The current of life can drag you to a place you would never think of going. Our fate is not in our hands, although it would seem to be; in its very veins are traces of handprint totally in contrast to ours. I have learned this wonderful truth in my own personal laboratory called life.
My spiritual adventure started when I was a teenager. Worldly life gave me no fulfillment so I turned my head to a different road-“Religion”. I joined the Born-again movement and was very enthusiastic. My passion brought me to full time ministry and I was trained to become a Pastor.
Years went by, the challenges and my personal assessment in the church led me to question my faith. What came after was years spent in struggle that eventually led me to distance myself away from the church and into the worldly life once again. But maybe because I was really searching for fulfillment my craving for spirituality continued. This time I experimented with other religions: Vaisnavism (a branch of Hinduism), new age philosophy, Buddhism then Islam.
What I found in Islam was totally different from what I heard in the news and saw in the movies. I discovered that it is a religion of peace that seeks the betterment of society. The laws and moral codes are there to forge equality, justice, and dignity among the people. Islam dwells more on solving real life issues than ecclesiastical doctrines by providing practical solutions. […] By the guidance of Allah I was able to find one here in Cebu, Alhamdulillah!
Now I am training to become a good Daa’ee (propagator of Islam). The more I read about Islam the more I am falling in love with it. There are more jewels to be discovered as long as we stay focused and look for solutions rather than burying our hands in the mud of negativity. As long as we are determined, we will be successful. Ameen! Ameen! Ameen!
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First of all, I would like to start by saying that this true story is not for my own fame or admiration, but for the sake of my Lord and your Lord God. All praises due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, the Beneficent, the Merciful Owner of the Day of Judgment. I would like to repeat to you something I heard: the journey of a thousand miles has to start with the first step, and this is the first part of my journey and conversion to Islam.
My name is Malik Mohammed Hassan, and I have recently converted to Islam. When I was in junior high school, I was first introduced to Islam by reading the book Roots by Alex Haley. It taught me a little bit about the strong will that most Muslims possess, myself included. It also introduced me to Allah. I had never heard of Allah in his real form until I read that book, and I was very curious. I then started reading about The Nation of Islam (specifically Malcolm X), and it fascinated me how devoted he was to God, especially after he left the self-serving Nation of Islam. Reading about Malcolm made me think about a God who (for a change) did not have any physical … limitations and, being a totally blind person, it made me relate to these people: the people who Malcolm and Haley referred to as Muslims. I continued reading what I could about Islam, which wasn’t as much as it should have been. My reading material was very limited, because like I said above, I am a totally blind person, and the material available about Islam in Braille or on tape was not only very little but also very general. I believe the reason was that the material that I had access to wasn’t written by Muslims, and it kind of painted a dark picture of Islam. I think most of the literature written by Christians or non-Muslims about Islam tends to do that most of the time. And I didn’t know that there were even Muslims in Halifax, so I obviously didn’t know any. I didn’t even know about the local Islamic association until I was already a Muslim.
So I read what I could until my first year out of high school, around the month of May 1996, when I received a phone call asking me if I wanted to participate in a camp for blind and visually impaired people, known throughout Canada as Score. I agreed and sent them a resume, and praise be to God, I was accepted for work.
At first, I really didn’t want to go, but something kept telling me it would be a good idea if I went. So, on June 30th, 1996 I boarded a plane from Nova Scotia to Toronto and took my last trip as a non-Muslim; I just didn’t know it yet.
I got to Toronto, and everything at first was pretty normal... It was on the second day I was there when the journey of a thousand miles first started.
I arrived on a Sunday, and on the next day, I met the person who God would use with His divine power to help guide me to the beautiful Religion of Islam. I met a sister named [...], and if she reads this, I hope she doesn’t get mad at me for using her name.
When I met her, I immediately wanted to talk to her because I liked her name. I asked her what origin her name was and she told me that it was Arabic; so I asked her if she was Muslim and she replied with the answer of yes. I immediately started telling her what I already knew about Islam, which lasted about ten seconds. I started asking her questions and also asking her to talk to me about Islam.
One particular incident that comes to my mind is when all of the workers at the camp went to a baseball game, and the sister and I started talking about Islam and missed pretty much the whole game.
Well, anyway, we talked for about three, maybe four days on and off about Islam, and on July the fifth, if my memory doesn’t fail me, I became a Muslim. My life has been totally different ever since. I look at things very differently than I used to and I finally feel like I belong to a family. All Muslims are brothers and sisters in Islam so I could say that I have approximately 1.2 billion brothers and sisters all of whom I’m proud to be related to. I finally know what it feels like to be humble and to worship a God that I don’t have to see.
For any non-Muslim reading this, just look at it this way. It’s good to learn, but you never know when you will be tested, and if you’re not in the class at the time of the final exam, no matter how much you know, you’ll never get any credit. So like I said, it’s good to learn, but if you want to get credit, sign up for the class. In other words, declare shahada (testimony to faith) and let God teach you everything you need to know. Believe me, the reward is worth it. You could say the reward is literally heaven.
If any good comes out of this story all the credit is due to God; only the mistakes are my own. I would like to mention a part of a hadith that has had a great effect on me and that is:
“Worship God as if you see him and if you don’t see him, know that he sees you.” (Saheeh Muslim)
By Malik Mohammed Hassan
Resources
My name is Abdullah Al-Kanadi. I was born in Canada. My family, who were Roman Catholics, raised me as a Roman Catholic until I was 12 years old. I have been Muslim for approximately six years, and I would like to share the story as a new muslim with you.
During my childhood I attended a Catholic religious school. […] The more I learned about my religion, the more I questioned it!
At the tender age of twelve, I decided I would be an atheist in order to punish God. […] My teenage years were filled with misery and loneliness. I was accepted in a local technical school and decided that I should further my education and maybe make some good money, so that I would be happy. […]
I would forget my family and be with my friends all the time. One night, I told my parents I was going to move out. They told me, I couldn’t, and that I wasn’t ready for it and that they wouldn’t allow it! I was 17 years old and very headstrong; I swore at my parents and said to them all sorts of evil things, which I still regret to this day. I felt emboldened by my new freedom. […] I was working and going to school when my roommates introduced me to marijuana. […]Soon though, I started to smoke more and more, until during one weekend I had smoked so much, that it was Monday morning and before I knew it, it was time for school. I thought, well, I’ll take one day of school off, and go the next day. […] I never returned to school after that. I finally realized how good I had it. […] Who needed school anyways?
I was living a great life, or so I thought; I became the ‘resident’ bad boy at work. […]I felt worthless and completely valueless. I was stealing from work and from friends to help maintain the ‘chemical haze’. […] I was beginning to crack and I needed a solution, and I figured that religion would help me.
[…] I bought a couple of books on Wicca and Nature Worship, and found that they encouraged the use of natural drugs, so I continued. People would ask me if I believed in God, and we would have the strangest conversations while under the ‘influence’, but I distinctly remember saying that no, in fact I don’t believe in God at all, I believe in many gods as imperfect as me.
Through all this, there was one friend who stuck by me. He was a ‘Born Again’ Christian and was always preaching to me, even though I would mock his faith at every opportunity. He was the only friend I had at the time who didn’t judge me, so when he invited me along to go to a youth weekend camp I decided to go along. I had no expectations. I thought I would have a huge laugh making fun of all the “Bible Thumpers”. […]They played all sorts of music which praised God. I watched as the young and old, male and female cried out for forgiveness and shed tears over everything. I was really moved and I said a silent prayer along the lines of “God, I know I have been a horrible person, please help me, and forgive me and let me start fresh.” I felt a surge of emotion come over me, and I felt tears roll down my cheek. […]
I returned to my party home and eschewed all drugs, intoxicants, and girls. I promptly told my friends how they needed to be Christians so they could be saved. I was shocked that they rejected me. […]
I started to hang out at a Christian “youth house” which was basically a house where teens could go. […] In spite of this, I felt like a fraud, for I started drinking and dating again. […] Through all this, my one Christian friend would try to council me and keep me on the right track.
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