Al-Huda
Foundation, NJ U. S. A
the Message Continues ... 7/135
Newsletter for November 2012
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Article 7
How Allah
Brought Me To Islam
By Talib Abdul Ahad
Bismillah ir Rahman nir Raheem
As salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatu,
I was born of parents whose religion was
Christianity and their denomination was Southern Baptist. My
parents began going to church very shortly after I was born.
From the time I was a small child I was taught stories from the
Bible, of the various Prophets (peace be upon them all). I grew
up believing that Jesus (alayis salaam) was not only the son of
God but also God himself. I attended Sunday school, 12 o'clock
Worship (or big church as we called it) and Wednesday church
regularly.
I was often faced with many questions as I read and heard the
stories of the Bible. The answers to many of these puzzling
questions left my fellow friends and myself in even more
confusion. These questions augmented as I grew older.
By the time I was twelve I was able to come up with wild
confabulations in an attempt to rid myself of these difficult
inquires.
At that age, after making a serious attempt to read the New
Testament and understand it, I began to see that little of these
laws were being followed. I also noticed the multiple
contradictions in the Old Testament and New Testament text. It
became more evident that if God was truly the revealer of the
entire Bible then he was rebuking and detesting himself for the
laws he revealed earlier.
But I was persuaded to "develop a closer relationship with Jesus
Christ" after reading the so-called 4 Gospels and a lot of
Christian literature many times. I was still nervous about the
decision I was making on the day of my Baptism. The pastor asked
if I was feeling ok after noticing my nervousness and I lied by
saying that I was fine. At the age of 13 and I became very
evangelical around some non-Christians. I would often scold
Christians for not following the way of Jesus (alayis salaam).
Many of these corrections were for things that I myself was
doing.
A year and a few months passed and I began studying literature
that was in opposition to Christianity (mostly atheist
literature). I had become so foolish that I thought there was no
possible reason for anyone not to accept Christianity and I
thought that the only reason they would ever be anything else
was that they had not learned about it Jesus (a.s.) or were
complete idiots. My opinion soon changed as I read of how
unreliable the Christian texts were and how little the evidence
was to even prove the existence of a Jesus of 2,000 years ago.
The responses to the criticism by atheist scholars was weak.
I became even more convinced that the Jesus written of in
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John was nothing more than multiple
myths put together. I was also convinced that the Bible had no
real proof of it being from a divine source. I began questioning
the existence of God and after that time I became an agnostic
(atheist will not claim me, saying that if I was truly an
atheist at that time I would have never became a Muslim).
I began to read about the religion of Islam among some other
religions. I was very suspicious at first. I was raised thinking
that Muslims were all terrorist seeking to oppress women and
cause violence. I only knew that they believed in one God and
that Islam was a very strict religion. This is how almost all
Christian children think of Islam, there are probably who do not
know that Muslims believe in a God at all. These myths carry on
into adulthood and are.
Perhaps my first real interest in Islam came after reading an
article in a 1979 National Geographic about an American Muslim's
hajj. I was unaware that there was such a thing as non-Arab
Muslims. I was taught that the terms Islam and Arab were the
same in school (some teachers even think that the Elijah
Muhammad's teachings are the same as all Muslims). I read about
some events from the Prophet Muhammad's (S.A.W) life in the
article and began a month long study of the Qur'an and Sunnah.
After studying the Qur'an, authentic hadith, listening to
khutbahs, and reading lectures/articles of scholars I became
very attracted to simplicity, clarity, and beauty of the message
of Islam. When studying the life of the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W)
I read the charges and refutations of the charges against the
integrity of Allah's Apostle (S.A.W). I decided to embrace Islam
and made my shahadah. I have been growing in iman since then but
still make many mistakes and forget my duty to Allah (S.W.T). In
sha Allah, I will learn from these mistakes.
I think the story of Tufayl ibn Amr (posted below) is very
similar to how myself and many reverts to Islam accepted the
religion as the true religion of Allah (S.W.T). His story
demonstrates how the disbelievers are discouraging us from
embracing Allah's true religion but when someone ignores their
warnings they find that Islam is not what the disbelievers have
said of it. Here is Tufayl ibn Amr's story:
"I approached Mecca. As soon as the Quraish leaders saw me, they
came up to me and gave me a most hearty welcome and accommodated
me in a grand house. Their leaders and notables then gathered
and said: 'O Tufayl, you have come to our town. This man who
claims that he is a Prophet has ruined our authority and
shattered our community. We are afraid that he would succeed in
undermining you and your authority among your people just as he
has done with us. Don't speak to the man. On no account listen
to anything he has to say. He has the speech of a wizard,
causing division between father and son, between brother and
brother and between husband and wife.' They went on telling me
the most fantastic stories and scared me by recounting tales of
his incredible deeds. I made up my mind then not to approach
this man, or speak to him or listen to anything he had to say.
The following morning I went to the place of worship to make tawaf around the Ka'abah as an act of worship to the idols that we made pilgrimage to and glorified. I inserted cotton in my ears out of fear that something of the speech of Muhammad would reach my hearing. As soon as I entered the place of worship, I saw him standing near the Ka'abah. He was praying in a fashion, which was different from our prayer. His whole manner of worship was different.
The scene captivated me. His worship made me tremble and I felt drawn to him, despite myself, until I was quite close to him. Notwithstanding the precaution I had taken, God willed that some of what he was saying should reach my hearing and I said to myself: 'What are you doing, Tufayl? You are a perceptive poet. You can distinguish between the good and the bad in the poetry. What prevents you from listening to what this man is saying? If what comes from him is good, accept it, and if it is bad, reject it.' I remained there until the Prophet left for his home.
I followed him as he entered his house, and
I entered also and said: 'O Muhammad, your people have said
certain things to me about you. By God, they kept on frightening
me away from your message so that I even blocked my ears to keep
out your words. Despite this, God caused me to hear something of
it and I found it good. So tell me more about your mission.' The
Prophet, peace be upon him, did and recited to me Surah al-Falaq.
I swear by God, I had never heard such beautiful words before.
Neither was a more noble or just mission ever described to me.
Thereupon, I stretched out my hand to him in allegiance and
testified that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and
that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. This is how I entered
Islam. Even the leaders of Quraish were unable to resist hearing
the Qur'an."
"Invite all to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful
preaching; And consult with them in ways that are best and most
gracious." (Al Qur'an, 16:125)
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