Islam convert returns welcome to fellow Muslims in Jeju

Kim Dae-yong, 61, the founder and president of Jeju Islamic Cultural Center, on the Cheju Halla University campus on March 22 / Korea Times

• Published Mar 28, 2016 2:10 PM KST
• Updated Mar 28, 2016 2:10 PM KST

By Kang Hyun-kyung

JEJU — On the scenic island of Jeju lives a man who keeps a watchful eye on Iraq and Syria, parts of which have been seized by Islamic State (IS).

Kim Dae-yong, 61, the founder and president of Jeju Islamic Cultural Center, said the jihadists’ destruction of ancient sites and relics in the Middle Eastern countries broke his heart. “The looted items and damaged sites are historically valuable, and as a person who travelled there, it’s difficult to watch them destroyed,” he said during a March 22 interview on the Cheju Halla University campus.

Kim, also a professor of the Department of Tourism at the university, is one of the first Koreans who studied in the Middle East. After graduating from Yong In University’s Department of Judo in the 1970s, he went to Doha in 1980 to study the Sharia or Islamic law at the University of Qatar. During six of his 12 years in the country, he also taught judo to police officers and security officials there.

The Islam convert traveled extensively during his four-month-long summer breaks to trace the footsteps of the Prophet Mohammed and cultural sites related to Islam. He had since traveled to 320 cities in 85 countries. He still remembers how beautiful the historic sites were in Baghdad and other areas he has visited, so seeing some of them destroyed during IS’s “cultural cleansing” has been heart-wrenching.

IS has seized parts of Iraq and Syria and has since also destroyed ancient sites and cultural relics there. Between the fall of Mosul, Iraq, from June 2014 and February 2015, the jihadists destroyed 28 historical and religious sites. Since its seizure of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage site of Palmyra in Syria in March 2015, it blew up the temple of Baal Shamin and the arch of Triumph, which framed the approach to the Roman city. IS jihadists also looted items from the historic sites to sell in order to finance their terrorist activities and to draw the attention of the rest of the world.

Ultimately, their acts were condemned by the world and were called war crimes by UNESCO.

Kim’s travels in the Middle East in the 1980s reshaped his view of the world and further deepened his bonds with fellow Muslims there. The sites that were destroyed were special to Kim because he had visited them.

“During a tour in 1983, I was awed by the scenery that stretched out before me, which was very different from what I learned in history class,” he said. “I felt the history books I read were misleading and represented a Christian view of the past.”

His bond with the warm local people was another gift he received during his years of travels. He said Middle Easterners opened their hearts to him once they learned that he is a Muslim from Korea. Kim shared an anecdote about their hospitality during his trip to the northern Jordanian city of Jerash in summer 1983.

Sometime in June, he said he went to a nearby mosque in Jerash at dusk. After praying with some 50 people gathered there, he approached an unnamed imam or the worship leader and asked him a favor. “I was tired at the time and had no place to stay that night. So I asked the imam whether he could find a family who could let me stay with them as a guest that night,” he said.

The stranger surprised the imam because he had neither met a Korean Muslim nor an East Asian who spoke Arabic before. But the surprise immediately turned into affinity after hearing that Kim was studying the Sharia at the University of Qatar. The prayer leader asked those gathered in the mosque if anyone could take in Kim as a guest that night.

“I saw several people raise their hands, and one of the senior citizens took me to his home. He served me chicken for dinner and ushered me to a room that had been used by his son before he joined the military,” Kim said. “The next morning, after I said goodbye and was about to leave his place, he pulled out a worn-out bill from his pocket and gave it to me. He told me to get Pepsi Cola when I got thirsty. His generosity almost made me cry.”

Kim said the Jordanian was only one of the many warm people who treated him like family. “In retrospect, I think they saw me as a young man traveling to Islamic cities in search for historic truth, so they felt the urge to help me,” he said.

Kim said those heartwarming experiences had a lasting impact on his life even after he left Qatar in 1992. He launched the Jeju Islamic Cultural Center on the island the same year.

“It’s a small nonprofit organization. There is currently no full-time staff. I’m the only one involved in the group,” he said. “The group signifies my version of giving back. After leaving Qatar, I felt indebted because the people in the Middle East were so nice to me and treated me like family. So I thought I need to help Muslim visitors to Jeju.”

Over the past two decades, Kim has used the center as a meeting room and more importantly as a prayer room for Muslim visitors, as there are no other prayer facilities on the island for Muslims. Kim also provides guided tours for Muslim tourists upon request. “This is all I could do for the people who helped me,” he said.

Most Muslim tourists visiting Jeju Island are from Southeast Asian countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia. According to Kim, the island attracted over 165,000 Muslim visitors last year, who traveled there for meetings, sports events and leisure.

The increase of Muslim tourists to the resort island helped him realize his new mission — the establishment of a prayer facility and eateries serving halal food. Since 2010, he has been campaigning to make Jeju a Muslim-friendly destination and make Muslim tourists feel at home there.

He discussed these issues at a tourism forum hosted by the Jeju government and the local tourism board in December 2014. He said given the increase in Muslim visitors, local residents first need to deepen their understanding of Islamic culture, and this necessitates Muslim-friendly tourism infrastructure.

His pro-Muslim advocacy caused a stir among some Christian fundamentalists, who alleged that an increase in Muslim tourists would make Korea vulnerable to terrorist attacks. They also described him as an antagonist who tries to spread Islamic teachings in Korea.

Kim said such worries are exaggerated or nonsensical. “Tourism is a natural thing,” he said. “People come to Jeju for sightseeing or meetings or other purposes. It’s in nobody’s interest to expel them or make them feel uncomfortable during their stay here.”