A Muslim Convert Once Before

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Dr. Muswthafa Ceric, the then Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina gave a talk I attended once, a closed-door session with diplomats and policymakers, and spoke about these events.  He spoke about the massacres; he spoke about the war and he spoke about the Dutch peacekeepers standing by and watching it all happen.  “We will never forgive them!” he said. By the time the UN and NATO actually decided to do something about this, the reports had reached Muslim lands.   These same foreign “ jihadi ” fighters that would later be branded terrorists and Al-Qaeda, came to fight.   Veterans from Afghanistan, from Pakistan, from Saudi Arabia, from Iran, from North Africa and beyond.   Shi’ah, Sunni, Wahhabi, Sufi.   The Iranian National Guard and the Saudis poured arms and weapons.   And they sent their clerics, their da’i and their soldiers.   And when it looked like the West would lose control and influence, they took...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   When I first converted, I attended Shaykh ‘Abd al-Hakim Murad Timothy John Winter’s talk, “The Muslim Jesus.”   Shaykh ‘Abd al-Hakim was educated at Westminster School, and graduated with a double-first in Arabic from the University of Cambridge in 1983.   He studied and taught the traditional Islamic sciences at al-Azhar for several years.   He also spent an equal number of years in Jeddah administering a commercial translation office.   He maintained close contact with Habib Ahmad Mashhur ibn Thaha al-Haddad ( q.s. ).   He returned to England in 1989 and spent two years at the University of London concentrating on Turkish and Persian.   Because of the subject of the talk, it was a packed venue.   There were many Muslims and there were many Christians who came with their Bibles.   It was after all, a controversial topic.   I remember when they left, they left their Bibles behind.   Howeve...