SON OF HAMAS
By Mosab Hassan Yousef
Authentic Media. 240 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978-1-85078-878-2
|Son of Hamas| is the autobiography of Mosab Hassan Yousef, eldest son of one of the founders of the Hamas movement in Palestine, who has converted to Christianity and is now based in the US. The author is now in hiding, having gone public about both his faith in Christ and his complex double-life and involvement in Middle Eastern politics in the recent past.
I approached this text with more than a little trepidation, partly because of the extraordinary complexity of the Israel-Palestine situation — a situation which often seems to polarise Christian opinion between those who think that Israel can do no wrong and those who think it can do nothing right, all based on various readings of Scripture! — and also because I feared a political angle, perhaps anticipating a rather facile pro-American, pro-Israeli conversion story.
However, such fears do a great disservice to this honest and genuine account of a life in one of the world’s undoubted hotspots. The author avoids the possible cliches, underlining, for example, his profound love and admiration for his father, both before and after his conversion to Christ, his despair at some of the actions of both Israelis and Palestinians, and the gradual nature of his encounter with the Christian gospel following an invitation to a Bible study in Jerusalem. While in no way pretending to present the ultimate truth on the Middle Eastern conundrum, this book nonetheless offers many fascinating insights which will cause the reader to ponder anew any previous assumptions; the whole account radiates a convincing sense of authenticity as Hassan Yousef relates his extraordinary life in extraordinary circumstances.
