The Unromantic Orient by Muhammad Asad | Goodreads
Want to Read
Buy on Kobo
Rate this book
The Unromantic Orient
Muhammad Asad
4.05
64 ratings11 reviewsIn the spring of 1922, twenty-one year old Leopold Weiss received a letter from his uncle Dorian to come and live in his "delightful old Arab stone house" in Jerusalem on the fringe of the Old City near the Jaffa Gate. On a foggy morning in the summer of 1922, Leopold Weiss stood on the planks of a ship on his way to the East where he would experience his first Arab encounters as if they were a presentiment of what the future held in store for him. "It was as when you enter a strange house for the first time and an indefinable smell in the hallway dimly gives you a hint of things which will happen to you as if they are to be joyful things, and you feel a stab of rapture in your heart." After several months of travel in the Middle East, Leopold Weiss returned to Germany and published his journal entries as Unromantisches Morgenland, aus dem Tagebuch einer Reise. This first English translation of a long forgotton work recaptures his initial experiences in an unknown and intriguing land where he found a new home and a new sense of belonging. The Unromantic Orient is not only an impressionistic journal of a young man in search of certitude, it also provides insights into the spiritual transformation of Leopold Weiss who would soon convert to Islam and spend the rest of his life in studying and writing about it. The travelogue starts at the Jerusalem train station and takes us through Cairo, Amman, parts of the TransJordan, Palestine, Damascus, and Istanbul.
Genres
HistoryTravelMemoirReligionNonfictionMiddle East142 pages
First published January 1, 2004
Book details & editions
12 people are currently reading
359 people want to read
About the author
Muhammad Asad30 books588 followers
Follow
محمد أسد (ليوبولد فايس سابقاً) ولد في الإمبراطورية النمساوية الهنجارية عام 1900، وتوفي في إسبانيا عام 1992م. وهو كاتب وصحفي ومفكر ولغوي وناقد اجتماعي ومصلح ومترجم ودبلوماسي ورحالة مسلم (يهودي سابقاً) درس الفلسفة في جامعة فيينا؛ وقد عمل مراسلاً صحفياً وبعد منحه الجنسية الباكستانية تولى عدة مناصب منها منصب مبعوث باكستان إلى الأمم المتحدة في نيويورك. وطاف العالم، ثم استقر في إسبانيا وتوفي فيها ودفن في غرناطة. ويعتبر محمد أسد أحد أكثر مسلمي أوروبا في القرن العشرين تأثيراً.
لقب العائلة "فايس" اسم يعني باللغة الألمانية اللون الأبيض، وهذه إشارة واضحة للأصول الألمانية للعائلة، وكتابة „WEISS“ بتكرار حرف “ S „ في نهاية الاسم بدلا من „WEIß“ دليل واضح على الأصول اليهودية للعائلة. واسم والده "كيفا" وكان محامياً، وجده لأبيه كان حاخاماً، فهو الحاخام الأورثوذوكسي "بنيامين أرجيا فايس". وقد تولّى جده الحاخامية في "تشارنوفيتش" في منطقة بوكوفينا. درس الفلسفة والفن في جامعة فيينا ثم اتجه للصحافة فبرع فيها، وغدا مراسلاً صحفياً في الشرق العربي والإسلامي ثم زار القاهرة فالتقى بالإمام مصطفى المراغي، فحاوره حول الأديان، فانتهى إلى الاعتقاد بأن "الروح والجسد في الإسلام هما بمنزلة وجهين توأمين للحياة الإنسانية التي أبدعها الله" ثم بدأ بتعلم اللغة العربية في أروقة الأزهر، وهو لم يزل بعدُ يهودياً.
انتقل للعيش في القدس بعد تلقيه دعوة من أحد أقاربه اليهود للإقامه معه في القدس في الوقت الذي كانت فيه فلسطين تحت الانتداب البريطاني، وكتب هناك عدة مقالات مهمة أبرزت قلق العرب من. المشروع الصهيوني. ثم انخرط في دراسة متعمقة للإسلام، حتى قرر التحول من اليهودية إلى الإسلام في 1926 وهو في برلين وبعد عدة أسابيع من ذلك اعلنت زوجته إسلامها.
قام بالترحال إلى العديد من البلدان، إذ زار مصر والسعودية وإيران وأفغانستان وجمهوريات السوفييت الجنوبية. وزار عمر المختار ليبحث معه إيجاد طرق لتمويل المقاومة ضد الإيطاليين كما انتقل إلى شبه القارة الهندية التي كانت تحت الاحتلال الإنجليزي، وهناك التقى بالشاعر الكبير والمفكر محمد إقبال عام 1932 والذي اقترح فكرة تأسيس دولة إسلامية مستقلة في الهند (والتي أصبحت لاحقاً باكستان)، وقد أقنعه محمد إقبال بالبقاء والعمل على مساعدة المسلمين لتأسيس تلك الدولة.
ومع اندلاع الحرب العالمية الثانية عام 1939 اعتقل والدا محمد أسد، وقتلا في وقت لاحق في الهولوكوست على يد النازيين. كما أن محمد أسد نفسه اعتقل على يد الإنجليز وسجن ثلاث سنوات باعتباره عدواً.
فور استقلال باكستان عام 1947 وتقديراً لجهوده وتأييده لإقامة دولة إسلامية منفصلة في شبه القارة الهندية، فقد تم منح محمد أسد الجنسية الباكستانية وتم تعيينه مديراً لدائرة إعادة الإعمار الإسلامي. وفي وقت لاحق التحق بوزارة الشؤون الخارجية رئيساً لوحدة شؤون الشرق الأوسط عام 1949، ثم تقرر تعيينه بمنصب مبعوث باكستان إلى الأمم المتحدة في نيويورك عام 1952. إلا ّ أنه سرعان ما تخلى عن هذا المنصب ليتفرغ لكتابة سيرته الذاتية (حتى سن 32) الطريق إلى مكة الذي ترجم للعربية باسم (الطريق إلى الإسلام).
كان ليوبولد فايس رجل التساؤل والبحث عن الحقيقة، وكان يشعر بالأسى والدهشة لظاهرة الفجوة الكبيرة بين واقع المسلمين المتخلف وبين حقائق دينهم المشعّة، وفي يوم راح يحاور بعض المسلمين منافحاً عن الإسلام، ومحمّلاً المسلمين تبعة تخلفهم عن الشهود الحضاري، لأنهم تخلّفوا عن الإسلام ففاجأه أحد المسلمين الطيبين بهذا التعليق: "فأنت مسلم، ولكنك لا تدري !". فضحك فايس قائلاً : "لست مسلماً، ولكنني شاهدت في الإسلام من الجمال ما يجعلني أغضب عندما أرى أتباعه يضيّعونه"!!. ولكن هذه الكلمة هزّت أعماقه، ووضعته أمام نفسه التي يهرب منها، وظلت تلاحقه من بعد حتى أثبت القدر صدق قائلها الطيب، حين نطق (محمد أسد) بالشهادتين.
قام محمد أسد بعد إسلامه بأداء فريضة الحج، كما شارك في الجهاد مع عمر المختار، ثم سافر إلى باكستان فالتقى شاعر الإسلام محمد إقبال، ثم عمل رئيساً لمعهد الدراسات الإسلامية في لاهور حيث قام بتأليف الكتب التي رفعته إلى مصاف ألمع المفكرين الإسلاميين في العصر الحديث.
Show more
Friends & Following
No one you know has read this book.
Recommend it to a friend!Community Reviews
4.05
64 ratings11 reviews
5 stars
23 (35%)
4 stars
26 (40%)
3 stars
12 (18%)
2 stars
1 (1%)
1 star
2 (3%)
Search review text
Filters
Displaying 1 - 10 of 11 reviews
Nadirah837 reviews41 followers
Follow
February 19, 2024In 1922, Leopold Weiss AKA Muhammad Asad — an Austrian Jewish correspondent for Frankfurter Zeitung who later reverted to Islam in 1926 — stayed in Palestine at an invitation from his uncle. His uncle’s home at the Old City near the Jaffa Gate became his base for two years, and Asad then traveled to Cairo, Jerusalem, Amman, Damascus & Istanbul. Based on his travels, Asad wrote about his encounters in this travelogue that has only recently been translated from German, and it’s clear that this book was the start of his interest in the Arab world and Islam.
Most travelogues involving the author’s travels around Arab countries can easily devolve into Orientalism works, and this book can be described in a similar light. However, Asad has also mentioned that he called this book the “unromantic orient” as he intended to show the day-to-day realities of the lives of the Orientals he met with, and in this, he mostly succeeded. Not only did Asad go into his travels with a clear-eyed view of the geopolitics involved in the region, but he also juxtaposed his dissatisfaction and soul-searching questions against what he discovered in the countries he visited and the people he met. There were some uninformed facts within (as the translator noted, Asad got some details wrong), but aside from that, this was a riveting travelogue.
Asad’s account of his travels is also a witness to the fact that Palestine has always been the land of indigenous people who were made up of various ethnicities & tribes that have lived side-by-side together in relative peace before the Western powers decided to parcel out the Arab lands according to their own metrics & interests which resulted in a Palestinian struggle that has gone on for 75 years and counting.
While this is not Asad’s strongest book, it is still one worth reading as it acts as a prequel to the excellent “
The Road to Mecca”; you can see the seeds of thoughts in this book that he expanded upon in the latter. His analysis of geopolitics which includes the origins of the problems in Jerusalem and Palestine in general is astute and is still amazingly relevant to this day, which makes it a recommended read for me.
nonfiction translated6 likes
Like
Comment
Abu KamdarAuthor 27 books349 followers
Follow
March 8, 2023This book is brilliant if you read it from one of two angles:
1) To see what Muhammad Asad was like before he converted to Islam, so like a prequel to the Road to Mecca (one of my favorite books of all time)
2) As a description of the Muslim lands post-World War 1
6 likes
Like
Comment
Khaled Mehio49 reviews13 followers
Follow
September 2, 2018Dear Leopold Weiss,
Please take me another time to the place where no boundaries existed among my nation.
Please take me back to my people who were still yearning for unity and independence.
Let me feel another time the splendour of Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut, Cairo and Istanbul. Let me feel the beauty of the old city of Jerusalem, the marvelous houses of Damascus, the nice nature of Lebanon, the bustle and laughing essence of the people of Cairo, and the ringing sound of Azan from the minerates of Istanbul.
As I flip and read through the entries you jot down at age of twenty two in 1922, I could conceive how you got attached to the Arab people until you called on them in Istanbul: "Oh my Arab people."
Oh Weiss, I could espy how, eventhough you were a young Austrian Jew back then, you took the stance of the Arab against Zionism, defending the Arab people's right of living in their forefathers land, Palestine.
Oh Weiss, how can the reader of your 'Unromantic Orient' not foresee that the road or the path you took in 1922 would lead you to accepting a new culture and a new people as yours and get to be known as Muhammad Asad once you accepted Islam in few years to come; leaving an indispensable mark in the world until today.
4 likes
Like
Comment
sawaaiiq169 reviews26 followers
Follow
September 5, 2023What can I say about this book... It reminded me of Palestinian Walks, another beautiful book, it is a sarha (a contemplative wandering of sorts) through the Arab lands and Muhammad Asad's رحمه الله first exposure to Islam.
You feel his growing and brewing admiration of Islam as the days go on.. I recommend you read it, it is an insight that may add perspective to his autobiography, I intend to read the two parts of it soon inshaAllah, and how the political climate was changing in the age of increasing Zionism and British influence in the Muslim world, he witnesses the relationship between Muslims and Jews in Palestine in 1923 and the lifestyle of the Arabs. You can tell he is falling for an idea, a culture that seems rougher yet promises a greater sense of self and purity. It is the beginning of his journey to Islam.
I really enjoyed it, I like these types of books because I like to think during my own travels the same. As a time to contemplate and witness and observe and analyse to myself, which I wish I would consistently write down, it is a form of grounding and therapy of the mind, as if a freeing of it to attend to something outside of the self..
4 likes
Like
Comment
Seerat10 reviews
Follow
August 18, 2025” Because the foreign world is so totally different from what we know at home, because it offers so many exponential facets, we are on the verge of choosing, if we are attentive, a whiff, like a lightening flash realization, of long understood familiarities and also all that which has been forgotten in the ungraspable reality of our lives. And hardly has this overwhelming event occurred, strong and overpowering, when one asks oneself, does not perhaps therein lie, and only therein lie, the essence of every travel: to stir the foreignness of all the world and grasp it and thereby awaken our own personal forgotten realities “
” Once we halted at a small station. An Arab from the opposite end of the car dressed in European attire, who was likely a small merchant, stepped up to my open window in order to buy something from a peddler down below; bought a cake, turned around, wanted to walk back to his place, noticed me then, for we had not ever seen each other before, and without a word, quite naturally broke his cake in two, as if suddenly led by a good spirit, and offered me a ‘tfaddal’ (please) half. Now I really believe that if only one trace of my being should remain here, whether for me or for others, it would recall that a stranger would recognize a friend in another stranger, break his cake and pass half of it to him, taking a quiet and visionary step towards an unburdened humanity. ”
The book was a bit difficult for me to grasp but I still found it beautiful. And finally, now I am ready to read ‘The Road to Mecca’ !
2 likes
1 comment
Like
Comment
Introvert Insane578 reviews9 followers
Follow
July 1, 2022When I picked up this book I didn't realise it's actually travel writing. It's beautifully written and real. My favourite part...
"Muslim view their women in the same way they regard children, trying to protect what is important in order not to lose it. But it seems that that which is cherished is thereby devalued and gradually becomes a comfortable obsession. this is likely the most distressing part of Islam."
As a Muslim, there is truth and it's brutal. Considering how it took KSA a long time to let a woman drive and even in some society Muslim women are still not allowed to get education and work. This is why Muslims are still considered backwards. It's this misinterpretation of the Quran when there's nowhere in the Quran that says women cannot get education or be independent. If anything it is highly encouraged. Siti Khadijah was a successful businesswoman. Siti Aisyah was a renowned scholar. Like, why do these cultures feel the need to stifle women in the name of religion especially when Islam never promotes such thing.
2 likes
1 comment
Like
Comment
Shirin107 reviews6 followers
Follow
May 2, 2013From page 70...Muslim view their women in the same way they regard children, trying to protect what is important in order not to lose it. But it seems that that which is cherished is thereby devalued and gradually becomes a comfortable obsession. this is likely the most distressing part of islam.
Asad had later on in his life translated the Quran.
2 likes
Like
Comment
aliaareadstoo283 reviews7 followers
Follow
February 11, 2024The Unromantic Orient is a travelogue by Muhammad Asad from March 14 to October 10, 1923 - he went to Jerusalem, Cairo, Palestine, Amman, Damascus, Beirut, Alexandria then back to Cairo, Dardenelles, Constantinople and ended in Malta.
Being used to the author's writing style as I love his The Road to Mecca, it's such a delightful reading on how he described every place he went that I even looked up some on the net; Wadi el Kelt, Lubiya, Tiberias, Jesod Hamala, Smyrna - he really did bring the readers there with him. His cultural and political observations are really enjoyable to read as it was done thoroughly. There are also 32 pages of his original photos that accompanied us in this book.
Two incidents that stuck in my mind majorly:
1) He travelled few years after the Balfour Declaration, so he met with many Jewish settlers from many countries that he even asked one of them who was from Romania "I don't understand why all the young people are coming to Palestine now! Why don't you go to America?"
2) It was also the year when Transjordan was declared as an independent government so he talked about about what might be the reason that Amman was chosen as the capital city and not Es-Salt; and narrated about the "war" that took place on the southern borders of Transjordan at that time by the Bedouins of the Najd, the Wahabis. The Bedouin groups feuds and how they solved them really are something that is out of my mind.
"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."
4 likes
Like
Comment
Riatmi Ami78 reviews1 follower
Follow
January 15, 2025I read this book because I love Muhammad Asad's (Leopold Weiss) another book titled "The Road To Mecca" ( one of my fav book all of time indeed) and "The Unromantic Orient" act like it's prequel.
This travelogue written based on the author's journey to Cairo, Amman, parts of Transjordan, Palestine, Damascus, and Istanbul in 1922-1923 when he only 21-22 years old as a correspondent for Frankfurter Zeitung, a notable newspaper in Germany . As the translator (the book was originally written in Germany) said in the introduction, the books 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. I enioyed the Geopolitical issues he brought through this journey especially when it comes to the Palestine issue, the guilt of the Jews ( he was not a fan of Zionism though he himself was a Jew) and the idea of Arabs unity at the time.
Though there are some mistakes about Islam ( it was his first exposure to islamic world and he hadn't revert to be a Muslim yet) as the translator note in the book, it is definitely recommended and worth to read .
1 like
Like
Comment
books.bintulu287 reviews7 followers
Follow
May 19, 2021May 2021: The Unromantic Orient
Jerusalem, Cairo, Palestine, Amman, Damascus, Beirut, Alexandria, back to Cairo and Constantinople. What happen at these places in 1922-23? Read this book to know, from observations and opinions of a 23 year old European named Leopold Weiss. This is not a romantic travelogue but a more critical and genuine remarks.
A brief intro about the author, Muhammad Asad:
- born Leopold Weiss, 2 July 1900 in Eastern Galicia.
- Grew up in a strong Jewish background before convert to Islam in 1926
- studied History of Art and Philosophy at University of Vienna after joined Austrian army 1918-1920
….
Things that struck me is how the author noted on the attitude of the Arabs during his journey especially in Jerusalem:
“A food seller offers me his pillaf, the Arab- Turkish rice dish. I eat without concern from his common dishes, common for all the world, and don’t feel any of the disgust which, in a similar situation in Europe (in Leipzig, say), would overwhelm me; for the grace of these Arab people is evident in everything they do, and grace is never dirty.” Pg55
Thus, it got me thinking how very important to show a good akhlak to everyone. Proof that the Arabs especially the Palestinians are good hearted people, always willing to help.
The author also noted his opinion on Zionism, since during this time the Balfour Declaration was just signed, let me quote here:
“Zionism seeks “realization” here and now, to begin building the house with a roof; a homeland for the Jews! Zionism raises the backdrop to the altar; longing for Palestine takes the place of the deepest human longings. It overlooks the fact that the creation of a homeland was actually a nation’s strength, never a hospice nor a refuge in the face of suffering” pg30.
…
This book is a challenging read for me due to my lack of knowledge in history and geography, it successfully made me explore further. I’m grateful that this book (only 133+ pages) also provided useful introduction by the translator Elma Ruth Harder, chronology of Muhammad Asad’s life (which helped to understand his point of view) and photos.
I’m happy to keep this book (bought during PBAKL 2021). I hope to read it again one day and see how far I have digested the whole issue. InsyaAllah.
1 like
2 comments
Like
Comment
Displaying 1 - 10 of 11 reviews
More reviews and ratings
_Muhammad_Asad.jpg)
