Cadet Shakoor Rasheed: A Proclaimer of Transformation

If any candidate for officership were appropriately assigned under the umbrella of a session’s name, it would be Shakoor Rasheed. He enters the Evangeline Booth College in 2025 as a member of the Proclaimers of Transformation session of cadets.

“Transformation” is the word that best describes Shakoor’s submersion into Christianity. A former follower of Islam, Shakoor came into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through a radical change of worship, faith, and practice. More than a change of doctrine from, say, Atheism to Theism, Judaism to Christianity, Catholicism to Protestantism, or even Calvinism to Wesleyanism, moving from a life as a Muslim to life as a bornagain believer in Christ Jesus can only be described as a radical transformation.

“I was born and raised here in Atlanta,” Shakoor says, “with a good foundation provided for me by my parents, who were Muslim.”

He attended a Muslim private school from Pre-K through the 12th grade. After graduation, he traveled to Egypt to further study the Quran and to learn the Arabic language. There’s no disputing his understanding of that holy book is extensive, but now that he is a Christian, his knowledge of the Bible promises to surpass that of his former Islamic scripture.

“Deep down I still had questions,” Shakoor says of his years in the Islamic faith. “I wanted to know who God really is. I was searching but not knowing what I was even searching for.”

All that changed the day he took a job at the Army’s community center in the West End of Atlanta. “Looking back, I can see God working in my life. Even as a child, I decided to connect with something greater than myself.”

When the West End facility closed, he moved over to the Red Shield Service Center. That move deepened his exposure to The Salvation Army’s mission and ministry. “Suddenly I was witnessing a holistic ministry to families and individuals in crisis. I saw firsthand how the Army meets both physical and spiritual needs in the name of Christ.”

Shakoor became drawn to Christ while working in the Family Life Center at the Evangeline Booth College where, he says, “I was surrounded by a great number of pastors bent on a lifetime of consecrated service to God.”

Their examples finally broke through for Shakoor. “One day I picked up a Bible and began reading. In Psalm 34:18 I read this: ‘The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’ That was me. My surrender was not dramatic, but it was honest and genuine.”

Watching cadets’ and officers’ examples revealed Jesus Christ to him in a way he had never known before. “I came to understand His love, grace, and sacrifice, and I surrendered my life to Him. That decision to follow Christ transformed everything — I was no longer simply aware of God; I was in a relationship with Him.”

With Christ as Lord and Savior, Shakoor’s condition went from “confusion to clarity, from striving to surrender, and from brokenness to healing.”

As a Muslim for a major part of his life, he naturally followed the practices of fasting and prayer, but, he says, it was out of obligation. Now as a Christian, Shakoor still fasts and prays, but out of an intense desire to draw nearer to God. He claims James 4:8: “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”

“And that’s exactly what He did. As I draw near to Him, He draws near to me.”

Shakoor is amazed at the path God used to reach him. Coming from a Muslim background, he understood God’s power, but not His grace.

“When I encountered Christ, it wasn’t a shift in religion,” he declares, “it was a transformation of my soul. It required courage, obedience, and a deep internal rebirth. My testimony is a picture of how God pursues hearts from every direction. He doesn’t just invite us into truth; He walks with us into it.”

By the time Shakoor literally crossed the street to serve as the Christian mission associate (CMA) at the Atlanta Kroc Corps Community Center, the young man began striving to follow the Christlike model of ministry, “because it mirrors how Jesus lived.”

While Shakoor’s family remains in the Muslim faith, they are supportive of his choice. His mother even attended a Sunday worship service at the Kroc when Shakoor presented the morning message.

Atlanta Kroc Corps Officer Lieutenant Sam Mhasvi sees in Shakoor’s transformation a model of what the Army, and specifically the Atlanta Kroc, is about.

“He is the picture of change that we look for and what we want in this community,” Lieutenant Mhasvi says. “We want people to experience Jesus in their lives like Shakoor has. It’s amazing how just being around The Salvation Army planted the seeds for his transformation and how that can happen to anyone, no matter their background.”

“Jesus didn’t just rescue me, he revealed himself to me,” Shakoor explains. “I am transformed mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. God never stopped pursuing me. When I finally surrendered, everything began to make sense.”

Rather than seeing most of his life in the Muslim faith in a negative light, he considers those years as part of God’s preparation for him in the present and for his upcoming lifelong service as a Salvation Army officer.

“The pain, the waiting, the wandering is not wasted. It is not the beginning of a career, but the start of my calling.

“It is not a detour, but a destiny.”