Ignatius Press, Conversion Stories, and Muhammad

I recently reviewed The Price to Pay by Joseph Fadelle.  A few month ago I reviewed From Islam to Christ by Derya Little.  Both are conversion stories from Islam to Catholicism.  Earlier today I just happened to gaze at my bookshelf and notice the similar spines on those books.  They’re both published by Ignatius Press.  Although Fadelle’s book was back in 2015, Little’s book is from 2017.

There’s actually a more recent conversion story from Islam that they have.  It’s called From Fire, By Water by Sohrab Ahmari who is a Persian convert to Catholicism.  This book was published in January 2019.  Is Ignatius Press focusing on Islam?  It’s certainly possible.  I haven’t read Ahmari’s book but I’ll certainly be reading it in the future.

Joseph Fadelle and Derya Little both lost their Islamic faith the same way.  They simply studied the life of Muhammad and found him to be anything but impressive.  What I find the most odd about this is not that they found Muhammad to be joke.  The most interesting thing is that they didn’t know the details of his life until they did independent research.  You’d think in countries like Turkey and Iraq, the Islamic education would be enough to teach them the intimate details of Muhammad’s life.  I would expect this ignorance from a Muslim who grew up in the West, but not one from two important Muslim countries like Iraq and Turkey.

On this blog many times and in my interview with Sam Shamoun I pointed out that the two main arguments that Muslims use are Trinity vs. Tawheed and the Perfect Quran vs. the corrupted Bible.  Notice that Muhammad doesn’t fit into either of those arguments.  Also, without Muhammad they wouldn’t have the Quran or Tawheed.  Muhammad is half of the Shahada, right next to Allah being the one God.  He’s a factor that can’t be ignored.

The next time a Muslim tries to tell you that the Trinity is bogus and the Bible is corrupt, simply ask them why we should accept Muhammad.  After all, if the Trinity is false and the Bible is corrupt, it doesn’t follow that Islam is true.  It could be, but necessarily.  For Islam to be true, Muhammad has to be shown to be a true prophet of the Creator.  The truth is, this might get Muslims to think about him and realize how little they actually know.  At this point they’ll do what Little and Fadelle did, which is actually learn about this guy.  Once they realize that the emperor has no clothes they’ll renounce Islam pretty quickly.

On July 22, 2019 on the Coming Home Network website, Little wrote:

When I read the Qur’an in Turkish for the first time and dove into the Hadith, the man I found was far from perfect.  Instead, he was just another man, desiring power, money, and women, like countless others throughout history.

There is a good chance of Muslims leaving Islam in the West because there is little motivation for Muslims to stay Muslim in the West.  In Muslim countries, it’s a different issue but certainly possible as Little and Fadelle have shown.

There’s an old phrase that states: Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.  I’ve heard it being attributed to both Napoleon and Sun Tzu’s Art of War.  Either way, I think that researching the life of Muhammad from primary sources is a mistake from the Islamic point of view.  Now, Muslim apologists will disagree with me.  They probably think that studying Muhammad’s life from the primary sources is a good thing.  I agree with them that it is.  I guess I can agree with Muslim apologists after all.  I will stand by them in promoting the study of Muhammad’s life from the Sirah and Hadith.