Conversion To Islam
Until his conversion to Islam in 2005, Yousuf was the fourth Christian (and fifth Non-Muslim overall) to play for the Pakistan cricket team, following in the footsteps of Wallis Mathias, Antao D'Souza and the Anglo-Pakistani Duncan Sharpe. He also has the distinction of being the first and so far only Non-Muslim to captain the country, leading the team in the 2004–05 tour of Australia where he scored a century in the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. He converted to Islam after attending regular preaching sessions of the Tablighi Jamaat, Pakistan's largest non-political religious grouping, whose preachers include Yousuf's former team-mate Saeed Anwar and his brother. His wife Tania converted along with him and adopted the Islamic name Fatima. However the news was kept private for three years due to family reasons, before his announcement of their conversion publicly in September 2005. "I don't want to give Yousuf my name after what he has done", his mother was quoted as saying by the Daily Times newspaper. "We came to know about his decision when he offered Friday Prayers at a local mosque. It was a shock", his mother was reported as saying. However, Yousuf told the BBC that "I cannot tell you what a great feeling it is." As part of his conversion, Yousuf officially changed his name from Yousuf Youhana to Mohammad Yousuf.
Former Pakistan cricketer and sports commentator Rameez Raja, who himself is Muslim, acknowledged the significance of Yousuf's new faith, "Religion has played an integral part in his growth not just as a cricketer but as a person."
Read more about this topic: Mohammad Yousuf (cricketer)
Famous quotes containing the words conversion and/or islam:
“The conversion of a savage to Christianity is the conversion of Christianity to savagery.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
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—Bernard Lewis, U.S. Middle Eastern specialist. Islam and the West, ch. 8, Oxford University Press (1993)