Originally Posted by Janaan

Assalamu Alaikum,

I spent many years moping that people at the masjid were excluding me, especially during Ramadan. At iftars, people tended to bunch off based on language group and would chat away in arabic or urdu, leaving me sitting quietly by myself.

However, one day I decided to stop moping and feeling sorry for myself and just start being friendly. SubhanAllah, it worked! I initiate the salaams, I initiate the hugs and kisses, I initiate the how are you, alhamdulilah, blah blah blah. After awhile, people got to know me and would start the salaams when they saw me.

I'm not really the most social person in the world either - I prefer the internet to real life most of the time - but even having someone to exchange salams with made going to the masjid a lot happier event.

its truee ukhtee... exchanging salams do help. And of course it is a sunnah

Some basic points in why you should go:
-it is fardh to go on Friday
-your deen increases
-you will get good deeds for the hereafter
Best of luck.

good. then i gotta go. regardless of feelings or emotions.


thanks.

As a revert I think I understand where you are coming from brother. Many Muslims, or I shoudl say born Muslims seem to take many things for granted. even cultural things. I mean one of my best friends, who's a born Muslim has severe difficulties with her familiy because she is a lonely type of person. She enjoys friends but does not want to be bothered with people much of the time. I am like this too, but many born Muslims are used to having big famillies and having people around. Im not saying this is the only issue but I feel born Muslims are often insensitive to revert issues. I too have distanced myself from the community because of things which happened to me. I have BIg issues with embracing someone when they give salaam. Its just something completely alien to me and it makes me feel on edge.

Brother, it is hard to feel welcome quite often and I just pray that Allah guides all of us and helps us to understand each other better....ameen

we need to integrate into the community. i needed support and encouragement to do so...

we all do.

we converted. our minds and hearts work well thank god. we see the truth. thank god. we need to walk the path with gods help.

it gets difficult. but the path needs to be walked. i know that. at least.

it took 40 years of training for musa (AS) and muhammed(SWS) to finally hit the target of prophethood. they had to walk the path. be trained by allah. schooled.

we need to walk the path. friends of allah one day?? sainthood??? or just religious man?
regardless of the outcome.

the path needs to be walked.

this lonely person thing, social integration difficulty thing is not islamic. its a problem with islam as presented in this day and age.

hold fast to quran and allah...... dont follow your desires.

it gets difficult. but our emotions are pretty irrelevent. in the grande scheme of things.
yet they win us over every now and then.... this is good. it lets u know your heart is alive and it lets u know your weaknesses to improove on.

i have certain weaknesses with respect to social integration and action. cool. now i know

thats exactly wat I am saying brother. There is almost an expectatio, I feel, that we, as reverts, should act the way and accept the culture of born Muslims. This is my experience anyway. I have been a Muslim now for around 8 years and it is only now I al realising that it is not necessary. It is difficult, and inshallah with the help of fellow Muslims and most importantly Allah I can be strong and become a better person.

I dont quite understand this word "integrate" everyone has their own interpretation of it and its not a word I really like. Pehaps I would prefer just to "get on with" people and accept that in some respects we are alike, yet in others we are completely different. We are all Muslims but we are by no means all the same.

yeah your right.

we are all individual people.

i suppose we all need our basic family units. man wife. grandad grandma... kids.

and then bringing the family to represent itself in the larger community...

hey maybe ....

its just cos we are reverts... we left our so called family and need to just start our own....

its easy i suppose, when u think about it.... what is needed to remedy the angst....

This is a thread I started on friday last, I dont know how to link it, suppose its v simple tho ! Anyway I just plonked it all here, hope it can be of some help, peace

Salamun Aleiykum. Alhamdulillah I finally did it, I went friday prayers at the mosque. For as long as I knew I was Muslim, I knew I had to go to mosque on a friday, now for a revert it is an area of anxiety for some, I learnt to pray from a book and have been very conscious about it being correct or not ( subhan Allah it was) and this has been a problem for me. Many times I have asked brothers to take me, and I sometimes felt that they thought nI was being weird or something. Let me explain to all those brothers that for a convert who does not know what to expect at a mosque, how it may be different from praying at home, how some of us think we will be watchedfor errors its scary. I also had to go to mosque where I was only white person amongst a congregation of Pakistanis, although I am no rascist, I was anxious of this also. Anyway new Muslims let me tell you, first of all I asked a colleague to go mosque with me last friday, we were to early to pray but he asked the Imam to let us in and this brother showed me round the mosque and how to wash properly, he is called Mamood and I ask all who read this to ask Allah to bless him and his familly in this life and the next. So today I washed, put nice clothes on, bit the bullet and prayed all the way to the mosque for Allah to make it easy. I had been told to get there for 13:30 ready to commence at 2pm (uk), this had also been a source of anxiety not knowing what to do or when to turn up, I walked in and sat down, immediatley an elderley Pakistani man, who outside may have been wary of me, grabbed my hand in both of his and shook it warmly, he looked directly into my eyes and smiled, "asalamu aleiykum", wow I was so touched it was awesome, all my anxieties disappeared. as prayers started I was ushered forward ( i sat at the back !) and literally squeezed between the other brothers there. I have to tell you the sense of brotherhood at that moment was palpable, brothers to each side, children and men praying together. I could not understand alot of what the Imam said, butn I noticed he did his best to summarize each section in English, subject was the angels at point of death, awesome. I followed the brothers next to meand realised it was the prayer I had done at home, , Alhamdulillah. After 15 mins some people left I stayed and understood this to be extra rakaats, so I id mine and made dua for my mum (Allah bless her and bring her to Islam), the Imam concluded and we left the mosque. 30 minutes start to finish. When I left and all afternoon I have had the strangest feeling of peace, not the happy smiley everything cool type peace, nor a deep and dark type peace, but a peace that was devoid of urgency but that In had made a further commitment to Allah and a seriousness, hard to explain but definatley powerful. So new or old converts who have never been to the mosque, please take it from me there is absolutley nothing to worry about, people there will help if you want them to, there is no difference between people there we are all equal, andits ok to copy the one next to you or even ask them to show you. New brothers go to the mosque its truly awesome, when the person called Adhan at 2pm, tears came to my eyes, this has not happened to me for a while and Alhamdulillah for it. I f you live in braford or west yorkshire region pm me and I will do everything to accompany you there insha'Allah. In short go to the mosque, it is for Allahs pleasure and I am counting the minutes to next friday already. La ilaha ilAllah, eshedu ana Mahamadur rasulAllah. Ameen

Originally Posted by aadil77

is this in leicester uni? because every year you get muslims across UK coming to stay for this 3 day conference and its literally up my road. last year salem al amry came and some others

Nah it's in Birmingham lol but maybe they go from birmingham to leicester

Tony, how long have you been a revert that you have only just attended a mosque for the first time? Sounds like you had a very beneficial time.
Does your wife attend mosque?
And will you take your sons next?

I think there are several reasons why it is beneficial to attend worship with fellow believers:

• There is a social element, i.e receiving support from brothers and sisters and giving it in return; simply enjoying the company of other believers
• There is a spiritual element, i.e experiencing God's presence and as a result feeling spiritually uplifted
• But most important perhaps is simply doing it to give God all the praise and worship he deserves

I often experience worship most profoundly when I have come to the service reluctantly; when I have had to 'make myself' be obedient to God and come; when I haven't come to 'meet friends' or 'feel good', but when I simply say "Here I am God, use me ..."

Glo I reverted 6 years ago, I started to take it seriously 1 and half yr ago but mosque was v strange concept for me. My wife seems to be following my lead and has started praying namaz, eating halal etc All praise to Allah for this, duas work what can I say. My kids wont go mosque for 2 yrs but they half prayer mats at home and they pray with me whenever they want, I dont ask them, theyask me. I dont want to push them, but its a dad son thing anyway at moment. I pray for them to come close to Islam of their choice. They also want to come running with me !!! btw their prayer mats are infant size and the cutest things you ever will see. Cant seem to rep u as much as u deserve Glo but thoughts there

^
On a side not, I read that running (for any longer distance) can damage children's bones if they start too young.
You might want to research that some more, and either just do teeny weeny baby runs or wait until they are a bit older.

Don't worry about reps. I am sure there are more worthy recipients!

Glo, there 4 and 3,hahahaha, I dont take them running with me sister. God gave you the gift of being blissfully unaware of ur genius funny streak. Proper laughed when I saw ur post, got picture of myself in military uniform screaming at them to do pressups in the rain

Originally Posted by TKTony

Glo, there 4 and 3,hahahaha, I dont take them running with me sister. God gave you the gift of being blissfully unaware of ur genius funny streak. Proper laughed when I saw ur post, got picture of myself in military uniform screaming at them to do pressups in the rain

Haha!
Well, my husband might call me naive (perhaps even a bit dippy ) ... although personally I prefer the genius funny image!

But to be honest, I wsn't imagine army style drills ... more like little jogs around the block.

What kind of distances do you run?
(And now I promise to no longer take this thread off topic ... )

Originally Posted by glo

Haha!
Well, my husband might call me naive (perhaps even a bit dippy ) ... although personally I prefer the genius funny image!

But to be honest, I wsn't imagine army style drills ... more like little jogs around the block.

What kind of distances do you run?
(And now I promise to no longer take this thread off topic ... )

when i trained tkd i woul do 3 to 6 miles on top of training. then i trained for 1/2 mthon in leeds and did ok, (used to smoke), now trying to find some way forward, have done fell runs and loved em but am easing back into it at mo. Finding time for distance run is not easy for me, but I want to train for mthon. missed out on London virgin for next yr, wld have liked to run for islamic relief. Need some sort of direction with it now as seem to be trundling round park aimlessly. ps, get to mosque op