A Voyage in Search of the "True Religion" A Study of Maryam Jameelah's Conversion to Islam and her Critique of Western Civilization

Abstract

Maryam Jameelah is an American Jewish lady who, after her conversion to Islam, migrates to Pakistan on the invitation of Abul A'la Maududi. She is studied mostly as a scholar of modern Western thought. Less information is available regarding her conversion, however. Her writings indicate that her criticism of Western civilization is directly connected to her conversion. Therefore, this research aims to analyze her conversion and its relationship with her criticism of Western civilization. Notably, the complexity of the analytical study of any conversion process is augmented due to the involvement of various underlying motifs, events, and types of conversion. Therefore, Lewis Ray Rambo's heuristic stage model of conversion is used for understanding of psychological, sociological, historical, religious, and anthropological aspects of her conversion. Rambo uses the inter-disciplinary approach to formulate his heuristic model that consists of seven stages including context, crisis, quest, encounter, interaction, commitment, and consequences. This research finds out that adopting many religious traditions, groups, and movements, Jameelah is converted multiple times in her life. Her 'multiple conversions' reveal that it is her quest for the complete satisfaction that moves her from one religious fold to another. Her study of Islam provides her such satisfactory answers that end the process of her multiple conversions. After converting to Islam, she does not convert to any other religion. During her life in Pakistan, she is inclined towards Sufism and starts practicing it. Analysis of her 'multiple conversions' figures out that findings related to the context, crisis, and quest stages of Rambo’s model are almost the same in each of her conversion process whereas some differences are observed in other stages of her conversions. Regarding her criticism of Western civilization, it is observed that during her life in America, she feels the strong impact of secular culture on religion. Numerous factors such as the Reform Judaism especially the work of Moses Mendelssohn, the Western mood of living, the industrial revolution, love of natural beauty, the nonobservant attitude of parents, the genocide of red Indians, and love of classical music make her hate modernism and Western civilization. She claims XI that modernism or westernization are two sides of the same coin. When she discovers that, being influenced by the theory of evolution, modern scholars are trying to deny the presence of ideals such as permanence and absolute truth in the real life, she decides to spend the rest of her life in defending them by criticizing modern philosophies. In sum, her criticism of Western civilization can be divided into two types. Firstly, she criticizes Western civilization and its impact on Islam by evaluating its philosophical foundations. Secondly, she criticizes the reformers of Islam through hundreds of her book reviews. Moreover, she criticizes both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars of Islam alike maintaining that Islam does not need any sort of reforms or changes. She suggests embracing traditional orthodoxy in all world religions.