And He sends down from the
sky mountain masses [of
clouds] wherein is hail: He
strikes therewith whom He
pleases and He turns it away
from whom He pleases. The
vivid flash of His lightning
well-nigh blinds the sight.
Qur'an 24:43
From the Watchtower to the
Minaret
Raphael Narbaez, Jr.
A forty-two-year-old Latino,
Raphael is a Los Anodes-based
comic and lecturer. He was born
in Texas, where he attended his
first Jehovah's Witness meeting
at age six, gave his first Bible
sermon at eight, tended his own
congregation at twenty, and
was headed for a position of
leadership among the 904,000
Jehovah's Witnesses in the
United States.1 But he traded in
his Bible for a Qur'an after
having braved a visit to a local
mosque.
On November 1, 1991, he
embraced Islam, bringing to the
Muslim community the
organizational and speaking skills
he developed among Jehovah's
Witnesses. He speaks with the
urgency of a new convert, but
one who can make immigrant
Muslims laugh at themselves.
He told his story mimicking a cast
of characters.
I remember vividly being in a
discussion where we were all
sitting in my parents' living room
and there were some other
Jehovah's Witnesses there. They
were talking about: "It's
Armageddon! The time of the
end! And Christ is coming! And
you know the hailstones are
going to be out here as big as
cars! God is going to use all kinds
of things to destroy this wicked
system and remove the
governments! And the Bible talks
about the earth opening up! It's
going to swallow whole city
blocks!"
1. Reportedly, there are 4.5
million Jehovah's Witnesses
