Book: Islam at the Crossroads
Author: Muhammad Asad
Publisher: Kitab Bhavan, 1784, Kalan Mahal, Darya Ganj, New Delhi – 110002
Reprinted: 2021
Pages: 163
Price: Rs. 289
Reviewed by Zikra Anam
Written in 1935, this brief book is primarily a call to action for Muslims in the 20th century to adhere to their own traditions rather than forsake them in favour of a Western society that is materially superior. The Muslim world was undergoing what appeared to be a complete secularisation at the time it was written. In retrospect, it’s evident that Muslims did not completely reject Islam over the past century, as Muhammad Asad had anticipated, given the emergence of international Islamic movements and even full-fledged theocracies. The Islam that has gained in recent years, however, is also not exactly the same as the one that inspired Muhammad Asad’s passion while he was alive.
I endeavoured to analyse, according to Muhammad Asad’s perceptions, that Islam is in fact at a crossroads, having to decide between moderate and radical interpretations.
In the words of Muhammad Asad, ‘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, with the result of an absolute balance and solid composure. Probably this feeling that everything in the teachings and postulates of Islam is “in its proper place” has created the strongest impression on me. There might have been, along with it, other impressions also which today it is difficult for me to analyse. After all, it was a matter of Love; and Love is composed of many things: of our desires and our loneliness, of our high aims and our shortcomings, of our strength and our weakness. So it was in my case. Islam came over me like a robber who enters a house by night; but, unlike a robber, it entered to remain for good.’
According to Muhammad Asad, Islam was a flawless architectural design that accommodated all human endeavours. Islam brought about the beginning of a new phase in human evolution. There were no vested interests, nationalism, class distinctions, churches, priesthoods, or hereditary nobles in this civilization – in fact, there were no hereditary duties at all.
Because Islamic society was founded only on religious principles from the beginning, Muhammad Asad discovered that Muslims had gradually stopped adhering to the teachings of Islam in its weakness. The cultural structure was inevitably undermined as a result of the foundations’ deterioration. A Muslim renaissance continued to be Muhammad Asad’s life’s ambition. With its examination of Muslim retreat and its audacious recommendation for restoring faith to an Islamic society beset by the assault of western technology, his book, Islam at the Crossroad, continues to astound readers today. On the contrary, spiritual despair is the root cause of the west’s insecurity, with its majesty and might serving as a defensive front.
About the author
The Author, Leopold Weiss (Muhammad Asad) was born in the Polish city of Lvov in 1900. He was the grandson of an orthodox Rabbi, and son of a lawyer. At the age of 13, he mastered Hebrew and Aramaic (an ancient Semitic language). His father desired him to become a Rabbi, but he rejected his father’s plan. By his early twenties he could write and read the German, French and Polish languages. He took to journalism and achieved quickly wide notice as an outstanding near eastern correspondent to the leading newspaper of the continent, more especially as a correspondent of Frankfurter Zeitung of Germany. His interest to study Muslim religion grew on his visits to Arab and North African counties, Traditions and the Arabic language. He also travelled to Iran, Afghanistan, and other countries and learned Persian. From there he went to Berlin through Moscow and Poland, in 1926. Here he took Muslim religion and gave himself the new name Muhammad Asad. After his reversion, he again travelled and worked throughout the Muslim world and stayed in Saudi Arabia for more than five years. Then he came to India in 1932 and settled down in Lahore (now in Pakistan). At Lahore he wrote the book namely Islam at the crossroads. Muhammad Asad was the Father of well-known cultural Anthropologist of our age, Talal Asad.
Background
When this book was written, the Islamic world had been politically, economically, and more importantly, intellectually and morally subjugated by colonial forces. When missionaries were busy evangelising (converting people to their religion) in areas where they previously would not have dared to go, they lost their reins. Only the wealthy could now afford the luxury of education, reducing the places where children used to quote Plato.
Here, misleading narratives were used to undermine economic systems and deceive political systems. Aligarh and Deoband were two responses that emerged in support of the Muslim faith in British India. Muhammad Asad’s strategy falls somewhere between Aligarh and Deoband; it isn’t about following or eschewing the western philosophical paradigm.
Outline
The fall of 1933 saw the writing of the book. In 1934, it was initially published in Delhi, and then in Lahore. In this book, he fervently urges Muslims of his generation to strive to maintain and uphold Islamic heritage rather than mindlessly adopting Western culture, social forms, and ideals. The book is divided into six chapters: The open Road of Islam, The Spirit of the West, The Shadow of the Crusades,
About Education, About Imitation, and Hadith and Sunnah
The book argued that, in contrast to other religions, Islam is not only a spiritual state of mind that can adapt to various cultural contexts, but it is also a self-sufficient cultural orbit and a social structure with distinct characteristics. The well-known injunction of the Gospels, “Give Caesar that which belong to Caesar, and give GOD which belongs to GOD” has no room in the theological structure of Islam, because Islam doesn’t admit the existence of a conflict between the moral and the socio-economic requirements of our existence. In everything there can be only one choice: the choice between Right and Wrong and nothing in between.
It contends that Muslims must decide whether to uphold their fundamental principles or give in to Western materialism and individualism. To tackle today’s issues and steer clear of mindless Western imitation, the book exhorts Muslims to re-establish a connection with the core tenets of Islam, the Quran and Sunnah.
In the book, Muhammad Asad writes: Every individual Muslim has to hold himself responsible for all happenings around him and he has to strive for the establishment of Right and the abolition of Wrong at every time in every direction. A sanction for this attitude is to be found in the Quranic verse:
كُنْتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ
“You are indeed the best community that has ever been brought forth for the virtue of mankind: you enjoin the doing of what is right and prevent the wrong doings and you have faith in GOD” (Al Quran 3:110).
This is how Islam’s aggressive activism is morally justified. In Islam, morality rises and falls with human endeavour to maintain its dominance on earth.
Asad cautions the Muslim community against blindly embracing Western customs and ideologies, particularly among its young people and future leaders. He draws attention to how Western ideologies are increasingly influencing Muslim societies and how many Muslims are experiencing an identity crisis as a result.
Asad claims, Intellectual engagement naturally leads to an Islamic worldview. And Islam is the only religion that can fulfil people’s desire for knowledge, reality awareness, and a closer relationship with God. It makes it possible for people to fulfil their dual roles as ardent servants of the Creator and stewards of the planet.
Asad asserts that while Islamic civilization is essentially religious, it also includes systems of government and social order that are all based on Islamic precepts.
The historical link between Europe and the Islamic world is further examined in the book, with special attention paid to the influence of the Crusades. According to Asad, religious strife had a profound effect on both Muslim and Christian communities, distorting how Europeans saw Islam. He contends that European scholarship, literature, and cultural expressions perpetuate a view of Islam as “the Other,” thereby influencing Western attitudes toward the religion. In addition, he argues that Western historical narratives have purposefully minimised the intellectual achievements of Islamic civilization in order to minimise its importance.
He brilliantly argues that if it weren’t for the contributions of Islamic intellectuals, the West may still be in the Dark Ages. A thorough critique of Muslim societies, especially their educational systems, is presented in the book. Asad contends that traditional Islamic knowledge is being neglected in modern Muslim educational institutions because they are merely copying their Western equivalents. He advocates for educational reform that is based on Islamic principles as opposed to blindly copying Western methods.
However, the author is not a supporter of rejecting modernity and Western accomplishments completely. Instead, he exhorts Muslims to see current events through an Islamic perspective, ignoring what is inimical to Islamic principles and embracing only what is advantageous. According to him, preserving a unique religious, cultural, and social identity based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah while actively advancing modern civilization is the secret to resurrection.
The scholarship and contributions Muhammad Asad made to Islamic literature cannot be denied. His study of Islamic sources and his interpretation of the world from an Islamic point of view continue to be among his most important intellectual contributions.
Among the last topics Asad discusses is his defence of Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ Hadith and Sunnah. He emphasises how important they are for seeking guidance, saying that denying them is equivalent to denying the foundation of Islam.
Despite his scholarly contributions, his methodology was flawed, in the respect that his approach rooted in rationalism, interprets Islam within the European enlightenment framework. In my opinion this happened because he grew up in Europe and carried geographical differences of thoughts.
During the period when the majority of Muslim societies were subject to Western colonial control, Muhammad Asad interacted with the Islamic world. The ordinary population, disillusioned, pursued Western values at the expense of their Islamic identity, while many Muslim leaders were obedient to Western objectives. Asad aimed to demonstrate that the West was not intrinsically better and was instead going through a period of moral decline. His work thus accomplishes two goals: it reminds Muslims of the importance of their religious history while also exposing the moral and social shortcomings of the West.
This book ought to be most widely circulated. It must be in the hands of every educated Muslim youth.
