Honouring a Guest
Around 1992, Stefan Leca visited Turkey as a tourist. One night, after losing his way, he and his wife landed up in a small remote village in Turkey. He stopped a person and asked him: “Can you tell me where is this address?” and he showed him the brochure of the hotel he had booked at. The man replied in broken English and a bit of Turkish: “There is no hotel in this village. But, please, I want you to be my guest.” Seeing that he had no other choice, Stefan agreed, although they were frightened of this stranger who was a large man and sported a long beard. Little did he know that the man he feared was the same one who would change his life.
As soon as he arrived at the man’s house, Stefan and his wife were comforted by the fact that there was a family there; an elderly grandmother of about 80 years old, a mother and five children all close in age. He explained: “That man invited us for a very simple dinner. The way he treated us made us feel very comfortable. And then he said: “You sleep here, we have other place.” The next day, when I woke up, I could see that there was only that one room. This brother with his five children, his mother and his wife were sleeping outside the room under the tree… it was a cold and freezing night. (This was in the month of November and the cold was bitter.) I was shocked. I told him: “Are you crazy? Why did you do that?” He looked at me with a smile and said: “I’m not crazy, but you are travellers, and I have to give you whatever I have because I am a Muslim.”
When he said that, his face was shining, and I was very much shocked. My wife started to cry. I said: “Look, what do you know about being a Muslim?” He said: “I don’t have very much knowledge about Islam, but you can read the book of the Qur’an and Sunnah and then you’ll know about Islam.” That day, I went to a book-shop, I bought a Qur’an and a book of Hadith and started to read. I read continuously for about two months. After two months, my heart was opened and I said the Shahaadah and became Muslim on 17 January 1993.” He adopted the name ‘Muhammad’ for himself, while his wife chose the name ‘Noor’. When the host of an interview once asked him when he embraced Islam, he replied that, in his heart, he was a Muslim from the time the man said, “I am Muslim.” But he and his wife officially took their Shahaadah (declaration of faith) in Egypt, two months after the encounter with the Turkish man.
When he returned to his home country, Romania, he faced anger and rejection from his family. Taking heed from the conduct of the Turkish man, he showed them the beauty of Islam through his actions. Later, the ones who carried the most enmity towards him were the first to accept Islam. He explained: “From the beginning of my Muslim life, I started Da’wah. I travelled to more than 112 countries carrying the logo of “Islam is Peace”. More than a thousand people became Muslims. When I saw that these activities had good results, I decided to do something for Islam in Romania. In our area, we are more than 80000 Muslims, I decided to build an Islamic centre to be a house of teaching people about the Sunnah of Nabi Muhammad ﷺ and the Qur’an. My dream is to spread this kind of activity all over the world. My target is to let the people know about Islam, because if someone reads the Qur’an with an open heart, he will definitely change his views about Islam and he will follow the words of Nabi Muhammad ﷺ. We have a big responsibility.
Allah Ta’ala gave us a gift to be Muslims. We have to spread this gift to all humanity.” Rasulullah ﷺ said, “The dearest and nearest among you to me on the Day of Resurrection will be the best amongst you in conduct.” (Bukhari) He ﷺ also said, “The most perfect man in his faith among the believers is the one with the best character.” (Ahmad and Abu Dawud) ~ Presents of Paradise
