A Life Dedicated to Spread the Word

Editor

Seham Amba is a doctor and an activist living in Saudi Arabia, trying to reach out and care about people around her. Amba told her story to Lastprophet.info.

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I have two children at the age of 22 and 24. I finished medical school in Jeddah in 1982 at King Aziz University. In 1990 I did one year at the Royal College of Physicians in London in medical rehabilitation. In 1991 I came to Istanbul where I studied six months in physical rehabilitation at Cerrahpaşa hospital. I'm working in Jeddah in physical rehabilitation. In 2004, I joined the charity for Orphans in Jeddah. Every weekend about five children came to our house and we took them out, playing computer games. We try to give the other kids in the charity to my friends. But it didn't work. But my kids have grown up and still call me. In 2005, I joined the Woman Welfare charity and I took the education, health and education part and I worked with 20 girls for two years and two batches graduated. Then it became bigger and bigger and I asked other doctors to be brought, as I was working voluntarily. They are doing nursing for poor families and children. They are trying to do something with the boys, like sandwiches, but it didn't work. The boys didn't want to work, but the girls were clever and they worked hard. They work at a very good salary after graduation.

In 2006 I joined the Young Men's Muslim Association (YMMA). We started this in response to the Danish cartoon crisis. We started with small meetings and we thought the best way to be supportive of our Prophet (pbuh) was to speak about his life and to speak about Islam. We invited Muslim groups from the hospital and outside the hospital, almost every month or every two weeks to one of our houses and a speaker would explain to the guests about Islam. At that time we had a lot of Indian Buddhists. They were very difficult; it didn't work. They said "If we change our religion they will kill us when we go back, or it will be very difficult for us." Only two people became Muslim in the past three years. Then we had a group of 60 girls from China. They had no religion. I started from last Ramadan, or a month before Ramadan. We started to invite them to our houses and talk to them about Islam and the Prophet. Alhamdullilah, we had 15 Chinese girls who changed over about five months. They asked lots of questions; who is God, what are the angels. They had no information. We had to make a data base for them. Alhamdullilah they became Muslim. We had to teach them how to pray and how to make wudu, how to read Arabic and the Qur'an. I have a very strong attachment to them. Insh'Allah they will be good Muslims. This Ramadan I have arranged a contest for them; everyone picks a subject, for example about fasting, or about the Prophet, or Prophet Musa and they give lectures and they learn how to spread Islam.

At this time I established the Saudi- Chinese-Korean group.  There are also some people who help us; offering us their houses, making food. There are about four or five people and we do rotations.

During the meetings that you organized after the cartoon crisis, even though people may not change their religions, may not convert to Islam, did you observe any changes in people's attitude towards Prophet Muhammad?

I don't think it affected them much in Jeddah. It did the opposite. After this happened, the young people were so upset, they wanted to do something for Islam, so it was good for the young Muslims.

What about non-Muslims? Did you see any negative reactions; did it change them in some way.

The Chinese girls told me how terrible the media was; how the media told them the opposite of what we were telling them - like the Danish media. That Muslims were terrorists who make promises and say insh'Allah and never keep their promises. After they came here they noticed that we keep our promises and we speak about our Prophet. They changed their religion. This is the most difficult thing for a human being. To change their whole way of life. But they are very lucky to be Muslim in the Holy Land. One of them has gone to Mecca six times. We have other Muslims groups who are working with only Europeans and not Asians. I don't have any experience with them. The new Muslims were invited to Denmark and my husband went along. They asked questions about Mecca and Medina.

What about future Islamic projects... What kind of projects do you have for the future?

Now we are concentrating on teaching these girls. This takes a lot of time. We do contests during Ramadan. We are working from our hospital, we don't have funds. We can't have any funds. They come from the ministry and they come and take it. So we get money for the contest and give it away right away. We cannot work on a larger scale. We cannot get institutionalized.