:salam2:
Reading over everyone's stories is really moving :mashallah: Thank you for sharing something that can be quite hard to articulate and something so personal!
My own story isn't that much different but I'll share anyhow.
I was born and raised in Scotland in a small countryside community outside Edinburgh. My mother is French, a very open-minded and cultured world traveler :mashallah:, and my father is a rather introvert, kind and generous Scotsman alhamdulillah. There was a short phase in primary school, I was 5 or 6, when I started drawing crosses on my bedroom wall and praying to Jesus etc. My mum quickly put a stop to it, thinking I had been brainwashed by the school pastor! Asides that, religion had never been a part of my life, and I had never been exposed to Islam until I went to Egypt with my best friend Rania. She was not practicing at the time and we were not exactly surrounded by the most righteous of environments in high school! We went with her father to visit their family, I must have been 13 at the time, and had my first encounter with Arabic - Islam was not a big factor in my eyes at the time.
After that I fell in love with the Arabic language - I went to Morocco for a school trip a year or so later and just lapped everything up about Marrakech and the Atlas mountains.
The whole time, though, I was lost, falling into depression and low self-esteem, running away from school, causing problems between my parents and an array of other nasty things :astag:
I pray everyday that Allah SWT forgives me for this.
I left home at 16 to go to an alternative college in Gloucestershire, England. During this time we went on a trip to the Sinai desert to help reconstruct mountain gardens that a few Bedouin families had left in ruins to go sell coca-cola to tourists in Sharm-el-Sheikh. Again, it was more the language that intreaged me, but the desert had a lasting impact on me - a whisper of a promise of peace and calm wrapped up in a sense of something much bigger than you or I and our petty little worlds. The whole college helped me a lot in some ways, but it did not rid me of some black spots in my heart and I ended up falling into a trap of depression and self-hate, knowing the bad things I had done and not seeing any salvation.
In brief, with all that emotional baggage, I then decided to go to Montreal (Canada) to get a univeristy degree and to perfect my poorly acquired French. I studied Womens Studies and Arabic for two years until I almost ripped out my hair from an overdose of feminist rhetoric lol and changed into Public Policy and Community Affairs, finishing off my Arabic degree this year
When I first arrived I still did not believe in God and thought religion an interesting but dangerous (i.e wars were because of religion, sickening self-righteousness etc.) thing. I then made friends with some christians who actually seemed like good people! Wow! So, I listened and my curious nature led me to read some of the bible and go to their church. Lovely community of people who softened my heart to God. My mother, no doubt traumatized by my earlier episode with Jesus and crosses, thought I was being brainwashed by an evangelical sect and freaked me out quite a bit (I hold my mum in high esteem and we are VERY close). I still read books about religion, spoke wth my friends, but took some distance from the church and ended up taking a course on Islam - when you study Arabic it's bound to come up, as another sister said on this forum!
I had never believed that Jesus was God, or his son, my rationality screamed against its flawed logic, so I knew Christianity was not a truth I could abide by sincerely. I began reading the translation of the Qur'an and had gotten to know a few Muslims, men and women, who were at varying degrees of practise, some born, some reverted.
I ended up meeting the man of my life in December 2007 in the midst of all this. I was still drinking and doing other destrcutive things, which I would regret and cry over after. He kept holding me accountabl to the actions that werent matching my words. I kept praying to God (this had been an uncomfotble transition for me as I wasnt used to making du'a even though I felt the need) to show me the best way. Naturally a rebel (in the non-glorified sense of the term), it took me a while, around 6 months, for my actions to catch up with my beliefs. The summer of 2008 was a turning point as i returned to Scotland and France to visit family and friends, and tried to rectify some of my wrongs. I did my second Ramadan that year and it began in turmoil - should I do it, should I not, am I Muslim, am I not? In the end, it was a choice I only realized later on... I had been Muslim for a while without even realising... it was so natural for me, it fitted so well with what I knew and what I felt was right that I had just slipped into it. It took me until October 2008 to finally realize my choice and say "I am a Muslim". I said the Shahada infront of a witness, made ghusl and prayed my first two rakaas. It has not been a clear path for me so far, it took me a while to pray consistantly 5 prayers a day, I still have some black spots to clean out and I still pray for more courage to face up to many friends and family who still do not know I am Muslim. I want to wear hijab, it just breaks my heart that I am still too scared to do it.
I married in December 2008, to the man who I had fallen in love with prior to embracing Islam
and he has been the strongest pillar of support, a true blessing and gift from God
I am still in the midst of straightening out my actions and bahaviours to fit those of a Muslima, to be a good servant to God SWT, a good wife, a good daughter and a good friend, God willing. Hearing everyone's stories here encourages me to know that it is not always an easy path and everyone's is different - some people are transformed in a day, some are sure from a revelatory dream, some are slower on the uptake, and others still question and search for their peace in Islam.
Thank you again to everyone to shared, and to those of you who took the time to read!
m3a salama
:astag:
well i did not want to know about religion for a long time,it was at this time i met my husband now ,he told me he was from afghanistan a place i had never heard of as for muslims i thought they were all from a certain country
he was so kind and differnt from other men i had met in the past he had a lot of respect for me and was so kind to my children ,we married in registry office and slowly he taught me about islam through his actions subhanallha, i will tell you how i reverted to islam soon inshallah have to go now