Serving 45 years in Church, Australian priest Gould David has announced his conversion to Islam, changing his name to Abdul Rahman.
His journey to Islam started when Gould travelled to Perth to attend his brother-in-law’s funeral. When he booked a hotel, he noticed it was 150 yards from the Perth main mosque.
Walking past the mosque, he felt a call to go and visit it, where he met the imam who gifted him a copy of the Quran, he told The Deen Show.
“For years, I’ve had a Quran on my bookshelf I barely touched it, but this time, I went back to my hotel and you know I prostrated and asked God you know show me the absolute truth show me whether Islam is true or false whether Christianity is right or wrong whether Orthodox Christianity is right or wrong and I prayed for some time on my knees.”
“I prostrated and prayed and then I sat up and I read Quran and I realized intuitively, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually that this was the actual word of God.”
New Life
Returning to Tasmania, he wrote a letter to his Bishop announcing that he has accepted Islam and pronounced the shahada.
“I declared shahada in that letter to the bishop there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad (Peace be upon him) is his last messenger and that this is the final message and that I had no choice no but to obey it,” he said.
“So, alhamdulillah I contacted the Imam in Perth uh and took Shahara over the telephone uh and then that was on a Wednesday and then on the Friday I went to Jumuah at the masjid in Hobart and so took shahada in front of the community.”
“I could not ignore Quran; I could not ignore the truth that God is not three, God is one, that God has no son and that his final message was the message that all of us all Christians everyone needs to hear that I needed to pray as Jesus prayed to pray as the prophets that were honored prayed and I’ve been at peace with this decision,” he said.
As a priest who served in the church for 45 years, Gould believes Islam doesn’t mean abandoning Jesus (Peace be upon him).
“There a major comfort to a Christian becoming Muslim and knowing that you are not abandoning Jesus you’re not abandoning Mary you’re placing them in correct relationship to Allah.”
Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, with the number of Muslims set to grow at more than twice the rate of the overall world population between 2015 and 2060 according to research by the Pew Research Center.
In February 2023, Father Hilarion Heagy, a prominent Eastern Christian Priest based in California, United States embraced Islam, according to various sources.
