Convert to islam

AZAM_SIDDIQUI

Junior Member
Hilary Saunders
Guardian

Thursday June 20, 2002

The most significant thing I have ever done was in fact incredibly
simple. A little over four weeks ago, in front of two witnesses, I
recited a simple declaration, the shahada. "I bear witness that
there is no God but Allah and I bear witness that Mohammed is His
messenger," I said; and from that moment, I was a Muslim.

Until the very second that I made my declaration, I wasn't entirely
convinced that it was what I wanted to do. Would I wake up one day
and want to change my mind? Would I feel like I had made a huge
mistake? But already I feel as if my life has been transformed. I
don't know how to describe it, but the moment I said those words, my
heart filled with joy and love and it took about four days for me to
come back down off the ceiling. I would almost describe it
as "coming out", because a part of me that has been important, but
always very private, is now out in the open.

The ritual of my conversion may have taken only minutes, but it was
the culmination of a lifetime's quest. My parents are both agnostic -
they don't believe in God, and raised me and my two sisters without
any faith, so that we could make up our own minds when we were
adults. As a child, I suppose I wanted to please my father, and so
tried to mirror his views. But I have always been very conscious
that I was looking for something, and I could never quite put my
finger on what that was. In my darkest moments I have often felt
like a ship adrift at sea, not knowing where to dock.

When I was at college I started investigating faith: I got
interested in a philosophical system called the Work, which actually
took a lot from Islam, although I didn't know it at the time. I was
also investigating various new-age philosophies, practising Buddhist
meditation, and reading a lot of alternative self-help books.

I have had some problematic relationships with men in the past, and
after splitting up with one boyfriend I read Women Who Love Too
Much, by Robin Norwood. I had read it before and had always thought
it was for women who were overly attached to men who beat them up.
But after this reading I thought: I am one of these women, and I
want to do whatever the book suggests. It advised developing your
spiritual life, learning to be less self-centred, and perhaps
getting counselling. That was a significant turning point. I was
also, at that stage, practising reiki, which is similarly concerned
with channelling unconditional love. I was wrestling with the
concept of the divine, trying to find out where I belonged
spiritually. I was definitely a searcher.

And then, suddenly, I found myself going out with a Muslim guy. I
hadn't set out to date a Muslim - ironically, in fact, it was the
result of a drunken night out (I would describe him as a practising
Muslim, but one who made mistakes along the way!). At that stage I
was ignorant about Islam. I hadn't had any Muslim friends when I was
growing up, and my assumptions about the faith were almost all
negative. I thought it old-fashioned, a relic from the dark ages,
and one that was oppressive and authoritarian with regard to women.

My sense that the religion was anti-women was one of the major
sticking points. I wanted my partner to justify some of the
doctrines that I saw as particularly anti-feminist. I went through
all the usual western arguments, citing how the religion was about
men putting women down. How come Islam permitted men to have four
wives?

If I'm honest, it was talking about faith that kept us together for
four years. He would try to answer my questions as best he could,
and refer me to the Koran and the examples from the life of the
Prophet. I started to read, and gradually my questions were
answered, until I realised that a lot of my preconceptions were
basically wrong. In knowing only a little - like the bare fact that
a man can have four wives - I had jumped to the wrong conclusion.

One of the things I came to realise was that, in Islam, multiple
marriages are not promoted, they are tolerated. Sometimes they are a necessity. But there are safeguards: and both the
wives have to be treated equally. If a man is married and for some
reason his wife cannot conceive, he can take a second wife . (On the other hand, if a woman's husband is not able to
get her pregnant, then she can get a divorce.) This seems to me
better than the western way, in which he might get divorced, leaving
the first wife without any support. This doctrine is actually for
the protection of women. It is not about men going out collecting
trophies.

This was the kind of question I would raise, and on each I would get
to the point where I couldn't argue any more. Why did women need the
protection of men - why wasn't it possible for a woman to have
several partners? A woman could not have four husbands, I realised,
because it would be impossible to know who was the father of her
children, and the fathers might argue over who should support the
child. I realise that Islam made so much sense.

A couple of months ago, I split up with my partner, and went on
holiday to Jordan. It was there that I finally decided that I wanted
to convert. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but somehow the
penny dropped. It is such a beautiful, amazing place to be; just
watching how people interacted with each other, and the call to
prayer - it really moved me. So when I came back, I enrolled on a
three-day course at Central mosque in Regent's Park, north London.
At the end of the three days I decided it was the right time to make
my declaration.

I made a number of good friends on the course; indeed, most of the
Muslims I know well are converts. More people convert into Islam
than you might think - approximately 10,000 of Britain's 1.8m
Muslims are white or African-Caribbean converts.One of the problems
for us is that, since we haven't grown up in Muslim communities,
forming relationships can be difficult. In Islam you do not date -
you don't have boyfriends or girlfriends and move on after a few
years. Instead, someone from your extended family, who knows you
from childhood and who knows Joe Bloggs down the road from
childhood, will think: those two would really get on. They help you
to find the right person so that you can enjoy a happy marriage.

I can see that there are practical problems in how this might work
for me. But I am hugely excited about getting married and I believe
that I will find, inshallah, a nice husband. I have wrestled with
the idea of whether I could share my husband with another woman - I
have always thought that I was far too jealous and insecure to be
able to cope with that. But one day I woke up and it dawned on me:
the women who are in multiple marriages must feel so loved and
cherished - by their husband, but also by God - to be able to cope.
I am aware, however, that it is possible that some marriages might
be unhappy - we are fallible human beings, after all.

Since my conversion, I have chosen to abide by the Islamic code of
dress and wear the hijab. The hijab is about modesty, not showing
off, not trying to attract the opposite sex, and avoiding causing
envy. Islam advises both sexes, not just women, to dress modestly.

I felt quite nervous about putting it on at first, wondering what
people would think. But then I told myself that I had made a
commitment and that this was the public sign of it. I feel a lot
safer now that I am wearing it; I have more self-respect. Now I know
where I belong.

--The Guardian online
 

AZAM_SIDDIQUI

Junior Member
Getting to Know a Friend

By Yahiya Emerick

My best friend from childhood was a mixed Lebanese/Polish American
boy. I met him when I was around ten years old. I knew he wasn't a
Christian because every year for a month he would do something he
called "fasting Ramadan." All I remember was seeing him and his
brothers lying all over the couches in their living room, looking
like they were suffering, while outside the beach beckoned and play
enticed. As we grew a little older we did things we thought were
risky. One summer we began to sneak out of our houses after midnight
and meet on a hillside overlooking a lake to talk about life,
religion and what it all meant. Sometimes we would walk the roads in
our subdivision and talk about the stars. It was an awe-inspiring
practice that brought our friendship to a new level and evoked in us
a sense of grandeur.

One night my father found that I wasn't in my room and when I
returned, I found him sitting on our front porch. I could tell it
was him because I saw the faint glow of a cigarette ahead dimly in
the darkness. I knew I was in trouble. He called my friends parents
as well. The next day we both traded stories of how much beating we
received. I guess our parents thought we were sneaking out to do
drugs or something. Many youth in our community did so it was
understandable. My father just didn't listen when I told him that we
were just walking, sitting, talking and musing over life. The late
night excursions were abruptly halted.

The deep discussions with my friend did not, however, abate, but
grew in intensity. He was by no means a righteous Muslim teen. He
did all the things that any other teen growing up in America with
little supervision did, but unlike his two younger brothers, and his
own father, he had a greater interest in the concept of Islam,
though he knew precious little about it. I, too, was something of an
expert in nothing in particular, at least where religion was
concerned. I went to church with my grandma for years. I attended
innumerable Sunday schools classes, youth camps, prayer meetings,
etc… But my simple Baptist dogma lacked force and applicability and
I merely followed along as a good boy.

Eventually my friend and I began to discuss religion more
thoughtfully. It wasn't high level, by any means, for he was the
only quarter-practicing Muslim in twenty miles and I was an average
Christian with little Christian enthusiasm. It was fun, nonetheless,
to compare ideas and what he said made me think, though I was sure I
would win the arguments with a smug `my-dad-can-beat-up-your-dad'
kind of confidence.

High school came and went and my friend and I drifted apart a little
as the new realities of life intruded themselves upon us. He went
off into the up-and-coming world of computers and I followed my
dream and went to a distant college to study Spanish, Tourism,
Political Science or whatever my fancy of the moment was. I looked
for religion on campus because though my Christian faith was not
fervent, I did pay attention on church all those years and avoided a
shameful way of life. I wanted to `fellowship' with others who also
shunned evil (rock music, drugs, alcohol, illicit relations, etc…).

While I was still settling in I got another taste of interfaith
religious discussion. Campus preachers from the evangelical
Marinatha organization stood outside of one particular college hall
every Wednesday and drew great crowds with their fiery calls to
Christ. Most of the students gathered in the wide circle listened
politely, while a few just jeered and yelled. (I could never imagine
someone insulting a worker for Christ!) But after a few weeks I
noticed an older man, who looked like a professor, listening
intently to the handsome young preacher, as he stood on a stone
bench, crying about salvation and repentance. Then one day it
happened: the evangelical made a statement about calling Jews to
Christ as well and this old man virtually came to life. He walked
into the center of the huge ring of perhaps eighty students and
began tearing everything down that the preacher said.

He explained that he was a Jew and that Christians didn't have the
right to use `his tribal literature' (i.e. the Old Testament) for
their own interpretations and theology. The debate was fascinating
with the old Jew disarming every Christ-centered point with a
counter verse that the obviously startled preacher tried to posit.
This then became a ritual every Wednesday. The preacher, who was
joined by four or five other helpers to work the crowd, would begin
talking and drawing a crowd of passersby and the Old Jew would come
and harass him to no end. It was then that I finally realized that
Christianity was not an invincible fortress, incapable of being
shown to have weaknesses.

Well, I had to give that old-time religion another chance so I,
strangely enough, went to talk to that preacher after his `show' was
over. He seemed nice enough and he invited me to come to one of his
campus ministry meetings the next night. I agreed and as I walked
away, the strangest feeling that I ever felt came over me. As I was
passing under a tree my entire body went numb for a moment and I was
literally racked with a heavy sensation. I couldn't' move,
literally. My chest caved in and my lungs felt as if they were
wrapped in iron. I've never told anyone this part of my story but I
still think about it. The moment passed almost as quickly as it came
and I immediately took it as a sign that God was pleased with me.

The next night I went to the appropriate building and entered a huge
lecture hall that the Christian students group had permission to
use. I stood in the back for a second and surveyed the scene. Before
me, on a stage below, was the preacher, joined by about twenty
others, all about my age. Behind him was a band set up with guitars,
drums- the works. I had an uneasy feeling immediately. I sat down in
a back seat and watched as more students came in, male and female. I
tried to remain hopeful and full of faith but my demeanor was
shattered when the preacher began to `jam' on the guitar. A moment
later the band was in full rock and roll glory, the only difference
was that they were saying `Jesus' instead of the more usual rock
music themes. The growing crowd of forty or more people gathered in
front near the stage and were clapping and saying `hallelujah'.

The church I grew up in taught that this kind of music was from the
devil and here was a Christian group trying to woo faith in its
members by modifying a contemporary form of expression that it
otherwise would have shunned. I felt disgusted and left. I later
reinterpreted my physical `sign' as a warning.

I took the opportunity of living away at school to broaden my
horizons and I began to read oriental philosophy books. This was a
natural offshoot of my interest in martial arts. I principally found
the works of Lao-Tzu the most appealing and after a while I
considered myself something of a Taoist. There was just something
about that whole `wind in the trees', `be like the great
nothingness' that sounded cool. Continuing my newfound spirit of
exploration, I enrolled in a beginning Arabic course for no other
reason than I thought it would be fun to say a few Arabic words to
my friend's dad when I returned home for the summer.

Well, it would become a life changing class for my eyes were opened
to a whole new syntactic expression. I really felt as if learning to
write Arabic, as difficult as it was, was making me smarter. I felt
like a code breaker or something. The class was also full of Muslim
immigrants and people sympathetic to Muslim culture. Not that it was
a proselytizing class or anything. The instructor was obviously a
disillusioned Muslims turned agnostic who thoughtfully questioned
the validity of any universal truth in our frequent open class
discussions. But the charm was in being able to learn about Islam,
Arabs, Muslims and all of it in a completely neutral setting, with
no pressure to convert. (The four or five Muslims present were by no
means fervent believers.) I also saw diversity. There was a
Pakistani, a couple of Arabs, a few Caucasian non-Muslims and a very
dear Irish-Muslim who made me feel as if the world was truly much
bigger than my white, suburban experience.

I returned home for Christmas break and was amazed to find my friend
in a new frame of mind. He had recently become more serious about
Islam in my absence, even as I began to drift further and further
away from a mere habitual loyalty to Christianity. It wasn't solely
due to college that I fell out with the worship of Christ, however,
for as early as the age of fifteen I felt uncomfortable with the
teachings of my faith. I couldn't understand how God could be a
father and a son simultaneously or how Jesus could be God when he
was obviously praying to God all the time in the Gospels. Anyway, my
friend decided to share his newfound verve with me and he gave me a
Qur'an to take back with me to college with the words, "Just read it
with an open mind."

I took the Yusuf Ali translation with me when I returned and didn't
open it for over a month. Then one day, bored with the meaningless
banter of my fellow dorm-mates, I opened the book and began reading
in a random surah. I don't remember which passage I was reading but
I can tell you that I was immediately struck with awe and
wonderment. The Qur'an was completely unlike what I had expected,
indeed, it was unlike anything I thought about any religious book.
Up until then my only experience had been with the Bible. It is a
jumble of histories, biographies, songs, letters- quite a
smorgasbord really. Reading it is like reading a novel or
encyclopedia- it's all third person stuff obviously written for
different peoples with no coherent structure.

The Qur'an, however, was presenting itself to me as an essay, a
letter addressed to me. The verses rang out with first and second
person grammatical structures that addressed "O you people, if…,"
and "I am your Lord so worship Me." I wasn't prepared for such a
personal address and I felt a sudden kinship and tie to the Qur'an
that kept me reading it, night after night for the next several
weeks.

The questions began to stir in my mind: where did this book come
from? Why haven't I seen it before? That was when I really began a
desire to know who Muhammad (p) was. I didn't have any knowledge of
him prior to my Qur'anic readings as he wasn't really covered in my
public school education so I had to literally learn how to properly
use a reference book and the local college library. The first place
I looked was in the front of the Yusuf Ali translation where he gave
a moving, almost prosaic rendition of the story of his life. It was
beautiful, though cryptic, for I was not yet versed in the worldview
from which Muslim thought is originated. The library came next. Now
that was an adventure in itself as I came face to face with the
great debate about the validity, or impossibility, of Muhammad's
being a true Prophet of God. In the second part of this article I
will let you know what I found, and it was really quite an amazing
journey into the last five hundred years of Christian-Jewish-Muslim
dialogue.

Getting to Know a Friend: My Introduction to Muhammad (p) Part 2

The Michigan State library is really quite a cavernous place. Set
near the middle of the campus, it is an imposing structure of glass
and stone that also includes several basements. The object of my
search, the Islam section, was on one of the higher floors,
thankfully. I remember passing the huge Judaica section and I almost
missed the Islam selections altogether, so few books were there. At
that time there were perhaps only enough books to fill up one and a
half bookshelves and almost all of those books were bound in that
drab green and blue covering that libraries frequently clothe books
in to protect them.

Starting with general books on Islam, I picked a couple by Western
authors and took them back to my dorm to read. The first book was by
Watt and the second was by Arnold. Neither of them painted an overly
flattering picture of the Prophet, though they didn't seem overly
critical either. I learned the basic story outline of Muhammad's
life and got a grasp for the type of world he lived in. The account
of his life seemed pretty straightforward and the parameters of his
environment rang slightly in my mind as almost Biblical. He lived in
a harsh desert among heathen idol-worshippers. He shunned the
immorality of his times and was rewarded later in life by being
chosen by God to bring his people to monotheism. The seemingly
insurmountable struggle against overwhelming forces and the sheer
ignorance of the Bedouins is an epic in itself.

I found that my initial assumption, that Muhammad wrote the Qur'an
himself, began to fade rather quickly. In fact, that notion was all
but gone a few days after I first started reading the Qur'an. It
just wasn't the sort of book a person who had author-like tendencies
would write. I had already read the Bible through and through, both
the Jewish Old Testament and the Greek-Latin leaning New Testament,
as well as several selections of Eastern religious writing and the
Qur'an did not have anything in common with any of those types of
writings. The Bible is essentially a third person narrative of
events interspersed with personal reflections by the authors and an
occasional song, poem or essay on one subject or another (usually
concerning laws, Israel, philosophy or commentary on events that
were current at the time of that particular passage's writing. The
Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, the Sutras and other Buddhist/Taoist
writings are basically high order philosophical conundrums to tease
the brain. While the Ramayana and other Hindu scriptures are
basically fantasy stories of gods and wars interspersed with oddball
talk of nothingness and nirvana and such.

The Qur'an, I found was none of those, and after carefully
considering where Muhammad lived, it became increasingly apparent to
me that an illiterate in the desert doesn't suddenly come up with
such a book out of nowhere, a book that grew with him over 23 years
and had such a tone about it as to make one feel that it was a
higher being talking to you. Even the structure was quite unusual
for me to explain as well. This is where the notion that the Qur'an
is just a poor knock-off the Bible really gets dismissed. The Bible
tells stories in chronological order and rarely gives any moral to
the events. The Qur'an, on the other hand, rarely tells the complete
story of an event in one place, but scatters episodes of it all over
the place in different chapters to illustrate moral lessons.
Extraneous details such as the names of everyone's cousins, what the
maid was wearing, who begat who to the thousandth degree and what
size the grapes were are all thankfully absent with only the main
events of each story told and their moral significance.

For example, I found that the story of Moses is contained in over a
dozen chapters of the Qur'an, interspersed with other topics. In
this way, the heart of each story is given just enough life to join
with other parts of each chapter to render a completely unified
moral imperative as the result of one complete essay. Looking at
chapter 28 of the Qur'an, we find that the first 42 verses tell a
basic outline of Moses' life, but then a discussion of the
significance of God's revelation follows for the next few verses,
moving over into times contemporary to Muhammad, asking why his
tribe obstinately would reject such an important gift from God (i.e.
guidance). Then objections from unbelievers are answered, followed
by a snapshot of their fate on Judgment Day. An appeal is made to
seek God's forgiveness before a return is made to Moses' story, this
time centering on Korah (Qarun), one of Moses' people who rejected
faith in God. The chapter ends with a discussion of punishment and
reward for our faith and actions concluding with a few words to
Muhammad directly not to give up and to always serve the one true
God.

Nearly every chapter in the Qur'an is set up this way. I remember
reading a book by a Christian Evangelist, also taken from the same
library, in which he accused the Qur'an of being disjointed and
confused in its structure. After seeing the structure for myself I
realized that that author must have been so used to the linear
approach of the bible that he couldn't appreciate the style employed
in the Qur'an, a style I couldn't find duplicated elsewhere, even in
novels and memoir writing.

I still didn't convert, however, because I didn't know one could do
such a thing easily. I still felt unconsciously that one had to be
born into Islam and that's just the way it was. Undaunted in my
investigation, I continued to read and among the most fascinating
books I borrowed were the hadith books, those books that contains
Muhammad's sayings. I thought it amazing that you had a revelation
from God (the Qur'an) and a whole other corpus of teachings spoken
from Muhammad's own volition. The hadith provided a fascinating
glimpse into the real world dealings of the Prophet. From simple
sayings to entire conversations with others, one could read about
Muhammad through his own life experiences. As a side note I also
began to read about Muhammad's companions, or Sahaba, many of who
narrated their own biographies. Yet another angle allowed me to get
to know this man further.

With Jesus, you only have the gospels. You don't have any other
writings, save for Acts, in which to read about Jesus for the early
church banned hundreds of other biographies of Jesus, simply because
those sometimes clashed with the Greek/Roman Trinitarian view. There
was a Unitarian view prevalent in the Middle East, where Jesus
lived, but the Greeks and Romans, under the influence of a converted
Rabbi named Paul, turned the one God into a three-in-one God.
Ironically enough, I already began to doubt the gospels when I was a
teenager. You see, in my Baptist church read the Bible a lot. And I
developed an image of Jesus, from reading the Gospels, that was
different from God Al mighty. Jesus just wasn't God to me and the
Gospels never gave me that impression. Then, one day during the
regular service, the pastor proclaimed proudly that Jesus is God. I
was completely at a loss to fathom such a thing. Who was Jesus
praying to all the time then, himself? Why would God have to die to
forgive us? Couldn't he do it otherwise? How could God spend three
days in Hell? The Old Testament never spoke of a three-in-one God.
If it were so important, wouldn't it have been mentioned before?
Although I remained a Christian all through my teens, I didn't have
as much loyalty to Christian theology after that.

Momentous change occurred when I signed up for the next level of
Arabic classes, and also took a class on Islam. The professor was a
non-Muslim academic who gave a dry presentation on Islam, mostly
covering history, but it gave me the impression that my high school
and junior high education was defective. Here was a whole world that
I don't ever remember being covered. Maybe it was sandwiched between
the China and Japan units in sixth grade or something, but it seemed
to me that I was not properly educated about a major world
civilization. Meanwhile, in Arabic class, I began to make friends
with a few of the people in there. One was an elderly Irish Muslim
lady who told me of generations of Muslim Irishmen living in a small
village in the countryside. Another man was an American student who
was enamored of Middle Eastern culture, yet another was a foreign
exchange student from I don't remember where.

I began to ask questions about Islam to them, even to the professor,
whom I knew didn't follow it, just to see what he said. His answers
were dry and lifeless. Someone must have hurt him in his life or
something for him to be so bitter and dead inside. But the students
I befriended were jovial, relaxed and level-headed. Nothing like the
only images of Muslims I had seen heretofore on television during
the Iranian hostage crisis.

After a while, I somehow began to feel like Islam was good for me. I
continued to read books written by Muslims and non-Muslims and after
balancing the arguments it seemed that Islam was reasonable and
built upon a foundation I could believe in. Now, of course, one
doesn't convert to another religion just like that. In my readings I
intentionally looked for anything I could to object to. Women's
rights, for example, popped up. I had heard that Muslims don't treat
women well. I couldn't find anything in Islamic sources, however, to
justify it, and I realized that if bad things do happen to Muslim
women, it can't be blamed on the religion. After all, how many women
are beaten, raped, murdered, used and slandered by men with
Christian names, all of it against Christianity?

It was about this time that I realized that there was a difference
between what a religion says and what its followers do. The great
parallel for me is today, where the whole world seems to be blaming
Islam and Muslims for the World Trade Center, when the attack was
the work of fifty guys at most whose main grievance is the Palestine
issue and the U.S. army in Arabia. It's like blaming Christianity
for Timothy McVeigh, the Holocaust, the Inquisition, wiping out the
American Indians, abortion bombers and so on. All the perpetrators
are or were Christians, acting out of Christian motives, but were
are the American leaders saying Christianity is a "vile"
and "wicked" faith. Why aren't the Jews waging war on Europe to this
day for the Holocaust? Why aren't they blaming all Christians for a
thousand years of murder? That's how upside down our world is and
how ignorant Americans are of Islam and the Muslim world. A religion
doesn't attack another country, people do, and if it was only a
small fanatical group, you don't blame everybody, (but
fundamentalist Christians and Zionists have taken this short-sighted
opportunity to turn world opinion against all of Islam to "win souls
for Christ" and expand Israeli control of the occupied territories.)

It was this new found sense of tolerance that I developed which
allowed me to consider Islam with a truly open mind. Previously I
had allegiance to Christianity, then I drifted towards Taoism, but
by that time I considered myself without a religion, or vaguely a
Christian at best. Muhammad seemed to fit the mold of a prophetic
figure. He was kind whenever he could be and stern in the face of
falsehood. He never taught people to worship idols and even his
enemies testified to his nobility and honesty. He wasn't a poet
before but suddenly at the age of 40 he began to recite what he
called revelations, words that are structured unlike any book I've
ever read. He triumphed against odds that were nearly impossible to
attain and he taught a noble and good way of life centering on
prayer, fasting, reflection and good deeds. He also was undeterred
in his belief that faith in the one God was the most important thing
to have. Even the morals are of the highest standard.

What could I do? After about six months I asked the Irish Muslim
lady about a mosque and she introduced me later to a Jordanian man
who graciously agreed to take me to the Islamic Center of East
Lansing. Of course, it was Friday, the busiest day of the week, so I
was very scared when we went in. But the man, sensing my unease,
took me into a side office and showed me how to perform the basic
movements of the Muslim prayer known as Salah. It felt really weird
at first to bow with my forehead on the ground, but it quickly
seemed like such a natural and pure way to reverence the Creator.

Later, during the full prayer service, I felt a sense of awe, seeing
hundreds of people sitting quietly on the floor, listening to a
sermon that was thankfully in English. After the speech was finished
the people lined up in even rows to pray in unison and I remember
distinctly feeling like this was superior to sitting on comfortable
cushions in church. During the prayer service itself. when the
Muslims declared, Ameen, after the Imam recited the opening verses
of the Qur'an, I was stirred to the roots of my soul. Such power, I
thought, and it only comes after relinquishing all your will to God.
I decided that night that I was a Muslim, or a person who surrenders
their will to God. My journey for faith was over, and a new life
with a new Prophet, a new friend, was just beginning.

http://www.islamicedfoundation.com/revert.htm






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No God but Allah
Assalamo alikom

I just read the first post and it is really good. I'm always fond of reading about converts. Jazak Allah khair for sharing it. :)
 
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