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~aryam,,~ameclab was born in 1934 in New York at the height of the-orea(Oepression - a fourth-generation American of German- Jewish origin. ,,S.he was reared in Westchester, one of the lUost prosperous and ‘.,opulated suburbs of New York and recdived a thoroughly lecular American educatioD at the local public schools. ~ -l ,Always an above-averagc studen,t, she soon became a passionate intellectual and insatiable bibliophile, hardly ever without a book in hand, her re’adings extending far beyond the requirements of the school curriculum. As she entered adolescence, she became intensely serious-minded, scorning all frivolities, which is very rare for an otherwiu attractive younS girl./ Her main interc:;sts were religion, philosophy, bistory, anthropology, sociology and biology. The scbool and loCal community public libraries and later, the New York Public Library, became “her second home.”

After her graduation from secondary school in the summer of .19S2~ she was admitted to New York University where she studied a general liberal arls programme. While at the university, she became severely ill in 19S3, grew steadily worse and had to discontinue college two years later without earning any diploma. She was confined 10 private and public hospitals for two years (1957-19S9) and only after her diSCharge, did sbe discover her facility for wriHnS- Marmaduk,e Pick thall’s translation of Quran and Allama Muhammad . . ‘ Asad’ilwo books - his autobiolrapbical Road to Mecca and Islam tit . the Croslfoads ilnitedher interest in Islam and after correspondence witb some promin~nt Muslims in Muslim lands and mUinl intimate friends witb some Muslim, coDvertsin New York, she embraced Islam at tbe Islamic Mission in Brooklyn, New York at tbe ~and of Shaikh Daoud Ahmad Faisal, who then cbanged her aame from Margaret Marcus to Maryam Jameelah.