[SwF] Priest, 100 Followers Embrace Islam In Rwanda: WAMY

Priest, 100 Followers Embrace Islam In Rwanda: WAMY

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-03/21/article08.shtml

     
      Muslim leaders in Kigali

     
JEDDAH, March 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A Rwandan priest and a hundred of his followers have embraced Islam, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) said. 

The conversions were thanks to a WAMY’s medical convoy that visited remote areas in central Rwanda, whose members’ sermons deeply touched many locals, London-based Al-Quds Press quoted WAMY assistant secretary general Abdul Wahab Nour Wali as saying Saturday, March 20. 

He said the convoy delivered sermons in Rwandese at the outskirts of the capital Kigali, which defined Islam and encouraged non-Muslims to accept it, adding the sermons greatly appealed to the locals. 

He said a priest and 100 of his followers testified that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah after marathon arguments with the convoy’s preachers. 

The priest said that his Islam has been far delayed because he did not have the faintest idea about the religion. 

The long marginalized Muslim community in Rwanda - only 1.2% less than 10 years ago – jumped on the last statistics to represent some 16% of the Rwandan population with a gradually increasing growth rate, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) statistics. 

Established in Saudi Arabia in 1972, WAMY is an independent international organization and a member of the United Nations NGOs.  

WAMY's headquarters are based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It also has presence in 55 countries and an associate membership of over 500 youth organizations around the world. 

Islam Attracts Top Britons in a Growing Trend 

JEDDAH, 23 February 2004 - Over 14,000 Britons have embraced Islam, according to the UK's Sunday Times. Citing the first authoritative study of the phenomenon, the paper said that they had done so because of disillusionment with Western values, Some of Britain's top landowners, celebrities and the offspring of senior Establishment figures have embraced Islam. Read more->  http://www.hakimquick.com/articles17.htm 

More People Visit Mosques than Church of England

London: More people in Britain attend mosques than the Church of England. It is for the first time that Muslims have overtaken Anglicans. According to figures, 930,000 Muslims attend a place of worship at least once a week, whereas only 916,000 Anglicans do the same. Muslim leaders are now claiming that, given such a rise of Islam in Britain, Muslims should receive a share of the privileged status of the Church of England.  Read more-> http://www.islamicvoice.com/march.2004/news.htm#mv 

More than One in 10 Muslims is White in UK 

London: More than one in 10 Muslims in England and Wales describe themselves as white as the number of conversions to Islam increases, according to the census of 2001. The number of people described as Muslims in the census, which recorded religion for the first time, comes to a total of 1,546,626 of whom 179,773 claim they are white. Aziz Sheikh, professor of primary care at Edinburgh University and a British Muslim Council member, expressed surprise at the finding. He said he did not get such sort of feedback. He suggested that many whites, who, claimed to be Muslims could originally be from countries like Turkey, Cyprus, Bosnia and Albania. The fact is that 63,000 British white recorded their religion as Islam. The number of conversions estimated by different sources vary. There could be as many as 50,000, but it is said that the figure between 15,000 and 20,000 was more credible. (Report by Vijay Dutt in the Hindustan Times, New Delhi)