after going to three graduate schools
uh including liberty baptist theological
seminary jerry falwell school
before farwell you went to his his
college christian college we got married
at thomas road baptist church jerry
falwell's church here the famous jerry
farwell have you ever met him
oh many times he used to take me with
him on his private plane
to fly to different meetings oh so
you're good friends with jerry farwell
he passed away about 10 years ago yeah
his son
took over correct his son was
until recently always thought if more if
more good people
had concealed carry permits then we
could end those muslims i've seen
one of your talks before you give a an
example of how you were feeling
and this is how many people feel like oh
if you go over there
they're going to cut your head off can
you share that with us
well yeah you know i was scared to death
when i stepped off the plane here
i came from a background in annapolis
maryland i was
on the city council there was a head of
the democratic party
when i got on the plane to come here
some students from the naval academy
close friends were coming to me and
saying don't go don't go
uh they were showing me videos of people
being
decapitated oh it was horrible
people being kidnapped and
here i am stepping off the plane into
what i
what they told me would be harm's way
when i arrived here it was a totally
different story
um when i'd go to the supermarket
people would come up to me and they'd
say where are you from
at first i would hesitate but eventually
i would say i'm from the united states
and then people would begin to um
they would hug me and they would say
alan wasala
welcome i wasn't expecting this
it was the hugs and the love of muslims
in saudi arabia that brought me
completed my trip to islam that's quite
a different picture from what the media
portrays
of islam and muslims yeah well the media
is
distorted and uneducated in many cases
i think it's getting better but
we have to help change the media for
every negative or you know one percent
of every religious group it doesn't
matter whether they are
christian jewish muslim
hindu buddhists all religious groups one
or two percent are crazy
they do horrible things they're
in it for themselves they want to make
the evening news
so the best way to make the evening news
is to kill somebody and make
headlines we've seen that in the last
month in the united states
but uh for every evil act
we have to do a hundred good acts to
overcome it
and this is our aim with muslim voice
for peace and reconciliation
an organization that asa hussein and i
started
here in jeddah and it's based in
washington d.c
mashallah tell us now you went to john
jones
this is a christian high school and then
from
bob jones jones academy fundamentalist
christian high school
in greenville south carolina you see my
mom raised me in the baptist church
bob jones is predominantly baptist
but my mother would take me to church on
sunday and she would
at the end of the church service she
would take me to the church library
and there were all kinds of children's
books and she'd let me pick one out
and the one that i got over and over
again was called the god of abraham
and it had beautiful color pictures of
camels and desert
and she would take me home she'd put me
in her lap
and she would open the book and start
reading to me
and she would tell me the story of
abraham
she would say sammy sammy look into my
eyes
when you're older you have to pray to
the god of abraham
or abraham excuse me abraham there's
only one god
and that stayed with me all my life
i went to christian academy and i got to
the academy
you know of course they were teaching
trinity and
i asked my bible instructor i said i'm
confused about trinity
i don't know how to rationalize this
think about it and he would tell me
well it's sort of like an egg the egg
has a shell
it's an egg yellow egg white it's one
egg and i said but
you mean god is like an egg oh no
god's not like an egg so
i went to university or christian
college shelton college
i asked my theology teacher i said
explain trinity to me
and he said well he had a banana on his
desk
he peeled the banana and in size he
squeezed the yellow part of the banana
and it came apart in three parts
he said you see it's three parts but
it's one banana
i said you mean it's god is like a
banana no
no i'm just trying to explain trinity to
you
finally i got to graduate first graduate
school i went to faith theological
seminary
also fundamentalist presbyterian
seminary
and i asked theology teacher there
please explain the trinity to me
and he said can explain
we can't explain it it it
it's some it's a mystery
and then i so it was always a question
in my mind
and i kept hearing the words my mother
uh believe in the god of abraham there's
only one god
he's not three parts and
so that's been me until i arrived in
saudi arabia and i
i didn't convert to islam i've been a
muslim
all my life and i discovered it when i
arrived here
yeah many people don't know when you say
the word muslim that simply translates
into one who has
submitted his or her will to the one as
you keep repeating to the one and only
true creator of the heavens and earth
the same god that jesus worshiped moses
in the last and final messenger prophet
muhammad peace be blessed and be upon
him all
you are actually on your way as uh is
this correct samuel
pat as pastor samuel at that time going
to
help with something with the quran
well it's
a longer story than that because after
graduating from
faith hill after going to three graduate
schools uh
including liberty baptist theological
seminary jerry falwell school
uh and then on to california graduate
school of theology
wait the last one you mentioned jerry
farwell you went to his
his uh college christian college from
the uh
the graduate school liberty liberty
baptist
that's the seminary correct yes okay so
you went there wow
and then i went on my wife and we got
married at
thomas road baptist church jerry
falwell's church my wife is from
czechoslovakia
she she immigrated to the us we were
married at dr
falwell's church have you ever met him
the famous jerry farwell have you ever
met him oh many times
he used to take me with him on his
private plane to fly to different
meetings
oh so you're good friends with jerry
farwell wait wait do you have the senior
the the scene no longer living he passed
away about 10 years ago
yeah his son took over correct
his son was until recently always
thought if more if more good people
had concealed carry permits then we
could end those muslims before they
before they walk in and kill it
jerry falwell jr may be out as president
chancellor of liberty university
after reports he submitted his
resignation letter today
the son of one of the most influential
tv evangelists of all time
yeah the president of
liberty baptist schools yeah
wasn't he somewhat of a he was adviser
to many of the
the presidents or one of the the senior
many of the conservative presidents
uh he was the head of moral majority
his son sort of did that in
but um dr
falwell had a big
and he had a big wide
influence in the united states moral
majority
many other organizations it influenced
me i was at a meeting that he was at in
washington dc i see
for 25 years i lobbied the us congress
on human rights
25 years wow i did that
i worked with canadian and british
parliaments
i was the head of christian solidarity
international and during that time in
washington
dc um i would organize
congressmen to travel with me abroad to
meet with foreign heads of state
to intervene on behalf of christian
prisoners of conscience jews
as well as muslims in romania for
instance
and uh we would meet with chaucesky
family we would
give them a list of prisoners and we'd
do everything within our ability to get
these prisoners
released we got 150 of more than 150
released at one time
by using pressure on the romanian
government
but we did this in the soviet union
throughout south america nepal
china members of apartment and members
of congress would travel with me
after i sort of retired from the
human rights work i moved to annapolis
maryland where i became
the head of the democratic party for
annapolis
and eventually was elected to the city
council
eventually ran for mayor of annapolis
i thought you know if i can be mayor of
annapolis
now my
my personal
hubris is taking over i'm going to be
i'm such a great man
you know politicians when they go
door-to-door they pass out literature
and they write that literature and the
literature says you can't live without
sam shropshire i'm the best
and i thought if i could be mayor of
annapolis i could be governor of
maryland and
but you know i read later in the quran
man plots
but god allah is a better platter and he
does amazing things
when i was running for mayor of
annapolis i lost that race
if you had told me then no sam
you're gonna you're gonna lose
you're going to be living in a mosque
as a muslim and study
you would never have guessed that huh
i would have said you're insane
from from flying from flying in the
private jet with uh
with jerry falwell to uh
and going to were you guys going to
different conferences to get what were
you doing again with
the different speaking engagements we
had in philadelphia in different places
so with speaking in gamewin
engagements with uh jerry falwell
in the private jet to now being in the
living next to the in the mosque you
would have never guessed that in a
thousand years
yeah and um after i came here too i was
here for about five years
and i was very interested i was involved
in environmentalism
in annapolis maryland working on
cleaning up the chesapeake bay
but after being here for a few years i
met doctor mohammad alhaj hussein
who is an environmentalist here in
jeddah saudi arabia
and he invited me to his home for dinner
and he explained to me he had six sons
five of them were sitting at the table
and i said mashallah dr muhammad
wow this is incredible no daughters just
sons
and i explained to him uh
i have one child only i have a daughter
her name is
jenna i love her so much
but i've never had a son i've always
wanted a son
and i was joking i said give me one of
yours
and he was joking too he said take
jesus asa
so ace and i became very close friends
he was entering university king
abdulaziz university studying islamic
studies
he had an american passport a saudi
passport
spoke fluent arabic and english he went
with me
every he he travels with me everywhere
we've been in over 50 countries together
talking with christians and jews and
peoples of other faiths about islam
and what i've experienced here in the
mecca region
so i thank god i mean if you told me 10
years ago
living in a mosque a muslim with a son
named
jesus
[Laughter]
amazing do you remember uh have you ever
met him
jim it comes to mind said you mentioned
some of these uh
people such as jerry falwell how about
jimmy swagger do you remember him did
you ever meet him or other people like
i never i never met jimmy swagger no i
you remember him on tv
saw him in tv a lot and did you ever
watch
i'm at d-dot center in south africa i'm
there
i've been down there three times
speaking and of course
he debated full well so tell us what was
your father like
i never really knew him
my father was a pilot he died as a
result of a plane crash three months
after i was born
but he's the one that named me samuel
after prophet samuel
and he would even take me as my mother
they were baptist and my mother moved
back to north georgia her home
area about when i was three years old
she took my two brothers and sister with
her
we all moved to north georgia a little
town called jefferson
and there we were attending first
baptist church of jefferson
how the how now since you accepted islam
and i really like to define these words
because i think many
if many uh people just knew a lot of the
words that we use the definitions
they would even gravitate more toward
they see the the commonalities like
islam just simply means
you know to acquire peace by submitting
yourself you know
uh to to the creator to submit to god's
will to do god's will not your desires
pretty much so now how do christians
what kind of relationship do you have
now
when people learn you know when the when
the jerry
fowl wells did he get the news back then
was he still alive when you accept
took your shahada when you accepted
islam what was his reaction or other
people like that some of these big names
small names
you know the christian community how do
they how do they react
i can tell you a lot of my bob jones
friends they still
many of them are still in touch with me
they're watching me
they are
i meet with other christian friends and
they're telling me you have to come back
to jesus
come back to jesus sam and i tell them
brother
i never left jesus i love jesus today
jesus the messiah the christ of god
jesus the one who did many miracles who
was born of the virgin mary
i love jesus who ascended into heaven
and who's gonna come back
i love him more today as a muslim than i
ever loved him as a christian
and they have a hard time understanding
that
because they never many of them don't
even know that muslims
believe in jesus or that they believe
that he's one of the greatest prophets
that ever lived
that's amazing i mean now when you're
talking to many christians and
other people over the face and then you
break down the six
articles of faith and are you amazed
that
almost all of them agree with it it's
just like they're agreeing with
everything
islam the whole message of islam but now
there's so much distortion out there
there's so many misconceptions
that are blocking it's like islam is
this beautiful treasure
and and and shaitan has done such a good
job to cover it with all this muck and
dirt people have to kind of
you have to dig dig dig deep you know
what i mean and really test your
sincerity but give us that example when
you're talking to
to christians and others and you start
to go over the articles of faith
how most almost 100 percent they agree
with
the main message of islam with jewish
and christian groups around the world i
try to organize as many as i can
we've had up to 100 in one meeting and
we put
project behind us on the wall the six
pillars of islam
and i asked them i'm facing them i said
how many of you here today jews and
christians
how many of you believe that there's
only one god
and everybody raises their hand i don't
go into detail
i uh we come back later through question
and answer
how many of you believe in angels
everybody
raises their hand how many of you
believe
in holy books let's say bible old
testament new testament
everybody raises their hand or the jews
only believe in the old testament
but how many of you believe in prophets
messengers
god sent to earth he sent them with a
message for his people
to call people to faith
and everybody raises their hand
i said amazing how many of you here
today
believe that there's going to be a great
judgment day it's coming
and we're all going to stand before god
and he's going to judge us for all the
good things and the bad things we've
done in this life
and everybody raises their hand
and i say how many of you believe in
predestination
or that god has predestined certain
things in your life in my life in our
lives
and these are going to happen
everybody raises their hand
amazing i say you know these are the six
pillars of faith in islam
and they're shocked that's islam yes
that's islam
and then i say hey jesus
hey hey so my assistant he's sitting in
the audience
i said jesus this is my assistant could
you come please
he comes and stands beside me and he's
got on a shirt that says muslim voice
for peace and reconciliation
and i can see them they're looking at
each other
still in shock and dismay wait
his name is jesus they're whispering to
each other
he's a muslim and i say yes
muslims love jesus so much that many of
them name their kids
jesus so this is incredible
i um and then asa speaks to them
i'm very grateful that
allah is permitting us to present in a
very simple way
islam to people who don't understand and
who have misperceptions
when you say this word allah many
christians
they don't understand that in the
semitic languages in the arabic language
christians who are arabic speaking they
also use the word allah i mean are they
are they just bewildered by that when
you also explain that to them
that this is not a different god explain
it from syrian christians
uh christians in palestine they use the
word allah
they to refer to to god and
this has been going on for for centuries
so it's no secret it's nothing new
this is the way muslims very often refer
to to god as allah yes
tell us you were so passionate
about getting the bible to people that
you actually got is it true got arrested
in poland and russian
for trying to smuggle bibles into there
how did that work out
yeah i've been living on the edge of
life
ever since i was in high school
you know i've had five guns pointed at
me in the united states
i've been just distributing gospel
tracts
on the streets of charlotte north
carolina with other students from bob
jones
go back to the car some guy pulls a gun
on us
uh i've traveled in many different parts
of the world where
people tell me don't go there then i
make that perks up my interest and i
i won't i want to know why i shouldn't
go so i end up going
and uh it's incredible
we meet such interesting people but i
also have faced adversity
you know before i understood the quran
and fully realized that i
didn't fully understand many of the
things that were in this
bible because the bible
let's face it as even my college
and seminary professors would tell me
there are mistakes in the bible
so i but
i was really believed in the bible
muslims should believe in the bible in
its original manuscripts
so i wanted to take it to foreign lands
i would smuggle thousands of bibles into
czechoslovakia
then i would get as many as i could
across the border into the soviet union
and that's where i was arrested when i
was 21
in the ukraine
ukrainian part of the soviet union um
i the soviets released me a few days
later
told me not to come back but i got
arrested in poland
one one month later for smuggling bibles
there
uh i just keep on going
but god is good now we're smuggling
qurans
we're smuggling qurans we don't even
have to smuggle them we take them
everywhere we go
i came here to work on a koran project
and
you asked me the question earlier they
invited me here as a christian as
someone who had a
had studied in graduate school to work
on this
q project quran project it was
easy to read modern american
interpretation of the quran
we of the final testament of god
and we they asked me just to read it i
was brought here to read
just read and to write down questions so
every night i'm reading quran in modern
english they want me to edit the english
so i would write down questions what do
you mean by this
what does this mean i did this for six
months
and then i my life was
changed my change by reading quran
that's when i began to realize i'm
muslim not
christian after being here for six
months
i heard azan my grip time
uh i ran down the street to musket aqua
and i stood knocking on the door people
were opening the door and going in but i
would
i didn't know what to do i wasn't
invited i was a christian i know
christians can't go to mecca medina
maybe i shouldn't go in the mosque it
would people
so after the prayer time was over people
were coming out
after my grip i'm still standing
knocking on the door and finally
shafik zubir comes to the door he's the
muaden
and he says may i help you and i said
yes my name is samuel shropshire
i'm a christian pastor from the united
states
is it okay if i come inside the mosque
and he reached out and hugged me
and he said alan wasallam i walked into
the mosque and looked around
and i said okay i'm going to come back
and then
every day for three days every
every prayer call to prayer for three
days i would run down to the mosque
and i would go in and i would sit in the
back because i didn't understand what
was going on
and after three days i felt god's
presence so powerful
at masjid taqwa that i said to shafiq
the muad and i said can you teach me to
pray like a muslim
and he said of course he taught me
al-fatiha
alhamdulillah
[Music]
you know it reminded me of a christian
hymn we used to sing in our church
can you finish you're beautifully
reciting so many christians and people
out there
i mean they've never got to hear the
quran can you go ahead and finish that
you're actually reciting
the one of the uh what we recite 17
times a day in prayer the opening the
fatiha
alhamdulillah ah where was i
needless to say my life was changed i
said to shafiq what should i do now
he got me in touch with dr sadiq malki
who took me to the islamic education
foundation
down the road and i said shahadah
and then dr sadie put me in his car
he drove me about 35 minutes over to
mecca
and we i'm looking at tahara
at the grand mosque we go inside
and he said i want to see the kaaba
please
and he took me through these thousands
of people through a crowd
and there it was in front of me the
kaaba
we didn't have time to stay long and
there was someone else with us and he
needed to get back to jeddah but i got
to see it
and i realized that that kaaba was
refurbished rebuilt by
ibr abraham and ishmael
and then i hear the words of my mother
again
sami sami
you have to pray to the god of israel
the god of abraham
there's only one god i fell on my face
crying there at the kaaba
my life my faith completed
there i thank god for a christian mother
she didn't know anything about islam she
never heard of
prophet muhammad probably she never
heard of islam
but she taught me to be a muslim
and i'm sure that there are a millions
and millions of young people
children who were taught in churches at
ages of three and four years old
in sunday school that there's only one
god
and that they need to pray to the god of
ibrahim
abraham we need to reach
people today through social media
we try through our website we try
through speaking all over the world
they said i've traveled to 50 different
countries one of the most
interesting is cuba we have time to talk
about it
but many
hundreds of people thousands coming to
islam including hundreds of jews
have said shahadah in israel during the
last
[Music]
three years brother samuel tell us
it reminds me you kept saying we'll
close off with this
you kept reiterating how your mother she
was
leaving you with the simple instructions
to worship just one god that's the main
message of islam to worship the creator
not the creation
in the quran there is a verse that talks
about abraham who your mother kept
saying worship the god of abraham where
allah god almighty is saying in the
quran that
abraham was neither a jew or christian
but he was a monotheist one who
worshipped
god almighty alone without partners you
talked about the trinity how that
makes sense it doesn't make sense to a
lot of people and
what advice would you give for our
christian friends and neighbors who are
out there and
anybody you know the atheist you know
the person who just got this distorted
image of islam
but he's listening to you who had also
the distorted image you thought okay if
i go over there to saudi you're gonna
chop my heads up that's what people were
telling you
now you're living in a mosque you took
your shahada you went over there as a
pastor
and now the whole world this you never
even would dream of something like this
what advice would you have for them
they're searching for the purpose of
life they're confused you know they want
to know
they tune into the dean show what you
got to tell them
i'd say first abraham was a friend of
god that's what he's called in the old
testament
of the bible in the new testament he's
referred to as a friend of god
and in the quran he's called a friend of
god
and if you want to be a friend of god
study the life
of prophet abraham
wow you'll you'll you'll come to learn a
lot
go back to your childhood if you're a
christian or if you're jewish
and realize what you were taught as a
child
um
believe in the god of abraham be believe
in the god of the prophets all the
prophets
including the god of jesus
believe in the god of noah and musa all
of these prophets that we learned about
when we were children we studied their
stories
we know what the work that they did i
live here next to the red sea
and i go down there sometimes and i take
a look across
towards egypt northeast northwest
towards egypt i'm looking
and i'm trying to imagine musa
or moses coming to the red sea and
parting the waters
it uh talking about
the blockage of the suez canal the other
day
can you imagine parting the waters
where no ships can get through ah
god has done wondrous things and he's
taught us wonderful stories which can
bring us closer to him
i'm very grateful to be a muslim i'm
very grateful to be able to work with
asa
and as my my we're co-founders of muslim
voice for peace and reconciliation
i'm so grateful to god that he can use
someone like me
my life was not clean when i came to
saudi arabia
i was a miserable sinner you know
i was a politician a lot of politicians
drink
i never had alcohol in my life until i
started working i
went to russia in 1991 i founded a
non-profit called
project friendship to help russian young
russian entrepreneurs who were coming
out of communism to start their own
businesses
to help them move away from
socialism to a free market economy
i learned a lot the
many young people started businesses
in russia the program wasn't too
successful because
mafia was everywhere and 10 people that
we trained in business
were killed by mafia so we moved the
program to
lithuania latvia slovakia czech republic
hungary in poland
and it became a great success and we'd
bring young entrepreneurs
to the united states to work in
businesses similar to what they wanted
to start
for the christian jews people who have a
distorted view of islam but they like
what you're having to say
yeah and then i took off on russia so
let's
start it again
jews and christians need to go back to
their childhoods
they need to study the life of prophet
muhammad
jews believe in the tanakh or the old
testament
muslims believe in it too by the way in
its original
manuscripts if we could get them
christians believe in the new testament
and the old testament
the christians still haven't decided how
many books are in the bible orthodox say
a certain number
catholics say a certain number
christians say a
certain number none they don't agree
all of them are a few books off
someday maybe they'll decide they'll
understand what is right
and then so we got old testament new
testament
i'm asking people to consider the final
testament of god
that which came down through the prophet
to the prophet muhammad through jibril
it says in the bible zebra also brought
down
his most muslims consider him to be the
holy spirit he brought down and inspired
different writers in the old testament
in new testament to write
it's in the book of daniel all i have to
do is look
gibril or gabriel
just go back to your childhood study
god and listen to what you were taught
the god of abraham there is only one god
the words of my mother can be your words
today listen
think and then take a close look at
islam
and get a chance grab a quran read
through it
if you have questions you can contact us
here at muslim voice for peace and
reconciliation
mvp
we'll be glad to answer any questions
you might have
thank you so much have you just one last
question i was thinking of some of my
good friends one who's down in medina
and if he has a
similar story have you ever met uh dr
lawrence brown
ah we talked on the phone
oh you so you know my that is that's my
close friend one of my good good friends
yeah i've met with him a couple of times
in medina
and he's he helped support me here
i'm very grateful to god for lawrence
the dear brother a dear friend
did you ever get to meet a doctor
divinity may allah grant him jannah
dr gerald dirks he studied in harvard he
was also
ordained deacon and he ended up
accepting islam but he uh passed away
recently i don't know if you got a
chance to ever meet him dr gerald dirks
no
no no he didn't get to meet him okay
well but i will
and i will meet him someday in charlotte
in general
yeah we are where we are get to our
final destination inshallah that's where
the gps should be set to
destination thank you so much it was an
honor
to have you on the dean show thank you
thank you brother
thank you for spreading the word i watch
the dean's show
often and uh i thank god for what you're
doing
i hope we can meet insha allah in person
inshallah
and i pray that people will be blessed
through this
emotion i wish i might i wish i weren't
so emotional but these
profound changes in my life
alhamdulillah thank you it was really
nice talking with you may allah