As is now known,
Maryam Jameelah, formerly Margaret Marcus, passed away into the stage past her
earthly sojourn of 78 years on 31st October 2012. Muslims privileged to have
known her and her contributions, will mourn her passing with the ‘To God we belong and to Him is our return’ refrain
on their lips, their hearts. Her life, first lived out as a typical American
teenager of Jewish parentage, then through the hallways of a troubled
adolescence and youth that saw her through brief periods at institutions for
mental health, her discovery of Islam and her migration to Pakistan to settle
down to the life of an Asian wife and mother and last, but not the least, her
prolific writings on Islam through numerous books and booklets – all cannot
fail in casting a spell of awe and admiration in even her most vociferous
critics who can always disagree with her, but whom they cannot ignore.
A fourth generation American with
German-Jewish roots, Maryam Jameelah was born as Margaret Marcus in 1934 CE in
New York at the height of the Great Depression. Brought up in Westchester, a
prosperous suburb of that city, hers was an entirely secular American education
at the local public schools. An above-average student at school, she soon developed into a passionate intellectual
and insatiable bibliophile, whom it was difficult to spot without a book in
her hand. Even at school, her readings
went far beyond the needs of the prescribed curriculum. With adolescence,
however, she stayed away from all frivolities, which she held in contempt, her
main interests now centering on religion, philosophy, history, anthropology,
sociology and biology. Indeed, the school and local public libraries and later,
the New York public library, became, as it were, her ‘second home.’
Graduating from secondary school in 1952, she
joined New York University where she studied a general liberal arts program. It
was while she was a student at the university, that she became severely ill in
1953. Her condition deteriorated steadily forcing her to discontinue college
two years later without obtaining her diploma. Confined to private and public
hospitals for two years (1957-59), she lived through – and survived – a period
of great trauma and stress. Only after she was finally discharged from hospital
did she discover her talent for writing.
Like the other famous Western Jewish convert
to Islam, Muhammad Asad (formerly Leopold Weiss), Maryam Jameelah first became
interested in Islam through a
fascination with everything Arab. Reading all the books about Arabs she
could find in her early youth, she also fell in love with the recordings of Umm
Kulthum.
Most of these books
that she followed in her youth were, however, written by Orientalists or
missionaries and, even at that early stage of her life, presented to her a very
negative view which she felt was unjustified. It was only years later that she
came to know of the Qur’an through the English translation done by the British
convert, Marmaduke Pickthall, which, in turn, inspired in her the desire to
convert to Islam. Along with Marmaduke Pickthall’s translation of the Qur’an,
Muhammad Asad’s two books – his autobiographical The Road to Makkah and Islam at the Crossroads also proved instrumental
in generating her interest in Islam.
The Road to Makkah inspired
her ‘desire to live in a Muslim country’ and Islam at the Crossroads ‘determined
her entire literary career.’ Her vast readings in Islam helped her to develop
an intimate bond with Islam. She became a vocal spokesperson for the faith, defending Muslim beliefs against Western
criticism and championing such causes as that of the Palestinians. Of
course, her views created much tension in her personal life, but she continued
to pursue her cause. Through her regular correspondence with prominent Muslims
of the time, and her close friendship with some Muslims in New York, she eventually embraced Islam in 1961,
at the Islamic Mission in Brooklyn, New York.
Jameelah became acquainted with the writings
of Sayyid Abul A`la Mawdudi, and there commenced a regular exchange of letters
between the two which lasted two years. In the spring of 1962, Mawdudi invited
Maryam Jameelah to leave America for Pakistan. Having accepted this offer, she
found herself, a year later, not only in Lahore, but also happily married to
Mohammed Yusuf Khan, a member of the Jama`at-e-Islami.
Like most revivalist
thinkers of the past century, Maryam Jameelah’s hatred of atheism and
materialism – whether of the past or the present – is particularly severe. In
her search for transcendental truths, she sees Islam as the most comprehensive
and satisfying explanation of the highest Reality. From this premise, her
exposition of the real danger that confronts Muslim culture and civilization
today is, at once, precise and incisive. In her Westernization
and Human Welfare, she wrote:
“All over the world today,
contemporary white imperialism in its economic and cultural forms, dangles the
Golden Prize before the non-white, non-Europeans, the teeming masses of the
‘poor’ in the ‘underdeveloped’ ‘Third World.’ The Golden Prize is nothing less
than total annihilation into the mainstream of Western culture with its
irresistible advantages of entertainments, mobility and unlimited opportunities
for status-seeking. This Golden Prize the white man dangles before the
non-European, has produced in every indigenous society, an elite of native
collaborators who for the sake of quick profits ignore the long-range welfare
of their people.”
She also wrote:
“Western civilization is not
the first materialistic culture in history. In its secularization, it is not at
all unique although because of the weapons of science and technology, it maybe
the most powerful and widespread. The record of history shows that human
civilizations have revolved in a cylindrical pattern between sensuousness and
idealism and whenever an extreme is reached by either, there always comes a
sharp reaction pulling in the opposite direction. In their revolt against their
elders, modern youth is also revolting against excessive materialism, excessive
preoccupation with technology and its applications. In America, young people by
the hundreds are fleeing from their comfortable urban homes to establish
‘communes’ in the rural countryside where work and craftsmanship are all done
by hand. They are revolting above all else against the ‘artificiality’ of
modern life and seeking an unspoiled environment closer to nature. These
rebellious youth are seeking transcendental truth although they unfortunately
do not know where to find it.”
However, her first disillusionment with the
revivalists coincided, fortunately or otherwise, with her being impressed
greatly – at least initially – with the works of Fritjhof Schuon. For, to her
then, the writings of his school were alone in emphasizing the necessity of
beauty and Islamic art, in strongly condemning industrialism and modern science
and in upholding traditional orthodox Islamic civilization in every aspect of a
Muslim’s life. Schuon’s writings would remain her most treasured books for
quite a while. Her later disenchantment with Schuon notwithstanding, other
contemporary writers of the same genre like Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Martin
Lings continued to fascinate her for, in her own words,
“…more profound criticism of
Western philosophy, science and technology is not found among any of the
revivalist writers. Martin Lings’ Seerah is, by far, the best in English – based
entirely on the Qur’an and Hadith.”
The 20th century
French philosopher, Rene Guenon, however, occupies a special place in Maryam
Jameelah’s education. In her view, few modern writers attacked modern
civilization and all that it represents as vigorously and successfully as did
Rene Guenon. His proofs for the cyclic, his proofs against progress, the
decisive and irrefutable nature of his all-out attack on evolutionism and
progressionism – all render the other figures of Islamic revivalism mere
pygmies in comparison to him. Indeed, to quote Maryam Jameelah from her special
interview granted to the Young Muslim Digest,
in 2005:
“No sensitive, intelligent mind
can study Rene Guenon’s Crisis of the Modern World and Reign
of Quantity and Signs of the Times without being changed
forever.”
She found it hard to stomach the WTC attacks
of 11 September 2001, and the subsequent American ‘War on Terror’ policy
program. Critical of the whole policy and its associated propaganda, she
believed that USA under President Bush had engaged in an all-out war on Islam:
the same colonialism and imperialism as the British and French employed a
century ago.
Deborah Parker who
wrote a recent – but, for all her academic labour, ultimately a faulty –
biography of Maryam Jameelah entitled The Convert nevertheless
commented in an obituary on the occasion of the latter’s passing that:
“Maryam was ever aware that
life was a journey. She had once scolded her parents for being focused on the
scenery, anticipating with pleasure their next cocktail hour or hand of bridge.
They had scarcely considered where life might be taking them. She told them she
was different. She needed to get to the absolute heart of things and it was
this restless desire that drew me to her, though our differences were numerous
and profound. To get to this place, she constantly reminded herself that she
might die at any moment and would have to answer for the life she had lived. To
achieve something enduring with the gifts God had provided her was her dream.
Only then could she be sure that she had not squandered her life, dishonored
her limited time on earth by meaningless pursuits or sinful behavior. She
planned to give a good account of herself. I think she will.”
Until her death on 31 October 2012, Maryam
Jameelah resided at Sant Nagar in Lahore, Pakistan, and continued to write on
Islamic thought, culture and civilization. Some of her major published works
include the following:
·
–
Modern Technology and the Dehumanization of Man,
·
–
Westernization and Human Welfare,
·
–
Western Imperialism Menaces Muslims,
·
– Why I Embraced Islam,
·
–
Islam Face to Face with the Current Crisis,
·
–
Islam and Modern Man,
·
–
Islam and Our Social Habits,
·
–
Islamic Culture in Theory and Practice,
·
–
Islam and the Muslim Woman Today,
·
–
Islam Versus the West,
·
–
Correspondence Between Mawlana Mawdudi and Maryam Jameelah,
·
–
Two Mujahideen of the Recent Past and their Struggle for Freedom Against
Foreign Rule,
·
–
Is Western Civilization Universal?
·
–
Sheikh Hassan al-Banna and the Ikhwan al-Muslimoon,
·
–
The Generation Gap: Its Causes and Consequences,
·
–
Westernization Versus Muslims, and
·
–
Islam versus the Ahl al-Kitab: Past and Present.
.
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