Musa Cerantonio

Robert "Musa" Cerantonio is a former ISIS propagandist who has been called perhaps "the most famous jihadist in Australia". Cerantonio converted to Islam in 2002, he became an Islamic preacher a few years later, then a supporter of the restoration of the caliphate, and of the Islamic State. He has been arrested and deported once, and is currently serving a prison sentence for trying to travel by boat from Australia to ISIS territory in the southern Philippines due for release in May 2023. Cerantonio was born into an Italian-Irish Catholic family in Footscray, Australia, and converted to Islam at the age of 17. In early 2022, while engaged in close study of the Quran, he came to the conclusion that the Quran "was not divinely inspired" after studying its discussion of Dhu al-Qarnayn. A few days before the month of Ramadan started, Musa left Islam. Cerantonio was born on 28 January 1985 in West Footscray, Melbourne, Australia to a Catholic family of six. He is of Italian and Irish heritage. He has described his upbringing as nominally Catholic. "We weren’t very practising, and whilst we were Catholic by name, we didn’t go to church except on Christmas or Easter, or when someone died or was getting married," he said. He attended a Catholic primary school, and Footscray City College for secondary education. The City College had an informal atmosphere and was "a very liberal school, influenced by the politics of socialism," according to Cerantonio. In 2000, at 15, he visited the Vatican "to strengthen his Christian faith". Instead of becoming firmer in his belief, "I began to question the role of the Pope in the Catholic Church...and saw people praying to a dead body. There was idol worship at the home of my faith...and I felt in my heart that this was not right." Cerantonio has two children from a marriage to "an Australian of Lebanese descent." In 2002, during the month of Ramadan and at age 17, Cerantonio converted to Islam. It came after two years of reading about Islam. After converting to Islam, Cerantonio joined Tablighi Jamaat.