Yusuf Estes: When an Attempt to Persuade Became a Search
Yusuf Estes did not begin by looking for Islam. Known then as Joseph “Skip” Estes, he grew up in a strongly Protestant home, was baptized at twelve, visited many Christian denominations and read about several religions. He taught music, served as a music minister and preached in informal settings; in his own account he is explicit that he never had a church of his own.
He carried a hostile image of Muslims and had never studied Islam seriously. When his father began doing business in early 1991 with an Egyptian Muslim named Mohamed Abdel Rahman, Joseph first refused to meet him. He then agreed because he thought he could make the man Christian. Instead, he learned that Mohamed believed in God and His prophets, including Adam, Abraham and Moses, and recognized Jesus as a prophet and the Messiah. The first barrier fell before the deeper questions even began.
Their contact expanded into business trips and conversations about God, the meaning of life, creation and revelation. Mohamed later stayed with the family, and evening discussions compared different Bible editions and raised questions about the Quran and its preservation. Mohamed did not push or interrupt. In Estes’s telling, that calm attention created room for the questions themselves to change.
The central difficulties were older: how could God be one and three, why should one person carry another’s sin, and what would it mean to worship God without an intermediary? Estes found in tawhid and individual responsibility a more coherent answer to the direct relationship with God he sought. Yet the household did not make a collective leap; he stresses that each person reached a separate decision.
After a Catholic priest staying with them announced that he had accepted Islam, Estes’s wife said that she intended to do the same. Estes then spent the night talking with Mohamed. When Mohamed was preparing for the dawn prayer, Estes went outside and asked God for guidance. He recalled feeling the need to begin a more truthful and upright life. That morning in 1991 he declared the shahada before two witnesses. His wife followed shortly afterwards, while his father waited several months before making his own declaration. [5.1] [5.2]
He recalled initial objections from his mother and other relatives. Relations later became more settled, and they remained in contact.
After accepting Islam, Estes turned to religious outreach and described serving prison inmates as a Muslim chaplain. In May 2011, The National documented him speaking with pupils, parents and teachers at a Dubai school. The dialogue he had entered intending to change another man had become work he brought to a new audience. In telling his story, he traced a path from a hostile image of Islam to re-examining his own beliefs through divine oneness. [7.1] [7.2]
Sources
- Priests and Preachers Enter Islam — IslamTomorrow — Yusuf Estes — updated 2006-01-23
- Letter to a Nikkei staff writer — IslamTomorrow — Yusuf Estes — 2000
- يوسف إستس.. داعية مسلم من رحم أميركا — الجزيرة نت — 2015-10-05
- The National — Bana Al Qabbani, Former Christian minister who converted to Islam delivers speech, 2011-05-25