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When I first read this book it instilled in me a wonderous vision. When I read it again it filled me with a critical history. When I picked it up a few years later, I read it as a man searching. In this, it's great.

This book changed the direction of my life. It was not because I was lost, for I still am lost today, but it showed me that people do change the worlds in changing themselves.

The book is an autobiographical account of an Austrian Jew named Leopold Weiss who through time and experience becomes Muhammad Asad. This is a vignette of his life from his childhood in Europe to his work in Jerusalem and his wandering in Arabia at the behest of then King AbdulAziz Ibn al-Saud.

Asad is a journalist, and his book is a wonderful anecdote. The stories are great, but moreso is the weightiness of his message. It's written in an old world style when there was a heroism to that which people did. The house of Saud is characterized as one rarely sees them... human. But amidst its history, religion, and talks of self, there is this idea of journeying towards something.

I like this book the same reason I like Kerouac , but it means more simply on part with its religious undertone, and the nature of the man.

Asad's book leaves him after Arabia, but, in life, he goes on to serve in the U.N., translate an authoritative scholaraly version of the Quran, and befriend kings, ministers, and people who shaped the 20th century.

This less review than hero-worship, but if the first chapter doesn't grab you. I'd say nothing I review will.