What happens when an elderly Coptic priest takes to the airwaves and the internet to confront Islam? Death threats, conversions, and a global following. Meet Zakaria Botros, WORLD’s 2008 Daniel of the Year. | Mindy Belz

Others this year have joined Botros in prominently questioning the teachings of Islam. In July the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a leader in the radical Palestinian group Hamas, gave his first public interview declaring that he had become a Christian and renouncing Hamas. "I reexamined the Quran and the principles of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading. The Muslims borrowed rituals and traditions from all the surrounding religions," he said. In November Germany’s first professor of Islamic theology, Muhammad Sven Kalisch, surprised colleagues by declaring that his research had led him to conclude that Muhammad probably never existed. "The more I read, the historical person at the root of the whole thing became more and more improbable," he said.

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