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