Murad Wilfried Hofmann, a distinguished doctor of German law and former German ambassador to Algeria and Morocco, passed away on January 13, 2020 at the age of 89. Dr. Hofmann has served as a member of the Bosna Bank International (BBI) Shariah Board since its founding in 2000 until 2010.
Dr. Hofmann, who converted to Islam in 1980, was born to a Catholic family on July 6, 1931 in Aschaffenburg, Germany, where he spent his childhood, surviving first the Nazi regime and later strategic bombing and military occupation. His university education began with his studies at Union College in New York in 1950. He continued his education at the University of Munich, completing his doctorate in German law in 1957. He completed his undergraduate studies in law at Harvard in 1960.
From 1961 to 1994 he served under the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was a specialist in nuclear defense. He served as NATO Information Director in Brussels from 1983 to 1987. He has been the German ambassador on two occasions, in Algeria from 1987 to 1990 and in Morocco from 1990 to 1994. In 1995, he voluntarily resigned from his ministry to devote himself to Islam.
Dr. Hofmann has written several notable books on Islam: One Philosophical Path to Islam (1981), The Diary of a German Muslim (1985), Islam as an Alternative (1992), A Journey to Makkah (1996) then the same year the American bestseller ″ISLAM 2000″, Religion on the Rise, Islam in The Third Millennium (2000), The Future of Islam in the West and East (co-authored with Abdul Majid Sherefi, 2008).
