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THERE are some examples which could easily be multiplied. Dr. Imad-ud-Din was a leading sufi and theologian in the Punjaub. He was appointed to preach against Dr. Pfander in the royal mosque at Agra; he read the Scriptures, believed and was baptised, and with another great theologian and sufi, Safdar Ali, became a missionary to his people. Afterwards he received a doctorate from Oxford University. His baptism took place New Year's Day, 1868, together with his aged father and brother. Other distinguished converts in the Punjaub, such as Imam Shah, were also from the clergy1.
Mullah Said of Sena, Kurdistan, came from a line of noted theologians. ttFor seven generations his fore- fathers held ecclesiastical positions." At the age of six he could read the Koran. At the age of fourteen he wore the turban of a mystic order. Through reading the Scriptures and the friendship of a Persian pastor he was converted. "He became the noblest Kurd and was destined to be a John the Baptist for his race. One may read the story of how he suffered persecution and afterward became a leading Christian physkian2.
In Turkey there are also outstanding examples of conversions from the "clergy." Karl Gottlieb Pfander's
1
History of the Church Missionary Society. Vol.11, pp.561-572.
2
The Beloved Physician of Teheran, by Isaac Yonan.
life gives instances even in the days of the old regime.
Armenian Christians gave him a New Testament,
which he read, and the more he read, the more he
was drawn to Christianity. Thus at his father's death
his faith in Christianity became stronger, as he realized
the failure of Mohammedanism in his father's life.
Then he began to introduce Christian principles into
his Friday sermons, but this did not last long, as people
3
Moslem world, Vol. XXXI; 217-226.
began to realize that he was half-Christian! He was
obliged to escape as his life was in danger. He stayed
for some time in different places in the heart of the
mountains, between the two sources of the Euphrates,
and the towns of Erzingan and Harput. When he felt
unsafe even there, he fled as far as Persia, and thence
to Tiflis in the Transcaucasia. Once safe here, he
wanted to be baptized, in order to show openly that
he was a Christian. He met here for the first time
his great colleague in missionary work, Pastor Amirghanjanz,
who was at the height of his work in Tiflis.
He realized the sincerity of Mehmed, and baptized him
with great joy, giving him the name of Johannes Avetaranian
(Son of the Gospel). After that, Avetaranian
attended a Swedish Mission School, from which he was
sent by the Swedish Mission to its mission in Turkestan,
Persia and Asiatic Russia. His principal work was
done in that part of Turkestan which now belongs to
China.
Here he carried on preaching and writing for ten
fruifful years. For many years he published a weekly
religious journal for Turks under a German Mission
in Bulgaria and also a large collection of spiritual
letters ttWitness to the Truth." He died during the
last World War and was buried at Wiesbaden4. Both
of these outstanding defenders of the faith addressed
their messages and devoted their lives primarily to
winning the religious leaders of Islam. Nor was their
effort fruitless.
Among the many thousands of converts from Islam
4
The Moslem world, Vol. XVII; 375ff.
in the Netherlands East Indies, a goodly portion came
from the clergy-class and from the mystic orders. The
same is true in Bengal and China when one scans the
roll of the Church of Christ. A number of these
suffered persecution and some martyrdom for their
faith. One Egyptian wrote from prison in Cairo, "hour
by hour the conviction grew upon me that Christ was
being glorified by my small sufferings." Here is the
story of Mirza Ibrahim of Iran told by Dr. J. Christy
Wilson (Moslem World, July, 1944): "He lived in
Khoy, a city northwest of Lake Urumia, and was
finally taken to Urumia and there put in jail. Later
he was removed to a prison in Tabriz. His case gained
some notoriety and one day the Crown Prince, who
lived in Tabriz at the time, called him out of prison.
He was hastily cleaned up and ushered into the royal
presence. The Crown Prince said, "Mirza Ibrahim,
I have heard your story and, though I think you are
very foolish for declaring yourself a Christian, I do
admire your courage. So today I intend to give you a
great opportunity. If you will kneel here and do the
namaz (the stated Moslem prayer) you may go, you
are a free man."
"Mirza Ibrahim took a Gospel from his coat and
replied in a beautiful way, 'Your Royal Highness, I
know that you have the power of life and death over
me, but here in the gospel I have found my Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ and new life in Him. Nothing
that you could do, sir, could take away from me the
life that I have found in Him. But as to doing the
namaz, I regret that I can not perform the Mohammedan
prayer because I am not a Mohammedan.' He
was put back in jail and several days later was strangled
by the other prisoners because he would not deny his
Lord."
"He was taken out and buried in a little cemetery
in the middle of the great city. Some of us knew
where his grave was located and used to visit the
resting place of this Christian martyr. A few years
ago the whole cemetery was leveled off and a great
municipal building was constructed on the spot. Today
it is the highest edifice in Tabriz, with a great clock
up in the tower that chimes the hours to be heard by
the whole city. To many of us who know that this
building stands on the exact spot where Mirza Ibrahim
the Christian martyr, was buried, it is like a great
monument to him." But his real monument is the
evangelical Church of Tabriz and of all Iran.
The Rev. Paul Erdman of Syria writes:
"In 1943 there died in Beirut in a Home for the
old and incapacitated, a dear friend, Sheikh 'Asia A-
whom I knew intimately for years and visited often.
He was of the descendants of the Prophet and of a
prominent family in Jerusalem where he was the
hereditary head of the Awkaf (Religious Foundation
of one of the mosques). He had given up absolutely
everything one would hold dear for the sake of following
the Lord Jesus Christ-his comfortable home an
income, his family, his position of influence and honor
and respect, for he knew it would mean certain death
for him to remain in his own city and country and
become an open follower of Christ, and he was not
satisfied to do otherwise. He attained this strong and
fearless faith solely through his study of the Bible,
aught of the Holy Spirit, without even any converse
with a Christian. An American missionary lady living
in a house belonging to the Awkaf one day gave him
a copy of the gospel. He placed it in his pocket and
went each day for a walk outside the city walls, lest
the attention of others be drawn to him, and he would
read. . . . He continued this custom for about eight
months. He would take time to read carefully in order
to understand as fully as possible the meaning and to
meditate deeply on the sayings of Christ"
Another outstanding example was the conversion of
a Sufi Moslem in Calcutta born in 1897; the child of
a skilled worker in gold embroidery. He was called
Fazl-ur-Rahman, "the Grace of the Merciful," but his
parents gave him an additional name by which they
always called him-Abd-us-Subhan, "the servant of
the Holy One." He was brought up along simple and
puritanical lines "under the tender care of a very affectionate
mother, . . . a loving father and a good
elder brother," and Islamic principles moulded his life;
as a child he was indeed fanatically devoted to his
own religion.
He has himself described the change that came in
is life in How a Sufi Found His Lord, published by
te Lucknow Publishing House. He tells that the
aspiration for a higher knowledge of God was rooted
in something deeper than any outward circumstance.
"It was, in fact, God's search for His lost child which
found a response in the depth of my soul and took
the form of a quest for something unknown." He
traces its origin to the study of the Koran itself, in its
testimony to the books of Moses, David, and Jesus,
and the desire to know what their teachings could be.
This desire was but one among other vague but eager
longings which led the lad to an intensive study of
mysticism.
"But one of the most memorable landmarks in the
outstanding events of my life came when a copy of
the gospel was given to me by a Moslem friend who
himself had received' it from a preacher or a colporteur.
On a previous occasion I had torn it into pieces, for
when, attracted by its title 'Injil', a term with
which I was familiarized by the study of the Koran,
I had taken it to my teacher, I was warned in all seriousness
not to read it, because it was not a true Injil of
which the Koran testifies, but a corrupted form of it,
and consequently containing blasphemous teachings;
the very act of pronouncing its words pollute the mind
and soul of a believer." However, on this occasion
Subhan read it, and, though alert to detect anything
wrong, "I did not find a single sentence or a clause
which in any sense could be interpreted as blasphemous
or satanic," nor anything that could be regarded as an
interpolation or corruption of the original revelation.
He was impressed with the high ethical teachings of
the gospel, and in the story of the crucifixion found a
narrative which "completely contradicted the idea of
the gospel being corrupted; it is no matter of pride
to be a follower of one who was shamefully put to
death. Yet how plainly the story of the crucifixion
refuted the Christians' claim for Jesus to be the Son
of God!"
He read the gospel through again; "it spoke to me
in my own mother tongue, whispering to me the secrets
of God. Its reading was comforting to my soul, every
sentence touched it to its very depth and it roused the
slumbering faculties of my soul to a new state of consciousness."
After his baptism and grievous persecution,
he became a teacher in a mission-school, then a
preacher and only recently was consecrated as bishop
of the Methodist Church. His brief autobiography is
an illustration of the grace of God and is an inspiration
to all who read it5.
Today his life's ambition "is the evangelization of Moslems.
Conscious of my limitations to realize the vision I am confident
that He who has begun the good work in me will finish it. At
every peak of new experience I find myself exclaiming
O unsearchable riches of Christ."
The first convert baptized in the north-west frontier
province of India was Hajji Yahya Baqir, a seyyid
from Central Asia. He was a learned mullah, descendant
of the prophet and a man of culture. Warned
of God in a dream at Medina that he must follow
Christ, he traveled to Peshawar and learned the truth
from Dr. Pfander in 1855. He made a bold confession
with joy. A few days afterwards he was murderously
assaulted in the Church Missionary Society compound,
received severe wounds but recovered to return to his
home in Central Asia where he held fast to his faith
and witnessed for Christ "as a wandering medical
5
How a Sufi Found His Lord, Lucknow Publishing Co., 1942.
missionary who prayed over his patients and they
got well6."
As in India so in Iran, the conversion of "priests"
led others to Christ. This very year a missionary reports
from one of the sacred shrines of Islam in Iran
"At Qum we had a wonderful time. A shop-keeper
whose shop faces the Mohammedan shrine came and
asked to be baptized. He was once a bookseller and
while going through some books came across a Bible
and by reading it was interested in the Christian faith
He saw us last year and we had conversation and
this year I had the joy of baptizing him, the first
convert in the shrine city of Qum."
Makhail Mansur and Kamil Mansur were brothers
from a village in upper Egypt, and both studied in
the great school of theology, Al Azhar, the former
for twelve long years, until he became an expert Sheikh
in all the learning of Islam. Through providential
contact with one who gave him the Gospel of John
he became eager for truth and light which was not
in the Koran. Like Saul of Tarsus he was blinded
by the light of the glory of Christ's face in the - New
Testament. At the home of Dr. Andrew Watson in
Cairo he heard the call and was baptized and became
an able evangelist in Cairo. How well I remember the
weekly meetings (1919-1928) crowded with Moslem
shiekhs and students where he lectured on the Integrity
of the Scriptures, the Marks of a True Prophet, and
especially a remarkable series on Incidental Evidences
for the Deity of Christ. He often received threatening
6
History of the Church Missionary Society, vol.11, p.12.
letters but never lost his boldness as an apostle of the
truth. His mantle fell on his brother, Kamil Mansur,
also an Azhar Sheilkh and baptized with his spirit. On
his deathbed he charged this brother, after his own
eighteen years of faithful service, to take up the same
ministry. He is a leader in the Egyptian Church
today7.
Such converts by their life and death challenge the
Church - and Islam. Even as Stephen's martyrdom
brought Saul to reflection and finally to conversion
on the road, to Damascus-where he saw Another Face
that shone like an angel (Acts 6:15; 9:3), so we
may yet see the day in Moslem lands when as in the
days of the apostles, the word of God will increase,
the disciples multiply, and a great company of the
priests become obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7).
This book was not primarily intended as a missionary
study. But it is addressed to missionaries as well as
to the general reader for obvious reasons, and we may
say as Dr. James Thayer Addison did in his recent
historical study of The Christian Approach to the
Moslem, "this book is written to help us approach
with more realism, more intelligence, and more enthusiasm
one of the great tasks which God has set before His
Church for the generation to come the - conversion of
the Moslem World8."
And that conversion, or better, evangelization of the
wide world of Islam will doubtless be best accomplished
in God's time when He raises up, as today in
Iran and India, many "heirs of the Prophets" as
7
For an account of his life and work by James G. Hunt,
see The Moslem World, Vol. Ix, pp.19-24.
8
p. 7.
Christian evangelists. For God is choosing those that
are "poor as to the world to be rich in faith and heirs
of the Kingdom which He promised to them that love
Him." These converts are not merely heirs of Islamic
learning but "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ"
if so be that they fill up the measure of His suffering
in the fearless proclamation of the eternal Gospel. It
is for this very reason that we dedicated our volume
to them and their successors in admiration of their
faith and courage.
Heirs of the Prophets
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