Book & Author
Leopold Weiss aka Muhammad Asad: The Unromantic Orient
By Dr Ahmed S. Khan
Leopold Weiss aka Muhammad Asad (1900-1992) was a renowned Muslim scholar. He has written numerous articles in German and English covering a wide array of topics. He has also authored a number of books; some of his well-known titles include Islam at the Crossroads , The Message of the Quran (English translation of Qur’an), This Law of Ours And Other Essays, The Principles of State and Government in Islam, The Road to Mecca , and Sahih al-Bukhari: The Early Years of Islam .
After his conversion to Islam in 1926, Muhammad Asad lived in Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, US, Sharjah, Lebanon, Switzerland, Morocco, and Spain. He served as Pakistani statesman and diplomat: first as director of the Department of Islamic Reconstruction, then as Deputy Secretary and Director of the Middle East Division in the Foreign Ministry in Karachi. He was the first citizen of Pakistan to receive a Pakistani passport on August 14, 1947. He passed away on February 20, 1992, in Marbella, Spain.
The Unromantic Orient by young Leopold Weiss is a travelogue based on his journal entries visiting the Middle East during the summer of 1922. The narrative starts at the Jerusalem train station and goes through Cairo, Amman, parts of the Transjordan, Palestine, Damascus, and Istanbul. After travelling the Middle East for several months, Leopold Weiss returned to Germany and published his observations and experiences as Unromantisches Morgenland, aus dem Tagebuch einer Reise. The narrative also provides insights into Colonial geopolitics of the post- WWI era, and his spiritual transformation to Islam.
The manuscript has been translated by Mina Ruth Harder. She received her graduate degree in Continuing and Vocational Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1985). During 1990-1999, she lived in Pakistan where she taught at the International School of Islamabad. Currently, she resides in Alberta, Canada. Ms Harder has done a wonderful job of translating the bookfrom exquisite German to eloquent English.
Discussing her translation of Weiss’s works and background of his travelogue, Ms Harder observes: “A copy of this small German book arrived on my desk one day in 1999. As I started to read it, the travelogue became my own journey also. This, however, was no journey of just traveling from place to place but was characterized by the tremor of resonating heartstrings. Muhammad Asad's exquisite narration of what he observed and what he experienced goes beyond the words he writes, and just as I now find myself flipping into the present tense in this sentence, I found myself entering his past, as we trudge together through the old streets in Jerusalem and Damascus and Istanbul, and there, suddenly, I live in the present, in 1923…Muhammad Asad had a gifted pen and I apologize to all readers of this translation for inadequacies where my rendition falls short, especially those passages wherein the author's thought is not completely or accurately conveyed. His was an art, and in those exquisite descriptions in German where the sentence goes on and around, with several convolutions and sub-notations, you know that you can feel the situation—rather, you can feel that you know what he means—and it is there in those sentences that I would dwell and revisit, to see how things could better be expressed.”
Reflecting further on Weiss’s work, Ms Harder observes: “Unromantisches Morgenland, aus dem Tagebuch einer Reise was Muhammad Asad's first book. At that time, he was known as Leopold Weiss. It was written under contract with Frankfurter Zeitung. It first appeared in instalments in German newspapers, and was subsequently published by Frankfurter Societats-Druckerei in 1924. The original book was 159 pages. It consisted of excerpts from his travel journal from March 14 till October 10, 1923 and included 59 black and white photographs which he himself had taken.”
Describing the splendor of the Suez Canal, the author writes, “Port Said, April 2: She's like a stretched melody, this long line of the Suez Canal at night. The moonlight makes the waterway appear like a wide street, a dreamy dark metaled road. The satiated earth along the Nile Valley has very quickly given narrow passage to this waterway, though drowsy, yet certainly awake, and in all other respects looking like an evening landscape, closed in on both sides of the canal. In the listening stillness the outlines of dredging machines sometimes lift themselves into the air. Or a camel rider silently whisks past, hardly seen and then swallowed by the night…The Suez Canal speaks: I want to know nothing of the politics of three continents; my presence is expansive and simple. I stretch from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, through the midst of a desert, so that the waves of the Indian Ocean lap at the piers of Europe.”
Highlighting the hostilities among different groups in Jerusalem, the author observes: “Jerusalem, April 7: Here the strong hostilities between one person and another, the strained relations, are always apparent. Jews or Arabs? Always there is some invisible scale in the air, weighing the governing voice of the street. Everything that happens, every concern affecting more than ten people, has to sort itself out within this divisive hatred, which grows remorselessly by the day. The Balfour Declaration, and again the Balfour Declaration. It is—in a quite different sense—the key to the matter in both camps. The Jews base their Jewish homeland in Palestine on this official promise, and ‘don't want to suppress the Arabs’. The Arabs will hear nothing of it, but point out, for their part, that they ‘don't want to suppress the Jews’. All this in a free Palestine, where the overall population of about 650,000 Arabs and 83,000 Jews must be governed as a single entity.”
Reflecting on Zionists and Zionism, the author states: “…April 15 …When will the Zionists grasp that they are turning one of civilization's fundamental endeavors to banality? That they evade suffering and lack the will to conquer it? And that the strongest representative of present-day Judaism is the orthodox Jew from eastern Europe, who, in his faith in God, wants only to know of God and cares for nothing else; that this Jew will be next to tread the Jewish path—if imperfectly for some time yet—because at least his longing is directed towards Jewish strength and anguish?...April 22:..It seems to me, though I speak as a Jew myself, that the Jews of today, even the eastern ones, are much further from their own ancestral nature, from their nature in David's time, than the Bedouins are. What a paradox Zionism is! Either the old Jewish nature lost its capacity to re-awaken in the Diaspora, and that certainly couldn't be done through the kind of European casuistry, newly minted and pretty shallow, that modern Zionism represents or else, the second possibility, we acknowledge the Jewish nature of today and yesterday, the Jewish social situation of today and yesterday, as that which is organic and given, and seek to construct from this a healthy Jewish reality. Then, though, every historical claim, every sentimentally stressed ‘Palestine policy’ simply falls by the wayside. Such an alternative choice is of course mere fantasy, for life actually concerns itself only with things that are organic and given.”
Describing his talk with an Arab leader in Jerusalem about Palestine, the author observes: “May 12: Today I had a conversation with Musa Kasim Pasha, leader of the Arab Movement in Palestine: ‘Palestine is an Arab land. We shall never relinquish this right or come to any agreement to divide it with other peoples. It is out of the question for a nation that has lived in and occupied a land for hundreds of years to consider any historical claim from another nation that goes back thousands of years. Every Arab child grows up with one thought: freedom. We want to be neither a Jewish homeland nor an English colony, and attempts geared towards one or other of these, or indeed both together, will win no constructive cooperation from us. Our struggle is not against Judaism, but against political Zionism and it is the fault of the Zionists if, today, the ordinary man sees Jews and Zionists as one and the same, and hatred is hurled against everything Jewish. Before the war, before political Zionism, there was no friction here in Palestine between Arab and Jewish elements. And for the future too our goal is a free Palestine, in which every race, every religion enjoys equal rights. Even Jewish immigration shall find no obstacles laid in its path, as long as it does not clash with the country's economic interests; permission or refusal for individual immigrants to have the rights of Palestinian citizenship will be subject to the pronouncement of a national assembly. Today, we know, we are still in the first stages of development. And we know, too, that we have to deal not only just with the Zionists but with England. That makes things considerably harder for us, but doesn't, even so, rule out our prospects, for we believe in the intrinsic justice of our cause.’ I have this from another source also. In the period immediately following the announcement of the Balfour Declaration, up to about a year ago, the Zionists dispensed unheard of sums, in an attempt to win over at least part of the Arab population and so prevent the world from hearing the words: ‘Palestine is an Arab country!’ This was the case anyway, for Arabs have no means of spreading propaganda in other countries and successfully combating the tendentious Zionist news services.”
On the formation of a Muslim National Party, the author observes: “A then highly influential Zionist politician, formerly private secretary to Baron James Rothschild, did indeed found a ‘Muslim National Party’, which was designed to show that large sections of the Arab population were ready to work positively on the basis of the Balfour Declaration. The party members, who were actually few in number, received payment from the Zionist treasury, in amounts that bore no relation whatever to the laughably meager success of the initiative as a whole. Now the Zionists have no more money to pay such sums to any newspapers and individuals that might approach them. And so these matters have gradually come to light.”
Reflecting on meeting an important leader of Zionist Committee, the author states: “May 13: Today I conversed with Lord Ussyskin, Chairman of the Zionist Action Committee in Palestine. This is what he said: ‘How does Zionism, in the fulfillment of its programs, hope to overcome the political obstacles, that is, the Arab counter-movement? There is no Arab movement here that has its roots in the people. What appears as such can be traced back to the purely personal actions of a number of malcontent agitators; and this 'movement' will sooner or later collapse.’ It is incredible how closely these words correspond to those of a British politician speaking of the Egyptian National Movement eight weeks ago in Cairo.”
Commenting on the background of the formation of Arab Federation, the author observes: “May 16: The Arab Federation has come into being, provisionally, that is, on paper, in London. But being merely on paper is no hindrance to such a solid movement. We should not, even so, delude ourselves: the form in which this has occurred greatly distances it from the realization of Arab wishes. It remains, essentially, a federation within the sphere of British influence and involves a particular royal family: for the father, Hussein, head of the projected Union, is King of Hijaz and Grand Sharif of Makkah; his younger, favorite son, Faysal, King of Iraq; and Abdullah, older son, Emir of Transjordan. We should probably of overestimate Hussein's influence among the Arabs; the agreement now finalized between him and England, and union of the three territories—Hijaz, Iraq and Tansjordan (Kerak)—under Makkah's hegemony, will not in the foreseeable future be seen as a legally valid transaction between the Arabs and the West. It is untrustworthy—for people are all too aware of Hussein's friendly personal feelings towards England. But the first step has, nevertheless, been taken, and it is possible that the other Arab states—Asir, Yemen, perhaps even Najd—will join. The last-named will, though, only do so on certain conditions, which would necessarily rule out any "overlordship" on Hussein's part. There are rumors circulating that Emir Abdullah is to become king of a united Cis-and Trans-Jordan entity. Unlikely. The Zionists are naturally in the greatest agitation over any such notion, especially as Abdullah is now very much seen by Palestinian Arabs, the Muslims, that is, not the Christians, as the head of the national movement in Palestine.”
Discussing the British policy about Palestine, the author states: “May 27 :.. By and large the English occupation policy in Palestine is moderate and not at all party political: it simply involves playing Zionism off against the Arab movement, and vice versa. Since there has to date been no incidence of English violence, and since England, for its part, repeatedly insists it is merely here to fulfill the terms of its League of Nations mandate, the ‘Tommies’ are nowhere near as hated as they are in Egypt. And in any case these are mostly Indian troops, with English and Irish units carrying out police duties. Finally, the Arabs of this country have, over the years, had no such experiences of the English as the Egyptians have. Moreover, in the north, in Syria, they see the harsh French bayonet-terror and are indirectly grateful, if one can use the word, to the English for the ‘tolerance’ they see in contrast to matters there. Nevertheless, the knowledge that England fostered the Balfour Declaration releases a much sharper opposition than a straightforward English colonial policy could ever have done. Zionism appears to the Arabs as a symbol of the Western will for power.”
Expounding on the roles of the British Foreign Office and the Colonial Office, the author observes: “July 5: England has two hands, a right and a left, which are not allowed to know anything about each other: the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office. While the Foreign Office concludes friendly deals with Hussein and his house, the Colonial Office supplies his principal enemy, the Emir Ibn Saud from the Najd, against all understood local guarantees and securities, arms and war materials which will then be used against the Hijaz or at times (like now, for example) also against Transjordan. There is, in fact, a counterpart to this situation, for King Hussein receives an annual, rather significant, subsidy from England based on promises England had made to the old Arabs, and he regularly puts contributions from his own income, which also has a subsidy of allocated English tax money, into the Arab movement in Palestine, which in its activities is essentially an opposition movement against England. It's naturally inconceivable that the English government has no insight into this process. One could much sooner believe that it lay in England's unadmitted interests to allow a strong Arab movement to continue to exist in Palestine and in this manner not have to make too many important concessions to the Zionists. Furthermore, with the eternally suspended situation between the two camps, the Zionists and the Arabs, the London Parliament can justify the necessity of maintaining a military force in Palestine.”
Describing his visit to Damascus, the author writes: “August 15 :..The city is teeming with the military. There are fewer real French troops than colonial troops, which are mostly Moroccans, and they stand next to the Legion Syrienne, a local volunteer troop under a French commando. At the level of encounter with the population, they offer a cunning advantage without allowing the ‘foreign hangman’ to be mentioned…August 17: Damascus is famous throughout the East for its cuisine, and most of all for its bakery sweets. Delicate luxuries infiltrate all of life here. To me, even the fanatic religiousness of Damascenes appears in this self-satisfying light: it is narrow-minded, yet not in a zealous way. They speak so willingly about ‘their’ faith, ‘their’ heritage, ‘their’ culture, with an ending note of contempt for the other mediocre Arab lands.”
Commenting on England’s policy about Egypt, the author states: “Cairo, September 7… England did in Egypt just what it had done in other lands; England had aligned itself with Egypt at the beginning of the big war, as a mark of security against the Ottoman state and later when the war came to an end and Egypt had an enervating swell of nationalism, it could not naturally remain indifferent to such a perspective when there was an obvious shift in Egyptian balance against England. For Egypt (note that it appears in the English school atlases in the delicate British rose shade) is certainly not only a rich economic region with great unquestionable future potential, Egypt is the hegemony of the eastern half of the Mediterranean, it is the Suez Canal and thereby, even if indirectly, it is the making or the unmaking of the Indian Empire, and finally, though not least in importance, the question of Egypt is also entwined with the Sudan, that missing link between north and south of the African continent.”
Reflecting on the absence of public opinion among Arabs, the author observes: “September 12: A discovery, which I had already made but had not really been able to put my finger on, now becomes clear: there is no "public opinion" among the Arabs; there is that mysterious Oriental approach which has now become evident, which tries to lobby and make specific connections which in reality don't exist, and essentially presents more burdens to carry, a casual and certainly not reliable self-detachment which is dependent on others…”
Expressing his feelings about Istanbul, the author writes: “September 25: Constantinople is neither Europe nor Orient. I know now that I don't love this city and never will and I can't rid myself of the impression that the huge forces that are at work in Turkey are just dealing with second-class material. Inflexible souls, despite all, despite ‘revolution’.”
The Unromantic Orient is an interesting read; all students of history as well as the general public can gain insights about history. The book takes the reader back in time to 20 th century and provides glimpses of post-WWI geopolitics of the Middle East viz a viz the partition of the Ottoman empire by the British and the French colonial powers. (Dr Ahmed S. Khan ( dr.a.s.khan@ieee.org ) is a Fulbright Specialist Scholar - 2017-2022)
