Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Another leaf :) |
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| se7en |
| 07/24/01 at 18:47:03 |
| as salaamu alaykum wa rahmatAllah, this was sent to me by a brother named [email=diar100@yahoo.com]Diar Wadud[/email]. May Allah reward and guide him. :) Bismillahi arrahman irraheem Assalam alaikum warahmatollahi It was in March of 2000 that I decided it was no longer possible for me to live a non-Muslim lifestyle. It is the spiritual growth that preceded the mouthing of the Shahada that I am here to share with you, in the hopes that you may find therein some form of inspiration. Indeed, it’s only now that I can objectively view the intense voyage that most of us go through as lost entities struggling to find our way back to the strongest rope that is Islam. And I notice now something I hadn’t noticed before: that there always were subtle and not-so-subtle signals that pointed to the noblest lifestyle. All I needed to do was stop to listen, and this tiny act was possible through the will of Allah. Brief History Religion was never a big part of our family life. My father is a non-practicing catholic Christian and my mum is non-religious. At the age of 14 I openly rejected the existence of God. The Christian based dogmas that public schools teach children, through non-religiously formed staff, did not make sense and I felt it was useless to real life. What little spirituality I felt after that I quenched with meditation; I joined new-age groups and put my faith in The Universe. God, I thought, was the fabrication of collective hallucinations. None of the great minds I read like Marx who said, “Religion is the opium of the people” and Huxley, who was an evolutionist, inspired me to follow any traditional religious path. It just seemed backwards, `ull and of purely intellectual value, for the sake of speaking intelligently. Without going into details, I became a person I did not like. And of course the lack of any religious teaching of virtue and nobility prevented me to know what exactly it was I did not like, as well as who it was I wanted to be. I was caught. At the age of 18, I isolated myself. Slowly I began to drift away from my former lifestyle although not from my mentality. I still did not believe in God, but looking back now, this period was the foreshadowing of the events to come. Awake! One My mother has a habit of telling me her dreams. She always follows her narration with analysis and prediction. One morning, In the Spring of 1999 she came to me with a dream that, to this day, she considers to be the most amazing prediction ever. She was back home in Argentina, by a pond, in the sun. Birds were flying overhead. A few birds came down to the wet sand and walked around, sticking their beaks in the sand, something seemingly very casual. When they flew away, someone told her “read”. She answered by saying “ I can’t read this, they’re bird scratchings”. Again she was told to read, and again she responded in the negative. A third time she was told to read, but when she started to try to decipher the scratchings, the voice was heard saying: “you must read starting with the right”. Actually, we didn’t know what her dream could mean. I didn’t know anything about Arabic, then, nor about Islam, other than the regular clichés. I was aware that Urdu is read from right to left, and I told her that, but our conversation ended quickly and we did not talk about it again for a long time. Awake! Two Only a few months went by before it was summer and I became very close with a Muslim friend of mine. We never talked about religion. I never considered her to be Muslim, actually, I never paid attention to that. God wasn’t on my mind; I had other more important things to think about. A very mysterious character came into our lives, that summer, and disappeared, just as mysteriously. During the time of our friendship, we only learned his name, where he was from, what he did and where he lived. We lost track of him, but I eventually found something he had given me, that I had tucked away without a second thought, and without the intention of ever setting my eyes on again. It was a book. It wasn’t a very attractive book, but it was brief, and sufficient to pass time. It was entitled “Four Basic Qur’anic Terms”, by Abdul Ala Maududi. It discussed what terms like Iman and Deen meant, but quite frankly, it was too advanced for someone who knew nothing about Islam. I read it, retained very little and went on with my life. Awake! Three In late August, I went on a trip with my mum to NYC. What happened there was unexcpected and was a major turning point. One night, as I was falling asleep, tired and lonely and pretty sad for some reason, I started asking God to make me strong and good and right, and other such requests directed to God. When I finished, I became embarrassed. This was the first time I was admitting belief in God. I thought all night about what I had done, and came to the conclusion that, I cannot deny that the belief in God is the most natural thing in a human being, and that, whatever convictions I had before were social conditioning, and completely artificial. I had crossed from on side of the river to the other, and there was no turning back. Although at this stage I wasn’t interested in adhering to organized religion, I felt the need to learn more about what this God I believed in was like, because the logical step after believing in God, is learning how to worship Him. Awake Four In Fall I started university, uncertain of where I was headed. I took a religion class, whatever could fit in my schedule, where I learned about Judea, Christianity, some Goddess cult from Western Palaeolithic Europe versus patriarchal Sun God Cults which eventually ravaged the former, as well as feminist movements based on it. I took Oriental Philosophy where I learned the basics of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Zen. Nothing lingered in my mind like that rapidly read and poorly understood book I still had not returned to the mysterious acquaintance. I tried to get some info on the net, but nothing seemed to make sense; I lacked the basics. I read as much I could, to no avail; so many questions came to mind, it was unbearable. I became sick. I did not eat or sleep and my grades took a plunge. I did not attend class and slept in the library. I had not spoken to anyone about this growing angst, especially because it was of such enormous calibre. I felt I must deal with it alone, but eventually it was too much. I had the desire to travel out East, learn first hand about Islam, but knowing so little about everything regarding Islam and the countries where it flourished frightened me. One day, after waking from a long nap at the library, I resolved to ask a non-Muslim friend his opinion. It turned out he did not really have an opinion about the deal, but this nevertheless turned out to be the most important phone call I ever made. Coins I only had a quarter’s worth of coins on me. I went to a phone booth and put the coins in but before I was doing that, the phone rejected them and I got an extra coin, a coin I thought was an extra quarter. I put my change in again, and again they were rejected and I got another quarter. Finally I put my quarters in and dialled my friend’s number, but I finished the conversation quickly when I looked more closely at my coins. They weren’t quarters, and I couldn’t read what it was. I got big shivers. When I hung up I went to the computer lab and sat in the first vacant seat. I casually looked over to the screen that was occupied beside me and became happy, because the writing on it looked like the writing on the coins, excusing me to the gentleman, I took the coins out of my pocket and asked him what language it was. What was it: it was Arabic. SubhanAllah, that was enough. After that, I concentrated on religious studies, especially about Islam, and eventually only about Islam. I sought to meet with someone who could answer my questions. I call him the doctor from Saudia. We met in Ramadhan, and it was only a few months after that that I realized everything I was learning made perfect sense. The balance between the intellect and the soul is beyond statement, everything I wanted to be, I found in the Muslim character. Alhamdulillah. Conclusion To tell the truth, I feel that coming to Islam was so completely natural; I still have trouble understanding why it is so fascinating to Muslims who were born in it. And I think that it is because of this natural comfort in it that I haven’t encountered problems with my non-Muslim environment. People can feel that one is at east and at peace with one’s convictions. In all, I think it is important to remember that a Muslim, regardless of whether his parents were Muslim or not, is a Muslim only by choice and that what I have told you today is no different from the billions of stories similar to mine of people who, after tripping over it several times, finally took hold of the strongest rope that will never break. Allah indeed guides whom He Wills. |
| Re: Another leaf :) |
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| Asim |
| 07/24/01 at 23:13:23 |
| wlm SubhanAllah, that is an amazing story, really beautiful. The brother summarized it nicely in the conclusion. Yes one sign of a Muslim is that when they trip they don't lose track but instead tread firmer and hold tighter. [quote]I think it is important to remember that a Muslim, regardless of whether his parents were Muslim or not, is a Muslim only by choice and that what I have told you today is no different from the billions of stories similar to mine of people who, after tripping over it several times, finally took hold of the strongest rope that will never break. [/quote] |
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