Ex Ignorant IV
Ex Ignorant IV
Ex Ignorant IV
(part 1 of 2)
Description: The story of how a German diplomat and ambassador to Algeria accepted Islam.
Part 1.
By Wilfried Hofmann
Published on 16 Jan 2006 - Last modified on 21 Dec 2008
Category: Articles >Stories of New Muslims > Personalities
Dr. Hofmann, who accepted Islam in 1980, was born as a Catholic in Germany in 1931.
He graduated from Union College in New York and completed his legal studies at Munich
University where he received a doctorate in jurisprudence in 1957.
He became a research assistant for the reform of federal civil procedure, and in 1960
received an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School. He was Director of Information for
NATO in Brussels from 1983 to 1987. He was posted as German ambassador to Algeria in
1987 and then to Morocco in 1990 where he served for four years. He performed umrah
(Lesser Pilgrimage) in 1982 and Hajj (Pilgrimage) in 1992.
Several key experiences led Dr. Hofmann to Islam. The first of these began in 1961
when he was posted to Algeria as Attaché in the German Embassy and found himself in
the middle of the bloody guerilla warfare between French troops and the Algerian
National Front who had been fighting for Algerian independence for the past eight years.
There he witnessed the cruelty and massacre that the Algerian population endured.
Every day, nearly a dozen people were killed - "close range, execution style" - only for
being an Arab or for speaking for the independence. "I witnessed the patience and
resilience of the Algerian people in the face of extreme suffering, their overwhelming
discipline during Ramadan, their confidence of victory, as well as their humanity amidst
misery." He felt it was their religion that made them so, and therefore, he started
studying their religious book - the Quran. "I have never stopped reading it, to this very
day."
Islamic art was the second experience for Dr. Hofmann in his journey to Islam. From
his early life he has been fond of art and beauty and ballet dancing. All of these were
overshadowed when he came to know Islamic art, which made an intimate appeal to him.
Referring to Islamic art, he says: "Its secret seems to lie in the intimate and universal
presence of Islam as a religion in all of its artistic manifestations, calligraphy, space filling
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