James Abdulkarim Yahaya had grown up in a Muslim family in Nigeria, a country where 50% of the population follows Islam. He had fully embraced that religion and its prophet until a few years before his death, when he decided to follow Christ. Yahaya may not have read CS Lewis, but he fully experienced what Lewis described as being “seized by the power of a great affection”. It was an affection he had never known or found in following Mohammed.
Yahaya was seized by this affection and gave his life over to seeking and serving the Lord. His conversion was neither a subtle nor a quiet one. He became an itinerant preacher who travelled throughout the country preaching the gospel and the “fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” 2 Corinthians 2:14. In his vital work he made, at the same time, many friends and many enemies. There were, of course, those for whom Yahaya was the aroma of Christ, but there were also those for whom he was the stench of death. In a Muslim-dominated country, abandoning the religion of Mohammed to follow Christ is a dangerous venture. At the least, it usually means rejection by family and community. In Yahaya’s case, it also meant open hostility from fundamentalist members of his former religion, since Sharia Law states that anyone who converts from Islam must be killed.
On 6 August 2001, Yahaya had retired for the night to the bedroom in his apartment in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. It was common for him to leave the apartment door open, as his roommate explained, “because of the unbearable heat and the poor ventilation.” Four heavily armed gunmen burst into the apartment and shot the evangelist while he slept.
Christian leaders and friends throughout the country mourned Yahaya’s death, but they also remembered the power and effect of his life lived fervently for God, and his desire for others to know the same “great affection”. The fragrance of the knowledge of God still spills out, as his life and memory stand as a testimony to the love of God and the invitation of the gospel.
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