Kazuki Suleyman Kanehara: From an Image on a Screen to a Book in His Hands
How many judgments do we carry about a faith whose scripture we have never read—knowing it only through images chosen by someone else?
Kazuki Kanehara grew up in Japan with a negative picture of Islam shaped, in his own later account, by television and films. He did not know Muslims personally. The image therefore seemed complete because he had little against which to test it. [1]
When he went to Germany as a nineteen-year-old student, he met Muslims for the first time. The people he came to know challenged the picture he had absorbed from television and films. [1] [2]
Among them was a Turkish friend named Ismail, whom Kanehara remembered for patience and good character. Ismail later introduced him to a teacher called Ramadan in Osmaniye, where a family welcomed him. Questions once directed at a distant and frightening image could now be asked of people with names, homes, and daily lives. [2]
Kanehara continued asking and learning over a year or two. He said he became convinced that God was real, yet still hesitated over whether Islam was the religion he was ready to choose. In his interview with Anadolu Agency, he identified reading the Qur’an as the turning point. He made the decision privately in Japan, told no one at first,. [2]
He then asked Ismail to take him to Osmaniye, where he declared his faith before his friend and the teacher Ramadan, around 2019. [2]
Before declaring his faith he had stopped eating pork and drinking alcohol. After becoming Muslim he adopted the name Suleyman. [2]
Ismail’s patience helped Kanehara continue asking questions. Kanehara later identified reading the Quran as the decisive step in his own decision. [2]
He said he told his family about his conversion roughly two years after becoming Muslim. His wife later embraced Islam. [2]
Kazuki Suleyman became a restaurant owner in Kyoto, continuing his life in Japan with a new name and a faith he had chosen through reading and learning. [1]
Sources
Anadolu Agency, English edition, 22 Mar 2026 · Anadolu Ajansı, Turkish edition of the same interview