I would like to share a story of a revert that is very remarkable.
Bismillah Ar Rahman Ar Rahim
(In the name of God the Most Merciful, The Most Compassionate)
Note from the author:
Many people, both Muslim and non-Muslim alike, are surprised to see an American of European descent practicing the faith of Islam. Countless times I have been asked, “How did you become Muslim?” My journey to Islam is a unique one, but by God this is the truth as I remember, without exaggeration.
The Holy Qur’an - The Living Miracle
One American’s Path to Islam
By Anonymous
Before I became Muslim I was quite a different person. I am not proud of the person I used to be and I am quite shy in telling others the details of my previous life, but for the purposes of this story, in order to emphasize the change Islam has had on my life, I deem it necessary.
I was without true guidance for the most part of my early years. This means I was without Islam, which guides mankind to the best possible relationship with The Creator.
As a child, I looked up to the gangsters around the area. They had money and women, but what was most alluring was how they were treated like celebrities. Everywhere they went people would follow just to be seen with them. They were both feared and respected.
With these people as my role models, I embarked on my personal criminal path. By the age of twelve, I was committing crimes and by thirteen, I was carrying a handgun. May Allah have Mercy on me.
I soon found this way of life to be far from carefree; it is actually quite the opposite. Everyone around me, including myself, were constantly looking over our shoulders. We were always on guard either from the police, or from the enemies we had made. Even friends had to watch out for one another because you couldn’t even trust them. The ones you thought were your friends were often not really friends at all, and the ones closest to you are the ones who can do you the most harm. I saw so-called “friends” steal from one another, lie to each other and even have affairs with each other’s women.
By the Mercy of God I was able to go to college, and so I went away to a University directly after finishing high school in 1996. At the end of my first year of college, there was a series of stressful occurrences that took place. Although there were many unfortunate events, for the sake of space I will only refer to the more significant ones.
First, I was the victim of a robbery. One morning I woke up and to my surprise almost all of my belongings were gone. Along with my belongings, all the money I had, in other words my entire life savings was also stolen. Keep in mind at this point in my life, money meant just about everything to me.
The most peculiar aspect of the whole theft was that none of my roommate’s belongings were missing. Naturally this caused me to immediately be suspicious of my roommate and I was very distressed, having to spend every day and night with this person who I suspected had something to do with my misfortune.
Another thing that happened was I received some very disturbing news from my doctor. He informed me that blood tests taken had revealed some damage to my liver. The doctor told me that he would have to do more tests to find out the possible cause as well as the extent of the damage. Naturally, while I was awaiting the results of the follow up tests, I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about death and whether I would soon be suffering from some terminal disease.
The biggest pressure of them all was due to a situation involving my only brother. My brother and some of his closest friends had been involved in an ongoing conflict with another group of guys. My brother and his friends were a small crew, mostly young guys, who were full of pride and out to prove themselves. The other group was made up of some of the most feared thugs in our particular area. Although they weren’t an official gang, for lack of a better word, I will call them a gang in this article. They were the largest “gang” in our area, with members spanning all generations.
The conflict began when several guys from the larger, more infamous group, ganged up on and beat up one of my brother’s friends. Well, the kid who had been badly beaten surprised everyone by getting his friends together and retaliating. The result was larger numbers of people getting involved as people began choosing sides. The fighting went back and forth for about a year and escalated from people fighting with fist, to people being beat with bats, and eventually to people being shot at. During one such shooting, one of the leaders of the larger gang was killed. My brother, although not being the actual shooter was there the night this happened.
Man’s natural reaction is to get revenge and to do it swiftly. If a person is filled with hate and wants revenge but can’t get to the person he wants, sometimes they will hurt the family of the person, or others whom their target cares for. In this way they indirectly hurt the person by attacking what they love and hurting them emotionally. In many ways this is the worst form of revenge. In order to shield my family from such vengeance I left college and came home to safeguard my family.
I kept a weapon with me at all times. I stayed awake nights guarding the home of my family while they slept. When I did sleep, I slept with a gun under my pillow and would awaken with every little bump in the night. Even the simplest venture outside into public life, for example to go to the store to buy milk, was like a military expedition. If a car slowed down around me I had to be prepared for a drive-by shooting.
At this time I was also attempting to mediate on behalf of my brother for a peaceful solution to the matter. Both my brother and I had ties with the gang, so they listened to my brother’s side of the story. Many times I met with them, explaining to them that my brother did not have a weapon the night of the killing and also that my brother did not know the others with him had weapons either. Of course I was putting myself in danger by meeting members from this group because as I said before, no one is really trustworthy. I easily could have been killed or kidnapped. I had to watch every person cautiously, focusing on their hands in case they reached for a gun. I was deeply paranoid which helped me to stay alert.
One can imagine how stressful this is for a person and the toll it can take on a young man. It was like living in a war zone. I had to constantly be alert; I could never let my guard down. My thoughts were always occupied with death. I would think about the people I love being murdered, or about the fact I may have to kill someone myself. If I did have to kill someone, what would happen then? Either I could live a life on the run, or I could spend the rest of my life in jail.
At some point the normal, healthy paranoia turned into an unsound, debilitating form of paranoia. It didn’t happen all at once, but slowly I began to loose my grip on reality. My thoughts changed from wondering if people were listening to my telephone conversations, to wondering if people were listening to my thoughts. I began to think people were watching me through the T.V. Then I began to think I could talk to people through the T.V. too. For some reason I even began to think I could do magic. I believed if I did some simple ritual like clapping my hands or moving a finger at a certain time I could affect something or someone in another place.
To detail all the ways my sickness manifested itself is too lengthy a subject for this short article. Basically I developed a very complex alternate reality and also a complex system of rituals to deal with living in this alternate reality. This sort of irrational thinking is a well-documented mental illness called paranoid schizophrenia. For reference, there is a popular movie called “A Beautiful Mind” which is based on the true story of someone who had the same disability. In brief, paranoid schizophrenics have a distorted perception of reality. The person who is sick may believe any number of strange things such as he/she is surrounded by aliens or may believe their thoughts are being monitored by the government as I did. To the person with the illness, this is reality and nothing can convince them otherwise. This makes it almost impossible to help those who are sick because it is difficult to convince them they need treatment.
At this time I experienced the worst suffering I have ever experienced. Paranoid Schizophrenia is a mental sickness and therefore the brain is racing constantly with very little rest, overworking itself. I remember rarely having sleep because I was never able to relax, and also hardly eating because I was suspicious of chemicals, and food poisoning within the meals. Therefore through this mental sickness my body became very weak and overworked as well as my mind.
Before going on let me explain a little about my religious past. I was brought up to be a Christian and my family went to church every Sunday. As I became older and as reasoning and independent thought began to develop, I started to question some of the tenets of the faith, starting with the divinity of Jesus. I had become confused and troubled over the teaching that Jesus was God. I asked my mother, “If Jesus was God, how come he prayed to God?” She could not answer and so I was referred to the preacher, and after some attempts to satisfy this nagging question he ultimately resigned and stated that you just have to believe. I searched the Bible for an explanation from the key source, Jesus, and found that Jesus never called himself God; in fact he most often referred to himself as the Son of Man.
Also bothering me was the belief in the Trinity. I asked the preacher, “How can God be three but yet be one?” I essentially got the same response, which was that I had to have blind faith. I searched the Bible regarding this and found that Jesus himself never taught that God was three. {The only reference to a trinity from Jesus is "For there are Three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these Three are one." (1 John 5:7)” but this has since been removed from the revised Bibles after finding the verse had actually been added at some point}
Although I never rejected Christianity, I could not bring myself to fully commit to this faith, which was confusing rather than pacifying my soul. However I have always maintained the belief that there is a God, and as my sickness got worse I turned to my God more and more. I would literally beg for God’s help to alleviate my suffering, and because I understood Him to be a source of Benevolence, I faithfully awaited His relief.
During this time I read the Bible more than ever because I sought better communication with God. I had always been told the Bible was God’s word and I desperately wanted God’s guidance. Sometimes I would say a prayer before opening the book, asking God to please speak to me and guide me. I would then open the Bible and read the first thing my eyes fell upon, having complete faith that God was going to commune with me through this book. Instead of some grand mystical experience however, what I would read would be something about a war or a family tree, something other than the majestic response I expected. It felt like my prayers were going unanswered, and I began to feel worse and worse spiritually. This was the point at which I hit bottom. I was a complete mess. Try to imagine, my mind is disturbed, my body is in poor health, and now my spirit is troubled as well.
Here in my darkest hour my prayers were finally answered and my life has never been the same since. I had been ordered by the court system to volunteer at a local Salvation Army, which is a store that provides affordable goods for those less fortunate. While working in the section which sells used books, I happened upon an English translation of the Holy Quran. Like most Americans, I knew virtually nothing about Islam. Essentially all I knew was that it was a religion and that this Quran is believed to be Holy Scripture. With a curious yet open mind, I made the same prayer I had made with the Bible, asking God to please communicate with me and guide me and then I opened up the Quran and read the first thing my eyes fell upon; “This day have I perfected your religion for you and completed My favor unto you, and have chosen for you as religion Islam.”
After more than half a year of misery, I finally felt something other than suffering. But it was more than just relief, at that moment I felt tranquility which I had never experienced before. There was no doubt whatsoever about what just happened. My prayers had been answered; I had found the word of God.
After that, my mind kicked in and said, “hmm, God wants me to be a Muslim…I don’t know what a Muslim is!” So I took the Quran home to find out what I was supposed to do next. As best as I can recall, I read the Quran everyday. I learned so much. I learned that a Muslim means “someone who submits to God” and that Islam means “submission” which isn’t even a religion per say as we know it, but more of an act of faith. I learned that all the prophets of the Bible had been of those who submit to God and Muhammad is the last in the long, family line of Prophets. (Muhammad is a descendant of Abraham through Ishmael)
I can’t begin to explain all the Quran taught me; indeed I continue to learn from it till this day. It is like no other book, actually there is nothing like it. God describes it as guidance, a criterion for judgment, and a mercy. I can attest one way in which the Holy Quran manifests its mercy, through healing. As I read I began to feel better and better and after about two months time I was back to normal, praise God.
“We send down in the Quran healing and mercy for the believers. [17:82] From the translation of the Holy Quran
I never took medicine, and I never saw a psychologist. It has been almost 8 years later and I am still fine. I also had my blood tested again for liver damage and all the results came back normal. Interestingly, I went to back to college and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and have worked in the field of mental health for almost five years.
I hope my story strengthens the faith of those who already believe. As for those non-Muslims who read this, I hope it encourages you to read the Quran for yourself.
I ask God to shower blessings upon His prophets and to send peace upon the righteous followers of His guidance. I ask God to show us the straight path, the path of those whom He has favored; not the path of those who have earned His anger, nor of those who have gone astray.
Ameen
