2008 is a turning point for Magdi Allam.
The Italian journalist and writer of Egyptian origin, born in 1952 in Cairo and trained in the schools of the Comboni Sisters and the Salesians thanks to the help of the Caccia family, generous Italian entrepreneurs who wanted to support his mother Safeya, converts to Christianity within to the Catholic Church.
It is the meeting with Pope Benedict XVI that pushes him towards a path of faith that distorts his existence and so, during the Easter Vigil, on March 22, the critical soul of a restless Muslim becomes a Christian, even in his name, and formalizes his conversion by receiving from the Holy Father, in St. Peter, the temple of Christianity in the world, baptism, confirmation and Eucharist in a single intense celebration.
In recent days he was in Cagliari to present his latest book, “Stop Islam”, surrounded by the affection of many admirers.
What will readers find in “Stop Islam”?
"An invitation to know the reality of Islam based on the exclusive cult of the Arab pagan god Allah, one of the 360 idols that were worshiped in the polytheistic Pantheon in Mecca, and on obedience to Mohammed who, as a humble illiterate camel driver, imposed his power absolute through violence, which culminated in 627 in the massacre of the Jewish tribe of Banu Quraiza in which Muhammad personally participated in the slaughter and beheading of about 900 adult male Jews, while women and children were enslaved, tortured and sold in the market of slaves.
At the same time, in 'Stop Islam', I make an appeal, in respect of Muslims who in turn respect our laws, comply with our rules and share our values, to have the intellectual honesty and human courage to take note of the 'incompatibility of Islam as a religion with our secular and liberal civilization, and consequently to outlaw Islam as a religion within our rule of law, to safeguard our inalienable right to be fully ourselves within our home ".
What prompted you to become a Catholic?
"Since I was a child, as a Muslim who for fourteen years lived in boarding school first with the Comboni nuns and then with the Salesian priests, I met and was fascinated by the figure of Jesus. I loved reading the Gospels and was enchanted by the parables of Jesus, by myself perceived as pearls of human wisdom. The arrival to Christianity through the Catholic Church, and not for example the Coptic Orthodox Church which represents the majority of Christians in Egypt, my native country, is due to the fact that it is in the Catholic sphere that I have come to know Christianity and subsequently it is in the 'Italy predominantly Catholic that I have developed friendships and acquaintances that have led me to mature the choice to embrace the Christian faith with conviction. Certainly my conversion had its salient moment in the encounter with the thought and with the person of Benedict XVI, the Pope who more than others embodies the partnership of faith and reason, what substantiates faith in Jesus Christ, true God and true. man".
Do you regret this choice also in light of the criticisms leveled at the Vatican in the past?
"I am a Christian even if I dissociated myself from the Church of Pope Francis for its legitimation of Islam as a religion, for its apology for immigrationism, conceiving the reception of illegal immigrants as an act of faith, for its relativism in terms of values with the opening to homosexualism, for its promotion of the New World Order subject to the financial and globalist dictatorship. But my faith in Jesus remains solid ”.
You have won the Dan David Prize for “your relentless work aimed at fostering understanding and tolerance between cultures.” Is it still possible to seek coexistence between Islam and other religions?
“Dialogue and coexistence take place between people, not between religions. I firmly believe that all of us must promote dialogue and coexistence between people, respecting the civilization of the place and time in which we live. Conversely, the contents of ideas, ideologies or religions must be sifted through reason, they can be accepted, criticized or rejected, without this automatically resulting in the condemnation of the people who refer to them ”.
Taliban breakthrough in Afghanistan. What is your point of view?
"The success of the Taliban in returning to power on August 15 thanks to an agreement with the United States, after being condemned as an Islamic terrorist movement when in 2001 the United States unleashed the war in Afghanistan which welcomed Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, authors of the attacks on the Twin Towers in Manhattan, was the surrender of Western civilization. The message that Muslims have received is that if the world superpower has come to terms and handed power back to the Islamic terrorists, it means that Western civilization is over and that the time has come to conquer the West, starting with Old Europe which for 1400 years Muslims have dreamed of subduing ”.
What do the cases of Patrick Zaki and Giulio Regeni tell us about your homeland?
“For seven thousand years Egypt has been ruled by pharaohs, by an authoritarian central power that must essentially guarantee the regular flow of the Nile waters from the south to the north of the country, without which the current over 100 million Egyptians could not survive. To say that there is a despotic power behind Regeni's death and Zaki's imprisonment is a foregone conclusion. Acting without being aware of it or challenging this reality was a mistake. If this error is the result of a trap set by those who exploit the lives of young people animated by an appreciable but not practicable idealism, it is the task on which the judiciary should try its hand ”.
Great emotion has aroused the case of Saman Abbas, the Pakistani girl killed by her family. Who is responsible for this blind violence? Or are they single cases of human insanity?
“Islam conceives woman as an anthropologically inferior being compared to man. Arranged marriage is a deep-rooted custom not only in Islamic societies. The young Saman challenged Islam and custom. She lost her life in an Italy where everyone's life is sacred, women enjoy equal dignity as men, freedom of choice is the pillar of civilization. The message is that, on the one hand, the family that killed her must be sanctioned with the utmost rigor, and on the other, Italy must ensure that within its rule of law all those residing there respect the same laws, comply with the same rules, share the same values ”.
Will he return to active politics within a party?
“The Draghi government is the apotheosis of the consociativism of a party power that has put an end to ideological differences and converges on the division of the slices of power. I consider that this state has collapsed and that our civilization has fallen. My commitment is on the front of cultural formation, civil mobilization and political action aimed at the redemption of Italy as an independent and sovereign national state, at the salvation of Italians above all from the demographic collapse, at the rebirth of our secular and liberal civilization from the roots. Jewish-Christian, Greek-Roman, Humanist and Enlightenment ".
LP
