A Christmas without Ahmed Deedat

by Nisaar Y. Nadiadwala (Notes) on Sunday, December 25, 2011 at 11:02am Two Indians, both from Gujarat, India, began their respective missions from South Africa and carried across the world. Both were immensly successful and their approach remains powerful to be imitated. Mahatma Gandhi and Ahmed Deedat. What ever material you find these days on social websites and, youtube videos regarding Jesus as not being God are directly or inndirectly borrowed from Ahmed Deedat. On this occasion when our Christians friends are celebrating Christmas let me remind my readers some information from Shaikh Ahmed Deedat's life Deedat started his anti Christian tirade as a simple sales boy who was approached by the nearby MIssionary center as a practice box to train the new pastors and missonaries. Day after Day he was bothered by them and was posed by questions regarding Islam to cnfuse him. He was a case study for them , in how to confuse a Muslims. Today there are many Christians who are doing Phds on Deedat's approach. When Deedat's cannons were firing in fulll bloom the missionaries in US UK used to hold special sessions on how to face Deedat. For those who dont know.... "Deedat's first lecture, entitled "Muhammad: The Messenger of Peace", was delivered in 1942 to an audience of just fifteen people at a Durban movie theatre named Avalon Cinema..Deedat's most famous moment came when he managed to land a debate withtelevangelist Jimmy Swaggart at a time when Swaggart was one of the leading faces of Evangelical Christianity. The debate entitled Is The Bible the Word of God?, was held in Swaggart's hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana in November 1986 at the University of Louisiana, where it was attended by about 8,000 people. Among the amusing statements I remember, one is here: The South African government used to ban any obscene literature that would corrupt the tender young minds. So some rockstars were banned and also some novels of D.H Lawerence also banned.. So some one cut pasted some vulagar and obscene chapters from the Bible and sent it by post to the clearing department .. Not knowing that it was from the Bible the authority banned those papers and said they are filthy enough to corrupt their youth !!!!! It was Deedat who promoted the book, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History by MIchael Hart. It was Deedat who started the concept of Islamic Daw'ah centers, and now most of the big cities in the world have Islamic da'wah centers. Among the finest daw'ah videos are the ones which has Deedat debating with the senior Miitary officers of US in an army base. The real fun also includes Deedat scolding them politely and asking to remain quite and attentive when he speaks to them. The camera shows the Seniors Officers sitting with their bibles and Deedat speaking from his memory. A wonderful display of scholarly content and arguments. I being a student and a trainer of public speaking, my observations say that Deedat is among the best orators of the world in his field. He was honored as a "Muslim scholar of Christian Bible" There is no doubt that if your content matches your presentations and is fuelled with your passions then it is a masterpiece product He spent the last nine years of his life in a bed in his home in Verulam, South Africa, encouraging people to engage in Da'wah. A very difficult time for a man who constatnly was on move to promote Islam But Deedat would not take things lying down. He was flown to King

Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, where he was reported to be fully alert and hence taught to communicate through a series of eye-movements via a chart whereby he would form words by acknowledging individual alphabets read out to him; this way he would form complete sentences. Reports tells us that Christians visited him and Deedat did Da'wah to them May Allah grant him success in akhera and forgive his sins. Ameen Author : Nisaar Nadiadwala speaks and writes on the Islam and Muslims. He can be reached at nisaar_yusuf@yahoo.com