:salam2: ,
This is a story of how one of my class mates in India reverted to Islam around 14 years ago.
I used to study in a residential school in the south Indian city of Madras, now called Chennai. The school was a muslim owned and muslim managed school, Students were only allowed to go out of the school campus once a month, The school had a mosque where most students used to pray five times a day. around 90% of the school was muslim. Although the muslim students were provided a somewhat religious environment, for the non-muslim students and staff, it was a completely secular atmosphere.
For the entertainment of students, movies were screened once a week on the weekends. Me and some of my religious friends, got the approval to show some Islamic Videos after the screening of the movie. We, initially started with Sh. Ahmed Deedat's videos. Once, we were screening the video titled "From Hinduism to Islam," where shaikh Deedat, explains about a lot of illogical things in the Hindu Religion.
After the screening of this video, some of my immature friends started openly criticising Hinduism to their Hindu friends. This became a small issue because, some of the hindus started criticising Islam in return. I therefore instructed those invovled in the criticism to stop the criticism of hinduism. It was during this time that one of my classmates whose name was Senthil Kumar, although not a practising Hindu, and almost an atheist, but of good character, started criticising Islam just as retaliation for some of my friends immature behaviour. My friends were not well informed to counter his allegations and I had to step in.
I followed a very nice approach and changed the whole thing into a friendly exchange of thoughts instead of a confrontation. Slowly and steadily I started presenting Islam to him, taking special care not to offend him in anyway. Our discussions and arguments continued for almost a year, It was not easy to convince him, since he was of a scientific bent of mind, and always required rational proofs of my claims.
Slowly, people started seeing some change in him, He started advising muslim students when he found them doing anything un-islamic. He started waking his muslim friends for fajr prayer. His hindu friends started to say that he has gone crazy and did strange things alone in his room when we muslims went to the mosque to pray! When ramadhaan came, he started fasting ! all this was surprising to us, because he never claimed nor accepted that he is either interested in becoming a Muslim, or has already become one !
Time passed and one fine day he asked me to teach him how to pray ! I told him that it was not necessary for him to pray unless he is absolutely convinced that he want's to become a Muslim. And that too, prayer will become compulsory only after he has recited the Shahadah ! He came back a second time, and again asked me to teach him to pray ! I told him the same thing again ! It was then Alhamdullilah, that he confided in me that in his heart he had accepted Islam quite sometime back ! Subhanallah !, I then told him to think about it seriously, and also mentally prepare himself for the potential social and family problems. Then if he is convinced, he should say the Shahadah and start living the life of a normal muslim.
He came back after a few days and informed me that he has thought it over and decided to say his shahadah! That night, Me, and 2 other of my friends accompanied him to the school mosque, in secrecy ( For we were not sure of the reaction of the school authorities) and he recited his Shahada in front of me and 2 of my close and religious friends.
The next day, to the surprise of all the school, students and teachers, we proudly accompanied him to the Maghrib prayer where his conversion became public.
He went on to become a very good muslim, married a muslim girl and has two children by now. ( May be three now, I am not sure
):ma: He is trying his best to convey the message of Islam to his parents and I request all of you to pray for his success in this dawah act !
Wasalaam
This is a story of how one of my class mates in India reverted to Islam around 14 years ago.
I used to study in a residential school in the south Indian city of Madras, now called Chennai. The school was a muslim owned and muslim managed school, Students were only allowed to go out of the school campus once a month, The school had a mosque where most students used to pray five times a day. around 90% of the school was muslim. Although the muslim students were provided a somewhat religious environment, for the non-muslim students and staff, it was a completely secular atmosphere.
For the entertainment of students, movies were screened once a week on the weekends. Me and some of my religious friends, got the approval to show some Islamic Videos after the screening of the movie. We, initially started with Sh. Ahmed Deedat's videos. Once, we were screening the video titled "From Hinduism to Islam," where shaikh Deedat, explains about a lot of illogical things in the Hindu Religion.
After the screening of this video, some of my immature friends started openly criticising Hinduism to their Hindu friends. This became a small issue because, some of the hindus started criticising Islam in return. I therefore instructed those invovled in the criticism to stop the criticism of hinduism. It was during this time that one of my classmates whose name was Senthil Kumar, although not a practising Hindu, and almost an atheist, but of good character, started criticising Islam just as retaliation for some of my friends immature behaviour. My friends were not well informed to counter his allegations and I had to step in.
I followed a very nice approach and changed the whole thing into a friendly exchange of thoughts instead of a confrontation. Slowly and steadily I started presenting Islam to him, taking special care not to offend him in anyway. Our discussions and arguments continued for almost a year, It was not easy to convince him, since he was of a scientific bent of mind, and always required rational proofs of my claims.
Slowly, people started seeing some change in him, He started advising muslim students when he found them doing anything un-islamic. He started waking his muslim friends for fajr prayer. His hindu friends started to say that he has gone crazy and did strange things alone in his room when we muslims went to the mosque to pray! When ramadhaan came, he started fasting ! all this was surprising to us, because he never claimed nor accepted that he is either interested in becoming a Muslim, or has already become one !
Time passed and one fine day he asked me to teach him how to pray ! I told him that it was not necessary for him to pray unless he is absolutely convinced that he want's to become a Muslim. And that too, prayer will become compulsory only after he has recited the Shahadah ! He came back a second time, and again asked me to teach him to pray ! I told him the same thing again ! It was then Alhamdullilah, that he confided in me that in his heart he had accepted Islam quite sometime back ! Subhanallah !, I then told him to think about it seriously, and also mentally prepare himself for the potential social and family problems. Then if he is convinced, he should say the Shahadah and start living the life of a normal muslim.
He came back after a few days and informed me that he has thought it over and decided to say his shahadah! That night, Me, and 2 other of my friends accompanied him to the school mosque, in secrecy ( For we were not sure of the reaction of the school authorities) and he recited his Shahada in front of me and 2 of my close and religious friends.
The next day, to the surprise of all the school, students and teachers, we proudly accompanied him to the Maghrib prayer where his conversion became public.He went on to become a very good muslim, married a muslim girl and has two children by now. ( May be three now, I am not sure
):ma: He is trying his best to convey the message of Islam to his parents and I request all of you to pray for his success in this dawah act !Wasalaam
