Why Did They Become Muslims

is known for his works ‘Babies of Wyang’, ‘Information About
Pakistan’ and ‘Introducing Islam’.)
In 1919, I began to study oriental languages in the University of
Leiden. My teacher was the universally known professor
Hurgronje, who had perfect command of the Arabic language. As
he taught me how to read, write and translate in Arabic, he gave
me the Qur’ân al-kerîm and the works of al-Ghazâlî as textbooks.
The subject I was majoring in was the ‘Islamic law’. I read a
number of books about Islam, Islam’s history, and Islamic sciences
so far published in the European languages. In 1921 I went to
Egypt and visited the Al-Az-har Madrasa. I stayed there for about
one month. Later, in addition to Arabic, I learned Sanscrit and
Malay. In 1927 I went to Indonesia, which was a British
dependency at that time. I began to learn Javanese in a high school
in Jakarta. For fifteen years I educated myself not only in the
language of Java, but also in the cultural history of old and new
Java. Throughout that period of time, I on the one hand contacted
the Muslims and on the other hand read the Arabic books
available to me. The Japanese invaded the Indonesian islands
during the Second World War. I was one of the prisoners that they
captured. After an extremely severe life in captivity which lasted
until the end of the war, I returned to Holland and found a job in
the Tropical Museum in Amsterdam. There I resumed my Islamic
research. They asked me to write a booklet telling about the
Muslims in Java. This, also, I accepted, and completed, too.
Between 1954 and 1955 I was sent to Pakistan to conduct a study
about the Muslims there. As I have already stated, the only books
that I had read about Islam until that time had been written in the
European languages. After I went to Pakistan and established
direct contact with Muslims, my views of Islam took a sharp turn
for the favourable. I requested my Muslim brothers in Lahore to
take me to their mosque. They were pleased at my request and
took me there for a Friday prayer. I watched the worship and
listened to the prayers with great attention. It had so strong an
impact on me that I almost lost consciousness in rapture. I now felt
myself a Muslim and a Muslim brother when I shook hands with
Muslims. I expressed my feelings as follows in the fourth issue of
‘Pakistan Quarterly’:
“Next we went to a smaller mosque. A preaching lecture was
scheduled to be delivered by a scholar who was a professor from
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