Neil Littlejohn, otherwise known as the former Muslim “Isma’eel Abu Adam” has been making the rounds lately, working with the mentally ill (according to his own testimony) David Wood. As they say, birds of a feather flock together and this recent marriage is no different.

I knew Neil through Facebook while he was still known as Isma’eel Abu Adam. He’s had quite the journey and it has been interesting to see what events eventually led to him apostating through four faiths and 5 different sects in the space of three years. Yes, you read that correctly, our friend Neil has been making the rounds on the religion merry-go-round and this is not the first time. I may be wrong, as his jumping from one faith to the other has been habitual, but this list is what I’ve gathered since knowing him through Facebook.

1. Christianity to Salafi Muslim.
2. Salafi Muslim to Sufi Muslim.
3. Sufi Muslim to Qur’an Only/ Hadeeth Denier.
4. Syncretic Islamo-Judaeo-Christianity to Messianic Judaism.
5. Messianic Judaism to some form of quasi-Christianity.
6. Christianity to….?

Neil has had a lot of problems in his life, and his jumping from one extremity to the next religious-wise emphasizes the difficult situation he finds himself in. When he jumped from Christianity to Islam and became a hardcore Takfeeri Salafi (one who claims others to be disbelievers regularly), he began to make YouTube videos which gained some small notoriety.

About 3 to 4 years ago, he made a sudden and quick shift to the complete opposite of Takfeeri Salafism, and became a proponent of Super Spiritual Sufi Islam. It’s basically the jump from hyper-literalism to hyper-figurativism. These are two diametrically opposed religious ideologies, yet his dumping of one and adoption of the other was quick and very public. He began to engage in debates with those who belonged to his previous ideology in earnest. I recall seeing him arguing on Facebook for hours against his former co-religionists. This became a hobby and habit of his. Yet still then, the videos he began to reproduce on his YouTube channel continued to fall in views. Many had caught on to his flip-flopping and his mileage in the Muslim community was quickly running out.

At some point during that fiasco, he made it public knowledge that his local community’s masjid had banned him from the premises and effectively had shunned him from their community. Still then, he found it difficult to articulate as to why exactly an entire community had found him to be such a nuisance that he was universally rejected by them. Still, he persisted on his social media pages to call for support against the injustices he was facing from fellow Muslims. We would later come to know that Neil had many issues and his shunning from his local community was due to his erratic behaviour and to his holding of beliefs antithetical to orthodox Islam. Yet, our friend Neil was not done. Sometime during 2015 he made the jump once again, this time to Qur’an Onlyism.

Another extreme ideological shift. From one belief which emphasized the love of the Prophetic Sunnah, to a total and complete rejection of it entirely. Again, no reason was given for this shift, but he now continued to argue on his social media pages, promoting his new beliefs. Still then, he found no support among the Muslim communities he once derided and so his mileage in Islam had run dry. The tank was empty, there was no other jump he could make within Islam. It was at this point I debated him on his Facebook page about his new beliefs. We had many interactions, but Neil did not seem to understand his new beliefs well. I still recall him having to spend days before answering simple questions about the Qur’an. No one from the Muslim community was taking him seriously at this point. He never held onto one position for too long, he always claimed to exclusively hold to the truth, and that everyone other than him was either wrong, misinformed or misguided.

Sometime towards November or December that year, he posted on Facebook that “Isma’eel Abu Adam” was going on a break. Of course by then, the majority of Muslims had already regarded him as an apostate, and or a heretic due to his beliefs at that point. The only question that remained was, “what will he call himself the next time he rears his head?” It only took to the beginning of 2016 to get that answer. While still calling himself a “Muslim” and posting under the name, “Isma’eel Abu Adam”, he began to post Jewish prayers and songs on his social media pages. A few people asked him if he had converted to Christianity, but he would never answer the question directly. It took him a few more weeks before he acknowledged he was following some form of Islamo-Judaeo-Christian syncretism (a combination of all three faiths).

Yet, he was not done. A few months later he removed his “Isma’eel Abu Adam” Facebook page and re-emerged as the Messianic Jew, Neil Littlejohn! It was at this point he began to publicly mock, insult and deride Islam, while receiving help on making videos from the equally mentally disabled David Wood. He had come full circle. After jumping through several faiths and sects, he found an audience that would finally watch his videos and who would donate money to him. Ostracized from his community, rejected by his family, denounced by a his co-religionists, making up his new religion as he went along, Neil committed to his new quasi-syncretic faith. Eventually though, the allure of Christian donations was too difficult to resist.

Today he is a Christian, or so he calls himself. As pointed out in numerous videos, photos and articles by other Muslims, Neil refuses to discuss Christian theology or his theology with Muslims, or generally with anyone critical of him. Today he receives thousands of views on his videos, receives monetary support from the Christian community. He’s finally found an audience willing to ignore his theology, insofar as he identifies with the label of “Christianity”. That’s all it really took. He has no interest in theology, no interest in God, no interest in consistency, no interest in faith. His sole and only interest has, and always will be having an audience pander to him. As a Muslim, I have no quandary with Neil. I’ve seen the dramatic jumps he’s made, the ideological shifts he’s committed to, his flip-flopping with his beliefs when it best suits him.

Neil has a new home, but for how much longer, we cannot say. As far as I am concerned, this is just one other basket case finding homage and company among equally mentally disturbed individuals. What he needs is psychiatric help and he needs it badly. Christians today may be “celebrating” his “conversion” (if one can call it that), but having seen him devolve slowly into madness, I can feel nothing but sorrow and pity for a man who has lost everything and holds to nothing. When he jumps faiths again, or comes out with heretical beliefs, I am sure the Christian community will no longer be celebrating, they will lose interest in him as the Muslim community has. Regardless of what he says or does, Neil needs help and I pray and hope someone, somewhere can be the means through which he gets the help he needs.

In the meantime, it’s good to see that Acts17 have decided Jonathan McLatchie is bad for business and they now have a new poster boy to promote. One wonders how long the honeymoon will last this time around…

and God knows best.