David Benjamin Keldani

David Benjamin Keldani (* 1867 in Digala near Urmia , Persia , † around 1940) alias Abdul Ahad Dawud was an Assyrian Christian and author who converted to Islam .

Names

He was baptized in the name of David (Dawid, Dawud), which he kept even after his conversion to Islam. The family name "Benjamin" (English) or "Benyāmīn" (Syrian) is probably derived from the name of the grandfather as usual. David Benjamin received the nickname "Keldani" (Turkish: Chaldeans) only as a Muslim . The adopted name 'Abdu' l-Ahad ("Servant of the One") proclaims the emphatically anti-Trinitarian tawheed of the earlier Christian Dawud.

Life

The most important source is the short English biography which precedes the book of Benjamin. It goes back unmistakably in its information, probably even in the wording, to the author. Intentional misinformation need not be proven. Some typing or printing errors have perpetuated. The present German translation is unreliable. Some English versions are shortened in places.

Christian period

David received his education in Urmia . Here he worked from 1886 to 1889 as a teacher and interpreter at both schools of the Anglicans. He taught Persian and translated theological statements of the Europeans into New Syrian. During this time he was ordained a deacon of the Assyrian Church of the East . In 1890 he left Urmia to seek his fortune in England. There he converted to Catholicism in 1892 at the latest and then studied philosophy and theology at the Propaganda College in Rome . In 1895 he was ordained a priest for the Chaldean Catholic Church . From 1896 he worked for the newly founded "Voice of Truth" (Qala d-šrara) of the Lazarists in Urmia, the first Catholic magazine in the New Syrian language. In 1897 he represented the Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Urmia and Salamas at the 10th World Eucharistic Congress in Paray-le-Monial (France). There he warned in a lecture about the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on the East Syrian Christians in the Urmia region. In 1898 he opened a school in his home village Digala. In the following years he appeared in writing and speaking as a representative of the Assyrian national idea and turned against the denominational division of his people. Contrary to what is often read, David Benjamin was at no time a bishop of Salamas and / or Urmia and never personally asserted such a thing.

In the summer of 1900 he wrote to the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Urmia, Mar Thomas Audo (officiated 1892-1917), the priesthood for reasons of conscience. For a few months he worked in Tabriz for the Iranian postal and customs authorities, then as an interpreter and teacher for the Persian Crown Prince Mohammed Ali Mirza (* 1872; later Mohammad Ali Shah ). In 1903, again in England, he joined the Unitarians and finally converted to Islam in Constantinople under the influence of Sheikh ul Islam in 1905.

Islamic period

Almost nothing is known about David's life as a Muslim except the composition of his work Muhammad in the Bible . It was originally a series of essays that appeared in The Islamic Review from 1928 . When they were first printed as a book remains an open question. Prints from 1969 onwards are documented.

David Benjamin is likely to have witnessed the Constitutional Revolution against the Persian Shah Mohammed Ali 1905–1911 as well as the downfall of the Nestorians who fled mainly to Salamas in the First World War 1915–1918, although not necessarily as an eyewitness. Keldani's political comments on this are not recorded.

background

When David Benjamin was just 13 years old, Ottoman Turks and Kurds attacked and occupied Urmia, Salamas and Mahabad in 1880. The intervention of the British, Russians and Americans forced their withdrawal, but the weakness of the fragmented Eastern Christianity and the interference of the great powers in missionary work became clear even then.

Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox and Lutheran missionaries from the USA, France, Great Britain, Russia and Germany tried in the 19th and 20th centuries. Century, in noticeable rivalry to one another, to reform the Christians of the Assyrian "Church of the East" in their own way and to move them to rapprochement or connection with their own church community. The "Church of the East", which had existed since late antiquity and was spread from Iraq to India and Mongolia until the destructive Mongol storm, had been greatly reduced by this in both staff and distribution area and since the 16th century under the influence of Rome in a Catholic ( "Chaldeans" ) and a non-Catholic wing ("Nestorians", "Assyrians" ) split. The influence of the “Nestorian Mission” further weakened the remnants of East Syrian Christianity, which at that time hardly counted 100,000 believers. The Chaldean Catholic David Benjamin Keldani foresaw their complete collapse and, from 1895, passionately warned against the influence of the Russians, especially in the Assyrian language. Political ambitions actually caused the collapse.

During the First World War and under the impression of the initially successful Russian-Armenian offensive against the Ottoman Turks, the 27-year-old Patriarch Simon XIX , who was still inexperienced, also joined . Benjamin the Russian. In June 1915 he even declared war on the Ottoman Empire , which had tolerated the faith communities (Millet) of Christians for centuries, trusting Russian arms help .

But Kurdish militias interrupted the Russian supplies, expelled or killed the Nestorians and plundered their settlement areas. Half of their communities had already been destroyed in July; only with luck and after a hard struggle, their remains reached Urmia and Salmas in September 1915. From them the Patriarch formed a new armed force in May 1916 and proclaimed himself "General". These homeless people, who were also joined by Armenians after the collapse of the Tsarist Empire in November 1917 , were wiped out by Kurdish militias in the Persian-Turkish border area; Simon fell in February 1918.

In the face of this catastrophe predicted by Keldani, he had justified his conversion to Islam on the guidance of God alone, without which any search for truth would have led him astray beforehand.

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In German-speaking countries, Keldani's work Muhammad in the Bible , published by the SKD-Verlag, is best known. In the foreword to the author's biography, however, the translator, Hasan Günter Nyadayisenga, initially seems to mix up the terms “Catholic” , “Eastern Catholic Church” , “Eastern Churches” , “ Orthodox Churches ”, “Uniate” and “Unitarian” in places.

However, Keldani's language skills and his examination of the Bible and the Koran were more profound. By comparing texts, they allowed the author to claim that many biblical prophecies are incorrectly related to Jesus , but actually refer to Mohammed .

Keldani translated z. B. “Eudokia” with “Ahmadiya” and saw in the Periclytos (not Paraclete ) neither the “ Holy Spirit ” nor any comforter , but Ahmad or Mohammed. For the greatest miracle of Islam and a divine proof of the prophecy of Muhammad in general, Keldani did not maintain the fact that the name Ahmad or Hamid, Mahmud or Mohammed in the sense of “the praised one” had never been used or given before Muhammad's birth the Arabs still with the Jews or Christian peoples. Likewise, the prophet announced by John and the Son of Man do not mean Jesus, but Mohammed. Mispha (stone), on the other hand, does not refer to the "rock" Peter , but to a Muslim Sufi, the "Mustafa" Mohammed or the sacred stone of the Kaaba . Keldani repeatedly opposed the designation of Muslims as "Mohammedans", since Mohammed should not be viewed as the founder of "Mohammedanism", but as a servant of the will of God. After all, Islam is God's kingdom of peace on earth and its holy new capital is not Jerusalem , but Dār as-Salām . This kingdom had already been proclaimed by Jeremiah and Christ .

“It is a fact unanimously admitted by the scholars of the Semitic languages ​​that SHALOM , the (as) Syrian SHLAMA as well as the Arabic SALAM and ISLAM are derived from the same Semitic tribe SHALAM and have the same meaning. The verb SHALAM means to submit, to entrust oneself and also to make peace. " (David Benjamin: Muhammad in the Bible . P. 102, cf. also p. 33 and p. 106)

literature

• David Benjamin: Muhammad in the Bible. Munich 1992. ISBN 3-926575-00-X ; 2., rework. Ed., SKD Bavaria, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-926575-90-5 .
• Jean Maurice Fiey: Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus. Repertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux . Steiner, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-515-05718-8 .
• Rudolf Macuch: History of late and New Syrian literature . W. de Gruyter, Berlin 1976, pp. 76-79, 85, 143, 150, 225.

Web links

• Literature by and about David Benjamin Keldani in the catalog of the German National Library