ChebbaTan
Junior Member
Assalam Waleikum,
I’m a young woman from Portugal who seriously began researching on Islam about 3 months ago in order to satisfy an old curiosity due to friendship with 2 Muslim classmates some years ago and a new interest raised by my personal experience with good examples of Muslims abroad last year in Belgium.
I was raised in the Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrines and I become one of them when I was a teenager because I was persuaded their organization was “the Truth” as they call themselves, and I accepted their religious orientation from the so-called Governing Body supposed to serve as an intermediary between God and humans. I will not explain all of their doctrines here, but you can always search for an already existent one here on TTI about JW which I found very complete and it was written by a Muslim – what is important because they go door-to-door preaching to people about their religion and they only try to convince you about it while they refuse to learn about your religion – especially if you don’t use the Bible! – they even have some booklets trying to use the Quran against Muslims.
I will not complain here in details all the disappointment and how uncomfortable I’ve always felt in their organization, nor will I expose here every single doctrine that they changed or create to support other lies. Instead of complaining about the past, I must recognize the good moral values I was raised in and which became part of my personality as a sincere follower of this lame organization. However, my personal experience, though and solitary, made me lose the fear of thinking by myself and I began to analyse the basis of my beliefs and some of the most important didn’t make sense anymore according to the Bible. After realising this I felt huge indignation and disappointment which resulted in a path of mental confusion and lack of inner peace: I didn’t know what else to believe, I began to question and to doubt even the good beliefs. Even worse, I tried to convince myself that some of my values were not important or good, such as those related to swearwords and occult. I began to use swearwords with some friends and that is being something quite hard to quit, but I will completely give it up one day inshaAllah. Also, I began to involve in astrology and paranormal issues just until I found the purity of the best path for Mankind – Islam. However, after being exposed to several temptations when I lived abroad alone, I later realised that I only resisted to sin because my values are a part of me, I can’t get rid of them even if I wanted, and the best I’ve done was accept and be proud of them – and especially after finding Islam I’ve been very grateful to God for preserving me from worse sins and from a dangerous path apart from Him.
Despite some Muslims are not good examples, the most part really tries to follow their religion unlike western societies which degradation is so big that I find it hard to cope with the disgusting behaviour of people around me – it really upsets me! That is why I feel so great among Muslims and the image I’ve of Muslim countries is not the image of repression and conflict, on the contrary, it is an image of happiness, serenity and refuge from the perverted ways of hypocrite so-called Christians societies to which values are something old-fashioned. I never felt so integrated in my entire life as I did abroad, Muslims treated me as if I was one of them – even after they discovered I was from a different religion and race – I felt protected and I observed and learned a lot from their humble and strong attitude. I wish one day I’ll have the strength and inner peace I observed on Muslim women – I really admire them. Until then, I will learn as much as possible in order to build a strong faith so that I can face shunning and decide taking my shahada – I learned from previous experience that it is crucial to analyse a religion and thoroughly understand its sense before you accept it and not simply just accept the conclusions others made, you must make your own conclusions and not allow others to force them.
As I’m learning about the Islam, it has been amazing to find a faith that recognizes the roots of Judaism and Christian faith – not the today ones who are no longer according to the initial messages from God – and now I’m feeling a great joy to be able to correct some beliefs (eg: the role of Jesus, the nature of sin, the idea of Hell, the right of humans to go to Heaven, etc.), while keeping other beliefs (eg: the refusal of Trinity, the refusal of images to worship, etc.). It has been wonderful and enriching to understand the Islamic perspectives on subjects such as: human life, marriage and charity deeds.
Furthermore, I’ve been learning about the glorious Islamic past of Al-Andaluz (my country corresponds to the Al-Gharb Al-Andaluz), and the inheritance to Iberian cultures is bigger than what I’ve imagined because Catholics always tried to denigrate the image of the Moors and to hide the facts about their great civilization! I’m here on TTI to learn more and more, and soon I’ll post new threads in order to meet your opinions and a clearer point of view on some subjects alhamdullilah.
I’m very happy for being here on TTI and I hope we’ll all learn with each other,
Salaams,
I’m a young woman from Portugal who seriously began researching on Islam about 3 months ago in order to satisfy an old curiosity due to friendship with 2 Muslim classmates some years ago and a new interest raised by my personal experience with good examples of Muslims abroad last year in Belgium.
I was raised in the Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrines and I become one of them when I was a teenager because I was persuaded their organization was “the Truth” as they call themselves, and I accepted their religious orientation from the so-called Governing Body supposed to serve as an intermediary between God and humans. I will not explain all of their doctrines here, but you can always search for an already existent one here on TTI about JW which I found very complete and it was written by a Muslim – what is important because they go door-to-door preaching to people about their religion and they only try to convince you about it while they refuse to learn about your religion – especially if you don’t use the Bible! – they even have some booklets trying to use the Quran against Muslims.
I will not complain here in details all the disappointment and how uncomfortable I’ve always felt in their organization, nor will I expose here every single doctrine that they changed or create to support other lies. Instead of complaining about the past, I must recognize the good moral values I was raised in and which became part of my personality as a sincere follower of this lame organization. However, my personal experience, though and solitary, made me lose the fear of thinking by myself and I began to analyse the basis of my beliefs and some of the most important didn’t make sense anymore according to the Bible. After realising this I felt huge indignation and disappointment which resulted in a path of mental confusion and lack of inner peace: I didn’t know what else to believe, I began to question and to doubt even the good beliefs. Even worse, I tried to convince myself that some of my values were not important or good, such as those related to swearwords and occult. I began to use swearwords with some friends and that is being something quite hard to quit, but I will completely give it up one day inshaAllah. Also, I began to involve in astrology and paranormal issues just until I found the purity of the best path for Mankind – Islam. However, after being exposed to several temptations when I lived abroad alone, I later realised that I only resisted to sin because my values are a part of me, I can’t get rid of them even if I wanted, and the best I’ve done was accept and be proud of them – and especially after finding Islam I’ve been very grateful to God for preserving me from worse sins and from a dangerous path apart from Him.
Despite some Muslims are not good examples, the most part really tries to follow their religion unlike western societies which degradation is so big that I find it hard to cope with the disgusting behaviour of people around me – it really upsets me! That is why I feel so great among Muslims and the image I’ve of Muslim countries is not the image of repression and conflict, on the contrary, it is an image of happiness, serenity and refuge from the perverted ways of hypocrite so-called Christians societies to which values are something old-fashioned. I never felt so integrated in my entire life as I did abroad, Muslims treated me as if I was one of them – even after they discovered I was from a different religion and race – I felt protected and I observed and learned a lot from their humble and strong attitude. I wish one day I’ll have the strength and inner peace I observed on Muslim women – I really admire them. Until then, I will learn as much as possible in order to build a strong faith so that I can face shunning and decide taking my shahada – I learned from previous experience that it is crucial to analyse a religion and thoroughly understand its sense before you accept it and not simply just accept the conclusions others made, you must make your own conclusions and not allow others to force them.
As I’m learning about the Islam, it has been amazing to find a faith that recognizes the roots of Judaism and Christian faith – not the today ones who are no longer according to the initial messages from God – and now I’m feeling a great joy to be able to correct some beliefs (eg: the role of Jesus, the nature of sin, the idea of Hell, the right of humans to go to Heaven, etc.), while keeping other beliefs (eg: the refusal of Trinity, the refusal of images to worship, etc.). It has been wonderful and enriching to understand the Islamic perspectives on subjects such as: human life, marriage and charity deeds.
Furthermore, I’ve been learning about the glorious Islamic past of Al-Andaluz (my country corresponds to the Al-Gharb Al-Andaluz), and the inheritance to Iberian cultures is bigger than what I’ve imagined because Catholics always tried to denigrate the image of the Moors and to hide the facts about their great civilization! I’m here on TTI to learn more and more, and soon I’ll post new threads in order to meet your opinions and a clearer point of view on some subjects alhamdullilah.
I’m very happy for being here on TTI and I hope we’ll all learn with each other,
Salaams,
