Sheikh Ahmad Maeno

Maeno was born in Aichi prefecture, Japan.[1][2]

At age 14, Maeno started to wonder about the meaning of life and wished to become a Buddhist monk. He never thought about becoming a Muslim and had a negative perception of the religion.[1]

At 17, Maeno became a foreign exchange student for 1-year in Melbourne, Australia. He met an Egyptian Muslim family and learned about Malcolm X, which changed his viewpoint of Islam and Maeno converted to Islam in January, 1994 at age 18.[1][2]

In 1995, Maeno enrolled to Osaka University of Foreign Studies, which was where he took Arabic classes. When he asked his father for permission to study abroad in Kuwait to continue learning the language, his father refused and disowned him. Maeno went to talk to an Egyptian imam in Kobe Mosque and was told to send a letter to the Egyptian Embassy requesting him to study in Al-Azhar University. Sometime after, Maeno was accepted again by his parents.[1]

After graduating from university in 1999, Maeno helped build Nagoya Mosque. He then went to study sharia in Damascus, Syria and returned to Japan after a few years.[2][3]