Mario Joseph, a former imam who shared the story of his conversion and subsequent persecution with the HM Television program “Changing Tracks,” broadcast by the EUK Mamie Foundation run by the Home of the Mother religious community, got the English-language interview, first posted in April 2014, by now has more than 250,000 views on YouTube.
Mario Joseph got onto this world because his mother rejected doctors’ advice to abort him when she had an infected womb during pregnancy. After his birth she dedicated him to God. Studying the Quran, he noticed that the name of Jesus was mentioned more often than the name of Islam’s prophet Mohammed and that Mary, known in Arabic as Mariam, was the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran. In Islam, Mary is recognized as a perpetual virgin who was conceived without sin.
Mario Joseph decided to accept Jesus, which was not happily received by his parents, who found they had to punish him. He was bound and deprived of food and water for several days and his brother forced him to drink urine as a punishment. The lack of food and water affected him severely, he recalled, adding that after as many as 20 days, his father entered his cell, choked him and threatened him with a knife unless he renounced Jesus.
“I knew my dad well that he would kill me,”Mario Joseph said.
“When I knew that it was my last moment… I thought, ‘Jesus died, but He came back. If I believe in Jesus and die, I too may get my life’.”
At that point he felt energized, pulled his father’s hand down, and cried out Jesus’ name. His father then fell down and was cut severely by his own knife, causing him to foam at the mouth, Mario Joseph said. When family members took his father to the hospital, they forgot to lock the room.
The young man then ran out and caught a taxi. The driver was a Christian and helped get him food and drink.
“That day, really I understood, my Jesus is alive even now. When I called him for my need, he saved me.”
Mario Joseph found a Catholic retreat center in India, where he could stay and give talks in various languages.
He took the name “Mario,” a male version of Mary in Italian. He also took the name Joseph for Mary’s spouse.
Mario Joseph said he did not expect that he would still be alive 18 years after his conversion. He said people are still trying to kill him, and his parents held a mock funeral ceremony for him to signify that he was an outcast. On the mock grave, they marked as his death date the date of his baptism.
Although he has had no contact with his family members, he prays for them and believes that “God can touch them within a moment.”
Even if they never accept Christianity, he explained,
“I’m always saying ‘Jesus, please take them to heaven’.”
This imam former Muslim imam may have found Jesus, and found many things in Catholicism where he found himself at ease.
It is strange he came to accept the Trinity and even came to do worship of the human being Mary. For such conversions Muslims are very afraid, but if some of their Muslim brothers and sisters would come to see who Jesus really is, and what the Plan of God is with humanity, they should not be so much afraid.
I do invite Christians and Muslims to come and look at the Quran and Bible verses which are presented to come to understand both writings better and see the similarities and come to see where certain Quran verses can lead tot and how certain teachers can twist the words of those holy books.
Come and have a look at the series Quran and Bible verses comparison:
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