(Rolf Freiherr (baron) von Ehrenfels is the only son of Prof.
Dr. Baron Christian Ehrenfels, who is known as the founder of
Gestalt psychology all over the world. He belongs to a well-known
family. He was only a small child when he felt a growing concern
for the orient and began to study the Islamic religion. His sister
Imma von Rodmesrhof writes about this inclination of her brother's
in detail in a book of hers, which was published in Lahore in
1953. At a very young age, Rolf travelled in Turkey, in Albania,
in Greece, and in Yugoslavia, and joined prayers in mosques although
he was a Christian. Eventually, the warm feelings of closeness
that he had been harbouring towards Islam resulted in his embracing
Islam in 1927, from then on he chose the name 'Umar for himself.
In 1932 he visited India, and published a book entitled 'The Place
of Woman in Islam'. When the Germans invaded Austria during the
Second World War, Rolf fled to India. Accepted and supported by
Akbar Haydar, he carried on anthropological studies in Assam,
was appointed as a professor of anthropology for the University
of Madras in 1949, and was awarded with a gold medal by the 'Royal
Asiatic Society', which was located in Bengal. His books were
also published in the Urdu language.)
You ask me why I became a Muslim. In the following lines I shall
give an account of the factors that formed the cause of my becoming
a Muslim and realizing that Islam is a true religion:
1) Islam contains the good aspects of all the world's religions
known to us. All religions are intended for men's living in peace
and tranquillity. Yet no other religion has managed to teach it
to people as explicitly as Islam does. No other religion has been
successful in imbuing with such deep love towards our Creator
and towards brothers of the same faith.
2) Islam enjoins a perfect submission to Allahu ta'ala in a mood
of peace and tranquillity.
3) A retrospective look into history will automatically expose
the fact that the Islamic religion is the final true, heavenly
religion and that no other religion will appear.
4) Muhammad a.s., who communicated the Qur'an al-karim, is the
final prophet.
5) It is doubtless that a person who enters the Islamic religion
will automatically have separated himself from his former religion.
Yet this separation is not so big as it may be anticipated. The
tenets of belief are the same in all the heavenly religions. Qur'an
al-karim acknowledges the heavenly religions before itself. Yet
it rectifies the wrong beliefs inserted into these religions afterwards,
exposes the religion of Issa a.s. in its essential form, and declares
that Muhammad a.s. is the final prophet and that no prophet will
come after him. In other words, Islam is the true and perfect
form of other religions. Various clashes of interests and contrasting
ambitions have made men inimical towards one another. And this
animosity, in its turn, has been exploited by other people, who
have tried to change religions into rival camps and thus to build
their worldly advantages on religions, which, in actual fact,
are essentially paths guiding to knowing Allahu ta'ala. In fact,
it takes a little alertness to see that the Islamic religion acknowledges
the other heavenly religions and that it purifies them of the
human interpolations that they had been subjected to in the course
of time. To accept Islam, therefore, means to render a spiritual
and material service which is needed by all people, men and women
alike.
6) In no other religion has the concept of brotherhood among people
been stated so expressly as it has been in Islam. All Muslims,
regardless of their race, nation, colour and language, are brothers
of one another. Whatever their political views are, they are brothers
of one another. No other religion possesses this beauty.
7) Islam is a religion which gives women great rights. The Islamic
religion has allotted women the most proper place. Muhammad a.s.
stated, "Paradise is beneath a mothers' feet."
The Islamic religion respected the works of art made by people
of other religions, and did not demolish them like barbars. As
they were building mosques like Fatih and Sultan Ahmad (Blue Mosque)
in Istanbul, they did not feel averse to modelling some of their
architecture after that of Saint Sophia. Throughout history, Muslims
have displayed greatest justice and mercy towards people of other
religions.
For reasons such as these, I chose Islam for my faith.
9 - THOMAS IRVING (Canadian)
To tell you why I became a Muslim, I have to explain what I felt
before and after embracing Islam, my first contact with Islam
and the faith that it inspired into me. First of all, let me tell
you that thousands of Canadians and Americans think exactly as
I used to think before becoming a Muslim; they have the same feeling
of dissatisfaction; and they are awaiting the scholars of Ahl
as-sunnat who will teach them the essence of Islam.
As I was a child, I held fast to my faith, Christianity, with
both hands. For I needed a religion to feed my soul. However,
as I grew older, I began to see a number of faults in Christianity.
The stories told about the life of Issa a.s. and his being the
son of God, -may Allahu ta'ala protect us against saying so,-
sounded like superstitious tales to me. My personal logic would
never accept them. I began to ask myself questions, such as, "If
Christianity is the true religion, why are there so many non-
Christians in the World?" "Why do Jews and Christians
share the same basic religious book and differ in other respects?"
"Why are non-Christians doomed to perdition though they have
no other apparent faults?" "Why do many nations choose
not to become Christians?"
It was in those days when I met a missionary who had been serving
in India. He complained to me, "Muslims are very obstinate.
They insist that the true religion is Islam, and not Christianity.
So all my efforts to Christianize them end up in failure."
These statements were at the same time the first definition I
had heard of Islam. A sensation of curiosity towards Islam, seasoned
with a high degree of admiration for Muslims who had been so staunchly
attached to their religion, began to blossom in my heart. I felt
that I should observe Islam more closely, and began to attend
lectures on 'Oriental Literature' in the university. I saw that
what the oriental people had been rejecting in our belief was
the doctrine of 'trinity', and that they accepted the belief of
'One God', which was perfectly agreeable with common sense. It
was certain that Issa a.s. had announced his religion as one based
on belief in One God, and himself as a mere born slave and Messenger
of that One God. The God he had mentioned should be a merciful
God. Nevertheless, that beautiful and true belief had been smothered
with meaningless legends, superstitions and heresies inserted
into Christianity by idolaters, and the pure belief in the One
Merciful, Compassionate God had been adulterated into a tripartite
godhood, which was accessible only to priests and which, so to
speak, created mankind with a share from the original sin. Then,
a new religion with a new prophet was necessary to restore the
humanity with that pure and intact belief in One God. Europe,
on the other hand, was awash in semi-barbaric cruelty in those
days. As savage tribes were invading countries, on the one hand,
a small minority was perpetrating all sorts of vices under the
mask of religion, on the other. The human race was moaning desperately
under the talons of idolatry and irreligiousness, when, [according
to historians], seven centuries after Issa a.s., in the oriental
horizons, there rose Muhammad s.a.s. the final Prophet of Allahu
ta'ala, and he began to communicate to people the true religion
of the true God, which was based on belief in One God.
When I read and learned all these facts, I believed in the fact
that Muhammad s.a.s. was the final true Messenger of Allahu ta'ala,
because:
1) As I have said above, people needed a new prophet;
2) All my thoughts concerning Allahu ta'ala conformed with the
religion spread by that great Prophet s.a.s.
3) As soon as I read the Qur'an al-karim, I sensed that it was
the Word of Allahu ta'ala. The facts communicated by the Qur'an
al-karim and the hadith ash-Sharifs [utterances] of Muhammad s.a.s.
satisfied me in every respect and infused a sense of peace into
my soul. And this is the reason why I became a Muslim.
You can be sure that, as I have already said, thousands of Americans
and Canadians sense the same deficiencies and errors in Christianity.
Sad to say, though, they have not had the same chance I had to
do a thorough research into the Islamic religion; they need a
guide.
After attaining that belief in Islam, I embarked on a study of
the books published about Islam. I would like to touch upon a
few of the works that I could recommend in this connection. An
Indian well-wisher sent me a book captioned 'What Is Islam?',
written by Q.A. Jairazby H.W. Lovlegrove. I would specially recommend
the book. It is a book that describes Islam in the best way. Spreading
the book world over would be a useful service for the promulgation
of Islam. I read an English version of Qur'an al-karim rendered
by Maulvi Muhammad Ali, and I liked it. In addition, I read some
other books, and I did not neglect magazines publicizing Islam.
In Montreal, I found many works published in French about Islam.
Some of them praised Islam, while others were intended against
it. But Islam's greatness could not be buried even under books
written for the purpose of reviling it. Instead, they were no
more than other sources of evidence corroborating for me the fact
that Islam is the true religion.
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