Anthony George Baker | |
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| Born | (1849-02-02)February 2, 1849 |
| Died | February 17, 1918(1918-02-17) (aged 69) |
| Known for | translator ofThe Phonendoscope and its Practical Application (1898);Christian theologian and an early American convert toIslam |
Anthony George Baker (February 2, 1849[1] – February 17, 1918) was an AmericanProtestant clergyman and medical doctor whoconverted to Islam.
Anthony George Baker was born inPittsburgh,Pennsylvania, and was the son of German immigrants, Dr Jacob Baker and Mary Catherine Platt.[2] He graduated from theWestern University of Pennsylvania with degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in 1869. Thereafter he entered theWestern Theological Seminary in Allegheny, Pennsylvania from where he graduated in 1873 with a Bachelor of Divinity and was ordained a minister of thePresbyterian Church.[2] He was assigned inBardolph,Illinois and later to the only Presbyterian church inAtlantic City,New Jersey.[2]
During his stay in Atlantic City, Baker inclined increasingly towardsEpiscopalianism and converted to the Episcopalian church, becoming aDeacon and then, in 1879, an ordained priest. He worked both as an assistant rector and rector of several churches in Pennsylvania, including, as assistant to the rectors of St. George's Church,Philadelphia[3] and theChurch of The Epiphany. He also founded St. Simeon's Church in Philadelphia.[3]
Alongside his work as a clergyman, Baker studied at theJefferson Medical College and graduated as a medical doctor in 1887 specialising inpediatrics[3] and practicing both standard andhomeopathic medicine.[4] He soon retired abruptly from the ministry to practice medicine, serving in the Pennsylvania Naval Reserves and as a physician at the Chinese Medical Dispensary of Philadelphia where he would become the chief physician.[5] Baker became well known for his translation ofThe Phonendoscope and its Practical Application (1898) by which the use of the modernstethoscope of the time became more widely acknowledged.[6] His interest in history, languages and eastern religions led him to study various European languages as well asArabic andChinese, the cultures and religions of whose native speakers Baker published and presented historical papers on.[4] He also presented papers before the Cooper Literary Institute in Philadelphia and had served for some time as its President.[7][6]
George Baker's earliest known connection with American Muslim converts was in August 1893 whenAlexander Russell Webb, another early American convert to Islam, published a section of a work by Baker concerning the relationship between medieval Christians and Muslims inJerusalem in his newspaper theMoslem World.[8] According to author Patrick D. Bowen, Baker was in contact with Webb and may have run his Oriental Publishing Company from a Philadelphia post office in 1892 and 1894.[9] He was known for his lectures on Islam in Philadelphia and may also have been secretly associated with a group of about twenty Muslim converts in the city during this period.[10] Baker's Muslim contacts outside the United States included the English convertAbdullah Quilliam and in January 1896 he explicitly identified as a Muslim in a letter to Quilliam's newspaperThe Crescent.[8]
Baker also had connections with theAhmadiyya movement in India through the movement's English-language journal,The Review of Religions, with which Webb had also corresponded.[8][11] His contact with the movement began in 1904 and was the result of his writings having found their way to India and coming to the attention ofMufti Muhammad Sadiq, a disciple ofMirza Ghulam Ahmad.[6] Baker was among a number of European and American figures with whom Sadiq had established contact during Ghulam Ahmad's lifetime[12] and he was mentioned in the fifth volume of Ghulam Ahmad'sBarahin-e-Ahmadiyya (1905; The Muhammadan Proofs).[11] In his first reply to Sadiq's letter dated October 28, 1904, Baker affirmed the Islamic creed, claimed to be a practicing Muslim and endorsed Ghulam Ahmad's work.[13] in subsequent correspondences, he was more direct in his affirmation of Ghulam Ahmad's prophetic role and in his expressions of allegiance to the Ahmadiyya movement and—although he does not appear to have formallyinitiated into the movement—is therefore counted within it as one of the earliest American Ahmadis.[14] He remained in contact with the movement until his death in 1918 and upon his arrival as a missionary to the United States in 1920, Sadiq posthumously included Baker's name in a list of American converts to Islam.[15]