Confessions of a Former Islamist
April 2005
By: Ahmed Awny Shalakamy
I grew up in Giza, Egypt. My father was a building
contractor and was involved in Islamic activities. He was the
chairman of one of the local Islamic associations and was
responsible for making the call for prayer. He also gave
Islamic lessons and at times spoke at the mosque on
Friday.
My father hated Christians. He taught me that they are
infidels who contradict themselves by saying that Jesus Christ
is God while their distorted book has verses that prove he is a
prophet. It was all part of the rhetoric we got used to hearing
from booming mosque loudspeakers, and from the playing of radio
and audio cassettes in the streets. In such an atmosphere, a
Muslim child in Egypt is breast-fed hatred along with his mother’s
milk.
My father’s association was active in many fields. It ran a
dormitory for girls, a workshop, a clinic, a nursery, a
madrassah to study Quran and a section for preaching Islam. The
main interest of his association was to proselytize Islam by any
means.
During the rule of the late president Anwar El Sadat, the
Grand Imam of El Azhar Mohamed Abdel Halim Mahmoud was involved
in plotting together with Sadat’s vice president Mr. Hussein
el Shafei. Sheikh Keshk was also involved in this planning
together with Mohamed Osman Ismail, Assiut’s previous
governor, and Mohamed Abdel Mohsen Saleh. Both Ismail and Saleh
were the founding fathers of the various Islamic proselytizing
associations that sprouted up, and of which my father was
involved.
The goal of these groups was to convert Egypt into an Islamic
state over a period of 50 years. Members of the royal Saudi
family, who were related to the Wahabi movement and oil princes
from the Gulf, financed this plan. Money was spent lavishly to
seduce Christian women and girls any way possible. The cost in
the seventies and early eighties was about five thousand
Egyptian pounds for the entrapment of each girl. The money was
split so that the Muslim man who lured the Christian woman into
conversion received half and the members of the police and
collaborating associations would receive the other half.
The work of the proselytizing associations in Egypt continues
to take place and the payments for deceptive conversions are now
higher. Today the average payment for an ordinary girl is
ten thousand Egyptian pounds and payments can be as high as two
hundred thousand Egyptian pounds if the girl is from a
well-known Christian family, or is the daughter of a university
professor, a deputy minister, or related to someone from the
clergy.
Like my father, I too was involved with a proselytizing
association. After we succeeded in converting a Christian
woman, we would antagonize the Christians by parading the
converted girl through the streets. We played loud music
and waved flags while shouting “Allahu Akbar” to declare the
victory of Islam. We would also chant slogans to shame the
Christians. No Christian would stand in the way of these
parades, which were safeguarded by the police.
This was a normal practice until 1985 when such parades were
banned. Nevertheless, we continued in our campaign to
convert Christian women anyway. We were focused on converting
Christian girls and women because we believed this was a greater
form of humiliation for Christians. In the East, a man’s honor
is in his daughter, sister or wife and so disgracing any of them
is the ultimate humiliation for him.
We used all kinds of tricks to get Christian women. We
primarily sought to appeal to their emotions and impulses. We
would also get these women involved in moral scandals and used
that to coerce them to do whatever we wanted. This is what I
did, while I was involved with a proselytizing
association. Besides receiving payment for this work, I
was convinced I received an additional reward because each time
I caused a Christian woman to convert to Islam I would be
awarded with an acre of land in heaven.
The following accounts are of the women that I lured into
Islam through deceptive methods.
*******
N.M.A.
NMA was originally from Cairo and went to college in the city
where my family lived. I was in my first year of college
at the time, and this was my first case of proselytizing.
She was very pretty. She had a few Muslim girl friends who
told me that she was an easy catch. They arranged for me
to meet her and I practiced pretending that I was madly in love,
staring at her with desire and faking a quivering voice.
When NMA and I first started talking, I asked her some
questions about the Christian faith. I realized I had to
change my tactics if I was going to trap her. I started to
convince her that I loved her and I worked on her until she fell
for me. Her girl friends were aware of what was happening
and helped me by talking to her about my love for her. I
told her that we could marry and keep our different faiths, as
Islam allows Muslims to marry the people of the book because
they believe in God. I had my way with her and she became
pregnant.
I secretly went to church with her a few times and I even
bought Christian books, icons and the fellowship bread to
convince her that I was an admirer of Christianity. I told her
that I would have gladly converted to Christianity, but could
not do it because I would be killed. I then told her that I
loved her and could not live without her and if she converted to
Islam, she would not be killed, as she was carrying our
baby--the fruit of our love.
She was scared and did not know what to do. At that time, I
asked her not to sever her relation with the church, to act as
she normally would and as a camouflage go to church on Thursday
for confession, on Friday for communion and again on Sunday for
Mass. She followed my instructions and one day, as per my
instructions, she arrived with her suitcase and gold jewelry,
and we spent the night at my home in Gameat El Dewal El Arabia
Street. On Saturday morning, she had an appointment with
the person in charge at El Azhar. I arranged for her escape to
the city where she attended college and where I lived until she
finished her studies. I then had her name changed to Fatima El
Zahra Mohamed Ali El Mahdi.
The efforts of her family and of other Christians to take her
back were in vain. I made sure she was the one who
adamantly refused to go back after my colleagues and I
brainwashed her. My efforts were successful as she became
completely convinced that she was now worshipping the true God
of Islam.
After five weeks of achieving this victory for Islam and
receiving my financial reward, I decided that I did not want to
keep this faithless whore as my wife. She was cheap to me and
was merely an object for sensual pleasure. How could I
have a son with her who has in him the blood of those Christian
infidels? I reasoned. I ordered her to have an abortion
and I used my legitimate right to beat her. I also obliged her
to work for her food. I told her she had to serve her Muslim
masters who put a roof over her head and she had to be grateful
that I married her and saved her from her shame.
I started to think about repeating the same game again with
other women, so that I could serve my life, my religion and my
after-life. I believed by doing this I would serve my religion
by making the infidels embrace Islam; I would serve my life by
getting financial rewards; and I would serve my after life by
having many acres written in my name in heaven. I would also
have a house cleaner for free. She would work for her food
and when I wanted to use her for pleasure, she would be my
odalisque.
I enjoyed hurting, beating and humiliating Fatima (NMA).
I was positive she did not truly convert to Islam and that she
has only surrendering to her female instincts. All this made me
more inclined to take revenge on her. Fatima stayed with me for
three years, seven months and twelve days until one Sunday in
1998 when I converted to Christianity. I was an atheist and
avoided everyone, before becoming a Christian. But as I
continued my research, I believe Jesus Christ showed himself to
me.
I told my wife about my change of faith. She did not
believe me at first. During those three years seven months and
twelve days that Fatima stayed with me, I made eight girls
convert to Islam. After I became a Christian, I sought to
restore each of the nine women who converted because of me as
well as those whom my father had converted. I am now praying for
the rest of them and I keep getting good news about the coming
back of one girl after the other.
D.B.A
When I met DBA, she was studying in a college located one and
a half hours from her home. She came from a wealthy family. Her
father and mother were physicians and her brothers were
physicians in the Egyptian armed forces. Though she was a
churchgoer, she was not religious. DBA was outgoing in her
friendships with both Muslims and Christians. Yet despite
her congeniality, we did not find it easy to get to her and had
to resort to foul play. As Muslim men, we believed we were in a
perpetual war with the “filthy infidels,” and therefore it
was OK to trick them.
One day I received a visit from a young Muslim man who told
me he wanted to marry DBA and asked me to help him convince her
to convert to Islam. After much planning, I found out that this
girl’s best friend was a religious Muslim. But she still
considered the Christian girl her sister and I was disturbed by
this. So I paid a visit to the Muslim girl and talked to
her about the corrupt beliefs of Christianity and reminded her
of what Allah says in the Quran (Jews and Christians won’t
accept you until you follow their religion) and also (Ye
believers do not take Jews and Christians as friends and those
who befriend them are from them, as Allah does not show the
right path to the unjust). I told her that jihad against them is
the duty of every Muslim and she should contribute to the
victory of Islam. The Muslim girl was convinced that I was right
and asked what was required of her. I told her not to show
hatred toward her Christian friend, but to treat her as usual
and even try to strengthen their friendship and follow all of my
instructions.
I then went to a Muslim pharmacist who is a member of our
association and asked him for a drug to induce hallucinations. I
told him why I needed the drug. He told me he wanted to
contribute to the victory of Islam and therefore he agreed to
provide it. I then gave the drug to the Muslim girl and told her
to dissolve two tablets in a glass of milk and give it to DBA to
drink, and then call us as soon as she noticed any changes in
the girl.
The Muslim girl called us as soon as DBA started to
hallucinate and lose control in her apartment. When my
friend and I arrived, we had a camera and a video recorder. We
started joking with DBA and she was responding, not realizing
what we were doing until my friend managed to strip her of her
clothes and took her to the bedroom.
I recorded everything on video and took pictures for about
three hours. When DBA came around, she realized what had
happened and started screaming and crying. She insulted
us, Islam and the prophet of Islam, and tried to tear up the
Quran, which was with her girlfriend. I showed her the video
tape and the photos and threatened to make copies and distribute
them to her family, as well as to other Christian
families. I reminded her that she would be humiliated by
the scandal. She cried and fell to the ground kissing our shoes
pleading with us not to do this, but we insisted that she had to
do whatever we told her to do, as she knew her brothers and
relatives might even kill her if they were to see that video.
She gave in. Her tears and desperation made me
ecstatic. Over the next few weeks, she accompanied us to
the association where she was brainwashed by the sheikhs. She
could not argue with anything they said. She was miserable
and never stopped crying.
We taught her what to say before it was time for her to go
the police department. She followed our instructions when she
was interviewed by the police. And when a police officer asked
her why she wanted to convert to Islam she said that the Prophet
Mohamed came to her in a dream and greeted her with the Islamic
greeting calling her Aisha. Jesus was also in the dream,
greeted her with the Islamic greeting and denounced all
Christians saying there is no God but Allah. She said that Jesus
told her that he is Allah’s slave and prophet and Mohamed is
Allah’s prophet. Then, she said, Jesus kissed Mohamed’s
head and asked her to repeat after him Allah’s words from the
Quran (those who believe in any other religion but Islam, Allah
will not accept it from them in the end, and they will be
losers).
She not only said this in front of the police officers, but
also to her family members and the priests who came to visit
her. Her reactions during these visits, which were called
counseling sessions, were staged by us and agreed on by the
police before the meeting. It was all a fraud and though
she was visited by different priests, she could only tell them
what we had coached her to say.
After all the legal procedures were completed, we got her new
ID and new Islamic name: Aisha Abdalla Elmahdy. We had achieved
our plan and the Muslim man, Yasser, a Mujahid, got the girl he
desired along with his financial reward, which was quite hefty
because she was from a prominent Christian family. I received
25% of his share, plus my share of the amount I paid to the
collaborating persons involved.
Aisha’s family was dishonored and humiliated as
expected. As a result, her mother sold her pharmacy and
her father sold his clinic. They moved to a place where they
could disappear away in the crowd in order to flee the scandal.
So Aisha married Yasser and lived as an outcast, because she
was despised by her in-laws. She was married for two months when
Yasser said he had enough of her and did not want to keep her
anymore. He divorced her and threw her out into the street.
Since she was our sister in Islam and cannot be homeless, I
took her to the association where she lived and worked as a
maid, cleaning the clinic for her food and board. She
stayed there for three months until she was legally allowed to
re-marry. The groom to be was a Muslim who knew her story. He
was a coolie and was already married with six children.
During the day, he labored in the maintenance workshops of the
governorate administration. Aisha did not want to marry him and
begged us not to allow her to go through with it. We ignored
her, and she was forced to marry a man she did not like.
She lived in misery. She worked as a maid to clean homes and
sold vegetables in order to feed her husband and his children.
It was impossible to imagine that she was once a girl from a
wealthy family of physicians and a college student. Her life was
ruined. Her second husband divorced her after five months.
Since she had been married twice she did not re-marry and
because many had found out about the video tapes and photos
taken of her when she was drugged, she was considered
unclean. She became homeless and had to spend the night in
emergency camps where she lived in sub-human conditions. As she
hit bottom she cried: God have mercy on me. God showed mercy and
answered her prayer.
During the time she was homeless, I became a Christian was
looking for the girls I tricked into converting to Islam.
I found out what had become of her and went to visit her with my
wife who had returned to the church. My wife and I offered
to take care of her in our home. We sought to inform her
parents about her situation, so I sent a relative of my wife
together with a priest who talked to them. They all cried
at the news and expressed their desire to see her. The family
reunion was arranged in one of the churches in Cairo. It was an
impressive reunion. Though I expected the parents to chastise
her, they didn’t and were happy to see her.
As her family hugged and kissed her, I was so touched by the
love I saw that I wondered why we were hurting Christians the
way we did. I have always despised the smiles they had on their
faces when we criticized, hurt or humiliated them. I used to
tell myself that they were smiles of malice because they were a
minority and could not stand up to us Muslims. Now I know the
reason for their smiles. It is their love, forgiveness and
tolerance toward their enemies. It is the Christian
characteristic of making peace.
After DBA met her family, she went back home with them and
they welcomed her with love and kindness as the scripture says
in the story about the prodigal son. Her mother bought her
beautiful clothes and her father bought her jewelry. They
celebrated her coming home and repeated the words of the Bible
(Our daughter was dead and now is alive and was lost and is now
found).
A request was submitted to the Clerical Council to endorse
her return to Christianity, which was approved. A
Christian lawyer volunteered to petition the court to give her
back her Christian name and identity card. The court ruled
in her favor. She now lives in France where she serves in
the Coptic Church with her husband and daughter.
N.M.M.
NMM attended high school and lived in a village. She was from
a middle class family and was more attached to her father than
her mother. She used to go to church to pray and serve. She
attended religious conferences and bought records of sermons.
She also enjoyed watching religious movies about the saints and
martyrs. Her favorite saint was St. George.
NMM fell in love with a Christian man who worked in tourist
resorts. He was a hard-working self-made person who helped his
impoverished family by contributing to the marriage of his
sisters and educating his brothers. He was active as a deacon in
his church. He was able to purchase a small house and lived in a
village where the Christian ratio is about quarter of the
population. The Christians in his village owned most of
the agricultural land.
NMM’s mother was not happy about her daughter’s love for
this young man and did everything possible to deter her from
seeing him. Her mother would often beat and humiliate her in
front of her girlfriends. She even tried to marry her daughter
off to her nephew, but the girl refused and asked her father to
intervene, which the mother did not like. The uncles came, beat
her up in the street with leather belts, and slapped her on the
face while she stood in shock. When she broke out of her shock,
she ran screaming for help. The first house she entered was the
house of one of her Muslim girlfriends who said:
What do they want from you and why are they beating you up
like this?
You do not deserve to be beaten up like this.
You are too honorable to be treated like this.
Why should you put up with such humiliation?
Others would love and respect you.
The words of her Muslim girlfriend were soothing to her. The
girl had a brother named Hassan Abu Zeid, who worked as a mason
laborer. Hassan came to see me and told me the story. I realized
that she was an easy catch and told Hassan that if he wanted
victory for Islam and loved his prophet he should propose to
this girl. He agreed and I went with him to talk to her about
how Islam is merciful and about the problems with Christianity.
I filled her head with ideas of avenging herself and fleeing her
humiliation by marrying someone who would appreciate and respect
her. I told her that I would give them a fully furnished flat
and we will have a job ready for her as soon as she received her
diploma. I put a lot of emphasis on the idea of revenge against
her mother and uncles and told her that her conversion to Islam
would drag their honor and pride in the mud.
With the help of the Muslim girlfriend, I planned her escape.
The Muslim girl went to the girl’s mother and told her that
NMM was going to spend the night at her place in order to calm
down. The mother agreed and the next morning NMM’s family
stopped by the Muslim girl’s apartment to pick her up, as they
were going to a monastery to baptize one of her cousins. But NMM
refused to go using the pretext that she was still angry. We
watched the Christian family drive away. Then NMM went
home. She packed her clothes, got in a cab with the Muslim young
man and went to the police station where she met with the chief
detective. She asked him to finalize the procedures for
proclaiming her conversion to Islam. He could not do it because
she was a minor and told her that she had to wait until she was
18. He also said that if she could not wait, she could
falsify her birth certificate or she could go to Al-Azhar to
sort out her problem. I advised the Muslim young man to inquire
about this with the State Security office. There he was told the
same thing about her age.
I then called Sheikh Abu El-Yazeed in Tanta, told him the
situation, and asked for his help in hiding the girl. Sheikh El-Yazeed
agreed immediately. We took the girl to his house where she
stayed for three weeks while we gave her certain drugs that made
her submissive to the brain washing she received from a group of
sheikhs. At that time, her peaceful village was boiling
with tension and promises of sectarian violence, as threats were
made by the chief detective to the Christians in her village
regarding her condition. He told the Christians that she
was converting to Islam and if they complained about it, they
would be thrown in jail.
This caused more unrest among the Christians. Sectarian
clashes began when one of them attacked the house of the Muslim
family of the young man who eloped with the girl. The village
was surrounded by Central Security forces and remained under
siege for over 45 days. This girl would have had no hope of
returning had it not been for the courage of those Christians.
We had to move her from Sheikh Abu El Yazeed’s house to Sheikh
Mohamed’s where she stayed for 10 days. We carried on with the
planned dosage of drugs and sessions with the sheikhs.
We had to change NMM’s residence once again to the
apartment of a Muslim family in the Mohandessin area in Giza
Square, Cairo. With the help of Sheikh Nagui Yadem in Beheira,
we managed to forge a birth certificate for the girl, which said
that she was 22 years old. Sheik Yadem was known for providing
such services to our association and all other associations,
which worked in the same area of conversion.
We then went to Al-Azhar, expedited the required procedures
for changing her religion to Islam, and then got her an Islamic
name. We heard that the sectarian situation in the village was
intensifying, as the Christians started distributing printouts
against Islam and were attacking young Muslim men. I went with
some of my friends clandestinely to the Friday prayer in NMM’s
village. When the prayers finished, however, we were recognized
and attacked by some of the Christian men. I was injured and
still have a scar from the wound I received on my forehead.
A leading figure in one of the opposition parties and a
member of parliament spoke on behalf of the Christian
family. As a result, the matter was raised to the Interior
Minister who ordered an investigation. While waiting for the
outcome of this investigation, we transferred the girl to Sheikh
Yasser’s house in Samalout and then moved her to Eng. Ibrahim
Abdel Aziz’s, who was a member of one of the legitimate
associations and worked as an engineer at the public company for
potable water. Aziz was also a friend of Sheikh Yousry and
Sheikh Khaled.
We were under a lot of pressure to solve this in favor of
Islam, especially since the intervention of a human rights
organization and the hunger strike that was declared by the girl’s
sister.
During all of this we continued to give NMM daily doses of
drugs and made her listen to the preaching of sheikhs and Muslim
preachers for many hours each day.
The instructions from security forces were clear: the girl
would be asked about the extent of her conviction for Islam. If
her reply affirmed her belief in Islam, she would proceed to the
counseling sessions with the church. Her conversion to Islam
would not be endorsed until, however, she was 18 years of age
according to her original birth certificate and not the bogus
certificate issued upon request. If her reply was negative and
she declared that she did not believe in Islam, she should be
returned to her family and legal action should be taken against
the involved member of the police. The person indicted for this
incident was Lieutenant Ismail Adham Elberkawi, the precinct’s
chief detective. He was penalized by being transferred to a
remote precinct where he was removed from detective work.
We started to prepare for the girl to meet the representative
of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Though she told us that she
would say wherever we wanted her to, she was deceiving us. When
the police car arrived and drove her to the Security Division
Headquarters to meet her father and the priest of her church,
she was wearing an extensive hajib and appeared fully
indoctrinated. But as soon as she saw her father, she burst into
tears and fell to the ground to kiss his feet. She ask him to
take her to her sister – we had told her that her sister went
on a hunger strike and that she had to sign the papers admitting
her conversion to Islam out of conviction so that her sister
would end her strike and not die. Though frightened of us,
NMM was very worried about her sister. She went to meet the
representative of the Ministry of Home affairs and when he asked
about her conversion, he was shocked by the insults she started
hurling at Islam and Muslims and her demands that we should all
be punished. He decided to give her back to her family and annul
the certificate issued by Al-Azhar stating her conversion, after
presenting the case to the D.A.’s office. This was a painful
blow and we felt that Muslims were shamed because of this girl
and all the Christians who rebelled.
Soon after she returned to her family, they moved to Kalioub
where the father worked. I tried to deceive her again and
pretended that I fell in love with her and that I was ready to
convert to Christianity just for her, but it was in vain, as the
Christian young man she loved in the first place was ready to
kill me to protect her. She is now a mother of three and works
for a Christian lawyer.
B.G.M.
BGM was lived in the countryside and attended college. She
suffered from the recurrent problem of ruthless parents. She was
very delicate, small, frail and very naïve. She used to commute
daily to and from her college in a microbus and usually sat at
the front seat next the driver. I saw her and was mesmerized by
her delicate, baby-like features. I inquired about her with the
driver whose name was Ali Al Sawy and he informed me that she
was a college student and always rode with him to college. Ali
was a secular Muslim, but I managed to turn him into a religious
one. I talked to him about our jihad against Christians
convinced him to take part in this jihad against infidels. I
used a plan, which was very common then and is still widely
used. I bought some Christian booklets and pictures and told Ali
to pretend that he was a Christian. Every time the girl
rode with him, he would give her a booklet or a picture as she
got off his bus.
This helped the girl to become acquainted with Ali, who told
her that his name was Simon. They became friends. Ali waited for
her daily and drove her back to the village. He would take her
wherever she wanted to go. Then they started going out together
for walks in the public park. Ali played Christian audio tapes
when BGM was alone with him in the car. As their friendship
grew, BGM started to pour out her heart to him about the
harshness of her father.
Ali and BGM continued to meet like this for seven months,
until she was ready for the next step. Then he asked her to run
away to one of the monasteries where they could then get married
and she said yes. I asked him to drive her home at a time
when nobody was there so that she could pack all her things –
she was so naïve that she even took her Bible with her – and
we went to the house of a Muslim family where she received our
surprise. We told her that it was impossible for her to go back
home because by now her family would have discovered that she
eloped and if her father saw her he would kill her. We told her
that there was no way out of this and that she had to wear a
hijab and take on the Muslim name Zeinab.
She cried and begged us not to force her to do this, but we
did not listen to her pleas and told her if she wished to go
back home she could, but we would not be responsible if her
father killed her.
She was frightened. She cried, screamed, and appeared to be
in shock. It was not a problem for us, as the drugs we
used on girls such situations, would always pacify them.
BGM said she did not want to go back home, as she was scared
she would be killed. We kept her in an apartment for about a
month. At that time, she sat with Sheikh Ibrahim, Mrs.
Hana and Mrs. Lamia. For three hours a day, they lectured her on
Islam and told her negative things about Christianity.
When it came time to take her to the Security Division
Headquarters, she was mentally prepared to deny her Christian
faith and refuse seeing her father. She met with a priest who
talked to her for one and a half hours, but all she would say
was “May God lead you to the right path as he did me.”
She kept repeating this until the priest told her that he was
willing to listen to her if she could convince him about Islam.
But she would not say anything more.
BGM married Ali El Sawy and lived with him in misery as he
was a sadistic pervert who beat her used her private parts to
smother his cigarettes. She was depressed and in tears, which
provoked him to torture her more. He had already received his
financial reward for her conversion, and I got my share.
After 53 days of marriage, he divorced her. She lost her
career, her dignity and her family. She went to work Muslim
dormitory for girls where she cleaned and cooked in exchange for
a place to live. She was there for four months, when she got
married and divorced again. She had been homeless for over a
year. She eventually returned to Christianity is now married and
lives in Sydney.
Mrs. Sh. Sh. H
Though Mrs. Sh. Sh. H was a Christian, she knew little about
Christianity other than the golden cross she wore around her
neck. She says that while in college, she was wild and caused
many problems for her family. Then she met a devout Christian
man who wanted to marry her, against the advice of the clergy
and against the will of his family. After their marriage, she
was faithful to him for a short time. Though they had two
beautiful boys, she was unhappy with her husband.
Mrs. Sh. Sh. H worked at an intermediate school where she met
Khalid Abdel Rahman Mekawy. She started to fool around with
Khalid. Because she was poor, she used to take her husband’s
money and give it to him. The school was far from where she
lived, which made it easier for her to have this relationship.
Khalid talked to me about their affair and I told him that I
could garner him a reward of LE 7000 (Egyptian Pounds) or
possibly as much as LE 10000 if he was able to make her convert
to Islam. I arranged for their sexual encounter in an apartment
and then tipped off the vice police who came to arrest them.
While in the vice police headquarters, Mrs. Sh. Sh. H was
faced with two choices, either write a formal report and
represent her case to the D.A. or, if she wanted to avoid the
scandal, she could be released from the precinct temporarily in
order to pack her clothes and then return to the precinct to be
escorted by Mohamed Abdel Zaher, a lawyer, to Al-Azhar in order
to finish the procedures for her conversion. She was also told
to make a case against her Christian husband requesting full
custody of her children, since she was now a follower of Islam.
(According to Egyptian law, if one of the parents converts to
Islam that parent will have full custody of the children who are
under 18.) Knowing this, her husband took the children and
disappeared until a priest arranged for him to leave the
country.
Mrs. Sh. Sh. H did not change her name after converting to
Islam. Khalid took his reward of LE 10000 and gave it to
his impoverish family. He lived with her and relied on
donations from Muslim families that wanted to reward him for of
his victory for Islam. Yet despite these rewards, he was still
poor and she lived with him in difficult conditions for two
years. Her health deteriorated because of
malnutrition. She also became melancholy because she was
unable to see her children. She attempted suicide on more
than one occasion.
After I was baptized, her father got in touch with Khalid
through me and paid him LE 100000 to divorce her. When her
father saw her, he could not recognize her because she looked so
terrible. All the legal procedures were made with the Clerical
Council for her to be reinstated as a Christian. A
volunteer Christian lawyer helped her to win her case.
Though her husband did not take her back, he allows her to
see her children regularly and she now lives with her mother and
brother in one of the coastline cities.
Mrs. H.
Mrs. H. was married and had a son, who was an accountant, and
two daughters in college, one in medicine and the other in
dentistry.
Mrs. H. had a colleague at work who sent her an errand boy to
help her with shopping and cleaning. This errand boy was very
bold and used to go to her house even when she was alone. The
errand boy’s name was Hussein Zaki Abdel Baki. I heard about
this from her Muslim colleague Mahmoud Farahat Abdel Nasser. I
asked her colleague to let me talk to Hussein. I convinced him
to work for the jihad against infidels and told him that Mrs. H.
sounded like an easy catch and that he needed to take her as an
odalisque for his pleasure in her home and on her marital bed.
Though he was 21 years her junior, he followed the plan and they
had sexual relations for the next few months.
Hussein would tell my friends and me about what happened
between them. This woman got used to these encounters, which
were taking place every other day, and preferred Hussein to her
husband. Then Hussein decided to take the next move and
told her:
You are very nice.
I cannot live without you.
Younger girls are not as good as you are.
Your husband does not know your true value and you live with
him in deprivation.
You should seek divorce from this husband who deprives you of
your legitimate rights.
Since there is no divorce in your religion, there is only one
way out so that we can live and enjoy our love.
Mrs. H. agreed with him and the next morning when she came to
work, I was waiting for her there with Sheikh Khaled who was a
member of one of the Muslim associations. We drove her to the
Security Division headquarters where we met with the man in
charge. Although he disapproved of what was happening and
tried to deter her, she was mentally prepared to stand up to
anyone. Her family came to see her and pleaded with
her. First, her son, then her two daughters and her
husband (who fell to his knees in front of her) tried to
convince her to come back to them, but she was adamant and
called them all atheists and infidels.
All the procedures and her new ID were completed within 24
hours. She was now ready, willing and able to marry Hussein. She
went and looked for him, but by then he had already cashed the
LE 15000 reward and had proposed to a young Muslim girl. When
she finally found him and asked him to marry her, he spat at
her, called her a whore and told her she should work as a
prostitute. He said that as a good Muslim he would have
nothing to do with her. She was shocked and could not believe
that she had sacrificed her life, husband, children and brothers
for this man.
She tried to get in touch with her family members, but her
husband had already fled the scandal with their children to live
in another place, and her brothers refused to see her. She went
to stay in one of the legitimate associations and wait for
anyone who would marry her.
Within less than two months she was walking absent-mindedly
on the Cairo-Aswan road, passers-by were shouting at her to be
careful on this highway when she was hit by a police car and was
badly injured with multiple fractures. She was admitted to a
public hospital. No one from her family wanted to visit
her. I was the only person who went to see her and left a down
payment for her operation, which was paid by a nearby mosque
imam. She was hospitalized and had a number of surgeries. She
was left permanently disabled in one foot and needed crutches to
walk.
She was in quite a dilemma. Where could she go? How
would she survive and who will support her? She had already lost
her husband, family and her job. Some Muslim benefactors took
her to live in a tiny flat in the poor area of Boolak in Cairo
and applied for social research to be conducted on her
situation, so that the Ministry of Social Services would pay her
a meager LE 25 per month. She continued to live in poverty for
two years. By that time, I had become a Christian and felt that
mine should be a retroactive repentance. So I reached out to her
and her family. It was a tough task, as family had already
considered her dead and one of them vowed to kill her if he ever
set eyes on her.
A bishop and a monk volunteered to help her family meet and
talk with her. I arranged for her to travel to Kena governorate
where her husband and children had settled after they fled the
scandal and pretended she was dead.
The meeting took place in the house of a priest. One of
her brothers spat on her face and removed his shoe to beat
her. But the priest intervened. I confessed in front of
everybody that this all happened because of me, as I was the one
who instigated Hussein the errand boy to trick her and if
anybody wanted revenge it should be against me, as I was the one
who deserved to be killed, not Mrs. H. Her daughters
started to kiss her and everybody was moved and we all cried.
The priest who was well versed in Islamic studies tried to
discuss the notions that she had previously claimed were the
reason she converted to Islam, but she admitted that what
prompted her to convert was not that she thought there was
something wrong with Christianity but because she was attracted
to Hussein.
After we could see that her conversion back to Christianity
was authentic, we started the legal procedures. It was an
arduous task, which proved difficult and complicated. Only the
grace of God and his miraculous intervention made it possible
for that lady to go back to her son and two daughters.
M.A.T.
This case was a harsh blow, as this girl was from a very
wealthy family and her father was well known to all of the
Christians in his city and in the governorate. Her mother was a
deputy minister and was nominated for a higher position in Cairo
as a sector head. Both parents came from aristocratic families.
What happened to MAT is happening to many others.
MAT was a college student when I met her. She used to go to
church, memorize verses from the Bible and observe all of the
fasts. She had many Christian and Muslim friends.
I made her acquaintance through one of her Muslim friends who
knew my intentions and wanted to help in the jihad. I had to
pretend that I was fond of her and never told her that I was
married. I also pretended to be a secular Muslim who accepted
all others regardless of their religion. I even pretended to
have socialist inclinations. I tried to trick her sometimes with
skeptic questions about Christianity. She responded with
answers that I have never heard from any other girl and I would
then pretend to be convinced by those answers. I never told her
that I was married to an ex-Christian who I converted to Islam.
I made her believe that I was single and looking for love. We
started to go out together with her Muslim friend, Amal Rmadan
Abdel Aleem, who played a major role in introducing us.
Our platonic relationship lasted for eleven months and I kept
it this way because she was a religious girl and I knew she
would not succumb easily to sex. So I put more of an emphasis on
trapping her emotions. We used to sit down together and cry
because we could not get married. She tried to talk to me about
her disagreement with Islamic beliefs and I pretended to agree
with her. In time, she became so attached to me that she could
not let a day go by without going out with me.
Once we went to St. Simon Monastery in Mokattam. I put on a
mask of reverence while I despised and loathed everything around
me. I put some change in the alms box and I kissed the icons to
convince her that I liked Christianity. It was on this trip that
I told her that I was starting to believe in Christianity, but
that my father and uncles were sheikhs and could cause a lot of
trouble. I told her she must be patient and leave matters
in the hands of God. A few weeks after our trip to the
monastery, she talked to me again about my willingness to accept
the Christian faith and I told her that I was convince about it,
but my conversion could only be done abroad and for the time
being we would have to stop seeing each other.
This came as a shock to her and she started crying. We had
the following conversation:
What am I supposed to do? I love you and you love me.
You know I cannot live without you.
So what are we going to do?
I know how you feel but it’s difficult to achieve our goal
now.
How long do we have to wait?
If I convert to Christianity, my parents will give us such
hassles and we won’t have any resources.
We can sell my jewelry.
How long will it last and anyway? I cannot take money
from you.
We can work and provide for ourselves.
I have an idea and wonder if you will agree.
What is it?
I will convert to Christianity, but only after we settle
abroad. But I do not know when this will happen.
You mean we have to wait for years? That is not fair.
The only way out is if you sacrifice temporarily so that we
can be together, what joins us is the religion of love.
What are you saying?
You heard me and if you don’t agree we should not see each
other again.
Please try to find another way.
I have been thinking for quite some time and that is the only
way.
What am I supposed to say to my parents and what would they
think of me and what will everybody think of me? My friends, the
church and the priest?
You make the choice.
Darling please find another way.
Believe me there is no other way and you know that I care
about you and your reputation.
What am I supposed to tell them at home and how will I leave?
That’s easy; you just pack a small suitcase and tell them
that you are going to spend a few days at the nuns’ monastery
in old Cairo. We can live together in Cairo. When things get
better, I will be baptized and we can have a church wedding. You
have to make up your mind now, it’s either me or your parents,
but if you choose them, you will never see me again.
Give me some time to think it over.
I will wait for you the day after tomorrow at 7:00 in the
morning at the train station, if you don’t show up with your
suitcase you can forget me forever.
She cried and I pretended to cry as well, but she was at the
station on time and we traveled together to Cairo. We went to my
place and when she opened her suitcase, I was dismayed to see
that she had a Bible. I thought that angels wouldn’t come into
this house while this filth was there. She said that she had
sacrificed her Jesus, family and church for my sake, but will
pray day and night so that God may change the circumstances so
that I could be baptized. I was angry but laughed at her
naïveté.
We had breakfast and then went for a walk. We had to embark
on the next stage of preparing her to confront her parents and
the clergymen. She had a condensed course with sheikhs and
Islamic preachers and we used the drugs on her that were
supplied by my friend, the pharmacist, in order to ensure her
submissiveness. These daily sessions with drugs continued for a
whole month. In the meantime, her parents had checked with
the monastery and when they did not find her, they realized that
she was missing. They reported her absence to the police who
were collaborating with us and kept stalling her parents in
order to buy us time so that we could prepare her mentally to
reject the counseling of the clergymen. But her parents were
very persistent and did not stop complaining until the police
had to inform them that she was staying at one of the legitimate
associations and that she had applied to convert to Islam. It
was a very harsh revelation for her parents, her friends and the
priests who knew her family and knew how religious she was.
She was a member of the church choir, she used to go to
church every day and memorize the church prayers, and as far as
they knew, she had left home to go on a spiritual retreat in the
monastery in Cairo. They were in shock and disbelief. They had
so many questions but received no answers. The police finally
agreed to let them meet with her in the Security Division
Headquarters and in the presence of policemen who collaborated
with us and attended the meeting to scare the girl and prevent
her from relenting under the pressure of seeing her parents in
distress. It was a three-hour meeting. She said nothing
but: “There is no God but Allah, it is over, please leave me
be, don’t be upset with me.” She was crying all the
time and the two priests who were present with her parents tried
to ask her about her Islamic beliefs. When she tried to say
something, our man who was there banged his knuckles on the
desk, which terrified her, so she kept quiet.
The meeting was disastrous for the family, but helped us to
expedite the remaining procedures. In no time, MAT received her
new identity with her new Muslim name, Shaima. I finished
my mission and I had to disappear because there was no way I
would marry her. I received my reward of LE 40000 which was the
highest amount I received during my career of unscrupulous
activities.
She was desperate and looked for me everywhere. When we
finally met, she asked when we were going to be married and
said:
I did everything you wanted me to do. So, what am I required
to do now?
Marry me. I did all this for our love.
You did not love your religion so you are incapable of loving
a man.
Yes, I loved you and you loved me.
Yes, I loved you, but I cannot marry you nor trust you
because you have no loyalty.
I am not loyal? I left everything behind for your sake.
And you would be willing to leave me for another man besides
you come from a squalid race.
So why did you make all these promises and made me change my
religion?
I did you a favor, I ushered you into the right
religion but I will not marry you, I am already married
and for your information my wife was like you and I am the one
who made her convert to Islam so you are not the first nor the
last infidel that I win for Islam.
I cannot believe what I am hearing.
Now you have to work as a nanny at the nursery of the
legitimate association until we find you someone who would marry
you and can control you.
You cannot be the same person I fell in love with.
Don’t talk about love, and now hit the road
Shaima was so desperate and hopeless that she collapsed and
lost consciousness. She suffered terrible depression, which was
manifested in dreadful symptoms. She used to wake up in the
middle of the night terrified and screaming and cried
constantly. We found her a husband who managed to furnish
a room for her in his apartment in Omarania. He was a street
seller, so you can imagine how he treated her.
I enjoyed seeing her suffer in humiliation and when we met
one day, she said: “May God take revenge on you” so I spat
at her and said: “May what happened to you happen to all your
folks”. She was married to that man for nine months and
became pregnant, but had a miscarriage because of a harsh
beating he gave her. When he divorced her, she became homeless
until one of our brothers found her a job as a maid in a
hospital in Ayat. She worked in cleaning and in the hospital
kitchen and had to find herself any hidden corner to sleep in,
as she had nowhere to go.
One day a Christian doctor empathized with her and took her
to work in his clinic in Damietta. This was risky for him
because she was a former Christian. She confessed to him that
she had never believed in Islam and that she wanted to return to
her father’s house even if she had to work as a maid and sleep
on the floor there.
This was around the time I became a Christian and started
looking for her. When I finally met that doctor, he led me to
her. I apologized and cried in front of her asking for her
forgiveness for all of the pain I caused her. She did not say a
word but burst into tears, so I asked her to pray with my wife,
the doctor and me. After we saw her smile, we left and I
promised to visit her family and confess everything to them. I
went to her parents and when I told them the whole story, they
were eager to take her back. I found true love and real
Christianity in those people who were so sad about what had
become of their daughter, and yet they were willing to forgive.
None of them showed any hostility to me for the evil I had
committed. I deeply regretted my actions and cried when I saw
all the love they showed me after all the pain I caused them and
their daughter. Those people believed in a loving and forgiving
God.
Her father embraced her and repeated what the father of the
prodigal son had said in the Bible. She now leads a life of
prayer in Cairo, with one of her brothers and his family.
A.S.O. and her cousin A.F.O.
ASO and AFO were from Suez and studied in one of the colleges
at Cairo University. They had a reputation for being
reckless and wild, and for having sex with many guys. I
heard about them from Mohamed Mahmoud Alaa, one of their
colleagues in college, who was also a member of one our
legitimate association. Alaa told me the names of some of
the guys ASO and AFO were involved with. Some were Christians
but the others were Muslims who were not concerned with religion
and drank alcohol and took drugs. I went to see two of those
Muslim men with a friend of mine. We had a casual discussion
with them about Islam and then we asked them to accompany us to
the mosque to hear some verses from the Quran. They agreed and
we attended a lecture about the rewards of those who claim
victory for Islam. We met with the two guys again and attended
more lectures. One of those lectures discussed the contents of
one of Sheikh Shaarawy’s televised sessions where he
criticized the Christian’s beliefs and their decadence and
immorality. The two young men told me about their involvement
with the two Christian girls and I told them:
You guys have a chance to make up for all your sins.
God is great and forgiving.
You have to claim victory for Allah and his true religion.
Christians and Jews will not be satisfied unless you follow
their religions.
You are the future and strength of Islam.
Those Christians are cursed as they discredit our prophet.
They sully the Quran in their Churches.
If you can make these two girls convert to Islam you will be
rewarded by acres of land in heaven and you will also be paid a
large amount of money here on earth.
They both agreed and I filled them in on the plan, which
required that they strengthen their relationship with the two
girls. I gave them a sizeable cheque so that they could have fun
with the girls and impress them by paying for all entertainment.
Entertainment and fun at that stage was acceptable because war
is a trick.
Shortly after the two men managed to trap the girls into
civil marriage. We rented a furnished flat for them for this
purpose, as these Christian girls were odalisques to be used by
Muslims only for sensual pleasures. This went on for a year and
a half until we lost patience, and told the Muslim young men
that they had to talk to the girls about converting to Islam to
maintain the continuation of marriage, love and sex. It was a
nice surprise to find that these women had no objection and did
not argue or discuss anything, as is usually the case in these
circumstances. When asked about their Christian beliefs they
replied that they knew nothing about Christianity. We did not
need to hide them in a legitimate association or ask for the
help of police or anybody else as we usually did.
We summoned two of the relatives of each girl and the priest
of Suez together with a priest from Giza and when the girls saw
their parents and the priests they started a demonstration and
shouted: “There is no God but Allah, Christians are the
enemies of Allah, Pope Shenouda is the enemy of Allah and we
will sacrifice blood and soul for Islam”. It was a farce that
even the Security Division man in charge tried to end, but one
of the girls maliciously slurred Jesus Christ and Saint Mary.
The relatives and the priests left and one of the girls changed
her name to Khadiga and the other to Fatima. They both wore the
hajib and married the Muslim boys who were paid LE 8000 each and
I was also paid my reward.
What happened afterwards to the Muslim Khadiga and Fatima was
humiliating and degrading. Their husbands considered them an
investment commodity and got them to become prostitutes for
tourists from the Gulf area. The husbands gave the money
they earned in prostitution to their Muslim families and one of
them married his sweetheart and rented her a flat. One day after
the husbands drove them to their business with some Gulf
tourists in a flat in Agouza, the vice police raided the
building and everybody was arrested. The two girls were sent to
Kanater prison where they were badly treated. While in prison,
they made the acquaintance of a Christian prison warden. They
told her their story and that they regretted leaving
Christianity, betraying their families and wasting their
lives. The warden had no children and considered them her
daughters after they confided in her.
When the two women came out of prison, they found that their
Muslim husbands had divorced them and they had nowhere to go.
They wanted to go back to their Christian names but they could
not because their identity cards now bore Muslim names.
They went to work as maids at the house of a film actor in order
to find a place to sleep and eat. They left her as soon as they
found a place for Christian girls where they were
accepted.
I had been looking for them for some time and by coincidence,
it happened that one of the girls they were staying with was a
relative of my wife, so we have to know their whereabouts. A
priest found them a place to stay, I went with him to meet the
priest of Suez, and we proceeded to see the families of the two
girls. Their fathers and brothers beat me so hard that if it
were not for the priest I would have been killed.
Afterwards one of the fathers was eager to see his daughter,
but his brother adamantly refused, until he was convinced by one
of the priests and a reunion was arranged at the house of the
priest who gave shelter to the two girls. The meeting was in
utter chaos, as there were those who were crying and embracing
and those who were swearing, beating and asking for revenge
until we were all led into a long prayer.
It was a very emotional day. When the families left, the
girls remained at the priest’s house where everybody was
praying and asking for God’s grace. After a lot of hassle and
expense, we managed to get the girls new identity cards with new
Christian names, as unfortunately we could not get them their
original names. One of them is now married to her cousin
and they live in Aswan, the second is married and lives in
Brazil.
***
I serve now at the Lord’s vineyard and I believe that my
name is in the book of life. I wish I could have stayed in Egypt
but it was not possible because my father wanted me dead and an
edict was issued permitting the slaughter of my wife’s family
on the pretext that they must have used black magic to make me
deviate from the right path and leave the religion of Allah to
embrace the religion of the infidels.
I have mourned the years I spent away from the Lord and
harassing his people. I rebuked him for not opening my eyes
earlier in life. I found a similar story in Acts Chapter 19 and
realized how great and merciful God is that he does not wish
death for the sinner but wants him to return and live.
Before, when I went to a church, I used to despise and mock
those nutty Christians who repeated strange words in a strange
language that they called the Coptic language, so many of them
did not understand or appreciate it and preferred Arabic.
After my conversion, I was frequenting churches during Lent
and I smelled a beautiful scent in the air, I loved it, loved
all the tunes of Coptic hymns, and loved their profound
theological meanings. I truly wanted to stay in Egypt, but my
wife’s family was scared for her life and mine, so we decided
to find and retrieve those that were lost because of me at any
cost. It was an arduous task that cost me all my savings, but we
managed to restore many girls and we are praying for the rest of
them. When things became more dangerous, my wife’s father
insisted that we leave the country. My visa was revoked few
times, but my wife got a tourist visa to the USA and I stayed
behind for four months. After she left it was easier for me to
serve the Lord without having to worry about her safety. Those
four months of serving the Lord clandestinely was the most
blissful period of my life where I really felt the hand of the
Lord working through me. My father – may God forgive him –
had been involved in the same unscrupulous activities with
devilish plans but we managed to bring back some girls he
converted through deception, and for that we thank the Lord and
we pray and ask you to pray for the rest.
I wrote down the experiences I went through not to entertain
the reader or for someone to hate his friends, but for all to
learn from our mistakes. I gave some examples of evil deceitful
friends who act as if they were lambs while they are wolves
waiting to snatch the prey, but there are also good people,
honest and loyal. I am also writing to warn against guys who
deceive girls by pretending to be a Christian and would even go
to church because he believes that tricks are allowed in war. I
am also writing this in the hope that parents would pay more
attention to their children, look into their lives and mend
their ways if they need and bring their families closer to
church - the house of the Lord - in order to protect their
offspring.
I am not writing this to incite you against some friends or
provoke civil unrest. What I fear most is that some irrational
girl might think she is embarking on an adventure and would be a
heroine and I know quite a few who would do anything now to
reverse what they have done, but all the odds are against them
which makes it virtually impossible for them to come back. I am
only writing my personal experiences.
In closing, I offer this memoir to the soul of my faithful
friend Salah Mahmoud who gave his life for his Christian
faith. Prior to becoming a Christian, Mahmoud was a member
of Jamaa Islamia. When God lit his heart and opened his eyes, it
marked my beginning of search and study. Through the blessings
of his prayers, I became born again and was transformed. I offer
this memoir to Mahmoud. May God rest his soul in heaven
along with all of the Saints.
