He labors for God with a $60M hit on his head

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By Michael Ashcraft —

For zealously evangelizing Muslims in Egypt, his brother got ambushed, had is tongue cut out and was murdered.

”Far from being deterred or hating Muslims, I eventually felt more compelled to share the Good News with them,” says Father Zakaria Botros, a former Coptic priest, in an interview with Jihad Watch.

Today, Zakaria Botros has a $60 million bounty on his head (from Al-Qaeda) for being Islam’s public enemy #1 (named by Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid).

“Al-Qaeda wants him dead,” says Islamic polemicist David Wood. “Today, a lot of us are blasting away at the foundations of Islam, going through the Koran and the life and teachings of Mohammed. Father Zakaria was the one who started all this off.”

Father Zakarias is the father of the modern Islamic polemics movement.

He knows classical Arabic and reads the original sources of Islam. The stuff he finds is embarrassing Muslim leaders, who find it too easy to accuse him of Islamophobia but too hard to refute him. It was Father Zakaria who unearthed the teaching that for a man to share a meal with a woman not in his family, he must first breastfeed from her (rida’ al-kabir).

Among other things he’s dug up, there’s the recommendation to drink camel’s urine and the account of Mohammed lusting for his adopted son’s wife, Zainab, with whom he slept (surah 33:37). Mohammed had 66+ sex partners, 13 of whom were his wives. Mohammed dressed up in women’s clothes?

The sordid list goes on and understandably prompts accusations of lying. Secularists claim his exposés are incendiary and needlessly offensive. Two decades ago, most Christians wished he would tone it down or go away.

But Father Zakaria knew something we didn’t know. He knew what went largely unreported in the news: the honor killings, the child brides, the Easter church bombings, the threats and violence. As an Egyptian, he was an eyewitness.

Muslims intimidate in overdrive; Father Zakaria refuses to be intimidated.

”My ultimate intention is to preach the gospel to Muslims,” he says on Apologetics Roadshow. “When I speak about Islam, Mohammed or the Koran, it is to expose that they are from Satan to save Muslims from perishing.”

Most of his episodes are in Arabic transmitted by satellite or internet into Muslim nations. He featured on the Hayah evangelical channel from 2003 until 2010 when Joyce Meyers Evangelical Ministry cancelled him. Was he too hot an item to handle? No matter. He launched his own channel Alfady in 2011 for the Middle East. His websites are Islam-Christianity.net and fatherzakaria.net.

The show “is even banned in certain countries, such as Saudi Arabia, even though people from there still manage to access our programs,” he says.

Father Zakaria documents his assertions fastidiously. “Muslims have no greater enemy than their own scriptures–particularly the Hadith and Sira–which constantly scandalize and embarrass Muslims,” he says. “If Muslims are offended or shocked by these realities then they must confront their own scriptures and deal with them.”

Zakaria Botros was born into a Coptic family in Kafr El Dawwar in Egypt. He became a priest in his 20s. Despite his brother’s martyrdom at the hands of vicious Muslims, Father Zakaria didn’t vow revenge. He loved Muslims and wanted to reach them for Jesus (most Coptic priests do not discuss religion with Muslims).

For abetting apostasy, “I was constantly harassed, threatened, and eventually imprisoned and tortured for one year,” Zakaria says. “Egyptian soldiers broke into my home putting their guns to my head. They never told me why they arrested me.”

Zakaria’s cell was tiny; even the roof was low so that he could not stand up straight. There were no windows and no ventilation. His cellmates took turns sleeping on the floor because of lack of room. They also took turns breathing at the crack under the cell door to get enough oxygen. Their food was gruel in a bucket that the guards spit in and flicked their boogers in, Zakaria says.

The horrific conditions took a toll. “I developed a kidney infection (receiving, of course, no medical attention),” he reports.

Upon release from jail, he managed to escape Egypt entirely and went to Australia, where he worked as a Coptic priest in 1992. He also spent time in England before moving to America. Even in Huntington Beach, California, he had to go into hiding briefly in 2012.

Aside from hits being put on Zakaria from time to time, infuriated Muslim scholars advocate ignoring him (since they can’t refute him). Pressed by a Muslim host on a Muslim program about modern day concubinage according to shariah, Sheikh Gamal Qutb blamed Father Zakaria for raising the controversy. “Low-life people like that must be totally ignored!” he roared before storming off set, as reported by Raymond Ibrahim.

As of 2009, he was reaching 1M viewers, and he got countless emails thanking him from covert converts. One enraged Muslim scoured his videos looking for clues to track him and behead him, but after watching so many episodes instead he got saved, Zakaria says.

Today, Father Zakaria, 89, is showing signs of slowing down. His timeless messages will continue to be available to the 200M Arabic speakers worldwide.

“Christianity was spread far and wide by Christians who altruistically gave up their lives, simply because they believed in Christ,” he says. “Islam spread by force, by the edge of the sword, by fear, threats, and lurid enticements to the basest desires of man.

“Those searching for the truth, end up waking up to the biggest hoax perpetrated on the human race in 1400 years, and many come to the ultimate Truth,” he adds.

To learn more about a personal relationship with Jesus, click here.

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About this writer: Michael Ashcraft pastors a church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.

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