I love conversion stories. This is no doubt because I'm a seeker myself. There's something about the passion of people who struggle with the truth that deeply appeals to me — even if those people arrive at conclusions different from my own. Most people don't care about the search. I can't really fault them for that, but I love a good quest.
You may not, therefore, be surprised when I tell you I read From Fire By Water, Sohrab Ahmari's memoir about his conversion to Catholicism, in two sessions. The only reason I didn't read it in a single sitting was because it was two a.m., and I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. It's that captivating. Casey Chalk reviewed the book last month here in TAC. I recommend you see that review (a positive one) for more details of Ahmari's story.
What a life Ahmari has had! The Iranian-American journalist — at the young age 33, he is today the opinion page editor of the New York Post — was born in Tehran and raised in a secular cosmopolitan family. He was a nominal Muslim who made a splash in 2016, shortly after the ISIS murder of the French priest Father Jacques Hamel, when he announced publicly that he was converting to Catholicism. Anybody who comes to this book expecting anti-Islamic triumphalism is in for a big disappointment.
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