Sister Maryam Jameela
Former Jew - Islamic Scholar
Passed October 31, 2012
Lahore, Pakistan - October 31, 2012: Sister Maryam Jameela, Jewish Convert to Islam (May, 1961) Has Passed Away at Age 78
Maryam Jameelah (B. May 23, 1934) was an author of over thirty books on Islamic culture and history and a prominent female voice for conservative and fundamentalist Islam, known for her disparaging writings on the west. Born Margret Marcus, in 1934 to a secular Jewish family in New Rochelle, New York, Jameelah explored Judaism and other faiths during her teens before converting to Islam in 1961 and emigrating to Pakistan. She was married to and had five children with Muhammad Yusuf Khan, a leader in the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, and resided in the city of Lahore.
Margaret became Maryam Jameela after her conversion to Islam, finding her way to the Muslim faith after years of study and contemplation, starting at the age of nineteen.
On her way of finding the righteous Deen, she was greatly influenced by Marmaduke Pickthall’s ‘The Meaning of the Glorious Koran’ and by the works of Muhammad Asad who was himself converted Muslim from Judaism.
She embraced Islam in New York on May 24, 1961 and soon began began writing for the Muslim Digest of Durban, South Africa where she became familiar with the writings of Mawlana Sayyid Abu Ala Mawdudi, the founder of the Jamaati Islami, who was also a contributor to the journal.
On the advice of Mawdudi, Jameelah traveled to Pakistan in 1962 and joined his family in Lahore. She then got married to Muhammad Yusuf Khan, as his second wife.
Here is her famous quote:
"MY PROFESSOR, RABBI ABRAHAM ISAAC KATSH, THE HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEBREW STUDIES THERE, SPARED NO EFFORTS TO CONVINCE HIS STUDENTS-- ALL JEWS, MANY OF WHOM ASPIRED TO BECOME RABBIS - THAT ISLAM WAS DERIVED FROM JUDAISM.
OUR TEXTBOOK, WRITTEN BY HIM, TOOK EACH VERSE FROM THE QURAN, PAINSTAKINGLY TRACING IT TO ITS ALLEGEDLY JEWISH SOURCE. ALTHOUGH HIS REAL AIM WAS TO PROVE TO HIS STUDENTS THE SUPERIORITY OF JUDAISM OVER ISLAM, HE CONVINCED ME DIAMETRICALLY OF THE OPPOSITE." -- MARYAM JAMEELAH
Her writings include marvelous religious and intellectual materials. A list of her articles and books is mentioned below:
- Islam and modernism
- Islam versus the west
- Islam in theory and practice
- Islam versus ahl al kitab past and present
- Ahmad khalil
- Islam and orientalism
- Western civilization condemned by itself
- Correspondence between maulana maudoodi and maryum jameelah
- Islam and western society
- A manifesto of the Islamic movement
- Is western civilization universal
- Who is Maudoodi ?
- Why I embraced Islam?
- Islam and the Muslim woman today
- Islam and social habits
- Islamic culture in theory and practice
- Three great Islamic movements in the Arab world of the recent past
- Shaikh hasan al banna and ikhwan al muslimun
- A great Islamic movement in turkey
- Two mujahidin of the recent past and their struggle for freedom against foreign rule
- The generation gap its causes and consequences
- Westernization versus Muslims
- Westernization and human welfare
- Modern technology and the dehumanization of man
- Islam and modern man