The Story of My Conversion

I came to Islam after a long process of soul searching and philosophical reflection. I had long been an atheist, smugly confident in the ability of science to solve all of life’s problems and to guide humanity into a new age of reason and enlightenment. Coupled with this belief was a belief in social justice which was crucial to my conversion. I set about exploring the world’s religions (even majoring in Religious Studies for a time), examining Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism. As a manifestation of my search, I became a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis in the spring of 2002. They were a welcoming spiritual home to seekers such as myself. I also attended meetings of the Baltimore Ethical Society, a religious organization deeply concerned with social justice. This concern for justice lead me to investigate and take a stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I concluded that, regardless of whatever misdeeds certain factions have committed in their struggle, the Palestinian cause is altogether just and worthy of support. I became involved with a group of students on campus who were engaged in activism on this issue and met a number of people whose friendship I value to this day. As the storm clouds of a war against Iraq began to gather on the horizon my comrades and I organized to prevent it. Alhamdu lillah, we established a strong anti-war presence on campus and attended many protests together. Many of my new friends were Muslim and, as I was engaged in my spiritual quest at this time, many of our discussions concerned religion in general and Islam in particular. Their vision of the deen was nothing like the stereotypes I absorbed from the surrounding culture. While I was raised to abhor racism, my atheism caused me to be extremely suspicious of religious people of any stripe and I was quick to judge nearly every religion by its worst adherents. My friendship with my Muslim comrades broke the chains of suspicion and prejudice which had bound my soul and forced me to confront the realities of my own dogmatism. I was not yet convinced that Islam was the truth, but the path was open for me to consider the evidence objectively and critically. I continued my study of religion and read as much as I could about Islam and the Muslim world. I even took a course on the history of Islam in Africa. I began to recognize Islam as the perfect religion. It combined the pure monotheism of Judaism with the universal appeal of Christianity while outdoing both of these religions on their strongest merits. In addition it combined the historicity of the western religions with the mysticism and eternal quality of the eastern ways of life. Above all, it presented a system of belief which was rational, an ethical structure conducive to the attainment of the highest ideals of human conduct, and an existential relationship with the Creator which answered all of the most deeply felt needs and desires of the human soul. But still I hesitated. When Ramadan came in 2002 I participated in the ‘Fast-a-Thon’ sponsored by the campus Muslim Students Association. The experience of fasting was quite new to me and gave me a chance to reflect on the utter dependence of human beings and other living things on their creator. I almost said the shahada that night, but again I hesitated. I became very ill that winter with a high fever and a throat that felt like it had been shredded by and then laced with glass. I was crying out to God in desperation and I found myself admitting that Islam was the truth, that Muhammad (SAW) was indeed the Messenger of God. I began saying the shahada (or what I recalled of it from my studies) over and over again and, alhamdu lillah, the pain subsided. Even then I would not believe and, after I had recovered, I attributed my actions to fear and delirium. It was the Iraq war which finally forced me to acknowledge my Rabb and to begin to practice the deen that he had established for me. We had worked so hard to prevent this massive, cynical, and blasphemous destruction of human life and had failed. I was utterly despondent, utterly lost, and filled with rage as I watched the bombs tear Baghdad, a center of civilization for thousands of year, apart. I realized how futile so many of our petty human struggles are, how in vain our desires unless there were greater destination than the grave. This inner conviction gave me the strength to acknowledge on a personal, existential level what my rational self had realized some time ago: that Islam was and is the truth, that there is nothing worthy of worship, nothing divine accept Allah (SWT), that he is one without partner, and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah (SAW) is truly his messenger. Soon afterwards I went to the local Islamic Bookstore and made my shahada. The old quest, the quest for the true way of life and for the proper relationship with God, had ended. The new quest, that of living up to the ideals of Islam, had begun.