Daniel Aldi is an Iraqi Kurd who grew up in a Muslim family under Saddam Hussein's regime and against his campaigns against the Kurdish people in northern Iraq. He lived through the thousands of chemical weapons attacks on the Kurdish people and Daniel in his college years actually was an active resistance leader in the Kurdish and air forces that were fighting against the Saddam regime and did so for 16 years. He in 1996, him and his lovely wife who is not here, who was actually from the United States and their meeting in courtship is a very interesting story for another time, very lovely. But they both were baptized in 1996 and in 1998 Daniel Aldi entered the Catholic Church and he came to the United States and he worked for the US government for over a decade.
He has written multiple books including Great Ones for Sale back there that I highly recommend. He is a website Islam, a guide for Catholics and it's in question and answer format and I read it, covered a cover is very good. And he also has written another book called Out of Islam Free at Last which is not for sale back there but you can get it on Amazon and he has another book that he's currently working on about answering Muslim's questions about Jesus Christ. He has spent the majority of his time since he converted evangelizing both Jews, Muslims and actually only came back from Israel last year where he had been preaching the gospel to both Jews and Muslims in northern Israel.
He's a very courageous man and we're lucky to have him here and I'm going to hand it over now to Daniel Aldi. Good evening everyone. Oh well, when I moved to the US my wife first week asked me if you liked pizza, I said yeah I love pizza. She said would you like some buffalowings?
I said buffalowings? I said buffalowings? Now I know enough English to know that buffalowings don't have wings. We had them in Iraq, what a buffalowings they don't have wings.
But I thought with myself to make it because US is a big country. This is what's called evolution developed here and they have to have wings. So I said, how do you have man, how many you want? I said one, taking the size of the buffalow.
I said, down it, they come in package of ten. And I said, what kind of savage nation they come ten, but what's one person? Yes it may. So it ends with buffalowings in New York and that was my introduction to USA.
When I came to USA I had preconceived idea about it. That is a Christian country and I have ideas also perceived and that is needless to say from Hollywood. I actually did not want to come to USA. I went to Europe and I had many invitations from a few countries to come to Europe.
But my wife Sarah, she said we go to the state three years and then we'll go back to Europe, whatever you like. I said, that's a deal. So long it is not a hard place. It says no it's not, Virginia is not hard.
So with the day we are landed in Virginia don't you know it's 95 for you, you know. That's not the start man. So being a court minority in Iraq, the second against bully, butcher, throughout our history, not only the court but other minorities as well. She act who were not minority, they were masters, either also were to this or that extent.
Saddam was successful in dividing and ruling Iraqis and the Iraqis were dumb enough to buy into it. But he was shoot man. So seeing the society divided upon itself and discrimination in rampant, I just didn't lie. I look at them, they have couple eyes, I have couple eyes.
They have a next, I do have next. They are ugly, I'm a good looking. So why the discrimination? On what?
Why you discriminate against a human person? That I still do not understand. But so long we remain in this flesh, we will always discriminate. Because we do not have the capacity to accept and to love unconditionally every month.
That's given for our human nature. So, born as a Muslim, I did not have the reason to question my office. I did not have reason to doubt it. I did not have reason to be little.
At all, I don't. But you as a person, when you take it upon yourself, about that you search in 42, you have to only get yourself a court, with a gentleman, with self contract, whatever the consequences leave you to, you have to abide by it. At least that would answer you with yourself, should be present. So I started reading the Quran, because in Iraq, you really didn't have much to do except reading books and watching Saddam.
We had two channels in Iraq, channel seven, and channel, no. You turn it in the morning, channel seven, Saddam's talking. And he did not talk for five minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, it was hours. You turn it to channel nine, Saddam's speaking here as well.
After noon was a time that you turned the channel hopefully that he's not talking. Wrong, he was. So for years, we have Saddam for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So there's such a point that my dad grabbed a picture of Saddam and put it in the, on the TV, so there is nothing else.
But there, so my father was getting to the city. That's the truth. The truth, Saddam was a dictator, Saddam was a butcher of worst time, but he didn't care about religion or retirement. So long you don't open your mouth or write against him.
He did not care. 1968, I was going to school. I just took the Quran, my brother ordered that he take, go through the main market. So we walked through the main market and something told me to turn to the left.
And I turned to the left, I saw this screen TV for the first time in my life. I saw nine men hung. You get the magic. A young kid.
That age. None men hung in front of you. What kind of? Early in the morning.
I don't think it's easy in person to forget. So I didn't wait. I come back home and asked my dad, why? So I asked him, please, we will choose whether they choose the best of Israel because I found it.
So I asked that who are these people and one of their are hung. He said, just because. He said, just because of what? He said, just because they are Jews.
I hated the answer and I felt disgusted in my heart that just because a person is a person, you can't afford whatever he is. That is darkness. And between eight before or eight after, I'm not sure. I'm too old to remember all these things.
There was a movie theater in our town and I asked brothers taking it with them. By the price of mom, by all the brothers I need to take me to the movie, the only clip, the only clip. I remember from the movie is a woman, put a child in a basket, another girl. That was it.
I did not remember anything else. These all and other events came to me when I was about that time, 1995, September 17th, 1995. My life, like a flash, seconds. Every time that hand was upon me and he wanted to tell me something, came clear in mind.
Everything bystanders, so so yeah, the church used to call the Second World une. In the beginning of the earliest centuries, the Second Worldune whitings, it is a enlightenment. So the more I studied, Quran is diverse in the society, you have Christians, many, denominations, mainly, the Eitan, but there are also Armenian and also Protestant. And there are Muslims, mainly too.
She had a majority, so he is a minority. and the C.I.C. have many schools, and the C.I.C. have many schools.
And then there are among the Kurds, though the Putin majority are Muslims, C.I.C. but there are C.I.C. among them as well. In addition to that, there are other religions among the Muslims, among the Kurds.
Schools or Roman or Zaraz-Trian, or Zaraz-Tustra, Patayah, he also known nowadays as Yizidim, those people who were butchered, and their lives were taken as slaves and maids and can't be finds and what that, you know. I, as someone, was attacked in Nineveh or Mozart, and subsequently returned next to it, in Jhirang and Syria. There are a lot of sex in Iran, a lot of them. But it just so happened in my life that vast majority of the neighbors we had were always Christian, either right hand or left hand.
And to me, these Christians were very nice, very peaceful. One thing about them, I will never forget, they were so peaceful, you could sense a person is in peace, is ringing. Despite all the atrocities that come upon their lives on daily practices, I wonder where they get this peace. How can they all be so powerful, so strong?
They let go of insults and mockery and beating, and just live their lives and march forward. Alongside of it, I studied my own faith in Quran. So we had in Iraq, the TV, and we had the books. I chose the books.
I read any book comes to my way, because that was a state mechanism out of Saddam and the jail and the lack of freedom we had. In 1976, I wrote a poem against them, and there was a relative, relative yet, freedom in Iran. If freedom in Iran, I thought that he needed to. If you are brave enough to write something, there will be consequences, but I really have any care.
So I landed in Saddam's hospitality for eight months, loving care of Saddam. My dad had to sign a piece of it, that his son, that I will never write anymore. Asens. A lot of the guys said, yeah, what should I sign?
Over it. Over it. I signed it next week, I got another piece, totally. So they grabbed him one more time.
We didn't tell the last week, don't write. I said, we didn't tell him what to write. Not. What, not write?
He said, this is not a state. This is both. So the Iraqi agents told my dad, this kid is going to make a problem for you. Cast him away to his relatives and slay money and the depth of Kurdistan, and don't keep him around you.
One led to another. One led to another. The first thing I kept in mind is Adam and how are Adam and he are created in the heaven. And the princess, they were created as successors of governors, to leave and leave, a lot.
For those of you who think there's only two, who can understand that? They committed this thing, we know. We call it the original sin. They must call it the first forgiveness.
I call it myself, wait a second. If you ask what given, how come he could have done back to heaven? Why on earth? If I have no relation, if you have no relation with Adam and Eve, send, how come you are here in Greenville?
How come you are not in heaven? So there must be a relation between the enemies. First one to logical, conclusion. The second thing was the person of Christ.
The emphasis, huge emphasis on the person of Christ and Mary, and that Christ is sinist, and his mother is sinist, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, came up with Mary, and dwed in Mary, that which dwed in Mary became a son. What is this? Is this in combination? The emphasis on the person of Christ.
He is the word of God in his time. But wait, not the word of God if you understand it. It's a command. Like God says, live your life and be a wise life.
In that sense. He is the Spirit of God. He is endowed with many things, nobody else does, of the property. None, sin, no.
None is the Muhammad. His Muhammad was the perfect prophet, and he brought about the seal of all books, which superseded everything, the perfect revelation. Don't you think it is logical for Muhammad to be born, sinist? And that his mother should be matortical, and that she did speak while he was child, raised birth from place, but his son denied that was crucified.
Well, in fact, as did they denied, they proved it. And he made a lot of things. And I'm causing you to die, and I raise you up to myself. They decided to go to the world without a figure.
I will close you to that. You ask yourself, wait a second. God through his whiteness, that is to say, the whiteness of Muhammad or somebody else, and that somebody else, which there is a long list, and it's not about who is that person is, that person was crucified. That's just a term, God is God of truth.
He cannot be deceived in God. Even if you want to try upon the tomb of Islam, bless you Jesus from the hand of his enemy. That's a good record. That's so the creation is soft street.
So what I see is really not what I see, it might be something else. And you could lead to stretch it to the table, right? Even Muhammad, he was not Muhammad. Why stop there?
Then on top of that, Jesus must come and judgment there. And until the son of Mary comes and the judgment there. He will kill all the nonbelievers, the entities, those who have T.L.T., be a lettuce and maker. Converte everybody, Mary have a few child children, died in age 43.
Okay, let's buy that. Let's say this is what the case is. Jesus himself also said, in the Quran, bless me the day I was born, the day I will die, and the day I will be resurrected again. You got it?
It's meant to be dead again, because I'm gonna connect something here. Bless me the day I was born, the day I will die, the day I will be resurrected again. Okay, so most of them deny that he was died. He was consumed, happened, because he was not crucified.
So Jesus is nothing. He will come in judgment day, kill all the infidels, turn everybody to become Muslim, destroy the pigs and swans and what have you. Mary have a few children, and then die, and there is a rush again. Wait a second, that's done, it doesn't work this way.
You have birth, you have a resurrection, there is nothing after that. And the resurrection day you either going to have him, the bless of the Lord, or you will be tossed in hell, when barbecue did. But Jesus was born, the day died in judgment day, and there is a rush, there is no resurrection anymore, it's up, it's finished. That's when illage, it falls into.
Two, for those Muslim who believe that Jesus was killed, crucified, crucified, and taken up the heaven. We have a problem with that. Blessed be the day I was born, the day I will die, the day I will be resurrected again. Okay, they say that Jesus comes to me.
Last thing come to such judgment humanity. Wait a second, Jesus, didn't you guys told me that he was just a prophet? How could he judge humanity? That's the function of that.
Else he interchangeably changes position with the Lord. In that sense it's perfect. Another text I did you get from the Quran, and for those who are here from the language brothers, I'm going to put it out of here. It says, when I was among him, I watched over him.
But when you took me up to yourself, you watched over him. And the tense here, he's speaking about the world. Alamein, tools, past present, few times present. How a prophet could watch over humanity?
And the past, only God could do that. And this text is correct. Only if Jesus and God are going to be saved. Only if Jesus and God are going to be saved.
That's just one of the things. Alamein should throw a coin and I'll go to my conversion story. And I could talk about it for maybe a hundred, thirty days, you know the stuff. He said, the whole spirit.
The whole spirit is defined sometimes with the Quran as the spirit of God. If he is the spirit of God, then he is eternal. Correct? Sometimes he is speaking spoke of all as the archangel Gabriel.
And if he is the archangel Gabriel, then he is creation, creation, created, created being, finite, not infinite. And at the time, Muhammad in his tradition, he went that he was the powerpoint, the Greek form of Holy Spirit. Well, what should I take? Is this his spirit of God?
Is it the archangel Gabriel? Or is it Muhammad? And if I take this, why I should leave that? Is this cohesive?
They look resilient. Last point, I didn't want to mention, but I'm going to mention it. I must not believe that the Quran is the eternal word of God. Was with regard without Him, a fool, and a preserved tablet, resembling the tablet, 10 Commandant Moses.
If the Quran preserved in tablet and all those being with God, then the Quran is end created. If it is end created, then he is, it is not a book, it is a portion of divine. And if you tell me, it is created, the Quran is crediting itself because it says it is end. No, and the cool, and the heaven is preserved and the tablets and the heaven is.
Which one is it? They come to abdulation theory, that the Old Testament pardon me, no application theory. They come to the, say that the Bible and the Torah and the New Testament are corrupted. If it is corrupted, which kind of corruption?
They can do, that even must, that even Muhammad, one corruption of the text, and the second is corrupting the meaning of the text. One cannot jive with the other. If you have the text, and then you have the corruption of the meaning of the text, well, it tells me the text is there. But the Quran says that the Jews, the scribes, and the Christian monks change it for their own reason and also some of the site, the only name of Ahmad, which is out of the relation for the Old Muhammad from the Old Testament and the New Testament.
If it is the case, how come then you tell them, Muhammad and the Quran mandate it? It is a question, if you are in doubt, and we have sent you, then that's an adletic. Then go ask the people of the book. How could God command Muhammad to ask the people of the book and the people of the book have come to answer?
And I'm just going to love you. If it was not in that, I'll give you my text, and when I was going to do this, because I was going to be done with this one. And I love to do it. And I'm tempted.
But I'm not going to do it. So after years of the study, you come to conclusion with yourself, you decide, no, this cannot be divine. This source cannot be divine. This is in addition to the internal and external political, textual criticism, geographical error, historical error, and the end of the university of the vahtah, or for now this, unless it is Jerusalem, and I do it even though it's not even mentioned one time in the Quran, or one time in Muhammad's tradition.
Israel is the whole event for the Jews, even the Qur'an says that. Or what we have, the Qur'an's land. So this claim you have about Palestine and the don't know the right is just modern development. It has absolutely no basic land.
None, zilch, none other. You spend eternity on it, you will not find it. Father mentioned that one of the problems among the Muslims is they are in what I call shock. For the first time in the history, they hear the other side, perspective of the other's truth.
For the first time in history, they hear the other side, perspective of the theology. For the first time, they are able to read what other things of them. Of course, immediately, when somebody attacks you, you go to automacism, so you can express yourself in many ways. Father mentioned, tell yourself.
For example, so I decided myself, this faith is out. Next. When I met my wife, that was her, so she was visiting my country of origin. We met over there, we kept in United States of America, and I thought he had one condition to marriage.
All this, but don't you ever talk to me about Jesus? She said, why? Some of the things you say about Jesus and the clown of you, and you give me prevent me from talking about Jesus, I said, if he is a lot, and I think he is, that was my word, he won't conduct me himself. He could handle it, he could do it.
And boy, he did it. Boy, he did it in a way you will never believe. I hate going to shock his mother's. That's why I'm working in the shock his mother.
I hate going to ladies at home because I have no business there. I have certain who I am, what got created me, so I don't look for a second definition of myself. That is not in my brain. As a friend asked me, he said, have you have sex education in Iraq?
I said, no. He said, you know what to do in marriage? It's something you sleep with, don't you? You know what to do?
That doesn't exist. It's the nature that takes over. Nature takes over. You don't need sex education unless you are not certain who you are.
And if you are not certain who you are, the father of all who has that uncertainty in your brain. Otherwise you are cut clear. But you are on the outside and you are on the side of the middle. That's not the downfall.
So, I don't know if you talk about price for me. She did. She didn't talk about price. She did the first.
And love. And she did it. I was with her. She was more loving and more kind.
And I thought to myself, what the heck is wrong with this woman? Don't she get it? She told me one day, listen. Just for the only information.
FYI, hello, you hear me? I want to remain in the marriage. Because you are perfect, and obviously you are not. But I think you are called from God to do something great.
She spoke to Michael. OK? She spoke. I'm listening.
I walked out to the marriage. I drove from Virginia and instead of going to Pennsylvania, I found myself in Indianapolis. And I found myself in Indianapolis. In women's academy, sharp.
And I said, beautiful dress. And God told me in my heart, audible, by your wife and ex-Z, why address. In Lisa's house, with your husband Michael, go not on the door and by the way she will not believe you. Give her the dress, apologize to her, and ask her how to be baptized.
Now I, as a man, not some men are good, but generally speaking, men are not the directions. You put me in cold as that. I'm so talented, I will find a way to get lost. I'm really, really bad.
And I drove from Indiana to straight letters. I didn't have math. And if I have math like any man, don't look at it. We keep it next to us.
We don't use manuals. It was written for women. We always have to have screws left of the rest of the rest. But that was the mistake of even factor.
No, men's wired differently. So I get what I get to my wife. And then after that, a month more than that, a month or so, it was arranged for me to be baptized. And I was baptized.
In the same place, my wife baptized me, baptized in 17 years apart. Same passer, same witnesses. Then we had part of the study. We passed tracks in our neighborhood to save those and save ones, those not who knows the structure.
And my mind then, Catholic was included. So as counter evangelizing, one lady Catholic, she was a friend of the origin father, William G. Most. She said, if you have any question about the faith, I have this man, he's theology, blah, blah, blah, blah.
How about you come and ask me any question you want? I said, that's a challenge. I'll go for it. But before that, my neighbor was Joe Sobram.
Some of you know who he is. Joe Sobram was a big man. He had a grandson, his name is Joseph. Also.
Little Joe, I dropped him. I said, little Joe come over here, and they are financially extremely passionate. Extremely passionate. So I went by and excused, impingified way, to give people just some money.
So I said, little Joe, I'm going to ask you a few questions if you ask it. I'll give you $2, it's a shoe. I said, well, you get this amount of consumption of things you got. You as a Catholic.
And some other things in the Bible. He said, then you grown up. Don't you know that and that not everything is written in the Bible, and the Bible itself says that? I said, some of them.
There's your book. That's $20. You got a point. Second, sunset.
He came to the house, I asked him another question. And he got the same answer. He got good answer. He said, don't come tomorrow.
He said, no, I'm coming because I need to have a 52 by something. He said, we want to follow the most who can't pass just for four years. But need us to say, in my child, we Christian played big role in their silent battleization and some active battleization. One of these neighbors gave you a book about Christian martyr, the Eastern Martyr, Eastern right, I like you.
Man, I love that. I thought, look, I just prayed for you. Look, I just prayed for you. This man is so confident in his faith.
They are burning him on the stake. And he is not willing to deny the name of Jesus, just to get out of it. Most of them, mothers, they kill. Function, the process of killing themselves.
Which one was strong? A person who punched or a person who received it and willing to punch back? Which one is easier to kill or to pray for your enemy? The truth is, by their deeds, you shall know them.
By their deeds, you shall know them. And there is 1400 years of deeds. If thou had little, some old brain, you will be about chamber here, you will come to that conclusion. It's not hard.
I don't want to take more time. I'll just receive the questions. I bless you all. Any questions?