Sheikh Ahmed Deedat is an Islamic preacher of Indian origin who moved to live with his father in South Africa, and devoted his life to defending Islam, and became famous in the last decades of the twentieth century for his religious debates with Christian priests around the world.
He did not complete his formal education, yet he spoke English, Arabic, Zulu, Zulu, and other languages.
Birth and upbringing
Ahmed Hussain Deedat was born on July 1, 1918 in Tadkeeshwar town in Sirat district, Gujarat state in northwest India, to Muslim parents Hussain Kazem Deedat and his wife Fatima.
His father worked in agriculture and his mother helped him. After about 9 years, his father moved in 1927 to South Africa among other groups of Indians, due to the poor living conditions that prevailed in India at that time with the lack of appropriate study conditions there.
His father lived in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, and changed his agricultural work to work as a tailor.
Study and training
In 1927, Ahmed Deedat traveled to South Africa at the age of 9 to live with his father, and a few months after his departure his mother died.
As soon as he arrived in South Africa, Ahmed Deedat joined the Islamic Center in Durban to learn the Holy Quran and its sciences and the provisions of Islamic law.
Deedat devoted himself to diligence in his studies, overcame the language barrier and excelled in school, and in 1934 he completed the primary stage.
Because of financial circumstances, he had to leave school to work, and he was 16 years old at the time, and in 1937, he married Mrs. Hawa Gangt and gave birth to two sons, one Ibrahim, and the other Youssef, who was assassinated in 2020, in Verulam, Durban, South Africa. He has a daughter named Ruqayyah.
In the late forties, he joined the Royal Technical College, as it was called at the time, where he studied mathematics and business administration. He also joined training courses for beginners in radio maintenance and the basics of electrical engineering.
Ahmed Deedat continued his educational attainment with his individual readings, and he spoke English, Arabic, Zulu, Zulu, and other languages.
Functions and Responsibilities
He started his life as a seller in a grocery store, then moved to work in a furniture factory for 12 years, and climbed the job ladder in this factory from a driver, then a seller, and then a manager of the factory.
In 1949, he traveled to Pakistan to seek work and worked in a textile factory, then returned to South Africa in 1952.
In 1959 he left his work to devote himself to preaching at the International Center for Islamic Call, which he founded in 1957. He also established in Durban in 1968 the nucleus of the first Islamic center in South Africa, which he called the "Peace Center".
Advocacy experience
In 1936, while working as a furniture seller, Deedat met a group of missionaries at a Christian seminary on the southern coast of the province of Natal, and he heard from them insults to the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, and they accused Muslims of “using the sword” to force people to convert to Islam. Deedat's accusations sparked his interest in comparing religions.
During his stay in Pakistan, Deedat found a book by the Indian scholar Rahmatullah Al-Karnawi entitled "Exhibiting the Truth", and he read it and changed the course of his life.
The Sheikh once spoke about the impact of this book and said, "I was a young man working in a store located near the Adams Center for the Graduation of Christian Missionaries in the suburbs of Durban. The students of the center used to pass by me during my work and say to me: Did you know that Muhammad spread his religion by the sword? Did you know that the Qur'an was transmitted from the Torah? And I don't know anything, so I don't answer."
One day I was looking for something to read so I started searching the library of the owner of the shop where I work, and I fell upon an old dusty book.
As soon as I took it, I started sneezing!
It caught my attention that the book is in English, but its title is Arabic, marked with Latin letters.
I read the book and my life changed forever, as it answered the questions the missionaries had been worrying about.”
After returning to South Africa, he met a British scientist named Fair Fax, who converted to Islam and gave several lectures on Christianity to a group of Durban youth, one of whom was Deedat.
In 1942, Deedat gave his first lecture, "Muhammad: Messenger of Peace" to an audience of fifteen at the Durban Cinema.
Deedat began spreading Islam among Africans when inter-ethnic communication was a crime punishable by racial law in South Africa, and he chose to move to live with the Zulu tribe in very simple living conditions.
Holding specialized courses in studying the Gospels to prepare preachers to Islam at the Call Center which he built near the largest mosques in South Africa, to be able to invite non-Muslim visitors to Islam.
In 1949, Deedat moved to Pakistan with his family and lived in Karachi for three years.
In 1957, with close friends, he founded the International Islamic Call Center (IPCI) with the goal of printing a variety of books on Islam and providing lessons for new Muslims.
The following year, Deedat set up an Islamic institute called the Peace Education Institute on a 75-acre (30 hectare) plot of land located in Bremar in the southern state of Natal, before going out into the world—in the first 1977 global debate at London's Albert Hall.
stubborn views
By the eighties, Ahmed Deedat's work began to appear outside his native South Africa, and the world toured as a lecturer and debater for scholars of other religions, especially Christians such as Floyd Clark, Jimmy Swaggart and Anis Shrosh, prompting Western churches and universities to dedicate a section in their libraries to his debates - whose tapes - to respond to the ideas received them and nullify their public influence.
He had a major role in the Islam of thousands of Christians - in the world - some of whom became advocates of Islam, and also contributed to the struggle against racial discrimination in South Africa.
He distributed millions of copies of his tapes, lectures, and books for free throughout his advocacy career, and his advocacy center, which he founded, still sends books free of charge to anyone who requests them wherever he is.
Deedat believes that "Islam is the best solution and the answer to all of South Africa, apartheid, alcohol, gambling, and all the methods of destruction that affect humanity."
literature
He started writing since the fifties and produced more than 20 books focusing on explaining the message of Islam, issues of belief and comparisons of religions. Among these books are:
What does the Bible say about Muhammad, peace be upon him?
(More than 300,000 copies have been printed.)
Is the Bible the Word of God?
(More than 260,000 copies have been printed.)
The issue of the crucifixion of Christ between truth and slander.
Christ in Islam.
The Islamic solution to the racial problem.
A Muslim performs prayer.
Who rolled the stone?
The issue of the crucifixion of Christ between truth and slander.
Christ in Islam.
Muhammad: the natural successor to Christ.
what is his name?
(God in Judaism, Christianity and Islam).
the choice.
Satanic The Satanic Verses and how Salman Rushdie deceived the West.
Jihad equipment.
Wine between Christianity and Islam.
From Baptist to Islam.
Awards
He was awarded the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam in 1986, and was given the rank of "Professor".
illness and death
On May 4, 1996, Ahmed Deedat was completely paralyzed after returning from a missionary trip in Australia, and was flown to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh for treatment.
He was able to communicate with his family with private digital signals, as he spent the last nine years of his life in a bed at his home in South Africa, under the care of his wife.
Sheikh Deedat died on August 8, 2005, and was buried in Durban, and about a year later his wife joined him at the age of 85.