There are orphans and street children everywhere. So much so that the sight of another small child standing on a street corner hardly merits a second glance.

But only when the boy opens his mouth to speak do onlookers realise that Shariff Idd is special. The five-years-old speaks in five languages - English, French, Italian, Swahili and Arabic - even though he is completely uneducated.

Shariff is a preacher who draws crowds of thousands in Kenya to his increasingly regular sermons. The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi, is a great supporter following an audience with him earlier this year.

Last week was a milestone for the child introduced to gawping throngs as the "miracle boy" of East Africa. He smiled triumphantly when told he had notched up his one thousandth conversion to Islam in a country where Muslims are a minority.

Tours of France and Britain now beckon, according to Haji Maroulin, one of the boy's four guardians. He will travel as a missionary on a trip to be financed by a Muslim businessman from the Ivory Coast.

"At one year old he was able to recite the Koran and went on to be able to preach in Arabic, Swahili and French without any learning. The number of his converts is growing daily."

For a child he has strangely adult mannerism. He speaks confidently, mainly in Swahili unless he is delivering a sermon. Then, he fixes his piercing brown eyes on the person he is addressing without inhibition. His squeaky child-like voice mesmerises audiences.

According to Maroulin, Shariff was born into Swahili-speaking Catholic family in Arusha, north Tanzania, in December 1993: "At the age of two months he refused to suckle his mother's milk and at the age of four months he started reciting verses from the Holy Koran."

The boy's first words - "You people repent and you will be accepted by God" - were in Arabic. His concerned parents believed him to be disturbed by "demons" and called pastors to pray for the baby.

Eventually Muslim neighbours interpreted their son's alien speech and his parents later converted to Islam themselves. Although his father died in 1997, his mother remains in Tanzania while her worldly son continues his travels.