From Jews to Muslims

"Counter culturists all! Driven by a passion to understand the world and willingness to transcend the boundaries of their native traditions, they were seekers, and the steps on their journeys are as fascinating as their endpoints. Coming from assimilated Jewish backgrounds lost in a ""parve"" and sterile Western environment, they passed through Marxism and other political messianisms, or meditation communities and Christian spiritualism or alternative transcendental movements, or engagement with new nations after the retreat of colonial powers, or simply traveled into foreign lands and cultures pursuing new paths to illumination. These intrepid travelers were able to discard the familiar for the possibility of a profound experience of the new. A few rose to positions of rank and even some modicum of authority in the Muslim world, but even here their independent thinking and obsession to speak truth to power rendered them outsiders. Somehow their ""Jewishness"" continued to inspire them. --Reuven Firestone, Hebrew Union College Shalom Goldman's exploration of modern Jewish conversion to or engagement with Islam takes the readers down fascinating byways that have led to important cultural movements, from academic breakthroughs to Sufi spirituality. The subject could not be more important in today's moment. --Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan At a time when conflicts and atrocities in Israel-Palestine have brought relations between Jews and Muslims to an all-time low, it is good to be reminded of the significant Jewish intellectuals who rejected what they saw as the 'particularism' of Jewish faith and identity by converting - in some but not all cases- to Islam. In this path-breaking book Shalom Goldman takes a measured view of their choices without resorting to the shrill polemics that mar so much contemporary commentary. In a set of well-crafted biographical essays he reveals what attracted great scholars such as Ignaz Goldziher and Muhammad Asad (formerly Leopold Weiss) and philosophical activists such as Ilan Halevi and Uri Davis to Islam, while explaining how the lure of the Muslim faith can have positive resonances for thinking souls brought up in the Jewish tradition. --Malise Ruthven, author of ""Islam in the World"" Shalom Goldman has done it again! He has written yet another very readable and wonderfully absorbing book about individuals who chose a different religious path, in this case, Jewish converts to Islam. While the book focuses on selected individuals, at the same time the reader is treated to a veritable tour of the Islamic world, from Morocco to Pakistan, from 1926 to the present, with Goldman as master guide. --Gary A. Rendsburg, Rutgers University From Jews to Muslims: Twentieth-Century Converts to Islam sheds important light on dilemmas and choices that Jews confronted in the twentieth century. These include intellectual and spiritual reactions to Zionism and Israel, which led several outstanding individuals to convert to Islam. A few of them became important voices in the Muslim world. Shalom Goldman should be commended for a unique scholarly achievement. The book makes for a fascinating reading while it offers brilliant insights into the dynamics of conversion in the late Modern Era that no historian has made yet. This is a highly important and timely study and I highly recommend it. --Yaakov Ariel, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"