PRODIGAL SON RETURNS

"Prodigal Son" of Hamas Founder Converts to Christianity

Following are excerpts from an interview with Mus'ab Hassan Yousef, 30, the son of Hamas leader and member of the Palestinian Parliament Sheik Hassan Yousef, which aired on Al-Hayat TV on August 19, 2008, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute:

"My name is Mus'ab Hassan Yousef. I am the eldest son of Sheik Hassan Yousef. I was born in the village of Bir Zeit, near Ramallah ....My father began his Islamic activity from the very beginning by founding the [Palestinian branch] of the Muslim Brotherhood....and by recruiting young Muslim men for the sake of Allah and Islam.....I hated ever Israel soldier carrying a gun and every settler....I participated in the Intifada in most of its forms. This included throwing stones, burning tires, and so on - activities in which most of the youth took part....I used to go to the mosque all the time. When I was five, I fasted for the first time in the month of Ramadan. Until my conversion to Christianity, I used to fast during the entire month of Ramadan....

"I did not know that my father was one of the founders of Hamas. It was a secret, and I did not know anything about it....I never joined Hamas, but I loved the movement because of my love for my father. I began to go to high school. During that period, due to my father, my knowledge of Islam and the Quran (Koran), and my personality, i became a leader of the Islamic bloc. I was the head of the Islamic bloc at the Ramallah high school. We were involved in the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas, which has existed since Hamas was founded - internal struggles for power and for influence over the public....

"I have accepted Christ as my personal saviour, but as far as Muslims are concerned, accepting Christ is like an elephant passing through the eye of a neddle."


Weeks earlier, in an interview by Avi Issacharoff (Haaretz magazine, July 31, 2008), Yousef, who has five brothers and two sisters, spoke about his faith and warned Israel about Hamas:

"I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family the patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity.... As a child I grew up in a very religious family, on the principle of hatred of Israelis.... In high school I studied sharia, Islamic law....

"It began about eight years ago. I was in Jerusalem and I received an invitation to come and hear about Christianity. Out of curiosity I went. I was very enthusiastic about what I heard. I began to read the Bible every day and I continues with religion lessons. I did it in secret, of course. I used to travel to the Ramallah hills....and read the Bible. A verse like 'Love thy enemy' had a great influence on me. At this stage I was still a Muslim....But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves 'great believers.' I studied Islam more thoroughly and found no answers there. I re-examined the Quran and the principles of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading. The Muslims borrowed rituals and traditions from all the surrounding religions....

"The people who supposedly represent the religion admired Muhammad more than God, killed innocent people in the name of Islam, beat their wives and don't have any idea what God is....I have a message for them : There is only one way to Paradise.

"Send regards to Israel, I miss it. I respect Israel and admire it as a country. I'm opposed to a policy of [Palestinian] killing [Israeli] civilians, or using them as a means to an end, and I undestand that Israel has a right to defend itself. The Palestinians, if they don't have an enemy to fight, will fight each other. In about 20 years from now you'll remember what I'm telling you, the conflict will be among various groups within Hamas. They're already beginning to quarrel over control of the money....

WARNING FOR JEWS "You Jews should be aware : You will never, but never
have peace with Hamas. Islam the ideology that guides them, will not allow
them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Muhammad fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death. They have to take revenge against anyone who did not agree to accept the Prophet Muhammad, like the Jews who are seen in the Quran as monkeys and sons of pigs. They speak in terms of historical rights that were taken from them. In the view of Hamas, peace with Israel contradicts sharia and the Quran, and the Jews have no right to remain in Palestine....

"An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist bcomes a hero, an martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the 'heroism of the shaheeds' and that causes the young people to imitate the suicide bombers in order to achieve glory....

"Do you know that Hamas was the first to use the weapon of suicide bombers against civilian targets? They are blind and ignorant....
Hamas supporters don't understand that they are led by a wicked and cruel group that brainwashes the children and gets them to believe that if they carry out a suicide attack they'll get to Paradise. But no suicide bomber will find himself there and no virgins are waiting for them after they have carried out an attack. They have to understand that Islam was created by people and not by God....

"I left behind a great deal of property in Ramallah in order to achieve true freedom. I wanted...to open the eyes of the Muslims and reveal the truth....about their religion and about Christianity, to take them out of the darkness and the prison of Islam. In that way they'll have an opportunity to correct their mistakes , to become better people and to bring a chance for peace in the Middle East."

Mus'ab Hassan Yousef