Gerald Dirks, a Harvard-educated psychologist from Kansas, converted to Islam after encountering it in a comparative religion course. He was drawn to Islam's strict monotheism and the Quran's content, and moved by its messages of love and brotherhood.
Questions this video answers
State of Kansas, United States.
Harvard College, Harvard University.
Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University.
Master of Arts in Child Clinical Psychology and a doctorate (PhD) in Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver.
During his freshman year at Harvard in a comparative religion course taught by Wilfred Cantwell Smith.
Chapters
Hey, My name is Dr. Gerald Dirks and I'm from the state of Kansas in the United States. As far as my biography goes, I'm the oldest of two children raised and born and raised in the state of Kansas. As far as my education, I have a bachelor's degree from Harvard College, Harvard University, a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, a Master of Arts in Child Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver, and a doctorate in Psychology in Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver. On an intellectual basis, I was impressed with the strict monotheism that is found in the Quran and Islam. And quite frankly, coming from my background, seminary background, there were things in the Quran that quite frankly no illiterate 7th century Arab could possibly have known. And that was jarring to realize that fact. But also Islam's message of love and Islam's message of brotherhood where on a more emotional level, strongly motivating forces. I was raised in a small rural town, a close knit family. My mother was a registered nurse and my father was a laborer who did assembly work. My first introduction to Islam was during my freshman year at Harvard when I took a course in comparative religion from the late Wilfred Cantwell Smith whose area of specialty was Islam. But I have to confess, at the time, while I studied Islam along with many other religions, I really didn't pay a lot of attention to it. It seemed so similar at that time to what was then my own Christianity that I was much more interested in studying something that was sort of exotic and very different from where I was coming from. You know, Advaitistic Hinduism or something like that. My wife and I were raising Arabian horses and we needed to get some Arabic hujas translated. These are the testimonials of purity that came with the horses that were brought here in 1906. And at that point we made contact with an Arab Muslim who was living in Denver, Colorado at that time and he agreed to do some translations. He came out to our farm and saw.
