Initiatives of Change - Dr. Hassan Hathout

On June 3rd, 2005, Dr. Eba Hathout accepted the LifeChanger Award from IofC and the City of Allentown on her father’s behalf. Dr. Hassan Hathout is a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology, surgeon, author, scholar of Islam and poet, was born in Egypt. After meeting Frank Buchman in the 1950s he concluded, “This is how the world can be changed.” He has dedicated much of his life to interpreting Islam to the West, particularly to his adopted country, the US. Dr. Eba Hathout offered the following address at the opening banquet of the IofC-USA National Gathering in Allentown, Pennsyvania.

On behalf of my father, I’d like to express my enormous gratitude for this most gracious and quite timely gesture, recognizing those who walked the talk of a great leader: Frank Buchman. At the dawn of this year, my father turned eighty, surviving numerous personal battles, two world wars, and transformation of his birth country from a colonized monarchy to a military autocracy. For as long as I have known him, he seems to have donated his life to God. Faith is his poetry, his career, his life.

In 1948, as a volunteer physician in the war over Palestine, he encountered seven Jewish wounded about to be attacked in retaliation by an Arab mob. He blocked their way, reciting the Quranic order of food and shelter to war prisoners. The mob regressed. The wounded were cared for and returned to the Red Cross, except for one on account of serious injury. My father cared for him daily and befriended him through recovery. Twenty-four years later, that wounded prisoner located my father through a name and address left in a Vienna hotel, where we vacationed, and wrote inviting him to Israel. Years later, the ex-prisoner wrote another letter of two heart surgeries, a second invitation…and the letter stopped. New handwriting stated that he passed away at the age of forty-four and that his wife wanted my father to have this in gratitude for twenty-four years of healthy life with son and family.

When my father was driven to Europe by political necessity along with earning the topmost degrees in his medical specialty, a chat with his anatomy professor provided a turning point in his life. The teacher asked him, “What do you think of Britain?” He responded, “Britain enjoys a real democratic life but when she occupies another country, she denies its people that privilege. This was the discussion which lead to his meeting Frank Buchman in Caux, an experience he describes as a pivotal milestone along the journey of his life and a major contribution to his faith as a Muslim.

In a book which my father is currently writing, he states, “The ideas and followers of Frank Buchman have touched and changed so many people and, like scattered seeds, were carried by the winds of good to all the earth’s corners, bearing fruit beyond measure. This,” he adds, “is the only way to change the world.”

For those who do not know my father, many have admired his insurmountable strength of character, magnanimity, tolerance, forgiveness, and ability to love and trust in God, waking with a winged heart, and retiring with gratitude for another day of grace and a song of praise upon his lips. At the accidental death of his first, then only, daughter, he immediately praised God in gratitude for the five years he treasured in her presence. Such was his performance in the ultimate test of faith.

Forgiveness, of false accusations, rivalry battles, oppressing leaders, he would pray for until he truly felt in his heart. Once, the aggression was so profane that he left deciding to confront his aggressor and break even with him. He prayed for forgiveness the whole way, until he actually did, and by the time he reached the opponent, all he did was shake his hand in love.

His brief tenure in postwar Egypt was marked by daily preaching to university students over the ‘Christian-Muslim’ conflict rampant at the time. Following one of his speeches, a Christian student went to him confessing, “I have hated Muslims all my life and I promise you I shall never hate again.” My father carried that spirit in his busy career as Professor and Chairman of Obstetrics, Professor of Medical Ethics, Professor of History of Medicine, and elected member of the WHO committee on medical ethics, and a strong affiliate to the Vatican for his views on abortion and the sanctity of human life.

Twenty years ago, my father chose an early retirement without pension, and took refuge in a new home country, America, an ideology which was most consistent with his faith: the beautiful illustration of how, out of many, we have become one. For two decades, he has been working diligently with priests, rabbis, and other like-minded people for harmony among children of the Abrahamic faiths and all faiths, an effort which was recognized by government and religious institutions and was crowned by the Olive Branch Award, which he shared with a priest and a rabbi.

This, in the midst of numerous monumental health challenges. During chemotherapy for cancer, he wrote his book, Reading the Muslim Mind. Following recovery from a stroke, he wrote, "Thus Shall I Stand Before God." Using a hand, which had been completely paralyzed, he scribbled, “We have treated each other with much unfairness and injustice, we have gone astray on a binge of sins and arrogance…the key word is love, transcending over ego, prejudices, and propensity to divisiveness, love that completely occupies the heart. Such love transforms and should encompass all.”

The first verse of his latest Christmas poem reads, “As we celebrate the prince of peace, peace on earth is in short supply, and hatred is on the increase for his rules we failed to apply.”

A few years ago, I accompanied him to his keynote speech at the White House and shall conclude with his words of that day:

Friends in faith,
Rise while you still have a choice,
On the wings of love soar above,
And sing with your heart, not only your voice,
God is love, God is love, God is love.