In the Ukrainian history there was no place for the person, by whose name are named streets and squares in many cities of the world. The person, who during his lifetime became a legend in the Islamic world and nowadays is esteemed as one of the most authoritative interpreters of the Quran and Great teachers. The person who was at the beginnings of the state of Pakistan creation. In Ukraine the name of Muhammad Asad (or Leopold Weiss – his real name) is practically unknown or it is known to insignificant circle of persons. Though this person entered his name into world history, he was born on the territory of our country and left this world already after declaration of independence of Ukraine.
Leopold Weiss was born on June, 12th, 1900, in Lviv, in a family of succeeding Jewish lawyer Charles Weiss. Leopold's grandfather was the Chernovitsky rabbi – from Sadygury, the part of Chernovtsy, located on the left bank of the Prut, which gave to the world a considerable quantity of authoritative interpreters of the Torah. But Charles Weiss did not want – contrary to patrimonial tradition – to become cleric. He chose for himself a trade of lawyer.
But small Leopold – not without influence of his grandfather – takes a great interest not in jurisprudence, but in the Torah and the Talmud studying. At 13-year-old age he is freely guided in the Tanakh, conducts discussions about disputable places in Mishna and Gemar (probably, the most difficult elements in the Talmud ). The grandfather learnt the grandson in the old manner: he pierced with a needle a certain word in the Torah roll, and Leopold had to tell by heart, what word is written on the back…
Simultaneously Leopold travels a lot together with his father: Vienna and Berlin, trips to the Alpes, on the Northern and the Baltic Seas, to the Adriatic Sea… Already at the age of 12 he writes his first essays which, however, contain hints on serious publicistic talent. Leopold is able to notice details and shows interest to research activity.
After the First World War, in 1918, Weiss's family moves to Vienna. Leopold enters faculty of history of arts of the Viennese university. However the selected profile does not involve him. He conducts active high life, while it allow his father's savings . Leopold is the habitue of fashionable Viennese cafes. Coffee and wine are his elements at this time.
In 1920 he lets his studying and leaves to Berlin. He chooses a trade of journalist and tries to subdue the capital of Germany by his talent. Youthful maximalism for long time did not find worthy embodiment. Ambitions of the young man were unreasonable. He dreamt that once he will wake up well-known … But while he had to work as the reporter in news agency, and also the assistant to the film director Fridrih Wilhelm Murnau. In particular, Weiss worked with Murnau on shootings of the most known film of the genius of mute cinema – "Nosferatu. The horror symphony" (under the novel of Bram Stoker, "Drakula").
In the end of 1921 to Berlin comes Maxim Gorkiy, Ekaterina Peshkova. She refused to give interview though in Europe there was already an image of Peshkova – defender of political victims of red terror. Many venerable journalists dreamt to talk to her. And only Leopold Weiss could do it. Nobody knows, in what way he could achieve an interview of the legendary defender. But Weiss at finally became famous! He really woke up well-known!
In the spring 1922 Weiss receives a letter from his uncle, Dorian Feygenbaum, living in Jerusalem. His uncle (one of Freud's students, practicing psychiatrist in one of the clinics of Jerusalem) suggested his nephew to come to the Middle East and to write a series of reportings from Palestine – for influential German "Frankfurter Zeitung". It could interest German and European public. The same year Leopold goes to Jerusalem.
Here he communicates much with local population. Thus he admires and respects Muslims-Arabs, more than his fellow Jews. He openly speaks about it, leading up to heart attacks his uncle and causing scandals in the orthodox Jewish environment. Zionism is criticized by Weiss as a trend deprived of morals and ethics as it did not consider interests of the Arabs in the so-called Erets-Israel. He disputes much with the leaders of Zionists Heim Weizman (subsequently the first president of the State of "Israel") and Avraam Usyshkin.
In 1923 Weiss undertakes the second travel on the East. This time by means of his friend-journalist Jacob Israel de Haan he makes a trip to Jordan where he meets the king Abdullah ibn Hussein – the actual founder of Jordan, the first king from the Hashemite dynasty, the big supporter of the Arabian-Jewish reconciliation in the Middle East. The king had sights at strategy of development of the Arabian world and the Middle East. He thought about good neighborhood of Arabs and Jews in Palestine, about Great Syria uniting Syria and Jordan, about teamwork on transformation of the Middle East into the essential factor of world politics. It is necessary to notice that later, in 1951, the king Abdullah paid for his ideas, being killed by extremists in al-Aksa mosque in Jerusalem.
Under the influence of the king of Jordan Leopold Weiss starts to study the Arabic language and the Quran. Gradually he arrives at the idea that Islam is universal and advanced religion, and Judaism – a patrimonial belief far from problems of the modern society. Thus Weiss tries to support his interest in Islam by fashionable at that time psychoanalysis theory. There is an explosive mix! The public is in delight! Weiss is suggested to give lectures in the Berlin Academy of geopolitics.
In the same time Weiss gets acquainted with an artist – a passionate fan of the East and the Arabian world. She is 15 years older than Leopold, she has almost adult son from the first marriage. But this is not a barrier for Weiss. They establish a family and in 1926 amicably convert to Islam. Later Weiss wrote, "The more there was clear to me concreteness and practicality of the Islamic doctrine, the more I was tormented by a question why Muslims stopped to use them, apply them in a life. I tried to receive the answer to this question from many conceiving Muslims, meeting them almost in all countries from Libyan desert to Pamir, from Bosporus to the Arabian Sea. This search turned for me into some kind of obsession which eclipsed as a result all my other interests to the Islamic world. It was funny: without being a Muslim yet, I talked to Muslims so as if I protected Islam from their negligence and laziness! It proceeded so until in the autumn of 1925, in the mountains of Afghanistan, one young governor told to me, "Look, you are a real Muslim, you just do not understand it!" I was amazed with his words, and I did not find what to answer him. But, when in 1926 I returned to Europe I understood that I changed and turned to an absolutely different person, and conversion to Islam by me will be a unique logical, correct and natural step. So I became a Muslim. I should admit that since then I often wondered, "Why you converted to Islam? What involved in it you personally?" I will tell fairly: I do not have any satisfactory answer. The matter is not in some concrete doctrine which involved me, but, most likely, in all delightful, unusually accurate structure of the program of moral doctrine and practical life. Even now I cannot tell, what aspect of it is pleasant to me more. Islam appears before me as a perfect work of the architect. All its parts are thought harmoniously over, as though they supplement and support each other, there is nothing superfluous or lacking in it, and as a result – absolute balance and universal structure. May be, the feeling that in the doctrine and Islam all postulates are "on their place" made upon me the greatest impression. Probably also that I also was occupied by other feelings, but today it is difficult for me to analyze them. Eventually, belief is the matter of love, and the love includes much: our desires, our loneliness, our high aims and aspirations, our lacks, our power and our weakness. Islam came to me as the robber comes at night to the house, but unlike it, it came to stay for ever".
Leopold not only converts to the new religion, but also gets a new name. Henceforth he is Muhammad Asad! And first of all the new convert into Islam undertakes Hajj to Makkah. On the way to the spiritual centre of all Muslims the wife of Asad dies. He buries her, sends his stepson to Berlin and continues his travel in loneliness. Already a bit later, having performed Hajj, Leopold decides to marry a daughter of one of the Arabian sheikhs. At the same time he gets acquainted with the king of Saudi Arabia, Abd al-Aziz, and some time lives at the court of the king, carrying out his important and confidential orders.
In the 30th Asad gets to disgrace of the king and leaves Saudi Arabia. He lives in India, adjoins revolutionary movement, gets acquainted with radicals like Bala Tilak and moderate figures like Mahatma Gandi. Eventually he helps his friend Muhammad Ikbal to edit the newspaper in the Urdu language (which Asad learnt fast and deeply). Ikbal – the poet and the philosopher, the politician, one of the founders of the state of Pakistan, the author of a famous expression "the policy without religion is a way to tyranny" – had huge influence on outlook of Asad. Muhammad Asad acts at this time with political statements, criticizes the policy of Britain concerning India, publishes interpretation of the Quran in English, he is considered one of the deepest experts on Islam. It raises his authority in the new society.
In days of the Second World War, Asad, as the German citizen, was interned, however, in 1943 he was in freedom. Struggle against English sovereignty after the World War ended with formation of two new states – India and Pakistan.
Close friend of Asad, the lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinna, becomes the actual head of the new state (for the present in the rank of the governor general). He achieves that Asad was included into the government of the Muslim league – a temporary management of Pakistan. However in a year Jinna dies of tuberculosis. His successor Liakat Ali Khan was killed in 1951. Asad plays an important role – he is put forward on a position of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan. However the new governor general Hodzha Nazimuddin decides that it is necessary to send Asad far away from Islamabad. As soon as in 1951 Pakistan officially proclaims independence, Muhammad Asad goes as the representative of Pakistan at the United Nations Organization.
Asad used a tribune of the United Nations for struggle with Zionism and with the State of "Israel" (though there is data that he repeatedly secretly met Zionists and official representatives of "Israel"). He deserved a glory of the irreconcilable enemy of Jews that was especially strange, considering his origin.
In 1954 Asad in New York gets acquainted with the young girl from the Polish family. He – since his childhood perfectly knowing the Polish language – decides to marry a new beloved. The girl converts to Islam. Former wife Asad is sent to her father to Saudi Arabia. It became scandalous. In addition to it in Pakistan east separatists tried to separate from Pakistan and to form the state of Bangladesh, the leapfrog of prime ministers led to that founding fathers were gradually forced out by younger pragmatists, in the Constituent assembly were conducted discussions about the Constitution project, and the country prepared for introduction of the post of the president…
Scandal with the third marriage, loss of political weight – all it led to that Asad voluntary resigned from the representative of Pakistan at the United Nations and left to Spain. In New York were published his memoirs "The Way to Makkah", translated into variety of languages of the world. Already in Spain he writes a number of works about influence of laws of Shariat on functioning of the states of new type. Merits of Asad were estimated, and he becomes the professor of Cairo university.
Asad sometimes was recollected in the USSR – especially during the struggle with Zionism in the 70th of the last century. He was referred to as an authoritative source. But nothing more. On February, 20th, 1992, 91-year-old Muhammad Asad – or Leopold Weiss – died in the Spanish city of Grenada, in his own house, remaining for the rest of his life the enemy of Zionism and the State of "Israel". However, no one knows till now, if Asad was sincere in his enmity in relation to "Israel"...
Ukraine is the Motherland of this politician, one of the founders of Pakistan. Ukraine, unfortunately, is a state which hastened to forget that on its land was born such an extraordinary person… By the name of Asad is named one of central squares of Vienna. But in Ukraine there is no street, no square of Muhammad Asad. However, in the Ukrainian history it happens pretty often. He is the only?
By "Profile" magazine
