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+--- Thread: How Jewish Extremist Converted to Islam (/showthread.php?tid=7626)
How Jewish Extremist Converted to Islam - amma - 07-16-2005
Something which i read anf i wanted to shar with all.
How Jewish Extremist Converted to Islam
6/20/2005
Tehran, IQNA : June 20, 2005 — Ex Jewish extremist submits to magnificent
glory of Islam and embraces the true religion.
With his tattoo of the Star of David hidden from view, Mohammed Al Mahadi
prays to Allah in his new West Bank home near the radical Jewish settlement
where he spent much of the last decade.
His recent arrival in the Shaab neighbourhood of the flashpoint town of
Hebron is the latest twist in the extraordinary life story of Mahadi, who
was born to Jewish parents 37 years ago in the former Soviet republic of
Azerbaijan.
The man, then known as Mikhail Shirovsky, moved to Israel soon after the
Soviet authorities allowed Jews to emigrate in the 1980s.
After serving in the army as a fitness instructor, he was drawn to Jewish
extremism and decided to move to the hardline settlement of Kiryat Arba in
1995 soon after one of its residents, Baruch Goldstein, shot dead 29 Muslim
worshippers in Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs.
But an unlikely friendship with a Palestinian garage owner led him to first
question his values, then to convert to Islam before marrying a Muslim wife
from his native land. Mahadi said he has been touched by the warmth of the
welcome that he has received from his new neighbours in spite of his
background.
“I was a radical settler and an enemy to them,” he said in an interview at
his new home. “They have treated me like a brother and have offered me all
the help that I need.” After his conversion to Islam and marriage to Sabena,
Mahadi’s life among the Jews of Kiryat Arba became increasingly fraught.
He says that his wife and four children were ostracized and harassed by his
one-time friends.
“I was attacked in the settlers in Kiryat Arba many times. They stoned my
house and wrote grafitti against me, saying I’m a Muslim and had to leave.
“Every time I traveled anywhere, we were harassed because my wife was
wearing a veil.
“I was also often interrogated by the Israel security services, but all that
I care about is that my children continue on the same religious path as me.”
Maadi admits that the man responsible for attracting him to Islam was garage
owner Waleed Zaloum, whose business is located just outside Kiryat Arba. Two
strong-headed men, they used to argue for hours about the merits of their
respective faiths as Zaloum recalls. “From the start I felt there was good
inside this man, even though I was not expecting it from a settler from
Kiryat Arba,” he said.
“The issue became a challenge to me and I told him: ‘Either you convert me
to Judaism or I convert you to Islam’, but after six months of discussions
and meetings it was him who ended up being converted.” Mahadi said he had
been persuaded to renounce Judaism for intellectual reasons. “I discovered
that there were too many contradictions in Judaism and at the same time I
realised that Islam is the religion of truth and wisdom,” he said. “I
converted because I am seeking truth because of religious reasons and not
for any other motive.”
He is unable to shake off all his Jewish heritage. Tattoos of the Star of
David and of a Menorah (a seven-branched Jewish candelabrum) are etched
indelibly on his hands. But Mahadi harbours no doubts and his new faith,
saying that he is not interested in the formation of a secular Palestinian
state. “What I want is an Islamic caliphate in Palestine and, God willing,
Jerusalem will be the capital of this state,” he said.
How Jewish Extremist Converted to Islam - Muslimah - 07-18-2005
Bismillah
as salam alykom amma
Jazaki Allah khairan for this post