Maryam Jameelah
Maryam Jameelah (May 23, 1934 – October 31, 2012) was an American-Pakistani author of over thirty books on Islamic culture and history and a female voice for conservative Islam, known for her writings about the West. Born Margret Marcus in New York City to a non-observant Jewish family, she explored Judaism and other faiths during her teens before converting to Islam in 1961 and emigrating to Pakistan. She was married to and had five children with Muhammad Yusuf Khan, a leader in the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, and resided in the city of Lahore. Biography Jameelah was born Margret Marcus in New Rochelle, New York, to parents of German Jewish descent, and spent her early years in Westchester. As a child, Marcus was psychologically and socially ill at ease with her surroundings, and her mother described her as bright, exceptionally bright, but also "very nervous, sensitive, high-strung, and demanding". Even while in school she was attracted to Asian and particularly Arab culture and history, and counter to the support for Israel among people around her, she generally sympathised with the plight of Arabs and Palestinians. She entered the University of Rochester after high-school, but had to withdraw before classes began because