Early Life
Abdul Rahman was born in 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan to Abdul Manan and Gul Begum, ethnic Tajiks from the Panjshir Valley. He was married and fathered two daughters, Mariam and Maria.
In 1990, when working as a staff member for a Catholic non-governmental aid group providing medical assistance to Afghan refugees in Peshawar, Pakistan, he came in touch with Christianity and was subsequently baptised into the Roman Catholic Church. After his conversion he adopted the Biblical name Joel.
In 1993, he moved to Germany and later unsuccessfully sought asylum in Belgium before being deported to Afghanistan in 2002 after the fall of the Taliban government.
Abdul Rahman's wife divorced him because of his conversion to Catholicism. In the ensuing custody battle over the couple's two daughters, who had been raised by Abdul Rahman's parents during his absence, the mother's family raised the issue of his religion as grounds for denying him custody.
When he returned to Afghanistan, he was disowned by his parents, who stated: "Because he has converted from Islam to another religion we don't want him in our house" and " wanted to change the ethics of my children and family. He is not going in the right direction. I have thrown him out of my house", while his daughters said that "He behaves badly with us and we were threatened and disgraced by him. He has no job and has never given me a stitch of clothing or a crust of bread. Just his name as a father" and "He said he was my father but he hasn't behaved like a father since he came back to Afghanistan. He threatens us and we are all afraid of him and he doesn't believe in the religion of Islam."
Read more about this topic: Abdul Rahman (convert)
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