,. if)'<>1< but b"", it you u>ouid _ tht btll Y'>" ...... ill, ..

This, I $Ow , w:u nOt the mere human w;room of. man of. di,unt past in distant Arabia. Howev .. vi.., h. may have been, such. man could not by himself MV~ fo ........ n .h •• o,m.n, SO pKuliar 10 ,his ,,,,,.n,i .. h century. Ou, of ,h. Koran .pok • • voice greater th.n th. voice of Muhammad ... "

Asad Migrates to the Muslim World

Thus it was that Asad beame . Muslim in 1926 and migrated to the Muslim world bUI Ihe psychological and emotional dimensions of Asad's migration were even more important than the physical ones. A.ad rq;:rnkd Islam not as a religion in the conventional, Or Western, sense but as a way of life for all times. In Islam he found a religious system and a practical ideology for everyday living tn.t we .. harmoniou~y halanced. 'I~am appears to me like a perfect work of architecture. All its parts are harmoniou~y conceived to complement and support e;r,ch other; nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking; and the result is a .tructu .. of .bsoluu balan"" and solid compo.ure~."

The range of his inlerest io the Muslim world was as varied as the reach of his travels in the land. of Islam and he found a way of infusing a visionary's m.gnific= into wrilings that lookM at and beyond contemporary I~am. His interest in Islam and its followers persisted throughout his life and deeply colourM his treatment of all issues touching the Muslims-religious, juristic and political-and he had highly persuasive argurmnts for his views. Though he was always ideological ly and emotionally committed 10 the Muslims, his attitude towards them rem.ainM sympathetic without being sycophantic, intelligently critical but never condescending. Abo"" all, Am was dttply dediClotM to the uachings of the Qur'an and the Prophn, unaciou~y independent in hi, thinking, fiercely anti-sto..t!ar in hi. orienUlion, rigorously consistent in his logic and always impatient with extremist thought or behaviour.

When he returned to the Middle East following his conversion, Asad spent almost six ye.lrs in Arabia, where he was reo:eived warmly, almost daily, by the legendary King ·Abo:! aI·'Az'z ibn Sa'Ud (d. 1373/1953), the founder of modern

"A...d, Mt<C~, J.OI_310. "A...d, "Foreword", ero",....,JJ, I!.

'''' Saudi Arabia_" He ~p<:nt wnsiderablc ti= in 1M holy citiC' of Mokk:oh and M:>dinah, where he studi.-.:l Arabic, the Qur'in, the Hadith, Or the traditions of the Prophet and Islamic hislOry. Those studies led him 10 "the firm conviction that I<lom, OS a ~piri"ul md social phenomenon, i$ still, in spite of ""I the drawbacks caused by the ddic;cncies of the Muslims, by far the greateSt driving force mankind has ever uperienced"" and from that time, his imerest "':1.$ "centred around the problem of il5 regeneration"" His academic knowledge of d=ical Af:l.bic_ made easier by familiarity wilh Hehrtw and Ar:unaic, sister ~mitjc l:utguages-was further (nhaneN! by his wide Iravd, and COlllacU in A",bi. with Bedouins.

Iqbal in"itel Asad to Stay in India

To study Muslim communities and cululre!: further east, such os those of India, Eostcro TurktStan, China :llId Indonesia, And departN Arabia for India in 1932. Thcr~ he met th~ celebmN p<)ft-philosophu Muh:munad lqbil (d_ 1357/1938), the towering Muslim Ihinker of the modern en and the spiritual progenitor of Pakisun_ Iqbal ~nuadN And to chmge hi. pl:lll.! md Slay On in India "to help elucidate the inullectual premises of Ihe fUlure IsliUllic S1ale which w;u then hardly more Ihan a dream in Iqbal's visionary mind~_ " Asad soon won Iqbal's admiration md wide public acclaim iUllong Nucated circles with the publication of • ~n:eplive monograph on the challenges facing modern Muslims. BUI Asad's fr~om w,", curt:.ilN when tM $<'Cond World War broke Out in 1939. Ironically, though he h;oJ refused 10 accepl a p;usport from N:ozi ~rmany after it h:K! annexed Austria in 1938 and insiSlffi on retaining his AuSirian cilizenship. the British Raj imprisonffi him on Ih~ S<'Cond day of the War as :llI "enemy alien" and did not rel= him till its end in 1945." He w;u the only WeSlern Muslim among Ihe Ihree-thousand-odd European. round..d up for internment in India, the large majority of whom were sympathiur1 of Nazism 'or Fascism; some have thought that the British .uthoriti ... · haru. ~h.viour 10 Aud w;u due to their irriution wilh a Europem who always sided with the Indim Muslim community.

As:.d in the Service of the Emerging Muslim SUte of Pakistan

He moved 10 P.kistm .fter its creation in 1947, md was chargN by iu Government with sening up a ~partment of Islamic Reconstruction whose task was to formubt~ the ideological foundations for the new Stal~ . Laler h~

"A!->d. M,"". I. "AO>d. °F"" ... " ",-. C ..... ,,..,..,J,. 12. ",.- . ......... CII.

"A!->d. M«c •• 1. " A .. d, • Author', NOlO", TIm Low of 0 .... • nd Orb.-! G"...,. (Gib.-.lu" Do< .al·A~.L.lu •.

19')}j. I. (I'icl1 publiilied 1987).

'" was {r .. ruftrr~d to the Pakistm Fortign Ministry 10 ht ad ils Middle E .... ! Div;sion, .,..here he endeavo,,~d to strengthen Pakistan', ties to other Muslim countrin, He cap~d hi, diplomatic career by ..,rving as Pakistan's Mininer Plenipotenti.ry to the Unitt<! Nalions." He ,.."jr;ntd this po<;t;on in 1952 10 write hi, autobi0l:nphy, .. work of slUnning ingenuity ;md unrivaUed literary dfect .

Asad Passes Away

After writing this hook, he left New York in 1955 for OI~r placa and finoJly ~tltd in Spain. He did not = 10 write . At eighty, after all endeavour which bsttd ~m..,n yUr>, he reolized hi, li fe's dr~m, for which he felt all his life till then w;oS an apprenticeship: a translation and exq:esis, or ti1fiir, of the Qur'~ in English. He contin .. td 10 ""rve Islam till his death in Spain in February 1992.

[fo the righ,eo<u God ..,ill",y:] ·0 .owl at~! R.,wm to dry SIt"",:"..,., Wtll·pitAw, wtll·pI .... "'g! E~t..,. r/,(l .. , rbm, "",ong My ",,,",nu' YtA, ."r.... t/,(lu My I'<'",.J;..,,""

With his duth passed a journoJist, travdl ~r, social critic, linguist, thinker , rdormer, diplomat, political theorist, translator and ~ scholar dedic;ued to the ""rvict of God and humankind and to lewing the good life.

But death ..,ill not be the finoJ ch#pur in Asu!·, dO'le rdatiomhip ..,ith th. Muslims: his luminous works rnnain a living testimony to hi, great, enduring love affair with Isbm.

Asad Represents a New Phenomenon

A,:>d, in fact, represems an outstanding example of a new phenomtnon of modern times: the convusion, on both sides of the Atlantic, of several Western writers and intdl~tuals to Isbm and their passionau commitment to il5 vision and way of li fe. The circumstancts and partiC\llan of their enlt ring the fold of Islam may vary, but there are usuoJly Ihru overarching reasons common to

them: a beli~f in the divine origin of the Qur'in and in the prophethood of Muhammw and in Islam's mtSl'lge to lead tM good life. Their Xl of faith has mown to a wider Wesurn public ,hat, contrary to the misperception that it i, • quaim, fanaticoJ religion followed by wild nalives in remOIt regions, 1sJ..m's message .nd teachings are rdn-ant 10, and appropriate for, reasonable and

" Asad. M= •• 2. "Th< Qur'in. 8~. 27-J.O. ~. ,,,,,<1<,<0;1 by A~ in n.. Mro.<!<, uflb. Q".';~ ... d ,,,,;1«\ I:>y

th, .... thor.

'" thoughtful peopl~;o the most advanctd arc:os of the world. Equally ';gnifiClllI, it h .. also "!kmomlrated that, at least among some fair-minded Westerners, the cemurieHlld barriers of false images of Islam which wenl up with the Crusades are falling down. Thil phenomenon i. all the mOrc rem:ukable in that often t~ coowns find Ih~r way 10 the Mudim faith via a very un!ihly path: literature On l.Jam md the Muslims produced in European languages mostly by orienulists me majority of .... lIom emno! be accusro of being friendly to !shUll, actually, some are orientaliru themsdves. Also, mOSt of thrs<' conversions h."" taken pIa« while Western powers were exerc;,;n); their full politicol and military might in Muslim l:mds. The appeal of Islam 10 Western elites h .. nOI Otto confined to :my one country. To mention just a few names: from Great Britain have come, among others, lord Stanley of Alderley, m uncle of Bertrmd Rus~l1, the eleventh B:oron Headley (Umar al-Farooq), a member of the Hou~ of Lords and m activist believer, Muh:unm:ui Marmaduke Pickthall, a ,up<'rb novelist and, !aler, a mU15latot of the Qur'an, Martin Lings (Abu Bakt Sir.tj ai-Din), a p<'tctptive .cholar of mysticism, md Charles Le Gai Eaton, a talented txpo~itor ofI~]:un; from France: Rene Guenon (' Abd a1-W:iliid Yahya), m txpert in metaphysics, comparative religion md csotericiSffi; Vincent Mamour Monteil, an orienta]ist, md Maurice Bucailie, m author; from Gcrmmy: Mur:od Wilfried Hofmmn, a diplomat and writer; from Austria: Baron Umar von Ehrenfels, m anthropologist; from Hungary: Abdul Karim Gcrmmus, m orientalist; from Switzerl""d: Frithjof Schuon, described by T. S. Eliot as the most impressi"" writer in the field of comp:or:llive ",ligion he had ever encountered, ""d patrician German Swiu Tim. (lbrihim) Burckhard., a scholar of mysticism and the son of sculptor Carl Burckhardt; from North America.: Thomas Irving (al-Hajj T a'lim 'Ali), an Isl:unic scholar ""d (r""s!ator of the Qur'in, H:unid Algar, British-born distinguished academic with special interest in Iran, M"'l:aret Marcus (Mary.m J:IJlleelah), a writer, Cyril Glas";, author of Islamic works, Jeffrey Uog, " m"theffi:llician and writer on Isl:un, and Michael Wolfe, a poet, novelist, and writer of travel books.

Asad's Special Place

It would seem th:ll the~ Western Muslims have been JUSt as earnest in their devotion to Islam as Mulummad As...:!. So, why does And stand head and shoulders above all other Western English.writing convertS? What is his secret,

He rose to unparallelled eminence among Western Muslims becau~ none has contributed more th"" Asad to elucidating Islam as m ideology arid conveying illl quintessential spirit in contemporary termS to Muslims and non­Muslims :olike-not even Pickthall (d. 1355/1 936), "m Englishm"" of the English~," who can easily be credited with the most widely read trmslation of

"Quoted from P;':kthall", Suffo!k no ... ! u,*"",""_ {191l} in Pet« Clark', .... dl·,<><.r<hed b~r..phy, M~ .... ·,("I,. Pid"J"Ji: B.itish MMJi", (Londo,,: Qwrtet B<KIa.. 199.). 7.

'" the Qur'in llnd~rtaktn by any English_writing convert," with brilliant writings on Islam and with widNanging scrvicos 10 the Muslirru, sometimc.s rendered a1 gre.lt personal s:Krifice.

A.:xl'. contributions resist =r summary, but we can as!: a glan", al hi. writings and thought 10 pick Out the features On the landscape ,,!ther than describe the ~ne in detaiL For an appreciation of his work, however, we have to s« it against the backdrop of his first V>CQumer wilh the Muslim world.

The Decline of the Muslims in Recent Times

And's introduction to the Muslim world took pl~ when he visitM a turhulem, fearful Middle East in 1M wm of tltt Fir$! World War. The th",,,! that many Muslims pcrceivN coming from the West at Ihal time can IOday hardly be remembered Or conceived of and is difficult to encapsulate in a few semences, From the Muslims' perspective of the colonial Wen,

BJ.d. it uood.u nighl, Finu., _/urin, Irrri"'e~, ho/l, And 1hocJr. .. Jr=J/,,/ dart"

at IsI:lIll iudf.

FOT tht pn.ViOUi two centuTito, m 2SCendant Euro~ had rtmadt the map of the Muslim wodd fTom the ihorto of Morocco On the Atlantic in the weil to the fenile countryside of Mindanao in the Pacific in the e;l.5t, and from the mounuins of Daghestan in the nonh to tht coconut-palm-fringw. beachrs of the Maldi"" hlmds in tht Indi:m Ocem in the $Outh. lu military, political, cultunl md <'Wnomic on.laught On the "",a had blown up like a hurric:me. Tht glory of Ihe Mughal. of Indi. and S.bvids o f Persia had p;I.5sed away; the back of the once-formidable Onomm state had bttn broken; the Caliphatt-an institution which, though reduCw. in statu" sti!! enjoyw. popular sappan-had b~n .bolished. The Muslims laggw. fill" bf,hind the Well in tht w.ucational, industrial and technological and scientific fields. As the first decades of the twentieth cemury wOre o n, they felt at bay. Thty Wtn. dttply dividw., disheanenw. and Immiliatw.. They had bun $0 weu taw. th.l SOme quaners even harbored Iksigns to ring down the 1:lSt cunain on 1s\:lIII ;1.5 01 religion and civilization.

Cross-Currents in a Tempntuous Muslim World

By the t ime A.ad came to the Middle E:ISt in 1922, these momentous changes had loosened a storm of new values, concepts and socialilresses on the Muslim

~is "ruk,inl of th. Qur'''' rnt~l<d n,. M<""i"K of';" GIo>-_, Ko"" ro ... 'pp<"eJ in l~JO ... ~ h .. b«n '<print«! Bum«",," tim ...

"John Mat"n. P.,.diJ< Lo.<'. Ilk. n. lin .. b7C-672.

, .. world; of unprecdentM v; ol~ n"" and $CO~, it thre. teoM la sweep ~W'Y the very foundations of Muslim society. Many Muslims scill chui,hM tn.:!ition.l Islam; ~ v.lues. Y ct, • bro;><\ spectrum of competing, confusing trends .ppe.rd ;n the hl:unic world;>.j the infl~~ of the West had left few Muslim coumries untouched. There were m OvementS in suppon of rdij;iou, reform which had their roou in Muslim tradition. Muhammad 'Abduh of Egypt (d. 1323/1905) and !qbil r~~nud this lund ;n the nrly twentieth cenUlry and their influence remains $trong and alive. But there were also Mlvoc.tes of the newly imponed ide:lS of westuniution, nationalism, and sn:ularism who looked to the West for inspiration. The sP<"'rhe<lds of these ideologies were Kern'" Auturk (d. 1357/1938) of Turkey and Rez. Shah of Iran (d. 1365/1944) , As it w ..... not po"ible 10 "Iu:ue Ih~ anlipod:ol ide2.1 of Ih~ Ir""ilion:ol Isbmic reform~rs with thost of th~ ..ivocate5 of west ~rniution and s,""ubrism, a

complet~ rupture between them was soon fairly fully esublished.

Asad 's Vision of His Primary Goals

And Saw it as his d~stiny and duty to critic:olly eumin~ the "'USCs of the d~din~ of the Muslims as wdl :IS the for= and th~ probl~ms pressing them and to wake them from th~ir slumb~r. Driv~n by Ihe = 1 of a reformer, As:w tried to bridge the gap between Ihe trndilional and modern worlds. He w>s repelled by what h~ saw >s th~ religioudy and wei.lly disruptive newfangled ideas spreading in the Idamic world: wrst~rnization, s,""ubrism, nation:olism and m.teri:oli,m. Like other writers and thinkers wllo Ilad in them "a spark of the flame wllich burned in the heartS of the Comp:mions of Ihe Prophtt"!' h~ responded 10 th~ ch:oll~ng~ to reconcHe religion and modunization and to produce a wide-ranging synthesis of Islam, mod~rnity, and th~ nttds of the society of the day.

A,ad lived in an era of immem~ ""ci:ol, imdlectu:ol and politic:ol cre.tivity. While most other reformers shook the Muslim world with the thunekr of their spirit, power of th~i r charisma and slrength of their popular suppon, he was an intellectual who did nOt bc.long to .ny O'l:aniulion. As""', ohvious vinuC5, Iho"" which nO read~r can f;oil to see immediately, are depth of knowledge, d.rity of re • .oning and the meticulous ~"position and dissection of "'lumems, even when he accepts their conclusions. It is his p<=.lli.r achievement that, with high vinuosity and greal passion, he comriv~d to make" coh~r~nt whole of his diver", concerns.

Asad's In tellectual Vigour and Reach

Th~ prim.ry sources of Asad's inspiration were the Quean and the traditions of th~ Prophtt. But he could not fail to be impressed by 'Abduh and Iqbil :rnd

'" othrr thinktrs who h;od earlirr diognoKd the ills of MwHm K1dety and prescribed ~ simil", remedy for it. A vigorow promoter of Muslim ideology and values and a precursor of thOR Muslims who were proud of their identity and wanted to preserve it in a changing, tumuituol1S world, Asad instilled in hi. public new confidence in the power and future of Islam. To do all this, he used a powerful tool: his pen.

The re"",h, range, depth and reiev3IlCt of what he pen=<! were immen..,. Asad's writings on Islam and tbe Muslims extend over half a century, from the 1920, to the 19805. His writings include: Unrlml4nlil~ Morgmumd (coo. 1925); !.I"m ". EM Cnmroads (193.); Sakih .. '·BuJrhiri: The urly Yean of IsLom (1935-1938), an annotated tr.uulatioo; The R.....J /0 Mtcc" (19S.); The Prinei,*, o!SI4U and Gow-rnmmf jn lJisun (1961); The M~~ of Ihe Qur'in (1964-1980), an

intuputation of, and a commentary on, the Muslim Holy Book; and This Law o/Oun ,.nd O/hn Ess.ys (1987). Between 1946 and 1947 he also brought out a journal, Ara/ .. t· A Monthly Oitiqut of Mlluim Thoughl.

Asad's first book, Umlml4miK,," Motg",!Jmd [n.. UnTOm4ntiC Lut), basoeci on his tnvels and ob..,rV:ltions as a correspondrnt for the Fr .. n/ifllrt" lntung was publi.hrd. in the mid-l92Os. It showed an unusual insight into the Middle East. Its title "was meant to convey that it was not a book about the romantic, exotic outward picture of tbe Muslim East butntber an endeavour 10 ~r::u:e to its day-by-day realities".

Afur he accepttd l:dam, Asad might have had as his motto the heading undtr which George Orwell used 10 contribute his weekly essay to Tribu~·1

Wriu as I Please". But, despite the fredom he enjoytd beau"" of his independent status, he kept hi, focus on sub;rcrs ~ntial to the spiritual survival and well-being of the Muslim community.

Islam at tbt Crossroads

Asad's first publiClltion as a committed Muslim was IdAm .. t 1M CrosJTOMir, published in 19}4. It heralded the arrival of a brilliant Eoglish.writing convert with a bold, dynmtic visioo. A man uoafraid of controv .... y, he had One single, enduring, driving goal: 10 help bring back the Muslims to the tWO original sources which were the foundation of their spiritual and temporal grulneS'S, the Qur'in and the Sun'l4h, the practice of the Prophet-"th.> only binding npi.uwlion of the Qur'inic texhings".)l

The book did not claim to give a comprehensive answer to the many ailments that had weakened and de$tabiliud the Muslim -world. Raising the banner of revolt against the intellectual, social and political challenge posed by an ever-cxpanding Western Weit.vlsch..llllng, the primary aim of lru.m .u 1M CrosS1'04ds was to warn the Muslims against blindly imitating Western values and mores, which Asad thought posed a mortal danger to Islam. It had an

'" aUlh~mic Iqb'!Jan spirit, and was ;U) incisive, sweeping-md, oftnI. a startling but refreshing-response 10 a tide which had long flowed in favour of Wesurn culmral ""d politicol hegemony. Moreover, it vivified a <kbat!: in prog~ on twO of the fundamental concerns which exercised Muslim rdormen: the perplexing problems of westernization and Muslim n:vival and the extent to which it w .... ne~,ary for Mudims to follow the West's ways in order to achieve progress.

A,od was mortifitd al the ineffable distance in ideals, goals and outlook betw~n Islam and lhe (OnC"1'1 of weSierniUlion. Con~uently. hi, Isl"m ,,<I

the Crossroads crysu.l!ized :m uncompromising defence. of Islam's traditions and values against the incursions of the westuniurs; it :lisa was a polffllical and imp:assioned attack .. gainst imitators of the W= and detr.lCtors of uaditiona! Islam.

Asad's Emphasis on the Qur'in :lnd Sunnah

He tSpOUsW adherenO! [n th~ lcachings of the Qur'an md the SUT/"ah, without which he thought Ishun and Mudim civili~tion could nOt survive, He nys in Islam al the Crossroads: "Many reform proposals have b«n advanced dunng the last deGldtS, and many spiritual dou ors have tried to d evi~ a patent medicine for the sick body o f hbm_ BUI, unti l now, all h .. be<!n in vain, btc:.use all tho .. clever doctors-at least those who get a hearing today_ have invariably forgonen to p rescribe, along with their medicine., tonics, and elixirs, the natural diu On which the early development of the p:nient had been based. This din, the o ne which the booy of Islam, sound or sick, cm positively ~pt and assimilate, i. the Sunn .. h of our Prophet Muhammad".""The Sunnah", he emph .. ius "is the key to the undern<lnding of the Islamic rise more thm thirtun cemun .. ago; and why .hould it not be a key [0 the understmding of Our pr .. em degenu ation? ObservanO! of the Sunn .. h is synonymous with Isl:unic existence md progrtSs. Neglect o f the Sunn"h is synonymous with a decomposition of md dec<ly of hl:un. The Sunn"" is the iron fr:unewo rk of a building; and if you remOve the framework em you be surprised if it bre:oks down like a house of card."?/<

The salience of the Su""ah for Muslims is .u .. sW in mmy places in Is/am al the Crossrruds. One such example is: "The term Sun"ah i, usW iu its widest meaning, namely, the example the Prophet has set befo re u, in his anitudes, actions and sayings, His wonderful life w:lS a living illustution md explmation of the Qur'in, and we can do nO greater justice 10 the Holy Book than by following him who was the means o f ,,"veiation".'"

167

He was receptive to the Muslims being open to tm, world, but insisted on IMir maintaining Ihci' spiritual and cultural identity. ~A Muslim muSI live with hi, head held high", M writ es in this book. "Thi. does not mean tha Mu.iiml shnuld Stdude themStlves from the voice< coming from without. One may at all times receive new, positive influences from a foreign civiliz>tinn without necessarily abandoning his own. An example of this kind was the European Renaissan~. There we have s«n how readily Europe ;>r,;cepted Arab influences in the mater and mel:hod of learrung. But it never imitated the oulwud appearan~ and the spirit of Arabian culture, and never 5<lcriflced its own intellecmal and ~hetic indcpenden~. It u.ed Arab influence< only u a fenilizer upon its own soil, just as the Arabs had used Hellenistic influen= in their time. In both ~, the result was a spiritual enrichmem, a strong, new growth of an indigenollS civili:z.ation, full of self<onfldence and pride in itself. No civiliution can prosper, or even exist, after having lost this pride and tM oono=ion with its own past".'"

Asad was always steadfast in his beliefs. But in faimns to him, it should be mentioned that, while he held steadfastly to his \)c,lief.., hi. views mellowed with time. In a bter edition of [Jlfm Ifl the Crossroads, he softened his occasional astringent stan~ on several issl1(5 he h..d r:aiid some four ckodes carlier.

Widespread Impact of Islam at the Crossroads

Isllf'" Ifl tk CrossJ"Olfds contributed to the breaking up of the i~ of Iftw",ie and malaise prevalent in the Muslim world at the time. It received grea critical acclaim and was a commercial success, which cannOt be <aid of all of Au.:!'! books. But it can safely be said that it is one of Aud', works On which his fame will rest. Iqbal-who outshone all other Muslim thinkers of 1M twentieth ccntury-called it an eye-opener. It i5 perhaps Am's most widely re..d and translated book. It5 immaculate Ar:abk version done by 'UfIL1r F.,.nikh (d. 1408/ 1987), a prominent Lebanese $Chol.,., and introduced by the eminent M~!afi al-Khilid" bad a wider readership than the original, which itself has bttn rtprinted foun...,n timn." Interestingly, like Ciliu>J I"m~, which was a young Ol"$On Welles' seminal screen masterpiece, Isllfm at the CrossroadJ caapulted Asad to grea fame at the start of his productive career, and like the classic film, the brilliant critique of the westernization movement, was an act

that was hard for its author 10 foUow. But other writing themn and i1Chievements beckoned the young Asad.

"'!hid., 79- 80. "AI·f~m ',J.i M..["""'1,/·T.",q (B<irut Dif .... 11m li1.Miliyin. 1946).

'" Sahib a/·BukJri

After 1,1.m al 1M CrosSTWd., Asa<! focused his at!~mion On On~ of th~ earlicm and most enduring of his concerns as a reformer: "to make real the voice of the Prophet of Islam-real, as if he were speaking dir«tly to us and for us: and it is in the ""dith that his voice can b. most d e:lrly hew"." Like other Idamic ",formen, he thought th.t knowledge of the traditions of the Prophet-which complement and amplify the Qur'an-was necessary for". new understanding and. dim;1 appreciation of the troe teachings of IsLun".'"

In fact, he had bttn preoccupied with the Prophet'. Sun_h, or way of life, from his Madinah days. Toward this end, and with the encoungement of Iqb>l, he attempted a usk that till then had never wn undertaken ;n English. This was 1M tnn,lalion of, and commentary on, the Prophet's aum.,nt;c tnditiol1.5 as carefully .nd critically compiled in th~ ninth century-ovet a period of sixteen yem-by tbe g~aleSt traditioniSl aI-Bukbiri (d. 256/870). BeI:""fttl 1935 and 1938, Asw published tbe lirst five of forty protected instalments of ai­Bukhiri's celebraled work under Ihr litle, !ja~0 .{·Bulman: Tht &rly Ye.,.. rf Isl.m. BUI due to his internment during the Second World War, Ihe d~lruction

of th~ mmuscripts of his mnotalal rendering in the chaOI that follow..d the partition of India md the prel5 of other intellectu"! activilie. aher the creation of Pakistan, he was unable to compl~te tbe publication of this work," esteem..d by mmy Muslims to be second only to the Qur'in in importance. Years later, he described thr ~ scene of the eod of hi. loving effort to m:oke the Prophet's voice heard and undernuod in English, ~With my own eyes I saw a few scattered leaves of those manuscripts floating down Ih~ river Ravi [now in Indian Punjab] in the midst of tnrn Arabic books-the remnmts of my librllry-and..!1 maImer of debris; and with tbose poor, floating pieces of paper vanished beyond recall more Ihan len years of intensive labour"." But the years spent On this undertaking Were nOt spent in v";n; On Ihe contrary, they were, OS A~ himself recognize<!., ... preparation for a gre:ner task that was aw.uting him. But of th is later.

The Road to Mecca: Asad's Story of His Spiritual Journey

To the delight md benefit of his readers, bis next book, Tht Road Il) Mere., revuled tbe gems of literary talent in the secret casket of A,ad's genius.

In Tht ROMi /0 Mer"" published in 1954, Asad offers u, nearly 380 entbralling pages whicb revolve around the only love that captivated him for

"A .. d, "P .. !.e< to tho fint Edition". s..bih ~·&Irhi"-: 111< e..rry Y ... ,., of IsLom (Gib ... lt->". Dar al.AndaiU1. 1980), P v. (Fi<" ""bli.hed 19'5j.

"'Lx <n . .!'Aud, "Pr<f><~ to tit, S<cond Editm". ~ ~.&!h.iri: Th< f~,.fy y",,, of l.L.m

(Gibral,,,,, D .. :oJ.And.hu, 1980), p . ... ))1.0<. <it.

.. , lik Islam. Hi. 'tory is ',imply", h~ ,ays, "Ih~ Slory of" European'. d;KOv~ry of Islam and of his imegralion within the Muslim community· ," He wrote il in ~pon'" 10 tho"" of hi, W=rn colleagu ... in New York who had bttn baffled by his conversion and identifiCltion with the Muslim •. ·Serving as Pakistan', Mininer Plenipotentiary to the United N;tt;ons, [ WilS n.t>.;rnUy in 1m, public tye and encoulllered a great deal of curiosity :mIong my Europem :and Amer;e;m friffids and xquaint:m=. At first they assumed th.1 mine was the case of " Euro~.n 'cxpen' employed by an E;lSlcm govemmem for 0.

specific purpoSoe, and that I h:ul oon""niently ;od'plM my",,]f to 1M way. of 1M nation which I w:ll; ",rving; but when my activiti ... at the United Nations m~ il obvious that I identified myself not merely 'functionally' but also emo«om.l1y ;I,Ild intellectually with the polili<;:L\ :md cullural :tims of 1M Muslim world in general, thty became somewhat perpltxed","

But what. rich ,tory:md how marvelously told! It covers Asw's life from hi, beginnings in Lvov;n 1900 to hi, lost dt,.,rt journty in Ar.bia in 1931. It truts of van the=, a jouTnty in 'p.ce. :md in spirit, :m explorat ion of vast gwgraphical dist:mces :md of the deep imuior recesse, of a man', psyche_

7he Road /0 Mtcc .. give, us a rounded portr:tit of a restltSll man in search of wventure:md troth, It is part spiritual autobiognphy, p:m summary of the author's intuitive insights into 1,1:un and the Arab., part an impressive traveloglU. Spiced with a virtuosity o f literary technique, a perfect prose style fashioned fQr the purpose, and a Europtan storytdler's urbane smsibility and infused with a genuine sympathy for the world it describes, Tht: Road to Meet .. often telip"" the classic travel books On Arabia: those of Charles Doughty, Richard Burton, T. E. Lawrence., Freya Stark and Wilfrid The,iger .

Puncruated with :lbundant wvemu,"", moment, of comempJ.tion, colourful narrative, brilliant description and lively anecdote, Tht: Road to Mecca teI1, a story that on all count.! is gripping but which necessarily suffen in a skeletal condtnsing. It tell, of the upbringing of Muh:unmw A.w in his homeland as Leopold Weiss, an Austrian Jew whn was desc:ended of orthodox rabbi,; of hi. university day. in Vienna; of mu,ings on the human condition in the West; of wanderings across Central Europe in search of a fulfil1ing life; of galeerashing into the world of journalism in Berlin; of hi. txtcmive tnovels allover the Middle East; of soul.stirring vi,itl to Jerusalem and C:tiro; of working as a correspondent for one of the mOil; prestigious German newspapers; of falling in love with Isl:un and the Arab.; of • momentOus conversion to the Muslim f:tith and becoming MuI):unmad As:><l; of ~joumingin Ar.ohi. for six years and being the guest of King 'Abd aI·'Auz, the monarch who coaltsccd on~warring tribes into a unified, peao:ful kingdom; of living like an Arab, wc...-ing only Anob dres., speaking only Arabic, dre:uning dreams in Arabic; of travelling with the Bedouin; of studying Islam', scripture and history in the holy citin

"A<ad, Mt«-. t . "loc. cit.

'" of Makkah and M;odinm: of going On pilt;rimage; of enoountUS with people belonging to rvery stc:ltum of society-the simple man in the street, the oophisticated intellectual, tM ,hrewd men:hant and the powerful he..d of stale; of going on a huardou$ ~~ mission to Itali:ut-occupied Cyrenaica to contact and '.'!list 'Urnar :aJ-Mukhtir (hang,ed by the Italians in 1350/1931), the wurio ... hUD of tm, COunlry'S freedom movement. And, throughout, there are two motifs which an embroidered on every pand of this wonderfully crafted tapestry: a d«p faith in God and an overwhelming \0,,", for the Arabian Prophet.

Above all, TIN Road /0 M=,. tells a human story, "story of" modern man's restltsSnes< and londiot'$$, pOS$;Oos and ambitiom, joys and $OrrOWI, aru:iety and commitmml, vision :md hummcness . In author comes nUl as brilliant, exciting, lively, full of ~netr.lting observation, immense charm, tremendous zest for life and dttply hdd rdigious belieb. Significantly, he triumphantly achieves hi, purpo", in writing 7hr ROoM! to M«C4: nOne an re:od it without getting a better appreciation of Isl:un. Resigning :os P.ki,un'5 ambassador to the United. Nations in order to devote himself to writing this hook, he bo:c:>mt an ambassador of Islam to the West-and to many alienaltd imdlectual5 and youths in Muslim lands.

This book is imeresting at any poim of emry. Like any dassic, ~ Road 10 M«u has passages which never lose their flavour, despite re~attd nading. Here is a breathtaking dispby of Asad's nligiou, feding and narrative ,kill. It is also an unsurpassed nosulgic description of the pilgrimage of a bygone era:

On t~ f:lajj

NOI far from here, hidden from my qn in il>< mid,t of ,hi. lir.ln. wild",n,," of '1:>11.)'1 and hill., lin ,h. plain of AUlal, on which all pilgrims who come to Mecca :lSS<'mbl. on on .. day of ,he yeor a$ .... minder of ,hal La,t A.",mbly. when man will lu.ve to answer to his Creator for all h. has don .. in life. How often Iu.v .. 1 stood th ..... myself, bareheaded, in th. whit .. pilgrim prb, amon~ a multitud. of white.prbed, barehe>eled pilgrinu from ,hr •• con,inents, Our faces turned to .... rd the Jabal ar·Rahma-th. 'Mount of Mercy' _which an",. out of Ihe vasl plain: standing and waiting thro"", Ih. noon, throut/! th .. aft.rnoon, rdIectin~ upon that ineKapable Day, • .... h.n you will be exposed to view, nOl on .. KCJ"et of yours will remain C(ln~aled· ... "

And as I stand on the hillcresl and gut down toward ,he inv;.ibl. Plain of Arafal, th .. moonlit blueness of the landscape befo ... me, so dud a moment ago. suddenly C(lmes to lif .. with ,n., curren" of alllh .. human lives that have passed through it and il filled ""ilh th. eerie voices of the millio,," of m<:n and ""omen who have ""alked or ridden betwun ~ca and Arab, in over thirt .... n hundred pilgrimages for OVer ,hirt .... n hundred years. Their voices and Ih.ir 'tep' and th.

"ce. The Qur·in. ('90 U (UN', note).

A ...... TTElI Of LOIIE MUfl""'O MAD .... 0 ,SLAM '" voic •• and ,h. Steps of t h. ir an imals re,,,,,. k.n and "",,,und .nn,; I st. them w,lking . nd rid;n~ .nd .... mbling-all th.,.., myri. ds of whit' -K"rbed pilgrims of thirteen hundred ye.,,; I he", the sounds 0/ ,heir pass.d..way wy.; ,h. win" 0/ the faiLh which h .. drawn them 'Of;ether '0 ,hi. land of rock. and sand and seeming M.dn.,. M>t ag.in ... i,h .he ... >rm,h of lif. over the arc of an,uri ... , and the mighty .... ingbe.t dr ... me into in orbit .nd d ... "". my own pa<sed-.w.y days in.o.he p'O$<'n •• and onCe .gain I .m riding over .he plain-

_riding in a thundering ~.lIop OVer ,h. pl.in, . midst .Muunds and ,housand. of ihra ... ..,I.d beduin., returning from Ar;lfat to MKc.-a tiny particle ..,f ,h" roaring. earth-.h.king, irresistible Wave of cound .. , galloping dromedaries and m.n, with the tribal bannen on ,h.ir high pole. Mating like drum. in the wind and their tribal war eriet ",.ring through the ai" • y~ R~wg.:. ,. Rawg..'! by which .h. AtayN Iribcsmen evoke their .ncestor'. n.me, .n.wered by the 'Y~ A",j.,. Aw/l of the Harb .nd Khocci by ,he almost Mfiant . ·Sh.:m ..... r. ,. Sh.:m"",,·l from the f",h .. t right wing of the column_

W. ride on, rushing. lIying OVer the pl . in, .nd to me i . ... ms .ho< ... e are nying wi.h ,h. wind , abandoned '0 • h.ppin ... thn know' neither . nd nOr li miL_.nd the wind .hou<l ' wild pae.n of joy into my urs : 'Never .pin, never . g.;n, never again will )'Ou be • stnnger'!

My brethren on the right .nd my breth ... n on ,he leh •• 11 of them unknown to me but none . 'tnnge" in the tumultuou, joy of our cha .. , we ar. Olle body in pursuit 'of one goal. Wide i. the world before us, . nd in Our he.rt, glimm.rs a .park of the name th.t burned in the heart' of the Prophet'. C..ompanions. They know, my brethren on .he righ. and my brethren on ,he leh. that they h.ve fallen .hort of wh.l was expe<:ted 01 them, and th .. in thelligh. 01 an.uri .. their h. am have g,own . m.lI: . nd ~ •. the promi •• 0/ fulfil men' h •• not been uhn from them .. .from us .. .

Som.one in .h. ,urging hos •• b. ndon, hi. tribal cry for. cry of bith: 'We a~ the brethren of him who giv .. himself up .0 God'!- and another joins in: 'Allabu A.U .. r'!-'GOO i, .he G.., .... tt-God alon. i. Great'!

And.ll the trib.1 detachment< uk. up this one cry_ They are no longer Najdi beduin. ~lIing in .heir tribal pride: they are m.n .. ho know th.t the ' K "," of GOO are but wai'ing 10< them .. . lor w ... Amidst the din of thoU$J.nds of rushing camels' feet and Ihe lIapping of a hundred bannen. their cry grow. into:>. roar of triumph: ·AII.Jn. Air!..,.' !

It 110'" in mighty wav" over.he heath of the thousand. of gallC>pi ng men, over the wide pl.in, to alilh. ends of the emh: 'AII~h" Akb..,'! Th ... men h.v. grown bey<>nd their own lin]e Ii" .. , .nd now th.i r fai,h ,weep" them forward , in Ollen.,., towa,d $Ome uncharted horizon ... l..onging n.ed no longe, remain ,mall and hidden; it has f<lund ill , w.k.ning,' blinding .unris. of fulfilm . nt. In this fulfilment , m.n ",ide •• Iong in all hi. God_giv.n .plondour; hi. ",ide i. joy, .nd hi. knowledge i. Ireedom, . nd hi. world. ,phere wi.hout bounds ...

m

Th. smell of the dromedari .. ' bodi .. , th.ir J»IIling and snorting. tilt thun<kring of ,licit innu~rabl. f<"ell .h. shouting of ,he men, ,h. clanking of Ih. rill ... lung on saddI..,...", the dun and the sweat and the wildly .~cited foe .. around me; and a sudden, glod stillness ..,i,hin me.

1 .um around in my saddle and see behind me Ih. waving, "'e.ving mass of tbouunds of wh;, .. ·clad (id<"tl and, beyond .hem, I .... bridge over which J h.ve com.: in end i.J just behind me ",hil. its bqinning is .lready lost in the mim of di.tanu· ...

Afutr p"rnung Ihis and other stimng spiritual experi.= in Aw, ;1 would ICCrn thn, with few excq>lions, reading ocher Muslims' accounts of their encounter with Islam is like reading doggerel verse aher Milton. In another arresting passage, Asad'. intense devotion to the Propha :and ,h. ambiance of hi. wondrous spiritual pTntnu permeating M:uiinm i. portrayed:

On Madinah

I onler Ih. city and c""" lb. buge, opt" square of A[·Manakha to the inner cily ..,..U; beneath .he heavy a",h of .he E&rptian Cat~, und~r .... hich the mone,.. cungo .. sit c!ink.ing their gold and .ilve, coins, ! $lOp into the main bazaar-a otreet urdly t ... dve feet acrms, tightly packed with.hops .round which a small bot eager Ji~ pulsates.

Tbe ~ndo .. praiu their ,oodo wilh ch..,rful son". Cay headcloths, silken .hawl. and ,oba of fi~ Kuhmi, wool.""",t the ey<' of ,h. pu.erby. Silversmith. crouch behind sm.1l &lou cases containing boduin jewellery-ann-,ings iUld ankJ .. rings, necklaces and earrings. Perfume vendon display basin. filled with henna, little red hap with antimony for colouring the ey<'lashes, multicoloured bottles of oils and essen«S, and heaps of spices. Tralkrs from Najd are s.lling beduin gannents and camel .. addles .nd long-tasselled red and blue .addlebags from easte,n A".bia. An .uction .... runs through Ih. stre.t, 'houling at the top of hi. voice, with a Persian carpet and • camel.ui, ,w",)'I' over hi. should .. iUld • btu$ nmOvar under his ann, Floods of jX'Ople in bolh direclions, jX'Ople from M.din. and ,he resl of A".bia and-as the lime "f th. pilgrim.ge has ended only a short whil. ",<>--from all the coontri .. between th. East Jndies and Ihe Atlantic Ocean, between Astraklun and Zanzibar: bUI in spile of the multitude of people and narro"""ess of the street, Ih.re is nO hurried frenzy here, no pushin, and jostling: for in Medina lime does not ride on Ihe wings of pursuil.

But ... ut might appear even mor< u".",e is that despite .he g=l variety of humiUllypes .nd costumes th.t fill. them, there;' nothing of.n '.,.otic' medl.y in ,he streets of Medin.: the variety of app<aranc .. rev.als ;tself only to the e~ ,u, u detennined to a",lylte. It .eem. to me that.1I the people who live in this city, 0' .~n sojourn in it temporarily, very soon fall into one might call a

"Juad, M«U, 17}-17S.

communi.y of mood and Ihw .100 of behaviour •• nd, .Imon. even of facial cxpr<1sion' for.J] of lbem have f.llen under Ihe .pell of lbe Prophet, whose city it once "' .. and ... hose gue<tS ,hey now ate ...

Evcn .fter thirteen cenmri" hi, spiritual prnl'nco i •• Imost .. aliv. here as il w .. ,hen. It "" .. only be<ausc of him thot the ",. ttered youp of vilbg .. one. called Yoth";b be<::amc a ci,y >I,d h .. been loved by all Muslims down to th is day as no city anywhere ebe in Ihe world hu over been loved. Ir hu no. e"en a name of itS o""n, for more Ihan thirt .. n hundred yean it has been caned ~jn4t ,,,,·N,,bi, 'the Ci.y of ,h. PmphC'l· . For more than thi", .. n hundred yea", so much love hu co nverged here th.t all shapes and move~n" have acquired a kind off.mily rcscmblanco. and all differences of appearance find • ,0",,1 transition imo a common .n.rmony.

This isth. happiness one always 1 .. 1. here-this unifying harmony. Althou,h life in' Medina today h., only a formal. dinanl relationship with what Ihe Prophet .imed at; altho"", the ' pirit",d .""aren,," of Mam bas been cheapened here. as in many " th" p.trts 01 the Mwlim world: an indescribable emotion.1 link with its gre.tspiritll.1l past has remained alive. N",,", I. .. any cily been so loved for the ,.ke of on. singl. penonality; n""er h ... ny m.n. dead f"r ""er .hi" .... n hundred ye ..... htcn loved so penonally. and by so many," h .... ho Ii" buried beD .. ,h 'ht great ,!'<'<'n dom •....

Ir was precisely bee.Wle he "' .. only human. because he li"ed like ",h .. men, .ni<>Yin~ .he pJ ... Ur<1 and suff.ring Ibe ill. of human cxi"enco, that those around him could $0 eru;(>mpau him wi.h .hcir lovc.

Th i. lov. h .. outl."ed hi, &Oath and liv .. on in the hearts of hi. follo""e" like ,h. hilmoli! of a melody built up of many tones. It lives "n in Medina. It lpealc$ to you OUt of ""ery StoO<' "f the .nci.nt city. You can almost touch it with your h.nds; bUi you cannot capeu .. it in words ... ""

And there il this inimitable jewel,

On tlx Desert

And now in thi, late summer of 19}2. ~ ride U>gotht, ... so of,en in .he P''', winding our lonesome way bet""een dunes, $lopping at on. Or antXh.r of tht widely .paced wells and r"ting.t night under lhe $1 .... ; lhe ... r""llViisJ,..wU), of the an im.l$· f .... over Iht hot .and; sometimes. during tb. march, loyd's'" husky voice chanl;ng in rhythm with the camels' t=d; night camps. cooking coff .... and rico and occ .. io"..] wild g.me; Ih. cool ,weep over our bodies .. we lie ~I night On ,he ... nd; l unri .. ovcr .and du"",,, red and violently buming like fireworks; .nd $Ometim ... like today. the miracle of life aw. king in • plant that hu been walered by cbanu.

" A..d, M«<><, 250-252. "z.yd iba Ghioim, Asad', ".ullin, oompanioa.

'" We IwJ .topped for o~r noon pray ... A. I ...... hed my lund., bee .nd Itt, from >. 'Omerskin, >. fe ... drop:! .pilled OVer" dried_up tuft of V"" at my f~t, • mi ..... bl.li"l .. pl,nt, yellow.n<! withered.nd life! .... underth. h.rsh ray. of the sun. But .... the "'''e, trickled On. it, •• hi"., ",.n, through Ih. ,hrivellod hluI .. , and I sow ho .... they .Iowly, tremblinr.lr, unfolded. A few mOre drops, .nd the liul. bbdes moved .nd curled ,nd ,hen straightened them,elves .lowly, hcsitol;npy, trembling .. J held my b ...... h .. I poured rnO,"" ..... ,er over .he grass luft. h moved m" .... quickly. rna .... violently, .. if .ome hidden for« w ..... pushing it Out of ju dream of dc.th. Its bl.cks_what • dtligbt 10 btholdl-contr.aM .nd ul"nded like the arm. of • starfuh, '~mingJy ov.,....he1med by •• hy hut ir'ep ...... ibl. dolirium, • re.l liltl. orgy of sen .. ,,,1 joy: .nd Ih", life ~nl.red victoriously wlu.t. moment ago had oon as dead. en",rflI it visibly. pa"ion'ldy. overpoworing and beyond in iu m.jesty'·

life io iu m*sty .. . you ~Iways fed it in ,h. dese",. a..:ausc il is on difficult 10 keep and '" h.,d. it i. alw.ys like a &ih .• , ..... urc. and a surprise. For Ih • .!e..rt i. al""ays .urpri.ing. even ,hough you may have knn .... n it for yun. Som ... im ... ""hen you think you can , ec it in .11 its rigidity and . mptin .... i •• wakens from i" d .... m. send< fo",h its br.ath_ and lender. p.le-veen grass mnd •• uddenly wh .... only yest.rdoy the ... wos no'hing but und and 'pl in,.ry pebb)<"$. h $Cnd, 10"'1. iu breath again-.nd a flock of .m.1! birds flutlen through th. air-from wh .... ? ""h ..... o? .... lim·bodied . long·winged. em.rald·, ..... n: or •• "",m of locum ri .. , up above .he ... ",h ""ilh • rush and • zoom. ~y .nd ,rim .nd .ndl ... like . horde of hungry "".rrion ...

Life in its majesty, majesty nf 'pan.nen. always surprising, h . .... in Ii .. the ... 1.01. n.om,,! ... lanl 0/ Arabia. of •• nd desert. like thi. on •• and of the many othor ch.nging landscape<.

Sometimes. i, is I.va vound. black and jaggcd: somctimes dunes without end; <om ... im ... U!o<di be,ween rocky hill •• covered with thornbu.h .. oul of which. "artl..! h .... jum?, .ero .. your ""'y: ",metimcs loose und wi,h ,rack. of goztllc. and a few fi ...... bl""kened .toon over which long.lorgollen wayiaren cooked .h.i, food in long·fnrgotten doy<; som .. im., a village ben ... ,h p;>lm , ..... and the wooden wheet. ovor the ""elh make mwi" and ,ing to you without stopping; som ... im .. a .... ell in ,h. mid" of a dtsert vall.y. wi,h b.duin herdsmen busding .round it to ""ater Iheir thi .. ty 'heep and .. mel,-they chant in chorus whil. the """c, is drawn up in large I ... ,her buckets and poured wi.h a rush into I •• ther troughl' to Ihe delight 0/ the exci",d anima], . Thcn ag.in. therc is lon.liness in steppes overcomc by a sun ""ilbout mercy; p.tchcs of hard. yellow grass and leafy bu.h" .ha, era .... l ovor ,he ground ""ill. .n.ky branches off., w.lcome patture to your drom.d..ries; a solitary acacia trec 'preads its branch" wide '!:-linn the "..,1· blue .ky; from betwee n ... ",h mound •• nd stone •• ppe .... eyes doning right and leh. and then vanishes like. ghon. the gold .. kinned liurd ... hieh. they uy. never

)~;. ~d mir..:'" of re--binh ;. <n«l m <ub1im. imat<ry and sono,w' "",rds m 'he Qur"On (22: ~1) .. One oi ,h. m .... y ~.n' ,"",' of God·, po ... « '0 ''''',rea th. <I<"!. (UN., nOtt).

'" drink. w . t<r. In a hollow ".nd bl.ck ten" of g(>.lt h.ir; a hord of c.mel. is ~ing driven hom.ward through ,h. ,ftern""n, the h.rdsmen rid. on b.>~backed young "mel., and ",hen they call their .nim.11 th .. ,ilenee of th .. I.nd .ud .• in their voice •• nd Iw.lIows ,hem wi,hout ed'Q.

Som<lim~ you Ott glimmering ,hadows for on the horizon: ".,h~ d ouru1 They flO'll low, freq""ntly ch.nging their colour and po<i,ion. now !"CUmbling ,rey· brown mounlain.-but in the .ir, $om.""hat above the horiUln_.nd now, for oJl the wodd 10 Ott, .hody groves of stone pin .. : but_in the .ir. And when they come down lower and ch.nge into bk ... nd flowing nV<'rs ",hid, quiveringly ,..lleC'l ,he mount.ins .nd the trees in ,h.i, invitin& """ e", y<>u .ud<knly recogniu ,hem for ... hat .My .... : blandi.hment of the jinns, the mi ... g. th.t h .. $0 often led '''IVell .. n 10 bl •• hopes and $0 10 poeroi.ion: "nd your hand goes involuntarily ,oward ,h~ ",.u ... kin .t your .. ddl~ ... '"

1M Road ro M=:tI covers As;od's life til! the point of his departure from Arabi • • o India in 1932. His re;oders were left with. thint for the remainder of his autQbiognphy. He did start working on a =juel, Ha~Q,m;ng of the Hu.rl, which promisM to unfold the rest of hi.. active and fruitful life, but it was unfinished . t the time of his dnth."

Assessments of The Road to Mecca

The merits of Tht: Road /0 M=:tI were widely recognized when it appeared. The Timn Liln"tI? Supplement ~d, "History teUs us of m;tny Europe;tn converts to !dam, rome of whom have ri$Cn to high place and po .... ~r in the lands of ,heir ;odoption ... But it is rare to find a cOnvert setting out, SlCp by step, the process of his conversion: ;tnd doing ,his, moreover, in a narntive of great po .... er;tnd beamy ... His knowledge of Middle E.sttrn pwplcs ;tnd of their problems is profound: indeed in some respects his narnat;ve is at on~ more intimate and mOre penetrating ,h;tn that of Doughty' ." The revie .... er of ,he-chrjj/itln xuncc Monilor .... rote: "[This) book is one which Ius burs, .... i'h str;tnge ;tnd compelling authority upon the small fraternity of Wm:ernen .... ho kno .... Anbi •... a book trench;tnt .... ith ;odventure m.gnifiundy describtd, ;tnd a commentary upon the inner me;tning of Arab ;tnd Moslem life, helpful to all who .... ould achieve. 'more accu .... te uoderstanding of the Arabs ;tnd their lands."" "A very rare;tnd po .... erful book, raisM completely above the ordinary

"'AI><i, M=-. ll-ll "Ah .. A..d·, d...h, Polo H.mida A..d ",m .. lh .. Ihe ~.o The R...J '0 /oI",,~ ....

only I""Ully compl ... " by him and .n.. m, herself would «ompl .. , it. It "'ould b< c.J1od H_c-,~t 0/ ,b< H'4". ", ,;,10: ... h"", ru: himself ruUCOtOd". H ...... Z;Uu, R.nim. "Mub>JnJtUd ADd. V;'''''' .. y lllam., Schola,', 11« W.Ming'on R'/'M' "" Mi<ldu £'m A/J.j". S<pI<mber l\l'/S. p ....

"24 December, 19~. "Blurb of ,14"" •• I~J reprint.

'" by its candor and intdlir;~nc~ ... And what we gain is a cultural rffirienUlion which should permamndy affect Our view 01 the world", said the NroJ York Pm!'"

Assuredly, 111t' Road TO Marti is sa:uuly establishtd in the c:mon of Arabian tTllvd. It is abo ~ challenging poim of depanure for a new mode of writing about Iravd in Muslim l.mIs.

Asad's Contributions to the Debate on Islamic Ideology and Reform

A.:ad's versatile talents and thought also nowcrcd findy in other dirt:etions, including Islamic law, mariah, and Islamic politie>l tht'Ory. Bmh fields we..., of p:lramount importonc<: to him as he fdt that the spiritual and temporal success of the Muslim community, Or umm..h, depended largely on a correct urniersWlding and application of Idamic law and on a sound political system.

He first nuted elaborating his ide:os On the l.Jamic 1~a1 and political systems in 1M 1940s. His attention turned to these .. re'lS bro>.use os early as tru, 1930s he, along with Iqbal, began to work for the creation of Pakistan, where the Indian Muslims could realiu tru,ir dream of leading their lives in accordanco: with the ilkals and teaehings of Islam. Asad was one of the distinguimed Englim·writing thinkers who contributed to building the ;ntdlectual and ideological. fr.unework for the new Islamic OIate. L :l.!u he republished and developed some of hi, a rlier writings On this sub~ in Tk Principlts of S/4U "nd Govnnmml in t.lam md Thil 1..."/1) of 0..,., and OtlNr Essayl. The former h .. ~n trmsbted in other languagn, iru:luding A""bic.

1A)n Islamic nate~, A,ad po.ilS in ~ Prindp/n o[StaU and Got>nnmmr in I,}""" ~is not a goal or an end in ;tsdf but only a memo: the goal being the growth of a community of people who nmd up for equity and justice, for right and against wrong-<lT, to put it more precisely, a community of people who work for tru, creation and maintenance of such social condition, os would enable the greatest possible number of human being. to live, morally as well as physically, in accordance with tru, natural Law of God, Isbm"."

A,ad funher believed that for a state 10 be Islamic it must be firmly mchore<\ to the teachings of the Qur'in and tru, Prophet. He also held that modern and fut\lre Mll5lims had consilkrable flexibility 10 deal crealively-througb.ijlib.id, iooependent thinking- with m ever-dunging world and iu mendant challenges. But he believed that it wos incum~t \lpon them when carrying out ijtih4d to be bo\lnd at all times by the twO fundamental sources of hlamic law: the Qur'in md the ,urlnah. He believed that in all matters which were clearly enjoined by the sb..rl'ah, sovereignty belonged to

God alone, but in most other areas, such as the form of the political. system to

"Blurb 01 /01«< •• 1!19} rq>run. "A..d, 7b. Pri~rip/t> 0/ s..,. POd a-m"..,.,/ j~ ',).,m, n< ... ..m. (Gibnlt ... DM aI_

AndaIw. 1~IO). 30. (Fi ... pubhshed 1961).

on

be w.optW, God in Hi. Wisdom gave the believers the right, and imposed On

them the duty, to excrciSt th";r reason to arrive at the ap propriate decision for their lime by mutual comululion. Asa<! laid ~'I emphosis on the Qu,'in;c principle of coosul\<ltion; he gave no quarter to totalitarian systems of government, which he thought we,.., p<:rnicious and anti-Isbm;c."

The emphasis that Awl and other reformers plactd on ijlibid bort its fruit within his lifetime: .ever"! Muslim coumr;e. :utd international organiution, have formed juristic bodies to exercise independent thinking in matters of contempor:uy ""I=e f'"<juiring guidanct from titt Shari'''''. Such issues range from organ transplants to gcn~ic ffigin~ring. from ;nurtst·fr,"" banking to mrurmce.

Asad's ruders art indebted 10 the dedication and industry of his BOSlon;m wife Pol. Hamid. Asad who p...,,,,,med u. with m imdleCIual profil~ of h~r husband: sh~ gathered together various writings and radio talks of his md persuaded him to publish them as 1hisLAw 0/ Our • .. "d OtJ.er bsays. Some of these had n~ver appeared in print before. This book represenu As.ad's work md thought over fony yun from the mid·19.os to 1987. In her fo,""word, she points Out that the reader will be struck "not only by the extr:oordinary timeliness and timelessness of these thoughts and predictions, but also by their great coru;iltency"."

1hjj uw ofOun .. "d OtJ.er bJ4YS dcmOllStr.lIe5 As:od's lifelong f:.scination with a wide range of subjeCIs which he deemed essential to bring to the attention of th~ Muslims. Th~ bookduls with Islami, and Western civi!iZ<ltions and Muslim law. In particular, il dwells on th~ role of ijlih.id and the 'r~tive outlook of the Companions of the Prophet :md the g"",t jurists of Ihe p= such as 'Ali ibn J:lazm of Cordoba (d. 4;(/1064) :md Ibn al-Qayyim aI­J~ .... uyyah (d. 7S1/1350) rcg..rding .he necessity for ind.,pendent thinking bued on the Qur"in ;md the S"n."..h of the Prophet. It also oontains Awl's perspective on the ideological basis of PakiSI:m as well as on Islam's enCOunter with the West.

Awl was too cautious and .crupulou. a thinker 10 propose a progrwnme of reform built on the Sh.t.ri'ah without constant refinement and attention to recalcitrant, practical detail and without voicing his views vigoroudy. "Simply talking aboutlhe need for a 're-birth' of faith is not much betuor than bragging about our glorious past and extolling the greatness of our pn:de=sors", he says in 1hil LAw of Ouf! ~rnJ OIM bJ4YS. "Our faith cannO{ be horn unles. we ""d",und what il imp/iel and 10 what pr:>ctical goals it will lead us. It will nOt do us the least good if we an: glibly omured that the socio·eoonomic prognmme of Islam is better than that of socialism, communi,m, eapitalism {:.scism, md God knows what other ';sm,' ... We ought rnher to be Jhoum ;n unminak:.ble

------ -" CI. Mali .. Ruthvm. "M,,!umnud A..d: Amb .... do, of [!lam". p. 6-0 OItd p. 61 ... b.,..,

A..d d.nooo= de>potiom in th~ modt,n Mullin> ..-orld. "Pol. H:uIlid. M.d. "Fo«_rd" On A..<I. EJ",.,,, p . • i.

,,. terms, wbat altcrnative propo~. the Wari'ah makes for Our social life, what its true con",p! of society is, wh.1 views it putS forward wilh rtt;ard 10 individual property =d the cornmun.! tood. bbour ;md production, capital md profit, employu md employee, the state and the individual; what its practiCli measuns are for the pnvent;on of man's nploiution by man; for an abolition of ;&"oronct; and poverty; for obtainint; food, clothing and shd!er for <'Very mon, woman md child ..... '

In another place, he returns to a cenlr1lllheme, the harmonious interaction betwun body and soul and bttween faith and denis, which was one of the main reosom he was mr:lCUd to Islam: ", . . this religion of ours would not ~ God's Message to man jf its foremost goal were not mon's growth towards Goo; but our bodies and our souls are $I) intertwintd that we cmnol ach;ev~ th~ ultimat~ ~lI-beint; of th~ Oill' without uking the other fully into account , Specious sermonisinl; .bout 'f..ith' and 'sacrifice' and ',urrender to God', Will' cannot le..d to the t'Subiishment of true Islam on earth unit'Ss we at<' shown how to g..in f..ith through a b~tter insighl into God', plm, how 10 elevate our .pirit by livint; ~ righteous life, and bow to surrender ourselves to God by doing Hi. Will as individual. and as a community, so that we might !'tally become 'the best community thai has ever b""n brought forth for [th~ good of} mmkind' ('UTah 3: 110)","

Asad's Magnum Opus: The Menage of the Qur'an

And;1 was God's lasl mess.lge to mankind, the Qur'iin, which seized A,ad both for a moment and for a lifetime-ever since that f"teful Berlin subway ride on m autumnal cLoy in 1926.

Many years of Aoo's young and mature life were spent in contemplating tru: Qur' >n' $ meaning md dr~amint; of producint; • new reodering of the Holy Book with a commentary in the tradition of the great commentator. whose scholarship enriched Qur'iinic studit'S. Even th~ ten years that he h..d spent l.bourint; On • InIlsbtion of the ~nti r~ Sahift ai-B"kbAn.- that was to be irretrievably lost in Ihe walen of Ihe Ravi w~n: • necessary part of hi. altempl to comprehend the divine message: full familiarity wilh the Prophet', tradilions was a requisite for understanding the Qur'iin.

In ~ Message of tk Qur'.in, an Ent;lish.langu.ge translation of, md commentary on, th~ Muslim Holy Writ, Asa<! realiud his lifelont; dream . llh. ;>ge of 80. ~uo in 1960, a limited aiition of the first nine !u'ram, of chaplers, of Ih~ Qur'>n was published in 196-4, and Ih. complete edition was published in a volume of 1,000 pag .. in 1980. [t was the creative eruption that c:lpped his scholarly contributions and long ",rvice to Is\;U!l.

"A...d, £",ry., 69. "!bOd.,69_70.

'" The Holy Qur'an and Its Translation

The Qur'"", revealed 10 the Proph~ MuJ.i=nud rome founttn hundrd ye>rs ago, is unique in the annals of "'ripm...,.. The Al'~bic Qur'in is ,he divine book 10 which more ,h. n One biltion Arab and non-Arab Muslims look for guidance in their daily lives. It is recited pri"",eiy. chmu.d publicly, studied eJ<ten.ivdy and memorized by young and old mOre than any other scripture. No other seriplue<: has b~ solicited as frequendy, day .her day, by its readers for an on,wer to the a11·imponant que,,;on, "How ,holl I lead a good life in this world :md the world 10 co"","? No olher scripture h .. shaped ;15 adherem. or innuence.:l world history to a similar ttlent. It bunched lh~ {men-growing monotheistic religion and cr~led the fim ideological state. It made a single nation of warring tribes and diven<: peoples and necs and impirtd Ihem 10

ch:umd Ihtir ahil ilifS inlO founding ~n ntduring civiliution th~t for many ~nturie. W:L'l unriv .. Htd in its liter~ry, scientific, cultur~l, ~rtistic .. nd ~rchitectural :md agricultural achi noemcnts. The contributions th~t civiliution made during its dflorescencc helped the eme'len~ of thc Ren:aissan~ and thc mO<krn world in which We livc.

A. there wcre alre:ady some Ihirty renderings of the Muslim scripture in English, why did Ao.ad undcrtake yt"t another imerpre-ntion of the Qur':i.n in today's premier international longuagef Muslims believc th~tlhc Qur':i.n is thc Word of God revuled in Arahic and untr:m$lauble into any other tongue. Can, therefore, the Word of God be :adajuately tr:mslated at all? Wh" chaHenge. f:ott il< interprt"ter and how an his success be me:lSured? Furthermore, Asad not only rendered the Qur':i.n into English. He :L'lsumed :mother heavy burden: he also WrOle .. taft;., or commentary, on it. But can any time-bound commentary penned by a mcn: mortal do jusli~ 10 God·, eternal Word? These an: some of the qUfStions which uise when considering thc transl:>tion and excge';, of the Muslim Holy Book.

Traductor Traditor

A tramlator of any litcrary text is faced with tWO immediate problems: rendering thc meaning of Ihe original faithfully in a language Ihat i. idiomatic .nd in a style tlut resonate. with Ihe unique linguistic t"";u and flavour that an: the particular gr",e o f every l;U\guage. Even the most "primilive" languagfS have an awesomc beauty and richness of phr;lS(: that are untranslatable into "advanced" tongues . The problems of translation are alleviated when the twO l:mgoages involved an: cognate and have shared linguistic r00l5, lilet:lry traditions and cultural concepts, such :as French :md Spanish, which are both Romance: l:mguages ultimately derived from Latin. BUI even when tr:mdating from ~nd into rd.tM languages with common tradiliOfl!!, it i$ extremely demanding to keep a balance betw« n faithfulness to the origin~1 ~nd felicilY of expr=ion in Ihe Ir:m.latM vcrsion. The btin a(b ge, which dubs u:mslators

'"" as traitors, (r"" .. a<n' I,..di/or, illust .... tn pointedly the age-old agoni~;ng d;l~mma of thr craft of translation.

In th~ c:u.. of urukring Arabic into English the problem;! !V"ater ~us.. of the vaS! gap that h:os to be bridged between the different syntactical, rhetorical, and linguistic worlck of A .... hic, a Senitic language, and " Wntero, Ind~European tongue. A. for the A .... bic of the QUT'an the challenge to the t=tll!alor i. multiplied m:mifold for a variety of ",:!Sorn. First of all the bcaUly and power of in language, rhythm and cadence m , inimitable. Second, though Qut'anie diction is highly eUiptical and condensed, and expresses a world of meming with pungent brevity, it ;, comprehensible to IhOSf' who understand Arabic. But the translator of such dliptic:d C(lnnructions which "Me foreit;n to mon other languages ;. for=<! to :add linking phrases to clarify hi. rendering without usotting to a profusion of unwelcome interpolations into the Qur'iinic text. Third, ... the most vigorous enant Semitic language, Arabic h ... pr .. erve<! a lot of the hani-to-translate everyday imagery of an ancient world. Fourth, and nOt le .. t important, the Qur'iin h ... coined numerOuS usage5 and tennS to expTeSS new religious and monl concepts; it thus gave novel meanings to old, familiar words. For all these re ... ons, it is a formidable task for even the most talented bilingual scholars to tnnslate the Divine Word into a language such ... English.

Some English Translations of the Qur'in

The first transl.tion of the Qur'iin in a Western language w.,. done by the English cleric Robertus Retenen.i. ~t the instance of Peter the Vene ... ble, Abbot of Cluny, for polemical r~ru; completN in 114), it w.,. widely circulated in manuscript for several centuri .. in the Latin Welt and exerci.sM a negative innucnce on the understanding of Islam in Europe. But the first English interpretation of the Qur'iin by • European conVert appeared only in 1930, fifty years before As..d's rendering. In his justly celebrated translation, TIH Me4n;"8 oj"fht Glorious Koran, Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall express.. some of the difficulties inherent in any effort to translate the Qur'iin: "The :lim of thi~ work is to present to English re..ders what Muslims the world over hold to be the me<lning of the words of tM Koran, .nd the n.ture of the Book, in nOt unworthy hmgua~ aod concisely ... The Koran o;=not be translated. That i~ the belief of old·f ... hionN Shcykhs and the view of the present writer. The Book is here rendered almoSt literally and tvery effort has heen m..de to choose befitting language. But the result is not the Glorious Koran, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to t ... rs and ecstasy. It is only an attempt to present the meaning of tM Koran-and peradventure something

'" of the charm-in English. It can never uke pi""", of 1M Konn in Arabic, nor is;t ~anl to do so","

The Eternal Word of God versus the: Ephemeral Word of Man

Th= are iKlm<: of the problrms confronting the translator. However, a commentatOr on the Que'an, f:u:cs additional. difficultid. Fim, hi. qu:olifications must r.mk even higher tbm tho~ of a trandalor in a Vllriety of Islamic fields, r:rnging from Arabic linguistics to lexicogro.phy, l-j.uJith to hermeneutics, history 10 heTeSiolo!;)" grammar 10 juri.prudmct, .Moric to dogmatics and phonetics [0 biognphy. Another serious choiet tim the Qur'in-co=ntalor bas to make is to decide which line of interpretation he wanu to follow, for the scienct of Qur'inic exegesis is a rich one and has engendered many. at times differing, scbools of interpmation. That this is ro, is only natural, for the QUT'in i. pr~ant with ~aning and imighu for those who contemplate it. Scholan have in ~~ry ~ge scaled new heighu in their undentanding of the Qur'iin, but their interpr=tions, however deq> and however illuminating, ~main a prnonal, hunun, partial prnprctiv~ on the Word of God and His all­enwmpassing knowledge and ha"", therefore, nOt beo:n considered binding on other scholan or on the community. The Qur'iin is the Word of God, md hence immutable, prrfect md eternal; commentaries by scholars are the work of men whosoe vision must ~ily ~ ~ reflection of their time, environment md personal bias, md h~ sub;ec.: to errOr md change. While the work of ob1ective trmslators and commentaton of the Qur'iin deserves m~, it is not sacrosanct or above criticism.

Asad's Translation and Exegesis of the Qur'in

Among the recent Western imerpreten of the Qur'iin, As:u:i was certainly the most eminently qualified for the task. He had spent o""r Ihr« decade, studying the Qur'iin, the fja<irth and other allied Islamic disciplines. He had li....d in Aro.bia and gained familiarity with Arabic through daily contact with its people mOre extemively th~n any other Western translator of the Qur'iin had ever done. He had bttn in cont;>Ct with some of the most prrcepti"" Muslims of his times. As an earneR convert, he treated the Qur'iin's text with the venero.tion md humility of a believer and its messa~ with the passion of an intellectual on ~ rrn5510n.

Of the prim:ory aim of his translation, Asad says in the foreword to The M<'1S"~ of u.. Q..r'.", "The work which I am nOw placing bcfo~ the public is based on a lifetime of study and of many years spent in Arabia. It is an

!oOoT"miator', ForO'ord". n.. M .. "i", of rb. GI .... i"'" x .... ""· A~ £<PI«"",ory T"."J",;o" by Mol .. mm<d M."""duk< P"'lnhall. II M ... tor Book. ~ reprintin" (N .... Yor. , Th. N .... lIrn<riem l..>bruy, 1961), p. Yu.

'"' attempl_perhaps 1M first attempt-at a really idiomatic, expbnatory rendition of the Qur'anic =S<l&e into a Euro~~n language"."

"But although il ;s impo'jSible to 'reprodu",,' the Qur'an :os such in my other language", he adds, "il i~ none the less possible to render it. message comprehensible to people who, like most Westerners, do not know Arabic at all Or->.I is the C:ISe with mosl of the educated non·Anb Muslims-not well ..,nouy. to find their way through it unaided"." With the humility of a confessing scholar, he says: "And I am fully aware that my rendering does not and could not really 'do justice' to the Qur'in and the layers upon lay= of its meaning: for,

'if.1I ~ .... Inn' ink lor my 5"'l.Oi".,.', _,.J~ .ht _ "",wid

inJ..d k ~"'laJ '"' my s,.'uj" ... ., _rd •• .., aba".lm', (Que'in 18: 109)"."

Another of the main aims of Asw's {n.n.btion was to penetrau: the veil that over the years has envdoped the meaning' of some Anbic words due to semantic change and to reveal them in their original connotations at the time of the .-.:vd;uion of the Qur'in. He documenttd these semantic changes by ca.-.:ful reference to the work of classic..l lexicographers ~nd philologistS and nrliu commentators md thus brought. rare freshness and accuncy to his rendering. He was .150 helped in this effort by the "intangible communionH he had acquire<! with the spirit of the Arabic language through first-hand contact with its people. While not going .long with tbe fashion of translating the Qur'in into a modern idiom that may jar the solemnity Or nobility of tbe Sac.-ed Book, he Jritd to minimiu the me of archaisms.

In his exegesis, Asad was edcctic. He benefited from the great cli1S'lical and modern Qur'in-commmtators who rq>resent a broad nnge of exegetical approaches. He acknowledges his debt to tbe commentaries of: Abu l.-far al­Tabar, (d , 310/923), whose encydo~dic r..j,ir is unpanlldled in its scope, depth and primary imporunce;Jir Allah MaI).mUd ibn 'Umar al-Zamakhsl=i" (d. 538/1144), the Mu'tozili ntionalist whose work reprrsmt$ the culmination of rhetorical and syn\;1(tical malys;,; Fakhr al·Din aJ-Rui (d. 60611210), the doyen of phi lowphic;oJ exegetes; the popular' Abd Allah ibn 'Urn.,. al.Bay(,!.iwi (d. (4. 685/1286), who condenstd and ammded aJ·Zamakhsbari's rationalist interp.-.:utions; tbe wmprchensive Abil 'I-Fidi' ibn Kathir (d. 774/\373), who represents the traditional approach to l4jiir, md MuJ.tammad 'Abduh, one of the out~t;mdjng scbolars of modern Egypt whose exegesi, was continued by his

'" disciple Muh:unnud Rashid &4 .. (d. 13-(5/1935)." Aud also ~upp<>rted hi~ interpretations by the use of the most authoritative lexicoyaphical md philolo&ica! resources, such as: Mu~:unm:ul ibn Manzur's (d. 7111131 1-12) Liw" ,J.'Arab, Abil ol·Qasim aI.Righib :aI.·I~fahani'l (d. 50211108) ..J·M"jr.td.i1 fi (;harib IIl·Qur'.in :and Murtw a/.Zabidj's (1205/1790) Tij al· 'AT"f Ii Sha~ al· Qim';,. The wealth of material that Alad quoteS from cb..sica! authorities-starting .... ith the Companion and cousin of the Prophet and the father of Qur'inic (:leges; .. 'Abd Allah ibn "Abbis (d. , ... 68/(4. 686)-is one of the fortes of his rmckri ng: in no other {"",slation of tltt Holy Book in English there i .. as much wmrmntation and intuprrtation from the gimu of exq;esis whose original work is normally ..:cessiblc only 10 .cholan of Arabic.

Though he .... as eclectic, Asad's bias;s clear as is shown by the authority he most often quoted, the Mufti of Egypt Muhammad 'Abduh, whosc grcat learning is unquestioned, but who did lean toward tbe ntionolist school of ol_ZamolUuhari. This bi"" OCClSionolly exp<>~ Asad'$ tr:an.:lblion 10 Ihe fault. Ihat the followen of lhis scbool are beir to. What perhaps impressed Asad most about 'Abduh was that for the fint time in the modern en a very erudite scholar and refonner viewed the Qur'in primarily as a book of divine guidance for Muslim~ in manen concerning lheir life in Ihis world and io the Hereafter when many for a long period had ~arded il merely as a SOurCe of Iheology Or a model for illu~trating the finer points of Anbic rhetoric or grammar."

"Th .... ork, on ,I>< h;"ory iUld d<Y.lop"'en, 01 OS/> .. , ,r. 00 nurtlt'ou. ,Iu, only. lew C.n be mrn,ioned h .... Fo, ,h. v.now schoo" 01 Qur· ..... "'OV';s.. ... MuI)ammod. Hu,,"yn al­Obah.bi. ~.T4ri' ..., ~.MII/"";"'n. 1 'fOb .• Jrd impr..oon (C.iro, M.lu.b" Wahbah. 14051/'185); Mul).amnud 1brihim Sl .. rif. l"~r J T.jJiIJ Ii T ,;;i, ~.Q~'·'n .U;.rim Ii M;" (Coiro: DOr oJ·Tu .... h. 1402/1912); J. J G. J ......... 7h< /nlnP"",;on <>/ 1M Kor,,, ;" Mud.", EVT" (L:ido:n, E. J. Brill. 1914); Ignn Goldr.ihor. Dit Rill"'m,." In ;J",,,,iJ<hm Kor."",,"':-,. fir,. priEl,iEI, 1~20. rpo. (l.ciden: E. J. Brill. 1910). " ...... by • ... bd oJ·HoJim .~N'ii;r" M.Jh.iJriJ,.J· T,;;i, ,J./"",,,; (Cai..." M.k .. b" .... Khinii. 1l74/195S); J. M. S. BoJj"". M..w.. M.,lim KO'dn "''''P'"':.lu", (1 ,1O-196()) (L:id<D' E. J. Brill, 1%1); Abdul KboJiq Km, ·Th. Growtb of E><"V';'" in ,h. Fos...J..lions '" fUm. «Ia. Z. f.r !ruq An .. ri ...d hmi·a Ibrihim N ...... ib (f"nhcomin, UNESCO pub1;'"ion). A det.iIed 're.un.n, of oJ·Zam.kII,)".;·. int<rpmoti"" of ,b. Qur·in i, Mu~I' .I·SO ... ; .1·J" .... yni". M~ ,J·l~"·fi T4>" ,J.q.., .• ~ _ &?in r~zJ,. 2nd tdn. (C>i..." D.i, oJ.M'·'rif. 19O5); for> p«liminary introct..ct;.". to . Abduh, .... AM oJ-Gh.ffO, 'Abd .... RoJ)im. ,J.,,..;. ... MMb,o""...,J .... bdMh _ l>£t."IMi""" Ii 1· T..jii, (Coi..." oJ·Mork", ,J:A .. bi Ii al-Th.qil.h ........ ·U1um, <00. 140011980). Ch"l .. C. Ad.,ns.. 1,J.o ... ..,J M..w..i,m;" EDfJl (Lor>don: Ox/"rd Univ ..... i'y Pr .. ,. 19))) "'" .100 be pto/i"bly consul,.d on ,b ... " .. ;.oJ ochool 01 • Abduh "'" MuI)am..oo JWbOd RMji.

"CI. s.yyid Abi> oJ·A<l.i M.~·, vWon of 'he Qur'im', m,,,,,,",,, . nd ,isnif", ... "" to hWD1n ""'irty. N" o,h .. l4fji. in tho ' ..... n';.,h «ntury ..... more m .. hodnlopally lito'''''' in it> .mphaSl' on. and meticul .... , cl.bo",;"" of, ,b. Holy Book·, rcl.vmc< '" oJl .>prtI. "I ,h. Muslim.· ."<,,,d.y life per"""'. doctrinal. etbicoJ. ",oJ. "",;'1, poIi'K:al, eduC";ODoJ, .Dd economic. -Th. Iw",ion of T «fbi'" i. no< .., d .... U P'imarJy 0 ' mainly on Ii" .. ", b< ... ,;" ",d kgoliotic n;."o..-... hich h.a .. no< been i",o~t ro d.v<lop :on W><l<rn:u>din, of the Quia.. •• ,h ...... "" of ",idonco· . Kb",ohOd Ahmad, ·Fo ...... .,...!·, T ..... rJ, lJ>uUr,,,,nJjnr th< Qotr"". ,,,,n,l,,ion of To/hin> ,J.q..,."". <t . • nd .d. z"f" bhaq An .. ,i (teice ... ~ Th. ldami<

, .. Mention;ng his high opinion of the EKYplian reformer's meriu, Asad SiOyS, ~The reader wi ll find;n my ""pbnalory notes frequent references to views held by Mu\:t:unrnad 'Abduh (1849·I'}OS). Hi, imponance in the modern cOntext of the world of Islam can nevcr be surriciendy messed, II may be st~tw without exaggct:>.\;on that ev~y .ingl" ,nnd in conternponry Islamic thought can be tr.u:w buk to the infl""nce, dirN"! or indir=, of thi, ffiO<t outst:>nding of all mo<krn Islamic thinu",".'"

Yet, As.:.d altimes m";nuined hi, intellectual independence and diugred with his distinguished predecessors whenever he felt it was necessary to do so to elucidate his own interpretation. However, thorough scholar that he W;IS, in such cases Asw was not unbir to other view, Ihm his own: he would mention the oIttrnative intcrpret:nion. in hi, note. and give r~ ... ons to explain hi, rnoi=. "If, on occ ... ion", he ~xpJ.ins, "I hav~ found myself constrained to differ from the interpretations offered by the [clos,ical commentators], let the rewer remem~r that the very uniqu~ne$s of th~ Quem consisn in the f:lCl that the more our worldly knowledge and historical ~xperier>c<: incr=, the mOre me:mings, hitherto umuspe<:led, revcallhemselves in ils pagcs"."

Elsewhere, Asad g ... ccfully combines the ~r"'nal and intellectual humility characteristic of inspired im~rprelers of th~ Divine Word with the promise of th~ ~rennial spiritual dfulgenc~ and the evu~panding world of hum:m knowledge b«koning to the devoul extf;l'tc. "Whether One agrees Or does 1101 agree with my imerpretalions of Ihis or ,h"'t point, we should remember that even the great classical QUNIl commenutors disagred" on m:my details, thus increosingly dtt~ning and widening our understanding of the Holy Quran."

Found.tion. 1-1011(988). vol. I. pp . .. u_ .. v . Fo, M • ..-dUdi. ... <o,dm~ '0 Khunhid Ahmad-whOle kno .. ~ "f M • ...,tUd;·, ,h<>uV" ., uo, urp .. >ed-<be q..,.'" ·p .... nu • m<> .. ~,. inv;'.,: ,be ... hole hunun r>co '0 • yin.> of , .. Ii,y .nd "",ioty. oOVn .... th.,.. .. hn r<opood to ,hi. c.ul in,o >J1 idrolopc.u commun;'y .nd ,"join. upon ,hi, communi,y ,h. n« .. ';'y ' 0 ",iOf lor the "",;"-m,,,>1 ,«on""",ion of hum .. it,. boIh individu.;Uy .nd <ollcaively· . Ibid.. p . • i,.. [)<spire Ih, dilf"e",' in ,h, "''l .. ic,) oudook, of M • ...dUdi .nd A..d. the bn .. ohared. ,imil.t, dyo.mic .<.ion 01 , h, Qur· ... not only with ·Abdult but.1so ... i,h M,wdUdl ",d h" k~in·'I'iri, Iqbil .... ho opeoed h" ~in,11O'O,k in En~"h ... i,h '" inimit.bl. b,iIIi,,,u fl. .. h ~Iumin"",g the q.. ...... , cb.I!on~in~ invi, .. ;",. to hum. nkind: "Th. Qu'''' ;, • book of .<1<<<1.' ... ." M~h.mmad Iqb:d, -p,n",·. /lmm,mK'Vm 0{ /I,figiou> 700..g/>' in I,)"m, new <<In.., edited ond .nnot,,«1 by M. s-d Sh,ikh (Lho,..., In .. ituu 01 I.urn", Cultuff, In6), p. xxi. (Fin' pubhohed in I~l~ .. U<,.,.,..,. "" ,I,t R""", ....... 'i.., of /I,/i!;"". Tho"fJ>< in I,)"m).

"A,.,,!. ·For .... ord· . n,. .'dt""t.' 0{ ,I,t Q"'.~~. p. v. oo« ~. '"'·Ibid.. p. yii. ,. A...d. i< nm rd«ring her, '0 dill,,,n,,,< 'OVrdint ""'~, ordin.n",.I.M4m1 .. hich. "by

Ih,i, .ery n,m". >t. no< n,hjw ' 0 <o"n"' in~ i.",t"""""'<; in /;"'. ,h.y ,,. in nn need of ''''«rpro ... ,,;''''· ... h"oocv<r. bein~ ,bsolu,dy ,dl":on"in«l .nd unombipo,,,". A....d. 5<.o ... mJ G......,,""",. 12.

"A,,",, m",,",ed • spirited dtf.n", of hi' inl<J"pm";"'" 01 cen.in conl<o,""" .. 1 i ....... , in -C\.a,il"",,,io,,-. <1"bio.; Th< /,£"",;, W"dJ II"",",,. Octol><, 1911. p. 4. Hi, ""'''' "'pm.nt...." 'h" in "'''Y "", .. her. r>ppon,"ts "isod obj..aion, to hi. vi< .... on .. ,m m.n.". h. had ",lid

" _ TTEA Of LOVE: ....w.NoO.D A$OO NIO ''''-''''' '" So it will continue, insha·Allah, untiltM ~nd of tir=. This has been and will alway. r~main tht spirit in which' approxh me Message of the Holy Quran and [he erernal heritage of the last Prop her. May God judge us all in His infinite wisdom and r=rcy".U)

The ch~llenge of Qur'anic taj. i, will continue to confront the schol~n of ,ucett<!ing generations. As did Asa<!, SOme of them will n.vigat~ th~ir own lengthy individual rout" to re.u;h the shor" of undemanding. O nly time will tell which interprerations of tM Divine Word are likely to benefi t their readen. Certainly, only God can truly judge their ultimate worth.

But The MMJagt' <>/ lhe QuT'in was not only a prodigious work of u<"gesis huta!so of translation into the imerfl3tionallanguage of th~ day par "",,cellence. Moreover, English was not Asad's mother tongue and his renduing ap~uM after The K'mm Inl"prerM (1955), a two.volumeelegant ""nion by the versatile and fair.mindM s<:holar A. j. Arberry (d. 1%9), the doyen of orientaliS! translators of modern lim~. Thi, r~minds us of the Pol ish Joseph Conrad (d. 192-4) who learoM his English as a se:unan but IIIrnM out consummate novel, in English thaI, after a hundred yean, are still fascinating. So, how did the Austrian Asad succeM in attaining the ufl3nainable or tran~lating the untranslal>1ble? Asad's main COnCern in translation was to go ~yond "th~ ouUr ,hdl of .Iit~f;l.ry nulter'" and achi~vt clarity of "",,pres:sion in a ~fittinK' idiomatic English while grappling to pr~rve a5 much a5 possib!~ of ·I h~ ultimate ~aUty of expression"" that the Word of God represents in the original. "' makt no claim", he says, "to having reproduced anything of the indescribable rhythm and rhetoric of the Qur'an. No on~ who has truly experienced its majestic beauty could eVer ~ presumptuous enough to makt such a claim or even [ 0 embark upon such an attempt·.·' And, so, what is tbe cri[;,,' judgment on 71N Mfflagt' <>/ I~ Q,.,'.rn, his annotatM rende ring of the Quean in English? It recc.ived favourable review. from discriminating scholars

.u,hority in on. or mo .. of ,h. promin.o, Qur· .... roo""" .... 'on, ,",en ., 'Abel Allib 'b .. ·Abb.U. Mujihid al.M,kk~ "bY Jarir al.Tabor" fakhr ;d·Din ;d.R.lr.i and Muhamnud ·"bduh.

"'A..d, "darif"""ion", A,..bi.: n..l~",i< WQ,u R~. Octob<, 19$1. p. ~. c./. thi< w,th tb. vi ..... tb .. S.yyid Abii ;d.".1> M.wdiidi-<>flO of ,b. most ooflurnti.al ",hola" 0/ th. mod.rn Mudim ""'rld-apr • ...d in tbe in,roduc,ion to h'" Urdu <J/iir, T.p.im "j.Q«,lin (1950-1971). "n.. r.ader may .... . .... rod w, ,h. Qur· ... " "'" oppoW to dill.,=, within the f."",ewo.k of • '""""" ag~t OJI. the fundamental, of lda:n ...d the b,"'" unity 01 ,be ItI>mic community" .... me. M • ...!i.di. · "',roduaion". T-.i, /Jndm",",ding tht q..rlin. I: 29. "Forthi, kind 01 di$;opumeot .ho .... ,h .. . communi.y is not Iackint in the c.>JW'ity for thO<lp.t. for <..qW", and inve>tiptioto. lor " .. pin~ Or wrrn1int with the problr"" it face •. .. And it prove thai the community i. follo";"t.he l0i.kn p>th of mod<: •• tion. Such mod<: ... io<t p .... rv .. it> unity by broad a, rttmmt OJI. furuIarn.nt.b .... d .. the lOme time provide< it. IChol .... ond think .... w~h fun Irordom 01 ro",ity ><> that tb., may ilCb;"y< I~h in,ip." ... d new mt<rpr ... tion, within tho fram"",,"k 01 the /wubm'Dtol principl .. 01 1.1"",". Ibid .• lO.

"" .. <I. "Fo,e_nf", n.. M.....,. of'''' Qoorlin. p. >0. "' ... . , .. • 0 ..... , p. "-

'"'Ibid., p. vi;;'

'" and English.reading general readers." Gai Eaton, a leading British Muslim thinker and author of Islam ami ~ !fts/i,,'Y of Man, one of the major works which explore and illuminate m:my asp«ts of is\;lIII, ")'1 of 71>t M~~ of the Qur'in after poiming Out some of the limitations of the r3lionalist approach: "In practical terms this is the most helpful and instructive version of the Qur':.n that we have in English. This remarkable man has done what he set Out

to do, and it may be doubted whether his achievement will ever be surpass.ed".~'

Bill there wiU never be an unsu'l'.ssable rendering of the Qur'an. Awl. hims.elf, while ple:osed with Ihis judynent, would nOi ruove accepted ;t in it$ entirety, for he ~lievcd that the Word of God could MYCr be entirely encomp;uscd by a transbtor or commentator and that, in the Qur'in's own exprell';on, .w., "' .. _,.ld iMeM bt aha,..retJ- bf.fore God'. words were exhau,ted. In fact. had the meticulous Asad li ved longer it is ~nain that he would have kept on improving his rendering, for as Ile said: -The longer I worked on this holy ask. The more I realized how distont any human intenect i.--:md alwaY' will be-from a complm undemanding of the Word of God~.'" This is also borne out by comparing the verses Ile had trandaud in TIH Road to M""" with the s:ome verses whm he cune to render tru.m in "Tbt- Memlge of 1M Qur·in. A,ad', translation. like all othu Muslim tronslations of the Qur'in in any longuar;e. are .ineeTe, dedic-ned-yet only Ir.Ul,iem and in no way completely utidactory. attempt. at interpreting what is tsSCntiaily unintcTJ>retable: the Wor<! of God revealed in Arabic. Another translator of the Qur'in in En!;Ii,h. 'Abd Allih Yiisuf 'Ali (1373/1953)" perhaps .-ummed it up best, wilen ;n reply to a question about the best En!;Iish translation of the Qur'in-the young inquirer had expected Yiisuf 'Ali to mention his own highly acclaimed and widely read rendering-said. "My son. the best tramlator of the Qur'in i. Time~."

"In hio ,,,-,,,, ;~ rho W",k( (Now York <nd o.ford Oxford Un;"<r>ity Pr .... I~U), 122_12J. M.J ... Rutbvrn_ . noo.op«win. ducat..! !re<Jaoc. writ.r-b •• compar.d tp«ifoc Qur· ... ic «r= rendered by A. J. Arbcrry. 'AbeI Allah Yii.su!· Ali ...d Asad for cl.rity ...d came out .. ~y in f>YOUr of tho ...,.,jon by Asad. Thr .. y ....... 1;"'. b. hod paid • Pow",; tribu .. to n. M .... 1l' 0/ rho q..r·';~: • .. . Muh:unmod A...i .. Iu. co"," .. noor ..... yonr to .... kin; tho divino t<1:t intdlipblo to moo.m r..den 01 th. Eocliolt l ... pav. That io ... :teb;""em<nt for ~ future ,cntnlK>D' 01 Muslims ""d non·Muslim. m .... alw.,.. be Ir •• M·. MaI.i .. RuthVftl, "Mub:unmod Aoad: Ambanador 01 W .... ·, p. 62.

"G.i Eaton, Roy;' ... of n. M,""l:'" 0/ "" Q.'·"n '" Sp«w"'. 7 J"". 1980. p. 11. I om u.d<bt<d to my I".rut Robcn. Atndr.. th • .dilo, of AT""""" W~..Id m.,.,.u.<. 10, obtoinio~ tho .. ~, of ,hi, ",view lor mr.

~r Qur'u., II , 109. "'),!.I.i .. R~,hv<n. · Mun.mmul Aud: Amb.....:Io, of IlIam". p_ 1.>1_

"On <Abel AUih W"uf <Ali .... M. A. Sh .. if. Sur</,;nlfi>. Sd..u: A Bior-t<pb, 0/ Abd~1J..h Y",4 Ali. I~'npr<fn' 0/"" Qut·.in (K,.w.lumpu" Jilimic IIook TN". 19'U).

"'I> .. "",al rKO!kctioo> of Haroon N .... boo of Cu'''P;p.. M ... ,.;.;., .. told to th •• ",ho, in 1~51.

Asad's Legacy to Posterity and His Views on Leading Muslim Reformers

What, and how l;!.Sting, is Muhammad Asad's legacy, one is bound 10 as k~

It is no =y lask to ,ummariu his many astounding accompli.hm~nt' without doing him injustice. AsaJ was the foremost Paladin of th~ w . i'ah among Western converts. His life Slory, work and thought filled many educated Mudims with the fin~ aromatic spirit of hi, f.ith rnd genius. H~ was a man who received his chief nourishment from the Qur'an rnd ,unnah of the Prophet and S~nt his en~rgy On the p~rvation of the id~.h of Idam :md th" identity of the Muslim umm .. h. He held that Islam's spiritual and cultural achievements remain across the centuries a brilliant and moving spectacle, but he was internted in Muslims carrying :m aur~ not only of past glory but of continuing greatnns :md serving a. a model for ,,!l nations.

Ohen he seemed 10 be ahead of his contemporarin in forcefully pointing up the necessity of a dynamic approach to solving tb~ problem. of tbe Muslim. by the use of 'jt,},ad based On the twO ultimate authoritin in Islam: the Qur'an and the authenticated traditions of the Propbe!. He a'l\ued passionately thai following this rugged patb was tbe only way to ensure a sucressful revival in the Muslim world. In his insistence on th . rrcourse 10 independent thinking be drew inspiration from such luminarin of the classical, medieval and modern period. as the secood Caliph 'Umar ibn . 1.Kha!!ib (d. 23/644), 'Ali ibn J:la<:m (d. 4S61106(4), Fakbr al·Din al·R>z.i (d. 60(,/1210), Taqi al·Din ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328), Ibn al-Qayyim al -Jawziyyab (d. ';98/13';0), Jamal ai-Din ai­Afghani (d. 13 14/ 1897) and Mubammad 'Abduh (d. 1323/1905). H~ was deeply respectful of th" achievement. of tbe greo.t scholars of the past, but was critical of blind deferenc~ to individual opinions which according to Islamic principln cannot be regarded as infallible. He thought tbat all qualified Muslims were entitltd and ~njointd 10 exercise their judgment on a wide range of $OCi~tal issun tbat arise in every age and had not been determined by divine revelation or authentic Prophetic traditions. In 5Upport of his position, Asad would frequently cite tbe Prop betic tradition that, if one exercised his judgment and was right, God would reward him doubly, but if he turned Out to be wrong, God would 5till give him a reward. Today, many distinguished schobn endorse the concept of .jr.hid enthusiasticolly.

Asad's di senchantment with secularism and materialism W;!.S the child of his very intimate, personal experi~nce of the West. This disappointment was deeply felt, searchingly scrutinized and trenchantly expresseO. The impact of his devastating iconoclastic critique of thne trends reoriented many Muslims away from defeatism to pride in their Muslim identity and beritage. Asad's cautiooary and trailbla<:ing examination of the debiliwing dfw. of secular and materialistic thought on socie-ty has ltd to the app~ar~ 01 ~ra1 excellent

". studi .. on the ,ub~. A1.0, tht prMictions Asad mw wme siXly·five yraTS ago on the effea of this thought On Muslims ha"" not ~n wide of tht m:lrk.

Apart from very brief p<erioos when he was pan of ~ team, And always worW on his own. Thou~ he held SMlenl leaden of modern blamic ",form movements in high esleffll, he was 100 independent a thinker not 10 question their intellectual and political currency: he could not grind anybody', ideological or political axe. H e never belonged to any organized mOvmlent, nor did he wish to form a rocio-political o,!aniution to promote his _dormin idn!. Pm of Ihi, aversion of his W<l.'l because Auoi had little sympathy for the intolerance that often accompanies group partisanship; probably, he also felt that the consuming demands of organizational efforts had detrimental effecl.5 on c=t;ve writing. But become he WH, and ",mained, on intellectual and oe"". b«=te an activist Or:l. foun~r of:l. pmy, M did nOt leave ..ny disciples who could carry on :md develop his thought.

For t~ reasons just menlio~, Asad kept aloof from affiliating with I~ mainstream movements working for the common goal of Islamists: the rL"'lurg<:ru:e of Idam. He, however, knew ond reSpecle<! the leaders of the major Islamic orgonizations and mainuined amicable personal relations with them. He paid tribute to them when the occasion called for it but also spoke up in t~ir defem:e or cried in lamentation whenever misfortune touched any of them. For example, though he disagreed with "certain points" of t~ Jama'at·i Mimi's pr~ramme, he thought of it as "a positi~, legitimate movtment". He C(lnsidered the Jama'at's founder, $ayyid Abu ·1·A'I' Mawdiuii (d. 1399/1979) "nOt only a gre:n Idamic schol:l./" hut also a dr ... ""rsonal friend of many years' stonding". He :KIm: "Although-as i. clear from his ..nd my writings-we did not concur on all points, our goal ond ob~ive was always 1M same: a deq>ening of the Islamic faith ..nd Muslim culture". He also had greal affection and admir:nion for J:lasan aI·Banna (d. 1368/1949), who launched in the late 1'.l20s the Arab world'. mOSt powerful Islamic movemem, aI·lkhwin aI· MuslimUn. He considered. al·Banni "truly t~ greal($( spiritual guide of our time, although his thoughts and his programme have often been deliber:ltely misrepresented., in the Muslim world as well as in the W($(". Asad denouru:ed. strongly the execution of the gifted writer :md Qur'in-comment:nor Sayyid Qutb (1386/1966)>0 by Egyptian President Jamil 'Abd al·Nisir (1390/1970) whose "mindless and ferocious ""rsecutionof the Brotherhood" was ~hind this heinous act, which violated. the lOW($( Slamlani! of decency and justice ..nd

"'so"", <OUT«"'l <epon [h • .Lie 01 Qutb·. d .. ", .",",oouoly. The", .n: ,I!< co,>«>. rorrobontodd.! ••. 'Umar R.01i K>l)J)ilah·. mudl~ M~'J.-'" .J,.M~ 'JJ,. .. (B.,,,,!: M,,· ...... , al-RiWah, HHil9'J3) I, p. 104. mont ...... 111711967 and;" obv~oly ",ron" 10 ,!., '" on. pl=, 7Jw Oif<m/ 6tryc/op«t~ 0( 'M Mod.,.., ,,14mit: W",/J (N .... York.; O>:lord Odor<! Univ,,,;"y P ..... 19'JS) cb<el rditor, John 1.. ElPo';'o. I, )07

'" nunned the entire Muslim world. " ... 1 mourned his death as did every believing M .' " ." meum ....

But Asad went beyond men: prailS<' of perwru he nspnoted and public protest against the evil deeds of tinpOI despots-whether they sprang up in the E:lS1 Or the WeSl. He actively participated in supporting the Sunisiyyah movement in iu heroic fight against It.lim foscisl colonialism in Cyrntaica. In 1931-tow:rnls Ihe end of hi, sojourn in Madinw.-he cooperated in a bold clandestine ye,nure Wilh Sayyid A~.md ol·SmUsl (d.135 1/ 1933), the grear spiritual leader of the movement. In n:.pons<e 10 the S.yyid's nquest and .t !;=It personal risk, Am lravelled incognito across the Red Set and Egypt to the thelllre of war in C)'n:nai~. His goal was to offer =;st= to {he val;m! and soon·to-hc-mMtyred mujihid 'Urn .... ol-Mukhtir, who was trying 10 keep the Ian embe .. of minance .Iive in what by then had become a futile attempt to Kave off the extinction of th~ armed struggle against Mussolin;'s forces!'

Conclusion

Though Asad did not leave an orvnization or d;lCiples, posterity will continue to btnefit from his n<liant thought through the written legacy he left in many field" travel and autobiography, s,,"'"/fh and shAri'ab, jurisprodena! and Qur';inic elCegesi., <tCUlarism and westernization, political theory and constitutional law. Sadly,:os is the C:OSe .... ith most writings, which c~n o nly bt a portrait of their author's age, A$;ld's, tOO, will eventually ~ dared. As:w', translations and interpretations of the Qur'in and SahiJ? /f/·B"J.h.iri will in lime bt supplanted, his v;e .... s on <tCularism and wesumization .... ill ~ re-examined and modified. his successful espousal of ij/ibid will become potssi, and his proposals for politico.! md constitutional reform will be enacted. BUI one work of Asad·s promises to escape the earthly obl ivion that i. the frntuent hte of .lmost all human en<kavour-hi, unequalled, dazzling masterpiece, Jh.t- R04Ji 10 Merr/f.

But only God knows the future. Mtanwhile, the passionate love affair of a great and splendid European with Islam i. in<klibly inscribed into the annals. For, on", upon a time, t .... o roads diverged in Ikrlin, and he, Muhammad Asa<!, took the one less t"'velled by. He lOok the road to Makkah--and tlul h:os made all the diffuen",~."

...... "AU quo<., ...... in <~i< p ... ,,:oph "ofrom Aud. ·CI.uilicatioll". Arob.,: no: fd..",ic W",/J

RnMw. CIao!> .. 1911. p. 4. "A ..... M««. 112-1H. "So< Robert Fro,,·, deceptivdy "'y, momonbl< d . .. i", "'Th< Road No< T.k ... - , found

in molt .,,'holol .... of En(lidt von<.

,., "NEVER AGAIN WILL YOU BE A STRANGER~! An Anthology of Extracts from Mui:t:lll1mad Asad's

Writings [1934-19&7J" Compiled and edited by hmi'illbrihim N;lwwib

Unique ;u a pel"SOn and gifted as a writ~r and think~r, a Europe ... wovert to Islam, Muhammad Asad's literary and ime!lectual contributions spanned OV~ h<llf-a~ntury. He =t a wide, ambitious net and =e up with a nre, rich =ch. Hi, writings includtd a spiritual odyssey, the classic tbe Road to Mecca-a maylificcnt stylistic and intellectual/our de fora and period piece, with dcgant narratives of powerful observation and daring adventures and with penetr:l.ling inughts into the Middle E;ut and Isbm that ohen surpass those of such illuSlr;ou •• uthon On Arabi. as Sir Richard Burton, ChMles Doughty, and T. E. Lawrence. His much-tr.msbted Islam at the Cro"ro.ub was a ..,minol contribution to the Muslim world's debate on moderni~tion, westerniZ<ltion and identity. H e traml~tNi, with eJ(plarmion~, from the Ar.>bic portions of s..;"h a/·Bukh.iTi, One of the bw; collections of tho, auwnticated tn>ditions of the Prophet MuJ:tammad and WrOl c inci~ively on Islamic law and on the Islamic state. His life's work Teached its scholarly culmination in his seventeen-year­long labour of love and research; his English Tendering of, and commentary on, the me:ming of the Muslim Holy Writ, The MelSagt of tk Qur''''''

From ~ Mewge of the Qu.'';n The ImpOlct of the Qur':in

Rud '" !~ """,. O/!hy SU'i«.mr, who J,." <:YCI.ltd­<:YCI.ud ma" ou! 0/" ~·all! Rud_/or thy SU'/aimr u I~ Mosl &umiful 0,.,.

who h.." /aughl [nunl ~ '"'' 0/ ~ ptm-tAugh! ma" ..m..1 ~ did "et k...,.,...

With thrse optning ve=s of the oinety·~ixth su • .Ji-with an allusion to m:m'~ humble biological origio a. weI[ as to his consciousness and imdlta-b<'"gan, e:u-Iy in the seventh century of the Christian era, the Tevelation of the Qur'>n to tho, Prophet Mul}:lI1lmad, destinNi to continue

''Th. " .. "Ii«miooo. of Arobie ... m .. oruI "",rd" atld <>pi,.Jiu60n of .. rm. deri.ed from A .. bic .'" nOl "",,'; ... n .... A..d·, ""'rh . ... hieh """,.. ... rinen 0'" """'Y Y""" .o>d publ;.bed by ""riou, ""b!;,bin, h ........ W •• '" her. quot;"& him ... ;d,ou, ..,y <hoo&<,. Wh<r< bro.f .xplatl>lion •• r< r<""i«<l '0 "'" on .,.«rpt ... '0 ",,,,,,,,iv<. ,b.y or. placed ... ith ... """' .. !"'.nlh ..... 0<. if roe, 5ed. .r< footnoted. For .h. «mv.nim<. of tho """'" "",ion hud"'&, hov • ... """'.

'" during the twemy-three years of his mini,try >n<I 10 end, shortly ~fo,.., his dnth, wilh """" 181 of the sccond SUtah:

And bt CO"";"II. o/Ihe 0., on which yoH Jhall t.. /waUghl Nd: unfo God, whtm.pon """'" h,,,,,,,,, bring"lf bt ..."..id in f .. 1/ lor """'I bt b.< ~!'1'IM, d"J no"", sh./I bt wronged

Between th..,., first and last verses (the first ""d the last in the chronologicil order of their Ttvelation) unfold. a hook which mOrt dun any other single phenomenon known to us, has fund:unemally affected the religious. sOcial and political history of the world. No other sacred scripture has ever had • similarly immediate impact upon the lives of the people .... ho first heard its message, and, through them and the generations that followed them, on the emire cou"" of civiliwion. It ,hook A""bia, and nude a nation out of iu peunnially w:ming tribes; within a few decade" ;t spread its world-view far kyond the confines of Arabi. and produced the first ideological society known to man; through irs ins;<tenct on consciousness and knowledge, it engendered among its followen a spirit of intellectual curiosity and indepondent inquiry, ultimately resulting in that splendid era of learning and scientific research which distinguished the world of Idam at the height of its cultural vigour, and the culture thus fosterM by d", Qur'in ponttralM in counrless way. and by­ways into the mind of medieval Europe and gave ris.e to that revival of western culture which we call the Renaissance, and thus became in the course of time largely ro:sponsible for the birth of what is described os the "age of science"; the oge in which we are now living. '"

On Translating the Qur'an

... 1 do not claim to have "trandatecl" the Qur'in in the sen"" in which, say, PlatO Or Shakespeare Can be translated. Unlike any other book, its meaning and its linguistic presentation form one unbreakable whole. The position of individual word. in a scnteno:, the rhythm and round of its ph~s and their syntactic construction, the man""r in which , metaphor flows almoR imperceptibly into a pragmatic statement, the uSC of acoustic !treSS not meuly in the s.ervio: of rhetoric but OS a me:uU of alluding to unspoken but de<lfly implied idea:j: all this make, the Qur'in, in the last resort, uniq\U" and untranslatable-a faa that ha:j been pointed Out by many earlier translators and by all Anb scholan. But although it is impossible to "reproduce" the Qur'in

"'"Focovord", 1M M"",K' of ch. Q<rr-'''~. ,,,,,,>1 .. «1 ... d <~plainod by Multammod AI><I (Gibralt= D" .J.Aodaluo; Loodoo, E. J. gciD, 1~IO), p. i.

'" as ruch in any other language, l! is none the less possible to rtrukr its message comprehensible 10 people who, like rnO>! Westerners, do nO! know Arabic at all or-as is the case wilh mon o f the educated non-Arab Muslims-nol well enough to find their way through it unaided.'''

The Qur'an: -Its Own Best Commentary~

Firstly, the QUT'an muSt not he viewed as a compilation of individual injunctions and exhortations bill as one intrgr"l w!.oie, that is, as an exposition 'of an ethical doctrine in which every vene and sentence has an intimate bearing on olher verses and sentences, all of them clarifying and amplifying one another, Conscqurntly, its real mnning C2J1 be gnipM only if we co"",iale every Ont of in 51aUmenU with what has been stated d sewhere in in pages , md try to explain its ide:os by meanS of frequent cross-references, always subordinating the particular to the generlll and the incidental to the intrinsic. WhmtVf:r this rul~ is faithfully followM, w~ realize that the Qur'in is-in the word. of [modern E~ptian ~former and uegete of Ihe Qur'in] Mu~:unmad 'Abduh-"its own best commentary",

Secondly, no pan of the Qur'in should be viewM from a purely hinorical point of view: that is to say, ~1l its references to historiCl! circumstances and events-both at the time of the Prophet and in =lier times_ must be rcgordM as illustration. of the h"",.,m ((mdil;"" and not as ends in themsdves. Hence, the considcrnion of the historical occasion On which a panicular ""ne was rc""a1M-a pursuit so dear, and legitimalCiy so, to the hearn of the dassical commentators-must never be allowed 10 obscure the un<krlying purport of that verw and its inner relevance to the eth i~ tellChing which the Qur'in, taken as whol~, propounds."

.. .. .. Examples of Asad's Translation and Exe[;esis

The following arc As",,;I's renderinRS of, and commentaries on, two Qur'mic VCI'it'S, They reflect some of his translation and hermeneuti~ skills and provi<k a glimpse of the r.ilCh of his scholarship as well as the exegetical influences on him,

"GMitU us tht W',,,,ht 1N)',

tht tva)' of IhtM "pon ",hom Thou h..u ~WUi<d Thy bim;n", not of rhose who b.tw iJ«" «",dmtned [by Th",,}, "Or of rhose v;h<J go a<lnry"!

""Fo .. ""or<!", TIw Mru.tf.' of tl>< Q~"~'" p, .. . ""Fo~rd", 11:ot Mru.tgt of /1>< Q.'',i". p. yii.

'" As:>d explains: "Ae«>rding In almost all tht romm~nuIOrs, God's

'condemnation' (gha4ah, lit., 'w"'lhl is synonymous",;th the ~il consequences which man brings upon himself by wilfully ~jC<:ting Goo's guidance and ...:ting contury to His injunction •. Some commenUtoN (e.g., Z.m.khsh.ri) interpret this p ... soge ., follo ... s; ' . . . Ih. way of thost' upon whom Thou hast bestowM Thy bles$ings-lho~ who have not been condemned [by Thee), and those who do not go astray', in other words. (My rcg;ud Ih. ]Olli( two expressions as defining 'Iho"" upon whom Thou host beslowed Thy blessings' , Other commentaton (e.g., B.ghawi" and Ibn Kathir) do not subscribe to this interpreution-which would imply th. u"," of nq;alive ddin itions- and undrnund th. laS! ver ... of the ,imfh in th. manner rendered by m .. above. As rq;ards 1M IwO calegoriO'S of people following a ... rong course, some of the greatest Islamic thinkers (e.g., a[·Ghallli or, in recent times, MuJ:tamm"';! 'Abduh) held the view that the prople described as having incurred 'God', condemnation'- that iI, having deprived them..,lves of His grau-are those who have b«ome fully cognizant of God', mess>.ge .nd, having understood it, have ,..,j=ed it; while by 'those who go astray' are meant people whom the truth has either not reached at all, or to whom it has come in so garbled .nd corrupted a form as to mok. it difficult for them to recognize it as the truth (Stt 'Abduh in Manir I, 68 ff.)". "

• 5.ry [0 Proph"'l, 7bi. i. my w.zy: R."i"g "p<J" «m",icu. ;migbr ~c:<mihl. TO "'.fO~ [ ... , .. !U!i.~h1 I .... ~~II;"8)O" all unto GoJ-1 and tht:y who folio", "'t'·

As,..;! comments on the just-mentioned verse thu,; "It i, impossible 10

render the expression 'al .. b..,irah in a more conei.., mannn. Derived from the verb b..!"ra or b..s;r .. ('he bec.me seeing' or 'he $;Iw'), the noun b..lirah (as al$O the verb) has the abstract connotation of '>eeing with one', mind', and it signifie~ 'the faculty of understanding bas.ed on conscious imight' as well "", tropicolly, 'an ev iden~ accessible 10 the imell=' or 'verifiable hy the intcl1=' . Thus, the 'call to God' enunciated hy the ProphC'l i. describal in th. above vcr.., as tM outcome of a conscious insight accessible to, and verifiable by, man's rCllSOn, a sutemcnt which circumscribes to perf=ion the Qur'>.nic appro..ch 10 an questions of faith, ... hies and moTlllity, and is echoed many limes in expression~ like 'so that you might uSC yQur reason ' (la ... lI .. k"", r..'qi/un) or 'win you nol, then, use your r. :lSon'? (a fa'! .. /a'qi/,.,,), or '$0 that they might understand Ithe truth], (! ..... lIah,,'" ya/qahun), or 'so that you might think' (I .. ' .. I!d.k"", tataj.kkani,,); and, finally, in the oft-repeated declantion that

" AbU Mu~.mm><l.I·Hu .. y .... 1·B.>th .... , (d <4_ 51Ml122). Hi, <OfDm<1It .. y 0fI th. Qur'iwt i, <ntitkd Mg'.ilim .J·T4~ZiJ. (lIN', "",,)_

"'n. Mruow of ,I.. q.,r~~ , 2, "",. 4 .", " ,r4h [. ;"'7_

" .. the mc .. agc of the Qur'm ... such i. mc:uU specifico.lly 'for people who think' (li-q.cwmin Y"!4fo."""""n)".'"

.. .. .. From The Principles of State and Gowmment in Islam

Praying for Guidanc~

Countless millions of Muslims p .... y 10 God five times a day: ~Guide us the straight way_he way of those upon whom Thou h",,! bestOWM Thy blessings~. Thus, everyone of them invokes the Creator On bclul£ of ..II men and wOmen who HC willing to bdieve in Him_~&uick ",. -and not merely On ~half of hi=lf or herself alone: consciously or unconsciously, a Muslim who recites these words of the opening sUTah of the Qur'an is asking God to show the "straight" or "right" way 10 the community as a whole. In further anilysi., this amounts to p .... ying for glIidan<x not merely in ~irilual or ethical concerns but :.Iso in everything th:at pertains 10 the community's pr.tClicaJ ways-that is 10 say, iu social configur:alion and political behaviour."

.. .. .. Differences of Opinion

Unavoidably,""",," of my coneiu,ions will giv~ rlK 10 controversy; but 1 have always believed-and believe now mon: than ever-rna wIlhout a ,timulating dash of opinions then: can be no intellectual progress in Muslim society; and that the Prophet's saying,

~The differences of opinion among the learned. of my community an: a sign of God's grace", has a positive, creaive value which has only too ohen been overlooked in the courK of Muslim history-to the &trimmt of Muslim social progress,'l

.. .. ..

"'no. ~ 0/ "" QMT'.in, lSi, no .. 1G4 on "",J, [2, lin. "·Autho,', N",.", no. Pri""iph. 0/5",,,.,,J Cowmmm. i" /'um, nn.' «In. (Gib,.t.."

D., .!.And>.lus, 1950). p. v. (Fir .. publi.h.d. to. An"l", Univ.ni,y of California Pre ... 19M). u.p,-d"",", Slat< 4"" G"""",,,,,,,~ pp. x;..x;;.

'" Sci~nce and R~ligion

No doubt science can, and does, guide uS to a kuer understanding of the world around and within us; but, being solely concerned wilh the observlltion of the facts of nature, and with the analysis of the law. that ap~aJ" to gOYffn the interrelation of thost focts, it cannot be called upon to deliver a verdict :os to the purpose of human life and, thus, to provide us with valid directives as to the social behaviour we ought 10 :odopt. It is only indirectly, through 5~lat;ve reasoning on the basis of certain established {:leu, th>! science can attempt 10 :advi ... '" in this I"<'Sptcl . But ~use science is always in a State of f1ux-<llways subject to 1M discovuy of new {:lell of n2tuTe and, con~uently, to an unceasing reinterpretation and revaluation of p~viously :astcrtainw. sets of facts-its ..Jvice is hes itant, spasmooic, md, al times, quite contradictory to p~owly trnderw advice: which, in a nutshell, amounts 10 saying Ih<ll sciena is never in a position to lay down with certainty what man should do or leave undone in order to achi~ve wdl-being and happin=_ And for this reason science cannot (nor d~ it re:ll[y mempt to) foster moral con",iousn= in man_ In shon, the problems o f ethics and morality 2fe not wilhin the !!COpe of science, They ar~, on th~ OIMr hand, entirely within the ",ope of re[igion."

.. .. .. The Islamic State and the Shari'ah

If we examine objectivdy tM politi",,[ ordinances of Qur'''' and Sunnah, we find that they do nOt by down any speCIfic form of Slate: that is 10 say, the sJiari"ah does nO! prtsCribe any definite paltern to which an Islamic state must conform, nor does it elahorate in detai l a constitution:ll theory. The political law emerging from the COntext of Qur'an and Sunnah, i" nev~nhel ess, not an illusion. It ;s very vivid and concre1.e inasmuch as it gives us the dear outline of a political ",heme capable of reolizalion at all times and under all conditions o f human Ii fe. But prtcisdy bec~use it was meant 10 be ",alized at all t imes and under all conditions, that scheme hos bttn offered in outline o nly and nOI in dMI. Man's political, sociol, and economic need, a", t ime-bound and, therefore, extremely variable, Rigidly fixed enactments and institutions could not possibly do iust ice to this natural trend toward variation: 50 the shari't.h does not attempt the impossible. Being a Divine Ordinance, it duly anticipateS the fact of hinorical evolution, and confronts the believer with no more than a very limited number of broad political principles; beyond that, itleave5 a vost field of dlly-tCKIay legislation to the Ijrihad of the time concerned.

'" With ",fertoC<" to the problem ~fore liS. one may ""fely s.y th.1 there ;.

not only One form of the Islamic SI.le, bUI m:>ny; :>nd it is for the Muslims of every ptriod to disco"". the form most .uiuble 10 their nttds-<lo the condition, of course, th.1 the fann and the institutions mey choose are in full agr=mem with the explicit, unequivocal sb4r'i laws relating to communal!ife.

These political shar'; laws .. .found thtir full exprtSSion in the administrative institutions ""d methods th.1 prevailed .1 the time of the Ri&ht-Gui<kd Caliphs-and therefore their state W;l5 Islamic in <:very sense of tbe word, How~r, we must not fOlirt thaI in the uowrinnl constilU!ion 10 which the Islamic Commonwe.lth conformed in those days, there were, side by .i<it with the explicit maT'> laws relating to s\aleCraft, certain other laws cnane<! by the rulers of the t ilm' in =rd:anct with their own interpreution of Qur'in and Sunnoh-that is to oay, dt rivN through ijrihad. Apart from these, we encounter in the ptriod of the Right.Guided Caliphate many other administrative and 1eg.i.Iati"" enactmentS .... hich were oeither directly oor indirectly derived from Qur'in or Sunnoh hut from purely commonsense conside~tiol15 of governmental efficiency and puhlic intertst (os, for example, 'Vmar's tSlab!ishment of tlv di"",n, Or treasury office, :.ner a Persian modd, Or his prohibiting wamors from Arabia to acquire landed propeny in the newly conquered territories). Inasmuch ;is such en;octments .... ere promulgaud. by the Itr;itimau government of tht day md were, moreover, nOl contrary to the spirit or letter of any w..y'i la .... . they had full Itr;al validity for that time. But this docs not mean th .. t they mUll remain valid for all times."

The Right of ljtihad

Without in the least impairing Our revereoce for the Companions, we may safely admit that all findings obtainM through 'iribid, by ho .... ever great a p<'rsoo, are invariably conditioned hy that person's environment and sme of knowlMge: and knowledge, especially in matters of social concern, depends nOt $0 much On the loftiness of a man's chanaer ;is on the Sum tOtal of the historical experience availahle to him. There C;l,l1 b-e no doubt that the historical experieoC<' available to uS is, without any merit 00 our pan, very much wider than that .... hich was available to the Companions thim'cn centuriCI ago. Indttd, .... e have only to think of the immen", developmmt in the intervming centuries of so many scimtific oonC<'pu in order to r. a1izt that in <orne respects we are even better equipped 10 grasp tlv inntr purpon of Ihis or that socioeconomic proposition of lsl:un than the Compmions could possibly have b.-..n: simply bt'Cau~ we cm draw nnt only upoo thei r expcrit nce:s, but also

'" upon the ;>ccumubled historic.al and intelln:tllol experienC<' of thost chirtttn cnItUrie. which, 10 them, still by shrouded in the impenetrllble mist, of the future.

We should never forget that the message of lshun ;5 eternal and must therefore always remain open to the se;u-ching intellect of nwt. The very grt';l.tness of 1M Qur'in and of tru, Prophn'slife-n:rnlple li~ in the fact that the mOre Our knowledge of the wodd progresses, the ~ter we can understand the wisdom of the Law of Islam. Thus our right to independent ijlihlid on the basis of Qur'On and Sunnah is not ~rely permi~ive, but mandatory: and p:micul:arly .., in 1Il:ltten on which the >han'ah is either entirely silent Or has given uS no more than general principles.

It is obvious that our conclusions as to the best means of acb;ev;ng administrative efficiency and safeguuding social tquity "'" conditioned by the time and the soc;QtWnomic environmrnt in which we liv~d ro, logically, quite a big proponion of the legislative enactments in an Islamic state must vary from time to time. This cannot, of course, aff~ thoS<' dements of legislation which au clearly ordainal in t~ nr..,j~ of Qur·>::. and Sunna!. and au the...,fore unchangeable from the viewpoint of the bdiever; nOr can it aff~ the essential proviso that all such variable, non·sh..., enactments must not run counter to existing, unequivocal,"""; injunction$. With all this, however. there an b.. not t~ least doubt that an Islamic constitution to be evolved thirteen centurie~ aher the Right-Guided Caliphs may legitimately differ from that which w:lS valid in and for their time.

It is, however. not even necessary to visualize an interval of thirteen <:enturie> in order to understand that the political requirements of one time ohen differ from the requi...,ments in this resp~ o f an earlier period. Even within the mon span of a few dec..d.es. the Right-Guided D1iphs themselves varied their system of administration-or. as we would say today. the constitution of the state-in many. point. A. an illustration, let us take the problem of choosing the head of the state,

There was. naturally, no difference among the CompaniOT15 concerning the principle of deaive government as such. for. as We shall se.., the s""ri'ah is perfwly de.r on the $uhj~. How ..... er, although it is beyond doubt that the chief atclltive of an Islamic state must be electal, the Law doe, not spe<Oify any particular metbod of election; and roo rightly, the Companions regarded the method of ( lwion as romething th.t lay outside the $COpe of the sh..r;'ah and could, therefore, legitimately be varied in accordance with the b..st inter~ of the community. Thus the firn Caliph, Abu Bah, w:lS dected by the chiefs of the mll","p" and "n~"'" present at Malina at the tiIm of the Prophel:'$ demise. On his deathbed, Abu B.I.r designated 'Umar as his successor, and this choice

' 'In. footno, •. A<ad .. plaUl~ -,II< "'..hi; .... ... r. ,he Mtcad Muslim< who occompmied ,h. p,opIt .. on hi. hiP";'. o. mit; .... ion. from Mecca '0 Medina: the -..rr Oiundly "h.lpcr11 .... t. tbOk ... ho ,>Ilia! to ,he Propbet On bi' .m...! in u..;, ' 0""'".

". w.., .ubscquemly ratified by the community (ratification being, in this inst=, equivalent to do:ction). When 'Urn",", in his turn, ""os dying, he nominated an electoral body composed of ux of the most prominent Companions of the Prophet ;lfId enlrusted them with choosing hi. SUCCdWr from among themselves. Their choiCt fell on 'Uthman, ..,ho was thereupon recognized by the community as 'Unur', rightful suc.;essor. After 'Uthman's death, 'Ali was prodaimed Caliph by a congregation in 1M Prophtt'. Mosque, and the majority of the community thereupon pledged their loyalty to him.

Hence, under each of these four reigns which ""C describe:l.'l 'right-guided~, the constitlltion of the Slate differed on a most important point; for il cannot he Iknied that tM mnhod by which the head of the state is eleaed i. a constitutional question of great import:mu. The diffe~t tre>tment accorded by the Companions to this question-with regorn:! to both the oomposition of the electonte and the dectonl procedure-shows that, in their opinion, the constitution of the st~te could he altered from time 10 time without makint; it any less "Islamic· on this accOunt.

Apart fmm this, it is a mistake to believe that the enoovours of the Rit;ht. Guided Glipru reprt'SenteQ the fulfillmml of all Islamic aims, indudint; those relating to statecnft. Had it been so, Isl:un would be no more than a call to eternal repetition, for nothing would h:IVe been left to us but to imitate the doint;S of our predecessors. In r"",iity, however, Isl:un i. a cal! to eternal progress, socially as weI! as spiritually, ""d, therefore, also politically."

Objectives of the Islamic ShU

... an Islamic st~te is not a t;oal or an end in itself bUI only a means: the goal being the growth of a community of prople who stand up for ~uity and justi"", for riyu and against wrong-or, to put it more precisely, a community of prople who work for the creatioo and mainunance of such social conditions :as would enable the gr~test possible number of hum"" beings to live, monlly :as well :as physically, in accoroan"" with the natur.tl Law of God, IsI:un."

From bLtm at the Crossroads Asw's Early Interest in Islam

And no~ about myself- beuuse the Muslims have a right, when a convert speaks to them, 10 know how and why he h:as embraced Islam.

"Stat<" 4n4 G"...,."m"". l(,.-l'. "Stat< 4"" Cowrn"""'. 30.

'" In 1922 I left my native country, Austria, to [nve] throu!;h Africa md

As;a as a special correspondent to SOme of the leading Conlineoul newspapers, and spent from that yeo.r onward nearly the whole of my time in the Islamic Ean. My interest in the nations with which I came into oonlact was in the ~jnning that of an outsider only. I uw b.,for .. me a social order and an outlook on life differtnt from the European; and from the very fim there ~w in rue a sympathy for the mo,.., tronquil_ l mould rather say, more human--<onception of lik as compared wilh the hasty, mechmiud mode of living in Europe. This sympathy gradually led me to .n investigation of the muons for such a difference, and I b«ame interested in the religious teachings of the Muslims. At the lime in question, that interest was not yet strong enough to draw me into the fold of Isbm, but ;1 opened 10 me a new vista of a progressive human society, organized with a minimum of imernal connias and a maximum of real brotherly f~lin~ ...

The more I understood how concrete and how immensely practiGl the teachin!';! of 1sJ:..m are, the mOre eager became my questioning as to why the Muslims h..d abandoned their full application to real life. I discussed this problem with many thinking Muslims in almost all the countries betw~n the Libyan Desen and the Pamirs, betwun the Bosporus and the Arabian Sea. It almost became an obsession which ultimately overshadowed all my other intellectual interests in the world of Islam. The questioning stc:ul.ily grew in emph""i. until I, a non·Muslim, talked to Muslims :as if I h..d to defend Islam from their ~ig ... ce and indolen"". This progress was imperceptible to me, until One day-it was in Ihe mountains of Afghanistan-a young provincial governor said to me: -But you art a Muslim, only you don't know it yourself". But when I relUrned 10 Europe once again in 1926, I ...,alized that the only logical con~uence of my attitude was to embra« Islam."

...... Falling in Love with Islam

.. .1 have been :;uked, time and time again: "Why did you emb",ce Islam? What w:;u it that altracte.:! you pankularlY~?-Mld I must confess thn I do not have any single satisooory answer. It w:;u not any /",rric,,/ar teaching that attncted me, but Ihe whole wonderful, inexplicably coberent structure of mon! teaching and prilCtical lif .... programme. I could not say, even now, which >spect of it appeals to me more than any other. blom appears to me like a perfect work of architecture. All its pans are harmoniously conceived to complement and suppon each other; nothing is supernuoul and nothing lacking; and the result.

,o-Fom • .,nl.", (t9J.4), I,/;,m '"' ,;,. 0-"-',. /oult< ... ,h "y. edn . (G<b<2l'ar. 0., >1-A,,,:W,,s. 1982), 9-!!. (FiN! pubhshed, o.""..,d Lab.,r" ",,,fat PubI"'",ion>. 19J.4).

200

is a ,truelll'" of absolute b~l:m'" and solid composu,.." Probably this f«ling that everything in the teachings and postul,! ... of Idam is -in in pro~r pl~" had created the strongnt impl"<'Ssion on me. There m;~1 have ~n. along with it, otM. imp....ssions:l! well which today ;1 is difficult for me 10 analYle. Ahcr all, it "":os a matter of love; and love is composd of mmy thing5; of our d~irn and our loneliness, of our high aims and our shorte<:>rnings, of Our suen~hs and our weakn=el;. So it '''':is;n my~. Isb.m Came over 10 me like a robber who enten; a house by night; but, unlike a robber, it entered to f"<'moin for good."

.. .. .. Is[;lm and Changing Times

History uU, uS that all human cultures and civiliutions a", organic entities md resemble living beings. They run through all the pha, ... which O'l:anic life ;$ bound to pass; they are b.;.rn, they have yOlllh, ripe age. md ~t the end comes decay. Like p!mts tim wither md fall to dun. cultures die ~t the end of their t im<: and give room to other. newly born ones.

Is this the case with Islam? It might appe:u '" ~t the fim superficial glmce. No doubt. Islamic culture h .... had its splendid ris.. and its blossoming age; il h:ad power to inspire men to deeds and sacrifices. it uansformM narions and changM the face of the earth: and later it stood still and became st"l;nant. and then it Ixcame an empty word. and a1 p..,senl we witness ils uner debasement and dec;,y. But i. thi • • m

If we bdieve that Islam i. nol a mere culture among many oth.-rs. not a mere oulcome of human thoughts ;md endeaVOUr!. but a cultu~producing force-a u.w d~rttd by God Almighty 10 be fO\lowM by humanity al all times ;md everywhere-then the aspect changes completdy. If Islamic culturt is o r was the result of our following a ...,,,,,alM Law. we CUI never :admit that. like other cultur .... it is chi ned to the laps.. o f time and limitM to • particular period. Whar .ppean to ~ the dt'Cay of Islam is in reality nothing bUI the duth and the emptiness in our heans. which art tOO idle and tOO insensitive to he.r the eternal voice. No sign is vi.ible that mankind. in its Pre$l'nt suture. has outgrown Islam. It has not been able to produce ~ better system of ethiC$ Ihan that expressed in Islam; it has nOt been able to PUI the idea of hurrun brotherhood on a pnctical footing, as Islam ~s in its supra-national concepl of the ummah; it has not been . ble to crate a social structure in which the conflicts ~nd frictions betw~n its memh-e1"S • ..., as efficiently rMuCM to a minimum as in the social plan of Islam; it has nnt bttn .hle 10 enhance the dignity of man. his fu ling of sa:u.rity, his spiritual hope-and last. but not least, his h'ppin..,s.

'" In all th~..e thin" Ih~ pr~"'nt achievements of the human r..:e fall

oonsick""bly short of the Islamic progr=c. Wh~rc. then, is the justification for saying that Islam is 'out of date"? Is it only btUu", its foundaiion! are purely religious, and religious Oriemalion is OUI of f>..lhion to<hy? But jf We S«

that a s~\cm bued on religion has hem able 10 evolve a practical progr:un~ of Jife mOre compl~e, more concrtte and more congenial to man's psychological constitution than anything else which the human mind h .. bun able to prod .. ,,", by way of reforms and proposals-is n01 just Ihis a very weiPtty "'"l"mem in favour of a rdigious oudook~

Islam, we have every reason 10 bdiev.., Ius bun fully vindicated by the positive :ocbievements of man, because;1 has envisaged lhem and pointed thc,m out as desir2hle long before tMy wcre attained; and equally well it has been vindicated by tM shortcomings, errors and pitfalls of human <kvelopment, b=lwe it has loudly and dearly warned against them long ~fore mankind recognized them as erron. Quite apart from one's religious ~lids, there is, from a purely intellectual point of view, every inducement to follow confidendy tM practical guidance of Islam.

If we consider Our culm", and civilization from this point of view, we necessarily come to the conclusion tim its revival is possible. We nm not "monn" Idam, ali some Mwlims think_becau~ it is already perfect in itself. What we must rdonn is Our alii tude towaros ",Iigion, our laziness, our self­conceit, our shortsightedness-in shon, Our defectS and nOI some supposed defecu of Islam. In oroer to attain to an Islamic revival we nm nOi search for new principles nf conduct from outside, but have only to apply the old and forsaken ones. We ceruinly may receive new impulses from foreign cullUJ"f;S, but we (;2OlIot SIIbstitute the perfect fabric of Islam by anythiog non-Islamic, whether it comes from the West Or from the East. Islam, as a spiritual and social in$lirution, cannot ~ "improved". [n these circumstances, any change in its conceptions or its social organiution caused by die intrusion of forrign cultural influences i. in r=lity retrograde and drstructive, and t~fore to be deeply r~retted. A change therr must be; but it should be a change from "<Dirhi" ou",,/vn-and it should go in tM dirrction of Isiam, and not away from it.'"

From Sai?0 al-Bukh.iri: 71x Early Years of Islam The Duty of Ijrihad

The piety and the religious ardour of tM Muslims may be lower in our days than in the earliest centuries of Islam; but certainly not our means of understanding. The interpretation given to the teachings of Islam by the Last

202

Prophet will forever remain binding on a Muslim, hut beyond this, he is fl'tt-in fact, "'I";-'-to u"" his Own intellfi:t :ond his owo wnsc;ence. This, and nothing else, was the aIlitude of the IV""l Isl:unic thinku. whom we describe:l.S imamJ ("I~er5"). They never pretended to be infallible; they wen: learned men devoted to the sc:.rch for troth, and thq knew that the duty of thinking could never Ct:ut to be a duty for man. It was a duty for [early Muslim theologian and jurist] Abu l:Ianifah" as weI! as for (medieval Comovan thinker ;ll1d theologian) Ibn J:I"'lffi or [famous twelfth..:entury Spanish polymath, ·Averr~"llbn Rushd: for ol·Ghaz:ili OS weI! as for [nnowoed medieval .-elipous reformer) Ibn T..imiyym Or for [eighteemh..:entury lruli:on theologian and fefnnner) Shih Wal, Allih and it is a duty for you and for me."

-> .:- -+

From Thi$ UW of Oun dnd Other EsS4Js Obligation to Think Anew

... we must begin to Ihink :lllew ~bout Islam, ~bout wh~1 il rtolly signifies, wh~t its rtaI laws are; fOT we h~ve stOpped thinking about these m~ne .. for a good m:llly u nturies and h~ve merely relied on what previous genenlions of Muslimsthought .. bo"l Islam. In consequence, our currmt theology (k../'<m) :llld C:lllonic;o.] jurisprudence (/iqh) nOw resemble nothing SO much :os a vosl old· do,he< shop where ancien, ,hough'·garmenu, almo ... unrecogni .... blc as '0 ,heir originol purpon, are mech:lllicall y bought and sold, pau:hed up and rMold, md whert the buyer's only delight con~sts in praising lhe old tai lo r's skilL

We cannOI go On like Ihis at a lime when the Muslim world i. in the throes of a crisis which may make or unmake Islam's ""'idilY :os a pnctical proposition fOT nuny centuries to come. Never was theu ~ mOrt urgent n~ for heart-searching and brain-searching. One does n01 require particul .... ly sh:up eyes to _ that, set :os we are in the midst of ~ r~pidly ch:lllging world, our society, tOO, is subject to the WIle inexonble law of ch:lllge. Whether we like it or nOI, a ch:lllge there will be: it is, indeed, already being enacted before our eyes. The Muslim world i. in tr:lIl$ition-<l bet that i$ as obvious :os it is pregn:llll with tremendous possibilities for better or worse. For better or Worse: sinu we muSI not forget thai "change" is bUI :lllother word for "movement", :llle!, within a social organism, movement can be crealive:os well :os destructive. But where:os there is no powu on eanh which could now k""p Our society

" AbU H:.Difalt .!·Nu·mi,n am Thibi, (d. lS0/761) undonook > cri,ic.! ..,aI,..io of ,he kLunic IqaI .yltem. 'hom.y f""ndin~ ,b. fin. of tho four Swm; ",bool. of bJ:unic ;"'ioprucltnco. (UN., ""'.) .

" 'P,<f>e< 10 tho F;"" F.,bt"", · > (193'). ~ J ·(I"lJ"iri: Th< EA.,ry y"",., 0/ fJa",- ,r.uul .. ed and .. ploined by Muh:unm.td Aoad (G;b,alta" D" .!.AntWw., 1980). p. vii (Fi,." published 19)8).

from changing, w~ ~re still fr~ to determine th~ dim/ion which this change should t~ke: it is still up to uS 10 decide whether we shall build our future On the real values of Islam-or entirely drift away from Idam and become p;usive camp·followen of other civiliUlions." ......

Criticism of Put Mist,.].;..,.

Let u.s be honest with ourstlves :me! admit that w~ have strayed far away, indud, from the i<kology provided by the Qur'm:md the Sunnm. Oun is the old, old story of the rich m:m's SOn who has squandered his splendid patrimony and nOw wallows in the guuer. Centuries of intellectual lethargy, of dumb adherence to formulas, of the me:utest internecine wr:utglings, of laziness, superstition and social corruption have dimmed almost beyond recognition the glorious promi:;:e held out by our beginnings. Centuries ago we ceased to exercise: Our wit5 in the :;:earch for knowledge, although our religion had entoinee! it upon US as " ...cree! dUlY; we talked of Al-Far;ibi :utd Ibn Sina, of AI·Banini md Ibn I:Jayyan- md wmt complacently to 51~ over their achievement<. We talked about the wondrous social progr:unme of Islam, about the equity md n.turalnes. of its tenets-:md all the while we new at each othd$ throau, t'Xploited One :mother or, alternatively, submitted in squalid CQntentment to every kind of exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous rulers. We alwaY' pretended to believe that the Qur'an is a sure guidmce in all matters affecting man's life-and nevertheless we grew accuSIomed to regard it as mere edifying literature, good enough to be recited in prayers :md On ceremonial occasion.:meI, wrapped in a silken ghi/.;j;" to ernbellim the upper_mOil melves in our rooms, but not good enough to be foUowed in practice. We claimed that Islam is a religion of re;uon (which, in fact, it i.)- and none the lcss we meekly >grud to,:md sometimes even welcomed, suppression of re;uon by myoru: who just happened to ~ in power: for most of our ',,{a"";' were telling uS thaI in matters of religion independent thought is heresy, md that only he can be " true Muslim who blindly repeats the formulas evolvrd in olden days (and evolved by ~ola .. who wt re hum:m, and therefore liable lo err), like a P;ll"rot which h:as learnt its lesson once and for all."

.. .. ..

"11>U L.. ... 0/ 0.. ..... M 0"- E-" (Gibroltar: oor al·Al>dalu~ !'1')3), 1\-12 (Fin! publiWd !917) .

.. Aud ;. ,of,,,;"S to th< pu", ...... t vnppin, modo of fobric 'hot i ..... n esp<cially f", a.in~ c"pie< of tho Qu, ..... It h •• b"m uO«! in RWly Mu.Jim . o<i<lic. not only., • ';V' of v,nuation fo, th, Divin. Wo,d, but .110 to prot..:! 'ho Holy !look ~ot ...... ODd t ....

I"'nirubrly ;., . .. 00 day< ..b.D ",pu .. ~ "' .. « . "£""1'> 13-H.

No Muslim Community is Oln ExemplOlr

There are many hundreds of millions of Muslims in the world today-but among all these millions thert! is not Ol ~ngle community dux rully lives according to the lenet. of Islam; not a single community could show, "" m example to the world, how Islam solves the social md economic problems which nowadays worry mmkind so much; not a single community that could produ<x, in the rulms of $Cien"",, arts or industry, anything ~uer than my Western community; or thai could, culturally Or politic:al.ly, at least compete on equal term. with my Western community of comparable size. All the blu5luing talk of our past glories, all our assertions as to what JsI:uI1 n:mds for, cannot chmge the fact of our present humiliaion."

...... Muslims and Foreign Ideologies

We must always remember th:n Islam is nOt concerned with spiritual principles alo~: for, unless they have a counterpart in practical rules of conduct, spiritual principles lend themselves to most cont..wictory interpretations, md thus to a variety of social (or mti-5ocial) conditions. A typic:al. example of this can be found in Christianity, which contents itself with preaching beliefs md morals without bothering about their transformation i.nlo a definite wei,.} schemr, and .., it remains content with being m accompminu:nt 10 a socio-economic $late of affairs tha has not lhe remotest connection with Chrinian ethics. But, unlike Christianity, Islam does not content itself with merdy demmding a cen.ain spiritual attitude that could be adjusted to all mmner of cultural, social and economic settings, but insins on the beli,""er', accq>ting iu own ..:heme of praclie"} life as well. Within the fnmework of this scheme, which is called ';"'riah, 1s1:ul1 h"" iu Own views on progress, il$ own definition of social good, and iu own pattern of social rebtions. In the measure, therefore, tlta! concepl$ borrowed from <mOlher civilisation md mother outlook on life become dominmt in the sh:..ping of Muslim society, they deprive Isl:ul1 of iu function as a society.dupingpower; and in the measure with which we wiUingly submit to such outside influences, we imply that blam has no ..,al claim to tha function.

And this is the kernel of our problem. In the conKious and subcon:>cious readiness of SO many of our brothers and sinef1; alwaY' to imitae the social, political and economic forms of the West~en within the COntext of endeavours aiming at the re-<:stablisrunent of a rtally lsl:mtic polity-lies a ~lent, involunury implication th:..t 1s1= has nO ..,al claim to being a society.~haping

"e-,., !4.

'" pow~r. Natu....!l), SO' for if our views ... 10 how man should arrange his affairs Me derived from sources other than Islam, we implicitly deny to Islam :my right to dictate our scheme of life. n.., most one does concede to Islam in such a case (and the most thaI, in fact, is beior; conceded to il in many contemporary Muslim communities) is to provide a SOrt of spiritual music which may accompany our practical endeavours, but must on no :account interfere with them!" ......

The $h4ri',W is Binding; Jurists' Judgements are Time-Bound

As every student of Islam knows, only a part of the laws comprised in what today goes by the name of the sharrah is derived from injunctiolU laid down in a direct, unequivocal manon in the Qur'On or in the Sunnal.. By fae the b'tcr part of those .upposedly ""'T71a"", is an outcome of Ihe drductions and Ihe subjective reasoning of the ,rear f~' of our past-deductions and conclusions, 10 be sure, conscientiously basoed on the context of the Two Sources, but none tru, 1= subjective in the sense that they were deurminW by each i"'lih', individual approach to, and individual interpreution of, problems not laid down unequivoc:.J.ly, in terms of law, in eitru,r of those Two Sour<:es.

Whereas the self~dent, unequivoc:.J. injunctions of bnth the Qur'in:and t ru, $unnah are and must forever remain valid for Ui and cannOt be subject to any amendment, no such finality:and validity can legitimately be attributed to deductions :and conclu$ions .ubjcctively reached by ""1 perKIn below the Prophet. In other words, nO .uhj..aive daiuainn, interp~on Or conclu";on touching upon any problem of la .... arrived at by means of the ijrih.iJ (individual reasoning) of any, even the greatest, Muilim scholar can ever be binding on the community."

.. .. .. Ideological Foundations of Muslim Civi liution

Frnm the very outset, Muslim civilisation was built on foundations supplied by ideolcgy alone. It has never had anything to do with the COn~pl$ of race or nation, and 10 it lacks the cement of racial or national homogeneity which was :and is 10 decisive a factor in all other civili.ations. Ours has alwaY' ba.n an ideological civilisat ion-with the l..:I .... of the Qur'in as its lOurCC and, mOre than that, as its only hinorical justification. To speak of the Muslim u:mmah as

v~ .. \1>-17. "buy •. 23-24.

of something politically juStified and culturally V21uable (and therefore to be cru,rished and defended)· and, in the same breath, to question tru, importan~ of Istuni.: Law as the form-giving d~ent in our life is hypocritical or, alternatively, an outcome of ignoran~. For what values remain in that much­vaumed ummah if we resile from its mar'i background? ~nainly not a social philosophy worth the name: for that is b:=d on the concept, derived from the si>ari'ah. of a divinely·willed order in human relatiOn!. And certainly not its ct:hics: for, tru, only political ideal which has distinguished the Muslims from the rest of mankind was the revolutionary concept of brotherhood united not by ties of blood or T1lCC but by their consciousness of a cOmmOn outlook on life and common aspiratiolU': a concept realised ne>.rly fourteen centuries ago in the eStablishmm! of the bl:un.i.: Hmmah-a community open to every man and woman, of whatever race Or colour, who accepted this common idcal, and closed to everyone, even one's nc>.rest kinsman, who refused to accept it: in brief, a rcaI ·social contract· ...

Islamic uw Essential for Survival of Muslim Society

But whereas in other civilisations ... it may be thcorct:ically possible (although [ personally doubt it) either to retain institutional religion or to diocard it nutrigh, withoul destroying that civili$;Otion'. St .... ngth and continuity, we Muslims have no such alternative. For us, .... ligion has never ~n juSt one of the contributing faaors of cultural development: it has always ~n tru, very root and source of that devdopmcnt. So far as we are concerned, an elimination of religious thought and, specifically, of Islamic Law from tru, .... a1m of economics, politics and social life would imply the 1= of all cuhuril dire.;tion. Hence, in the measure that Islamic Law ccases to be a practical proposition in our c1ay-to-day life, Islamic civilisation muSt necessarily become a contndiction in terms, and Muslim socict:y a society of cultural mongrels and spiritual half-c;tltes. '00

The Detrimental Effects of Taqlid

In the purely intellectual field, the principle and the practice of raqliJ into which tru, Muslim community has bun driven op<'ned the way to a moSt deplorable development: namely, that blind worship of "authorities· which has

'" ever since pervaded Muslim society and was destined to have such. paralysing .,ffect On Muslim cultunllife in the p:ast ""ntur;«. Similar to the "F.tlu-t$~ of the Christian Chun::h, we have in Muslim history tru.t lalte (if nOt SO cle:lrly outlined) group of [(:orne<:! men as IfhI ""<414 4~·~liJ;>-!:he ",""rly, pious gene~tiol1$·-whom the Muslims have been ~ug:ln to regard as :dmost infallible. By giving d,rm a common designation, the illus;on hilS been created that their views w er C mOTe or I ... identical; but nothing could ~ farther from the truth, Among those great and pious men, who certainly have . endued mOS!

vol"able services 101M caUSt of Islamic learning, there existed the deepest diffu"nces of opinion in a1most:oI1 qu .. tions of importance. For, every ooe of those early schobt$ of lsl:un tried to reach, in the l;~t of hi. own undersunding, conclusions as 10 the Law·Giver's ..ims with regard to th~ moral and pnctical bduviour of the Muslims. ThOR conclusions were often contradictory-for,.s I h~"" repntrdly K~-they W~1l: conditioned by the individual working of mOst di""'R intellect! and by the .ocial environment and the philosophical notions of their own times. But most of the scholars of later grnef:ltions, a1m<)St drowned in the ~ic width to which {Jqh and lu.l.im had attained in the COurR of ~ few centuri~s, resolutely ~fused to ~ the time­bound quality inherent in man's thoughts. They set themselves to the usk of an ~rtificial "harmonisation" of the ideas expressed by the ahl ANAtaj ~-Slili+, and m~ unquestioning rdiance on their ~uthority into ~ "postulate" of Islam itself. Since then, the overwhelming m~jority of Muslims have bffn practicing, and believing in the neccs:sity of, laqtiJ; and even scholars who by virtue of their t....ining are in a position to reach independent opinions in the domain of Law, nowad~ys modestly ,""erve for therruelves the right of iirihad only on questions of minor detail within the framework of one Or another of the established madh.ihib.

Locked in habitual WJlid, Muslim intellectual and social life f~U, from the fourth century A. H. onwards, into complete stagnation. Religious concepts ce.sed to ~ "conceive.:l": they were simply token oW!" in a Slereotypt<i form from generation to gener~tion. Whatever errDr of thought one Or anoth~r of tbeahl "'-54laj ",·.aiih might have committed w.s unquestioningly incorporated in the structure of con""ntionaljiqh, and hardly a door w.s left open for later corrections. To the m.s.ses of common people this must have been very convenient. But it is almost incomprehensible how so many 'ulami could have indulged in this orgy of blind imitation. It does not ~m to have occurred to them that however grelt those "early gene!"11!ions" of Muslim scholars might h~ve been, later times might bring forth intellects of equal brilliance which would have at their dispow not only all the material and all the scholarly apparatus which had b«n ~v..ilable to the "early gcnCf:ltions" but would ha"", in addition, ~ greater amount of historical, psychological md scientific experience upon which to df:lw.

Under the impxt of the principle of tJtqIid, clothed in tho, garb of ""nef:ltion of the early ,cholan, the rmge of Islamic ide.s w.s fon::ibly limited

208 1810l0I:11. 'BR.l.HiM .... wMa

to tMt ~"';sting in th~ fint three or four centuries of Islam; and the justifiable respect which every Muoiim fecls for those great and righteOWl men of d.e past was made into a vehicle of, and an excuse for, intellectuallariness in problems of theology and bw. In any other civili5l1Iion, this would have merely diminished the imponan"" of rdi~on as a form-t;iving element in social life, but in Islamic civilisation, which had been built on religious considerations and ideas to the exclusion of everything tiS", the pttrifacr.ion of rdigioul thought W3S bound to suffocate the very spirit of lik'"

...... The Companions' Outlook on Ijtihad

It cannot be doubted that the Companions of the Prophet looked upon the observance of the shari'4b as the indivisible, guiding principle in a Muslim '$ life. We h>ve a1~y Sft'll that whrntver they could not find a .... 5$ ordinance illwninating a particular poim of law in either the Qur'an. or the $unnah, they exerted their common sense in order to r~h a l~al decision which would conform to the spirit of the Law; but they never comminni the minake of regarding their own ijlihad as being valid for everybody and for all times. On the understanding tha the Law itself wos pucise and obviou~, they identified [Wfh with a person' S ability to exercise his intelligen« in matters where no sm.r'i provision was available. in .dmining the po .. ibility of legitimae diffe~nces in opinion- apo .. ibilityamply iIlustralni even in the e:u-li es! hinoryof Islam-the Companions made a cle:u- dinincrion bet .... een the Elemal Law of Islam, the lm.ri'ah, and all timr-boundl~islation based on individual deductions from the Two Sources. If they ever considered iimi.' in this conlext, they did so only in the sense of an agrttment on a panicul:u- course of action, and "01 i" ~ ~ .s 10 wm.1 should be "'w. for to them Law, being based on .... ~, was self--evident and unequivocal and therefore required no interpretation, no ijm.i', no qiy.is, no r.'y-in short, nO ij/ibid of any kind. ''''

...... Enthusiasm of Indian Muslims for Pakistan

Some of you .... ill perhaps ... point to the great enthusiasm which the Pakinan idea has c~:u.ed among the Muslims of this :ruboontinent. You will say-and rightly SQ-{ha the Muslims of india ruove at last awakened from their political torpor and ruove achievni a greater unanimity of purpose than ever befo~; that

they have become fully conscious of having a srparate cultu,"", identity based on their being MuslimJ' that the foremost slogan of the Pakistan movement is IA i/Aha ill'll/Lib; that they are imbued with the <ksire to establi.h political form.! in which the Muslim world·view, Muslim ethics and Muslim $<)Cial concepu could find their full nprnsion, and you will a.<Ik me, in a somewhat aggrieved voia, whether I COunt all this for nothing from the Islamic point of view?

As a m:nter of fact, I do not - count all this for nOlhing"; I COunt it for very much indeed. I do believe (and have believed for about fourteen years) that there i. no future for Islam in India until Pakistan bKOmes a reality; and dw, if it becomeo a reality here, it might bring about a spirituil revolution in the whole Muslim world by proving that it is possible to establish an ideological, Islamic ?Olity in OUr times no leos than it Wa.<l possible thirteen hundred years ago. But ask yourselves: Are the leook ... of the Pakistan movement, and the intelligentsia which form.! its spearhead, quite serious in their avowal. that Islam, and nothing but Islam, provideS the ultimate inspiration of their struggle? Are they really aware of what it implies when they say, -'I'M obja:tive of Pakistan is Li iJAh. ill'lllliih? Do we all mean the same when we talk and dream of Pakistan-?"»

Uniqueness of Pakistan Movement in the Muslim World: Its Ideological Basis

As ~ as the Muslim masses are concerned, the Pakistan movement is motM in their instinctive feeling that they are an ilkologkal community and have as such every right to an autonomous political n;'tence. In other words, they feel and knnw that their communal existence '5 not-as with other communities-based on r.acial affinities or on the conscinusness of cultu,"", traditions held in common, bUl only-exdusively-onthe fact of their common adherence to the ideology of Islam: and that, therefore, they must justify their communal existence by errcting a socia-political structure in which that ideology-the ,hari'ab-wou!d become the visible expression of their nationhood.

This, and not a solution of the a11·India problem of Muslim minorities, is the real, historic purpose of the Pakistan movement, In 50 far as there win always rem';n non·Muslim minorities in Pakistan a.<I well as Muslim minorities in the rest of India, Pakistan cannot be said to solve the minorities problem in iu entirety. But thi~ is precisely the point which we-arJd our op?Oneots-would do well to understand: the problem of minorities, however

, ... &..". 71~n. (Reproduced frocn Arofot. Lahor<, May 1947).

,oo

Important in .II considerations of India's political (utur~, is, in itsdf, nOt fundamentally rtSponsibl~ for th~ Pakl,un mov~m~nt, but is rather :on iru:idnJl4f :>ccomp=imcnt to the movement', intrinsic objective-the establishment of an Islamic polity in which our ideology could come to practical. fruition. Only thus can we understand why the Muslims in, say, Bombay or Madras-who of oour~ cmoO! n~t thei r provinces would Nco...., pan of Pakist:w-= as much ;mer.,,"ted in iu realisation as are the Mullim. of the Punjab or of Bengal. They are ;ntcrt,ted in Pakistan not because they hope to come within its orbit in a territorial S"osc. but beauS<' they fed, as intensely os their hrtthren in the so-called "Muslim majority" proviners, tha the birth of an 1s1:unic polity in Pakistan would vindicate the claim that Islam i. a p.-..aiC<ll proposition,;l%1d the Mudim,--J.erause of their being Mudilll$- are a n.:u:ion unto ~ms..lves, irrespectiv.. of their geographical 100000t;on. And if non-Muslims ooject to this dum on the grounds that nowhen else in the world-.-nOt even in the nst of the Muslim world-does any group of people nowadays aspi~ to :separate nationhood oy virtue of its nligious beliefs alone, we are entided to answer them, "In thot case, we are unique. So what~?

So what? Should we concede to others the right to decide what should and what should not constitute our nationhood? Should we be ashamed of the fact that our political ideals are entirely different from the pns..nt-day ideils of the Turks, lhe Egyptian!, the Afghans, the Syrians or the Iranians) Should we not, rather, derive pride from the thought thar we alone among Muslim peoplo::; are now finding the way back to the OO~Pt of the ummah enunciated oy the GnateSt Man?

For, in this nspect, the Pakistan movement is truly unique among all the political m:1.S5 movements now evident anywhere in the Mudim world. No doubt, in the va<! turitories that go by this name there are many olhcr lovers of Islam besides us; in almost every Muslim country there are selfless people who endeavour to propagate the Prophet'$ tc""hings and to raise the moral level of the community: but nowhere in the modern world, except in the Pakistan movement, has a whole Muslim nation :set out on the march towards Islam. No mass movement anywhen el:se in the Muslim world owes its origin to a similar, Islamic inspiration on the part of the people; nor has any of the existing Muslim states a similar objective in view. Some of those states ... ue explicitly anti-Islamic in their governmental aims, and openly declare that Islam Ihould he eliminated from politics and from the people's social life. But even those Muslim SlaUS in which religion is still being valued-in varying degrus_ a spiritual treasure, are "Islamic' only in sO far as Islam is the religion professed by the maiority of their inhabitants: while their political aims are nOt reilly governed by Is!.unic considcflltions but, fllther, by what the rulers or ruling classes conceive as "national" interests in exactly the sense in which national interestS an conceived in the West. It is, therefore, impossible to expect of such political organisations .. ,any clear impetus in the dim:tion of

...... lTER OIF lOVl!; .. U, ..... ..., IoJSNJ .... 0 'SI.AM '" Islam. Thi. d'XS not, of CQurse, ~ th~t aU the ~plt or rv~n th~ ruler. of thost countries art indifferent 10 Islam as such: it mtmS no more and no less dun thai: th~ir al:ladun"nt 10 blam-;:enuinc in many =-has, for various histOrical reasons, no direct relation 10 the foons of their states and the aims of their govunm~nu.")·

Dangers Facing Pakistan

It is ... quite l"1litimatt to .ay th~t the Pakistan movemcnt contains a gre~1 promist for an 1s1:nnic revival; and as f:or as I can see, il offus almost the only hope of such a reviv.ol in a world that is r~pidly slipping away from the ideals of Islam. But the hope i. justified only so long as our leaders, and the masStS with them, kttp the true objective of Pakistan in vitw, and do nOt yield to the temptation to r"1lard their movement as just anotiltr of tbe many "national" movemenu so fasbionable in tilt prtSent day Muslim world-~ danger which, I bdi~ is very imminent. I do nOt mean a nationalism based On ...cial lintS , as we oce it elstwhere (for such a tendency is impo$$ible among Indian Muslims who, as a community, are composed of most div~ r;>cial clements), but there is an ;>Clne danger of the Pakistan movement being deflected from iu ideological courSt by l~ying tOO much Slress on a · cultural." nationalism-on a community of imeresu arising nOI so much from a common ideology as from the desirt to preserve certain cultural. tr1UU, social habiu and customs and, last but not least, to .:ofcguard the ~onomic dcvdopment of a group of people who happen 10 M "Muslims" only by virtue of their birth. Nobody can doubt that the cui.ural ,ndi,ions and .h~ immediate ~onomic requirements of .he Muslim community are elClremely important in Our planning the Muslim future on Islamic lintS. But this is just the poin!: Ihry ,hould never be viewed independently of Our ideolo-gical goal-the building of Our future On Islamic lines.

It app~=, howrver, that the majority of our inteUigentsi~ are about to commit just Ihis miSlake. When thty talk of Pakistan, thry often convey the impression that the "actual" intcrell.S of the Muslim world could ~ viewed independently of what i. dtScribed as the 'purely ideological" intcrtSts of Islam; in other words, that it is possible to be a good Pakistani without being prlm4Tiiy interested in Islam as the basic reality in one's own and in the community's life .

I hope 1Iut my readers will agree with me that sucb an arhit~ry division Mween "Muslim" and "Islamic" intertSts is sheer nonStosc. Islam is nO[ just one am~ng several. ch=ristics of Muslim communal uistence, but its only

'''~'' 74_76. (Rq><oduad from Ar4~', Lalwr., May 1941).

m ,- .•. ~ '_A"_"~.''''''.a """" .............. _m'

historical cause and justification: and to consider Muslim interests:as something apart from Islam ;s !ike considering a living bf,ing ... something ap:m from tm, fact of iu lik Bllt how~r non""ruical such an attitude may appear to "­thinking p<'ISOn, there is no going round the fact that most people (not excluding moS! of our intelligentsia) are in the habit of never thinking :o.{

aiL.' ..

+ + +

The Soul and Body: No Bifurcation in Islam

Suning with the premiss that all life ;5 God-willed and, therefore, positive, Islam implicitly refuses to draw a dividing.line between m:m's "soul" :md his "body" in the &elm of their bring an inhuent conflict between his physical, emotional and spiritual requirements. In other words, Islam tC:IoChes u5 that we need nOl desp;"" Our sensual urges in order to :u:hieve spiritual fulfilment. By virtue of man's nalllre, hody and soul ,,'" to be rq;arded :os mumally complementary, equally valid elements of th~ entity described as "th~ humm ptoonality," md th~ bet of their coexistence and insepanbility is conceived as the namral basis of human life as such. In thi. way, Islam enables man to panicipae in all manner of worldly activities as well as go through th~ whole rmge of his Own bodily needs and urges and at the WIle time to remain conscious of the moral imperatives to which all that worldly lif~ and all tho~ urges md emotions must be subordinated. Thus, the innermost purpo~ of the Islamic message consists in guiding the whoi~ human heing to a form of existence in which both his spiritual desires and hi. legitimate physical and social urges could find a maximum of fulfilm~nt without offending again$!: the rights or feelings of other human beings. Man's desire to live as fully as possible in hi. body as well as in his spirit is not only recognised as a posi/iw instinct but is even endowt:d with the quality of:ln ethical postulate: tim is 10 say, man is not merely allowed to make the fullest possible u:;:e of his God.given life on earth, but is dury-ool/.nd to strive for it. ConKquently, the Qur'in explicitly rejects every form of :;:elf,mortification and euggerated asceticism: and the Prophet Muhammad summed up, as it were, this Qur'inic teaching in his famous saying, "There is no wodd.Jenial (rahWniY1"h, lit., "monkishnessj in Islam." Without doubt, both the Qur'in and the authentic sayings of the Prophet are full of admonitions not to ascribe undue importance to our earthly life and always to mnain conscious that this life is no more than the fin. stage of human existence: but precisely because it is the first-and therefore the formativC"-$tage, man is enjoined to utili:;:e all iu P"Ositive, legitimate possibilities to the full, md thus to become really worthy of the hliss which

awaits the righteous in the life to COme. Hence, a Muslim is aware tlut he does not offend again't the true faith if ht-()T she-finds ple;l5ure, with moder.ttion and dignity , in the beautiful things of the world of maner: for, in the words of the Prophet Muho.mmad, "God loves to Ott on his worshippers signs of His gnce".'" .. .. ..

From The Road 10 Mecca The West and Other Civilizations

Accustomed ;l5 he is to writings which dep ict the culture or discuss the problems of his own civiliZ'l.Iion in gr=t detail and in vivid colours, with little mo", tban side glances here and there at the "'st of the world, the average European or American cosily succumbs to the illusion that the cultur.t! ""pericnces of the Wffi ""' not me",ly ruperior but out of all proportion to

thoS<' of the rffi of the world; and thus, that the Western way of life is the only valid norm by which other ways of life could be adjudged-implying, of course, that every intellectual concept, social institution or ethical valuation that disagrees with the Western 'norm' belongs ~ ipso to a lowct grade of ""i.slence. Following in th. foomeps of the Greeks and Romans, the Occidental likes to think that all those 'other' civilizations arc or We"' only SO many stumbling experiment.! on the path of progress ro unerringly pursued by the West; or, at best, (os in the case of the 'ancestor' civilizations which preeNed that of the modem Wtst in a dire<:t line) , nO mOre than consecutive chapters in one and the s>.me book, of which Western civ il ization is, of course, the final chapter. '01

The Majesty of the Desert

Life in it.! majesty: majesty of sparsenrss, alwaYI surprising: herein li es the whole n>.meless =t of Ar.tbia, of .and d=m like this onc, and of the many other changing landscapes.

Sometimes, il i5 l;ova ground, black and jagged, rom«im'" dunes wilhout end; somHimes a wadi belw~n rocky hills, covered with thombushes Out of which a startled hare jumps across your way; sometimes loose sand with tracks of gazelles and a few fir .... blackened StOnes over which long-follotten wayfa"," cooked their food in long-forgotten ohys; sometimes a village ben~ath palm trees and the wooden wool5 over the wells make music and sing io you

''''Es..". Ilt- 1l2. '"':n.. ROM! to M«<~ (to"""", M .. Reinh.rdt, 19s-1; maoy «pri",.). J .

'" without stopping; sometimes a weI! in the midst of a desen valley, with heduin herdsmen busding around it to water their thirsty .http and camel~thry chant in chorus while the water is drawn up in large leather buckets :md poured wilh a rush into le:nher troughs 10 tbe delight of tbe excited mim.J.s. Then again, there ;$ lon.Ji~, in SlepP<'s overcome by a sun without mercy; p:ItC~S of hard, yeUo,,", gnss and le;l;fy hushes that enwl over the ground with snaky branches offer welcome pasture to ynur dromniari .. ; a $<lEary ;>C;lC;a tree spreads its branches wide against the steel-blue sky; from oowttn earth mounds and stones "PP<'alS, eyes daning right and left, and then vanishes like a ghost, the gold.skinned lizard which, they say, never drink. water. In "­hollow nand black tents of goat hair; a ~rd of camels is being driven homeward through the afternoon, the hudsmen ride on oarebac:ked young ume!s, and when they cal! their animals the ,ilmce of the land sucks in their voices and ,wallow, them without echo.

Sometime. you see glimmering shadows far on the horizon: are tru,y clouds? They float low, frequendy changing their colour and position, now resembling grey-brown mountain_but in the air, somewhat abo"" the horiron- md now, for all the world to =, shady groves of stOne pines: but-in the air. And when tMy come down lower md change into lakes and flowing rivers which quiveringly reflect the mountains and the trees in their inviting waters, you suddenly recoROiu them for what they are, blandishment of the jinns, the minge that has so often led tnvellers to false hopes md so to perdition' and your hand goes involum.rily toward the Waters kin at your s:><idle ... ''"

Elu

In t ru, slarlil silence of the desen, with a tend"" lukewarm wind rippling the sands, the image. of pan and presem imenwine, sepante again and cal! to onc another with wondrous sounds of evocation, backward through the y~rs, hack 10 the beginning of my Arabian years, to my first pilgrimage to MecC\l and the Wrk~ thaI overshadowed those e~rly day" to the d~th of the woman [Asad', first wife, Elsa] whom I loved as I have loved no woman since and who now lies buried under the soil of Mecc., under a simple Slone without inscription that marks the end of her road and the beginning of a new one for me: an end and a beginning, a call and an echo, stnngely intertwined in the rocky valley of Mac •... ' '''

'" The Home-Coming of the Heart

My coming to thi.land was il n01, in trulh, a home-comin~ Home-coming of the he:ut that h"" e'pin! it. old home backward over a curve. of thousand, of years and now recot;Jlius this sky, my sky, wilh painful rejoicing? For this Arabian sky-so much darker, higher, mOre festive with ilS stars man any other sky_vaullM over the long Ink o f my :mct<tors, tho~ wandering herd.rntn. wnriors, when, thousands of years ago, they set Out in the power of their morning, obsessed by greed for lmd:md booty, toward the !enile country o f Ch;dde;r. and an known future: that small beduin tribe of Hebrews, forefathers of that man who was to be Ix>rn in Ur o f 1M Ch.Id=<. III

Muslim Worship in Jerusalem

During that autumn [in the early 19205) [ was living in my uncle Dorian '. house just inside Ihe O ld City of J~solem.1t rnnw. ilmo't every day and, not being able to go out much, I ohen Sat at tht window which ovnlooked a larte yard ~hind the house. This yard belonged to "'" old A~b who was c..J loo b.Jji because he had performoo the pilgrimage to Mecca; he rental out donkeys for riding and carrying and thus made the yard a kind of carav"'"St~i.

Every morning, shortly before dawn, loads of vegttabltS ","d fruits were brought there on camds from the surrounding villages ","d sem Out o n donkeys imo the narrow b=r StreetS of the town. In daytime the he>vy bodies of the camels could be seen resting on the ground; men were always noisily .. tttnding to them ","d to the donktys, unless they were forcoo to take rduge in the stables from the streaming "";n. They were poor, ngged men, those camel and donkey drive .. , but they k haved like great lords. When they :sat together at meals on the ground and ate flat loaves of wheat bread with a little bit of chet$( Or a few olives , I could not but admire the nobility ","d e;lSe of their bearing and their inner quiet: you could SC<' that they had respect for themsdves ","d lhe everyday things of their livts. The &jji, hobbl ing around on a stick-for he sufftred from anhritis ","d had swollen knees-was a kind of chidtain among them; they appeared to obey him without question. s.,ve~l times a day he assembled them for prayer and, if it WitS not ... ining too hard, they p ... yal in the open: all the men in a single, long row ","d he as their imam in from of them. They were like soldiers in the precision of their movements-they would how together in the dir«tion of Me<:C:I, rise again, and then kned down ","d touch the ground with their foreheads; they s=nal to follow the inaudible words of their leader, who ktwttn the prostrationS stood

'" bardoOi on hi. prayer urpet, eyes dosed, arm. folded over his chest, soundlessly moving his [ips ond obviously lost ;n ekep absorption: you could see that hc W:IS pr:l.ying with hil whole roul.

It somehow dislur~ mC 10 see SO re.l a pnYCf combined with almost mech:mical body movements, and one day I asked the hajji, who understood a little English:

'Do you rwly believe that God exptcts you to show Him your 1"Q'p«( by repeated bowing and knttling :md proslnlion~ Might it nOI be betler only 10 look into oneself ond to p ..... y to Him in the stillness of one's heart? Why all these movemen!$ of your body'?

As soon :ll; I h:ad Ul1CrN thtse words 1 felt remOrie, for I had nOI im ended 10 injure the old man's religious f~lin&S. But tbe hajji did not appear in the ]=\ offended , He smiled with his toothless mouth and replied:

'How (he {ben should we worship God? Did He nOI CrCale both, soul and body, togethu~ And this b~ing so, should man not pray wilh his body as well as wilh his soul~ Listen, I will tell you why we Musli ms pray as we pray. We tum toward the Kaaba, God 's holy temple in MeCCl., knowing that the faces of all Muslims, wherever thry may be, are turned 10 it in prayu, and thaI we:off like Ont body, with Him as the cemre of our thoughts. First we stand upright and reci te from the Holy Qur'an, remembering that it is His Wo rd, given to man that he may be upright and ste..dfast in li k Then w~ "'y, "God is tM Greatest", reminding oursd~s that no One deserves to be worshipped but Him; ;md bow down deep beCOluse we honour Him above all, and praise His power and glory. Theruher we pmstrate our< .. lv.,. on our forehead. boo>u.e we fed that we are but dust ;md nothingness before Him, ~nd Ihat He is our Creator and Susu.iner on high. TMn w" lift our f""", from the ground and remoin ,iuing, praying that He fo~ive uS our sins and bestow His gra~ u?On us, and guide us aright, and give us health and ,ustenan~. Then we agoin prostrate oursdves on tM ground and touch the dust with Our foreheads before the might and the glory of the O ne. After that, we remoin siu ing and pray that Ii<' bless th': Prophet Muhammad who brought His message to us, jun as He blessed the earlier Prophets; and that He ble", uS as weli, and all those who follow the right guidance; and we a. k Him to give uS of the good of this world and of the good of the world !O come. In the end we turn our heads to the right and to the left , saying, ~Peace and the grace of God be u?On you"-md thus grI'et all who are righteous, wherever they may be.

'It was thus tIm Our Pro phet used to pray and taught hi. followers to pray for all times , SO thar thry might willingly surrender themselves to God-which is what.Is/am means-md so be at poe""" with Him md with their Own destiny' ,

The old man did not, of course , USe "":>cdy these words, but this was Iheir meaning, and this is how I remember them _ Years latcr I realized that with his simplc explmation the hajji had opened to me the first door (0 Islam, but even (hcn, long before any thought that Islam mi~ht become my own faith entered my mind, I began to feci an unwonted humility whcn~ver I saw, as I oft~n did,

a man standing barefoot on his prllyer rug, or on a strllW mal, Or On the bare eanh, with his arms folded ovn- his chest and hi, ht.>d lowered, entirely submerged within himself, oblivious of what was going o n ~round him, whether it was in a mosque or on the sidewalk o f a busy St.=: a mID at ~= with himself,'"

Encounter with Chaim Weizmann

Although ()f Jewish origin myself, I cone<:;ved from the Olllset a strong objeuion 10 Zionism. Apm from my ~rsonal sympathy fo r the Anbs, I considered il immonl that immigrants, assisted b)' a foreign Great Power, should come from abroad with the avowed inuntion of attaining to majority in [PalntineJ and thus to dispossess the ~ople whose country it had ~n ,in« time immemoriaL Consequentl)', I was incline<! to uke the side ()f the Anb, whenever the Jewish·Arab question was brought up- which, of course, happened very often. This attitude of mine was be)'ond the comprehension of pr.octicall), all the Jews with whom I came in cont"'t during those months. They co .. ld not understand what I saw in the Arabs who, according 10 th<'m, were no more than a mass of backward pfflple whom the), looked upon with a feding not much different from that of the European settlers in Central Afri"", They were not in the leaSl intert$ted in what the Arabs thought; almost nOne of them took pains 10 learn Arabic; and everyo"" accepted without question the dictum that Palestine w:as the rightful heritage of the Jews.

1 .till remember a brid discu«ion I bad (in Jerusalem in 1'122) on this score with Dr. Chaim Wei:unann, the undisputed leader of the Zionist movement.'" He h.d come on One of his periodic visits to Palestine (his permanent residence was, I ~1ieve, in London), and I met him in the house of a Jewish friend. One could nOt but be impressed by the boundle« e""rg), of this man- an energy that manifested it,df even in hi, bodily movements, in the long, springy stride with which he paced up and down the room-and by the power of intellect revealed in the broad forehe.d and tM penetrating gl:mcc. of his eyes.

He was talking of the financial difficulties which were besetting the dream of a Jewish N;>tional Home, IDd the insufficient response to this dream among pfflple abroad; and I had th~ disturbing impression that even he, like most of the other Zionists , was inclin~ to transfer the moral responsibility for all that

" 'M ... ., 81-89. "'Chaim Auio] W.;."....,n (1IH_195lj, wo lot"'..-u '0 become 1 ... ..,1"1 lim p""idmt .

..... ,h. Z;"";'" kad., ~'ho ployod. crucial role in >«urine from th. B,iti'" "", .. nmm' ,he &.I/o...- D«1''''Uon whi.ch p,,,,,",od tho .... y 10' tb ..... bb.bm.n' 01 • J"",ith Ita .. in Arab P.kstin •. (UN', nOlO)_

happening in Palestine to the 'omside world', This imJUUed me to bru k through the deferential hush with which an the other people present werC listening to him, and to ask:

'What about the Arab,'? I must have committed afaux pas by thus bringing a jarring nOu' into the

conversation, for Dr. Wei~mann turned his face ,lowly toward me, put dO'llln the cup he had be<:n holding in his hand, and repeaud my questioo:

'What about the Arabs .. .'? 'WeU-how Can you ever hope to make Palestine your homeland in the

face of the vehement oppositioo of the Arabs, who :after .11, are io the majority in this country"

The Zionist leader shrugged his shoulders and answered drily: 'We expect they won't be in "majority after .. few yean'.

'Perhaps so. You ha"" be<:n de:ding with this problem for years and must know the situation better than I do. But quite apart from the political difficulties which An.b opposition mayor may not pm in your way-doC'S not the moral asp= of the question ever bother you? Don't you think that II " wrong On your pm to displace the people who have always lived in this country'?

'But it is Ollr country', replied Dr. Wei~mann, raising his eyebrows. 'We are doing nO more than taking back what we have been wrong:ly dep rive.:! of'.

'But you have been away from Palestine for nearly two thousand yean! Before that you had ruled this country, and hardly ever the whole of it, for 1= than five hundred yea,.,. O<>n't you think th:n the Arab, could, with equal justificotion, demand Spain for them~lve$-for , ann all, they held sway in Spain for nearly ~ven hundred yun ond lost it entirely only five hundred ye:us ago'?

Dr. Wciunann had ~ome visibly impatient: 'Nonsense. The A~bs had only «mqun'ffl Spain; it had never be<:n their original homeland, and so it was only right that in the end they were driven out by the Spani:mb'.

'F0rP"" mc', I retort"'!, 'hut it seems to me tha, there is SOme hi>lorical oversight here_ After all, the Hebrews also came as conquerors to Palestine. Long before them were many OIher Semitic and non·Semitic tribes settled here-the Amorites, the EdomitC'S, the Philistine., the MoabitC'S, the Hittites. Those tribC'S continued living here even in the days of the kingdoms of Israel and JudID. They continued living here ~ner the Roman, drove our ancestors ~way. They are living here today. The Arabs who ~tded in Syri~ and Palestioe after their conquest in the seventh century were alway~ only a small minority of the population; the rest of wh>! we describe tod~y '" Palestini:m or Syri:m "Arabs" are in reality only the Arabi:mizcd, original inhabitants of the country. Some of them ~ame Muslims io the course of centuriC'S, Othe,., remained Christian~; the Muslims naturally inter-married with their co-religioniSts from Arabia. But can you deny that the bulk of those people in Palestine, who spe;1k Arabic, whether Muslim, or Christians, ~re dir=-line desetnd:mts of the

'" original inh~bi\;l.nts: original in lh~ $ffl~ of having livw. in this country beforf tht Hebr.-ws came to it'?

Dr, Weizmann smiled politely at my outburst md turl1M the convers,uinn to other topics.

I did not £«1 happy .bout the OUiCOmf of my intervention. I h:ul of COllrii<' not txpft1:M any of those present-leasl of all Dr. Weizmann himself-to subscribt to my conviction that the Zionist idea was highly vulnefllble on the moral plane: but I had hoPftl that my defence of the Arab ouse would at least give rise 10 SOme son of une.siness On the pm of the Zionist leaduship_an uneos;nen which might bring about more imrosp«tion :and thus, perh.p', a greaur rewiJ\e$S to admit the existence of a possible mnn! right in the opposition of the Anbs ... None of this had come about. Instead, J found myself facing a blank wall of staring eyes:. censorious di ... pproval of my tem~rity, which dared qutStion the unqutStionablerigln o f the Jews 10 the land of their fordathe .....

How W;1.5 it possible, I wondered, for people endowed with .0 much ,,,,ati,,,, intelligence as the Jew, to think of the Zioni$l.Ar:ah conflict in Jewish terms alone? Did they not rulize that the problem of the Jews in Palenine could, ;n the long run, ~ snlved only through friendly co-oper:ation with the Ar:ab,? Were they SO hopdessly blind to the painful future which their policy must bring/-to the struggles, the bille= and the hatred to which the Jewish island, even if temporarily successful, would forever remain exposed in the midst of a hO<lile Ar:ah sea'

And how strange, I thought, tht a nation which Iud suffu ed <0 many wrongs in the course of its long and sorrowful diaspora '" Was now. in sin&le­minded pursuit of it$ go:ol, rudy to inflict a grievous wrong on another nation-=d a nation, too, that was innocent of all that P'I[ Jewish suffering. Such .. phenomenon, I knew, w;1.5 not unknown to history; but it made me, none the less, very sad to sec it cnacted befnre my eyes. '"

... ... . .. • • v

The Call to Prayer in Cairo

Opposite my house [in Cairo], 50 dose that you could almost touch it, stood a little mosque wilh a tiny minaret from which five times a day the call to prayer w;1.5 sounded. A white-turbaned man would ap~r on the gallery, raise

"lin blO, y<"". th"" !O,ro~ ... < .... to touch A..d himsdf: hi. f"h ... ';"<r ""d .unt all <f;ed;" Nazi <00""",,,,.,000> <>mp..-whil< It<: ..... h<1d io:on iot<:rnm<nt C>IJlp ...... ioV()lunury '''' .... 01 tit<: Gov .. nm<n, 01 India' . Asad. • Autho, ', Not<", E!>IJ'. 1. s.. a1>o M.!iw Ru.hvon. "Mun..mmad Asad: Amb.osador 01 J.bm". Ay.JV.· n.. 1>1.",", W~rld Rtvini. Scp<tmber 1981. p. "l.

"·Mtt<~. 93·%.

"" hi. hands, and begin to cham: 'Allahu akbar-GOO is the Greatest! And I bear .... imess that Muhamm:>d is God'~ Messmger ... • Iu be slowly turoN! toward the four points of the comp>ss, the ring of his voice climbed upw:lrd, grew into the clear air, rocking on the d~, throaty sounds of the Arabic language, swaying, advancing and retrel\ting. The voice was a dark baritone, soft and strong, capable of a great ntlg<'; but you could pelUive that it w""' fervour and not art that made it k.rutiful.

This chm! of the mu'.u;zin .... :os the song of my days and eveninj;S in CaiTO-;USt..s it had bffil the theme song in the Old City of Jerusalem and was destiotd to ~main in all my bier warukriov through Muslim lands. It sounded the same everywhere in spite of the differences of dialect and intonation which might be evident in the prople's daily sp«<:h: a unity of sound which made me realize in thOR days ill Cairo how <kq> w:as the iruu.r unity of all Muslims, and how artificial and insipIificanl w~", the dividing lines betw~ them. They were on~ in their way of thinking and judging between right and wrong, and one in their f'<'1"C"plion of what constitutes the good life.

II :scemtd to me that for the fin;t time I had COme acrOS~ a community in which kinship between man and man was not due to accidents of common !":\Cia! or economic interests but to something far deeper and far more stable; a kinu,ip of common outlook which lintd all barrien of loneliness betw~en man and man.'"

Spiritual Serenity in Damascus

It WilS with excitement of a new undemanding, with my <"yes openrd to thing. I had not suspecttd before, that I wandertd in those summer days [of 19231 through the ".IIeys of the old bazaar of Danuscus and recognized the spiritual restfulness in the life of its people. Their inner security could be observed in Ihe way they behaved toward one another: in the warm dignity with which they met or parted; in the manner in· which two men would walk together, holding each other by the hand like children- simply Mause th<"y ftlt friendly toward each other, in the manner in which the shopkeepcn; dealt with one another. Those t!"1ld.ers in the little shops, those inexorable callers to passersby, seemtd to have no gr.>Sping fear and no envy in them: so much SO that the owner of a shop would leave it in the custody of his neighbour and competitor whenever it became necessary for him to be away for a while. I onen saw a potenlial customer IIOP before an untended stall, ohviously debating within himself whether to w';t for the return of the vendor or to mOv~ on to Ihe adjoining stall-and inv:oriably the neighbouring trader, the competitor, would

" .... TT£R OF lOVE- .. U .... 'AMOQ J<J;NJ ..... 0 'SI.AM m

Sl~p in 10 enquire :Jt~r Ih~ customer'. wants and .dl him Ihe ~uired goods- not his nwn goods, but thol>e of his abl>ent neighbour-and would leave the purch= price On the neighbours bench . Wher~ in Europe could 0"" have witn~ssed a like transaction?"·

Th~ Umayyad Mo.squ~

0"" Friday [ went with my friend and host into the Umayyad Mosque [in Damascus]. The many marble columns which supported the domed ceiling .hone unJ.,r the Sun nys tim feU through the lintel windows. There w:os a scent of musk in the air, red and blue carpru covered the floor. In long, even rows stood many hundr.m of men behind the ;mam who led the pnyer, they bowed, knelt, touched th~ ground with their roreh~ads, and rOse again: all in disciplined unison, like soldiers. It w:os very quiet; while the congregation w:os standing, 0"" could hear the voice of the old imam from the distant depths of the huge hall, reciting verses from the Qur'an; and when he bowed or prostnted himself, the entire congregation followed him :os one mm, bowing and prostrating theml>elves before God:os if He w~re present before their eyes ...

It w:OS al lhis mOment thai I became aware how Oear their Gnd and their faith were to these people. Their prayer did nOl l>eem to be divorced from their working day; it w:os pan of it- nOI meant to hdp them fOl"f:et life, but to rememb~r it better by remembering God.

'How strange and wonderful,' I said to my friend :os we were leaving the mosque, 'that you people fed God 10 be so dose 10 you. I wish I could reel so myself.

'How else could it be, 0 my brother? Is not God,:os our Holy Book \'ays, nearer 10 Ii- than rM .... in in rhy nuk?'"

Islam: A way of li!e

Islam did not Sttm to b~ SO much a religion in the popular sense of the word :os, nther, a way of life; nOt so much a system of theology:os a programme of personal and social beha"iour based on the consciousness of God. Nowhere in the Qur'an could I find reference to a need for 'salvation ' , No original, inherited sin stood between the individwl and his destiny- for, nothing lhall be arrri/n;red 10 man /n;r whar bt himself""s stnvm fOT. No asceticism .... as required

'''M~ I2S- I26. "'M"""" IV.

222

to open a h;dd~n gat~ 10 purity: for purity was man', binhright, and 1in meant nO mOre than a lapse from the innate, positive qualities with which God was said to have endowed every humm being. Ther. was no {nee of any dualism in the consideration of mon', natu,..,: hody and soul Sttmffl to b., {~en as one imq:ral whnk'"

Relations with God and Man

At fim I was somewhat startled by the Qur'an's concern not only with malters spiritual but also with m;my seemingly trivial, mundane aspects of life; hut in time I began to unckmand ,har if man were ind=i an integnl unity of body and soul-as Islam imine<! he w:lS-nO aspect of his life could b., tOO 'trivial' to

come within the pUrYicw of religion. With all this, the Qur'an never let its foUowers forget thai the life of Ihis world w .... only One stage of man', way to a higher existence, and that his uhimate goal was of a spiritual nature. Ma.U'rial prosperity, it 5aid, il d"irabl~ but not an end in iudE and th~r~fore man'. appetites, though justified in themselves, must be restrained and controlled by moral consciousness. This rons<:ious~s ougbt to rdau not mtrdy to man's rdarion with God but:ilio 10 his rel.tions with men; nOt only to the spiritual perfection of the individual but also to the creation of such social conditions as might be conducive to the .piritual <kvdopment of all, SO that all might live in fullnes •.. '"

Prepar:nion for Something to Come

The day. pass, and the nights are short and w~ ride southward at dusk at "­brisk pace. Our dromedari .. U~ in t'Xc.el!ent shapt-they have rto;ently bttn watered, and the bst twO doy' havc provided them with abundant pasture. Tbere :arc Slil! fourtttn day. ~ween here and Me<:ca, and even more if, as i. probable, we spend some time in the tOwns of Hall and Mrdina, both of which lie on our route.

An unusual impatience b;u taken hold of me; an U'lency for which I know no explanation. Hitherto I have b~ wont to enjoy travel!ing .t le1iSUre, with nO particular urge to reach my denination quickly; the day' and weelu spem in journey had each of them a fulfilmem of its own, and th~ goal always seemed to be incidental. But nOw I have begun to fttl wh.t I bve never felt

"'M «eg, 121. "'1.0<, cit.

m

~fore in my years in Ar.lbia: :>.II impa!; ... "" to reach tru, end of the road. What end? To Stc Mecca? I have btcn 10 the Holy City so onen, and know in life SO thoroughly, that it no longer holds Out any promise of new discoveries. Or is it perhaps a new kind of disco,",ry that I am :utticip:lting? It must be so-for I am being d",wn to Mecca by a strange, personal ex~ancy, as if this spiritu"! o.m", of the Muslim wodd, with its multi-national congreJ:ation of people from all COmen; of the earth, were a kind of promi"" a g>teway to a ",iolt. world 1hm the one in whi~h I am nOw living. Not th . t I have grown tired of Ar.obi,,; no,.I love its deserts, iu; towns, the ways of its people as I have always loved them: that first hint of Arabian life in the Sinai Desert some ten years ago has never been disappointed, and dlt SUc<;ttding yean have only confirmed my original expecution: b!lt .. . the conviction has grown within m~ that Ar~bi~ has giv~n m~ all th~t it had to giv~.

I:un strong, young, h~a1lhy. I an rid~ for m;llly hours at a stretch without ~ng unduly tired. I C;lIl tr~v~l-and have been doing SO for ye:lT!i-likr a beduin, without a lent and without any of the small comfortS which the townspwple of N~jd often rq:~rd as indispensable on long destn tourneys. I am at home in al1 the little c..ft. of beduin life, and have adopted, almOst impercq>tibly, the manners and habits of a Na}di An.b. But ;s this all there is to ~? Have I lived so long in Arabia only to ~ome an Arab?-or w:lS it perhaps a preparation for something yet to come?"'"

.. .. .. A Desert and Prophecy

There are many mo,"" beautiful landscapes in the world [than those of the Arabi;lll desen}, but none, I think that C;lIl shape man·s spirit in so sovereign a way. In its hardne'll, and sparsenes.s, the destn Strips our desire to comprehend life of all subterfuges, of all th~ manifold delusions with which a more bountiful nature may entn.p man's mind and ouse him to proj= his own imageries imo the world around him. The destn i. bare and dean and knows no co mpromise. It sweeps Out of the hean of man all the lovely fantasies th .. t could be used as a m;uqueradc for wishful thinking, and thus makes him free to sur,..,nder himself to an Absolute that has no image: the farthest of all that is f;or and yft the nearest of all that is near.

Ever since man beg;lll to think, the desut has been the endle of all his beliefs in One God. Tru~, even in softer environments and more favourable dimes have men had, time and again, an inkling of Hi. uillence and oneness, as, for instance, ;n the anc;ent G reek concept of Moira, the indefinable Power behind and above the Olympim gods: but such conccpu were nev .... more th;lll

". the outcome of ~ v~gu~ f"ding, a divining "'ther th:m (en~n knowlwge-unti] tilt knowledge broke forth with d:l2Z1ing ~na.inty to men of the des..n and from out of the desert. It was from a burning (hornbush in the desert of Midian that the voice of God nng out to Moses; it was in the wilderness of the Judt.m de$en that jesus uu;ved the m=ge of the Kingdom of God; :and it w:OS in the COl."" of Hira, in the desert hills nc.':or Mecca, thai the first coli came to Muh:l.Olmad of Arabia.'"

Abd al-'Az:iz Ibn Sa'lid's Humility

... even aher [the founder of modern Saudi Ar.tbia King 'Abel a1.'A7.iz:j Ibn Saud had acquird a kingdom of hi. own by hi, own dfan and w .... UndispUlw. rul .... of the land, he beru.ved toward his father with such humility that he would never even consent to st1 fOOl ;0 a room of the castle if Abd ar-Rahman was in the room below_ 'for', he would »y, 'how can I :oIlow myself to wolk over my f.lther's head'? He would nevU sit down in the old man', presen~ without htin!; expr=ly invited to do 1'0. I still rememb..r the discomfiture thi. kin!;ly humility e>.used me One day at Riyadh (I think it was in December, 1927). I was paying one of my CU!lomary visits to tht King's fathtr in his apartments in the royal castle; we we..., ,illin!; on the ground On cushinns, the old gentleman txpatiating on ont of his favouritt rdi!;ious them .... Sudcknly an att.endant entered the rOOm and announced, 'The Sh,..,ukh [i.e. the King] is comin!;'. In tht ntxt moment Ibn Saud stood in tht doorway. Naturally , I wanted to rise, but old Abel ar·Rahman gripped me by the wrist and pulled me dowo, as if to "'y, 'Thou an my gutst'. I was tmhorrassed beyond words at thus having to remain ",.ted while the Kin!;. alter lVeeting hi, fnher from afor, was left standing in the doorway, obviously awaitin!; ~rmission to enter the room, but he must have been accustomed to simil .... whim,ies On his father's part, for he winked at me with a half·smile to put me at ease. Meanwhile, old Abd or-Rahman wem on with his discourse, as if no interruption had occuned. After a few minutes he looked up, nodded 10 hi, son and said: 'Step closer, 0 my hoy, and sit down'. The King was at that time forty-seven or fony..eighl years old.

Some months later- we were at Mecca at the time-news was brought to the King that his father had died in Riyadh. I shall never fOTj;CI: tru, uncomprehending n .... e with which he looked for sevenl seconds at the mes..,nger, ..... d the despair which ,jowly and visibly engulfed the features that were normally so serene and composed; and how he jumped with a terrible roar, 'My father is dead'! and, with great strides, ran out of the room, hi, .. baY"

trailing on the ground behind him; and ho,,", he bounded up the stairway, P;l51 the awe-struck faces of his men·at·arms, not knowing himsclf where he W;l5 going or why, shouting, mouting, 'My father is dm'! 'My father is dead'! For two days afterward he refused to see anyone, took neither food nor drink and. spent day and night in pnyer.

How many sons of middle age, how many kings who hod won themselves a kingdom through their own strength, would have thus mourned the p;l5,ing of a bther who had died the peaceful death of old age~ '"

'Abd a\·'Aziz Ibn Sa'lid and Julius Caesar

A good and just man in his personal affairs, loyal to his friends and supporters, generous to,,",ards his enemi ... and implacable to,,",ard, hypocrites, gr.lCed by inte!lectual gifts far above the I~I of mOSt of hi. followers, Ibn Saud has established a condition of public 5CCUrily in his v;l51 domains unequalled in Arab lands ~nce the t ime of the early Caliphate a thousand years .go. His personal authority is tremendous, but it do..s not rest ro much on actual power ;l5 on the sugg ... tive strength of hi, character. He is utterly un;l5suming in words and demeanour. His truly democratic spiril enables him to converse wilh the beduins who come to him in dirty, tattered garments;l5 if he were One of them, :md to allow them to call him by his first name, Abd al.Aziz.

Sometim ... , when he is entirely relaxed, a gentle smile plays about Ibn Saud's mouth and gives an almost spiritual quality to the ooulY of his face, .. ; he shows his musical bent only in his little patms, his colourful descriptions of cxperien«S, and his .oog. of war and love which have spread through the whole of Najd and are sung by men as they ride on t}",ir dromedaries across the desert and women in the scclusion of their chambers, And il reveals itscl f in the way his daily life follows. regular, elastic rhythm suited to the demands of his royal office. Like Julius Caesar, he P0sstSSCS tO a high degree the capacity to pursue seven] trains of thought at o ne and the same time, without in the le;l5t curtailing the intensity with which he attacks each individual problem

The acuteness of his perceptions is often uncanny. He has an almost unfailing, in5linctive insight into the motives of the people wilh whom he h;l5 to deal . Not infrequently-as I myself have had the opportunity to witness-}", is able to reod men's thoughu before they are spoken, wd seems to sense a m~n's attitude towJrds him at the very mOment of th~1 man's enu ring the room.'"

m M .... ~, lM_16~. "'M ...... I17-I1I.

'" Ar~b5 IkSt Community to C~rry Isb.m's Universal Message

In no other community [than the Arab on~J could the tenet.! of [slam h."".o readily coincidt:d with what the people who were first addressed by the Qur':m had olways in5linclivriy fell :rnd r'1)ardtd as truc ... To phrase it yet differently, Om: might say that God's fin>'! message to man wos rtvealtcl through the medium-and in the language-of the one people that w:lS able 10 gr ... p its innermo<t purport oll at on~ and to translate its ideological dynamism into ~:uily by virtue of its own, unique p$fchological maitt-up: and this explains why Islam, carried forward by the Arabs, spread so irrosinibly, within. few dtades, to the ,hares of the Atlantic and the borders of China. ".

Islam's Appeal: A Dialogue

'Tell me, 0 Muh.mm.d', ... Its Mansur, 'how did ;1 happen thou hast COme to live among the Aubs? And how didst thou COme to ~mbrace hlo.m.'?

'1 will ttll the" how it hap~ntd', interposes Zayd'" 'F;nI he fell in lov~ wilh the Arabs, and then wilh Ih~ir faith. I..In'l il true, 0 my unde'?

'What Zayd says is tme, 0 Mansur. Many years ago, when I fim came to Arab lands, I wal atlracted by Ih~ way you people lived. And when I bq;anlO ask myself what you thouy,t and Whal you bdieved in, I co.m.e 10 know about l$lo.m.' .

'And didst thou, 0 Muho.m.mad, find 011 at oncc that Islam was the Tme Word of God'?

'Well, no, this did nol come "bout $0 quickly. For One thing, I did not then believe thai God had ever spoken directly 10 man, or that the books which men cbimtd 10 j,., His wnrd were anything but the works of wise men .. . •

Mansur stares at me with utter incredulity: 'How could that j,." 0 Muhamrrud? Didst thou not even j,.,lieve in the Scriptures which Moses brouy,t, or the Gos~l of Je·m51 But I have always thouy,t that the peoples of the West j,.,lieve at least in them'?

'Some do, 0 Mansur, and olhers do nOI. I was One of those others .. : And I explain to him Ihal many people in the West have long ceased 10

regard the Scriptures-their own as well as those of others-as truc Revelations

" 'M«<4,18 1. '''zayd ibo Ghioim, • b"douu. ..... , A...:!', ~id< durin, m<>fl 01 hi, travol • .><ro" ,h.

A .. bian <1< .. ", .od .. vod hi. 1<1_ ... h<n A50d 10 .. hi. "'1 u. 00< 01 hi. WKhmod jou,,,,,,.; M:ul!Y' .1." A .... I, too, .... , hi.l ,rov.!lin, comp.nion but 10, • morte. p<.iod.

of God, but ~ in them r~ther the history of man's religious ospint;ons OS they h~ve evolved over the ages.

'B UI this vi~w of mine w,,", shak~n OS 500n OS 1 came to know something of I$lam', I add. 'I carm to know ~bout it when I found that the Muslims lived in a way quite different from what the Europeans thought should be man's way; and every time I learned something more about th~ t~achin~ of Islam, I s.eemed to discover something tha I had always known without knowing it .. .'

And 50 I go on, tel1ing Mansur of my first journey to the Near East-of how in the D=n of Sinai I had my first impression of the Anb.; of what I saw and felt in Palestine, Egypt, Transjordan and Syria; of how in Damascus I had my first p",monition Ibat a new, hilbeno unsuspected way to truth w:u slowly unfolding b~fore me; and how, after visiting Turkty, I returned to Europe and found it difficult to live again in the W~nern world: for, On thl. one hand, I w,,", eager to gain a d~er underst:mding of the strange uneasiness which my first acquaintanct wilh the Arabs and thei r cultu", had produced in me, hoping that it would h~lp me better understand what I mys.elf expe«ed of life; and, on the other hand, I had reacbN! the point where it was becoming dear to me that never again would I be able 10 identify myself .... ilh the aims of Western society. ' '''

...... Istam Behind Muslims' Achievements

My own obs.ervation had by now convinced me that the mind o f tbe avenge Wesl~rner held an utterly dino~ image of Islam. Wbat I !.:I.w in Ihe pages of tbe Qur'an was nOi a 'cruddy materialistic' wo rld·view bU!, on the contrary, an intens.e God...:onsciousness tbat exp res~ its.elf in a r;nional acceptance of.l1 Goo...:",ated nature: a harmonious side- by·side of intellect and s.ensua! urge, spiritual need and social demand. h was obvious to me tbat IhI. decline of th~ Muslims wos not due to any shortCOmings in IsI:IIII but r.lther to their own bilure to live up to il.

For, indeed, it w:u Isl :IIII that had carried the early Muslims 10 tremendous beighu by directing .11 thei r ene~ies toward conscious thoughi :os the only means to understanding the n.ture of God's cre:ttion and, tbus, of His wilL No demand had been made of them to believe in dogmas difficult or even impossible on intellectual comprehension ... and thus, thl. thirst .ner knowledge which disti nguished early Musl im history b>d not bttn forced, as dsewhere in the world, 10 ass.en itself in a p~infu l struggle againn the traditional faith. On the contrary, it had stemmed exclusivdy from that faith. The Arabian Proplm had declared that St";ving "'IcY knowledge il. mOlf ",cred Jury for <'"t'")' Mu.lim

----- --I1OM,"""lIf_IIS.

man "nd wom"n: and his foUow~" w~r~ led to undcNtand that only by acquiring Iulowledge could they fully worship th~ u.rd. When they pondered the Prophet's saying, God C'I't'"ttl "0 d~_ without "elfting If CJ<Tt for it If. wtll, they ..,alized that by :;tan;hing for unknown cur~s they would contribute w a fulfilment of God'. will on e.nh: and so medical re!earch beume invested with the holiness of a religious duty. They read the Qur'an verse, We ,=u ..wry living thi"g our of UklI .... -and in their end~vour lO penetfllte lO the meaning of thes<: word., they began to study living O'l\an;sms and the laws of their development, o.nd thus they esubli.hed the science of biol"l:Y. The Qur'an poimed to the harmony of the stars and their movements as witnesses of their Crutor's glory: and therC"Upon the ~en= of astronomy and m:uhematics were taken up by the MusliIIl$ with a fervour which in other relij;ions was reserved for pfllyer alone. The Copernican synem, which established the eanh's rotation around its axis and the revolution of the planets around the sun, was evolved in EuroPe at the heginning of the sixteenth century (only to be met by the fury of the ecclesiastics .. } but the foundations of this syncm had actually b~ laid ,ix hundred yew; earliu , in Muslim countri.s-for al..,ady in the ninth and tenth centuries Muslim astronomers had rc:Khed the cooclusion that the earth was globular and that it rotated around its axis, and h.d made =rare calcubtion. of latitude! and ionj;itudes, and many of them maintained-withom ever being accused of heresy-that the eanh rotated around the sun. And in the ume way they took to chemistry and physics and physiology, and to all the other science, in which the Muslim genius was to find its most lasting monument. In building that monurnc.nt they did nO more than follow the .dmooition of their Prophet th.t If Ifwybody proceeds om hil way in St".,h of/mow/edge, God will make e .. ry fM him ,"" way to P .. r..di~; that The lU;-1ariry of /ht le .. rned (Wo'" /ht mere piaU! i. like 1M lU;-1a,iry of the moon whm if is full OWT .. 11 a/htT .l4rs; and that 71>e ink of /ht ",hol .. rs is mOTt precious dUI1I the blood of marryr<.

Throughout the whole cr~ative P"riad of Muslim hinory_ that is to say, during the fim five cemuri ... after the Prophet's time-science and learoing had no greater champion than Muslim civiliz.ation ~nd no home mo.., secure than the lands in which Islam was iupreme.1V

. :- .:. .' . •

No Priesthood in Islam

There are few thin!:" if any, which bring men SO close to one another as praying together. This, I bdieve, is tru~ of ev~ry religion, but particularly of Islam, which restS on the belief that nO iotennediary is n~s.:uy, or indttd

". possible, ooween man:md God. The abs..nce of all priesthood, d ergy, md even of an organized 'church' makes every Muslim feel that he is truly sharing in. :md nO! merely .ttending, a commOn act of worship when he pray' in congreg.tion. Since there are no $aCfamenu in blam, every :wult and s:me Muslim may perform any religious function whatsoever, whether it be b.ding a congregation in p .... yer, performing a marriage "",..,mony or conducting a burial service. None need be 'orda.ined' for the service of God: the religious teachers and lellders of the Muslim community are simple men who enjoy a ,..,puulino (rometim .. deierved :md somttimes not) for erudition in thwlogy and religious law. OJ,

'" '" '" The Centre of the Universe

This ... was the K ... ba, the goal of longing for so many millions of people for SO

many centu ri .. , To reach this go.J, countless pilgrims had made heavy sacrifices throughout the ag ... : many h:od dial. on th~ way; m:my had r~aclltd it only after gr~al priv,ltions: :md to .11 of them this sm:oll, squ.~ building w:>5 th~ .p~x of their desires, .nd to reach it me:mt fulfilment.

There it stood, almost a perfect cube (:>5 its Arabic name connotes) entirely cov~ral. wilh black brocad~, a quiff isl:md in Ih~ middl~ of t h~ vast quadnnr.Je of the mosque: much quieter thm my otlltr work of .rchitecture mywheu in the world. It would :olmost appe .. that he who fim built the Kaab. - for since the time 01 Abraham the original structure h>s been rebuilt several limes in the um~ shap.-wantal. to (rcau a p=bl~ of mm', humility before God. The build", knew tlut nO be.uty of architectur:ol rhythm .1101 no perfection of line, ho wever grc<lt, could evu do just;c~ to the icka of God: and so h~ confined himself to the simplest three-dimension>l form imaginablc-a cube of slOne.

I had seen in various Muslim countries mosquC$ in which the hand, of gre.l artist.! had created inspired works of art. I had seen mosques in North Africa, shimmering prayer_palace" of nurbl~ and whiu alabaster; th~ Dome of Ihe Rock in Jerus.olem, a powerfully perfect rupol. <>v~r a cklicate understrunure, a dream of lightoess and heavin~ss united without contr:odiction: and the m.j ... tic buildings of Istanbul, the Sulaymaniyya, the Yeni·Valide, the Bayrud Mosque; and those of Brussa, in Asi. Minor; and the Saf.vid mosques in Iran-royal harmonies of stone, multicoloured majolica tiles, mo,";cs, huge 5I.lactite portals Over silver-embossed doors. slender minarets wilh alab:>5ur .nd turquoise-blue gai1tries, m .. ble-covered quadrangles with foum";ns and age-old plant";n trees; .nd the mighty ruins of Tamerlane's mosque, in Samar6nd, splendid even in their decay.

Alltlltse I had seen-but never had i felt so strongly as now, before the Kaaba, that the hand of the builder had come so close to his religious

"" con~~plion. In the utl~r simplicity of a cube, in the complete ununciation of aU ~U1y of line :rnd form, SpOM this thought: 'Whatever beauty man may be able to create with his hands, it will be only conceillo dum;t worthy of GOO; thertror." the simplest that man can conceive is the ~ateSt that he em do to exprt'U 1m, glory of God'. A simibr feding may have been responsible for I ....

mathematical simplicity of the Egyptian pyr:unid_"lthough there mm's conceit had at least found:l. vern in the tremendous dimension, he gave to his buildings. But h.,n, in the K:uba, even the size spoke of hum:m ununci:nion and self-surrender; :.",1 the proud moot!Jly of this litde structure had nO comp""" on earth.

There is only one entrana: into the Kaaba-a silvn-sheathed door on the northeast side, about seven fe<'t above ground level, 50 that it can only b~ reached by mean5 of a mov.bl~ s{air= which i, plactd before {he doo r on a few d.y, of th~ year. The interior, usoally dosed (I saw it only on bur occasions), is very simple: a marble floor wilh a few carp~ls and lamps of bronu and silv~r hanging from a roof thaI i5 supponed by heavy vooden beams. Actually, Ihi. imerior has no sp""ial significance of its own, for the sanctilY of the K.."b •• pplies to the whol~ building, which is the qibl~_that i5, th~ dirtction of prayer_ for Ihe entire Islamic world. It is toward this symbol of G..d's Onene ... Ihat hundrNs of millions of Muslims the world over tum thei r faces in p~yu fiv~ times .. day.

Embffickd in the e<1Slern corner of the building and left uncovered is a dark-coloured stOne surrounded by a broad ,ilver frame. This Black Stone, which has been kiued hollow by many generations of pilgrim', has bttn .he ",,"use of much misunderstanding among non-MlI$lims, who believe it to be "­fetish taken over by Muhammad as a concession to the pagan Meccans. Nothing could be farther from trulh, Just as the K.."ba is an object of reveren", but not of wOr1hip, so tOO i. the Black Stone. It is rtvered as the o nly remnant of Abraham'. original building; and because the lips o f Muhammad touched it on his Fartwell Pilgrimage, .11 pilgrims have dorn: the same ever since. The Prophet was wdl aware that all the later generollions of the Faithful would always follow his example: and when he kissed the lIone he knew that on it the lips o f future pilgrims would forever mttt the memory of his lips in Ihe symbolic embrace h~ thus offered, beyond t ime and beyond death, 10 his cmirt community. And me pilgrims, when they kiss the Black Stone, feel {hat they are embracing me Prophet and all the other Muslims who have been hcrt before them and tho~ who will come afu r them.

No Muslim would deny thai the Kuba had existed long before the Prop~t Muhammad; indeed, its .i~nifican", lies precisely in this (:oct. The Prophet did not claim to be the founder of a new rdigion. On the (O mTary: self-surrender to God-ls1 .. m-has been, according to the Qur'an, 'man', natural indin41ion' since Ihe dawn of human consciousrn:ss: it was this th~1 Abraham and Mo~ and Jesus and ~!I other Prophets 01 God had been teaching_the mess>g~ of th~ Qur'an being but th ~ laSl of the Divine RevelatiOn!. Nor would

'" a Muslim deny that the sanctuary had been full of idols and fetishes 1>..£0,"" Muhammad broke them, juSt as MootS had broken the gol<kn calf al Sin.u; for, long bdore the idols were brought into the Kub., the True God had been worshipped there, and thus Muhammad did nO mO", than restore Abraham's umple to its original purp~.

And there I stood hefon the temple of Abraham ond gaud at the marvel without thinking (for thoughts and reflections came only much bter), and out of some hidden, smiling kernel within me there slowly grew an elation like • song.

Smooth marble slabs, with runligln reflections dancing upon them, cov.",d the t;Tound in a wid. circle :>round the Kaba, and over thesc marble slabs walked many people, men and women, round md round the black.<f .... pu1 House of God. Among them we", some who wept, some who loudly ""Hed to

God in prayer, and many who had no woro, and no te~f$ but could only walk with lowered heads ...

It is part of the hotjj to walk seven times ;uound the K;l.lba; not just to show "'!peel to the ~entral ""nctuary of Islam but to recoIl to oneself the basi~ demmd of Islamic life. The Kaaba is a symbol of God's O""f\eS$, and the pilgrim·, bodily movement around it is a symbolic exp",ssion of humm activity, implying that not only our thoughts md feelings-al l that is comprised in the term 'inner life' -but also our outward, active life, our doings :>nd practical endeavours must have God as their centre.

And I, too, moved slowly forward and beame part of the circular now around the K""b •. Off and on I ~me conscious of a man or woman near me, isolated piuur6 appeared neetingly ~fore my eyes and vanished. There was a huge Negro in white warn, with a wooden rosary slung like a chain ;uound a powerful, black wrist. An old M.Jay tripped along by my side for a while, his arms dangling, as if in helpless confusion, against hi. batik .. rong. A Grey eye under bushy brow>--to whom did it ~long?-md now lost in the crowd. Among the mmy people in front of the Black Stone, a young Indim wnmm: she wa<l obviously ill; in het" n.rrow, ddieale face by a stnngdy open yearning visible to the onlooker's qe like ,f,,, life of fishes mol olgae in the depth of a crystal<le. r pond. Her hmds with their pale, upturned palm' were stretched om toward the Kma, and her fingers trembled as if in accompaniment to • wordless prayer ...

I walked on mol on, the minutes passed, all that h;od been small and hiller in my heart bq;an to leave my heart, I b~ port of a circular stream-oh, was Ihi, the meming of what we were doing: to bcwmc ~Warc that one is a part of a movement in an orbit? W..:; thi" perhaps, all confusion's end~ And the minutes dissolved. and time stood still, and this Wa<l the centre of the

. ," unlve= ...

• • • "'M..., ... 367- )70.