Mahavegavati Devi Dasi
ONE NIGHT IN Mombasa, Kenya, I was returning from preaching when three young Muslim men approached me.
One of them asked challengingly, "What is your name?"
"Mahavegavati Dasi," I answered.
"You lie!" he said, and he asked me again.
"I already told you. Mahavegavati Dasi."
"No, it's not. You lie!" He blew cigarette smoke, and his two friends scowled.
The three men laughed and made nasty comments. A crowd of Muslim men gathered, and as the crowd grew, the atmosphere became more hostile. I was sure I was going to be killed in a matter of minutes. "Well, if I'm going to go," I thought, "I might as well go down fighting and make it glorious."
I turned to the crowd, praying to Srila Prabhupada to enable me to give whatever Krsna consciousness I could before I got killed. My hands shaking in fear, I started screaming, enraged with indignation.
"How dare you call yourselves Muslims! You're not Muslims. You're pigs!"
I don't know why I called them pigs. If anything would have brought me closer to death, it was calling Muslims pigs. Everyone became silent, so I pressed on.
"How dare you come to me at this time of night. You know it is against your Holy Koran to speak at this time of night to a woman who is not your mother, sister, or daughter."
I went on to scold them further, feeling completely fearless by this time and not worrying about death. I was still expecting death, but somehow I felt that Srila Prabhupada and Krsna were right there, throwing weapons from my mouth.
"How dare you!" I shouted. "Why aren't you in the mosque saying your prayers, reading the Holy Koran, or chanting the beautiful names of Allah?"
After some time a man who was senior among them came forward to ask questions in a hostile mood.
"Why do you Hindus worship idols?"
I explained Deity worship and other points. More questions came, and I answered through translation from Arabic to Swahili to English and back. Gradually, the mood of the conversation changed from hostile to philosophical. We discussed Krsna, Allah, the soul, and the soul's personal relationship with God. I was in bliss. The fearful situation had completely changed.
Down Dark Alleys
I had been speaking with the elder for more than an hour and a half when all of a sudden three different young men grabbed me.
"Come with us," they ordered.
I had no choice. One of them pulled me by the hand, and the other two followed us.
I turned to Krsna. "Please, just let them kill me now. Why are You prolonging this?"
For forty-five minutes we walked down dark alleys, turning this way and that. I kept wondering when my end would come.
We finally arrived at a kiosk, where the men offered me a chair and something to eat. I accepted some coconut water.
Then to my surprise the three men started asking questions about Krsna consciousness. I've never been in a situation where I went from fear to bliss so quickly. The three men were serious Muslims who wanted to find out more about Krsna consciousness and how it related to Islam. Their questions were serious. They were looking for answers, and only Prabhupada had made those answers available. All the answers they had not been able to get from their elders they were hearing from one of Srila Prabhupada's daughters (which added to the experience, because Muslim women take a very different role in Islamic society). We talked about Allah, Krsna, Islam, the soul, Srila Prabhupada, the Hare Krsna movement, the faults of modern society, and more.
Finally the men said they were tired, and we ended the discussion. It was 4:15 A.M.
"We have found the perfection of Islam," they told me. "How do we join your movement?"
I don't know what happened to those men, because I left Kenya right after that incident. I don't know whether or not they took to Krsna consciousness. At least they heard something about Krsna, so their devotional service has begun. That night I taught them how to chant Hare Krsna on dikker beads, the beads Muslims use for chanting the names of Allah.
We never know who will be ready to hear about Krsna and possibly even go further. Srila Prabhupada gave us everything. Now we have to try our best to give it to others.
Mahavegavati Devi Dasi, a disciple of Srila Prabhupada's, helped spread Krsna consciousness in East, Central, and West Africa in the 1980s. She now lives in Buffalo, New York.