Allama Muhammad Asad, Grandson of a Jewish rabbi (Lwöw, Austria, 12.7.1900_Malaga Spain 20.02.1992). Author of "Islam at the Crossroads"_1932, Road to Makkah _ 1954. Came to India 1932. Met Allama Iqbal, who sent him to Pathan kot to meet Maulana Maudodi to workout a system for an upcoming independent Muslim state in India. Here is an extract from his book "Home Coming of the Heart"
"After a few weeks of idleness and strolling about, I became tired the unceasing... bustle of Lahore. And so it came about that one day I went, alone, by train to the small town of 'Sialkot' near the border of Jammu State and onwards by car into the foothills below Kashmir. A friend had arranged for me a dak bungalow on the road to Srinagar.
In afternoon of the second day I went for a long walk on the hill roads. The air was pleasantly cool, tiny flowers grew in abundance on the hill sides, all was peace and quiet and I went on and on until I began to feel hungry and thought of returning to the dak bungalow and a ready dinner. Suddenly, the scent of roasting meat came to my nostrils; I heard voices. Was there a village around the hill? _perhaps a tavern where one could get the delicious Punjabi kebabs which I liked so much and which, as the pleasant aroma promised, were now being prepared for occasional wayfarers like myself?
I went around the bend of the road and circumvented a low hill, ,, and there it was, the source of the scent of kebabs _and I stood stock-still. . . . .
A great pyre of burning woods sent it's fiery tongues up into the afternoon air. In the midst of the flames lay a dead body, already blackened, with the bones already bared : a funeral pyre. A small group of people stood around, a priest chanted a mournful incantations, and the smell of burning flesh lay heavy in the still air :a Hindu funeral. . . .
I turned around and went back as fast as I could towards my bungalow, and thought of how horrifying it must be to see one's dear ones being roasted, and being burned to ashes. But then, I was not a Hindu, and I had a different perception of life and death _as different from theirs as day is from night.
And this was the first time that I came face to face with the Hindu religion.
"After a few weeks of idleness and strolling about, I became tired the unceasing... bustle of Lahore. And so it came about that one day I went, alone, by train to the small town of 'Sialkot' near the border of Jammu State and onwards by car into the foothills below Kashmir. A friend had arranged for me a dak bungalow on the road to Srinagar.
In afternoon of the second day I went for a long walk on the hill roads. The air was pleasantly cool, tiny flowers grew in abundance on the hill sides, all was peace and quiet and I went on and on until I began to feel hungry and thought of returning to the dak bungalow and a ready dinner. Suddenly, the scent of roasting meat came to my nostrils; I heard voices. Was there a village around the hill? _perhaps a tavern where one could get the delicious Punjabi kebabs which I liked so much and which, as the pleasant aroma promised, were now being prepared for occasional wayfarers like myself?
I went around the bend of the road and circumvented a low hill, ,, and there it was, the source of the scent of kebabs _and I stood stock-still. . . . .
A great pyre of burning woods sent it's fiery tongues up into the afternoon air. In the midst of the flames lay a dead body, already blackened, with the bones already bared : a funeral pyre. A small group of people stood around, a priest chanted a mournful incantations, and the smell of burning flesh lay heavy in the still air :a Hindu funeral. . . .
I turned around and went back as fast as I could towards my bungalow, and thought of how horrifying it must be to see one's dear ones being roasted, and being burned to ashes. But then, I was not a Hindu, and I had a different perception of life and death _as different from theirs as day is from night.
And this was the first time that I came face to face with the Hindu religion.
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