DR. ’UMAR ROLF FREIHERR VON EHRENFELS

7/30/2019 DR. UMAR ROLF FREIHERR VON EHRENFELS

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Dr. UMAR ROLF FREIHERR VON EHRENFELS

(Austrian)

(Rolf Freiherr (baron) von Ehrenfels is the only son of Prof. Dr.

Baron Christian Ehrenfels, who is known as the founder of Gestalt

psychology all over the world. He belongs to a well-known family.

He was only a small child when he felt a growing concern for the

orient and began to study the Islamic religion. His sister Imma von

Rodmesrhof writes about this inclination of her brothers in detail

in a book of hers, which was published in Lahore in 1953. At a very

young age, Rolf travelled in Turkey, in Albania, in Greece, and in

Yugoslavia, and joined prayers in mosques although he was a

Christian. Eventually, the warm feelings of closeness that he had

been harbouring towards Islam resulted in his embracing Islam in

1927, from then on he chose the name Umar for himself. In 1932

he visited India, and published a book entitled The Place of


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Woman in Islam. When the Germans invaded Austria during the

Second World War, Rolf fled to India. Accepted and supported by

Akbar Haydar, he carried on anthropological studies in Assam,

was appointed as a professor of anthropology for the University of

Madras in 1949, and was awarded with a gold medal by the Royal

Asiatic Society, which was located in Bengal. His books were also

published in the Urdu language.)

You ask me why I became a Muslim. In the following lines I

shall give an account of the factors that formed the cause of mybecoming a Muslim and realizing that Islam is a true religion:

1) Islam contains the good aspects of all the worlds religions

known to us. All religions are intended for mens living in peace

and tranquility. Yet no other religion has managed to teach it to

people as explicitly as Islam does. No other religion has been

successful in imbuing with such deep love towards our Creator and

towards brothers of the same faith.

2) Islam enjoins a perfect submission to Allhu tal in a mood


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of peace and tranquility.

3) A retrospective look into history will automatically expose

the fact that the Islamic religion is the final true, heavenly religion

and that no other religion will appear.

4) Muhammad alaihis-salm, who communicated the Qurn

al-kerm, is the final prophet.

5) It is doubtless that a person who enters the Islamic religion

will automatically have separated himself from his former religion.

Yet this separation is not so big as it may be anticipated. The tenetsof belief are the same in all the heavenly religions. Qurn al -kerm

acknowledges the heavenly religions before itself. Yet it rectifies

the wrong beliefs inserted into these religions afterwards, exposes

the religion of s alaihis-salm in its essential form, and declares

that Muhammad alaihis-salm is the final prophet and that no

prophet will come after him. In other words, Islam is the true and

perfect form of other religions. Various clashes of interests and

contrasting ambitions have made men inimical towards one


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another. And this animosity, in its turn, has been exploited by

other people, who have tried to change religions into rival camps

and thus to build their worldly advantages on religions, which, in

actual fact, are essentially paths guiding to knowing Allhu tal.

In fact, it takes a little alertness to see that the Islamic religion

acknowledges the other heavenly religions and that it purifies

them of the human interpolations that they had been subjected to

in the course of time. To accept Islam, therefore, means to render

a spiritual and material service which is needed by all people, menand women alike.

6) In no other religion has the concept of brotherhood among

people been stated so expressly as it has been in Islam. All

Muslims, regardless of their race, nation, colour and language, are

brothers of one another. Whatever their political views are, they

are brothers of one another. No other religion possesses this

beauty.

7) Islam is a religion which gives women great rights. The


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Islamic religion has allotted women the most proper place.

Muhammad alaihis-salm stated, Paradise is beneath a mothers

feet.

The Islamic religion respected the works of art made by people

of other religions, and did not demolish them like barbars. As they

were building mosques like Ftih and Sultn Ahmad (Blue

Mosque) in Istanbul, they did not feel averse to modelling some of

their architecture after that of Saint Sophia. Throughout history,

Muslims have displayed greatest justice and mercy towards peopleof other religions.

For reasons such as these, I chose Islam for my faith.

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DR. ’UMAR ROLF FREIHERR VON EHRENFELS