Remembering Life of Ahmed Deedat

[denel]

Pajeetness is based on the Pajeet race and phenotype....thats why Pakistanis call even hygienic Hindus and Hindus with toilet access Pajeets

friend, i would suggest this profanity is not becoming of this thread. please take it elsewhere.

 

[PakistaniAtBahrain]

Rahimahullah. all the Muslim-Christian debates he did really changed the dawah scene. he was a pioneer.

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

friend, i would suggest this profanity is not becoming of this thread. please take it elsewhere.

I didnot start the debate

 

[denel]

I didnot start the debate

no problem. let us not get into this nasty ness.

I will appreciate it; this is to mark this good man.

 

[Clutch]

wow... never thought anyone would remember him.

We still have his debates on VCR tapes although we do not have VCR to play them. I do have his hardcopy book of crucifixion or cruci-fiction.

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

Rahimahullah. all the Muslim-Christian debates he did really changed the dawah scene. he was a pioneer.

Spiritual predeccessor of another great Indian Dr. Zakir Naik....Indians completely dominate the Muslim Dawah scene...

 

[Sulman Badshah]

Sheikh Deedat was inspirational for many.

 

[denel]

Sheikh Deedat was inspirational for many.

His son is continuing his work together with his wife. I was surprised when my friend had told me that he was going to challenge Jimmy Swaggart; you have to remember that time. Jimmy Swaggart was all over the place in this entire region.

To have him challenge him not once but twice it was a huge deal.

Further, in the context of the time of our struggle against aparthied, this was a coloured man taking on a white man on the matter of religion. Especially how we were subjugated to here - it won huge following. He knew his work and prolific reader.

Here there is a movement of debate; it is instilled in our DNA to discuss at length; you must master the language in order to win debates. This is also exactly what Mandela did too.

 

[PDF]

wow... never thought anyone would remember him.

I have been sharing his videos as recently as this week... I am in awe of his debating skills and personality. Despite having seen his videos, I fall back agian to rewatch them again and again.

Zakir Naik, who was inspired by him is still no match for him, despite Zakir having covered more religions in comparative study.

 

[313ghazi]

I did not reaiise he had that wide an audience outside our region.

Amazing person. Extremely hospitable.

Everyone knows Ahmed Deedat. He was a wonderful speaker and one of the first English speaking scholars I came across. Very sharp wit too.

 

[denel]

I have been sharing his videos as recently as this week... I am in awe of his debating skills and personality. Despite having seen his videos, I fall back agian to rewatch them again and again.

Zakir Naik, who was inspired by him is still no match for him, despite Zakir having covered more religions in comparative study.

man, language is key. my other friends who are from the bush - kalahari desert. They are of mixed e.g. father was muslim and mother tswana. they speak tswana with the old dialect. It is a pity i never record them. Mujibz. man - a character - these evalengists came over before the pandemic in Gaborone Staduim. He got on the stage (uninvited) and debated with these americans. However he was speaking in ENglish and Tswana in parallel. You will not believe, he converted around 8 people that day.

People's souls are needing healing my friends. Message of god is needed. SOrry i sound like i am being on a mission friends. Pardon my thoughts.

 

[PakistaniAtBahrain]

Spiritual predeccessor of another great Indian Dr. Zakir Naik

Dr Zakir Naik was inspired by Sheikh Ahmed Deedat and Dr Israr Ahmed.

Indians completely dominate the Muslim Dawah scene...

they do a big part. but many arent from india. Mohammed Hijab (Egypt), Shamsi (Algeria), Adnan Rasheed (Pakistan), Paul Williams (England), Hamza Myatt (England), Ijaz Ahmed (Trinidad), etc. most of the dawah scene is now online, especially after india starting persecuting Dr Zakir Naik.

Rahimahullah. all the Muslim-Christian debates he did really changed the dawah scene. he was a pioneer.

because of Sheikh Ahmed Deedat, the big christian pastors dont debate the Muslim sheikhs anymore. the christian pastors have completely shifted from attacking Islam 50% of the time and defending the Bible the other 50%, to only attacking Islam 100% of the time because they cant defend the bible. i think all this is because of the effect that Sheikh Ahmed Deedat had when he destroyed all those christian pastors when he was alive.

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

Dr Zakir Naik was inspired by Sheikh Ahmed Deedat and Dr Israr Ahmed.



they do a big part. but many arent from india. Mohammed Hijab (Egypt), Shamsi (Algeria), Adnan Rasheed (Pakistan), Paul Williams (England), Hamza Myatt (England), Ijaz Ahmed (Trinidad), etc. most of the dawah scene is now online, especially after india starting persecuting Dr Zakir Naik.


because of Sheikh Ahmed Deedat, the big christian pastors dont debate the Muslim sheikhs anymore. the christian pastors have completely shifted from attacking Islam 50% of the time and defending the Bible the other 50%, to only attacking Islam 100% of the time because they cant defend the bible. i think all this is because of the effect that Sheikh Ahmed Deedat had when he destroyed all those christian pastors when he was alive.

Pakistan has no presence in international Dawah...the superstars are not Pakistanis

 

[PakistaniAtBahrain]

Pakistan has no presence in international Dawah...the superstars are not Pakistanis

the dawah scene is basically only online now, and there are a lot of Pakistanis there. Adnan Rasheed (Punjabi i think) and Sheikh Uthman ibn Farooq (Pashtoon) are the 2 obvious examples. Sheikh Uthman just debated Sam Shamoun, David Wood, and a couple of others, all at the same time just a few days ago.

so unless you are a closet Muslim and know the dawah scene as much as me, just take my word for it then.

 

[Deltadart]

Many of the PDFer's wont remember who Ahmed Deedat was.

This a post to celebrate his being amongst us. Amazing and humble man I had the privilege to meet and sit down to have a meal with him.

Remembering the life of Sheikh Ahmed Deedat

The fiery South African autodidact was a champion of interreligious debate.

www.aljazeera.com

Remembering the life of Sheikh Ahmed Deedat
The fiery South African autodidact was a champion of interreligious debate.

Sheikh Ahmed Deedat held a firm belief in open and sincere interreligious dialogue [Rajesh Jantilal/AFP/Getty Images]
By Dariusz Dziewanski
8 Aug 2015
Sheikh Deedat was a charismatic, self-taught Muslim scholar from South Africa, most famous for engaging Christian evangelists in public debate. In 1986, he debated Jimmy Swaggart and even challenged the late Pope John Paul II to a debate in the Vatican Square.
His son, Yousuf Deedat, calls him a “lion of the stage”.
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But while Sheikh Deedat was most famous for his sharp and impassioned debating style, he was also a prolific writer.
He published more than 20 books and wrote free literature and pamphlets, of which millions of copies were distributed across the globe.
Many of his publications were translated into other languages, and in 1986 Saudi Arabia awarded Deedat the King Faisal Award for his services to Islam.

This impressive body of work made Ahmed Deedat a celebrated figure in the Muslim world.

Yousuf Deedat recalls how former South African President Nelson Mandela called his father during a presidential visit to Saudi Arabia in 1994, telling him that wherever he went, people inquired about the Muslim scholar.
“When he met youngsters, they all used to ask him: Mr Mandela, how is Sheikh Deedat? And when he went on television interviews, the first question the presenter would ask is: How is Sheikh Deedat in South Africa?”
A self-made scholar
August 8 marks 10 years since Deedat’s death of kidney failure at the age of 87. He was bedridden for the final 10 years of his life, after suffering a stroke that left him paralysed and unable to speak.
Though doctors initially gave him little chance to live, Deedat continued to engage in religious work until his death – communicating by using a grid of the alphabet, which he used to spell out words letter-by-letter by signalling with his eyes.
Such tenacity was a defining characteristic of his life.

An Indian immigrant who moved to join his father in the South African city of Durban at the age of nine, Deedat proved himself an excellent student before poverty forced him out of school and into work.

Without formal education past age 16, “he was self-taught through experience and a penchant for reading, debating, discussion, and a profound sense of commitment to a mission and goal”, according to the Islamic Propagation Centre International (IPCI) website, an organisation Sheikh Deedat started with a close friend Goolam Hoosein Vanker.
Today, institutions such as IPCI continue his missionary work through training, lectures, mosque visits, inter-faith debates, literature and videos.
RELATED: The life of Shaikh Ahmed Deedat
Another of Deedat’s childhood friends, IPCI board member Ebrahim Jadwat, explained that he “was constantly testing, rehearsing his ideas and speeches with us at every occasion”. To further refine his thinking and arguments, Deedat immersed himself in studying and memorising the Bible, as well as the Quran.
His books such as Crucifixion or Cruci-Fiction? and What the Bible Says About Muhammed challenged Christian beliefs and proposed alternative interpretations of the Bible.

Deedat even called for Muslims to revisit their faith, and saw Christian challenges to Islam on the content of the Quran as a way of strengthening the religion to which he devoted his life.
In one of his lectures, Deedat announced, “[Christians] are actually forcing us to read the Quran. Without these people we are still carrying on – chanting away, chanting away – without knowing what we are chanting. They are now waking us up.”
According to University of Cape Town’s Abdulkader Tayob, Deedat’s work represented a new way of da’wah, or preaching Islam.
This was “very different from the past, and certainly more akin to Christian groups,” said Tayob. “This is not good or bad – but worth reflecting on.”
Tayob also expressed admiration for how Deedat’s work gave a sense of pride to “non-white” Muslims in apartheid-era South Africa.

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Post Script – Charles Stratford – South Africa

Indeed, Deedat’s international acclaim indicates that he had a similar effect on the morale of Muslims worldwide.
Stirring oratory or stirring controversy?

But Deedat’s candour and fiery debating style also stirred controversy.
In France, the sale and distribution of Deedat’s writings were banned in 1994 for what was described as a violently anti-Western, anti-Semitic tone inciting racial hatred.
And in Australia, where Deedat gave a tour shortly before his stroke, Franca Arena – a member of New South Wales’ legislative council – gave a speech on racism, in which she claimed that during his tour, Deedat “indulged in Bible-bashing and incited racial hatred”.
Deedat’s close relations with the family of Osama bin Laden also prompted media scrutiny.
The building housing the IPCI was originally named the Bin Laden Centre, after the family contributed a sizable donation for its construction.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the name brought notoriety to the organisation.

But Yousuf Deedat maintains that his father’s mission was a peaceful one. He likens the elder Deedat to Mandela for his firm belief in open and sincere dialogue.
“Today, that concept is fading. That’s why today you have pockets of [radicalisation] like ISIL. None of their leaders want to have a discussion with other members of government or religion. And that is the legacy of [Ahmed] Deedat. He was a promoter of free speech and dialogue,” Yousuf Deedat said.
Sheikh Deedat’s own words are telling in this regard. Examining the relationship between violence and religious conversation, he stated: “He who takes his sword and tries to propagate with that will do little for him[self]”.
Instead Deedat proclaimed that the Quran urges Muslims to “invite all to the ways of the Lord with wisdom, the sword of the intellect … and with beautiful preaching; and reason with [cynics] in the ways that are best and most gracious. This is the sword.”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

I know of him well. He was a great human being and a master bebator.