3rd part Sheikh Ahmad deed at Illness and death 1996–2005 On 3 May 1996, Ahmed Deedat suffered a stroke which left him paralysed from the neck down because of a cerebral vascular accident affecting the brain stem , leaving him unable to speak or swallow. [12] He was flown to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh , where he was reported to be fully alert. He learned to communicate through a series of eye- movements via a chart whereby he would form words and sentences by acknowledging letters read to him. [12] He spent the last nine years of his life in a bed in his home in South Africa, looked after by his wife, Hawa Deedat, encouraging people to engage in Dawah (proselytizing Islam). [12] He received hundreds of letters of support from around the world, and local and international visitors continued to visit him and thank him for his work. [5] On 8 August 2005, Ahmed Deedat died at his home on Trevennen Road in Verulam in the province of KwaZulu-Natal . He is buried at the Verulam cemetery. [13] Hawa Deedat died on Monday 28 August 2006 at the age of 85, one year after her husband, at Deedats home. [14] Debates Deedats first well-known debate took place in August 1981, when he debated well-known Christian preacher Josh McDowell in Durban, South Africa. [15] Many of his debates have later been broadcast online on YouTube, among other sites. Debates with Anis Shorrosh Deedats disagreements with Palestinian- American Christian missionary Anis Shorrosh first came to public attention when Shorrosh appeared among the audience during the questions and answers sessions[16] on two separate occasions during Deedats summer 1985 tour of the UK (where he debated Floyd E. Clark in what is now considered another one of his early international works). [5] Deedat and Shorrosh later held two highly contentious debates. The first, entitled Is Jesus God? [5] took place in December 1985 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The second debate was organised with much fanfare and held in Birmingham, UK on 7 August 1988, entitled The Quran or the Bible: Which is Gods Word. [5] This debate lasted four hours, including the questions and answers session. Debate with Jimmy Swaggart Deedats best-known moment [ citation needed ] came when he debated with televangelist Jimmy Swaggart at a time when Swaggart was one of the leading faces of Evangelical Christianity. Entitled Is The Bible the Word of God?,[5] the debate occurred in Swaggarts hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in November 1986 at Louisiana State University, where it was attended by about 8,000 people. Other notable debates In October and November 1991 Deedat toured Scandinavia, where he held three debates and several speeches. Two of these debates were held on successive nights against Pastor Stanley Sjöberg in Stockholm, Sweden. The first of these was entitled Is the Bible the True Word of God? [5][17] and the second debate was Is Jesus God? . Deedat then travelled to Denmark, where he held a debate with Pastor Eric Bock in Copenhagen, entitled Is Jesus God? [citation needed ] Deedat and the Pope After Pope John Paul II had called for better relations and peaceful intellectual dialogue with the Muslims, [18] Deedat challenged him in 1984 to a public debate in the Vatican Square, but the Pope did not accept. [5] When the Popes staff stopped answering, Deedat distributed a pamphlet in January 1985 headlined His Holiness Plays Hide and Seek With Muslims. #PEACE
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 05:58:13 +0000