[18] On his visit to India, Asad became friends with the Muslim poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, who persuaded him to abandon his eastward travels and "help elucidate the intellectual premises of the future Islamic state".

[30][31] Leopold Weiss was born on 2 July 1900 to a Jewish family in Lemberg, Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which is currently the city of Lviv, Ukraine).

He studied the Jewish Bible or Tanakh, the text and commentaries of the Talmud, the Mishna and Gemara, also delving into the intricacies of Biblical exegesis and the Targum.

[32] After abandoning university in Vienna, Weiss drifted aimlessly around 1920s Germany, working briefly for the expressionist film director Fritz Lang (F. W. Murnau, according to The Road to Mecca).

By his own account, after selling a jointly written film script, he splurged the windfall on a wild party at an expensive Berlin restaurant, in the spirit of the times.

While working as a telephone operator for an American news agency in Berlin, Weiss obtained a coveted interview with Russian author Maxim Gorky's wife, his first published piece of journalism, after simply ringing up her hotel room.

[3] In 1922 Weiss moved to the British Mandate of Palestine, staying in Jerusalem at the house of his maternal uncle Dorian Feigenbaum at his invitation.

All its parts are harmoniously conceived to complement and support each other; nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking; and the result is a structure of absolute balance and solid composure.

"[3] Magazine Saudi Aramco World in a 2002 essay described his journey to conversion in these words: "Two roads diverged in Berlin in the 1920s: a well-worn one to the West, the other, rarely traveled, to the East.

Leopold Weiss, a gifted young writer, traveler and linguist with a thorough knowledge of the Bible and the Talmud and with deep roots in European culture, took the road eastward to Makkah.

[35] After the sudden death of his wife Elsa, Asad stayed on in Mecca where, in a chance encounter in the Grand Mosque's library, he met Prince Faysal.

[2] In late 1928, an Iraqi named Abdallah Damluji, who had been an adviser to Ibn Saud, submitted a report to the British on "Bolshevik and Soviet penetration" of the Hijaz.

On what basis rests the close intimacy between him and Shaykh Yusuf Yasin (secretary to the King and editor of the official newspaper Umm al-Qura)?

He concluded that the British were providing arms and money to al-Dawish to weaken Ibn Saud for the purpose of securing a 'land route to India' – a railway from Haifa to Basra ultimately connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian subcontinent.

[36] [37] Asad left Arabia and came to British India in 1932 where he met South Asia's premier Muslim poet, philosopher and thinker Muhammad Iqbal.

Asad spent three years in prison, while his family consisting of his wife, Munira, and son, Talal, after being released from detention earlier, lived under the protection of Chaudhry Niaz Ali Khan at the latter's vast 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) estate in Jamalpur, 5 km west of Pathankot.

In 1952, Asad was appointed as Pakistan's Minister Plenipotentiary to the United Nations in New York – a position that he relinquished in 1952 to write his autobiography (up to the age of 32), The Road to Mecca.

So, he submitted his resignation from the Foreign Service, divorced his Arabian wife (Munira, d. 1978), and devoted himself to writing his autobiographical travel log The Road to Mecca.

During his stay in Switzerland, Asad received a letter from the President of Pakistan, General Ayub Khan, who was a great admirer of his book named The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961).

Asad also spared some time to meet with his surviving friends in Lahore and Islamabad and at the request of the President made several radio and television appearances, as always spontaneous.

[48] The program commemorated the life and work of Asad, described as a great Austrian visionary, who earned international recognition by building bridges between religions.

[49] The honoree's son Talal Asad, the President of the Islamic Community of Austria Anas Schakfeh and Vienna's cultural adviser Andreas Mailath-Pokorny were present at the unveiling of the square.