AZAM_SIDDIQUI
Junior Member
Martin John Mwaipopo - Former Lutheran Archbishop (Source:
http://mandla.co.za/al-qalam/sept97/bishop.htm)
(It was December 23, 1986, two days away from Christmas, when Arch
Bishop Martin John Mwaipopo, announced to his congregation that he
was leaving Christianity for Islam. The congregation was paralysed
with shock on hearing the news, so much so, that his administrator
got up from his seat, closed the door and windows, and declared to
the church members that the Bishop's mind had become unhinged, that
is, he had gone mad. How could he not think and say so, when only a
few minutes earlier, the man had taken out his music instruments and
sang so movingly for the church members? Little did they know that
inside the Bishop's heart lay a decision that would blow their
minds, and that the entertainment was only a farewell party. But the
congregant's reaction was equally shocking! They called the police
to take the "mad" man away. He was kept in the cells until midnight
when Sheikh Ahmed Sheik, the man who initiated him into Islam came
to bail him out. That incident was only a mild beginning of shocks
in store for him. Al Qalam reporter, Simphiwe Sesanti, spoke to the
Tanzanian born former Lutheran Arch Bishop Martin John Mwaipopo, who
on embracing Islam came to be known as Al Hajj Abu Bakr John
Mwaipopo)
Credit must go to the Zimbabwean brother, Sufyan Sabelo, for
provoking this writer's curiosity, after listening to Mwaipopo's
talk at the Wyebank Islamic Centre, Durban. Sufyan is not
sensationalist, but that night he must have heard something - he
just could not stop talking about the man! Who would not be hooked
after hearing that an Arch Bishop, who had not only obtained a BA
and Masters degree, but a doctorate as well, in Divinity, had later
turned to Islam? And since foreign qualifications matter so much to
you, a man who had obtained a diploma in Church Administration in
England and the latter degrees in Berlin, Germany! A man, who,
before becoming a Muslim, had been the World Council of Churches'
General Secretary for Eastern Africa - covering Tanzania, Kenya,
Uganda, Burundi, and parts of Ethiopia and Somalia. In the Council
of Churches, he rubbed shoulders with the present chairman of the
South African Human Rights Commission . Barney Pityana and the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission `s chairman, Bishop Desmond Tutu.
It is a story of a man who was born 61 years ago, on February 22 in
Bukabo, an area that shares its borders with Uganda. Two years,
after his birth, his family had him baptised, and five years later,
watched him with pride being an alter boy . Seeing him assisting the
church minister, preparing the "body and blood" of Christ , filled
the Mwaipopos with pride, and filled Mwaipopo Senior with ideas for
his son's future.
"When I was in a boarding school, later , my father wrote to me,
stating he wanted me to become a priest. In each and every letter he
wrote this" , recalls Abu Bakr. But he had his own ideas about his
life, which was joining the police force. But at the age of 25,
Mwaipopo gave in to his father's will. Unlike in Europe where
children can do as they will after age 21 , in Africa , children are
taught to honour their parent's will above their own.
"My , son , before I close my eyes (die), I would be glad if you
could become a priest", that's how father told son, and that's how
the son was moved, a move that saw him going to England in 1964, to
do a diploma in Church Administration, and a year later to Germany
to do a B.A degree. On returning , a year later, he was made acting
Bishop.
Later, he went back to do Masters. " All this time, I was just doing
things, without questioning . It was when he began to do his
doctorate , that he started questioning things. "I started wondering
… there is Christianity, Islam, Judaism Buddhism each different
religions claiming to the true religion. What is the truth? I wanted
the truth" , says Mwaipopo. So began his search , until he reduced
it to the "major" four religions. He got himself a copy of the
Qur'an, and guess what?
" When I opened the Qur'an , the first verses I came across were, `
Say : He is Allah , The One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
He begeteteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto
Him? (Surah Ikhlas)' ", he recalls. That was when the seeds of
Islam, unknown to him, were first sown. It was then that he
discovered that the Qur'an was the only scripture book that had been
untampered with, by human beings since its revelation . "And in
concluding my doctoral thesis I said so. I didn't care whether they
give me my doctorate or not - that was the truth, and I was looking
for the truth."
While in that state of mind he called his "beloved" Professor Van
Burger.
"I closed the door, looked him in the eye and asked him `of all
religions in the world, which is true', I asked.
`Islam', he responded.
`Why then are you not a Muslim?', I asked again.
He said to me "'One, I hate Arabs, and two, do you see all this
luxuries that I have? Do you think that I would give it all up for
Islam?'. When I thought about his answer, I thought about my own
situation, too", recalls Mwaipopo. His mission, his cars - all these
appeared in his imagination. No, he could not embrace Islam, and for
one good year, he put it off his mind. But then dreams haunted him,
the verses of the Quran kept on appearing, people clad in white kept
on coming, "especially on Fridays", until he could take it no more.
So, on December 22, he officially embraced Islam. These dreams that
guided him - were they not due to the "superstitious" nature of the
Africans? "No, I don't believe that all dreams are bad. There are
those that guide you in the right direction and those which don't,
and these ones, in particular, guided me in the right direction, to
Islam", he tells us.
Consequently, the church stripped him of his house and his car. His
wife could not take it, she packed her clothes, took her children
and left, despite Mwaipopo's assurances that she was not obliged to
become a Muslim. When he went to his parents, they, too, had heard
the story. "My father told me to denounce Islam and my mother said
she did not "want to hear any nonsense from me", remember Mwaipopo.
He was on his own! Asked how he now feels towards his parents, he
says that he has forgiven them, in fact found time to reconcile with
his father before he departed to the world yonder.
"They were just old people who did not know. They could not even
read the Bible…all they knew was what they had heard the priest
reading", he states. After asking to stay for one night, the
following day, he began his journey to where his family had
originally come from, Kyela, near the borders between Tanzania and
Malawi. His parents had settled in Kilosa, Morogoro. During his
journey, he was stranded in Busale, by one family that was selling
home brewed beer. It was there that he met his future wife, a
Catholic Nun, by the name of Sister Gertrude Kibweya, now known as
Sister Zainab. It was with her that he travelled to Kyela, where the
old man, who had given him shelter the previous night had told him
that that's where he would find other Muslims. But before that, in
the morning of that day he had made the call to prayer (azaan),
something which made the villagers come out, asking his host why he
was keeping a "mad" man. "It was the Nun who explained that I was
not mad but a Muslim", he says. It was the same Nun who later helped
Mwaipopo pay his medical fees at the Anglican Mission Hospital, when
he had become terribly sick, thanks to the conversation he had had
with her.
The story goes that he had asked her why she was wearing a rosary,
to which she responded that it was because Christ was hanged on
it. "But, say, someone had killed your father with a gun, would you
go around carrying a gun on your chest?" Mmmhhh. That set the Nun
thinking, her mind "challenged", and when the former Bishop proposed
marriage to the Nun later, the answer was "yes". Secretly, they
married, and four weeks later, she wrote a letter to her
authorities, informing them of her leave. When the old man who had
given him shelter, (the Nun's uncle) heard about the marriage, when
they arrived at his house, they were advised to leave the house,
because "the old man was loading his gun", and the Nun's father was
enraged, "wild like a lion".
From the Bishop's mansion, Mwaipopo went to live in a self built mud
house. From earning a living as the World Council of Churches'
General Secretary for Eastern Africa, he began earning a living as a
wood cutter and tilling some people's lands. When not doing that he
was preaching Islam publicly. This led to a series of short term
imprisonments for preaching blasphemy against Christianity.
While on hajj in 1988, tragedy struck. His house was bombed, and
consequently, his infant triplets were killed. "A bishop, whose
mother and my own mother were children of the same father, was
involved in the plot', recalls Mwaipopo. He says instead of
demoralising him, it did the opposite, as the numbers of people
embracing Islam, increased, this including his father in law.
In 1992, he was arrested for 10 months, along with 70 followers,
charged with treason. This was after some pork shops, against which
he had spoken, were bombed. He did speak against them, he admits,
saying that constitutionally, since 1913, there was a law against
bars, clubs and pork shops in Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Mafia, Lindi and
Kigoma. Fortunately for him, he was acquitted, and immediately
thereafter, he fled to Zambia, exile, after he was advised that
there was a plot to kill him.
He says that that very day he was released, police came to re-arrest
him. And guess what? "The women said no ways! They said that they
would resist my arrest physically against the police. It was also
the women who helped me cross the borders unnoticed. They clothed me
in the women's fashion!", according to Mwaipopo. And that is one of
the reasons that make him admire women.
"Women must be given a high place, they must be given good education
in Islam. Otherwise how would she understand why a man marries more
than one wife…It was my wife, Zainab, who proposed that I should
marry my second wife, Shela, (her friend), when she had to go for
Islamic studies abroad", it's the bishop who says so. Yah?
To the Muslims, Al Hajj Abu Bakr Mwaipopo's message is, "There is
war against Islam…Flood the world with literature. Right now,
Muslims are made to feel ashamed to be regarded as fundamentalists.
Muslims must stop their individualistic tendencies, they must be
collective. You have do defend your neighbour if you want to be
safe", he states, also urging Muslims to be courageous, citing the
Islamic Propagation Centre International's Ahmed Deedat. "That man
is not learned, but look at the way he has propagated Islam".
http://mandla.co.za/al-qalam/sept97/bishop.htm)
(It was December 23, 1986, two days away from Christmas, when Arch
Bishop Martin John Mwaipopo, announced to his congregation that he
was leaving Christianity for Islam. The congregation was paralysed
with shock on hearing the news, so much so, that his administrator
got up from his seat, closed the door and windows, and declared to
the church members that the Bishop's mind had become unhinged, that
is, he had gone mad. How could he not think and say so, when only a
few minutes earlier, the man had taken out his music instruments and
sang so movingly for the church members? Little did they know that
inside the Bishop's heart lay a decision that would blow their
minds, and that the entertainment was only a farewell party. But the
congregant's reaction was equally shocking! They called the police
to take the "mad" man away. He was kept in the cells until midnight
when Sheikh Ahmed Sheik, the man who initiated him into Islam came
to bail him out. That incident was only a mild beginning of shocks
in store for him. Al Qalam reporter, Simphiwe Sesanti, spoke to the
Tanzanian born former Lutheran Arch Bishop Martin John Mwaipopo, who
on embracing Islam came to be known as Al Hajj Abu Bakr John
Mwaipopo)
Credit must go to the Zimbabwean brother, Sufyan Sabelo, for
provoking this writer's curiosity, after listening to Mwaipopo's
talk at the Wyebank Islamic Centre, Durban. Sufyan is not
sensationalist, but that night he must have heard something - he
just could not stop talking about the man! Who would not be hooked
after hearing that an Arch Bishop, who had not only obtained a BA
and Masters degree, but a doctorate as well, in Divinity, had later
turned to Islam? And since foreign qualifications matter so much to
you, a man who had obtained a diploma in Church Administration in
England and the latter degrees in Berlin, Germany! A man, who,
before becoming a Muslim, had been the World Council of Churches'
General Secretary for Eastern Africa - covering Tanzania, Kenya,
Uganda, Burundi, and parts of Ethiopia and Somalia. In the Council
of Churches, he rubbed shoulders with the present chairman of the
South African Human Rights Commission . Barney Pityana and the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission `s chairman, Bishop Desmond Tutu.
It is a story of a man who was born 61 years ago, on February 22 in
Bukabo, an area that shares its borders with Uganda. Two years,
after his birth, his family had him baptised, and five years later,
watched him with pride being an alter boy . Seeing him assisting the
church minister, preparing the "body and blood" of Christ , filled
the Mwaipopos with pride, and filled Mwaipopo Senior with ideas for
his son's future.
"When I was in a boarding school, later , my father wrote to me,
stating he wanted me to become a priest. In each and every letter he
wrote this" , recalls Abu Bakr. But he had his own ideas about his
life, which was joining the police force. But at the age of 25,
Mwaipopo gave in to his father's will. Unlike in Europe where
children can do as they will after age 21 , in Africa , children are
taught to honour their parent's will above their own.
"My , son , before I close my eyes (die), I would be glad if you
could become a priest", that's how father told son, and that's how
the son was moved, a move that saw him going to England in 1964, to
do a diploma in Church Administration, and a year later to Germany
to do a B.A degree. On returning , a year later, he was made acting
Bishop.
Later, he went back to do Masters. " All this time, I was just doing
things, without questioning . It was when he began to do his
doctorate , that he started questioning things. "I started wondering
… there is Christianity, Islam, Judaism Buddhism each different
religions claiming to the true religion. What is the truth? I wanted
the truth" , says Mwaipopo. So began his search , until he reduced
it to the "major" four religions. He got himself a copy of the
Qur'an, and guess what?
" When I opened the Qur'an , the first verses I came across were, `
Say : He is Allah , The One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
He begeteteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto
Him? (Surah Ikhlas)' ", he recalls. That was when the seeds of
Islam, unknown to him, were first sown. It was then that he
discovered that the Qur'an was the only scripture book that had been
untampered with, by human beings since its revelation . "And in
concluding my doctoral thesis I said so. I didn't care whether they
give me my doctorate or not - that was the truth, and I was looking
for the truth."
While in that state of mind he called his "beloved" Professor Van
Burger.
"I closed the door, looked him in the eye and asked him `of all
religions in the world, which is true', I asked.
`Islam', he responded.
`Why then are you not a Muslim?', I asked again.
He said to me "'One, I hate Arabs, and two, do you see all this
luxuries that I have? Do you think that I would give it all up for
Islam?'. When I thought about his answer, I thought about my own
situation, too", recalls Mwaipopo. His mission, his cars - all these
appeared in his imagination. No, he could not embrace Islam, and for
one good year, he put it off his mind. But then dreams haunted him,
the verses of the Quran kept on appearing, people clad in white kept
on coming, "especially on Fridays", until he could take it no more.
So, on December 22, he officially embraced Islam. These dreams that
guided him - were they not due to the "superstitious" nature of the
Africans? "No, I don't believe that all dreams are bad. There are
those that guide you in the right direction and those which don't,
and these ones, in particular, guided me in the right direction, to
Islam", he tells us.
Consequently, the church stripped him of his house and his car. His
wife could not take it, she packed her clothes, took her children
and left, despite Mwaipopo's assurances that she was not obliged to
become a Muslim. When he went to his parents, they, too, had heard
the story. "My father told me to denounce Islam and my mother said
she did not "want to hear any nonsense from me", remember Mwaipopo.
He was on his own! Asked how he now feels towards his parents, he
says that he has forgiven them, in fact found time to reconcile with
his father before he departed to the world yonder.
"They were just old people who did not know. They could not even
read the Bible…all they knew was what they had heard the priest
reading", he states. After asking to stay for one night, the
following day, he began his journey to where his family had
originally come from, Kyela, near the borders between Tanzania and
Malawi. His parents had settled in Kilosa, Morogoro. During his
journey, he was stranded in Busale, by one family that was selling
home brewed beer. It was there that he met his future wife, a
Catholic Nun, by the name of Sister Gertrude Kibweya, now known as
Sister Zainab. It was with her that he travelled to Kyela, where the
old man, who had given him shelter the previous night had told him
that that's where he would find other Muslims. But before that, in
the morning of that day he had made the call to prayer (azaan),
something which made the villagers come out, asking his host why he
was keeping a "mad" man. "It was the Nun who explained that I was
not mad but a Muslim", he says. It was the same Nun who later helped
Mwaipopo pay his medical fees at the Anglican Mission Hospital, when
he had become terribly sick, thanks to the conversation he had had
with her.
The story goes that he had asked her why she was wearing a rosary,
to which she responded that it was because Christ was hanged on
it. "But, say, someone had killed your father with a gun, would you
go around carrying a gun on your chest?" Mmmhhh. That set the Nun
thinking, her mind "challenged", and when the former Bishop proposed
marriage to the Nun later, the answer was "yes". Secretly, they
married, and four weeks later, she wrote a letter to her
authorities, informing them of her leave. When the old man who had
given him shelter, (the Nun's uncle) heard about the marriage, when
they arrived at his house, they were advised to leave the house,
because "the old man was loading his gun", and the Nun's father was
enraged, "wild like a lion".
From the Bishop's mansion, Mwaipopo went to live in a self built mud
house. From earning a living as the World Council of Churches'
General Secretary for Eastern Africa, he began earning a living as a
wood cutter and tilling some people's lands. When not doing that he
was preaching Islam publicly. This led to a series of short term
imprisonments for preaching blasphemy against Christianity.
While on hajj in 1988, tragedy struck. His house was bombed, and
consequently, his infant triplets were killed. "A bishop, whose
mother and my own mother were children of the same father, was
involved in the plot', recalls Mwaipopo. He says instead of
demoralising him, it did the opposite, as the numbers of people
embracing Islam, increased, this including his father in law.
In 1992, he was arrested for 10 months, along with 70 followers,
charged with treason. This was after some pork shops, against which
he had spoken, were bombed. He did speak against them, he admits,
saying that constitutionally, since 1913, there was a law against
bars, clubs and pork shops in Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Mafia, Lindi and
Kigoma. Fortunately for him, he was acquitted, and immediately
thereafter, he fled to Zambia, exile, after he was advised that
there was a plot to kill him.
He says that that very day he was released, police came to re-arrest
him. And guess what? "The women said no ways! They said that they
would resist my arrest physically against the police. It was also
the women who helped me cross the borders unnoticed. They clothed me
in the women's fashion!", according to Mwaipopo. And that is one of
the reasons that make him admire women.
"Women must be given a high place, they must be given good education
in Islam. Otherwise how would she understand why a man marries more
than one wife…It was my wife, Zainab, who proposed that I should
marry my second wife, Shela, (her friend), when she had to go for
Islamic studies abroad", it's the bishop who says so. Yah?
To the Muslims, Al Hajj Abu Bakr Mwaipopo's message is, "There is
war against Islam…Flood the world with literature. Right now,
Muslims are made to feel ashamed to be regarded as fundamentalists.
Muslims must stop their individualistic tendencies, they must be
collective. You have do defend your neighbour if you want to be
safe", he states, also urging Muslims to be courageous, citing the
Islamic Propagation Centre International's Ahmed Deedat. "That man
is not learned, but look at the way he has propagated Islam".
