Nashville Parents, Brother Battered Boy Who Converted to Christianity

Nashville police arrested three family members after the youngest son said they beat him because he renounced Islam and converted to Christianity. Authorities noted that the juvenile victim was shaking and wide-eyed as she described the attack.

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department arrived at the Amber Hills Lane home on Dec. 11 in response to a welfare check, finding the young victim, who appeared disheveled. Police found the boy had a cut on the back of his right hand and several bumps on his face.

As WSMV According to reports last Tuesday, the victim told police that his mother, father and older brother attacked him because they disapproved of his conversion. The family members charged in the incident were Nick Kadum, 57, Rawaa Khawaji, 46, and John Kadum, 29.

“He stated that (his mother), along with his brother and father, hit him several times and spit in his face,” the arrest report states. “He said his mother then took a knife and scratched the back of his right hand. He said his family, including his mother, had asked him to retract his statement and state that he was a Muslim.

As the boy described the attack, police noted that he appeared to be shaking and his eyes were wide, according to WSMV. The victim’s mother was charged with aggravated assault, while her father and brother were charged with domestic violence.

While the father and brother were later released, WSMV reported that Khawaji remained in prison.

According to a report released Monday by The Charlotte Observer, the police carried out a social check on the house after receiving a request from the boy’s employer. The victim told police his family was beating him when authorities arrived at the home shortly before midnight.

Davidson County arrest affidavits obtained by The Observer recount how the boy said his mother, father and brother hit him multiple times and spat in his face. The victim’s mother then slashed his right hand with a knife.

Police said the mother – who was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon – denied attacking her son. In addition to the assault charges, the 29-year-old brother and father were charged with domestic battery, according to the outlet, and the minor victim was taken to the hospital.

Scholars such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who were raised in Islam, argued that Islam needed to undergo peaceful reform. Hirsi Ali published an essay on Remove the herd last month, explaining her decision to convert to Christianity after identifying as an atheist for years.

At a National Press Club in 2015, the academic proposed five amendments to Islam to help reform the religion. One of these amendments was to view the Quran and hadith as divinely inspired but ultimately human in origin and to urge Muslims to value earthly life more instead of prioritizing life after death.

Hirsi Ali argued that Shariawhich refers to a set of laws based on the scriptures of Islam, is responsible for widespread violence and oppression in Muslim cultures.

The former atheist also proposed eliminating the principle of “commanding good and forbidding evil”, which refers to an Islamic concept. doctrine of action. The Christian convert claimed that this principle resulted in vigilantism and mob justice, particularly against individuals who allegedly violated Sharia law.

The scholar also called on Muslims to focus on peace and end the concept of Jihad as holy war.

Hirsi Ali is from Somalia and a survivor of female genital mutilation. A staunch critic of Islam, Hirsi Ali explored atheism through figures such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and Bertrand Russell’s 1927 lecture “Why I Am Not a Christian.”

She attributes her conversion to Christianity to her concerns about the problems threatening Western civilization, and she believes that the Christian faith offers a set of unifying values.

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