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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| A Pakistani Muslim comes Face to Face with Jesus Christ |
| 2004-08-20 |
| By Khalid Mansoor Soomro Khalid Mansoor Soomro is from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. He was an ardent follower of Mohammed until the results of a challenge he laid out before some Christian students. Please read this powerful testimony of how this man was converted to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior! And He said unto them: "Go into the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15)When I was 14 years old I was studying in a convent school at Saddar Karachi Pakistan. I belong to a Muslim family. My parents forced me to learn the Qur'an by heart when I was seven and so I did. I had a lot of Christian fellows (or acquaintances) at school. I was surprised to see them studying while I always found Christians of low profile in the society. I discussed and argued a lot with them about the accuracy of Qur'an and rejection of Bible by Allah in Holy Qur'an. I always forced them to accept Islam. Often my Christian teacher told me not to do so. He said, "God may choose you as he chose the Apostle Paulus." I asked them who is Paulus, I know Muhammad only. One day during our discussion I challenged them to burn the Holy Books of each other. They should burn the Qur'an and I should do the same with the Bible. We agreed: "The book which would burn, would be false. The book, which would not burn, has the Truth in it. God Himself would save His Word." Unfortunately they were not ready to do this because they were frightened. Living in an Islamic Country and doing such a thing could lead them to face the law and meet its consequences. I told them I could do this by myself. First I set the Qur'an on fire and it got burnt before our eyes. Then I tried to do the same with the Bible. As soon as I tried it, the Bible struck my chest and I fell on the ground. There was smoke all around my body. I was burning, but from a spiritual fire. |
| Posted by: |
| #31 Way to go B! |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-08-21 1:13:04 AM |
| #30 ever could spell. Ras is the name of a prince, Tafari was Selassie's first name. He was the last of an unbroken line of kings of Ethiopia, tracing it's lineage back to the house of David. Rastafarians chose him as a symbol of the black man who had avoided bondage, and considered him as the messiah who would in turn lead them out of bondage. |
| Posted by: DLS 2004-08-20 8:28:58 PM |
| #29 all hail to Fred...and his army of Steves |
| Posted by: B 2004-08-20 8:00:47 PM |
| #28 We could be Rastaburgians :-) |
| Posted by: B 2004-08-20 7:58:18 PM |
| #27 That is Haile Salassie, a.k.a. Ras Tafari. (Ras being a title in Ethiopia.) |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-08-20 7:05:59 PM |
| #26 Didn't accuse anybody of anything. Agree totally that christianity is far better a religion than islam. It too had it's bloody phase, but got over it two or three hundred years ago. Rasta's are Rastafarians. Religion born in the 1920's in the slums of Jamaica. Came to prominence in the 1970's. Sort of an offshoot of a cargo cult, with Haili Salasie of Ethiopia as their new prophet/representative of god. Salasie, who was a good christian, totally repudiated them, but they live on. Many Rastas have refused to believe that Salasie actually died. You can identify the males: they wear dreadlocks. Never cut their hair. Wear red green and yellow hats. Never started any wars that I know of. |
| Posted by: DLS 2004-08-20 5:26:45 PM |
| #25 I didn't post the original article. To get down on me as some kind of Jesus freak trying to take over the board for making a completely valid point seems a bit low. |
| Posted by: B 2004-08-20 4:50:30 PM |
| #24 what is Rasta? |
| Posted by: B 2004-08-20 4:46:19 PM |
| #23 I think RantBurg is ripe for a Rasta takeover. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-08-20 4:44:39 PM |
| #22 don't be so hypersensitive. I'm not trying to convert you. I'm just saying that I think that one of the things that scares the Mullahs most is the creep of western thinking that is inevitable in the modern information age. And, yes, I was making the side point that people freak whenever anyone attempts to point out that perhaps some of the millions of disenfranchised, who seek religion, might be better off if they were to follow Christianity rather than Islam. (whether YOU need it or not isn't at issue here,) The thought of someone teaching an better alternative to Islam has to terrify the Mullahs You may not have need for spiritual fulfillment, but if the suicide bombers are any indication, billions do. And since Christian teachings offer a better alternative and way of life, this has to scare the Mullahs. That's my point. It's a legitimate point of discussion. Christianity does offer a better alternative to Muslims than does Islam. Islam can't survive in its present form without complete and total adherence to Sharia and all of the intolerance that entails. Thus Islam can't survive in a modern world. To come back and accuse me of proselytising, when I'm just making a valid point, proves the point that we can't discuss this without everyone running scared of religious boogey men. |
| Posted by: B 2004-08-20 4:34:45 PM |
| #21 Haven't said anything bad about the teachings of Christ. Great man. Christianity certainly has more agreeable underpinings than Islam. Some of the teachings of christianity have been less than enjoyable, but that's true of anything. What I and most of the others find difficult in the current post should be obvious. This is a pllace for well-reasoned discourse, with a little spice of sarcasm. It isn't a place for holy roller speaking in tongues old fashioned I saw the virgin mary in the field across the way revelation. At least I hope not. |
| Posted by: DLS 2004-08-20 3:16:09 PM |
| #20 This is what scares the Islamists the most, IMHO. Even if you are an agnostic, you have to acknowledge that Christianity offers a whole lot more of good things than does Islam. The Christian based countries are all much more civilized than are the Islamic. Sooner or later, the Muslims, eager for spiritual fulfillment will find that Christianity is a better option. Christ. Ooooohhh...yes..I said the "C" word. Does that scare some of you? Wimps. It's just damn good advice. Faith, hope, charity and forgiveness, honesty. It's those principles that the people who set up our county believed in and it's why we have a country that tries to be good to all of its citizens, instead of slaughtering those who aren't in with the most powerful of the day. Ok..that and other checks and balances. But it is the mindset of those principles which Jesus taught ..to forgive..to do right by your neighbors ..that makes us such a strong country and good neighbors. Don't ever take that for granted...even if you don't believe. I never understand why everyone - even Jews and agnostics are so annoyed with the teachings' of Christ. It just all around good stuff. The kind of stuff that's passed down at the deathbed as being the keys to living a good life. Money, fame and power can't give you happiness, but living a good life can. I think that those of you a wee bit older than me (though not much) are just so battle scarred by the religious right of the 50's that you reflexively despise all things Jesus. But I see it like the original liberal Left or the civil rights movement ...just because some demogogues hijack it and turn it into something ugly - doesn't mean that it's ugly. It just means that it was coopted by ugly people. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.... Take one look at Islam or the Colleseum for that matter and you can easily see that Christianity, has indeed been a a good force in this world. Has it caused massive bloodshed, yes...but it's also prevented much of it...or or ...as some of you might better relate to ..Christianity doesn't kill people. Bad people kill people. |
| Posted by: B 2004-08-20 3:07:45 PM |
| #19 Your Testimony is very intresting May GoD bless you I pray for your and your Family ( Mark ) |
| Posted by: Anonymous6130 2004-08-20 2:45:45 PM |
| #18 The people I was speaking of as admiring are the shamans and spiritual men/women of the old pre-christian religions. They never claimed to have the whole truth for the whole of humanity, just truths for their own particular people. Not all religions assume they have the one true faith. Many have changed over time by accruing beliefs from other religions. The Romans were known for this, you could believe whatever you wanted as long as it didn't interfere with Caeser. Other eastern religions such as Hinduism have gathered in hundreds of gods from other faiths, many of them animistic. The religions that insist they have the one true faith are monotheistic. Even Jewish faith acknowledged the possibility of other deities: the phrase "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" can beinterpreted to mean "no other gods more important than me." OBTW, I don't disagree with your thoughts on Islam: it's an extremely dangerous faith. Monotheistic. They "Know" that they are right. Goes back to the question of whether god can really be described in words, or if the written words are man's attempt to manipulate god for his own purposes. |
| Posted by: DLS 2004-08-20 1:04:00 PM |
| #17 Well, if the story's true, he had to have some balls to set fire to the Koran . . . or would we rather have him turning his energies toward fanatical Islam? At least it's pretty certain this fellow won't be joining the jihad fanatics. And "family" seems to now be his priority. Sounds like a net-gain to me. |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2004-08-20 1:02:24 PM |
| #16 DLS: I admire them for their task, but not nut cases like this who claim to have the only "true" faith. That's pretty silly - religions are not social clubs. Anyone who takes up a religion pretty much assumes that it is the one true faith. The problem we have isn't with Muslim religious devotion - do we really care if Shiites continue scourging themselves at their religious festivals for the next thousand years? No - the problem with Muslims is that they deliberately target civilians of the third countries for mass murder operations to bend them to Islam's will. Neither fanatical atheism nor religious devotion is the problem. The tendency among Muslims to use violence to attain their territorial and political ambitions is. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-08-20 11:40:10 AM |
| #15 I don't have much use for crazy people from any religion who have been sitting out in the sun too long. It bakes their brains. Many of the old religions have "vision quest" rituals for their holy men, but they didn't feel it necessary to attack other people's beliefs. They did it to become spiritual leaders of their own people, by trying to see past the fog surrounding them to the ground of reality. I admire them for their task, but not nut cases like this who claim to have the only "true" faith. |
| Posted by: DLS 2004-08-20 9:49:44 AM |
| #14 Stupid article... Who cares about some "pseudo-miraculous" conversion to cristianism?? All i want is to see islamofascim dead & deep buried... Fu** Khalid Mansoor Soomro and is burns of "spiritual fire"! |
| Posted by: Anyone 2004-08-20 9:16:42 AM |
| #13 I looked at the deleted comments in the Sink Trap. I don't understand why they were deleted. . |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-08-20 9:05:57 AM |
| #12 Nothing - you're just Turkish. Live with it. (supposedly - who's playing Murat today?) |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-08-20 9:05:44 AM |
| #11 So what has that all to do with deleting my comments above, show one abusive word in those two deleted comments (if you can). On second thoughts pitty as you are just stay hiding behind those agnostic blah blah. |
| Posted by: Murat 2004-08-20 9:02:46 AM |
| #10 As a practicing agnostic, I don't have much use for miracle tales, and I'll dump them in the future. Nor do I have much use for Islamists who attack other people's religion. The attacks on Islam here stem from Islam's attacks on the rest of the world, not from religious outlook. Most of us didn't have anything against Islam prior to 9-11. At that point we began to look into it more closely, and we haven't liked what we've seen. The combination of Koranic doctrine, outlandish cultural norms in Arabia and Pashtunistan, Qutbist ideology, and mental defects induced by inbreeding, represents a danger to the rest of the world that has to be fought. I'd also add that this is something that has to be fought by those whose who are Muslims in the same sense some of us here are Catholics or Anglicans or Jews. Unless you're a Sunni in Pakland, a Shiite in Iran, or a Wahhabi in Soddy Arabia you're nothing. Non-Wahhabi/Deobandi/Shia Muslims had better wake up to that fact. Ask any Qadiani. After us agnostics/Christians/Jews/Ba'hais/Hindoos/Buddhists and animists are all gone, the turbans will turn on each other. Just watch the Sunnis try and exterminate the Shia in Pakistan. |
| Posted by: Fred 2004-08-20 8:47:18 AM |
| #9 Swing Lo, Sweet Blotter Acid. |
| Posted by: GizzardPuke 2004-08-20 8:44:59 AM |
| #8 And I see the phoney Murat is back. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-08-20 8:22:59 AM |
| #7 So Fred, I see you are discussing now in American style, with censoring and distorting. You are a good student, learned your techniques from the "Republicans" school I guess. |
| Posted by: Murat 2004-08-20 6:56:57 AM |
| #6 Zealots are the problem. The problem is best dealt with by piling rocks on them till the stop breathing preferably at a cross roads where people will notice and avoid zealotry by the example thus set. Nice Guy I am not. But I have this thing on the wall proclaiming to one and all I am a "Reverend." entitled to marry and bury. I haven't had to bury to many. |
| Posted by: FlameBait93268 2004-08-20 6:35:21 AM |
| #5 And that bastard pope. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-08-20 6:29:07 AM |
| #4 Yep: OBL, Sadr, The Saudis etc.. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-08-20 6:16:07 AM |
| #3 No Howard, people are (those who misuse religion) |
| Posted by: Murat 2004-08-20 6:12:19 AM |
| #2 Religion is the problem. (And some more than others). |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-08-20 6:04:01 AM |
| #1 Yeah sure, nice fairytale |
| Posted by: Murat 2004-08-20 5:57:00 AM |