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I
converted to Islam about 21 months ago. My journey to Islam was a
long one that spanned over more than 2 decades.
ALL-AMERICAN
BOY
Allah
is a permanent reality that works in the lives of those who hear His
message. Not having a personal relationship with my Creator tugged
at my heart and mind for nearly two decades. Then, I discovered
Islam. I would not be considered in the West as a stereotypical
Muslim. I believe the popular Western stereotype of a Muslim male is
something like the following: dark skin, dark hair, bearded,
Middle-Eastern or Asian descent, dressed in modest clothing and
possibly a head covering. No, I’m the complete opposite of this. I
am in many ways the epitome of the “all-American boy”:
blond-hair, blue-eyed, corn-fed Protestant/Christian background.
However, Islam and Muslims take on many faces, many backgrounds,
many cultures, many nationalities and many tongues. Our family moved
a few times in my youth, but my world was limited to the heart of
the “Bible-belt” in Augusta, GA, and Spartanburg and Greenville,
SC—all fairly large communities, but all offered little in
religious diversity. I had normal, loving, God-fearing
parents—they are still happily married today after more than 30
years—and one younger brother. I grew up as a “PK” (for those
of you outside of Protestant Christianity, I was a “preacher’s
kid”). My father was a Southern Baptist minister for more than 25
years. As you can imagine, for the first 18 years of my life, I
attended church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night
and any number of other nights that the church lights were on. I
grew up believing in God and Jesus, or, should I say, fearing God
and Jesus. Like most adolescents, I was afraid not to believe in the
religion of my parents. However, something was wrong. I can recall
thinking, even at age 10, “this Jesus’ story just doesn’t make
sense to me.” Even at this young age, I didn’t accept the
divinity of Jesus and the notion of Christian salvation (i.e., Jesus
dying for my sins). As all my church friends were getting saved,
baptized and confirmed during their pre-teen and teenage years (this
all seemed like more of a rite of passage than a sincere decision
for most, or just the popular thing to do), I quietly sat in the
church pews questioning the fundamentals of Christian theology. My
parents, my church-friends and the various churches my father
pastored throughout my childhood all prayed for my salvation.
Then,
one Sunday night, I sub-came to the pressure. I was 12 years old and
my family was at the First Baptist Church of North Spartanburg (in
Spartanburg, South Carolina). After a fiery sermon, which obviously
moved a lot of people, my father came to me and said, “Son, do you
want to ask Jesus into your heart? It’s about time you do so.”
Tired of all the solicitations, tired of all the “Scott, we’re
praying for you,” tired of always feeling like the one who
didn’t belong, I lied to my father and said, “Yes POPS.” That
night, I repeated after my father and supposedly accepted Jesus into
my heart. I was presented to the church as a new Christian, baptized
and immediately became part of the Christian community; although, I
was very empty inside. For the next 5 years, I put on the charade of
a good preacher’s kid. I attended Bible studies, went on summer
mission trips and even had a couple “saves” (individuals
becoming Christian) contributed to me. This was all under the veil
of a big lie—that night when I was 12 years old, the night that I
supposedly became a Christian myself—I never asked Jesus in my
heart. True, I went through the motions, but it meant nothing to me.
When
I graduated high school and it was time to go off to college, I only
thought of one thing: religious freedom. I viewed the opportunity as
the chance to move away from my parents and explore the religions of
the world. I moved about 70 miles away from my parents to Rock Hill,
SC, enrolled in Winthrop College and majored in religion. However,
moving from one part of the “Bible-belt” to another part of the
“Bible-belt” didn’t help my search. Rock Hill was a smaller
town than I grew up in and there were even more churches per capita.
Once again, the only religious diversity was in the form of what
favor of Christianity you wanted for the week. I did manage to run
across a couple freethinking religion professors that mentored me in
exploring religion. If anything, they pointed me to many different
sources to satisfy my quest. I rarely pushed the envelope of my
comfort level and only ended up exploring different forms of
Christianity. During the two years I spent in little Rock Hill, SC,
I attended Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Pentecostal and many
non-affiliated/community churches. It would not be until another
couple years before I would experience non-Christian religious
expression.
Beyond
the “Chosen People” Vision
Unsatisfied
with the lack of religious diversity, I left Rock Hill, SC for the
University of South Carolina in the state’s capital of Columbia
(metro population: half-million). I thought, “Surely I can find
other religions in city this size.” Once again, I majored in
religion. While in Columbia for the remainder of my undergraduate
degree, I became extremely interested in Judaism, but not on a
spiritual level, but rather, on an academic level. I was attracted
to the Hebrew language. I took more than 4 years of a combined Bible
and Modern Hebrew and excelled at reading the original scriptures
and reading Jewish prayers. In fact, because one of my professors
was a local rabbi, I even taught 6-grade Hebrew school for a term
(to this day, a decade later, I can still read the Hebrew texts). I
was very involved with Judaism in Columbia, SC, but much like
Christianity, it’s fundamental beliefs seemed empty to me. Inside,
I asked questions like, “If the Jews are considered God’s
‘chosen people’—where does that leave me? While at the
University of South Carolina, I was exposed to a glimpse of Islam. I
took a class entitled “Islamic Institutions and Traditions.” It
was taught by a non-Muslim who had taught university in Egypt, so he
seemed to be an authority on Islam but the class did little for me
other than provide a good textbook background for me. Half the class
consisted of Muslims, so I think the class’ integrity was kept in
check. Half way through the class, I did visit the local mosque and
witnessed salah (prayer) for the first time. Although I didn’t
understand—what seemed like an impersonal approach to prayer and
worship—I was impressed by Islam’s simplicity and humbleness
(e.g.: prostrating before almighty Allah) in prayer and worship. My
brief encounter with Islam, both in a college class and my visit to
a mosque, planted a seed that would grow for the next ten years.
After my undergraduate studies, I went out into the workforce. For
the next 5 years, I withdrew from religion and became what I
considered to be agnostic. I knew there was a one God, however, I
didn’t know a lot about Him. For me, Christianity and Judaism did
not address the issue of the proper worship of one God. My
professional positions took me all across the United States where I
finally settled in Fort Collins, Colorado. After waking up day after
day to the beautiful mountains, prairies and expanses of Colorado, I
began to question the concept of “God” again. How could there be
so much beauty and order in the world and God not intimately reveal
Himself to mankind? I began to recall the religious experience I’d
had over the past 10-15 years. I looked at Christianity and said
“No.” I still could accept the Jesus theology. I looked at
Judaism. Again, “No.” I couldn’t live with the Jewish customs
and belief in a “chosen people.” Finally, I began to look at
Islam. My impression of Islam was a combination of several things.
It consisted of the one class I took in university, my one visit to
the mosque in Columbia, SC, and then the media (I’ve now
discovered that the U.S. media does not accurately display Islam). I
began researching the fundamental beliefs of Islam. I decided to
strip away the stereotypes and examine exactly what Islam is all
about. After some study, I found the following:
1-Islam
has the strongest declaration of monotheistic faith of any religion
(I said to myself, “check, I agree”),
2-the
belief that God has no partners (again, “big check”),
3-the
belief that God has revealed Himself many times through prophets and
messengers and His message has been confused and distorted by man (I
always had a hard time believing parts of the Bible and its
interpretation, so “check for now”),
4-that
Islam is not just a religion, but an entire way of life (very
appealing, “check”).
Reading
the Qur’an
After
reading about Islam, I set out to inquire a little deeper. I set out
to find a Muslim. At the time of my inquiry into Islam, I was
working in a very large company with more than 1000 employees. I
thought, “Surely there’s a Muslim or two that would be willing
to answer my questions.”
My
search did not take long. I met a kind, quiet Muslim man named
“Hani.” I approached the man and told him that I wanted to learn
more about his religion. The first thing Hani recommended was
reading the Qur’an, the revelation of Allah to His Prophet
Muhammad. Hani even gave me a Qur’an (In fact, the small
Arabic-English Qur’an that Brother Hani gave me is still one of my
prized possessions. Hani inscribed in it the following words that
continue to touch my heart: “May Allah guide us to the right
path.” I began reading the Qur’an and to my surprise, it made
sense to me. Coming from a Christian background with a good
understanding of Jewish history/theology, the Qur’an connected all
the dots for me. It confirmed so many doubts I had about Judaism and
Christianity, and provided the roadmap that I was looking for. After
reading only part of the Qur’an, I said to myself, “I believe in
this. I should be a Muslim.” But what would my family say? What
would my friends say? What would my coworkers think? So, for months,
I kept my feelings quiet and continued to study Islam silently. I
began to read more books, subscribed to Muslim email lists,
purchased Islamic videos and even began memorizing the prayers. Out
of all the aspects of Islam that I observed, the prayer impacted me
the most. Like the worshipers I saw in the videos, I too wanted to
bow down and prostrate myself before my Holy Creator. Finally, after
more than eight months of inquiry with my friend Hani, he must have
sensed I was ready to take the next step.
In
early January 2001, he invited me to the Islamic Center of Fort
Collins (Colorado). It is where more than 1000 Muslims in Northern
Colorado go to pray and worship. He invited me the Fajr prayer
(before sunrise). At that time, it was around 6:15 a.m. You can
imagine what I was thinking: “God, you want me to get up before
6:00 on a cold Colorado winter morning and go worship you?” I
recall not sleeping too well the night before. I felt like I was
being called to do something. I made it down to Islamic Center and
met up with Hani. When I went in, I was instructed to take off my
shoes in the vestibule. I walked through a large communal area and
Hani showed me the area that Muslims perform wudu, the washing and
purifying of one’s body before going before Allah. Hani and I then
went into the prayer area. The prayer area was a large, simple,
quiet room. There were many books, mostly in Arabic, on several of
the walls, and the room seemed to point in one direction (the
direction to the Ka`bah in Makkah, or the first house of worship to
Allah). When we walked in, there were 6-7 Muslim men praying. For
the second time, I saw again in-person what I had seen only in
videos—worshipers bowing before their Creator—but with anew
understanding after all the careful reading I did. It sent chills
down my spine. I too wanted to worship as the men before me. The
familiar call to prayer, the Adhan, was called and Hani asked me if
I wanted to pray. I nervously said, “Yes!” Hani said, “Just do
as the rest of us do.” And for the first time, I prayed and
worshiped Allah as He commands. I didn’t know all the words or
their meanings, but it had a powerful impact. After the prayer, Hani
asked me if I would like to become a Muslim. Again, I said,
“Yes!” I had already practiced and said the Shahadah dozens of
times, and on that cold morning on January 3, 2001, at around 6:30
a.m., I said it in front of those Muslim men. Al-Hamdulilah (Glory
be to Allah), I became a Muslim.
The
moment I said “La ilaha illaAllah Muhammad Rasooul Allah” (There
is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah) in front of
those men, I felt a huge burden lifted from my heart. I felt
liberated from my search. For the first time in my life, I knew the
Truth—the Truth of Allah. It’s now been over a year since I
became a Muslim. Has it been easy? Not always. Have I had struggles,
setbacks and doubts? Absolutely, I’m human. However, the past year
has been the best of my life. Allah has blessed me beyond belief.
I’ve had a peace about me that is indescribable. And although I
can’t really describe how it feels, I know where it comes
from—it comes minute-after-minute, hour-after-hour, day-after-day,
trying my best to follow Allah’s true Deen (religion, way of
life). My peace is knowing that Allah has revealed the Truth to me.
To my Muslims brothers and sisters and all non-Muslims, may Allah
guide us all to the right path.
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