Request for help

Assalaam alaykum,

I am just new to this forum.

I think I’ll start from the very beginning to give you some context. I become a lot more practicing about 5 years ago and started learning more about Islam. I had no problems with doubt etc..I just took islam as the truth and that was it. Then about 1 year ago I did start to get doubts and I felt the need to get over them. The only way I felt I could do this is by studying all the religions I could find out about with the view to eliminating them and seeing the truth about Islam.

So for this last year and a half that’s what I have done. I began by studying the other 2 abrahamic faiths and then all the big major religions and I wasn’t satisfied with any of them. Then I started reading about all the tiny minor religions which are mainly tribal or concentrated in small localities around the world. I didn’t go into much depth with most of these (all I did was read of this Wikipedia page called 'list world religions and spiritual traditions' ) as even from reading a few of lines about them, the polytheism, multiple dieties etc just put me off. Monotheism is so ingrained into me that I just don’t like any form of religion that requires belief in multiple gods, asking from intecessors, nature worship etc. I don’t like statues, pictures etc they just put me off.

My problem is that now I feel more aware of how big and diverse the world is and how there are so so many religions even beyond the big major ones. I find it hard to believe that all these other people are wrong and in the Islamic view would be punished. Of course I understand that if people have never heard the message of islam they wont be punished but will be tried on the day of judgment, but im still not entirely comfortable as muslims are the minority. Something I am not clear upon is what if someone is a monotheist but they’ve never heard of any prophets of their time, would they fall within the ambit of going to jannah?

Also, I assumed monotheism is supposed to be the fitrah..but when I studied all the tribal religions, theyre all polytheistic..yet these people live in the middle of nowhere and are uninfluenced by modern society.

Also, there were supposedly thousands of prophets, how come we never hear about any historical figures who preached monotheism in the midst of all these polytheistic tribal religions? I mean beyond all the major ones like Abraham, moses etc.

Before I used to take in everything I read about islam and accept it as fact. But now when I read about stories of the prophets or miraculous events I feel scepticism in me and now I don’t feel like I can ever go back to the way I was and not question things. I also feel like I question sources more…I mean ive studied the history of the quran and hadith compilation but I still feel how can I trust all of this material.

I guess the main thing for me is that I am in a non-muslim environment, I work in an all non-muslim setting and I cant get my head around the fact that all these people, in the Islamic view, do not have a good end waiting for them in the afterlife.

I know I have just waffled and it is all a mixture of different points that are bugging me…all I want to do is to have 100% faith in the true religion so I can dedicate my life to it.

jzkhair in advance