His grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi. His parents were Jews, writer and journalist, thinker and linguist, social critic, reformer and diplomat Leopold Weiss. This was his name before the adoption of Islam. How did a young man immersed in the Talmud become one of the greatest defenders of Islam? Muhammad Assad is the name he chose for himself. Where the story really begins. He was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1900. By the age of 13 he mastered Hebrew and was immersed in Torah and Talmud. He studied philosophy and art at the University of Vienna, but left in the early 1920s and moved to Berlin, where he joined intellectual circles fascinated by the East. He turned to journalism, excelled in it, and became a reporter throughout the Arab and Muslim world. In Cairo he discussed religions with Imam Mustafa al-Margi, where he became convinced that in Islam, the body and the soul are the two pillars of life created by God. Although he was still Jewish, he began studying Arabic at Al-Azhar. In 1922 a Jewish relative invited him to live in Jerusalem under the British mandate. There he published a series of articles warning the Arabs against the plans of the Jewish immigrants, which they called anti-Semitic. He was a man driven by questions and a search for the truth, concerned about the gap between the decline of Muslims and the brilliance of their faith. One day he found himself defending Islam to Muslims. I was shocked by someone's response: "You are a Muslim". You just don't know it. He visited Omar al-Mukhtar to discuss financing the resistance against the Italians and joined the struggle himself. It later moved to the Indian subcontinent under British rule. There, in 1932, he had a fateful meeting with the philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, who convinced him to stay for a greater cause. Help build an independent Islamic state of Pakistan.

His grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi. His parents were Jews, writer and journalist, thinker and linguist, social critic, reformer and diplomat Leopold Weiss. This was his name before the adoption of Islam. How did a young man immersed in the Talmud become one of the greatest defenders of Islam? Muhammad Assad is the name he chose for himself. Where the story really begins. He was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1900. By the age of 13 he mastered Hebrew and was immersed in Torah and Talmud. He studied philosophy and art at the University of Vienna, but left in the early 1920s and moved to Berlin, where he joined intellectual circles fascinated by the East. He turned to journalism, excelled in it, and became a reporter throughout the Arab and Muslim world. In Cairo he discussed religions with Imam Mustafa al-Margi, where he became convinced that in Islam, the body and the soul are the two pillars of life created by God. Although he was still Jewish, he began studying Arabic at Al-Azhar. In 1922 a Jewish relative invited him to live in Jerusalem under the British mandate. There he published a series of articles warning the Arabs against the plans of the Jewish immigrants, which they called anti-Semitic. He was a man driven by questions and a search for the truth, concerned about the gap between the decline of Muslims and the brilliance of their faith. One day he found himself defending Islam to Muslims. I was shocked by someone's response: "You are a Muslim". You just don't know it. He visited Omar al-Mukhtar to discuss financing the resistance against the Italians and joined the struggle himself. It later moved to the Indian subcontinent under British rule. There, in 1932, he had a fateful meeting with the philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, who convinced him to stay for a greater cause. Help build an independent Islamic state of Pakistan.