I conceived from the outset a strong objection to Zionism. I considered it immoral that immigrants should come from abroad with the avowed intention of attaining to majority in the country and thus to dispossess the people whose country it had been since time immemorial.
Muhammad AsadBut who, except God, can say whether a man is right or foolish if he follows the call of his conscience?
Muhammad AsadI do not feel that the West has really become less condescending toward foreign cultures than the Greeks and Romans were: it has only become more tolerant. Mind you, not toward Islamโonly toward certain other Eastern cultures, which offer some sort of spiritual attraction to the spirit-hungry West and are, at the same time, too distant from the Western world-view to constitute any real challenge to its values.
Muhammad Asad...the Muslims of recent times had fallen very short indeed of the ideals of their faith, ...nothing could be more erroneous than to measure the potentialities of Muhammad's message by the yardstick of present-day Muslim life and thought - just as he [Shaykh Mustafa al-Maraghi] said, 'it would be erroneous to see in the Christians' unloving behavior toward one another a refutation of Christ's message of love...'
Muhammad Asad