How many of us know Muhammad Asad?

An Austrian Jew Leopold Weiss who converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Asad, author of the famous book “Road to Makkah”, among his other books are “Islam and Politics”, “Towards an Islamic Constitution” and the list continues. Asad was a traveler, researcher, writer and scholar. His journey through Palestine and Arab countries make him think about Islam, he was impressed by Islam and in its study he found out that this is the perfect religion, in his own words about Islam, he says: “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; and the result is a structure of absolute balance and solid composure.”

He came to the Indo-Pak region in the 1932 and met Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Allama iqbal the spiritual leader of Muslims of sub-continent who gave the concept and thought of a separate Islamic country on the basis of Islam, where Muslims can practice their religion with freedom, where all the minorities will be given fundamental right, where the Islamic laws will be implemented. He worked with Allama Iqbal and the Muslim leaders for the creation of the separate homeland, he was arrested in 1939 from Lahore and spent three years in prison he reunited with his family finally in 1945 when the independence movement in the Indo-Pak region was at its peak, the land of sub-continent was echoing with the slogans of “Pakistan ka matlab kia, La ilaha ilallah”, he supported and worked for the independence of a separate Muslim state which came on the globe of the world as Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Asad was given the Pakistani Nationality on his never-ending efforts. He has close relations with Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah due to his effort for Islam.

After the independence of Pakistan, he was designated as the Director of the Department of Islamic Reconstruction which involved in the preparation and reviewing the recommendation to the drafting of the first constitution of Pakistan according the Islamic law. He also worked with the ministry of foreign affairs as Head of Middle East Division. 

The book “Road to Makkah” is about his journey of his life and his travel towards Makkah and the story of his conversion from Judaism to Islam.

In the last days of his life, he moved to Spain with his wife, where he lived till his death on February 23, 1992. He was buried in Granada.