Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Rev. Ernest Hahn for assisting me greatly in authoring this book. For many years he and his family lived in South India where he had constant opportunity to visit the sick in several hospitals and to be in contact with the handicapped.
I wish to acknowledge my debt to my friends, Salam Falaki, Path of Peace, Esslingen, Germany; Ms Marietta Smith of Penington House, Mussoorie, Uttaranchal State, India; Dr. Samuel Victor Bhajjan, Ex-Director, Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies, Hyderabad, India; Ms Norine Love, Fellowship of Faith for Muslims, Toronto, Ontario, Canada and to other friends who have helped us in the preparation and publication of this book.
I express my sincere gratitude to my dear sister, Safia I. Mirza, also for writing the Foreword for this book
I am also indebted to my dear wife, Milly, and son, Reuben, who sacrificed much of their valuable time and energy to help me in my endeavour.
Dr. I. O. Deshmukh, M.B.B.S.; D.P.H.
A Personal Response
God has wonderfully qualified Dr. I. O. Deshmukh for authoring this book: his Islamic heritage; his capacity to view at least two religious communities as both insider and outsider; his continuing respect, love and concern for the community he left; his medical skills and protracted medical practice; as a patient himself, his grappling with pain, death and despair; his ultimate full surrender to God and his healing through faith; his commitment to the living God alone through becoming a disciple of Jesus the Messiah and imitating Him in serving his community. God had blessed him abundantly and he knew it; he knew it experientially as well as intellectually. And he knew that he must help complement his patients’ (and community’s) partial knowledge of Jesus the Messiah with God’s fuller revelation of His Good News, and encourage fellow-Christians to do likewise.
I thank God for Dr. Deshmukh, for his ministry of healing and for his proclamation of the great Healer. And I thank him for inviting me to partner with him in authoring this book.
July 2003
Rev. Ernest Hahn