Interesting piece in the US entertainment trade paper, Variety. It’s about a documentary film being made about Muhammad Asad, born into the family of Orthodox Jewish rabbis in Ukraine, who converted to Islam in the 1920s. He became friends with King Abdul Aziz and wrote several books, most famously, The Road to Mecca. Asad is still viewed with great favor in Saudi Arabia. I can’t count the number of copies of The Road to Mecca I’ve been given by Saudi friends and contacts.

The film being made is an Austrian production. I don’t think it will get much play in the US, on cinema screens or TV, but the fact that it is being made, now when parts of Europe are in the throes of fear of Islam, is interesting in itself.

UPDATE: : I’ve had e-mail from the film’s production company:

Actually, you WILL get to see our film in the US, it is getting a cinema
release through First Run / Icarus Films (www.frif.com) who will do a DVD
release as well. TV Broadcasters will be also confirmed soon.

More information on http://www.aroadtomecca.com

A Road to Mecca –The Journey of Muhammad Asad
ALISSA SIMON

A Mischief Film production, in cooperation with ORT, Arte, NMO, supported by Vienna Film Fund RTR — Fernsehfond Austria. (International sales: Autlook, Vienna). Produced by Ralph Wieser, Georg Misch. Directed by Georg Misch. Written by Misch, Miriam Ali de Unzaga.

With: Samuel Honigsman, Martin Goldenberg, Abu Moussa, Arnon Soffer, Ahmed Zaki Yumini, Ikram Chaghatai, Talal Asad, Malise Ruthven, Sonia Muyal.
Narrator: Georg Misch.
(English, German, Urdu, Ukrainian, Spanish, Arabic dialogue)

An Ashkenazi Jew’s transformation into one of the most influential thinkers of modern Islam is explored in Austrian helmer Georg Misch’s provocative docu “A Road to Mecca — The Journey of Muhammad Asad.” Placing its fascinating subject (born Leopold Weiss) and his ideas in the context of contemporary history, this well-judged combo of travelogue and biopic artfully blends candid interviews with archival footage, photos and apt quotations from Asad’s extensive writings. A natural for specialist fests, cable and the educational market, the lively, informative pic should enjoy a long life in ancillary. A 52-minute version exists for broadcast.

Weiss, a descendant of Orthodox rabbis, was born in 1900, in Lvov, Ukraine, then a distant outpost of the Austro-Hungarian empire. His strict family fled to Vienna before World War I. He studied journalism in Berlin and traveled to Palestine in 1922, where he was fascinated by his first contacts with Arabs and Muslims, in particular the camel-riding Bedouins.

When Weiss converted to Islam in 1926, taking the name Muhammad Asad, his family disowned him. Attracted to Islam’s ideals of peace and brotherhood, he traveled widely throughout the Middle East, conferring with kings and political leaders as well as common people, and later joined philosopher-poet Muhammed Iqbal (his collaborator on the 1934 book “Islam at the Crossroads”) in planning the creation of Pakistan.
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