Converted to Shia Islam – brother Khalil Sahouri

 

Although he was born in Chile, his family is one of the oldest inhabitants of Bethlehem, it is interesting to know that he, who was born in an orthodox Christian family, obtained documents that show that some of his ancestors helped the Islamic soldiers in the Yarmouk war.

  • please introduce yourself

I am Khalil Sahouri, 32 years old and I was born in Chile. My family was of Palestinian origin and Orthodox Christian and one of the oldest Christians in Bethlehem. My ancestors have lived in Bethlehem for about fifteen hundred years, but they immigrated to Chile during World War I and World War II.

  • What are you doing now?

I am currently studying Islamic sciences in the holy city of Qom.

  • How did you become a Muslim and a Shiite?

I started studying the Bible when I was ten years old. I have been reading this book for about two years. During this time, I saw clear mistakes that my nature did not accept. Such as accepting the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as one God.

  • Why?

Because I felt that God should be one and not three, and I felt that God does not need children. Christians say that Mary is the mother of God. Even though I was a child, I could not accept this. As I said before, my family has a history of living in Bethlehem for fifteen hundred years. That is, the place where Jesus Christ was born, that’s why I was very interested in Jesus Christ. So I started searching to find the original monotheism. But unfortunately, I did not find an answer in the Bible. Until I came across the word “Paraclete” in the book of John. The origin of this word is Greek. I asked the priest for the interpretation of this word, but I could not accept his naive words.

  • Why Greek?

Because the Bible was translated from its original language to Hebrew, then from Hebrew to Greek and from Greek to Latin. This name, which was translated from Greek to Latin, is mentioned in the same way as Paracletos. Even I asked someone who was fluent in Greek, Arabic, Spanish and Latin, what is the word Paracletus? While confirming that Paracletus is a Greek word, he said that the translation of this Greek word is Ahmad.

  • So the original Bible was not in Hebrew?

Not! As you know, Christianity officially recognizes the four gospels of Luke, Matthew, Mark and John, these gospels were written seven hundred years after Christ. The main language of the Gospels was Aramaic. Aramaic is older than Hebrew, Arabic and Greek.

  • So what will happen to the Syriac language?

I think that Siriani is at the same time and the same family as Arami.

  • Well, what did you do after you found out that Paracletus means Ahmad, that is, the name of the Prophet of Islam, and that priest did not give you a correct answer?

I separated that one principle is God, one principle is the prophets, one principle is the Bible, and one side is the people. In my opinion, monotheism is the most important thing.

  • What do you think about priests?

Priests don’t have a middle ground with the poor, Jesus wasn’t like that. then it would be like living in a prison. We could not search for the truth. But my heart was very thirsty, thirsty for freedom. For example, studying philosophy was forbidden during that time, even different religions were forbidden. In other words, searching for the right was dangerous. I saw that they do business with religion. I said that maybe in the Bible I can find clear water for my thirst.

  • I mean, did you start studying the Bible again?

Yes. I came across another important and interesting thing this time. I read in the Bible that three people from the Aryan goats came to congratulate the birth of Christ. Those people who were not Jews, then what religion did they have? I asked They said they were fire worshipers. Fire worship is not a religion. It is ignorance. I said to myself, why do they accept the Messiah who is from God? I visited the libraries and found out that they were Zoroastrian. I saw Zarathustra as purer and better than Judaism and Christianity. Because they came from a long way to congratulate Jesus Christ. I discovered this as another lie from the priests. After Zoroastrianism, I got acquainted with Hinduism, Buddhism and Protestantism. I was more interested in Zoroaster than all of them. I felt that my heart was empty of love for other religions, because the Christians distorted the words of Jesus Christ and I considered this disrespectful to Christ, while the Zoroastrians respected Jesus and came to congratulate Jesus and his mother. I had several meetings with Christian professors. Unfortunately, Christian brothers are far from the truth.