Muhammad Asad

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Muhammad Asad ( Arabic محمد أسد) (* as Leopold Weiss on July 2, 1900 in Lemberg , Austria-Hungary ; † February 20, 1992 in Mijas , Spain ) was an Islamic scholar, diplomat and correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung .

Life

Leopold Weiss was born in Lemberg in 1900 as the son of a family of lawyers of Jewish descent. He grew up in Lemberg and Vienna and had a very religious upbringing. At the age of 14, he applied as a cadet in the Austro-Hungarian Army , but was not accepted. After the war, Weiss studied at the University of Vienna and went to Berlin as a bohemian in 1922 . With an interview with Maxim Gorki's wife Marija Fjodorovna Andrejewa he succeeded in entering journalism.

He became increasingly alienated from his religion and was very dissatisfied with the political and social conditions in the early 1920s. Together with his future wife, the artist Elsa Schiemann , who was fifteen years his senior , and her son Heinrich Schiemann , he traveled to Palestine in 1922 to visit his uncle Dorian Feigenbaum . According to his book The Road to Mecca , he was very critical of Zionism and had arguments with Chaim Weizmann , the President of the World Zionist Organization . At the same time, he was fascinated by his first contacts with Arabs , Muslims and Islam . For him, the simplicity and spirituality of this religion was an antithesis to the materialism of the western world, which he detested. Travels to the Orient as a correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung followed, whereby contact with Bedouins was particularly important for Weiss.

In 1926 he converted from Judaism to Sunni Islam in the Berlin Muslim community that built the Wilmersdorfer Mosque , changed his name to Muhammad Asad and began - again together with Elsa and Heinrich Schiemann - the Hajj , the pilgrimage to Mecca . Between 1927 and 1929 eleven reports appeared in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , the Kölnische Zeitung and the Telegraaf . Elsa died of malaria on the trip . Heinrich then came to Hamburg for training , and Asad immersed himself in Koran studies . As a personal friend of King Ibn Saud , the founder of Saudi Arabia , he lived there for years. In 1932 he went to British India , where he lived in a British internment camp in 1939 for the duration of the Second World War . His older brother managed to escape from the German Reich to Palestine, while his other relatives fell victim to the Holocaust . In India he became a close friend of the poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal , who asked Asad to help found the first Islamic state: Pakistan . His constitutional proposal, published in March 1948 under the title “Islamic Constitution-Making”, was not implemented. He was only able to recognize some of his proposals in the preamble of the constitution, which was later banned. Asad received the first Pakistani passport . In 1949 Asad joined the diplomatic service of Pakistan and was subsequently deputy Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations in New York . After 22 years of marriage, Asad divorced his Saudi Arabian wife Munira in 1952, married the Catholic convert Pola “Hamida” from the USA and resigned from his post. Asad lived in Switzerland from 1959 to 1964 , then in Morocco, Portugal and from 1987 in southern Spain.

He wrote books and numerous essays on the worldview, law and philosophy of Islam as well as his autobiography The Way to Mecca , which became a bestseller. His “opus magnum” is a commented English translation of the Koran , for which he originally estimated four years of work, but then took 17 years. In some professional circles it is considered to be the best translation of the Koran at the moment.

Berlin memorial plaque on the house at Hannoversche Strasse 1 in Berlin-Mitte

Asad crossed the border between the Islamic and the Western world: diplomat, journalist, linguist, political scientist, reformist, social critic, theologian, translator, world traveler. He was deeply impressed by the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam at the time of his presence in Arabia and spoke out vehemently against classifying Wahhabism as a Sunni sect and saw in it the ideological basis for an uncorrupted spread of the "true doctrine" of modernity strive for the rebirth of pure Islam. What his activities have in common was his pursuit of mutual understanding between the Islamic world and the West and his intellectual approach to Islam. His religious considerations, especially with regard to law and philosophy, were, however, in contradiction to the values ​​actually practiced in later Wahhabism. In some Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia, his writings were even banned. Towards the end of his life he summed up: “I fell in love with Islam, but I overestimated Muslims.” His son from second marriage in Saudi Arabia, Talal Asad , is a professor of anthropology in New York.

On April 14, 2008, the square in front of the main entrance to the UN City in Vienna was named Muhammad-Asad-Platz in his honor . On November 22, 2013 , a Berlin memorial plaque was installed in Berlin-Mitte , Hannoversche Strasse 1 .

Fonts (selection)

author

  • The way to Mecca. Reporter, diplomat, Islamic scholar. The adventure of a lifetime . In: Luchterhand Collection; Patmos edition 2009 with foreword by Murad Wilfried Hofmann . tape 1071 . Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-491-72541-6 (English: The Road to Mecca . First edition: Hamburg, Zurich 1992).
  • Unromantic Orient. From the diary of a trip . Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei, Book Publishing Department, Frankfurt am Main 1924.
  • From the spirit of Islam . Islamic Scientific Academy, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-89108-000-X (English: The Spirit of Islam . Translated by Hasan Ndayisenga).
  • Islam at the crossroads . Edition Bukhara, Mössingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-022095-1 (English: Islam at the crossroads . Translated by Pierre Dubois).
  • The principles of state and government in Islam . Edition Bukhara, Mössingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-941910-03-4 (English: The Principles of state and government in Islam . Translated by Pierre Dubois).
  • Is religion a thing of the past? Students Voice Publications, Karachi 1960.
  • This Law of Ours Asiatic Press of Dacca, 1980; expanded to include older writings: This Law of Ours and Other Essays Dar al-Andalus, Gibraltar 1987
  • The Principles of state and government in Islam . Islamic Book Trust, Kuala Lumpur 2000, ISBN 983-9154-09-5 .
  • Home-Coming Of The Heart (1932-1992). Part II of the Road to Mecca . Al Abbas International, Lahore 2016, ISBN 969-8460-41-1 .
  • We visit an inner-Arab city [Borreyde] and travel in inner- Arabia, between Borreyde and Shaqra . In: Kölnische Zeitung of October 6, 1929 and October 13, 1929.

Translator and commentator

  • Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl Bukhārī: The early years of Islam. Being the historical chapters of the Kitâb al-jāmi ʿ aṣ-ṣaḥîḥ. Compiled by Imâm Abû ʿ Abd-Allâh Muḥammad ibn Ismâ ʿ îl al-Bukhârî. Translated and explained by Muhammad Asad . 2nd Edition. Dar al-Andalus, Gibraltar 1981 (Arabic: Kitâb al-jāmi ʿ aṣ-ṣaḥîḥ . First edition: Lahore 1938).
  • The Message of the Qur'an ' ān . The Book Foundation, Dubai 2003 (Arabic: Qur ʾ ān . First edition: Gibraltar 1980, reprints 1984, 1993, 1997).
  • The message of the Koran . Translation and commentary. Translated from English by Ahmad von Denffer and Yusuf Kuhn. Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-491-72540-9 (English: The Message of The Qur'an .).

literature

Books
  • Pipip Ahmad Rifai Hasan: The Political Thought of Muhammad Asad . Concordia University, Montréal 1998 (English, The Political Thought of Muhammad Asad ).
  • Günther Windhager : Leopold Weiss alias Muhammad Asad. From Galicia to Arabia 1900–1927 . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2002, ISBN 978-3-205-99393-3 .
  • Tom Butler-Bowdon: 50 Spiritual Classics. Timeless Wisdom from 50 Great Books on Inner Discovery, Enlightenment and Purpose . Nicholas Brealey, London 2005, ISBN 978-1-85788-475-3 , pp. 14-20 .
  • Safvet Halilović: Islam i zapad u perspective Muhammeda Asada (Leopold Weiss) . Dobra knjiga, Sarajevo 2006, ISBN 978-9958-9229-2-3 (Bosnian).
  • M. Ikram Chaghatai: Muhammad Asad: Europe's gift to Islam . 2 volumes. Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore 2006, ISBN 969-35-1852-7 (English).
  • Abroo Aman Andrabi: Muhammad Asad: His Contribution to Islamic Learning . Goodword Books, New Delhi 2007, ISBN 978-81-7898-589-3 (English).
  • Michael Wolfe (Ed.): One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing about the Muslim Pilgrimage . Grove Press, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-8021-3599-5 , pp. 363-384 (English).
  • MA Sherif: Why An Islamic State: The Life Projects of Two Great European Muslims . Islamic Book Trust, Kuala Lumpur 2009, ISBN 978-967-5062-39-1 (English).
  • Tobias Hoenger: Muhammad Asad. A Mediator Between the Islamic and the Western World . GRIN Verlag, Norderstedt 2010, ISBN 978-3-640-78219-2 (English).
  • Günther Windhager : Muḥammad Asad - Līyūbūld Fāīs. Raḥalātuhu 'ilā-l- ʿ ālam al- ʿ arabī. [Muhammad Asad - Leopold Weiss: Journeys in the Arab World.] Wizārat at-Taʿlīm al-ʿĀlī, ar-Riyāḍ 2011.
  • Dominik Schlosser: Law of life and form of community: Muhammad Asad (1900–1992) and his understanding of Islam . EB-Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86893-182-2 .
  • Günther Windhager : Muḥammad Asad: min Ġālīsīyā ilā l-bilād al- ʿ arabīya 1900–1927 [Arabic edition of “Leopold Weiss alias Muhammad Asad. From Galicia to Arabia 1900–1927 ”] . Dārat al-Malik ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz / King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives, ar-Riyāḍ 2016, ISBN 978-6-03819411-9 .
items
  • der.wisch - magazine for a wide range of pages, no. 03, main topic FRONTIER GAME. Published by the Kulturverein Kanafani, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-900020-03-5 . Contributions to MA by Lise J. Abid, Ercüment Aytaç , Murad W. Hofmann, Anas Shakfeh, Reinhard Schulze
  • Martin Kramer: The Road from Mecca: Muhammad Asad (born Leopold Weiss). ( Memento of March 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) in The Jewish Discovery of Islam: Studies in Honor of Bernard Lewis, ed. Martin Kramer (Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 1999), p. 225 -247.
  • Katja Behling: Convert Muhammad Asad: “Reason of the Heart”. As a scholar, he shaped ... understanding between cultures. In: Zs. Aufbau # 11, Nov. 2011, special issue Judentum und Islam, ISSN  0004-7813 pp. 13–15, with ill.
  • Dominik Schlosser: Muhammad Asad and the magazine Arafat. In: XXX. German Orientalist Day, Freiburg, 24. – 28. September 2007. Selected lectures, published on behalf of DMG by Rainer Brunner, Jens Peter Laut and Maurus Reinkowski. online publication, February 2008, ( orient.ruf.uni-freiburg.de ).
  • Günther Windhager: From journalist to Islamic thinker and Pakistani diplomat. Muhammad Asad (née Leopold Weiss) in India and Pakistan 1932-1952. In: Margit Franz, Heimo Halbrainer (Ed.): Going East - Going South. Austrian exile in Asia and Africa. CLIO Verlag, Graz 2014, ISBN 978-3-902542-34-2 , pp. 433-474.
Further literature

Web links

Commons : Muhammad Asad  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Martin Woker Back to the true teaching of the prophet , in: NZZ , January 3, 2015, p. 6 f. ( Online )
  2. ^ Muhammad Asad: The Story of a Story of a Story
  3. ↑ Martin Woker: Back to the true teaching of the Prophet Mohammed. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 31, 2014, archived from the original on December 31, 2014 ; Retrieved April 5, 2015 .
  4. ↑ https://www.juedisches-europa.net/archiv-seite-3/1-2010/muhammes-asad/
  5. ↑ "Mediator between the worlds. A film follows in the footsteps of the Islamic pioneer Muhammad Asad ” , November 16, 2008.
  6. ↑ wien.gv.at
personal data
SURNAME Asad, Muhammad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weiss, Leopold; White, Leopold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Islamic scholar
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Lviv
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1992
Place of death Mijas , Spain