|
When
one writes about something as personal as this, the difficulty
lies in separating fact from wishful thinking and not allowing
what you wanted to observe in hindsight to overshadow what really
happened. I have
always enjoyed sharing the personal story of my journey to Islam.
It represents for me one of the first major decisions I
made in my life once I was old enough to make life decisions.
It is a story that at times I was not sure was going to
turn out all right, but in the end (and the end is only so far in
my life) it has been happy.
The
first time I encountered Islam was in a 6th grade
textbook for global geography.
It would take the continents one at a time and go over
major issues within them as well as the history behind the current
states that made up a particular continent.
When we were studying Asia, it simply mentioned in no more
than a paragraph that a man named Mohammed started his own
religion and his followers conquered most of the Middle East and
North Africa in the following years.
That was it; it was the last time I was to come into
contact with Islam until I got to high school.
During my high school years, I was fortunate enough to be in the
same classes as my friend Jamal, who I later learned was a Muslim.
At this point, I was very certain of my Catholic beliefs.
I was even considered, on account of this, an excellent
candidate for the Priesthood, something that I was rather
enthusiastic about. Jamal
and I used to engage in constant debate about our two faiths and,
although I did not always agree with him on the issues, I always
admired his methods of arguing and the way he believed in what he
argued. This is
something I came to notice of many Muslims once I got into
constant conversation with them: there was something about the way
they believed in what they talked about that one could not fake;
it was something very genuine.
Towards the end of my junior year and beginning of my senior year,
however, things began to change in my life.
Little by little, I began to question the principles that
before I had never thought I would doubt.
In my senior year especially, I did a tremendous amount of
reading in ancient Greek philosophy and religion.
I began to feel as if my Christian beliefs were more in
line with this ancient religion than with what I needed in the
modern world to deal with everyday issues.
Even more than that, the concept of the Trinity, the basis
for Christianity, became to me something I could not rationally
accept. Once I knew
in my heart that I could no longer accept the Trinity, and could
not therefore accept that Jesus was God, it became imperative for
me to seek out more knowledge and to seek the truth.
I began something that so many Americans go through on a
daily basis, something I like to call ‘religion shopping.’
When people begin to ‘religion shop’ they usually start by
reading vast amounts of literature about the different religions
they are interested in as well as meeting members of those
religions. For me it
was simpler than that; I had already ruled out a few options by
virtue of one or more beliefs I had and planned to stick with.
I did not want another sect of Christianity (although I
considered briefly some more distant sects that did not worship
Jesus as God, but in the end there were still too many problems
for me with staying in the folds of Christianity).
Hinduism was out of the question because for me it had many
of the same problems that caused me to leave Christianity, the
most critical of which was the belief that God and man could be
one. I was not really
interested in any of the Eastern religions either.
This left only two religions open, and since I was not
Jewish it narrowed it down further.
It left Islam.
As I have said before, my knowledge about Islam at this point was
shamefully negligible. I
had the regular American beliefs about what it was, namely about
terrorism, subjugation of women and the likes, and had done
relatively little reading of anything that might counteract those
beliefs. So I did the
only thing I could do in the situation, I went straight to someone
who I thought could answer questions about the religion.
On one of the major highways near my house there is a
mosque that stands out on the side of the road since it has a
decent sized minaret as well as a dome.
I would say it looks very alien to the landscape because it
is the only mosque in the nearby area and one cannot miss it as
you drive by. That is
exactly where I drove my car that first fateful Monday evening in
what I was to find was the hour before Maghrib began.
Other than knowing that one had to remove one’s shoes before
entering the mosque, I knew nothing else about what to do or even
what to expect inside. I
had dressed properly, and by that I meant I had worn long pants
and a conservative shirt with long sleeves; these were things that
I figured would be acceptable in a house of worship.
I heard someone in an office towards the main prayer area
chanting in a low voice and peaked my head inside the door to find
the Imam of the mosque reciting Qur’an.
As I turned to go away he broke off and invited me to come
in and have a seat. I
made it very clear right away that I was not a Muslim, but that I
felt I had such a lack of knowledge about Islam that I owed it to
the religion – if to nothing else – to find out what it was
all about.
One of the people I always say has a special place in my heart is
Imam Chebli because he really helped me understand Islam and what
it meant to be a real Muslim.
Even that first day he was extremely helpful, he invited me
to watch a prayer so that I could see exactly how Muslims worship
(another first for me) and afterwards introduced me to several
members of the community who were more my age.
This group of people was to be critical in the next six
months as far as my spiritual development was concerned; they were
also the ones I requested to be present when I finally took my shahada.
After several months, I found myself being drawn to Islam on many
levels. It appealed
to me on the religious level because it was rooted in the
traditions I was familiar with, namely it was a religion of
Ibrahim and had similar prophets and laws.
It also appealed to me on the social level because it gave
clear and concise directions on how the community should be
constructed and run, and how this social interaction was critical
toward a just and righteous society.
It also appealed to me on the practical level because it
did not require anything radical of me as far as my beliefs and my
day to day acts were concerned.
After six months, I told my friend Siddiq that I felt I was
ready to take shahada and complete the journey I had
started when I first got my courage up to visit the mosque.
Of course, the main people missing in this narrative so far have
been my parents. I
was raised a Roman Catholic, and both of my parents were
churchgoing if not overly zealous Catholics.
When I first told them of my interest in other religions,
they treated it as I presented it to them: something purely for
educational purposes. They
did not object to me going to the mosque or hanging out with
Muslim kids because they were certain that I was solid in my
faith. However, when
they finally realized that I was beginning to consider Islam
seriously that attitude changed.
They began to ask more questions about where I was going
and with whom, and began to consider whether to place restrictions
on me in that regard. The
final blow was when I told them that I was a Muslim; that I no
longer wanted to practice the faith in which they had brought me
up.
Like most Americans, and most non-Muslims in fact, they knew very
little about Islam. They
knew that Muslims were from the Middle East, that they were
terrorists, that they had lots of oil and that was where it
stopped. My cousin,
who was a Born-Again Christian, did not help the situation since
she constantly told my mother that I had joined a cult that was
destined for hell. She
constantly placed Islam in such a bad light when talking with my
parents that they tried to get help for me through the Church
because they were convinced that I had been brainwashed.
I knew that things had reached a low point when I found a
book about children and cults hiding in our study.
All I could do was try to reason with them and tell them
that I had no intentions to go off and become a terrorist or leave
the house. I have to
admit that the first few years of being a Muslim were not the best
for me because I was living in a house with people intent on
“converting me back” to the truth.
My two younger brothers were the only ones who supported
me, even though they were not really open to the idea of becoming
Muslims themselves. They
still fought on my side by telling my parents that I was old
enough to make my own decisions and that if this is what I wanted
to believe, then they should just ‘give me a break’ and let me
believe it.
After a few years, my parents began to realize that this was not a
fad. My life had been
improving under Islam for I was avoiding the things that got many
of my friends into trouble. Although
they still thought that I was a bit crazy, they respected my way
of life and actually asked me questions about Islam when they were
curious or when a friend of theirs would ask about it.
It made me happy to think that the same people, dedicated
only a few years before to making my life miserable enough to turn
me back to Christianity, were now asking me what they could do to
make Islam easier for me in the house, such as not cooking during
Ramadan until after the sun had set so that I could eat with the
family. It affirmed
my belief that by doing good and constantly asking Allah to make
things easier for me, things would eventually turn around for the
best. It was not
easy, especially in the beginning, but in the end things came
about in a positive manner.
So now as my seventh Ramadan approaches, I can sit back and
reflect on the long journey that took place to get me to this
point. Am I a perfect
Muslim? Of course
not. Do I ask people
such as my parents to take me as an example of what Islam should
be in a person? Never.
But I am growing every year as a better person and my
knowledge is increasing. I
find that being a Muslim is something that I am not only proud of
but also eager to tell other people about
|
