2008 is a turning point for Magdi Allam.
The Italian journalist and writer of Egyptian origin, born in 1952 in Cairo and trained in the schools of the Comboni Sisters and the Salesians thanks to the help of the Caccia family, generous Italian entrepreneurs who wanted to support his mother Safeya, converts to Christianity within to the Catholic Church.
It is the meeting with Pope Benedict XVI that pushes him towards a path of faith that distorts his existence and so, during the Easter Vigil, on March 22, the critical soul of a restless Muslim becomes a Christian, even in his name, and formalizes his conversion by receiving from the Holy Father, in St. Peter, the temple of Christianity in the world, baptism, confirmation and Eucharist in a single intense celebration.
In recent days he was in Cagliari to present his latest book, “Stop Islam”, surrounded by the affection of many admirers.
What will readers find in “Stop Islam”?
"An invitation to know the reality of Islam based on the exclusive cult of the Arab pagan god Allah, one of the 360 idols that were worshiped in the polytheistic Pantheon in Mecca, and on obedience to Mohammed who, as a humble illiterate camel driver, imposed his power absolute through violence, which culminated in 627 in the massacre of the Jewish tribe of Banu Quraiza in which Muhammad personally participated in the slaughter and beheading of about 900 adult male Jews, while women and children were enslaved, tortured and sold in the market of slaves.
At the same time, in 'Stop Islam', I make an appeal, in respect of Muslims who in turn respect our laws, comply with our rules and share our values, to have the intellectual honesty and human courage to take note of the 'incompatibility of Islam as a religion with our secular and liberal civilization, and consequently to outlaw Islam as a religion within our rule of law, to safeguard our inalienable right to be fully ourselves within our home ".
What prompted you to become a Catholic?
"Since I was a child, as a Muslim who for fourteen years lived in boarding school first with the Comboni nuns and then with the Salesian priests, I met and was fascinated by the figure of Jesus. I loved reading the Gospels and was enchanted by the parables of Jesus, by myself perceived as pearls of human wisdom. The arrival to Christianity through the Catholic Church, and not for example the Coptic Orthodox Church which represents the majority of Christians in Egypt, my native country, is due to the fact that it is in the Catholic sphere that I have come to know Christianity and subsequently it is in the 'Italy predominantly Catholic that I have developed friendships and acquaintances that have led me to mature the choice to embrace the Christian faith with conviction. Certainly my conversion had its salient moment in the encounter with the thought and with the person of Benedict XVI, the Pope who more than others embodies the partnership of faith and reason, what substantiates faith in Jesus Christ, true God and true. man".
