Bilquis Sheikh

Begum Bilquis Sheikh (12 December 1912 – 9 April 1997) was a Pakistani author and Christian missionary. She was a prominent member of a noble Muslim of Wah in Attock and known throughout the country for her political and social work. She is known for her high-profile conversion from Islam to Christianity, following a series of visions and prophetic dreams. She told her life story in the book, I Dared To Call Him Father. Published in 1978, the book is a classic in Christian literature and evangelism. It is a best-selling book with worldwide sales exceeding 300,000. Her autobiography was one of the most popular Muslim-to-Christianity conversion books of the 20th century, prior to 9/11. It has been printed numerous times, in several different languages around the world. A 25th Anniversary edition was released by Baker Publishing Group in 2003. Begum Bilquis was born on 12 December 1912, in Rawalpindi, close to her small ancestral village of Wah in northern Punjab, Pakistan. Her father was Nawab Muzaffar Ali Khan, a Punjabi feudal landlord and autocrat and a cousin of the prominent Punjabi statesman and Premier Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan. She was, thus, the elder sister of the Pakistani journalist Mazhar Ali Khan and aunt of writer Tariq Ali. She is also the mother of ambassador Khalid Amir Khan. Her family is one of the feudal elite of South Asia and have long held political power in the Punjab region. Sheikh was very wealthy, well-known, and highly respected throughout the country. Throughout the first 46 years of her life, Sheikh neither embraced nor rejected her Muslim faith, choosing to only believe in that which she could either see or explain. She became active in political, diplomatic, and social work, following her marriage to General Khalid Masud Sheikh, who was a high-ranking government official, serving as the Interior Minister of Pakistan from 1962 to 1965. In 1966, following the death of her parents and dissolution of her marriage, Sheikh left her homes in London, Paris and Rawalpindi and returned to her family's ancestral land in Wah, located at the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains.