A Conversation between a Jewish Convert to Islam & a Zionist

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is an adaptation of an extract from Shaykh Muhammad Asad Leopold Weiss’s (r.a.) “Road to Mecca,” and is about his conversation with Dr. Chaim Azriel Weizmann.  Shaykh Muhammad Asad (r.a.) was born Leopold Weiss, and he was also a Jew.  So, this is a conversation between two ethnic Jews, one a Muslim convert and the other, a Zionist leader. 

Shaykh Muhammad Asad (r.a.) began, “Well – how can you ever hope to make Palestine your homeland in the face of the vehement opposition of the Arabs who, after all, are in the majority of the country?” 

The Zionist leader shrugged his shoulders, and answered drily, “We expect they will not be in a majority after a few years.” 

“Perhaps so.  You have been dealing with this problem for years, and must know the situation better than I do.  But quite apart from the political difficulties which Arab opposition may or may not put in your way – does not moral aspect of the question ever bother you?  Do you not think that is wrong on your part to displace the people who have always lived in this country?” 

“But it is our country,” replied Dr. Weizmann, raising his eyebrows.  “We are doing no more than taking back what we have wrongly been deprived of.” 

“But you have been away from Palestine for nearly two thousand years!  Before that, you had ruled this country, and hardly ever the whole of it, for less than five hundred years.  Do you not think that the Arabs could, with equal justification, demand Spain for themselves – for, after all, they held sway in Spain for nearly seven hundred years, and lost it entirely only five hundred years ago?” 

Dr. Weizmann had visibly become impatient.  “Nonsense.  The Arabs had only conquered Spain; it had never been their original homeland, and so it was only right that in the end they were driven out by the Spaniards.” 

“Forgive me,” Shaykh Muhammad Asad (r.a.) retorted, “but it seems to me that there is some historical oversight here.  After all, the Hebrews also came as conquerors to Palestine.  Long before them were many other Semitic and non-Semitic tribes settled here – the Amorites, the Edomites, the Philistines, the Moabites, the Hittites.  Those tribes continued living here even in the days of kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  They continued living here after the Romans drove our ancestors away.  They are living here today. 

The Arabs who settled in Syria and Palestine after their conquest in seventh century were always only a small minority of the population; the rest of what we describe today as Palestinians or Syrian ‘Arabs’ are in reality only the Arabised, original inhabitants of the country.  Some of them became Muslims in the course of centuries, others remained Christians; the Muslims naturally inter-married with their co-religionists from Arabia. 

But can you deny that the bulk of those people in Palestine, who speak Arabic, whether Muslims or Christians, are direct-line descendants of the original inhabitants; original in the sense of having lived in this country centuries before the Hebrews came to it?” 

Dr. Weizmann smiled politely at my outburst and turned the conversation to other topics.