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apenitentialprayer · 5 years

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Muslim converts to Christianity

Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh: (d. 627) the first cousin and brother-in-law of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, Ubaydallah was one of the four ḥunafā', a group of friends who rejected idol worship and followed a form of philosophical monotheism in the years before Muhammad’s declaration of prophethood. Ubaydallah was an early convert to Islam, which resonated with his own ideas about God; during the early persecution of the movement, he and a group of other Muslims moved to the Christian kingdom of Aksum, which gave the community asylum. While he lived in Aksum, he encountered Christianity and converted to the faith, which created friction in the refugee community, ultimately resulting in his wife Ramla leaving him because of his apostasy. He died in Aksum, and his wife would later marry Muhammad. Ṣurḥān of Dwin: (d. 703-705) Ṣurḥān was an Arab soldier stationed in Armenia in the late 650s. Armenia represented the very border of the Islamic Empire, a border that ultimately could not be controlled in the wake of the civil war that broke out in Syria. As Arab troops were recalled to fight the Umayyads, Ṣurḥān took advantage of the chaos in order to stay, having grow attached to the Armenian community. He was baptized, got married to a local woman, and had several kids with her. About forty years later, the Islamic Empire (now controlled by the Umayyads) decided to end Armenian semi-independent rule and sent a new governor to control the region. As an example for others against apostasy from Islam, the governor ordered the crucifixion of Ṣurḥān, who was forced to face southward (the direction of Mecca) as a symbolic act of submission. It is said that this cross miraculously turned eastward, the traditional direction of Christian prayer, before he died. Anthony al-Qurayshi: (d. 799) Rawḥ was a member of the Quraysh tribe, the same one that Muhammad was born into, and a possible former Umayyad who defected to the ‘Abbasid dynasty. Like many Muslim aristocrats, he lived in a monastery-palace, where he was known to harass the priest, remove the crosses, and even eat the Host from the tabernacle. One day, he decided to use an icon of Saint Theodore for target practice, but when he fired his arrow, it miraculously turned on him and shot him through the hand. This, compounded with a vision a few days later in which the Eucharist became a lamb during Mass, and an appearance by Saint Theodore himself to chastise him, Rawḥ decided to convert to Christianity. Patriarch Elias II was afraid that his conversion would cause controversy, so sent him to the River Jordan to be baptized and given the name Anthony. From there, he wandered the desert for a few years as an ascetic before returning home to Damascus; his family mocked him and demanded he revert, but he would not; he was taken before the Caliph; he was beheaded on Christmas of 799, a fate he gladly accepted in atonement for previous raids he had committed against Byzantine settlements. Renouard of Toulouse: (fl. late 8th Century) A lieutenant of Saint William Fièrebrace, who was a duke know for his conflicts with the Umayyad Emirate. Renouard was apparently a Spanish Muslim who converted to Christianity and defected to William’s side. Both figures were immortalized in the chansons de geste that circulated in 12th and 13th century France. Saint Casilda of Toledo: (fl. early 11th Century) the daughter of the ruler of Islamic Toledo, Casilda was especially known for her compassion for prisoners. She would often sneak extra bread to them. When she became ill, she made a pilgrimage to the well of Saint Vincent in Burgos, presumably at the suggestion of some of the Christian prisoners. When she was cured, she chose to be baptized and lived to be 100 while living a solitary life of prayer near the well. Zayda of Seville: (fl. late 11th Century) the daughter-in-law of King al-Mu’tamid, the last Abbadid ruler of Seville. When the Almoravids, a Moroccan reform movement known for its strict interpretations of Islam, overthrew the more lenient Muslim kingdoms of Iberia, Zayda fled to Castille, where she became the mistress of Alfonso IV. She was eventually baptized as ‘Isabel’. After this, events become a little more murky; she gave birth to Alfonso’s only son, an illegitimate child named Sancho. She may have died giving birth to him, or she may have died giving birth to another child. If the latter is the case, it is possible that Zayda and Alfonso’s wife, Queen Isabel, are the same person. If that is the case, she gave birth to two more children. Fátima of Portugal: (d. mid 12th Century) a ‘Moorish princess’ according to oral tradition, probably a member of lesser nobility. In the year 1158, she and a group of other Muslims were captured while picnicking at a river by al-Qaşr. While in captivity, Fátima is said to have fallen in love with the leader of the Christian war band, Gonçalo Hermingues. She converted to Christianity in order to marry him, taking on Oureanna (‘Golden-One’) as her baptismal name. Tragically, she died shortly thereafter, and the heartbroken knight named a town after her. Centuries later, in 1917, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three shepherd children in this town. Saint ‘Bersabei’: (d. 1480) the name given to an Ottoman officer by later Christian chroniclers. Bersabei was a member of the Ottoman force that conquered Otranto in 1480, under the command of Mehmet II the Conqueror. When the city fell in August of that year, the inhabitants were variously killed, sold into slavery, or forcibly converted to Islam. A group of 813 men who were commanded to convert refused; they were led up to a mountain now known as the Hill of Martyrs, where executioners (including Bersabei) killed them. During the mass martyrdom, the devotion of these Christians (and a miracle in which one of the martyred Christians continued to stand upright after his decapitation) caused this officer to declare his belief in their faith. He was subsequently impaled, dying alongside the martyrs of Otranto. These martyrs were canonized as saints in 2013. Omar ibn Said: (1770-1864) Born in the Imamate of Futa Toro, Omar ibn Said was captured and ‘sold into the hands of the Christians’ in 1807. He died a slave, in North Carolina. Omar ibn Said was an intelligent man who had grown up learning a variety of subjects from prominent scholars in his home region; he became famous in America for his literacy in Arabic, especially after writing on the walls of a jail cell after having been caught in an escape attempt. After being sold to the brother of the governor of North Carolina, he was supplied with both an Arabic Bible and an English Qur’an. Though he practiced Christianity, this seems to have been less a ‘conversion’ in a modern sense and more a simultaneous practicing of both Christianity and Islam (a sociological phenomenon that has a name, but I can’t remember it right now). His own Arabic writings reveal both a gratitude to the Owens family for his conversion to Christianity, as well as many invocations of blessings upon Jesus and Muhammad and quotations of the Qur’an from memory. In 1991, a mosque in North Carolina was named after him. Imaduddin Lahiz: (1830-1900) a fourth generation maulvi living in what was then Punjab, known for translating the Qur’an into Urdu and attacking the Ahmadi movement from a Sunni perspective. He converted to Christianity in 1866, along with his wife and nine children. This conversion was extremely controversial; like many converts during the colonial period, his intentions were seen as suspect and driven more by desire for material gain and affluence than a genuine faith. It reached the point where he felt the need to specify in his autobiography that he had converted ‘simply for the sake of attaining salvation’. He wrote several Biblical commentaries. Bonus: Bramimonde (Possibly 8th Century, possibly completely fictional) depicted in The Song of Roland as the wife of the ruler of Zaragoza, the city which Charlemagne attempted to seize from the Umayyad Emirate in 778. Historically, this campaign ended in a failure, with Charlemagne never again entering Iberia after the catastrophe of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. The poet of The Song of Roland, however, wrote a different ending. In this ending, Charlemagne attacks Zaragoza a second time to avenge the death of his friend Roland, in which both Bramimonde’s husband Marsile and son Jurfaleu the Blonde are ultimately killed. Bramimonde is taken captive, and whereas most of the other captives are forcibly converted to Christianity, Bramimonde’s special status as widow to a king causes her to be catechized first; she is baptized when she decides she believes, taking on the name Juliana.

#Christianity #Islam #figures of note #saints

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