Review on Road to Mecca , book written by Muhammad Asad

Review and Analysis on the “Road to Mecca”
The “Road to Mecca” was written by Muhammad Asad mainly talked about his background, the people he met through his traveling, his conversion to Islam and his thoughts against Zionist movement. It is an inspiring book that reflected upon the life of Muslim convert who chose to work and live within Muslim society in order to move toward Islamic direction.
Muhammad Asad or Leopold Weiss was borned in July 1900 in town of Lvov (Lemberg) in Eastern Galicia part of Hasburg Empire which is now known as Ukraine. He is the descendent of a pious Jewish family that he noted his parental grandfather was a barrister who had strong Judaism values. However, his parents was not interested in religion which may have caused him to developed what he called “supercilious feeling” toward Judaism which he emphasized that he was against the Hebrew bible and Talmud moral perceptions because they were only focusing on the ritual aspects of the religion and God of Hebrew was only favoring the chosen Jewish nation.
He received the first discovery of Islam and Zionism when he invited his uncle in Jerusalem. He discovered Zionism was mistreating the Arab after occupying their land in most of Palestine.He published a book called “Frankfurter Zeitung” that sided Muslim and Arab nationalism in opposition to the British biasness in giving the Zionists land at the centre of Palestine and gradually allowing Zionists to take over most of Palestine. He traveled to many Middle Eastern countries for two years in completing the book. On his trip he met Shaykh Mustafa Al-Maraghi who was a theologian at Al-Azhar who gave him insightful impression about Islam. He learnt that Islam is not like what it was interpreted by the Western critics.
After his trip he moved back to Frankfurter and studied Islamic studies .Soon after that he converted to Islam after he felt Islam was the right religion for him. Later, he went for pilgrimage in Mecca and ended up staying there for six years. He mentioned he was studying religion in Medina while involving with politic in Riyadh. In addition, the late King Ibn Saud was close to Asad because the King wanted Asad to write documentation to the European continent as well as of becoming the secret agent to chalestine mission to Kuwait in detecting the fund that Faysal Al-Dawish a Saudi Rebel was receiving in buying guns.
Throughout his times in Saudi, he stated his disappointment toward the late King Ibn Saud due to the King lack of efforts in wanting to become the leader of the Islamic revivals and toward the establishing of progressive Islamic society in Saudi Arabia. He explained that the King was just a King who only cared about his luxurious life and ignorant his social responsibility toward his Islamic nation. Due to his great disappointment toward the King, he later on migrated to India, Turkestan, China and Indonesia in engaging himself in Islamic discussion.
I think this book is good book for Muslim to read because it creates awareness to us about the lack of understanding on the real gist of Islam which are facing by the Muslim nowadays and in the past. He stated that if he met the Muslim before understanding the real Islamic teaching, he would not have converted based on observing the practices of Muslim contemporary. We should ponder on his statement.