A Muslim sheikh in Uganda fought for his life in a hospital after someone apparently laced his food with rat poisoning only hours after he admitted to his wife that he had become a Christian.

According to Morning Star News, which documents global persecution against Christians, 56-year-old Hiire Sadiki, an Islamic teacher in the Butaleja District of eastern Uganda, survived the ordeal after being falling severely ill on April 2.

According to Morning Star, Sadiki had placed his faith in Christ on March 27 after several months of Gospel conversations with a local pastor.

His wife, who reportedly had attended Islamic schools and knew Islamic law, was dismayed at her husband’s prayers in the Name of Christ and his omission of Ramadan rituals when she confronted him on April 2.

“She realized that I had converted to Christianity,” Sadiki said. “She questioned me because of the mode of my praying. I told her that I had believed in Issa [Jesus].”

According to Morning Star, the wife then left the home to report what her husband had done to local Muslim leaders. She then returned and began preparing the family’s supper.

“After 30 minutes, a lady who is a neighbor arrived and went to the kitchen, and after a short while, she left,” Sadiki said, according to the report.

The pastor who led Sadiki to Christ told Morning Star that his friend began convulsing and vomiting after eating. Sadiki called the pastor, who rushed to Sadiki’s house and took him to a hospital.

“As we arrived at the hospital, his conditioned worsened,” the pastor said. “He started having diarrhea with blood, nausea, vomiting and severe abdominal pain.”

Tests at the hospital eventually revealed his food was tainted with a toxic substance used to kill rats.

The pastor told Morning Star that when he called Sadiki’s wife to inquire about what had happened, she lashed out at the pastor for converting her husband. “She said she did not want to be identified with him because he had become an infidel, and that she was leaving him and going back to her people, that her husband deserved death for forsaking Islam, and that she didn’t want to relate with an infidel.”

Sadiki’s sister-in-law expressed similar sentiment, the pastor reported.

Fearing for Sadiki’s safety, the pastor said he had warned the hospital that no visitor should be allowed in without Sadiki’s approval.

Sadiki’s wife has left with their three children, ages 16, 10 and 6, the pastor said.

The assault was the latest of many instances of persecution in Uganda. On March 8, a former Muslim family that converted to Christianity was sprayed with acid in Namutumba District, also in eastern Uganda, Morning Star reported. Only 12% of Uganda is Muslim, but Islamic influence is strongest in the eastern part of the nation.

Ugandan law provides for broad religious freedom, including the freedom to proselytize or to leave one religion to join another.

Image: Alamy.com