said Joram Van Klaveren, the former conservative Dutch politician:
“IT LOOKS LIKE A KIND OF RELIGIOUS RETURN TO ME”
confirmed that he converted to Islam in October 2018. He was a member of Parliament in the PVV Party. He was an outspoken opponent of Islam, once saying that: “Islam was a lie and a disease and the Qur’an was poison.”
Van Klaveren now recognizes that his previous views on Islam were “just wrong”. He admitted that the PVV policy was to blame Islam in one way or another for everything that went wrong.
After leaving the PVV party, he briefly set up his own party for the Netherlands, but failed to win a seat in the 2017 national elections and left politics.
Equipped with the time after his political retirement, Van Klaveren decided to write a book designed to criticize Islam based on the information he thought he knew from his time in politics.
“During this writing, I came across more and more things that made my view of Islam falter.”
However, his biggest obstacle was to remove his negative perceptions of Prophet Muhammad (may peace and blessings be upon him).
“THERE ARE MANY LIES SPREADED ABOUT THIS MAN. AFTER REALIZING THIS, I COULD SAY THAT I AM A MUSLIM “.
His point of view has changed so much that the book has become a counterattack to non-Muslim misunderstandings about Islam. The title is “Apostate: from Christianity to Islam in times of secular terror.”
Islam simply means achieving peace, submitting and surrendering to God’s will, sincerely obeying his commandments. Islam teaches that there is a God , Allah, and His last Messenger was the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. To become a Muslim , you must believe in God, Angels, the Books (Old Testament, scriptures of the Prophets, Psalms, New Testament and Quran), Prophets, resurrection and predestination.
About five percent of the Dutch population of 17 million people or about 850,000 are Muslims, according to the Netherlands Statistics Center (CBS). Religion is growing, with experts expecting that number to double by 2050.
Van Klaveren is not the first person to convert to Islam from the PVV party. Arnoud van Doorn, also a former party member, converted to Islam in 2012. Van Doorn congratulated Van Klaveren on his decision on Twitter, writing:
“I never thought that PVV would become a breeding ground for converts.”
Joram Van Klaveren, who grew up in an Orthodox Protestant Christian environment, told Dutch newspapers that his conversion was something he “has been looking for for a long time.
IF YOU BELIEVE IN A GOD AND THAT MUHAMMAD IS A PROPHET, ALONGSIDE JESUS AND MOSES, YOU ARE A MUSLIM. ”
