We understand that many Christians are very enthusiastic to find these testimonies. It is a great joy for us as well to know these brothers and sisters. But some have acted unwisely.

Using the testimonies on newsgroups or in email

We ask in particular that you do not post these testimonies to newsgroups, and not use them for mass mailings to Muslim (or other) email addresses of people which you do not know personally. We are all suffering under spam and we should not add to it and give a bad image to the Muslims by engaging in unsolicited mailings.

You have permission to send the text of any file on our site per email or in a hardcopy print-out to a personal friend with whom you want to share it but we ask that you include the web page address where you found it.

Use of these testimonies on other web sites

Do not copy these testimonies on your web sites or publish them in print without expressed permission from the author - this is a violation of copyright.

If you want to invite the readers of your site to read any of the pages of this web site, you are most welcome to link to them from your web site. There are several reasons why this is important.

(a) Several of these testimonies are updated once in a while as the individuals want to include more details based on the feedback questions they have received, reformulate a passage to clarify misunderstandings, or add new experiences in their relationship with God as they grow in their faith. Sometimes it is also necessary to change the email address for correspondence provided in the testimony (or remove it completely when the person does not longer have the time to do the considerable correspondence that some of the testimonies generate). We do not want several outdated versions of them floating around on different sites. This site will always have the newest version. When you link to it, your readers will always have the newest version as well.

(b) Also, there is the issue of danger to bear in mind. Islamic law prescribes the killing of anyone who leaves Islam. Some Muslims take this very seriously and these pages are read by fanatic Muslims, not only the majority of peaceful ones. It only takes one person to kill another. We have to worry about these fanatics.

In September 1998 I had to remove one testimony in which the author stated his real name, because he thought he is now in the free west and does no longer want to hide. Some Muslims found his phone number and address and he received anonymous phone calls and threats to burn down his house or even to kill him. He therefore requested that I remove his testimony, and I did so. If the testimonies are spread all over the web, this would be very difficult and we do not want to endanger our brothers and sisters. After this experience, all testimonies are now under pseudonyms or a very common first name only. Some of the converts give their testimony here even though their own families do not know yet of their conversion. People close to them might be able to identify them from some of the details in the testimony despite the pseudonyms and anonymisation efforts. These converts have given their testimony to this site under the condition that I would immediately remove them if that should become necessary. This is very difficult if there are multiple copies in different places.

(c) Much time and effort has been invested to obtain these testimonies by motivating the converts, helping them to formulate it, etc. By linking to them, you acknowledge the work and quality of these pages by directing visitors to our site and they will hopefully explore more of it than just this page. Copying them down to your site will take away a lot of web traffic (theft of readership) and people will miss out on what we have to offer. If they are interested in one testimony, they will likely be interested in others (we constantly add more testimonies), and in further issues of Muslim-Christian dialog discussed on this site. Do not deprive them of it.

Summary

You may point people to this web site or any of the specific pages but do not copy them to your site because we do not want to have several versions due to updating, because it might endanger some of the converts, and because it violates copyright. Do not mass mail them to people you are not personally acquainted with, i.e. with whom you did not have any prior personal contact. If the people you want to inform do have web access, please do not send the pages themselves - in particular not repeatedly. It is reflecting back on us. We are seen as rude because of such or similar action of some brothers we have seen in the past. Give them the web page address you invite them to visit. We are thinking about effective promotion of our pages, and you are most welcome to share your ideas with us and maybe the list of addresses you think should be invited. But do not use our material in this manner without our permission.

Thank you for your consideration and cooperation.