The Message of The Quran : By Leopold Weiss [Muhammad Asad]

29Oct/092

‘The Message of The Qur'an’, has been acclaimed as one of the best, if

not the best, translations of the Quran into English. It is a

translation and brief commentary by ‘Leopold Weiss’ [Muhammad Asad] on

the Muslim holy book based on his own knowledge of classical Arabic

and on the authoritative classical commentaries. ,although it has been

criticised by some traditionalists for its Mutazilite leanings. The commentary on the Sahih Bukhari, is the most authoritative collection

of Hadith. In addition, he wroteThis Law of Ours where he sums up his

views on Islamic law and rejects decisively the notion of ‘Taqlid’, or

strict judicial precedent which has been accepted as doctrine by most

Muslim sects except the Salafis. He also makes a plea for rationalism

and plurality in Islamic law, which he sees as the true legacy of the

salaf or earliest generations of Muslim.

‘Leopold Weiss’ was born in 1900 in what was then Austro-Hungarian

Lwów in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Lviv in Ukraine; he died

1992. He was Jew who converted to Islam to become a great scholar. He

was a descendant of a long line of rabbis. However, his father was a

barrister. He received a thorough religious education. He was

proficient in Hebrew from an early age and was also familiar with

Aramaic. He studied the Old Testament, as well as the text and

commentaries of the Talmud, the Mishna and Gemara. Furthermore, he

delved into the intricacies of Biblical exegesis, the Targum. So,

after abandoning university in Vienna, Asad (or Weiss, as he was then

called) had drifted aimlessly around 1920s Germany, even working

briefly for the expressionist film director Fritz Lang.

His travels and sojourns through Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran (he

wrote many insightful articles on Shiism), and also Afghanistan and

the southern Soviet Republics, were viewed with great suspicion by the

Colonial Powers. One English diplomat in Saudi Arabia described him in

a report as a "Bolshevik", and it is true that he took a close

interest in the many liberation movements that were active at this

time with the aim of freeing Muslim lands from colonial rule. He ended

up in India where he met and worked alongside Dr.Muhammad Iqbal, the

poet-philosopher, who had proposed the idea of an independent Muslim

state in India, which later became Pakistan.

The Message of The Qur'an’, E-Book, can be downloaded in pdf , 8 MB

file, from link:

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0Qfx8dX9TCvODZiNTEyMGYtMjQ2ZS00OTUyLWEyM2EtNWI3NTFhYWVlMmMz&%20%20hl=en

Blog Post-The Message of The Quran by M Asad: http://wp.me/pCgrB-hi

RJHouston
November 3rd, 2009 - 18:57

I have the printed version of this amazing book….yes all 11 pounds of it.
This digital version is portable and much easier to read and will be a great help.
Thanks.
Le Mystique
November 4th, 2009 - 21:41

Very interesting. Its great to get the link to Asad’s translation of Quran. I have downloaded it. I have heard about Mutazalites few times but I don’t quite get what their ideology was… Upon reading the wikipage of Mutazalites helped a bit. It says “Because of this belief, Mu’tazilis tend to interpret passages of the Qur’an farther from their literal meanings than other Muslims, a practice frowned upon by many Sunni scholars. The theology of the Mu’tazilis concerning the nature of God has influenced Shi’a Islam, and has been partly integrated into the theology of the Imami Shiism”.