Ahmed Hoosen Deedat (Arabic: احمد حسين ديدات July 1918 – 8 August 2005) was a South African writer and public speaker of Indian descent. He was best known as a Muslim missionary who held numerous inter-religious public debates with evangelical Christians, as well as video lectures, most of which centred on Islam, Christianity and the Bible. He also established the IPCI, an international Islamic missionary organisation, and wrote several booklets on Islam and Christianity which were widely distributed by the organisation. He was awarded the King Faisal International Prize in 1986 for his fifty years of missionary work. He used English to get his message across to Muslims and non-Muslims in the western world.
On 3 May 1996, Ahmed Deedat suffered a stroke which left him paralysed from the neck down because of a cerebral vascular accident affecting the brain stem, leaving him unable to speak or swallow. He was flown to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, where he was reported to be fully alert. He learned to communicate through a series of eye-movements via a chart whereby he would form words and sentences by acknowledging letters read to him.
He spent the last nine years of his life in a bed in his home in South Africa, looked after by his wife, Hawa Deedat, encouraging people to engage in Da’wah (proselytizing Islam).He received hundreds of letters of support from around the world, and local and international visitors continued to visit him and thank him for his work.
On 8 August 2005, Ahmed Deedat died at his home on Trevennen Road in Verulam in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. He is buried at the Verulam cemetery. Hawa Deedat died on Monday 28 August 2006 at the age of 85 at their home.
He is famous for his debates with Christian scholars and pop. Near about all speeches a and debated are available in digital form and on social media.
August 8,2005 – Death -Ahmed Deedat, Islamic scholar (b. 1918)