Why Islam? Stories of New Muslims

[Cordoba]

Yusuf Estes - Part 4 & Conclusion

What next?

So, I went upstairs to think things over a bit and began to talk to my wife about the whole subject. She then told me that she too was going to enter into Islam, because she knew it was the truth. ​

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I was really shocked now. I went downstairs and woke up Mohamed and asked him to come outside with me for a discussion. We walked and talked that whole night through. By the time he was ready to pray Fajr (the morning prayer of the Muslims) I knew that the truth had come at last and now it was up to me to do my part. I went out back behind my father's house and found an old piece of plywood lying under an overhang and right there I put my head down on the ground facing the direction that the Muslims pray five times a day.​

Now then in that position, with my body stretched out on the plywood and my head on the ground, I asked: "O God. If you are there, guide me, guide me." And then after a while I raised up my head and I noticed something. No, I didn't see birds or angels coming out of the sky nor did I hear voices or music, nor did I see bright lights and flashes. What I did notice was a change inside of me. I was aware now more than ever before that it was time for me to stop lying and cheating and doing sneaky business deals. It was time that I really work at being an honest and upright man. I knew now what I had to do. So I went upstairs and took a shower with the distinct idea that I was 'washing' away the sinful old person that I had become over the years. And I was now coming into a new, fresh life. A life based on truth and proof.​

Around 11:00 A.M. that morning, I stood before two witnesses, one the ex-priest, formerly known as Father Peter Jacob's, and the other Mohamed Abdel Rahman and announced my 'shahadah' (open testimony to the Oneness of God and the prophethood of Muhammad, peace be upon him).​

A few minutes later, my wife followed along and gave the same testimony. But hers was in front of 3 witnesses (me being the third).​

My father was a bit more reserved on the subject and waited a few more months before he made his shahadah (public testimony). But he did finally commit to Islam and began offering prayers right along with me and the other Muslims in the local masjid (mosque).​

The children were taken out of the Christian school and placed in Muslim schools. And now ten years later, they are memorizing much of the Quran and the teachings of Islam.

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My father's wife was the last of all to acknowledge that Jesus could not be a son of God and that he must have been a mighty prophet of God, but not God.​

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Now stop and think. A whole entire household of people from varying backgrounds and ethnic groups coming together in truth to learn how to know and worship the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. Think. A Catholic priest. A minister of music and preacher. An ordained minister and builder of Christian schools. And they all come into Islam! Only by His Mercy were we all guided to see the real truth of Islam without any blinders on their eyes any longer.​

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If I were to stop right here, I'm sure that you would have to admit that at least, this is an amazing story, right? After all, three religious leaders of three separate denominations all going into one very opposite belief at the same time and then soon after the rest of the household?​

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But that is not all. There is more! ​

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The same year, while I was in Grand Prairie, Texas (near Dallas) I met a Baptist seminary student from Tennessee named Joe, who also came to Islam after reading the Holy Quran while in BAPTIST SEMINARY COLLEGE!​

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There are others as well. I recall the case of the Catholic priest in a college town who talked about the good things in Islam so much that I was forced to ask him why he didn't enter Islam. He replied: "What? And loose my job?" - His name is Father John and there is still hope for him yet.​

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More? Yes. The very next year I met a former Catholic priest who had been a missionary for 8 years in Africa. He learned about Islam while he was there and entered into Islam. He then changed his name to Omar and moved to Dallas Texas.​

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Any more? Again, yes. Two years later, while in San Antonio, Texas I was introduced to a former Arch Bishop of the Orthodox Church of Russia who learned about Islam and gave up his position to enter Islam.​

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And since my own entrance into Islam and becoming a chaplain to the Muslims throughout the country and around the world, I have encountered many more individuals who were leaders, teachers and scholars in other religions who learned about Islam and entered into it. They came from Hindus, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Coptic Christians from Egypt, non-denominational churches and even scientists who had been atheists.​

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Why? Good question. May I suggest to the seeker of truth do the following NINE STEPS to purification of the mind:​

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1.) Clean their mind, their heart and their soul real good. 2.) Clear away all the prejudices and biases 3.) Read a good translation of the meaning of the Holy Quran in a language that they can understand best. 4.) Take some time. 5.) Read and reflect. 6.) Think and pray. 7.) And keep on asking the One who created you in the first place, to guide you to the truth. 8.) Keep this up for a few months. And be regular in it. 9.) Above all, do not let others who are poisoned in their thinking influence you while your are in this state of "rebirth of the soul."​

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The rest is between you and the Almighty Lord of the Universe. If you truly love Him, then He already Knows it and He will deal with each of us according to our hearts.​

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So, now you have the introduction to the story of my coming into Islam and becoming Muslim. There is more on the Internet about this story and there are more pictures there as well. Please take the time to visit it and then please take the time to email me and let us come together to share in all truths based on proofs for understanding our origins and our purpose and goals in this life and the Next Life.​

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May Allah guide you on your journey to all truth. Ameen. And May He open your heart and your mind to the reality of this world and the purpose of this life, ameen.​

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Peace to you and Guidance from Allah the One Almighty God, Creator and Sustainer of all that exists. Your friend,​

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Yusuf Estes​

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

The next case study is by Nuh Keller, a former American Catholic:

"I studied philosophy at the university and it taught me to ask two things of whoever claimed to have the truth: What do you mean, and how do you know? When I asked these questions of my own religious tradition, I found no answers, and realized that Christianity had slipped from my hands."

The story of American former Catholic, Nuh Ha Mim Keller, who in the 25 years since his conversion has gone on to become one of the leading contemporary scholars of Islam.

Born in 1954 in the farm country of the northwestern United States, I was raised in a religious family as a Roman Catholic. The Church provided a spiritual world that was unquestionable in my childhood, if anything more real than the physical world around me, but as I grew older, and especially after I entered a Catholic university and read more, my relation to the religion became increasingly called into question, in belief and practice.

One reason was the frequent changes in Catholic liturgy and ritual that occurred in the wake of the Second Vatican Council of 1963, suggesting to laymen that the Church had no firm standards. To one another, the clergy spoke about flexibility and liturgical relevance, but to ordinary Catholics they seemed to be groping in the dark. God does not change, nor the needs of the human soul, and there was no new revelation from heaven. Yet we rang in the changes, week after week, year after year; adding, subtracting, changing the language from Latin to English, finally bringing in guitars and folk music. Priests explained and explained as laymen shook their heads. The search for relevance left large numbers convinced that there had not been much in the first place.

A second reason was a number of doctrinal difficulties, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, which no one in the history of the world, neither priest nor layman, had been able to explain in a convincing way, and which resolved itself, to the common mind at least, in a sort of godhead-by-committee, shared between God the Father, who ruled the world from heaven; His son Jesus Christ, who saved humanity on earth; and the Holy Ghost, who was pictured as a white dove and appeared to have a considerably minor role.

I remember wanting to make special friends with just one of them so he could handle my business with the others, and to this end, would sometimes pray earnestly to this one and sometimes to that; but the other two were always stubbornly there. I finally decided that God the Father must be in charge of the other two, and this put the most formidable obstacle in the way of my Catholicism, the divinity of Christ. Moreover, reflection made it plain that the nature of man contradicted the nature of God in every particular, the limitary and finite on the one hand, the absolute and infinite on the other. That Jesus was God was something I cannot remember having ever really believed, in childhood or later.

Another point of incredulity was the trading of the Church in stocks and bonds in the hereafter which it called indulgences. Do such and such and so-and-so many years will be remitted from your sentence in purgatory. That had seemed so false to Martin Luther at the outset of the Reformation.

... (to be continued)

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

Part 2 of Nuh Keller's Story:


"A Bible was given to me one Christmas, a handsome edition, but on attempting to read it, I found it so rambling and devoid of a coherent thread that it was difficult to think of a way to base one's life upon it. Only later did I learn how Christians solve the difficulty in practice, Protestants by creating sectarian theologies, each emphasizing the texts of their sect and downplaying the rest; Catholics by downplaying it all, except the snippets mentioned in their liturgy. Something seemed lacking in a sacred book that could not be read as an integral whole.

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Moreover, when I went to the university, I found that the authenticity of the book, especially the New Testament, had come into considerable doubt as a result of modern hermeneutical studies by Christians themselves. ​

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In a course on contemporary theology, I read the Norman Perrin translation of The Problem of the Historical Jesus by Joachim Jeremias, one of the principal New Testament scholars of this century. A textual critic who was a master of the original languages and had spent long years with the texts, he had finally agreed with the German theologian Rudolph Bultmann that, without a doubt, it is true to say that the dream of ever writing a biography of Jesus is over, meaning that the life of Christ as he actually lived it could not be reconstructed from the New Testament with any degree of confidence. ​

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If this were accepted from a friend of Christianity and one of its foremost textual experts, I reasoned, what was left for its enemies to say? And what then remained of the Bible except to acknowledge that it was a record of truths mixed with fictions, conjectures projected onto Christ by later followers, themselves at odds with each other as to who the master had been and what he had taught. And if theologians like Jeremias could reassure themselves that somewhere under the layers of later accretions to the New Testament there was something called the historical Jesus and his message, how could the ordinary person hope to find it, or know it, should it be found?​

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I studied philosophy at the university and it taught me to ask two things of whoever claimed to have the truth: What do you mean, and how do you know? When I asked these questions of my own religious tradition, I found no answers, and realized that Christianity had slipped from my hands. I then embarked on a search that is perhaps not unfamiliar to many young people in the West, a quest for meaning in a meaningless world.​

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I began where I had lost my previous belief, with the philosophers, yet wanting to believe, seeking not philosophy, but rather a philosophy. I read the essays of the great pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer, which taught about the phenomenon of the ages of life, and that money, fame, physical strength, and intelligence all passed from one with the passage of years, but only moral excellence remained. I took this lesson to heart and remembered it in after years. His essays also drew attention to the fact that a person was wont to repudiate in later years what he fervently espouses in the heat of youth.​

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With a prescient wish to find the Divine, I decided to imbue myself with the most cogent arguments of atheism that I could find, that perhaps I might find a way out of them later. So I read the Walter Kaufmann translations of the works of the immoralist Friedrich Nietzsche. The many-faceted genius dissected the moral judgments and beliefs of mankind with brilliant philological and psychological arguments that ended in accusing human language itself, and the language of nineteenth-century science in particular, of being so inherently determined and mediated by concepts inherited from the language of morality that in their present form they could never hope to uncover reality. Aside from their immunological value against total skepticism, Nietzsche's works explained why the West was post-Christian, and accurately predicted the unprecedented savagery of the twentieth century, debunking the myth that science could function as a moral replacement for the now dead religion.​

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At a personal level, his tirades against Christianity, particularly in The Genealogy of Morals, gave me the benefit of distilling the beliefs of the monotheistic tradition into a small number of analyzable forms. He separated unessential concepts (such as the bizarre spectacle of an omnipotent deity's suicide on the cross) from essential ones, which I now, though without believing in them, apprehended to be but three alone: that God existed; that He created man in the world and defined the conduct expected of him in it; and that He would judge man accordingly in the hereafter and send him to eternal reward or punishment.​

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It was during this time that I read an early translation of the Koran which I grudgingly admired, between agnostic reservations, for the purity with which it presented these fundamental concepts. Even if false, I thought, there could not be a more essential expression of religion. As a literary work, the translation, perhaps it was Sales, was uninspired and openly hostile to its subject matter, whereas I knew the Arabic original was widely acknowledged for its beauty and eloquence among the religious books of mankind. I felt a desire to learn Arabic to read the original.​

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On a vacation home from school, I was walking upon a dirt road between some fields of wheat, and it happened that the sun went down. By some inspiration, I realized that it was a time of worship, a time to bow and pray to the one God. But it was not something one could rely on oneself to provide the details of, but rather a passing fancy, or perhaps the beginning of an awareness that atheism was an inauthentic way of being.​

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... (to be continued)​

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All the best.​

 

[Cordoba]

Part 3 of Nuh Keller's Story

I carried something of this disquiet with me when I transferred to the University of Chicago, where I studied the epistemology of ethical theory how moral judgments were reached reading and searching among the books of the philosophers for something to shed light on the question of meaninglessness, which was both a personal concern and one of the central philosophical problems of our age.

According to some, scientific observation could only yield description statements of the form X is Y, for example, The object is red, Its weight is two kilos, Its height is ten centimeters, and so on, in each of which the functional was a scientifically verifiable is, whereas in moral judgments the functional element was an ought, a description statement which no amount of scientific observation could measure or verify. It appeared that ought was logically meaningless, and with it all morality whatsoever, a position that reminded me of those described by Lucian in his advice that whoever sees a moral philosopher coming down the road should flee from him as from a mad dog. For such a person, expediency ruled, and nothing checked his behavior but convention.

As Chicago was a more expensive school, and I had to raise tuition money, I found summer work on the West Coast with a seining boat fishing in Alaska.

The sea proved a school in its own right, one I was to return to for a space of eight seasons, for the money. I met many people on boats, and saw something of the power and greatness of the wind, water, storms, and rain; and the smallness of man.

These things lay before us like an immense book, but my fellow fishermen and I could only discern the letters of it that were within our context: to catch as many fish as possible within the specified time to sell to the tenders. Few knew how to read the book as a whole. Sometimes, in a blow, the waves rose like great hills, and the captain would hold the wheel with white knuckles, our bow one minute plunging gigantically down into a valley of green water, the next moment reaching the bottom of the trough and soaring upwards towards the sky before topping the next crest and starting down again.

Early in my career as a deck hand, I had read the Hazel Barnes translation of Jean Paul Sartres "Being and Nothingness", in which he argued that phenomena only arose for consciousness in the existential context of human projects, a theme that recalled Marx's 1844 manuscripts, where nature was produced by man, meaning, for example, that when the mystic sees a stand of trees, his consciousness hypostatizes an entirely different phenomenal object than a poet does, for example, or a capitalist. To the mystic, it is a manifestation; to the poet, a forest; to the capitalist, lumber.

According to such a perspective, a mountain only appears as tall in the context of the project of climbing it, and so on, according to the instrumental relations involved in various human interests. But the great natural events of the sea surrounding us seemed to defy, with their stubborn, irreducible facticity, our uncomprehending attempts to come to terms with them. Suddenly, we were just there, shaken by the forces around us without making sense of them, wondering if we would make it through.

Some, it was true, would ask God's help at such moments, but when we returned safely to shore, we behaved like men who knew little of Him, as if those moments had been a lapse into insanity, embarrassing to think of at happier times.

It was one of the lessons of the sea that, in fact, such events not only existed but perhaps even preponderated in our life. Man was small and weak, the forces around him were large, and he did not control them.

Sometimes a boat would sink and men would die. I remember a fisherman from another boat who was working near us one opening, doing the same job as I did, piling web. He smiled across the water as he pulled the net from the hydraulic block overhead, stacking it neatly on the stern to ready it for the next set. Some weeks later, his boat overturned while fishing in a storm, and he got caught in the web and drowned. I saw him only once again, in a dream, beckoning to me from the stern of his boat.

The tremendousness of the scenes we lived in, the storms, the towering sheer cliffs rising vertically out of the water for hundreds of feet, the cold and rain and fatigue, the occasional injuries and deaths of workers these made little impression on most of us. Fishermen were, after all, supposed to be tough. On one boat, the family that worked it was said to lose an occasional crew member while running at sea at the end of the season, invariably the sole non-family member who worked with them, his loss saving them the wages they would have otherwise had to pay him.

I increasingly began to wonder if men didn't need principles to guide them and tell them why they were there. Without such principles, nothing seemed to distinguish us above our prey except being more thorough, and technologically capable of preying longer, on a vaster scale, and with greater devastation than the animals we hunted.

These considerations were in my mind the second year I studied at Chicago, where I became aware through studies of philosophical moral systems that philosophy had not been successful in the past at significantly influencing peoples morals and preventing injustice, and I came to realize that there was little hope for it to do so in the future.

I found that comparing human cultural systems and societies in their historical succession and multiplicity had led many intellectuals to moral relativism, since no moral value could be discovered which on its own merits was transculturally valid, a reflection leading to nihilism, the perspective that sees human civilizations as plants that grow out of the earth, springing from their various seeds and soils, thriving for a time, and then dying away.

Some heralded this as intellectual liberation, among them Emile Durkheim in his "Elementary Forms of the Religious Life", or Sigmund Freud in his "Totem and Taboo", which discussed mankind as if it were a patient and diagnosed its religious traditions as a form of a collective neurosis that we could now hope to cure, by applying to them a thoroughgoing scientific atheism, a sort of salvation through pure science.

The horrible question mark that was attached to German intellectuals when the Nazi atrocities became public after the war made Habermas think deeply about the ideology of pure science. If anything was obvious, it was that the nineteenth-century optimism of thinkers like Freud and Durkheim was no longer tenable.

I began to re-assess the intellectual life around me.

... (to be continued)

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

Part 4 of Nuh Keller's Story

I began to re-assess the intellectual life around me.

Like Schopenhauer, I felt that higher education must produce higher human beings. But at the university, I found lab people talking to each other about forging research data to secure funding for the coming year; luminaries who wouldn't permit tape recorders at their lectures for fear that competitors in the same field would go one step further with their research and beat them to publication; professors vying with each other in the length of their courses syllabuses.

The moral qualities I was accustomed to associate with ordinary, unregenerate humanity seemed as frequently met with in sophisticated academics as they had been in fishermen. If one could laugh at fishermen who, after getting a boatload of fish in a big catch, would cruise back and forth in front of the others to let them see how laden down in the water they were, ostensibly looking for more fish; what could one say about the Ph.D.'s who behaved the same way about their books and articles? I felt that their knowledge had not developed their persons, that the secret of higher man did not lie in their sophistication.

I wondered if I hadn't gone down the road of philosophy as far as one could go. While it had debunked my Christianity and provided some genuine insights, it had not yet answered the big questions. Moreover, I felt that this was somehow connected I didn't know whether as cause or effect to the fact that our intellectual tradition no longer seemed to seriously comprehend itself. What were any of us, whether philosophers, fishermen, garbagemen, or kings, except bit players in a drama we did not understand, diligently playing out our roles until our replacements were sent, and we gave our last performance? But could one legitimately hope for more than this?

I read "Kojves Introduction to the Reading of Hegel", in which he explained that for Hegel, philosophy did not culminate in the system, but rather in the Wise Man, someone able to answer any possible question on the ethical implications of human actions. This made me consider our own plight in the twentieth century, which could no longer answer a single ethical question. It was thus as if this century's unparalleled mastery of concrete things had somehow ended by making us things.

I contrasted this with Hegel's concept of the concrete in his "Phenomenology of Mind". An example of the abstract, in his terms, was the limitary physical reality of the book now held in your hands, while the concrete was its interconnection with the larger realities it presupposed, the modes of production that determined the kind of ink and paper in it, the aesthetic standards that dictated its color and design, the systems of marketing and distribution that had carried it to the reader, the historical circumstances that had brought about the readers literacy and taste; the cultural events that had mediated its style and usage; in short, the bigger picture in which it was articulated and had its being.

For Hegel, the movement of philosophical investigation always led from the abstract to the concrete, to the more real. He was therefore able to say that philosophy necessarily led to theology, whose object was the ultimately real, the Deity. This seemed to me to point up an irreducible lack in our century. I began to wonder if, by materializing our culture and our past, we had not somehow abstracted ourselves from our wider humanity, from our true nature in relation to a higher reality.

At this juncture, I read a number of works on Islam, among them the books of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who believed that many of the problems of western man, especially those of the environment, were from his having left the divine wisdom of revealed religion, which taught him his true place as a creature of God in the natural world and to understand and respect it. Without it, he burned up and consumed nature with ever more effective technological styles of commercial exploitation that ruined his world from without while leaving him increasingly empty within, because he did not know why he existed or to what end he should act.

I reflected that this might be true as far as it went, but it begged the question as to the truth of revealed religion. Everything on the face of the earth, all moral and religious systems, were on the same plane, unless one could gain certainty that one of them was from a higher source, the sole guarantee of the objectivity, the whole force, of moral law. Otherwise, one man's opinion was as good as another's, and we remained in an undifferentiated sea of conflicting individual interests, in which no valid objection could be raised to the strong eating the weak.

I read other books on Islam, and came across some passages translated by W. Montgomery Watt from "That Which Delivers from Error" by the theologian and mystic Ghazali, who, after a mid-life crisis of questioning and doubt, realized that beyond the light of prophetic revelation there is no other light on the face of the earth from which illumination may be received, the very point to which my philosophical inquiries had led. Here was, in Hegel's terms, the Wise Man, in the person of a divinely inspired messenger who alone had the authority to answer questions of good and evil.

I also read A.J. Arberrys translation "The Koran Interpreted", and I recalled my early wish for a sacred book. Even in translation, the superiority of the Muslim scripture over the Bible was evident in every line, as if the reality of divine revelation, dimly heard of all my life, had now been placed before my eyes. In its exalted style, its power, its inexorable finality, its uncanny way of anticipating the arguments of the atheistic heart in advance and answering them; it was a clear exposition of God as God and man as man, the revelation of the awe-inspiring Divine Unity being the identical revelation of social and economic justice among men.

I began to learn Arabic at Chicago, and after studying the grammar for a year with a fair degree of success, decided to take a leave of absence to try to advance in the language in a year of private study in Cairo. Too, a desire for new horizons drew me, and after a third season of fishing, I went to the Middle East.

... (to be continued)

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

Part 5: Conclusion of Nuh Keller's Story:

"In Egypt, I found something I believe brings many to Islam, namely, the mark of pure monotheism upon its followers, which struck me as more profound than anything I had previously encountered.

I met many Muslims in Egypt, good and bad, but all influenced by the teachings of their Book to a greater extent than I had ever seen elsewhere. It has been some fifteen years since then, and I cannot remember them all, or even most of them, but perhaps the ones I can recall will serve to illustrate the impressions made.

One was a man on the side of the Nile near the Miqyas Gardens, where I used to walk. I came upon him praying on a piece of cardboard, facing across the water. I started to pass in front of him, but suddenly checked myself and walked around behind, not wanting to disturb him. As I watched a moment before going my way, I beheld a man absorbed in his relation to God, oblivious to my presence, much less my opinions about him or his religion.

To my mind, there was something magnificently detached about this, altogether strange for someone coming from the West, where praying in public was virtually the only thing that remained obscene.

Another was a young boy from secondary school who greeted me near Khan al-Khalili, and because I spoke some Arabic and he spoke some English and wanted to tell me about Islam, he walked with me several miles across town to Giza, explaining as much as he could. When we parted, I think he said a prayer that I might become Muslim.

Another was a Yemeni friend living in Cairo who brought me a copy of the Koran at my request to help me learn Arabic. I did not have a table beside the chair where I used to sit and read in my hotel room, and it was my custom to stack the books on the floor. When I set the Koran by the others there, he silently stooped and picked it up, out of respect for it. This impressed me because I knew he was not religious, but here was the effect of Islam upon him.

Another was a woman I met while walking beside a bicycle on an unpaved road on the opposite side of the Nile from Luxor. I was dusty, and somewhat shabbily clothed, and she was an old woman dressed in black from head to toe who walked up, and without a word or glance at me, pressed a coin into my hand so suddenly that in my surprise I dropped it. By the time I picked it up, she had hurried away. Because she thought I was poor, even if obviously non-Muslim, she gave me some money without any expectation for it except what was between her and her God. This act made me think a lot about Islam, because nothing seemed to have motivated her but that.

Many other things passed through my mind during the months I stayed in Egypt to learn Arabic. I found myself thinking that a man must have some sort of religion, and I was more impressed by the effect of Islam on the lives of Muslims, a certain nobility of purpose and largesse of soul, than I had ever been by any other religions or even atheisms effect on its followers. The Muslims seemed to have more than we did.

Christianity had its good points to be sure, but they seemed mixed with confusions, and I found myself more and more inclined to look to Islam for their fullest and most perfect expression. The first question we had memorized from our early catechism had been Why were you created? to which the correct answer was "to know, love, and serve God". When I reflected on those around me, I realized that Islam seemed to furnish the most comprehensive and understandable way to practice this on a daily basis.

As for the inglorious political fortunes of the Muslims today, I did not feel these to be a reproach against Islam, or to relegate it to an inferior position in a natural order of world ideologies, but rather saw them as a low phase in a larger cycle of history.

Foreign hegemony over Muslim lands had been witnessed before in the thorough going destruction of Islamic civilization in the thirteenth century by the Mongol horde, who razed cities and built pyramids of human heads from the steppes of Central Asia to the Muslim heartlands, after which the fullness of destiny brought forth the Ottoman Empire to raise the Word of Allah and make it a vibrant political reality that endured for centuries.

It was now, I reflected, merely the turn of contemporary Muslims to strive for a new historic crystallization of Islam, something one might well aspire to share in.

When a friend in Cairo one day asked me, Why don't you become a Muslim?, I found that God had created within me a desire to belong to this religion, which so enriches its followers, from the simplest hearts to the most magisterial intellects. It is not through an act of the mind or will that anyone becomes a Muslim, but rather through the mercy of God, and this, in the final analysis, was what brought me to Islam in Cairo in 1977.

"Is it not time that the hearts of those who believe should be humbled to the Remembrance of God and the Truth which He has sent down, and that they should not be as those to whom the Book was given aforetime, and the term seemed over long to them, so that their hearts have become hard, and many of them are ungodly? Know that God revives the earth after it was dead. We have indeed made clear for you the signs, that haply you will understand." (Koran 57:16-17)

© Nuh Ha Mim Keller

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

The Story of James Farrell

How the gift of a Quran transformed the life of a white, racist, anti-Muslim working-class Chicago youth.

I can remember, throughout my childhood, all the times my parents fought over money issues, living situations and the like. I remember living in the project homes on the South Central side of Chicago with almost nothing to eat. With a family of 10 it was hard for my father to support the family in the most desirable fashion.

My father was a hard working man, although he spent most of his time drinking away our family income and beating my mom, I still love my father. My father comes from Irish and German background, he has a sort of 'back home' old-fashion way of living. Whenever he would come home drunk or just upset about something he would come to me and my younger brother and lay it out on us until he had nothing else to do. Many times I could not even walk or breathe from all of the blows. Of course I had to be the one who got it most because I was older and any rap my brother gave I would take his whack as well. This was most of my childhood.

Then came my teenage years. With everything happening around me, such as girlfriends, flings, boozing, bars, drugs, etc. I just could not allow myself to be a part in any of it. It just didn't feel right. My brother was one of the biggest drug dealers in Chicago. Many a day he would bring his stash home to sell locally. He knew my views on the whole idea and when he left one day, I took about $1,000 of drugs he had stashed away and flushed it down the toilet. When he found out, I swear, he wanted to kill me; and he would have if he had the chance. Of course I was the one who my parents took it out on because I was older and I should have taught him better.

That made me realize how fragile life can be. I didn't want to die an idiot so I began studying anything and everything. I couldn't take my face out of a book unless I put it in another.

You have to realize something about my family, they are very competitive toward one another. Once they see the other person advancing they want to stop you in your tracks and allow you to go no further. My parents had mixed feelings of my personal studies. They were worried that I might become brainwashed or follow some cult. They were right in one thing, I became a Nazi in 1994.

In 1995 I had met the first girl I could ever say I had loved. Even though I had a perfect opportunity to do whatever I wanted with her, I didn't. I couldn't allow myself to be completely intimate with someone who I wasn't married to. A few months afterward I had proposed to her and for a little over 3 years we remained engaged with out being sexually active. We both understood that more problems would occur. Being with this woman I was able to become who I wanted to be. I studied and studied and began to realize my life and it's purpose. I knew that I was missing something, I mean I really knew but I couldn't put my finger on it, but I would not give up searching.

The more I read the more my parents were drawn back. As I had pointed out that my family is very competitive they began mentally attacking me with how bad a child I was and how ungrateful a person I am for their shelter and food they supply me with. My parents never graduated high school, in fact they both only made it through the 8th grade and dropped out of the 9th. Therefore their education is obviously limited. All they know is what they see on TV and see from the behavior of people. I have to admit, from my parents raising me the way they did, I honor their discipline and give them absolute gratitude for what they did for me. They forced me to become a man. I had my first job at the age of 12.

At the age of 13 I was working full time making just as much as they. By the age of 16 I had my 1st apartment. I cooked, cleaned, washed my own laundry, did my own shopping and was preparing myself to get married. From the point of view that my parents judged people by their actions, I agreed with them and I still do. But that caused me to hate Muslims and Islam. I swear I really hated Muslims like you would not believe.

Many say it is due to the media, well yes, it is a part of the madness, but mostly it is the own fault of the Muslims. The Muslims are the ones who have destroyed the reputation of Islam to a point that others hate us and we don't even know what we believe any more. It's sad but true. I have to tell you that most immigrants who enter into this country to make money are the number one accusers of spoiling the true image of Islam.

In 1997 my fiancée had given me the Quran as a gift, simply because I loved to read. Just to show you how much I hated the Muslims...Well when she gave me the Quran it caused a fight between us and we had separated for quite some time.

... (to be continued)

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

Part 2 and Conclusion of James Farrell's Story

In 1997 my fiancée had given me the Quran as a gift, simply because I loved to read. Just to show you how much I hated the Muslims...Well when she gave me the Quran it caused a fight between us and we had separated for quite some time. ​

​

Eventually I had picked it up and began reading it. I can remember that very day. The house was crystal clean, the air was soft and sweet and the lighting was dim and perfect for reading. It was the translation from Abdullah Yusuf Ali. I read his introduction, the first 3 pages, and I began to cry like a baby. I cried and cried and I couldn't help myself. I knew that this was what I was looking for and I wanted to beat myself to death for not finding it earlier. I just knew in my heart how magical it was. ​

​

This was not the Islam I knew. This was not the Arab thing I was taught to think was dirty. This was my life wrapped up in a few pages. Every page told my life. I was reading my soul and it felt good, but regretful. After this I had reunited with my fiancée and we discussed the whole matter maturely. Shortly afterward we both accepted Islam and were willing to live our lives as Muslims, even if it meant separately.​

​

When my parents found out all hell broke loose. My father had threatened to take my life. He said, "You were born Catholic and so help me God I will make sure you die Catholic......" My mother's reaction was similar. I wanted to go to college more than anything, I wanted a formal education. So I got a job and paid my way through furthering my education in college. At that point my parents began flipping out over my conversion and my mother threw me out of the house which caused me to remain living in the streets for 6 months. I ate out of garbage cans, I slept in the coldest nights through the blizzard of '99. I walked miles to be with Muslims. I was chased out of neighborhoods by police officers for going into black neighborhoods attending Jummah prayer. I was pelted with rocks, spit on, harassed, etc. I just wanted to be with Muslims.​

​

After some time I met a friend who made a deal with me. He said, "If you can build us a masjid in our muffler shop, you can stay there until you find a place..." I agreed. The muffler shop had a second floor area, about 2000 square feet for storage. Every day I had spent hours on removing inventory supplies and garbage. Within one month I had utilized half of the space, built a wall, added a window, installed a door, put in some carpeting, painted and opened up the first Muffler shop masjid in the city of Chicago. I had learned the carpentry trait from my uncle. It was my first full time job.​

​

Around 6 months later I had maintained a good job and moved in with two friends. My old fiancée was out of the picture by now. We had agreed to live our lives as Muslims, not as fools. I loved her more than anyone I had ever loved. But being Muslim was far more important than being with a person. In 1999 I had become the President of the Muslims Student Association at my college. I was attending Halaqat daily, going to seminars, I had a mentor, and I built a relationship with my enemies; Muslims.​

​

In 2000 I was on my way to Hajj. An experience I will never forget. I had visited Medina and other neighboring areas. The one thing I had realized at Hajj was the truth about God and the history of Islam. We can only go back in time so far and we can only rely on what text books tell us about people and places. In Mecca and Medina I had seen with my very own eyes the magic of Islam's great history. It was as if I was living the history. I felt the Hadith come to life. I saw the Sahabah in the mountain tops. I smelt the battle of Badr. I tasted the air the prophet once breathed. I felt the real Islam that each and everyone of us are destroying.​

​

Although I am alone, without a wife or a family to call my own, I know Islam is life, not a way of life but life itself. I understand that Islam is not a religion, because religion can be pluralized. I understand that Muslims are not what Islam has to offer. I understand that Islam cannot be judged by the actions of Muslims, Muslims can only be judged by Islam. I have been given a great opportunity to become who I am and who I am is no one no higher or less than each and every one else. I was given the opportunity to acquire my dream job. I have always wanted to work for relief work and helping people, as much as my past contradicts the fact, but it's true. I now work for Global Relief Foundation, it's where I have been for over a year now.​

​

As much as I fed you with words of my life, nothing can explain my heart. I have only mentioned a few of the many obstacles I have faced, I know that many of you have faced so much more. My purpose of telling you this is to say that I understand the difficulties many are going through. ​

​

All the best.​

 

[Cordoba]

Michael Wolfe

"I did not want to 'trade in' my culture. I wanted access to new meanings."

How an American writer born of a Jewish father and a Christian mother found spiritual fulfillment in Islam.

"After twenty-five years a writer in America, I wanted something to soften my cynicism. I was searching for new terms by which to see.

The way one is raised establishes certain needs in this department. From a pluralist background, I naturally placed great stress on the matters of racism and freedom. Then, in my early twenties, I had gone to live in Africa for three years. During this time, which was formative for me, I did rubbed shoulders with blacks of many different tribes, with Arabs, Berbers, and even Europeans, who were Muslims.

By and large these people did not share the Western obsession with race as a social category. In our encounters being oddly colored rarely mattered. I was welcomed first and judged on merit later. By contrast, Europeans and Americans, including many who are free of racist notions, automatically class people racially. Muslims classified people by their faith and their actions. I found this transcendent and refreshing. Malcolm X saw his nation’s salvation in it. “America needs to understand Islam,” he wrote, “because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem”.

I was looking for an escape route, too, from the isolating terms of a materialistic culture. I wanted access to a spiritual dimension, but the conventional paths I had known as a boy were closed. My father had been a Jew; my mother Christian. Because of my mongrel background, I had a foot in two religious camps. Both faiths were undoubtedly profound. Yet the one that emphasizes a chosen people I found insupportable; while the other, based in a mystery, repelled me. A century before, my maternal great-great-grandmother’s name had been set in stained glass at the high street Church of Christ in Hamilton, Ohio. By the time I was twenty, this meant nothing to me.

These were the terms my early life provided. The more I thought about it now, the more I returned to my experiences in Muslim Africa. After two return trips to Morocco, in 1981 and 1985, I came to feel that Africa, the continent, had little to do with the balanced life I found there. It was not, that is, a continent I was after, nor an institution, either. I was looking for a framework I could live with, a vocabulary of spiritual concepts applicable to the life I was living now. I did not want to “trade in” my culture. I wanted access to new meanings.

After a mid-Atlantic dinner I went to wash up in the bathroom. During my absence a quorum of Hasidim lined up to pray outside the door. By the time I had finished, they were too immersed to notice me. Emerging from the bathroom, I could barely work the handle. Stepping into the aisle was out of the question.

I could only stand with my head thrust into the hallway, staring at the congregation’s backs. Holding palm-size prayer books, they cut an impressive figure, tapping the texts on their breastbones as they divined. Little by little the movements grew erratic, like a mild, bobbing form of rock and roll. I watched from the bathroom door until they were finished, then slipped back down the aisle to my seat.

We landed together later that night in Brussels. Reboarding, I found a discarded Yiddish newspaper on a food tray. When the plane took off for Morocco, they were gone.

I do not mean to imply here that my life during this period conformed to any grand design. In the beginning, around 1981, I was driven by curiosity and an appetite for travel. My favorite place to go, when I had the money, was Morocco. When I could not travel, there were books. This fascination brought me into contact with a handful of writers driven to the exotic, authors capable of sentences like this, by Freya Stark:

The perpetual charm of Arabia is that the traveller finds his level there simply as a human being; the people’s directness, deadly to the sentimental or the pedantic, like the less complicated virtues; and the pleasantness of being liked for oneself might, I think, be added to the five reasons for travel given me by Sayyid Abdulla, the watchmaker; “to leave one’s troubles behind one; to earn a living; to acquire learning; to practice good manners; and to meet honorable men”.

I could not have drawn up a list of demands, but I had a fair idea of what I was after. The religion I wanted should be to metaphysics as metaphysics is to science. It would not be confined by a narrow rationalism or traffic in mystery to please its priests. There would be no priests, no separation between nature and things sacred. There would be no war with the flesh, if I could help it. sex would be natural, not the seat of a curse upon the species. Finally, I did want a ritual component, daily routine to sharpen the senses and discipline my mind. Above all, I wanted clarity and freedom. I did not want to trade away reason simply to be saddled with a dogma.

The more I learned about Islam, the more it appeared to conform to what I was after.

... (to be continued)

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

Part 2 and Conclusion of Michael Wolfe's Story

"The more I learned about Islam, the more it appeared to conform to what I was after.

Most of the educated Westerners I knew around this time regarded any strong religious climate with suspicion. They classified religion as political manipulation, or they dismissed it as a medieval concept, projecting upon it notions from their European past.

It was not hard to find a source for their opinions. A thousand years of Western history had left us plenty of fine reasons to regret a path that led through so much ignorance and slaughter. From the Children’s Crusade and the Inquisition to the transmogrified faiths of nazism and communism during our century, whole countries have been exhausted by belief. Nietzsche’s fear, that the modern nation-state would become a substitute religion, have proved tragically accurate. Our century, it seemed to me, was ending in an age beyond belief, which believers inhabited as much as agnostics.

Regardless of church affiliation, secular humanism is the air westerners breathe, the lens we gaze through. Like any world view, this outlook is pervasive and transparent. It forms the basis of our broad identification with democracy and with the pursuit of freedom in all its countless and beguiling forms. Immersed in our shared preoccupations, one may easily forget that other ways of life exist on the same planet.

At the time of my trip, for instance, 650 million Muslims with a majority representation in forty-four countries adhered to the formal teachings of Islam. In addition, about 400 million more were living as minorities in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Assisted by postcolonial economics, Islam has become in a matter of thirty years a major faith in Western Europe. Of the world’s great religions, Islam alone was adding to its fold.

My politicized friends were dismayed by my new interest. They all but universally confused Islam with the machinations of half a dozen middle eastern tyrants. The books they read, the new broadcasts they viewed depicted the faith as a set of political functions. Almost nothing was said of its spiritual practice. I liked to quote Mae West to them: “Anytime you take religion for a joke, the laugh’s on you”.

Historically a Muslim sees Islam as the final, matured expression of an original religion reaching back to Adam. It is as resolutely monotheistic as Judaism, whose major Prophets Islam reveres as links in a progressive chain, culminating in Jesus and Muhammad. Essentially a message of renewal, Islam has done its part on the world stage to return the forgotten taste of life’s lost sweetness to millions of people. Its book, the Qur’an, caused Goethe to remark, “You see, this teaching never fails; with all our systems, we cannot go, and generally speaking no man can go, further”.

Traditional Islam is expressed through the practice of five pillars. Declaring one’s faith, prayer, charity, and fasting are activities pursued repeatedly throughout one’s life. Conditions permitting, each Muslim is additionally charged with undertaking a pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime. The Arabic term for this fifth rite is Hadj. Scholars relate the word to the concept of kasd, “aspiration,” and to the notion of men and women as travelers on earth.

In Western religions pilgrimage is a vestigial tradition, a quaint, folkloric concept commonly reduced to metaphor. Among Muslims, on the other hand, the hadj embodies a vital experience for millions of new pilgrims every year. In spite of the modern content of their lives, it remains an act of obedience, a profession of belief, and the visible expression of a spiritual community. For a majority of Muslims the hadj is an ultimate goal, the trip of a lifetime.

As a convert I felt obliged to go to Makkah. As an addict to travel I could not imagine a more compelling goal.

The annual, month-long fast of Ramadan precedes the hadj by about one hundred days. These two rites form a period of intensified awareness in Muslim society. I wanted to put this period to use. I had read about Islam; I had joined a Mosque near my home in California; I had started a practice. Now I hoped to deepen what I was learning by submerging myself in a religion where Islam infuses every aspect of existence.

I planned to begin in Morocco, because I knew that country well and because it followed traditional Islam and was fairly stable. The last place I wanted to start was in a backwater full of uproarious sectarians. I wanted to paddle the mainstream, the broad, calm water."

All the best.

P.S. Michael Wolfe co-produced an interesting documentary film on Islam broadcasted a couple of years ago by PBS titled "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet", where he invited a number of speakers and historians, including Karen Armstrong, and also described aspects of the lives of a number of American Muslims today. I found it to be an excellent film. http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/

 

[Cordoba]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]More in Hawai'i turn to Islam [/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"People are turning to religion both in the institutional sense and in noninstitutional ways," Crawford said, adding that the fallout also is benefiting other religions besides Islam.[/font]
[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif][/font]
[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Why overwhelmingly women?[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"In the expression of this mood, women are moved more readily and more deeply than men," he said. "Go to any church and you'll find more women than men."[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]He also finds the female students in his classes often show greater insight into ethical issues.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"Women are the more religious of the genders for various reasons," Crawford said. "... Women give birth and so they are in touch with the life process, caretakers of the life cycle by virtue of their biology."[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Converting — or "reverting," as Muslims call it since they believe everyone starts life as a Muslim — does not take much besides a sincere belief there is one God, and only one God.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"We believe, as Muslims, once a person reverts to Muslim, all his past sins are forgiven by God," Ouansafi said. "Starts just like a baby that was born."[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]The conversion ceremony itself is fairly simple, he said. A convert tells of the converting of his or her own free will; then explains the five tenets of faith.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]For the ceremony, two witnesses watch as a convert agrees that Jesus was among the great prophets (Ibrahim/Abraham, Mohammed and Moses are among the others), but not God, then speak the same two sentences that Heather Ramaha recited.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Now, Ramaha is incorporating her Islamic faith into her life as a Navy petty officer stationed at Pearl Harbor since July. She doesn't wear her hejab to work as a dental hygienist, but she does wear her head covering when attending services at the mosque. While her husband, a Marine, was away recently, she couldn't quite recite the five daily prayers, all said in Arabic, without his help.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]But Ouansafi said the Islamic faith is supposed to be practiced to the best of one's abilities: It's forbidden in the Quran, for example, for pregnant people, travelers and people with diabetes to fast at Ramadan, if fasting means harming oneself.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]On a recent Friday — the Islamic equavalent of the weekly Sabbath — Ouansafi spoke at the prayer services about the role of women in Islam, and talked at length in an interview at his office with his wife, Michele Ouansafi, herself a convert, about what draws women to a faith some have called oppressive.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Women are revered in their faith, the Ouansafis said. The wearing of the hejab is for a women's own protection — they are away from the lascivious looks of men. The women pray in different rooms and behind the men so as not to be a distraction when worshippers kneel and place their foreheads to the floor.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"Women are in back because we are the stronger of the two," said Michele Ouansafi with a laugh.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]And all the major texts of religions — the Bible, the Torah, the Gospels — "in the Quran, women have more rights," her husband said.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]He noted that in the Quran ("the word of God, descended directly on the prophet through Gabriel," said Ouansafi), Eve and Adam were equally at fault for leaving the Garden of Eden. Eve wasn't the seductress. Many of the passages in the Quran are gender-neutral.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]And, in Islam, Ouansafi said, the money a man makes goes for the family. The money a woman makes is hers, he said. Women are not obligated to work.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]The first feminist was a Muslim known as Khawlah, Ouansafi said.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Khawlah argued with prophet Mohammed, taking issue with how easily her husband could divorce her. All a man had to say was, "You are to be as the back of my mother," which was held by pagans as freeing the husband from any conjugal responsibility but didn't leave the wife free to leave his home or remarry.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Khawlah went to Mohammed to plead her case. He told her to be patient, but she kept arguing. Finally, she took it to a higher authority, and Allah heard and agreed with her.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"Women not only have the right to speak, but to argue with the great prophet," Ouansafi said.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Michele Ouansafi converted after meeting her husband-to-be when he tutored her in Rhode Island in 1986, but she said he never asked her to convert.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"Ours is a faith of attraction, not promotion," said the French Canadian woman with an MBA who works at Earth Tech, an environmental firm, as a contracts administrator.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]For those women who see their place in the home, the Islamic faith can be very attractive, said Tamara Albertini, a UH philosophy professor who specializes in Islam and grew up in an Islamic country. The man is responsible for taking care of the earnings, and the woman rules the home.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"The main problem with Islam is: If things don't work out, there's no place to go," she said, noting that a woman needs very strong reasons to leave a marriage. However, if a Muslim man leaves the faith, she can divorce him.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Although Ramaha's husband, Mike, is a lifelong Muslim and a Palestinian who grew up in San Francisco, he was not the reason for her conversion, she said.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"Mike never once tried to get me to convert," the 24-year-old 'Aiea resident said. "He said, 'If you want to do this, you can research it yourself, but I'll love you either way.'"[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Ramaha has been searching for a way to explain her new faith to her family in California. She notes that most of their information about Islam comes from the TV movie, "Not Without My Daughter," a story about an American woman, an abusive Iranian husband and a subsequent fight over their child.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"I haven't been able to find a way to tell them without them flipping out," she said. "I haven't told Dad. I tell him I go to the mosque, but I haven't told him I converted yet."[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]To people who ask her why she would choose a religion that some consider oppressive to women, she responds that they're mixing religion with culture.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"Growing up in the U.S., Islamic faith doesn't have the culture mixed into it," she said.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]Ramaha was the first in her family to join a church. At age 5, she befriended the daughter of a non-[/font][font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]denominational pastor and became a Christian. The rest of the family joined later. Her mother is still a churchgoer. But Ramaha said she struggled with the Christian view of the Holy Trinity. In March, she took an online world religions class through a California university.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"I'd been a Christian for 18 years," she said. "There are so many loopholes in that religion. (Islam) opened up so many ideas. ... I felt that in my heart this was the right (one) for me."[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]As a follow-up, she took an introductory class on Islam in Hawai'i after Sept. 11, she started reading the Quran, and "something clicked." She converted soon after.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,serif]"I've always felt drawn to something out there, (otherwise, there's) an emptiness," she said. "The only way I feel complete is when I have a religion, a God to pray to."[/font]

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

The Story of Steven Krauss


My experience in Islam began as a graduate student in New York City in 1998.

Up to that point in my life, for 25 years, I had been a Protestant Christian, but had not been practicing my religion for quite some time. I was more interested in “spirituality” and looking for anything that didn’t have to do with organized religion.

I was hungry for a more straightforward and lucid approach to religion that could provide my life with true guidance, not just dogma that was void of knowledge based in reason.


While in graduate school, I had a Jewish roommate who was a student of the
martial arts. While I was living with him, he was studying an art called silat, a traditional Malaysian martial art that is based on the teachings of Islam. When my roommate would come home from his silat classes, he would tell me all about the uniqueness of silat and its rich spiritual dimension.

As I was quite interested in learning martial arts at the time, I was intrigued by what I had heard, and decided to accompany my roommate to class one Saturday morning.

Although I did not realize it at the time, my experience in Islam was beginning that morning at my first silat class in New York City back on February 28th, 1998. There, I met my teacher, Cikgu (which means teacher in Malay) Sulaiman, the man who would first orient me to the religion of Islam. Although I thought I was beginning a career as a martial artist, that day back in 1998 actually represented my first step toward becoming Muslim.


From the very beginning, I was intrigued by silat and Islam and began
spending as much time as possible with my teacher. As my roommate and I were equally passionate about silat, we would go to my teacher’s house and soak up as much knowledge as we could from him. In fact, upon our completing graduate school in the spring of 1998, upon his invitation, we spent the entire summer living with him and his wife. As my learning in silat increased, so did my learning about Islam, a religion that I had hardly any knowledge of prior to my experience in silat.


What made my orientation to Islam so powerful was that as I was learning
about it, I was also living it. Because I studied at the home of my teacher,
being in the presence of devout Muslims allowed me to be constantly
surrounded by the sounds, sights and practices of Islam.


... (to be continued)

 

[Cordoba]

Part 2 & Conclusion of the story of Steven Krauss

For as Islam is an entire lifestyle, when you are in an Islamic environment, you cannot separate it out from everyday life. Unlike Christianity, which lends toward a separation between daily life and religion, Islam requires its followers
to integrate worship of Allah into everything we do. Thus, in living with my teacher, I was immersed in the Islamic deen (lifestyle) and experiencing first-hand how it can shape one’s entire way of life.

In the beginning, Islam was very different and powerful to me. It was also
very foreign in many ways and the amount of discipline it requires was
difficult to understand. At the time, I was liberal in many ways, and was
used to shunning anything dogmatic or imposed, regardless of where it came
from! As time went on, however, and my understanding of Islam grew, I began
to slowly see that what seemed to be religious dogma was really a lifestyle
put forth to us by our Creator. This lifestyle, I would later learn, is the
straight path to true contentment, not just the sensual and superficial way
of life that my society and culture promote. I realized that the question is
quite simple actually. Who could possibly know better what the best way of
life is for human beings than the all-wise Creator?

From that first silat class in New York City to the day I took my shahadda,
July 30, 1999, I had undergone a thorough self-examination that was
comprised of two major processes. One was to question the culture of the
society I was brought up in, and the second was to question the role I
wanted religion to play in my everyday life. As for my culture, this one was
not as difficult as most people would think.

American culture is highly influential on how we see life because it
constantly bombards us with sensual gratification aimed at appealing to our
worldly desires. In America, happiness is defined by what we have and
consume, thus, the entire culture is geared toward the marketplace. Unless
we are removed from this type environment, it is difficult to see its
drawbacks, which are based on worshipping and putting faith in everything
but God, the only One that can provide us with real, lasting contentment in
our lives.

Being a social scientist by trade, much of my professional time is spent
trying to address the social ills of our society. As I learned more about
Islam, I came to the conclusion that many societal ills are based on
unhealthy social behavior. Since Islam is a lifestyle focused totally on the
most healthy, positive way of conducting our lives in every setting, then it
is, and will always be, the only real answer to any society’s social
dilemmas. With this realization, not only did I decide that Islam was
relevant to my everyday life, but I began to understand why it is so
different from other religions. Only Islam provides knowledge and guidance
for every aspect of life. Only Islam provides a way to achieve health and
happiness in every dimension of life – physical, spiritual, mental,
financial, etc. Only Islam provides us with a clear life goal and purpose.
And only Islam shows us the proper way to live in and contribute to a
community. Islam is what everyone needs, and what so many who have not found
it yet, are searching for. It is the path to purpose, meaning, health and
happiness. This is because it is the straight path to the source of truth
and real power – Allah.

It was only until I actually became Muslim that I realized just how
encompassing the Islamic lifestyle is. Literally everything we do has one
underlying purpose – to remember Allah. The lifestyle provides us with the
way – not just the understanding – but an actual method of constantly
remembering our Creator in as simple an act as greeting someone, or getting
dressed in the morning, or waking up from sleep. Islam shows us that by
remembering Allah, everything we do becomes focused on Him, and thus becomes
an act of worship. From this, our energy, our thoughts, and our actions all
become redirected away from unhealthy and useless causes, and focused on the
source of all goodness. Thus, we are continuously tapping into His divine
strength, mercy and grace. So, by remembering Allah constantly, we become
stronger and healthier in every aspect of our lives and not distracted by
self-defeating thoughts and behaviors.

There still remain some minor aspects of Islam that have proven to be
somewhat difficult adjustments for me. Nevertheless, I thank Allah everyday
for the ease to which he has allowed me to make the necessary changes in my
life so that I can continue to live in America and still be, Insha-Allah, a
good Muslim. As a white, middle-class American, many cultural aspects of
Islam are quite different from the way in which I grew up. In fact, when I
finally broke the news to my family that I had become Muslim, almost all of
their questions and concerns were related to cultural differences –
marriage, social life, family, etc. They were much less concerned about my
general beliefs about God and religious practice. For my family, friends,
and co-workers, becoming Muslim was not seen necessarily as a negative
change, but it has required a great deal of education about Islam.

Because acquiring knowledge is a critical component to a Muslim’s
development, having a teacher who has taught me how to apply Islam in
everyday life has made all the difference in managing whatever difficulties
I have experienced from my reversion. Having someone knowledgeable you can
turn to whenever you have questions is a wonderful support that every new
shahadda should go out of their way to find. Islam is not a religion that
can be rationalized, in the way that Christianity and Judaism are. It is a
clear path that must be followed just as Allah has laid out for us through
the Qur’an and the lives of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (SAW), his
companions, and the saints of Islam.

My journey to Islam has been a life-altering experience. It is one that with
every passing day, makes me more and more appreciative and thankful to
Almighty Allah. The extent of His mercy can only fully be understood from
the perspective of a Muslim – one who prostrates regularly and submits their
will to that of the Creator.

I look back at my life prior to Islam and reflect on the different ways I
sought guidance. I think back to all the different ideas I once had of who
God really is, and how we can become close to Him. I look back now with a
smile and perhaps even a tear because now I know the truth. Through Islam, I
know why so many people who do not believe have so much fear inside them.
Life can be very scary without God. I know, because I once harbored that
same level of fear. Now, however, I have the ultimate “self-help” program.
It’s the self-help program without the self. It’s the path that puts
everything is in its proper place. Now, life makes sense. Now, life is
order. Now, I know why I am here, where I want to go, what I want my life to
be, how I want to live, and what is most important not just to me, but to
everyone. I only hope and pray that others who have not found the path yet,
can feel the same that I do."

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

The story of Ibrahim from Pennsylvania

"A time comes in everyone's life, or at least I hope it comes, when they realize that they have to not only believe what they believe in, whatever it may be, but get out there and proclaim it to the world. Luckily, that time came early for me. I am 17, and Islam is the belief that I’m proclaiming.

I was raised Catholic. Not internally as much as externally. I went to Catholic Sunday school, called CCD, but the Catholic view of God never played a major roll in my childhood. It was a Sunday thing. Anyhow, I started to enjoy Mass around 7th grade. It made me feel good to do the right thing. I was always a rather moral person, but I never really studied the fundamentals of Catholicism. I just knew that I felt good worshipping my creator.

I really liked Catholicism, but I always saw it as us (the Catholics) with Jesus worshipping God, not us worshipping God and Jesus as one. I saw Jesus (peace be upon him) as my example on how to be a good follower of and submitter to God's will, but not as God himself.

Before I was confirmed in 8th grade, in the fall of 1999, I learned a lot about what Catholicism was. The Catholicism of the Church had a lot on viewing Jesus as God in it. Nothing like my “undivided God being worshipped by me with Jesus as an example” train of thought. It was like they just opened up a can of cold, illogical confusion and tried to feed it to me. It didn’t feel right.

I continued with Catholic church, and kept on worshipping. But I talked to many in the church about my feelings that Jesus wasn't God but more of a Prophet, an example. They told me that I had to accept him as God and as a sacrifice, and so on. I just wasn't buying it. I tried to buy it but I guess God withhold the sale for my own benefit. There was a better car out there for me. I continued at the church.

Sometime in mid-December of 1999, for no reason that I can recall I started reading up on Islam in encyclopedias. I remember making a list of bolded words in the entry for "Islam" in an old 1964 Grolier World Book that I found in my closet, and studying them. For some reason I was amazed by this faith and that it was all about God and that it was everything that I believed all my life - right here. Previously, I had accepted that there was no faith like I felt inside of me. But I was amazed that I had found this faith. I found out that "my" faith had a name, and millions of other adherents!

Without ever reading a Qur'an or talking to another Muslim, I said shahada (declaring your belief in no god but God) on 31 December 1999. As the months passed, I learned more. I went through many periods of confusion, happiness, doubt and amazement. Islam took me on an enlightening tour of me, everyone else, and God.

The transition was slow. I was still attending Mass five months into my change of faith. Each time I went, I felt more and more distant from the congregation, but closer and closer to Prophet Jesus and God."

... (to be continued)

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

Part 2 & Conclusion of Ibrahim's Story:

"During Ramadan 2001, the second time I fasted (the first year, I converted during Ramadan and did not fast), I went to the library during lunch period. It was better than sitting at a table with my friends, because I got work done in the library.

I swear my grades went up. Anyways, I started talking to the only other Muslim at my school, John. We talked about Islam a little more each day. He's an awesome brother and he took me to the mosque on the last Friday of Ramadan. Going was one of the best things I ever made in my life. God really answered my prayers this time. I thought I would be nervous, but I wasn't at all. It was the most natural thing I ever did in my life. I felt home. I realized something before leaving. As I sat there on the floor, praying to God, I realized that the room was full of others but it was OK. See, at home when someone asks me what I am doing, I never say I am praying. I never admit it to anyone. It is too awkward. But there, at the masjid, I was praying to God in front of a score of other Muslims and I felt perfectly fine. Better than fine! I felt secure and safe. It was the most liberating thing since I accepted God into my heart that cold New Year's Eve almost two years ago.

I never told my parents right out. In fact, I don't plan to. The most significant clue that I gave came around 1:00 AM on 16 December 2001, when I finally told my dad I was going to the mosque in the morning with a friend when he asked me why I was setting my alarm. He told me how he can't wait for me to move out of the house, how displeased he is with me and how stupid the choices I make are to him. I never told them straight out because I figured it was best to test the waters by revealing clues bit by bit; I didn't want to send a shockwave through the family. I can only imagine what my dad would do if he knew I was actually a practicing Muslim.

He seems to hate my guts just for studying the faith, which he thinks is all I am doing. I understand that my dad is a depressed man, so I don't really hold this all against him. I mean, it is his fault for thinking himself so smart that he doesn't need God. That thought is what got him so depressed. But I don't think he realized how hard one's heart can be when you deny your human need for a relationship with your Creator. So I don't hold it all against him. He didn't know what he was getting into.

My mom doesn't know that I am a Muslim, but at least she hasn't shown her anger over me going to the mosque. She is upset over it but never told me that I displease her, at least. As God commands, I'll continue to try my best to be nice to my parents as long as they don't attempt to take away my Islam. The best thing that I can do for them is to be a good example so that maybe one day, inshallah, they can see that there is a better way of living than living in the dark world of God-denial.

I've never been to the Mid-East, but I am studying Islam every day. I read books from every point of view. Sufi, Shia, Sunni, books on the Qur'an alone... The Muslims view sects as haram, so no matter what you believe you are always a Muslim and nothing extra. You may have completely different views than another Muslim, but as long as you both believe that there is no god but God, you are both Muslims and that's that. I read a lot on-line, and discuss a lot with other Muslims on-line and on the phone. I've met some really great people on-line who have taught me a lot about life, Islam and God.

Right now, I am 100% a Muslim and that will never change, inshallah. I thank God that I've gone through so many periods of doubt. When I look back I see that it was not God leaving me but God telling me that it was time that I asked myself how much I loved God, and what I was willing to go through to understand my faith. A week of crying, depression, prayer, reading to the extreme, and ignoring most other things in life sounds harsh...but the reward - knowing so much more about yourself, God, and the relationship between you (Islam) - is worth more than any material things.

Through my interrogation of Islam I gained God’s most precious gift - Islam, or surrender to the peace. I've heard Christians say that with Christianity you "know God on a personal level." In Islam, your relationship with God is so much deeper than that. God is with me every moment, guiding me, teaching me, loving me, protecting me, liberating me, enlightening me, comforting me... Alhamdulilah for Islam!

Islam has done a lot for me. More than I could have ever guessed. And every day, it just gets better. I went from living my life on a trial-and-error basis to embracing guidance, and now knowing what the best choices are for me to make. From seeking who I am and spending a life in confusion, I am being guided. I can't find the words to say what its like, but I'll try again: God reveals to me what life is. I don't have to guess anymore.

That is what I went through, what God did for me - what I am. So here is my proclamation to the world. Islam is more than you think it is, in fact more liberal than most would wish it to be. But do not only listen. Study all views for yourself...and come to your own conclusion. God says “let there be no compulsion in religion” because faith in God is a choice made by the heart, and it can't be forced."

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

How the autobiography of Malcolm X guided a white, middle-class, American teenager from "cow country" to Islam.

"I have often been asked how I came to Islam.

I mean, it isn't too often you see a white guy from "cow country" turn to Islam. I guess the most amazing thing about the whole thing is where I started.

Now, I am not one of those stories of brothers who you hear were in gangs, addicted to crack, or worshiped devils at stone altars. I come from quite a typical background. I have two sisters; a brother; and both my parents are still married. My father is an engineer; while my mother is a housewife (or domestic engineer, as she likes to say) and we are as middle-class as you can get. My family lives in a small country hamlet, just to the south of nowhere. To give you a glimpse of how rural it is, there is a general store about a mile from my house, where the lady who runs it say "ya'll come back now, ya hear" when ever you leave the store.

Religion was always a strange subject in my house. My father is an Irish-Catholic by birth and my mom is a Methodist. We went to church on occasion, but for the most part, religion was a "spiritual" matter that you just had in your heart. I can remember as a kid looking at a small figurine of Jesus (which I had "borrowed" from the family nativity set) and wondering why do we go to "number two" when we pray or want something? Why don't we just go to "number one", God? Growing up, the whole concept of the trinity never made since to me, but since I lived in a spiritual Christian family, this wasn't really an issue.

As I got older and entered high school, I quickly noticed that I was a bit different. In my school, like in most schools in America, there were basically four groups with whom you could be associated: the "Alternative", the "preps", the "crack-heads" or the African-Americans (being that 90% of the county I grew up in was white, they ended up being somewhat alienated and kept to themselves). Then there was me.

I have to say looking back now, that this was one of the blessings of Allah. I very much feel like Allah was protecting me from all sorts of things which, had gotten involved in them, could have brought me down later on. For example, I was always in search of a "girlfriend", much like any other typical high schooler. However, whenever the situation presented itself for me to take advantage of, I always found myself overwhelmed with shyness and I wasn't able to do anything, not even move my lips. I am extremely grateful for this now, even if I wasn't then.

Although I hung out with the "Alternative" group, I never really felt like I fit in. They liked to talk about music, trash their friends, and do drugs or some other mindless pastime. I, on the other hand, was interested in the Black Panthers, Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X. This made me look a little odd to say the least and I received more than a few tags as being a "Black wannabe". It was at this time, while in the eleventh grade, that I began to read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the ultimate anti-white leader, or so I was told. I read his book, and the more I read it, the more I couldn't put it down; his story was amazing to me. He came from nothing and then…there he was.

But, it was the chapter entitled "Mecca" that would have the most profound effect on me. In it, he told his story of how he was affected by the generosity and compassion of, not only the Muslims he met while making the Hajj, but also by Islam itself. I read that and thought to myself, "who are these guys?"

So, I went to the school library and started to check out every book that I could about Islam. I was amazed at what I read; here they believed in the same principals I has found so innate within myself. They said that there was only One God, that Jesus was not his son, but a rightly guided Messenger and Prophet. I was taken aback. I knew that whatever this "Islam thing" was, I needed to be a part of it.

At that time I considered myself a Muslim. If you had asked me what my religion was, I would have said Islam. I hadn't taken my official shahada mind you, but in my heart I was a Muslim. I was a bit naïve at that point though. I knew that Muslims were supposed to pray, but I didn't know how many times, or how to pray and so on. I didn't know much, and there wasn't anyone for me to learn from at that point. I was just kind of walking around saying "hey, I'm Muslim".

It was then that I got the jump-start that I needed. A friend of mine got a bit agitated by me saying I was a Muslim all the time (I was a bit over zealous at this point) and said that I wasn't really Muslim. "You don't even pray," he told me. I thought to myself, you know what ... he's right. I knew I needed to take this being a Muslim thing a step further. That's where I ran into a problem.

Who were these Muslims? I didn't know a Muslim or where to meet any. There wasn't exactly a mosque down the block from my house you have to understand. You could have literally found gold more easily than a Muslim where I lived. So, I searched the phone book and came across a mosque in Washington D.C. But, that was unfortunately about two and a half hours away and might as well have been two thousand miles away. When I first called them I was so nervous. Here I was about to talk to a Muslim! They were very pleased by my enthusiasm towards Islam and my eagerness at becoming a Muslim. But, they wanted me to come to the mosque. This would of course be a problem.

At the time I was still in high school and under the reign of my parents, who also controlled my extended whereabouts, especially since it was the family vehicle that I was driving. My chances of getting that car for a trip to D.C. were slim at best. I needed to do this now; I couldn't just sit around for another year or two with this. It was after much prodding that I finally convinced the brother to let me take my shahada right then and there, on the phone. I guess that might have been a first…conversion by phone.

So, that is how I came to Islam. I can truly say now, looking back on the whole story, that I was overwhelmingly blessed by the way Allah guided me to Islam. I look back now and see my old friends from high school and how lost they are. Then I look at myself. I mean I know that I have more than a few rough edges and that I have much improving to do, not only as a Muslim, but also as a person in general. But, I can't help but feel a bit awed that I was guided and that Allah picked me to be guided and out of where? Nowhere.

I feel kind of awestruck when I think of it. I mean, I don't know why, but Allah picked me for this religion of guidance. I feel like I have been saved from the Hell fire and plucked from the ashes. It is this, my being guided to Islam by Allah and Allah alone, that is the greatest blessing that I have ever received."

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

The Story of Sue Watson:

A former Protestant fundamentalist pastor, missionary and Bible College lecturer with a Master's degree in Divinity.

Her contact with a convert to Islam prompted her to seriously investigate Islam


“What happened to you?” This was usually the first reaction I encountered when my former classmates, friends and co-pastors saw me after having embraced Islam. I suppose I couldn’t blame them, I was a highly unlikely the person to change religions. Formerly, I was a professor, pastor, church planter and missionary. If anyone was a radical fundamentalist it was I.

I had just graduated with my Master’s Degree of Divinity from an elite seminary five months before. It was after that time I met a lady who had worked in Saudi Arabia and had embraced Islam. Of course I asked her about the treatment of women in Islam. I was shocked at her answer, it wasn’t what I expected so I proceeded to ask other questions relating to Allah and Muhammad (pbuh). She informed me that she would take me to the Islamic Center where they would be better able to answer my questions.

Being prayed up, meaning-asking Jesus for protection against demon spirits seeing that what we had been taught about Islam is that it is Demonic and Satanic religion. Having taught Evangelism I was quite shocked at their approach, it was direct and straightforward. No intimidation, no harassment, no psychological manipulation, no subliminal influence! None of this, “let’s have a Quranic study in your house”, like a counterpart of the Bible study. I couldn’t believe it!

They gave me some books and told me if I had some questions they were available to answer them in the office. That night I read all of the books they gave. It was the first time I had ever read a book about Islam written by a Muslim, we had studied and read books about Islam only written by Christians.

The next day I spent three hours at the office asking questions. This went on everyday for a week, by which time I had read twelve books and knew why Muslims are the hardest people in the world to convert to Christianity. Why? Because there is nothing to offer them!! (In Islam) There is a relationship with Allah, forgiveness of sins, salvation and promise of Eternal Life.

Naturally, my first question centered on the deity of Allah. Who is this Allah that the Muslims worship? We had been taught as Christians that this is another god, a false god. When in fact He is the Omniscient-All Knowing, Omnipotent-All Powerful, and Omnipresent-All Present God. The One and Only without co-partners or co-equal.

It is interesting to note that there were bishops during the first three hundred years of the Church that were teaching as the Muslim believes that Jesus (pbuh) was a prophet and teacher!! It was only after the conversion of Emperor Constantine that he was the one to call and introduce the doctrine of the Trinity. He a convert to Christianity who knew nothing of this religion introduced a paganistic concept that goes back to Babylonian times. Because the space does not permit me to go into detail about the subject insha’Allah, another time. Only I must point out that the word TRINITY is not found in the Bible in any of its many translation nor is it found in the original Greek or Hebrew languages!

My other important question centered on Muhammad (pbuh). Who is this Muhammad? I found out that Muslims do not pray to him like the Christians pray to Jesus. He is not an intermediary and in fact it is forbidden to pray to him. We ask blessing upon him at the end of our prayer but likewise we ask blessings on Abraham. He is a Prophet and a Messenger, the final and last Prophet. In fact, until now, one thousand four hundred and eighteen years (1,418) later there has been no prophet after him. His message is for All Mankind as opposed to the message of Jesus or Moses (peace be upon them both) which was sent to the Jews. “Hear O Israel” But the message is the same message of Allah. “The Lord Your God is One God and you shall have no other gods before Me.” (Mark 12:29).

Because prayer was a very important part of my Christian life I was both interested and curious to know what the Muslims were praying. As Christians we were as ignorant on this aspect of Muslim belief as on the other aspects. We thought and were taught, that the Muslims were bowing down to the Ka’bah (in Mecca), that that was there god and center point of this false deity.

Again, I was shocked to learn that the manner of prayer is prescribed by God, Himself. The words of the prayer are one of praise and exaltation. The approach to prayer (ablution or washing) in cleanliness is under the direction of Allah. He is a Holy God and it is not for us to approach Him in an arbitrary manner but only reasonable that He should tell us how we should approach Him.

At the end of that week after having spent eight (8) years of formal theological studies I knew cognitively (head knowledge) that Islam was true. But I did not embrace Islam at that time because I did not believe it in my heart.

I continued to pray, to read the Bible, to attend lectures at the Islamic Center. I was in earnest asking and seeking God’s direction. It is not easy to change your religion. I did not want to loose my salvation if there was salvation to loose. I continued to be shocked and amazed at what I was learning because it was not what I was taught that Islam believed. In my Master’s level, the professor I had was respected as an authority on Islam yet his teaching and that of Christianity in general is full of Misunderstanding. He and many Christians like him are sincere, but they are sincerely wrong.

Two months later after having once again prayed seeking God’s direction, I felt something drop into my being! I sat up, and it was the first time I was to use the name of Allah, and I said, “Allah, I believe you are the One and Only True God.” There was peace that descended upon me and from that day four years ago until now I have never regretted embracing Islam.

This decision did not come without trial. I was fired from my job as I was teaching in two Bible Colleges at that time, ostracized by my former classmates, professors and co-pastors, disowned by my husband’s family, misunderstood by my adult children and made a suspicion by my own government. Without the faith that enables man to stand up to Satanic forces I would not have been able to withstand all of this. I am ever so grateful to Allah that I am a Muslim and may I live and die a Muslim.

“Truly, my prayer, my service of sacrifice, my life and my death are all for God the Cherisher of the Worlds. No partner has He, this I am commanded. And I am the first of those who bow to Allah in Islam.”
(Holy Qur’an 6:162-163)

Sister Khadijah (Sue) Watson

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

The Story of Sumayyah


Detroit-based African American journalist and PR woman, Angelene McLaren, has been a Muslim for six years. Upon conversion she took the new name Sumayyah bint Joan. Here she records her encounter with Islam.

​

"Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always had a profound relationship with God. Even though I was raised a Catholic, with all its ambiguities, contradictions and confusion, I did my best to stay God-focused and not to give in to the teachings of the Church, because even to me as a child, they seemed to go against the grain somehow. ​

​

During my high school days, I made a conscious decision to apply myself more thoroughly to my faith. I attended mass twice a day, every day, went to the confessional at least once a week, and did all the ritual practices my priest insisted upon; all in an effort to draw closer to a God. ​

​

The church failed to me to answer all of life’s most pressing questions; who am I, who and what is God, why am I here, and what should be my relationship with this superior being who created the universe? How am I supposed to live my life? Who is my role model, and how should I follow him or her? Why does God need to have a son now, when He was alone in the creation of all that is, and need no partner or intercessor before? My priest was unable to answer my questions, beyond stating that I should have faith, and that it did not all have to make sense as long as my faith was strong enough. This did not satisfy me, and on finishing high school, I left the church and set out on a quest to find the correct way, belief and religion.​

​

I investigated a number of religions in an effort to get rid of this internal emptiness. I practiced Hinduism, Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and in later years even dabbled in White Witchcraft. Now, most people may find this crazy, but you have to understand that I was searching, truly searching, but all these left a void, and just never seemed to fit. ​

​

Then one day my sister came to see me and what I saw took me by surprise. She entered the house with a very long dress and was covered from head to toe. Her hair was covered by an opaque scarf and came over her breasts to right above her waist. After asking her why she was dressed like that in the middle of summer when it’s at least 85 degrees outside, she explained to me that she was a Muslim.​

​

Now of all the religions I looked into, I never thought of investigating Islam, mainly because there didn’t seem to be a lot of information readily available, and because I carried a lot of the Islamic stereotypes in my head, that I now have to deal with in other people. So I left my family and moved to California, still without a religion, or a sound relationship with God.​

​

In the beginning a lot of stereotypes about Islam kept me from studying about this religion​

​

At that point I gave up, and just decided to go with flow, and not worry about it. I did this for two years, and although I found love and got engaged to marry to my college sweetheart; something was still missing. In the back of my mind, there was always that nagging voice that kept telling me that my life was out of order, but I would do my best to ignore it, until one fateful night. Right before I was due to leave California, and return to my home state to be with my fiancé and begin building our lives together, I had the scariest dream I’ve ever had in my life.​

​

In this dream, two very tall men dressed in white were standing at the foot of my bed. As I looked at them, I thought they were either aliens or angels, I wasn’t sure which, but I was very afraid and was trying my utmost to get away from them, but the harder I tried to get away, the closer to them I got. Eventually, we ended up on top of a very high mountain, with a sea beneath us as red as blood and as hot as lava. The two men pointed and instructed me to look into the sea. What I saw will stay with me until the day I die. The sea was full of naked people, being turned over and over, like meat being roasted over a fire, and they were screaming, “Help us, help us!” ​

​

Needless to say, I felt I was getting a fist-hand glimpse of Hell, and I was terrified. I told my fiancé about the dream, and he just laughed and said that I had an overactive imagination, but I couldn’t dismiss it so easily.​

​

When I returned to Michigan, I found out that my other sister, and my cousin had also embraced Islam during my absence. This made me curious, so I asked my sister to give me some books to read, and one of the first was, Descriptions of the Hell Fire. Everything that was in my dream was in this book. I was floored. So I began reading and reading, and going to lectures and asking questions, and the more I learned about Islam, the more my head and heart told me that this was what I was looking for all along. I had made up my mind to embrace Islam, but I had one small problem, my fiancé. He was adamant that he was not going to be a Muslim, so I had to choose between the man I loved, and doing what I knew in my heart was right.​

​

Allah, SWT, says that if you say you truly believe in Him and His Messenger, (peace be upon him), He will test you, and this was my test. Despite the great amount of pain it caused me at the time, I did choose Islam over my fiancé. ​

​

That was almost six years ago, and Allah has since blessed me with a wonderful husband who loves Him and Messenger, and a beautiful son. Allah says for all who truly want guidance, He will lead them from darkness into light; and I know that is what He did for me.​

​

Sumayyah​

​

All the best.​

 

[Cordoba]

The Story of Greg Noakes

"I grew up in Forth Worth, Texas, in a Protestant Christian family.

As a child, our church was an important source of moral values - providing a scale to measure right from wrong and good from evil - but it was not a vital part of either my social or intellectual acivity. Church simply was not engaging for me, and what was taught and discussed on Sunday mornings often appeared to have little relevance to the rest of the week - that is, to everyday life.

When it was time to go to college, I selected the University of Virginia. I have always had a love of history, and looking over the course listings I found an introductory class on the history of the Middle East. I thought this course would be beneficial for me since I had very limited knowledge of the region, I decided to pair it with a foreign language course in Arabic. I had studied French throughout and Arabic was about as big a change as I had been craving for.

As the years wore on, I started getting interested more in my Middle Eastern courses than in architecture. A year later, I switched over to the history department where I concentrated on the Arab world in my coursework and research.

As New Editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs since my graduation from Texas nearly five years ago, I continue to follow events and trends in the Middle East. A few courses in college - and the professors who taught them - literally changed the trajectory of my life.

I was exposed to the teachings of Islam through my classes and assigned readings. The coursework assumed great importance. The more I read about Islam, the more it appealed to me, since I didn't know the faintest thing about Islam. I dug deeper, reading books by both Muslim and non-Muslim writers. What really caught my attention were writings by a handful of authors, especially European Muslim Charles Le Gai Eaton's masterful 'Islam and the Destiny of Man', Fazlur Rahman's overview of the faith titled simply 'Islam' and non-Muslim Marshall Hodgson's three-volume history, 'The Venture of Islam' .

What I found was a religion whose moral teachings closely resembled the values I had been taught by my parents: belief in God, respect for others, truthfulness, courtesy, charity and honor. What was new was the clarity and vibrance of Islam, and the fact that all of these values were integrated into a complete and seamless system. Islamic teachings were sublime, subtle and easy to understand.

I told myself to wait one year, to make sure of my decision and to learn more about Islamic beliefs and practice where my level of knowledge was lacking. Giving Shahadah would be the single most important action of my life, and I wanted to be sure of my ability to live up to that commitment. After some three years of study, research and contemplation, I embraced Islam in the summer of 1989.

The question which always crops up in conversations with Muslims or non-Muslims is, "Why did you convert?". To reduce the beauty of Islam to a series of talking points is clearly absurd; there are a thounsand reasons, small and large, why I became a Muslim. And yet three things stand out for me.

First, the Islamic belief in the Day of Judgement struck a chord deep inside my soul. Every man and woman will be held responsible for his or her actions - and only his or her actions - by a Just but Merciful Judge: Allah. I believe that justice tempered by mercy is the most important value in this world; how could it be any different in the hereafter? We have been provided with the means to discern right from wrong, and the ability to enjoin one while forbidding the other. Our actions and intentions have meaning (in the truest sense of the word), according to Islam.

Secondly, while I find a great deal of similarity between Christian and Islamic morals, Islam resolved a number of theological questions and issues of belief which I found Christianity could not satisfactorily address. Among these are the unity of Allah as opposed to the 'mystery' of the Christian Trinity (which has yet to be explained to my satisfaction by Christian doctrine), the ability of each Muslim to stand before Allah without the intercession of a priest or clergyman, and the whole issue of the language of the scripture.

The Qur'an has been preserved in its original form and the original Arabic since the time of the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) while Isa (Jesus) spoke Aramaic, the Gospel was first written in Greek, then translated into Latin and subsequently into English, French, Spanish, German, etc.

Anyone who speaks two languages and has ever translated from one into the other knows that something is lost in the process; subtle meanings of phrases and the connotations of words are inevitably sacrificed. How then, can one refer to a passage in an English-language Bible and assert categorically that these were truly the words - and teachings - of Isa (Jesus), Musa (Moses) or Ibrahim (Abraham) (peace be upon them all) ? Muslims have direct access to the Word of Allah (SWT), and are able to follow the Message of their Creator in its primordial form.

Since I became a Muslim, my depth of knowledge and understanding of the faith has increased, as has my recognition that I have still only skimmed the surface of the vast body of Islamic teaching, thought and scholarship."

All the best.

 

[Cordoba]

The Story of Crystal Renee​

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"I wanted to share my story with you. I'll begin by explaining to you that I was born and raised Christian. I came from a good home with a wonderful and caring family. ​

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My mother (63) and my father (71) have now been married for 48 years. They are indeed each others best friends in life. I have no sisters and only one brother. My brother is 45 and he is actually a Christian minister (head of the church). This is my family. I am now 31 and still live in the same city which I was born and raised, Evansville Indiana.​

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About 4-5 years ago, I was a very closed up and bitter minded person, (I admit it). I thought I knew it all and I had no desire to see life through others eyes. A typical cocky and arrogant American, I guess. It was at a time when I was in need of a small, part time job. I began looking and sending out many applications, (résumé's or CV's). I was eventually hired to work for a business that was owned by Egyptian people. (very unusual for around these parts!) At first I did not feel comfortable there. Everything and everyone seemed so different, on the surface. I basically just went in, did my job, kept my head down and then left. I really kept to myself.​

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In America, before 9-11, people knew very little of Islam and Muslims. My ignorant ideas were that Islam was a strange—cult like religion full of robotic—crazy people. (I knew nothing of it, really) I was very knowledgeable with Christianity and thought that this was the only true and correct religion that existed.​

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After working there for a couple of months, I started to really notice certain things that began to make me curious. The Egyptians were indeed so different from me, but I was surprised to see that it was "good" differences, not bad ones. I witnessed how they would openly pray in front of everyone. They had so much love and pride for their beliefs and were completely humbled to everything else. I had never even seen such displays of open religion displayed before. No Christians that I knew were this open in front of rooms of strangers, as these Muslim men were. ​

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I was curious to know more. These individuals were so good to people too. There was times when I saw them give food to poor people who could not pay and other times when I saw the Muslim business-owner look out his warm window and walk outside to offer a car ride to strangers standing at a bus stop in the middle of a very cold winter. Such acts like these were very common and was a very crucial part in WHY I became so interested to know more. Why did these people conduct their lives with such humbleness and such kindness? What made them behave so respectfully and so unlike anything that I had negatively heard on the American news and media channels ? WHY?​

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I have to stop here and explain that I had always been a very curious individual. Always had an intellectual-curious side about me. I loved to learn things. At some point, I sought out answers. I wanted to learn for the sake of knowledge. To learn for learning, only. I never intended to convert! I began to buy a few books and study materials on Islam. I kept this very private. Learning of this semi-forbidden religion—(in America)—must stay a big secret for me! None of my friends or family would understand me if they knew I was learning about this. That was my thinking at the time. ​

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I read everything I could get my hands on. All sorts of books and opinions on Islam—(good ones/ bad ones)—I wanted all sides to the story, so to speak. I eventually told one man that I was interested in books on Islam. It was an older, African-American, converted Muslim man that I worked with. His name was Ron but he had took on the name of Lukeman Ali. He was a very nice and caring man and he loved so much to speak clearly to anyone about Islam. He was my friend. One day Lukeman showed up for work and he came up to me with something wrapped in a cloth, under his arm. He spoke to me very softly yet very seriously. He pulled out a book. This was the Holy Qur'an. He gave me certain instructions on how I had to handle this book with the upmost respect, always. I thanked him for purchasing it for me and I went and hid it until I could finish my shift and go home.​

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Everyday Lukeman would quietly take me aside and ask me if I had been reading the Qur'an. I always minimized it, to him. I would make it clear to him that I was only reading it for the sake of knowledge, nothing more! At this point I cannot say to you WHEN or exactly HOW it happened, but it just DID. At some point, I began to change. The more I read, the more I believed. The more I believed, the more I FELT. I was finding so many "answers" in Islam. A whole life of Christianity had only seemed to pose question after question for me. Islam gave me my first look into "answers". It was a practical religion that seemed as more of a guide to human beings. I remember being so amazed at all the similarities. Islam was NOT some crazy, separate religion! It seemed more to be a linked-religion or perhaps a continuation from Christianity. ​

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Most of the beliefs were identical. As an American, I never realized this! I never knew that the word Allah was simply another word for God. I never realized that Allah was the SAME, ONE God that all people worship. Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims… all were worshipping the same, ONE God! The only difference that was separating us from each other is the "path" or the "route" that we take to reach God. With everyone of these religions we see different prophets or "front men"—you might say—different amazing individuals that we must seek in order to take our path to reach the same ONE God.​

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Some of us may believe more in the powers of gifts of Mary, others believing more in the powers of Jesus, and others believing more in the works of Mohammed (peace be upon him). But the similarities were far greater than the differences. We were ALL children of God. All of us seeking the most true and righteous path to serve Him. Before I knew it, I was a Muslim. Initially not through prayer, nor through discipline, no. But I was a Muslim because my heart and my mind knew that I had found the most true answers for me. I could not learn of and hear such guidance and then reject it! That was not an option.​

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My life forever began to change. Looking back now, 4 years later, I now notice so many powerful signs. Lights that guided me along the way. So much kindness from others. Firstly, I was extremely fortunate and blessed to have worked for such a unique and wonderful group of Muslims! They were indeed like a rare, beautiful flower to me along the way, even though neither them nor I realized it, at the time. Secondly, and perhaps most amazing was that, when I first began to look for a job, back then. I had sent out over "45" applications ! That's a lot! Out of all 45 of these applications, I only received calls from 2 business's. The only 2 places that called me in to hire me, also just happened to be the ONLY 2, Muslim-owned business's within 200 miles of my city! I thought nothing of it then. But now, I know 100% that this was meant to happen. ​

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It is a very extreme feeling to know that Allah, Himself wanted to show me the correct way. There are no words to describe."​

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All the best.​