TOWARDS LIGHT

The revelation of European cruelty against the threadbare Muslim tribesmen of the Riff bore heavily on Holmboe’s conscience.

Knud Holmboe (1902-1931), Ali Ahmed, was born in 1902 as the son of an obscure Danish businessman. He chose a career in journalism as a means of escape from a smug middle-class materialism which, with his strongly adventurous and unconventional nature, he abhorred. At the age of only eighteen, his first foray into print appeared with the Copenhagen newspaper, Dagens Nyheder: a sketch of the nomadic reindeer-herders of the Lappland, an area which in those days remained almost untouched by modernity. Other commissions soon followed, but his love of remote places could not long be suppressed. It was to break surface again in 1924, when he set foot for the first time on Muslim soil. A successful series of articles on the French war against the Riff mountaineers of Morocco quickly formed the nucleus of a book, in which the young  reporter vivdly portrays a small, but brutal colonial war.

The revelation of European cruelty against the threadbare Muslim tribesmen of the Riff bore heavily on Holmboe’s conscience. Overtaken by a painful crisis of identity and faith, he gave up writing and sought refuge in a French monastry, with the intention of reading and reflecting on the large questions of history and religion which troubled him. We do not know what he read; and indeed in those days of imperial and missionary confidences, little enough was available which could present non-European cultures in a sympatheic light. But something must have struck a chord, for a year on, we find him emerging from his retreat with his early interest in Islam confirmed. This now took him East: to Persia, Iraq, and Turkey.. He then spent time in the Balkans, where he no doubt sought out the Muslim communities which had survived the Balkan wars. Although he gives no indication in his writings as to where his conversion took place, it may have been among the gentle and hospitable villagers of Muslim Europe that he made his decision to enter the fold of Islam.

Along with his enthusiastic love for his adopted faith, he shares key attitudes with other European Muslim writers of the time: individualism, objectivity, and a conspicuous lack of fanaticism.
In 1931 his life was ended abruptly with his brutal murder whilst travelling in Arabia.
 (Source: , T Winters, - introduction to ‘Desert Encounter’ by Knud Holmboe; http://www.freetime-club.co.uk/africa)

Islam, beyond doubt, is the simplest and most elevating form of religion known to man.

Islam, beyond doubt, is the simplest and most elevating form of religion known to man.
Muhammad Alexander Russel Webb was born in 1846 C.E. in Hudson, Columbia county, United States of America. After completing his education at Hudson and New York, he began to write as a short-story writer and an essayist. In a short time, he excelled in journalism and served as the Editor of ‘St. Joseph Gazette’ and ‘Missouri Republican’.

In recognition of his broad knowledge and expertise in American and international affairs, he was appointed as the United States consul at Manila, Philippines in 1887. During his stay in Manila, he studied Islam as a way of life, interacted with native Muslims and some Muslim businessmen from India, and after protracted study, embraced Islam. Soon after that, Muhammad Webb travelled to several predominantly Muslim countries and developed a lasting interest in sharing the truth of Islam with his fellow Americans through the ‘Islamic Propagation Mission.’ In 1893, he wrote a book entitled “Islam in America.” Muhammad Alexander Webb died on October 1, 1916.

 The following is Muhammad Webb’s account of his journey to Islam as reported in the abridged version of “Islam - Our Choice” published by Begum Aisha Bawani Wakf, Karachi, 1970.
 I have been requested to tell you why I, an American, born in a country which is nominally Christian  came to adopt the faith of Islam as my guide in life.

I might reply promptly and truthfully that I adopted this religion because I found, after protracted study, that it was the best and only system adapted to the spiritual needs of the humanity. And here let me say that I was not born as some boys seem to be, with a fervently religious strain in my character. When I reached the age of twenty, and became practically my own master, I was so tired of the restraint of the Church, that I wandered away from it and never returned to it.
Fortunately I was of an enquiring turn of mind - I wanted a reason for everything, and I found that neither laymen nor clergy could give me any rational explanation of this faith, and yet not one of them could tell me what was mysterious or that they were beyond my comprehension.  I became interested in the study of Oriental religions... I read Mill and Locke  Kant,  Hegel,  Fichte,  Huxley and many other more or less learned writers.

I have spoken so much of myself in order to show you that my adoption of Islam was not the result of misguided sentiment or sudden emotional impulse, but it was born of earnest, honest, persistent, unprejudiced study and investigation and an intense desire to know the truth.
The essence of the true faith of Islam is resignation to the will of God [Allah] and its corner stone is prayer. It teaches universal fraternity, universal love, and universal benevolence, and requires purity of mind, purity of action, purity of speech and perfect physical cleanliness. It, beyond doubt, is the simplest and most elevating form of religion known to man.