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Geschichte eines Muhammedaners, der Christ wurde
1905 · 200 pages
Geschichte eines Muhammedaners, der Christ wurde
by Johannes Avetaranian
About the text. In the free scan at least 1 word in 133 is damaged — a floor, since we can check the characters but not the words in this language. The full text is public domain and free — linked below.
On this page: a summary of Geschichte eines Muhammedaners, der Christ wurde, and which translation this edition uses.
The first-person account of Johannes Avetaranian — born Mehmet Şükri in Erzurum in 1861 — a mullah in the Ottoman Empire who turned toward Christ after reading the Gospels and converted at real risk of his life. Subtitled “The Story of a Muhammadan Who Became a Christian, told by himself,” it follows his path from Islamic teacher to missionary translator. This text is in German: our public-domain edition presents the original 1905 German, free source linked.
The changed life
A mullah who claimed descent from Muhammad, he was shaken by the drowning of twelve Turkish converts in Constantinople, embraced Christ despite the danger, and went on to produce the first Uyghur New Testament with the Swedish mission in Kashgar before running a Turkish-language Christian publishing ministry from Bulgaria until his death in 1919.
Summary
Geschichte eines Muhammedaners, der Christ wurde (1905) — “The Story of a Muhammadan Who Became a Christian, told by himself” — is the autobiography of Johannes Avetaranian. Born Mehmet Şükri in Erzurum in 1861, he was raised a Muslim and became a mullah in the Ottoman Empire, a teacher of Islam who claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad.
He recounts how reading the Gospels turned him toward Christ, and how he was shaken by the drowning execution of twelve Turkish converts to Christianity in Constantinople in the 1880s. He converted at genuine risk of death and did not keep quiet about it: he became a missionary translator and a lifelong evangelist among Muslims, living under threat for decades.
His labors carried him far from home. With the Swedish mission in Kashgar he produced the first New Testament in the Uyghur language, and he later based himself in Plovdiv, Bulgaria — Ottoman Europe — where he ran a Turkish-language Christian publishing and Bible-revision ministry aimed at Balkan Muslims until his death in 1919. The book is his own telling of how that life began.
Who was Johannes Avetaranian?
Johannes Avetaranian (1861–1919) was born Mehmet Şükri in Erzurum, in the eastern Ottoman Empire, and trained as a mullah, claiming descent from Muhammad. After his conversion he took a new name — Avetaranian means roughly “bearer of the Gospel” — and gave the rest of his life to Christian mission among Muslim peoples.
He is remembered above all as a translator: working with the Swedish mission in Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, he produced the first Uyghur New Testament, and he later ran a Turkish-language publishing and Bible-revision ministry from Plovdiv in Bulgaria. He was a vocal evangelist who lived under threat for much of his life, and this autobiography is his own account of how a mullah came to follow Christ.
Which translation of Geschichte eines Muhammedaners, der Christ wurde is this?
This work is in German: our public-domain edition presents the original 1905 German text in a clean, readable modern format with clear type, and we link to a free source as well; a later English translation exists but remains under copyright, so we do not offer or link it.
Common questions
- Is this book in English?
- No. Our public-domain edition presents the original 1905 German text, which is titled Geschichte eines Muhammedaners, der Christ wurde. A modern English translation exists but is still under copyright, so we do not include or link it here.
- What was Avetaranian best known for after his conversion?
- As a missionary translator he produced the first New Testament in the Uyghur language with the Swedish mission in Kashgar, and he later ran a Turkish-language Christian publishing ministry from Plovdiv, Bulgaria, until his death in 1919.
A note on the text. Geschichte eines Muhammedaners, der Christ wurde is in the public domain. The text below is free to read at the source we link. The original text is also available free here.
That free scan shows at least 34.9 errors per 1,000 characters (OCR mistakes, stray marks, broken words). We publish the measurement so you can judge the free scan for yourself.
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