Timeline of Muhammad Asad's life

This article enlists the events in the life of Muhammad Asad (2 July 1900 - 20 February 1992).

1900s

• 1900: Born on 2 July 1900 in the town of Lemberg, Galicia then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Lemberg is now the city of Lviv, Ukraine). Birth name, Leopold Weiss.

1910s

• 1914: The Weiss family domiciled in Vienna.
• 1914-1917: School attendance in Vienna.
• 1917-1918: School attendance in Chernivtsi.
• 1918-1920: Studied at the University of Vienna.
• 1919: Amalia Weiss, Leopold Weiss's mother, died at the age of 43.

1920s

• 1920-1922: Left Vienna for Berlin to seek a career in journalism. There he first met the paintress and his future wife Elsa Schiemann.
• 1922: Weiss's maternal uncle, Dorian Feigenbaum, invited him to visit Jerusalem. He accepted the invitation, arriving in Egypt by ship and then in Palestine by train.
• 1922-1923: First trip to the Orient: Egypt, Palestine, Transjordan (region), Syria and Turkey.
• 1923-1927: Employee of the Frankfurter Zeitung.
• 1924: Published a travelogue titled Unromantisches Morgenland. Aus dem Tagebuch einer Reise (The Unromantic Orient).
• 1924-1926: Second trip to the Orient: Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Persia and Afghanistan.
• 1926: Leopold Weiss converted to Islam in Berlin, and adopted the name Muhammad Asad.
• 1927: New contracts with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Kölnische Zeitung and the De Telegraaf.
• 1927: Official change of religion in Cairo and marriage to Elsa Schiemann in accordance with the Islamic law.
• 1927: First pilgrimage to Mecca. There his wife Elsa Schiemann died of Malaria in June.
• 1927-1932: Asad stayed in the area of today's Saudi Arabia; he was a close confidant of King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud.

1930s

• 1930: Marriage to Munîra bint Husayn ash-Shammarî.
• 1932: Birth of his son Talal Asad. Left Saudi Arabia with his wife and his son.
• 1932: Arrived at Karachi by ship.
• 1932-1939: Stay in British Raj.
• 1934: Met poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal who advised him to abandon his travels and “to remain in India to help elucidate the intellectual premises of the future Islamic State.”
• 1934: Published his first book after conversion titled Islam at the Crossroads.
• 1935-1938: Visit to Kashmir. Five instalments, called Sahih Al-Bukhari: The Early Years of Islam, of Asad's translation and commentary on the famous Islamic hadith collection Sahih al-Bukhari were published.
• 1937-1938: Editor of Islamic Culture. The Hyderabad Quarterly Review from January 1937 till October 1938 under the name of Muhammad Asad-Weiss.
• 1939: Travelled to Europe (London); tried to save his father, his stepmother and his sister from the Nazi threat. His brother Heinrich Weiss left for Palestine.
• 1939-1945: Interned by British Government as an enemy alien during World War II. At that time he still had an Austrian passport.

1940s

• 1942: His efforts to save his family from Nazi Germany failed. His father Karl Weiss, his stepmother Bertha Weiss and his sister Rachel Weiss were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Karl Weiss died there in the very same year.
• 1944: Bertha and Rachel Weiss were first relocated to the Auschwitz concentration camp and subsequently to another concentration camp in Stuttgart (Germany). Both died there before the end of World War II.
• 1945: Released from internment in August 1945.
• 1945-1947: Asad stayed with his wife and son in Dalhousie, India.
• 1946-1947: Asad published his journal Arafat: A Monthly Critique of Muslim Thought.
• 1947: Partition of India and establishment of Pakistan; Asad and his family had to flee from Dalhousie because it has become a part of the new India. They moved to Lahore.
• 1947: Asad became director of the Department of Islamic Reconstruction in the new state of Pakistan.
• 1948: Published his proposals for Pakistan's first constitution under the title Islamic Constitution-Making.
• 1949: Joined Pakistan Foreign Office.

1950s

• 1952-1959: Resided (inter alia) in New York, Badenweiler (Germany), Beirut and Lahore.
• 1952: Sent to New York City as Pakistan’s minister plenipotentiary to the United Nations.
• 1952: Got a divorce from his wife Munîra bint Husayn ash-Shammarî in accordance with the Islamic law.
• 1952: Married Pola Hamida Kazimirska, a Polish American convert to Islam, in New York.
• 1952: Resigned from diplomatic service.
• 1954: Published his autobiography, The Road to Mecca.
• 1959-1964: Resided in Switzerland.

1960s

• 1960: Began work on his translation of the Quran.
• 1961: Published his book The Principles of State and Government in Islam.
• 1964-1983: Moved to Tangier, Morocco to settle in a comfortable environment and work on his translation.

1970s

• 1974: Even before his translation was published in full, it was banned in Saudi Arabia.
• 1978: His former wife Munîra bint Husayn ash-Shammarî died in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

1980s

• 1980: Published his Quranic translation under the title The Message of The Qur'an.
• 1983-1987: Resided in Portugal.
• 1987: Published a collection of his writings and speeches in book form titled This Law of Ours and Other Essays.
• 1987-1992: Asad spend his remaining years with his third wife, Pola Hamida Asad, at his villa, named Dar al-Andalus, in the mountains of Mijas, Spain.

1990s

• 1992: Died in Andalusia, Spain on 20 February at the age of 91. Buried in a Muslim cemetery in Granada, a former Moorish province.

Sources

Asad, Muhammad (1980). The Road to Mecca (4th rev. ed.). Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae. ISBN 9781887752374.

Asad, Muḥammad (2009). Muḥammad Asad Banda-e-Sehrai (in Urdu). Lahore: The Truth Society. ISBN 9789699363009.

Windhager, Günther (2002). Leopold Weiss alias Muhammad Asad: Von Galizien nach Arabien 1900–1927 (in German). ISBN 9783205993933.