Still, Allam's highly public baptism by the Pope shocked Italy's Muslim community, with some leaders openly questioning why the Vatican chose to shine such a big spotlight it.
"What amazes me is the high profile the Vatican has given this conversion," Yaha Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community, told Reuters. "Why could he have not done this in his local parish?"
ANOTHER DEATH SENTENCE
Allam, the author of numerous books, said he realised that his conversion would likely procure him "another death sentence for apostasy", or the abandoning of one's faith.
But he said he was willing to risk it because he had "finally seen the light, thanks to divine grace".
Allam defended the Pope in 2006 when the pontiff made a speech in Regensburg, Germany, that many Muslims perceived as depicting Islam as a violent faith.
He said he made his decision after years of deep soul searching and asserted that the Catholic Church has been "too prudent about conversions of Muslims".
At a Sunday morning Easter mass hours after he baptised Allam, the Pope, without mentioning him, spoke in a prayer of the continuing "miracle" of conversion to Christianity some 2,000 years after Christ's resurrection.
The Vatican statement announcing Allam's conversion said: "For the Catholic Church, each person who asks to receive Baptism after a deep personal search, a fully free choice and adequate preparation, has a right to receive it."
It said all newcomers to the faith were "equally important before God's love and welcome in the community of the Church".
