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• Murad Wilfried Hofmann

  Was born into a Catholic family on 6 July 1931 in Aschaffenburg, Germany. He graduated from Union College in New York (pre-law; sociology, 1950-51) and completed his legal studies in Munich University where he received a doctorate in jurisprudence in 1957. Following an Assistant Professorship in Civil Procedure, he Studied American Law at Harvard Law School where he received an LL.M. Degree (1960). He became the Director of Information for NATO in Brussels from 1983 to 1987. From 1961 until 1994, he was a member of the German foreign service and a specialist on issues of nuclear defense. He was appointed as a German Ambassador to Algeria (1987-90), and a German Ambassador to Morocco (1990-94).

  “I began to see Islam with its own eyes, as the unadulterated, pristine belief in the one and only, the true God, Who does not beget, and was not begotten, Whom nothing and nobody resembles. In place of the qualified deism of a tribal God and the constructions of a divine Trinity, the Qur’an showed me the most lucid, most straightforward, the most abstract – thus historically most advanced - and least anthropomorphic concept of God. The Qur’an’s ontological statements, as well as its ethical teachings, impressed me as profoundly plausible, “as good as gold,” so there was no room for even the slightest doubt about the authenticity of Muhammad’s prophetic mission. People who understand human nature cannot fail to appreciate the infinite wisdom of the “Dos and Don’ts” handed down from God to man in the form of the Qur’an.”

• Yusuf Estes

  Yusuf Estes was born in Ohio in 1944 and moved to Texas in 1949. He grew up in a Protestant Christian family; as members of the Disciples of Christ. Skip Estes had a career in the music industry, entertainment, marketing, music instructor and music minister and owned several companies including The Estes Piano and Organ Company. Skip Estes was baptized at the age of 12 in Pasadena, Texas. His father, who became an ordained minister in the 1970s, was very active in supporting church work, especially church school programs. Skip’s parents knew many TV evangelists and preachers and had even visited Oral Roberts and helped in the building of the “Prayer Tower” in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They were strong supporters of Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Fae Baker, Jerry Fallwell, John Haggi and Pat Robertson. As a teenager, Skip did a serious research into religions, such as Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Metaphysics, Native American beliefs with the exception of Islam.

  “Strangely enough, the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible...I would ask preachers or ministers to give me some sort of an idea how ‘one’ could figure out to become ‘three’ or how God Himself, Who can do anything He Wills to do, cannot just forgive people’s sins, but rather and had to become a man, come down on earth, be a human, and then take on the sins of all people; keeping in mind that all along He is still God of the whole universe and does as He Wills to do, both in and outside of the universe as we know it. They never seemed to be able to come up with anything other than opinions or strange analogies.”

• Timothy J Winter

  Born in 1960. He is a British native and a revert to Islam. He studied at the prestigious Westminster School in London, UK and later at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated with first class honors in 1983. He received his master’s Degree from Cambridge University, England and later studied at Azhar; one of the oldest universities in the world. He lived in Cairo for three years, studying Islam under traditional teachers. Dr. Timothy was a research fellow at Oxford University. He knew the fact that the clergy did not believe in the Doctrine of Trinity. He was aware that some prominent figures and best minds who lived on this earth were Unitarians (People who discarded Trinity and believed in one God). Timothy was happy to be a Unitarian Christian, sharing the same Unitarian beliefs with Milton, the greatest English poet, John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Charles Dickens among others.

  “A simple definition of one God, ultimate reality is ultimately single, unconfused, uncomplicated, undifferentiated. That seems to me the clearest explanation for the otherwise intolerable mystery of human existence, and the diversity and richness and beauty of the world. And then a wonderful range of forms of meditation and worship by which one approaches and adores that one ultimate reality. One of the richness’s of Islam for me is that the core liturgy, the core practices of worship and of fasting and of charity, are the same everywhere, and have never changed. No well-meaning, liberal, woolly-minded reformers have said let’s do mosque worship in a slightly different way. Let’s bring in the guitars and the trendy Imam with the winkle-picker boots and the jeans, trying to sing along with the Prophet, and update it. I go into a mosque and I know exactly what I’m going to get, a beautiful, unchanged, perfect ritual from a great age of faith, and I find that to be a unique privilege, one of the great things of being a Muslim for me, is that our core practices don’t change, and I think probably never will change. And then also the third thing is belongingness to the Abrahamic tradition. Superficially, I suppose it’s different, but at heart it’s part of the Judaeo-Christian scriptural.”

• Yusuf Islam

  Steven Demetre Georgiou who would later be known by his stage name Cat Stevens was born to a Greek Orthodox father and Swedish Baptist mother on 21st of July 1948. Cat Stevens is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and philanthropist. He had been a pop star since his teens. Under the name “Cat Stevens”, he has sold over 60 million albums around the world since the late 1960s. The world famous British pop singer used to earn sometimes more than $ 150 000 a night. Cat Stevens had everything most people aspire to achieve: fame, talent, wealth, good looks, and strong magnetism towards the opposite sex. In his long held quest for spiritual truth, Cat Stevens had looked into other spiritual formulas including Buddhism, Zen, Numerology, Tarot cards and Astrology.

  “My quest for truth continued in parallel with my artistic career, till the day when a friend of mine who came back from a trip in the East told me that he found serenity inside a mosque which he didn’t in a church, which led me to shift my interest to that religion and bought a translated Koran. At last I found answers to my questions: Who I am? Where I come from? And what is my goal in Life? Through my several readings of this holy book, I concluded that there is only one God with whom we can communicate directly without any interference. It was the Qur’an that gave him the peace he was searching. I would like to stress that I did not come into contact with any Muslim before I embraced Islam. I read the Qur’an first and realized that no person is perfect. Islam is perfect, and if we imitate the conduct of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) we will be successful. Everything made so much sense. This is the beauty of the Qur’an; it asks you to reflect and reason....When I read the Qur’an further, it talked about prayer, kindness and charity. I was not a Muslim yet, but I felt the only answer for me was the Qur’an and God had sent it to me.”

• Suhaib Webb

  He was born William Webb in 1972 in Oklahoma, where he grew up in a Christian family. He became a successful local Hip-Hop DJ, making records with various artists and bands. During this period of his life, he was a member of a gang and turned his back on religion. After his reversion to Islam, he left his career as a DJ and studied at the University of Central Oklahoma, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Education. After studying Islam in the USA and working as an Imam and teacher, in 2004, Suhaib Webb, his wife and children moved to Cairo, to study at Al-Azhar Islamic University. Suhaib has also spent 10 years studying with a Senegalese scholar and memorized the Qur’an under his guidance.

  “I had a lot of trouble accepting God as a human being or creation. Even as a young child I would ask my mother questions. (Why) suddenly, God is one of three instead of God just being God. So I became a little confused. How could the prophets before Jesus go to heaven if they couldn’t worship Jesus? If (the criteria for heaven was) worshipping (Jesus) and recognizing him as a deity and (as) the key to paradise.”

• Michael Wolfe

  Besides being the President and Executive Producer of Unity Productions Foundation, Michael Wolfe (Born 3 April 1945, United States) is the author of books of poetry, fiction, travel, and history. He is also a frequent lecturer on Islamic issues at universities across the United States including Harvard, Georgetown, Stanford, SUNY Buffalo, and Princeton. He holds a degree in Classics from Wesleyan University. He had a foot in two religious camps for he was born to a Christian mother and Jewish father, having the opportunity of celebrating both Hanukkah and Christmas.

  “I could not have drawn up a list of demands, but I had a fair idea of what I was after. The religion I wanted should be to metaphysics as metaphysics is to science. It would not be confined by a narrow rationalism or traffic in mystery to please its priests. There would be no priests, no separation between nature and things sacred. There would be no war with the flesh, if I could help it. Sex would be natural, not the seat of a curse upon the species. Finally, I did want a ritual component, daily routine to sharpen the senses and discipline my mind. Above all, I wanted clarity and freedom. I did not want to trade away reason simply to be saddled with a dogma. The more I learned about Islam, the more it appeared to conform to what I was after”.