Forty Hadiths on Leadership and Governance

Captain (Retd.) Yahya M.A. Ondigo is a Kenyan Muslim author, da'i, and convert to Islam from Christianity, whose accessible English-language works on hadith and comparative religion are published primarily through the International Islamic Publishing House (IIPH) in Riyadh. Born into a strict Christian household in Kenya, he served in the Kenyan military, where his first extended exposure to Muslim life began. Following his elder brother's conversion to Islam and his own search for answers to questions left unaddressed in his Christian upbringing — particularly regarding the position of Jesus (peace be upon him) — he embraced Islam and devoted himself to Islamic study and da'wah.

His autobiographical My Journey from Christianity to Islam (IIPH, 2011) narrates his faith journey alongside theological reflection on the differences between Christian and Islamic conceptions of prophethood, scripture, and salvation. Two of his most widely used works follow the Imam al-Nawawi tradition of forty-hadith collections: Forty Hadiths on Good Moral Values with Short Commentaries — covering virtues such as honesty, modesty, humility, charity, and good neighborliness — and its companion Forty Hadiths on Poisonous Social Habits, which addresses lying, greed, corruption, gambling, and other vices. He has also authored Muslim-Christian Interactions and other titles in the comparative-religion and ethics genres.

Ondigo's writing is distinctive for its grounding in lived East African Muslim experience, his approachable prose, and his consistent return to Qur'an and authentic hadith as the framework for moral reflection. His works are widely stocked in English-language Islamic bookstores and used in da'wah and introductory Islamic ethics programs across the Muslim world.