Activist and former pastor Shaun King recently announced he and his wife had converted to Islam.
King shared on Telegram Monday morning that he and his wife had attended evening prayers “at our home mosque in Dallas, Texas.”
“Together, we took Shahada and converted to Islam to start off Ramadan. It was a beautiful, powerful, meaningful day for us that we will never forget,” he added.
The post also included a short clip of King’s conversion ceremony, where he affirmed “there is only one God and his messenger is Muhammad.” He described his conversion as a “beautiful, powerful, meaningful” experience that he will “never forget.” The former pastor also shared he planned to “begin fasting in the morning with over 1 billion Muslims around the world.”
According to The Christian Post, King also expressed his support for the Palestinians in Gaza amid the war between Israel and Hamas, which began after the terror group attacked the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023.
“My heart is with my dearest friends in Gaza and I’m proud that we were able to provide meals tonight to thousands and thousands of families from the North to the South in Gaza and will do so every day of Ramadan.”
Later on Monday afternoon, King pledged to “begin sharing our journey with Islam this Ramadan.” He was also thankful that “we have received hundreds of messages from all over the world of men, women, and children that want to convert to Islam with us.”
King is best known as a prominent voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2015, he disclosed that the man listed as his biological father on his birthday certificate was not his birth father and that his true biological father was a “light-skinned black man” who had an affair with his mother. At the time, his comments resulted in allegations that he was pretending to be black.
In 2020, professor and author Keisha N. Blain shared that she was previously “warned” about King and that she learned through personal experience that he is a “liar and a fraud.”
After the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Oct. 1, 2017, King claimed that “whiteness, somehow, protects men from being labeled as terrorists.” He added that the gunman, who was white, was given different treatment from the media as opposed to non-white shooters.
Following the 2020 death of George Floyd in police custody, King received backlash for declaring that “the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down” as well as with statues commemorating historic figures who owned slaves and/or in favor of slavery. King also characterized the portrayal of Jesus as a “form of white supremacy.”
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Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.