The Road to Mecca

I am at the moment reading this book titled "The Road to Mecca" by Muhammad Asad. It is an autobiography of a European Jew who in the 1920's travelled to Palestine and after some time was intrigued with the Arab character and the Muslim way of life that he stayed started travelling in Saudi Arabia and eventually converted to Islam. It is an amazing book, it is not written like other autobiographies, from the beginning of ones life to the end in every detail. Instead, it is almost as if fictional he starts with his adventures in the desert, or his friendship with the Saudi King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud and he describes his early life in bits here in there almost like some flashbacks. It is very wonderfully written. Usually, I find autobiographies to be extremely boring and dull but to my amazement this book I cannot pick down.
Eventually, Muhammad Asad learns Arabic and translates the Quran in English, of which I also have a version. This is an excerpt of the book that touched me this morning as I read before breakfast. They are the words of an religious Arab who is answering young Asad's (when Asad was twenty two and not yet a believer of Islam) question of why Muslim's repeatedly bow and kneel in prostration during prayer.

"How else should we worship God? Did he not create both, soul and body together? And this being so, should man not pray with his body as well as with his soul? Listen, I will tell you why we Muslim pray as wel pray. We turn toward the Kaaba, God's holy temple in Mecca, knowing that the faces of all Muslims, wherever they may be, are turning to it in prayer, and that we are like one body, with Him as the centre of our thoughts. First we stand upright and recite from the Holy Koran, remembering that it is His word, given to man that he may be upright and steadfast in life. Then we say, "God is the Greatest,"reminding ourselves that no one deserves to be worshipped but Him; and bow down deep because we honour Him above all, and praise His power and glory. Thereafter we prostrate ourselves on our foreheads because we feel that we are but dust and nothingness before Him, and that He is our Creator and Sustainer on high. Then we lift our faces from the ground and remain sitting, praying that He forgive us our sins and bestow His grace upon us, and guide us aright, and give us health and sustenance. Then we again prostate ourselves on the ground and touch the dust with our foreheads before the might and glory of the One. After that, we remain sitting and pray that He bless the Prophet Muhammad who brought his message to us just as he blessed the earlier prophets; and that He bless us as well and all those who follow the right guidance; and we ask Him to give us of the good of this world and of the good of the world to come. In the end we turn our heads to the right and to the left, saying, "Peace and the Grace of God be upon you" - and thus greet all whoe are righteous, wherever they may be. 'It was thus that our Prophet used to pray and taught his followers to pray for all times, so that they might willingly surrender themselves to God - which is what Islam means - and so be at peace with Him and with their own destiny.'