Please visit
www.newmuslimdhikr.co.uk and submit your experience of converting to Islam. We are trying to build a community like the one you have here, and having a store of these stories would be a great archive.
Here is mine.....
I was never a lost soul seeking salvation. The few experiences I had of religion in my youth left me neither interested nor disaffected, merely indifferent. I had fond memories of trips to Church with my primary school, but in retrospect this was more to do with the impressive architecture and the ambitious claims of the vicar than it did with believing in what I heard there. My mother raised me to think for myself, and it honestly never occurred to me to think about religion until I had flown the nest.
I arrived at university full of expectation, optimistic that I would discover all manner of fascinating opportunities and knowledge that would satisfy my mind. I studied the literature of the western world, and absorbed myself in all the activities of student life. What a disappointment. Far from seeing my small-town eyes opened up to the possibilities of city and university, I was left cold. I had always imagined that there was knowledge and meaning in life much greater than I had conceived; instead I found a design for life that is busy and rich on the surface, glittering with the wealth of the modern world, but vacant and aimless underneath. I lost all enthusiasm for life, all but stopped attending lectures, and withdrew into a hermetic depression.
I had such wondrous hopes for philosophy that it was with great disappointment that I had to admit that it was useless and to consider religion, as a last resort. I expected to find nothing but empty ritual, baseless faith and alien practices. For the most part, I did. There’s no point in naming them, but I went through the major religions dismissing them quickly as I found contradictions, a lack of believable provenance and generally little to inspire. Lastly, I came to Islam, a religion of which I knew nothing.
First impressions weren’t encouraging. The literature featured more images of people in strange clothes with inaccessible names, and the recent occurrence of “9/11″ hadn’t done much for Muslims’ global public image. I thought I’d give it a fair shot though, and read eveything germane in the library and acquired a copy of the Qur’an. It’s hard to find the words to describe what happened next. I went through a process where, through highly sceptical eyes, I absorbed the key facts and principles of the faith without finding anything to object to or disagree with. It was almost as though the morals, ethics and beliefs that I had idealised before were crystallised into my own personal religion. Everything is there: convincing proof that the Qur’an and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) were recorded accurately and preserved fiercely, interpretation of these sources by the scholars that is both accessible to the layman and possessing of the most powerful spiritual and existential wisdom, and a comprehensive ‘design for life’ that is so logical and wise as to command the most serious consideration and contemplation from even the surest atheist.
Reading the Qur’an is an experience of great gravity. For someone irreligious to come to believe that a book contains the word of the creator of the universe, verbatim, is a moment that changed my life. Reading it is to have it reach into your soul and activate truths and feelings that were dormant and vague, to feel that you have awoken from a deep sleep to see the world in its real form for the first time.
The rest is history, a collection of details and faces. The thing that kept me keen to know more when I had moments of doubt more was the unfailing warmth and openness of every Muslim I met. I had become quite a misanthropist by the time I finished university, sick of the selfishness, superficiality and brutality of most that I met. The Muslims I met were a revelation in themselves, unfailingly generous, kind and intelligent. Surely a people who live in such a way are rightly guided! I certainly found it intoxicating, and spent more and more time with them to find whatever it was that they had that gave their lives such harmony and purpose. Over time, I found it: faith.