Islam and The Western Society - Maryam Jameelah

About The Author

Maryam Jameelah (b. May 23, 1934) is an author of over thirty books on Islamic culture and history and a prominent female voice for conservative Islam. Born, Margret Marcus, in New York to a non-observant Jewish family, she explored Judaism and other faiths during her teens before converting to Islam in 1961 and emigrating to Pakistan. She is married to, and has five children, with Muhammad Yusuf Khan, a leader in the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, and resides in the city of Lahore.

Jameelah was born Margeret Marcus in New Rochelle, New York, to parents of Jewish German descent, and spent her early years in Westchester. As a child, Marcus was psychologically and socially ill at ease with her surroundings, and her mother described her as bright, exceptionally bright, but also "very nervous, sensitive, high-strung, and demanding". Even while in school she was attracted to Asian and particularly Arab culture and history, and counter to the support for Israel among people around her, she generally sympathised with the plight of Arabs and Palestinians.

Another source describes her interests as moving from Holocaust photographs," to "Palestinian suffering, then a Zionist youth group and, ultimately, fundamentalist Islam."
She entered the University of Rochester after high-school, but had to withdraw before classes began because of psychiatric problems. In Spring, 1953, she entered New York University. There she explored Reform Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, Ethical Culture and Bahá'í Faith, but found them unsatisfactory, especially in their support for Zionism. In the summer of 1953, she suffered another nervous breakdown and fell into despair and exhaustion. It was during this period that returned to her study of Islam and read the Quran. She was also inspired by Muhammad Asad's The Road to Mecca, which recounted his journey and eventual conversion from Judaism to Islam. At NYU took a course on Judaism's influence on Islam taught by Rabii and scholar Abraham Katsch, which ironically strengthened her attraction to Islam. However Marcus's health grew worse and she dropped out of the university in 1956 before graduation; from 1957-59 she was hospitalized for schizophrenia.

Returning home to White Plains in 1959, Marcus involved herself with various Islamic organizations, and began corresponding with Muslim leaders outside America, particularly Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami (Islamic Society) in Pakistan. Finally, on May 24, 1961, she converted to Islam and adopted the name Maryam Jameelah. Mawlana Maududi's invitation she emigrated to Pakistan in 1962, where she initially resided with him and his family. In 1963, she married Muhammed Yusuf khan, a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami, becoming his second wife. She had five children: two boys and three girls (the first of whom died in infancy). Jameelah regards these years (1962-64) to be the formative period of her life during which she matured and began her life's work as a Muslim defender of conservative Islam.