MIDWAY

Muhammad Asad
Journey Narration
• Left Hail- on way to Medina
• Mansur- a handsome, pleasant companion is
added.
• 'First fell in love with the Arabs, and then with
their faith. – the gist of journey narration.
• Social principles of Islam- Muslim men marry
Christian women but Muslim women are not
allowed.
 journey narration
• . Outstanding Sheikh Mustafa Almaraghi,

• they are like those sacred cows in India which,, eat up all the
printed paper they can find in the streets ... Yes, they gobble up all
the printed pages from books that have been written centuries ago,
but they do not digest them. They no longer think for themselves;
they read and repeat, read and repeat - and the students who
listen to them learn only to "read and repeat, generation after
generation.'
 Sheikh Mustafa Almaraghi,

• Nothing could be more erroneous than to

measure the potentialities of Muhammad’s

message by the yardstick of present day

Muslim-life and thought- .

 Western blind notion
• so many erroneous views about Islam itself
were prevalent throughout the West?
• Unholy mixture of desert fanaticism
• Grass sensuality
• Superstition and fatalism
• Prevents its adherents from participating in
man kind’s advance towards social reforms.
Striving after
knowledge is a most sacred
duty for every Muslim, man
and woman.
God creates no disease without creating a cure for it as well.
• We create every living thing out of
water

• (they began to study living organisms and laws of

their development)
 The Quran pointed to the
harmony of the stars and
their movements as
witnesses of their Creator's
glory
• If anybody proceeds on his way in search of
knowledge, God will make easy for him the
way to paradise : that the scientists walk in the
path of God that the superiority of learned
over the pious is like the superiority of the
moon when it is full, over the stars and that
the ink of a scholar is more precious than the
blood of a martyr.
Cleanliness is a part of faith.

Epidemics in Europe
• The writer started learning Arabic at Al-Azhar
• French visa had been arranged by the
Frankfurter Zeitung, 1 was able to see Syria
again..
• Damascus-Baghdad route, with Armenian
driver- met Zayed who offered services.
• at Baghdad met with Ibrahim, a servant-guide
• In Baghdad, coincidental meeting with Zayed
who saved his life
• Reached Iran with Ibrahim. For nearly
eighteen months 1 wandered through the
length and breadth of that strangest of all
lands, Iran
• For over six months 1 rode on through the
wi1d mountains and steppes of Afghanistan:
• IT SO HAPPENED, Mansur, that the
understanding of how Muslims lived brought
me daily closer to better understanding
of Islam. Islam was always uppermost in my
mind .
• we, poor fools, ask questions and wait for the
secrets of God to open themselves up to us:
when they, are waiting for us to open
ourselves up to them •..