Ex-Christian’s Confession

What disturbed me about my faith during my Christianity, and drew my attention to Islam, is that we had to refer to Islamic law (Sharia Law), while we were Christians, in the matter of inheritance, since there is no law for inheritance in Christianity.

Likewise, when my older sister married a Protestant man without our knowledge. We are Orthodox. One of the priests came to blame my father for this marriage, and when we asked about its legality, they told us that it is forbidden and that my sister had to be divorced from her husband according to Islamic law, because Christianity does not include divorce due to the difference of religion and sects, and marriage outside the sect is forbidden according to the orders of the patriarchs who declare the other sects an infidel. There is no solution to this conflict except by resorting to Islamic law.

Furthermore, Orthodox Christian actress (Hala Sedki) divorced her Orthodox husband by the Islamic divorce law, because the Orthodox Church does not allow a divorce due to the severe separation between a couple. Patriarch Shenouda III went out on TV allowing the actress to divorce her husband and marry another man and He said: There is no objection to resort to the Islamic Sharia for laws not established by the Christian law (which was introduced by Patriarch Cyril VI and the Milli Council 50 years ago) and he said until we could introduce new laws in line with this time and age.

In 1988, when my father died, I asked in the church why there are no Christian laws for us to apply for inheritance, or for us to refer to the Jewish laws. They told me: There are no Christian or Jewish laws for inheritance. I was astonished, as I thought that there were laws in place, even if they were drawn up by the fathers, disciples of Christ, or the patriarchs and monks. They told me that the patriarch would lay down a law for us by the Holy Spirit.

While in Islam we find a complete law for everything, in the Qur’an and the Prophetic Sunnah, everything that comes to the mind of humans, and laws and regulations for all transactions, trade, and the rules of all worships, and the right stories without blasphemy of the prophets, and without stories of adultery and vulgar sexual talk, and the right education And the parables, and everything about destiny, about Heaven and Hell, and the events of the Day of Resurrection, the events of the people in Heaven and in Hell, and about the unseen things like Satan and the Jinn, their origin and their conditions, the path, the purgatory and the grave.

Islam has clear, defined worship practices in the Quran and the Sunnah, which do not differ from country to country, daily worships, collective and individual prayers, acts of worship such as fasting, prayer, charity, Zakat, Umrah and Hajj. No human being has any involvement in it, not even the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself.

Muslims have unified holidays mentioned in the Holy Book and the Sunnah: Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha and Fridays. It was not put by humans. Muslims around the world perform One prescribed pilgrimage each year, the same way, in the same place and at the same time. All this has no parallel in Christianity at all.

For these reasons and other things, I found that Islam is an integrated religion and has a complete law, and does not need a law other than Islam, and everything in it is governed by the Holy Book and the Sunnah of the Prophet, and all turns to God alone, so I said to myself: Save yourself, and I surrendered my face to God alone, who has no partner, so I embraced Islam. May you be blessed in this world and the hereafter. May God guide you.

Dr. Wadie Fathi