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A Muslim Who Became a Christian
"One day I noticed among her books one that I had never seen before. I looked inside and read the beginning-it was the Gospel in Turkish." This would be Muhammed Shükri's first encounter with the truth of Jesus Christ as testified to in the book of the Christians, the New Testament. It would not be his last. This Muslim and mullah, this dervish and descendant of the prophet Muhammad, from the distant province of Erzerum in the Ottoman Empire, would continue to follow in Jesus' footsteps, leading him to Russia, Sweden, China, Germany, and Bulgaria. He would come to live and work with Americans, Europeans, Armenians, Persians, and Turks from various backgrounds. And his desire that his own Turkish people and Muslims in general should hear the words of the Gospel would never diminish. Here is his story in his own words.
292 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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October 3, 2013
I have devoted a good amount of time over the years to the topic of Christians who come form a Muslim background, and who once confidently asserted that Muslim identity. Such individuals rarely write explicit theological texts, so this means that if one wants to study such people, one must spend time with them and get to know them personally, or read what they do write. And what they do write, and have written, are usually their life stories.
Since the 70’s or so, when the number of (known) conversions from Islam to Christianity really started to increase and branch out into different places (i.e., Pakistan, India, Egypt, Iran), many such books have been published. But I was quite interested to find this book of a Turkish Muslim who left the religion of his family, and came to Christ, recently translated by John Bechard from German, because it is, to the best of my knowledge, the earliest existing autobiography of a Christian from a Muslim background available in English.
Born Muhammad Shukri Efendi, as the complete and lengthy title indicates, the writer and subject of the book lived from 1861 through 1919. Born into the prestigious effendi class, Shukri was a descendent of the Prophet himself. He spent much of his early years traveling around with his odd and peripatetic father—a mystic who could not settle down. He became involved in the exotic Yologhli sect. Shukri found a New Testament in Turkish, and searched for its meaning, which he did not find in the Armenian church he visited. He was a religious teacher in his town though, which, as he gradually came to believe in the message of Jesus, caused no little anguish to him. Eventually, he writes, ‘it became clear to me that I could no longer perform the Muslim prayer rites with a clear conscience’ (35). He resigned from his position.
Shukri was able to use his secretarial skills in drafting documents and official letters to make a living. Eventually he got to know some Protestant missionaries and found the fuller meaning of life and God he was looking for (though he is critical of their fear of baptizing converts from Islam publically). He voluntarily took the name John Avetaranian. John, out of respect for John the Baptist who was a herald to his people, pointing them to Messiah. And Avetaranian because it is Armenian for son of the Gospel (41).
Avetaranian mastered Armenian and lived with and ministered to Armenians for some time. The rest of the book relates his lengthy and colorful missionary career. Said career took him from living among Uigar people of Kashgar in what is today west China, to Bulgaria where he saw the devastation of war first hand. His activities ranged from preaching to personal evangelism to translation to apologetics and publishing. One of the main endeavors in his lifetime was to see Scripture translated into Kashgari. His recollections of living in the remote mountains of west China among the Kashgar people, translating little by little the Bible, interacting with the strange Catholic missionary living there—this is one of the most interesting parts of the book. We are finally informed, near the end of the book, that eventually his translation was printed and used in spreading the Christian message among the Kashgar people. After an adventurous and interesting life he died in Germany, where he was buried.
The original German-language edition was published in 1930. The book was mostly written by Avetaranian, but the final section was written by his colleague and fellow missionary, Richard Schafer. But an immense amount of work has been done by John Bechard, who studied German language and literature at the University of Kansas. The book, in its second edition now, contains ten appendices, which make up a good quarter of the volume. Here are references to biblical and Qur’anic verses, recondite information on the Yologhli sect, and helpful geographical information whereby the reader can connect the 19th C. map of Europe and Asia to that of today.
The book is not always easy to read, as three different hands have contributed to it extensively. Shafer’s original foreword and the translator’s notes are in there. And Shafer’s concluding reflection (Chapter 28) is likewise included, but then Bechard’s concluding reflection (which is critical of Shafer’s) is presented. If this is a bit hard to follow at times, it is worth the work. Bechard was right not to let the book end with Shafer’s rather triumphalistic conclusion that Muslims will ‘be won for the gospel’ and then stand with Christians in opposing the unbelief which he feels has, after World War I, ‘stripped our much-praised culture of its Christian character…’ (188). In retrospect this is clearly wrong. The places where Shukri ministered have indeed seen a growth in conversions from Islam to Christianity, but the numbers are quite modest and do not call for any sort of triumphalism. Nor is it clear that the conservative, evangelical Christianity of Shafer is triumphing over humanistic secularism in his native Germany. In fact, there is a good amount of evidence to the contrary.
Bechard, who has no qualms in acknowledging that he himself is a (presumably evangelical) Christian, is more astute in appreciating the texture and versatility of Muhammad Shukri Effendi/John Avetaranian, whom he describes as, ‘…a man from a very elite background who as a follower of Jesus was brought to a point where he could deal openly and honestly with anyone, be it one of his own people or a member of his own dervish sect, a young Jewish woman on a train, or Christians from a variety of denominations and backgrounds’ (189).
This is a work of great value in my opinion, and this is true even for scholars or readers who have little interest in the topic of religious conversion from Islam to Christianity. One learns a great deal of everyday life in the Ottoman Empire and beyond, about various dervish tarikat, the Balkan War, and the strategy and execution of Protestant mission during the period. If Bechard is sometimes too zealous with providing details that sometimes slow down the pace of the story, and if the appearance of the book itself is not entirely attractive, these minor reservations should be ignored, for this is a valuable and fascinating work whose translation into English was well overdue.
Duane Alexander Miller Botero
Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary
Originally Published in International Journal of Frontier Missiology, Vol 30:1, Spring 2013, pp 39, 40.
Since the 70’s or so, when the number of (known) conversions from Islam to Christianity really started to increase and branch out into different places (i.e., Pakistan, India, Egypt, Iran), many such books have been published. But I was quite interested to find this book of a Turkish Muslim who left the religion of his family, and came to Christ, recently translated by John Bechard from German, because it is, to the best of my knowledge, the earliest existing autobiography of a Christian from a Muslim background available in English.
Born Muhammad Shukri Efendi, as the complete and lengthy title indicates, the writer and subject of the book lived from 1861 through 1919. Born into the prestigious effendi class, Shukri was a descendent of the Prophet himself. He spent much of his early years traveling around with his odd and peripatetic father—a mystic who could not settle down. He became involved in the exotic Yologhli sect. Shukri found a New Testament in Turkish, and searched for its meaning, which he did not find in the Armenian church he visited. He was a religious teacher in his town though, which, as he gradually came to believe in the message of Jesus, caused no little anguish to him. Eventually, he writes, ‘it became clear to me that I could no longer perform the Muslim prayer rites with a clear conscience’ (35). He resigned from his position.
Shukri was able to use his secretarial skills in drafting documents and official letters to make a living. Eventually he got to know some Protestant missionaries and found the fuller meaning of life and God he was looking for (though he is critical of their fear of baptizing converts from Islam publically). He voluntarily took the name John Avetaranian. John, out of respect for John the Baptist who was a herald to his people, pointing them to Messiah. And Avetaranian because it is Armenian for son of the Gospel (41).
Avetaranian mastered Armenian and lived with and ministered to Armenians for some time. The rest of the book relates his lengthy and colorful missionary career. Said career took him from living among Uigar people of Kashgar in what is today west China, to Bulgaria where he saw the devastation of war first hand. His activities ranged from preaching to personal evangelism to translation to apologetics and publishing. One of the main endeavors in his lifetime was to see Scripture translated into Kashgari. His recollections of living in the remote mountains of west China among the Kashgar people, translating little by little the Bible, interacting with the strange Catholic missionary living there—this is one of the most interesting parts of the book. We are finally informed, near the end of the book, that eventually his translation was printed and used in spreading the Christian message among the Kashgar people. After an adventurous and interesting life he died in Germany, where he was buried.
The original German-language edition was published in 1930. The book was mostly written by Avetaranian, but the final section was written by his colleague and fellow missionary, Richard Schafer. But an immense amount of work has been done by John Bechard, who studied German language and literature at the University of Kansas. The book, in its second edition now, contains ten appendices, which make up a good quarter of the volume. Here are references to biblical and Qur’anic verses, recondite information on the Yologhli sect, and helpful geographical information whereby the reader can connect the 19th C. map of Europe and Asia to that of today.
The book is not always easy to read, as three different hands have contributed to it extensively. Shafer’s original foreword and the translator’s notes are in there. And Shafer’s concluding reflection (Chapter 28) is likewise included, but then Bechard’s concluding reflection (which is critical of Shafer’s) is presented. If this is a bit hard to follow at times, it is worth the work. Bechard was right not to let the book end with Shafer’s rather triumphalistic conclusion that Muslims will ‘be won for the gospel’ and then stand with Christians in opposing the unbelief which he feels has, after World War I, ‘stripped our much-praised culture of its Christian character…’ (188). In retrospect this is clearly wrong. The places where Shukri ministered have indeed seen a growth in conversions from Islam to Christianity, but the numbers are quite modest and do not call for any sort of triumphalism. Nor is it clear that the conservative, evangelical Christianity of Shafer is triumphing over humanistic secularism in his native Germany. In fact, there is a good amount of evidence to the contrary.
Bechard, who has no qualms in acknowledging that he himself is a (presumably evangelical) Christian, is more astute in appreciating the texture and versatility of Muhammad Shukri Effendi/John Avetaranian, whom he describes as, ‘…a man from a very elite background who as a follower of Jesus was brought to a point where he could deal openly and honestly with anyone, be it one of his own people or a member of his own dervish sect, a young Jewish woman on a train, or Christians from a variety of denominations and backgrounds’ (189).
This is a work of great value in my opinion, and this is true even for scholars or readers who have little interest in the topic of religious conversion from Islam to Christianity. One learns a great deal of everyday life in the Ottoman Empire and beyond, about various dervish tarikat, the Balkan War, and the strategy and execution of Protestant mission during the period. If Bechard is sometimes too zealous with providing details that sometimes slow down the pace of the story, and if the appearance of the book itself is not entirely attractive, these minor reservations should be ignored, for this is a valuable and fascinating work whose translation into English was well overdue.
Duane Alexander Miller Botero
Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary
Originally Published in International Journal of Frontier Missiology, Vol 30:1, Spring 2013, pp 39, 40.
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