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When asked how he came to Islam he wrote:
“My conversion to Islam cannot be attributed to any cause
other than the gracious direction of the Almighty Allah. Without this Divine
guidance all learning, search and other efforts to find the Truth may even lead
one astray. The moment I belived in the Absolute Unity of God His Holy Apostle
Muhummed became the pattern of my conduct and behvior.”
Abdu ‘l-Ahad Dáwúd is the former Rev. David Benjamin
Keldani, B.D., a Roman Catholic priest of the Uniate-Chaldean sect. He was
born in 1867 at Urmia in Persia; educated from his early infancy in that town.
From 1886-89 (three years) he was on the teaching staff of the Archbishop of
Canterbury’s Mission to the Assyrian (Nestorian) Christians at Urmia. In 1892
he was sent by Cardinal Vaughan to Rome, where he underwent a course of
philosophical and theological studies at the Propaganda Fide College, and in 1895 was ordained Priest. During that time he contributed a series of articels
to The Tablet on “Assyria, Rome and Canterbury”; and also to the Irish Record
on the “Authenticity of the Pentateuch.” He had several translations of the
Ave Maria in different languages, published in the Illustrated Chatholic
Missions. While in Constantinople on his way to Persia in 1895, he contributed
a long series of articels in English and French to the daily paper, published there
under the name of The Levant Herald, on “Eastern Churches.” In 1895 he joined
the French Lazarist Mission at Urmia, and published for the first time in the
history of that Misssion a periodical in the vernacular Syriac called Qala-La
Shárá, i.e. “The Voice of Truth.” In 1897 he was delegated by two
Uniate-Chaldean Archbishops of Urmia and of Salmas to erpresent the Eastern
Catholics at the Eucharistic Congress held at Paray-le-Monial in France under the presidency of Cardinal Perraud. This was, of course, on official
invitation. The paper read at the Congress by “Father Benjamin” was published
in the Annals of the Eucharistic Congress, called “Le Pelirin” of that year. In
this paper, the Chaldean Arch-Priest (that being his official title) deplored
the Catholic system of education among the Nestorians, and fortold the imminent
appearance of the Russian priests in Urmia.
In 1898 Father Benjamin was back again in Persia. In his native vilage, Digala, about a mile from the town, he opened a school gratis.
The next year he was sent by the Ecclesiastical authorities to take charge of
the diocese of Salmas, where a sharp and scandalous conflict between the Uniate
Archbishop, Khudabásh, and the Lazarist Fathers for a long time had been
menacing a schism. On the day of New Year 1900, Father Benjamin preached his
last and memorable sermon to a large congregation, including many non-Catholic
Armenians and others in the Cathedral of St. George´s Khorovábád, Salmas. The
preacher´s subject was “New Century and New Men.” He recalled the fact that
the Nestorian Missionaries, before the apperance of Islam, had preached the
Gospel in all Asia; that they had numerous establishments in India (especially
at the Malbar Coast), in Tartary, China and Mongolia; and that they translated
the Gospel to the Turkish Uighurs and into other languages; that the Catholic,
American and Anglican Missions, in spite of the little good they had done to
the Assyro-Chaldean nation in the way of preliminary education, had split the
nation - already a handful - in Persia, Kurdistan and Mesopotamia into numerous
hostile sects; and that their efforts were destined to bring about the final
collapse. Consequently he advised the natives to make some sacrifices in order
to stand upon their own legs like men, and not to depend upon the foreign
missions, etc.
Five big and ostentatious missions - Americans,
Anglicans, French, Germans and Russians - with their colleges, Press backed up
by rich religious societies, Consuls and Ambassadors were endeavoring to
convert about one hundred thousand Assyro-Chaldeans from Nestorian heresy unto
one or another of the five heresies. But the Russian Mission soon outstripped
the others, and it was this mission which in 1915 pushed or forced the
Assyrians of Persia, as well as the mountaineer tribes of Kurdistan, who had
then immigrated into the plains of Salmas and Urmia, to take up arms against
their respective Governments. The result was that half of his people perished
in the war and the rest expelled from their native lands.
The great question which for a long time had been
working its solution in the mind of this priest was now approaching its climax.
Was Christianity, with all its multitudinous shapes and colors, and with its
unauthentic, spurious and corrupted Scriptures, the true Religion of God? In
the summer of 1900 he retired to his small villa in the middle of vineyards
near the celebrated fountain of Cháli-Boulaghi in Digala, and there for a month
spent his time in prayer and meditation, reading over and over the Scriptures
in their original texts. The crisis ended in a formal resignation sent in to
the Uniate Archbishop of Urmia, in which he frankly explained to Mar (Mgr.)
Touma Audu the reasons for abandoning his sacerdotal functions. All attempts
made by the ecclesiastical authorities to withdraw his decision were of no
avail. There was no personal quarrel or dispute between Father Benjamin and
his superiors; it was all question of conscience.
For several months Mr. Dáwúd - as he was now called -
was employed in Tabriz as Inspector in the Persian Service of Posts and Customs
under the Belgian experts. Then he was taken into the service of the Crown
Prince Muhummed Alí Mirsá as teacher and translator. It was in 1903 that he
again visited England and there joined the Unitarian Community. And in 1904 he
was sent by the British and Foreign Unitarian Association to carry on an
educational and enlightening work among his country people. On his way to Persia he visited Constantinople; and after several interviews with Sheikhu ‘l-Islám Jemálu ‘d-Dín
Effendi and other Ulémas, he embraced Islam.
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