Documentary on life of prominent Jewish convert to Islam
January 17th, 2007 by Zsofia
Austrian company Mischief Films has started filming a documentary about the life of Muhammad Asad, the most prominent Jewish convert to Islam in modern times. The film, Muhammad Asad — The Lion’s Journey, traces his life and journeys, and the first scenes were shot recently on the Dammam-Riyadh train and in the surrounding desert.
Born as Leopold Weiss in 1900, Asad was a descendant of a long line of rabbis in Lemberg in the Austro-Hungarian Empire which is now Lviv in Ukraine. After his conversion to Islam, he chose to be named Muhammad after the Prophet (peace be upon him). Asad is a literal translation of his first name, Leo, which means lion in Greek.
Asad converted to Islam in 1926, and documented his intellectual journey in his book “The Road to Mecca” (1952). He worked as a correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung, and apparently it was during his journalism work abroad that his intellectual curiosity about Islam was ignited.
Read the full article on Arab News
Check out the Wikipedia entry on Asad
