A Mohammedan Brought to Christ

A Mohammedan Brought to Christ is the autobiography of Maulvi Imad-ud-din Lahiz (1830–1900), a learned Sunni Muslim scholar from a family of maulvis in Panipat, North India. Translated by Robert Clark and published by the Church Missionary House in 1885, it recounts how a man steeped in Islamic learning — who had translated the Quran into Urdu and assisted the Muslim side at the famous 1854 Agra debate against Karl Pfander — came, through long restlessness and doubt, to faith in Christ.

He records his search through Islamic devotion and Sufi practice for a peace he could not find, his mounting doubts, and his baptism at Amritsar on 29 April 1866, together with his father and brother. He wrote the account partly to answer accusers who claimed he had converted for worldly gain, which gives it the pointed candor of a sincerity document.

He went on to serve with the Church Missionary Society, was honoured with a Doctor of Divinity, and became honorary chaplain to the Bishop of Lahore. It is widely regarded as the strongest first-person Muslim-convert autobiography of the nineteenth century.

Imad-ud-din Lahiz (1830–1900) was a fourth-generation Islamic scholar — his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all maulvis — trained in Panipat and known as a controversialist who debated against Christianity before his conversion.

His turning was intellectual as much as spiritual: after years of restless devotion and doubt, and close study of the Christian scriptures, he was baptized in 1866 and became one of the most influential Indian Christian clergymen and writers of his era, producing Bible commentaries and an Urdu translation of the Quran.