The Fox Hunt: four strangers, thirteen days, and one man’s amazing journey to safety
About this ebook
Growing up in Yemen, Mohammed Al Samawi was smart, bookish, and committed to his faith. He had little interest in the non-Muslim world, beyond an intense hostility to Islam’s enemies.
All that changed when a teacher lent him a copy of the Bible, sparking his interest in other faiths. Venturing online, he began to connect with people of different cultures from all around the world, and started the improbable journey from dreaming of taking vengeance on the ‘infidels’ to devoting his life to inter-faith dialogue.
But then Yemen crumbled into war. Trapped and alone under bombardment, he managed to get online and put his life in the hands of a rag-tag group of Facebook friends he barely knew. Near-strangers to each another, with zero experience in military strategy, the team of four, spanning New York, San Francisco, and Tel Aviv, achieved the seemingly impossible. They crowd-sourced escape routes and activated their networks to help save Mohammed from certain death.
The Fox Hunt is an exhilarating real-life survival story of faith, curiosity, and the power of human connection in the face of conflict.
About the author
Mohammed Al Samawi, a Zaydi Shia’a Muslim, was born on 30 November 1986 in the old Yemeni city of Sana’a. Brought up to believe that the Jews were responsible for all his people’s troubles, his life changed when he read the Old Testament, ‘friended’ Jews in Israel, and joined social-action groups aimed at promoting dialogue between Muslims and Jews. Soon, he started receiving death threats from his compatriots, and when he fled to the southern city of Aden he found himself caught up in a brutal civil war. Trapped and desperate, he could find no one to help him, until strangers from overseas pitched in and eventually saved his life. He escaped to the United States, where he now lectures widely to promote inter-faith relations.
