Hi everyone, I am from England in the UK and have just joined this site.
My country is very disapproving of muslims in general and muslims have a bad name in my country due to terrorism among other things. Until The beginning of this year I hated muslims because of what I read in the newspaper and had absolutely no ties with islam, I am a white british and came from a christian/atheist background.
During the month of febuary I visisted marocco, not realising it was a muslim country. Upon getting there and getting people trying to hustle me in the street and seeing all the arabic and muslim stuff everywhere I couldn't believe how stupid I had been, winding myself up on holiday in a muslim country with all them terrorists and such like. It turned out to be a life altering holiday. At the resort I met lots of muslim friends and saw that they are not so bad and started to open my mind to islam and started enquiring about the religion, I started getting books on various aspects of islam including arabic, the five pillars, sufism etc but my herat was already set, I was going to become muslim.
By the end of the week my heart was set on converting and for teh next three months at home in england I researched into islam and fate has it that I have a muslim friend, who is british but his mother is from india and he has quite a large muslim family. They took me to cyprus to meet sheik nazim of the naqsbando tarriaqua and I took shahada in the end of may and made it official. There is no mosque in my area, there is a zicker every sunday though which is ok for now till I move to the city to start univeristy in a few years time. I also wish to find a nice muslim girl to settle down with inshallah.
My main reason for looking to join a chatroom is because I didn't want to commit myself to the sunni aspect of islam or the sufi tarriqua's or the naqusbandi's or the hanafi without understanding what they were, and what other options I had and how they differed. The people I know are all naqusbandi's and are incredibly unhelpful as they simply try and tell me I should stick to teh naqsbandi's but its my choice and this is how I feel I shoudl do things. I wish to improve my understanding of islam. How do I even know if my method of praying is correct for example? I would really appreciate if someone can point me in the direction of a book that specifically improves my understanding of the layout of islam. What else can Ido to improve my understanding of islam as a whole? Maybe some places I can visit (preferably safe ones, so afghanistan wont be on the top of my list). I also want to hear about your different sects of islam and do any of you do zicker? What are your traditiions?
Hope to read some informative posts and maybe you can help me on my quest for islam. Btw the name da'ud was given to me by sheik nazim.
Alhamdulala
Bismillah ir-Rakman-ir-Raheim
Assalam halakum
My country is very disapproving of muslims in general and muslims have a bad name in my country due to terrorism among other things. Until The beginning of this year I hated muslims because of what I read in the newspaper and had absolutely no ties with islam, I am a white british and came from a christian/atheist background.
During the month of febuary I visisted marocco, not realising it was a muslim country. Upon getting there and getting people trying to hustle me in the street and seeing all the arabic and muslim stuff everywhere I couldn't believe how stupid I had been, winding myself up on holiday in a muslim country with all them terrorists and such like. It turned out to be a life altering holiday. At the resort I met lots of muslim friends and saw that they are not so bad and started to open my mind to islam and started enquiring about the religion, I started getting books on various aspects of islam including arabic, the five pillars, sufism etc but my herat was already set, I was going to become muslim.
By the end of the week my heart was set on converting and for teh next three months at home in england I researched into islam and fate has it that I have a muslim friend, who is british but his mother is from india and he has quite a large muslim family. They took me to cyprus to meet sheik nazim of the naqsbando tarriaqua and I took shahada in the end of may and made it official. There is no mosque in my area, there is a zicker every sunday though which is ok for now till I move to the city to start univeristy in a few years time. I also wish to find a nice muslim girl to settle down with inshallah.
My main reason for looking to join a chatroom is because I didn't want to commit myself to the sunni aspect of islam or the sufi tarriqua's or the naqusbandi's or the hanafi without understanding what they were, and what other options I had and how they differed. The people I know are all naqusbandi's and are incredibly unhelpful as they simply try and tell me I should stick to teh naqsbandi's but its my choice and this is how I feel I shoudl do things. I wish to improve my understanding of islam. How do I even know if my method of praying is correct for example? I would really appreciate if someone can point me in the direction of a book that specifically improves my understanding of the layout of islam. What else can Ido to improve my understanding of islam as a whole? Maybe some places I can visit (preferably safe ones, so afghanistan wont be on the top of my list). I also want to hear about your different sects of islam and do any of you do zicker? What are your traditiions?
Hope to read some informative posts and maybe you can help me on my quest for islam. Btw the name da'ud was given to me by sheik nazim.
Alhamdulala
Bismillah ir-Rakman-ir-Raheim
Assalam halakum
