The Muslims Internet Directory

Dr. Hamid Marcus was also the editor of Moslemische Revue, Berlin.

As a child I had felt an inner urge to learn all I could about Islam, and I had carefully studied an old Qur'an translation which I had found in the library of my home town and which dated back to 1750. It was the edition from which Goethe also drew his knowledge of Islam. At that time I had been deeply struck by the absolutely rationalistic and at the same time imposing composition of the Islamic teachings. I had also been very much impressed by the gigantic spiritual revolution which they evoked in the Islamic nations of that time. Later, in Berlin, I had the opportunity of working together with Muslims and listening to the enthusiastic and inspiring commentaries which the founder of the first German Muslim Mission at Berlin and builder of the Berlin Mosque, gave on the Holy Qur'an. After years of active co-operation with this outstanding personality and his spiritual exertions, I embraced Islam. Islam supplemented my own ideas by some of the most ingenious conceptions of mankind ever thought of. The belief in God is something sacred to the religion of Islam. But it does not proclaim dogmas which are incompatible with modern science. Therefore there are no conflicts between belief on the one hand and science on the other. This fact is naturally a unique and enormous advantage for a man who participated to the best of his ability in scientific research. The second advantage is that the religion of Islam is not an idealistic teaching which runs along blindly beside life as it is, but that it preaches a system which actually influences the life of a human being .... the laws of Islam are not compulsory regulations which restrict personal freedom, but directions and guides which enable a well-contrived freedom.

Throughout the years I have noticed time and again with deepest satisfaction that Islam holds the golden mean between individualism and socialism, between which it forms a connecting link. As it is unbiased and tolerant, it always appreciates the good, wherever it may happen to come across it.