First a Priest, Then a Scholar of Islam

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Father David Benjamin Keldani or Shaykh ‘Abd al-Ahad  Dawud Binyamin Kaldani (r.a.) was a Catholic priest of the Chaldean rite, who converted to Islam and adopted the name ‘Abd al-Ahad Dawud.  His appellate “Keldani” was a nod to his Chaldean Christian heritage.  He was a strict monotheist even before his conversion to Islam, and his academic credentials in theology, philosophy, and Church history was impressive.  In addition to Koine Greek, and Latin, he also knew Arabic, Aramaic and Syriac.  He was a noted authority on Biblical studies, and that was how he came to Islam. 

On his conversion, he said, “My conversion to Islam cannot be attributed to any cause other than the gracious direction of the Allah (s.w.t.).  Without this Divine Guidance, all learning, search and other efforts to find the Truth may even lead one astray.  The moment I believed in the Absolute Unity of God, His Holy Apostle Muhammad (s.a.w.) became the pattern of my conduct and behaviour.” 

He was the author of “Muhammad in the Bible”, which was a compilation of his articles from “The Islamic Review”, published in 1928.  He also wrote, “Prophet Muhammad is the Son of Man”, published in 1923.  In this book, he reinterpreted the “Kingdom of God” to refer to the coming of Islam, and the Paraclete to refer to the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.).  This was almost 80 years before I came to the same conclusion. 

In his address to the Christians, he wrote, “I must remind the Christians that unless they believe in the absolute unity of God, and renounce the belief in the three persons, they are certainly unbelievers in the true God.”  He continued, “The Old Testament and the Qur’an Condemn the doctrine of three persons in God; the New Testament does not expressly hold or defend it, but even if it contains hints and traces concerning the Trinity, it is no authority at all, because it was neither seen nor written by Christ himself, nor in the language he spoke, nor did it exist in its present form and contents for - at least - the first two centuries after him.” 

He passed away in 1940, at age 73.