Ahmed Deedat – One Man Army in Propagating Islam

Early Life

Born on July 1, 1918, Sheikh Deedat arrived in South Africa, from India, as a nine-year-old in August 1927.

Although he hadn’t previously been exposed to the English language, he learnt it in six months, excelled at school and finished top of his class.

However, due to financial considerations, his father removed him from school during his early years of secondary schooling. He was sent to work in a store in a rural area, where his mission of Da’wah began.

Students from a Christian missionary school would visit the store preaching their beliefs to him, and knowing little more than the shahadah (testifying that no god but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet), he found it difficult to defend his beliefs.

As fate would have it, Ahmad Deedat discovered by pure chance a book named Izharul Haque meaning the Truth revealed by Rahmatullah Kairanvi, which carried a religious dialogue between a Muslim imam and a Christian priest, and this proved to be the first of many books which he would read on the subject.  This book recorded the techniques and enormous success of the efforts of Muslims in India in turning the tables against Christian missionary harassment during the British subjugation and rule of India. In particular the idea of holding debates had a profound effect on Ahmed Deedat.

He began researching both religions and recording his findings in a notebook, after which he started delivering lectures in South Africa.

First Lecture

His first lecture was entitled “Muhammad (peace be upon him): Messenger of Peace,” at it was delivered in 1940, to 15 people at a movie theater named Avalon Cinema in his province.

Within a short space of time, the numbers grew and people crossed the racial divides which were then prevalent in apartheid South Africa, to listen to him, and to participate in the questions and answers sessions which followed his lectures.

A major vehicle of Deedat's early missionary activity was the 'Guided Tours' of the Jumma Mosque in Durban. The vast ornamental Jumma Mosque was a landmark site in the tourist friendly city of Durban. A sophisticated program of luncheons, speeches and free hand-outs was created to give an increasingly large number of international tourists often their first look at Islam. Deedat himself featured as one of the guides, hosting tourists and giving succinct introductions to the Islamic Religion and the relationship between Islam and Christianity

Although some Christians and Muslims felt that his style was blunt, many others reverted to Islam, and Da’wah soon began to dominate his life, with the audiences at his lectures reaching forty thousand.

International Fame 1985–1995

By the early 1980s, Ahmed Deedat's work was beginning to be known outside his native South Africa. In 1985, for instance, he twice rented the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London to debate Christians contemporaries in front of a packed audience. His international profile was significantly boosted, when in 1986 he was awarded the King Faisal Award for his services to Islam in the field of Dawah (Islamic missionary activity). The award squarely brought Deedat into the international limelight and the attention of the Muslim communities worldwide. As a result, at the ripe old age of 66, Deedat began a new phase in his lifetime mission of empowering Muslims to preach to Christians, a ten-year long period of international speaking tours around the world. He travelled far and wide to Muslim communities from Australia at one end to North America at the other end. Some of his known tours include:

• Saudi Arabia and Egypt (on several occasions)
• United Kingdom (on several occasions between 1985 and 1988, including Switzerland in 1987)
• Pakistan, where Deedat met Zia al-Haq, UAE and Maldives Islands (Nov–Dec 1987), where Deedat was honored by President Gayhoom.^[4]
• US Tour Number 1 (late 1986 featuring debates with Swaggart, Robert Douglas and several lectures including two in Arizona)
• Sweden and Denmark (late 1991 featuring three debates)
• US and Canada Tour (1994 tour featuring debate in Canada and lectures in Chicago)
• Australia Tour (his last tour in early 1996 just before his stroke)

Debates

Deedat's first well-known debate occurred in August 1981 when he debated well-known Christian apologist Josh McDowell in Durban, South Africa. Many of his debates were later broadcast online on Youtube and truthway among other sites.

Debates with Anis Shorrosh

Deedat's memorable tussles with Palestinian-American missionary Dr. Anis Shorrosh (sl no. 27 & 48) first came to public attention when Shorrosh appeared among the audience during the Q&A sessions on two separate occasions during Deedat's summer 1985 tour of the UK (where he debated (sl no. 19) Dr. Floyd E. Clark in what is now considered another one of his early international works). Thereon ensued some back and forth between the camps of Deedat and Shorrosh and the result was two highly contentious debates, the first of which, entitled Is Jesus God? took place right away in Dec 1985 at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London. The second debate was organized with much fanfare and held in Birmingham, UK on August 7, 1988; entitled The Quran or the Bible: Which is God's Word. This debate spanned a total of 240 minutes including the Q&A session.

Debate with Jimmy Swaggart

Deedat's most famous moment came when he managed to land a debate (sl no 33 & 34) with televangelist 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.

Henry Hock Guan Teh wrote of the debate,

The debate is on the reasonableness of their competing faiths which was held at Louisiana State University. Great expectations were generated since both were experienced public speakers. Sadly, Swaggart merely relied on TV showmanship to influence the crowd. When Deedat challenged him to prove the Bible as the Word of God, Swaggart simply quoted John 3:16 and claimed that his life was changed by it. Even such a claim was shattered to pieces when Swaggart’s personal sexual weaknesses were later exposed in the press.

”

Deedat never managed to truly capitalize on the international fame of his opponent, however, when over the following six months and subsequent five years, Swaggart was caught twice in damaging sex scandals and lost most of his international following and stature as a tele-evangelist. The debate, however, did capture the imagination of the Muslim world and the Muslims minorities in Europe and North America.

Other Notable Debates

In Ahmed Deedat's US tour of 1986, Deedat also debated Dr. Robert Douglas, PhD (Zwimmer Institute) at the University of Kansas in November 1986 in a debate entitled Crucifixion: Fact or Fiction. Deedat's last major debate entitled Was Jesus Crucified? took place at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Canada on July 17, 1994 featuring Wesley H. Wakefield (Bishop General of the Bible Holiness Movement of Vancouver).

In Oct–Nov 1991, Deedat toured Scandinavia where he held three debates and several speeches. Two of these debates where held on successive nights against Pastor Stanley Sjöberg (Sl No. 68 & 69) in Stockholm, Sweden. The first of these was entitled Is the Bible the True Word of God? and the second debate was Is Jesus God?. Deedat then traveled to Denmark where he debated Pastor Eric Bock (Sl No. 71) in Copenhagen in a debate entitled Is Jesus God?

Deedat and the Pope

In 1984, he challenged John Paul II to a public dialogue in the Vatican Square, but the Pope responded that he only agreed to a closed conference in his cabin. However, Deedat wrote back that he insisted "that such meeting should be public,". When the Pope stopped answering, Deedat distributed a pamphlet in January 1985 headlined His Holiness Plays Hide and Seek With Muslims.

His Writings and Speeches

Cover of Ahmed Deedat's book  

      
The Choice

Deedat published and mass produced over one dozen palm-sized booklets focusing on the following major themes. Most of Deedat's numerous lectures, as well as most of his debates in fact, focus on and around these same themes. Often the same theme has several video lectures to its credit, having been delivered at different times and different places.

• 50000 Errors in the Bible
• Al-Quran - The Miracle of Miracles
• Arabs And Israel Conflict Or Conciliation
• Can You Stomach The Best Of Rushdie 
• Christ In Islam 
• Combat Kit Against Bible Thumpers 
• Crucifixion Or Cruci-fiction 
• Is The Bible God's Word
• Muhammad (pbuh) The Greatest
• Muhummed (pbuh) The Natural Successor To Christ 
• Resurrection Or Resuscitation  
• The Choice Part 1 The Choice Part 2
• The God That Never Was
• Was Jesus Crucified 
• What is His Name 
• What The Bible Says About Muhammad (pbuh) 
• What Was The Sign Of Jonah 
• Who Moved The Stone? 

Capitalizing on his popularity in the Middle East following his receipt of the King Faisal Award, Deedat secured a grant to print a collated volume of four of his popular booklets. 10,000 copies of this book titled The Choice: Islam and Christianity were initially printed on April 1993 in a very high quality HB 'silk paper' edition with a striking burgundy cover with gold embossed title. This book was very popular in the 1990s, often available for free at missionary outlets across North America. Subsequently, several printing houses offered to print more and within two years, by June 1995, another 250,000 copies had been printed in several print runs across the Middle East.

Later, a second volume in plain PB entitled The Choice: Volume Two featuring six more of Deedat's booklets collated together was also published. Deedat also widely promoted a South African printing of The Holy Qur'an translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali with commentary and detailed index. This was widely made available at subsidized costs to the general public and is often mentioned in Deedat's speeches.

Illness and Death 1996–2005

On May 3, 1996, Sheikh Ahmed Deedat suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed from the neck down because of a Cerebral Vascular Accident Brain Stem, and which also meant that he could no longer speak or swallow. 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. 

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 (Islam propagation). He was looked after by his wife, Hawa Deedat, and was reported to have no bed-sores. He continued to receive hundreds of letters of support from around the world, and local and international visitors continued to visit him and pay homage to his work.

On August 8, 2005, Ahmed Deedat died at his home on Trevennen Road in Verulam in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. He is buried at the Verulam cemetery. Hawa Deedat passed away on Monday August 28th 2006 at the age of 85, one year after her husband at Deedat’s home.

Most of the article was taken from the help of Wikipedia