BERLIN, August 29 (IslamOnline.net) – Germans reverting to Islam have risen dramatically in the past few years and are keen on leaving their indelible marks on society, a leading German newspaper has reported.

The number of reverts has climbed remarkably to 800 last year compared to 300 cases each year in the past, the online English version of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said Friday, August 27.

Though the Shahadah (testimony of faith) is a prerequisite to revert, some Germans avoid the formalities altogether.

According to latest estimates, the number of Germans who reverted to Islam is between 13,000 and 60,000.

The rise represents a good percentage of the European country’s three million Muslims.

They are not only rising in numbers, but also showing great enthusiasm to learn more about Islam, establishing Islamic publishing houses or bookstores to highlight the true essence of their new religion.

The head of the Islam archives in Soest, Mohammad Selim Abdullah, attributed the rise to the recent wars in the Gulf region.

The reverts are also keen on leaving their indelible marks on their society.

Mohammad Siddiq, a German citizen who reverted to Islam when he was 18 and was born as Wolfgang Borgfeld, established “The House of Islam” and bought a former hotel south of Frankfurt in 1983 where he lives with his wife and his 12-year-old son.

The association organizes Qur’anic classes, vacation camps, weekend seminars on Muslim life and faith and pilgrimages to Makkah.

“I never saw the path I took as a turning away from Christianity,” Siddiq told the paper. “Rather it was further development."

“We are the better Christians," Siddiq said, quoting another revert, Ahmad von Denffer.

The paper also cited Denffer's experience, who has studied the Islamic sciences in Mainz and later joined a school in Leicester run by the Islamic Foundation.

When he returned to Munich, he established an organization called “Muslims Help” that supports Muslims all over the world.

Abdul Hadi Hofmann, who used to work for the Christian Democratic Union but has now reverted to Islam, is now attempting to establish an Islamic Academy in Berlin, following the suit of the Protestant and Catholic academies.

Muhammad Sven, another revert, will teach the Islamic education at the University of Munster this autumn, as the first Muslim professor in the German public schools.

Susanne Seifert, a German revert, has opened an Islamic bookstore in Wiesbaden and Hadayatullah Hübsch, who was born in Chemnitz as Paul Gerhard Hübsch in 1946, has published numerous books on Islam.