Title: Conversion of European Intellectuals to Islam: The Case of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje alias ʿAbd al-Ghaffār
Abstract: In reflecting on the role learned European converts to Islam may play in intercultural communication and Islamic scholarship, it seems useful to distinguish between three main types of conversion.First, there is the permanent conversion, in which the convert acts out of free will and personal conviction and believes that he has converted for the rest of his life.In their new status, these intellectuals also may acquire completely new audiences and with them new chances for a successful intellectual career, especially if they use their talents in the service of combatting their old faith.In fact, numerous polemical and apologetic writings flew from the pens of these erudite converts who attacked their old faith or philosophy of life and defended their choice of Islam.A famous case is Fray ("Brother") Anselm of Turmeda (ʿAbdallāh al-Tarjumān al-Mayurqī), who authored his famous anti-Christian pamphlet Gift for the Intelligent to Confute the People of the Cross in Tunis, after his conversion to Islam in the latter half of the fourteenth century.1In fact, this phenomenon of learned European converts producing polemical and apologetic writings continues to the present day, as is amply illustrated by the study of Salah Abdel Razaq on neo-Muslim intellectuals in the West; he writes long chapters on their contributions to Islamic polemical, anti-Western, and anti-Christian literature.2Some of the works of these converted polemicists even enjoy distribution on a worldwide scale, in translations into the major languages of the Muslim world.There are, however, some rare exceptions to the majority of these polemical erudites.An example is Leopold Weiss, of Austrian Jewish extraction, who converted to Islam and adopted the name Muhammad Asad, then delved deeply into Arabic and Islamic sources, and ultimately developed 1 ʿAbdallāh al-Tarjumān al-Mayurqī, Tuḥfat al-arīb fī l-radd ʿalā ahl al-ṣalīb, ed./trans.Mikel Epalza (Madrid: