Tell us your story :)

[zaki]

I'm sure there are many people who will be allowed to look into this section, some looking into Islam, many ready to talk Shahada someday inshallah, and before I reverted I always wondered what happens during the Shahada, so to help them feel less worried I'm sure that many of us can write our stories to what happened on the day when you took yours, how did you feel etc :)

I'll copy and paste mine from the members section in a moment (when I find it hehe) inshallah :)

[zaki]

Re: Tell us your story :)

This is what I wrote when I reverted, August 11, 2006...whoa..coming up to nearly 4 months :D

wow what a night that was, i thought i would be very nevous but I said my Shahada very well.

Imam came up to me before Maghrib prayer and asked am i nevous, i said no, more the butterflies though then he asked would I like to go before or after prayer? I said after, and then he asked would I like to go before or afer the wedding, I said after.

I only did the positions for the Maghrib I knew most of the positions like stand, then bow, stand, then bow on knees etc, just the words i did not though.

I sat up front and Imam Shakeel talked about Weddings and how a sister should look at the prophet's wife (pbut) for how to be a good wife, then Imam asked the brother and sister if they take each other and then everyone said Mashallah then Imam Shakeel said we also have James who as waited a long time who will be taking his Shahada. I sat next to him and he shared the microphone with me and after him I said "Ash-hadu anna laa illaaha illa Allah, wa ash-hadu anna muhammadan rasoolullaah" "I bear witness that there is no one worthy of Worship but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the final messenger of Allah" I did also say about The prophets but I can't remember how to say that in Arabic, then all the brothers came up and hugged me, there was his young brother about 4 or 5 years old who wanted to hug me, i didn't see him cause of the brothers coming so close to you until a brother picked him up and I hugged him :)

At the end I must of hugged about 30 plus brothers, everyone of them wished me all the best and welcomed me to the family.

A brother asked how am I going to celebrate? to be honest I didn't even think of that! but him bought me something to eat which is really nice of the brother, i hope we do keep in contact inshallah.

We got back to do Isha pray and I stayed and talked to me new family, and i though i knew everyone will welcome me, i never thought it would be that wonderful!

Also we had a brother looking to take his Shahada someday inshallah, he came and talked to me =D

Now, i feel alot happier, more relaxed and now i will begin to learn Arabic so i can add the words that i need to learn for my prayers inshallah.

Many people still call me James, but I've added Zaki as my muslim name now

[.: Anna :.]

Re: Tell us your story :)

........

[Umm Yusef]

Re: Tell us your story :)

Here's the first chapter of my story.

FAITH
I must have been taught my first prayers when I was very little because I have no recollection of how I learned “Hail Mary” and other simple prayers. But I distinctly remember the day my father taught me and my sister “The Lord's Prayer”. I must have been 4 or 5.
20 years have passed and, after a lot of ups and downs with my Catholic faith, a couple of months ago I found myself remembering that evening with my father with melancholy, thinking: “I will never teach my children how to pray”.
Now I know that was not accurate: I will never teach my children “The Lords Prayer” but, as was my father's intention, I will teach them how to pray.

THE MEDICINE
This time last year I was a western 24-year-old like many: a student living abroad, a practicing catholic, in 3 years relationship with a (sloppy) Christian.
Although I have always been very tolerant and open minded (and often fascinated by) different religions and cultures, I didn't really know Islam or Muslims until I landed a job in a strongly Muslim environment 1 year ago.

At the beginning I used to feel sorry for women wearing hijab and the sight of a niqabi would break my heart. I wasn't at all comfortable with the “political incorrectness” of the Muslims explaining to me: "i hope you don't mind me saying that, but your religion is wrong, let me tell you why.....". (Some would really put my tolerance to the test!!!..)

Little by little some of the people I worked with opened my eyes. They would give me "a little Islam every day", like a medicine, but in a sweet way. And I started being strongly drawn to it.
The one that has always been teaching me the most is “M”. He would not just "lecture me", he is naturally an intelligent and good man, but I could see what kind of person Islam had made of him: strong, serene, genuinely concerned with the wellbeing of others, striving to improve himself, fully aware that there is one God and that He loves him.

I wanted that.

The medicine worked and I'm having an amazing recovery. That's remarkable especially because I didn't even know I was ill in the first place.

WEAKNESS
The first big step occurred on a Sunday during Lent, I left the church with my packet of cigarettes and my lighter in my hand and chucked them in the nearest bin.
The history of cancer in my family and the fact that my father is fighting cancer for the second time in his 50s never motivated me enough to give up. But now I wanted to do things for God, an giving up my addiction was the first on the list. I was a chain smoker (since the age of 15) but after 2 days of craving by body was clean and I didn't want cigarettes anymore: I WAS FREE. And it took only 2 days on a bad mood.

I knew that was Allah making it extraordinarily easy for me.

FEMINISM
I have always been - and still am - very sensitive to gender related issues.
I am Italian and in Italy, although equal rights for genders are recognized by law, the media offer a certain image of women. The (naked) body of women is used very frequently, you can see topless (or anyway half naked) girls at anytime of day, even to advertise a soft drink!). While that never scandalized me, it always made me feel we are being portrayed as a piece of furniture or a cut of meat. My friends make fun of me for my ideas. Those who know what the word means call me "the suffragette".
In the western world, at least in my slice of it, a woman has equal rights to a man, but to have equal respect in practice she has to fight, it doesn't come naturally.
I was a fighter. I wanted my career more than anything else. I wanted to succeed in life, not to “end up being a housewife”, as if I'm not good enough to have a real job! I didn't want to get married or have kids: taking care of a house was definitely not gonna happen.

I was all wrapped up in this rebellious and cynical self, I don't know if I was happy or not, for sure I was under a lot of pressure. Until I learned about women in Islam.

WOW...

Slowly but surely, a whole new world unfolded before my eyes. A world where respect was given to me, for free and in abundance. I didn't have to behave like a man anymore, I didn't have to be "hard". I could take off my armor and I was like a butterfly stretching its wings for the first time. I admitted to myself that I wanted to be a wife and a mother and that I actually love taking care of others. I embraced my femininity and that shift in my personality was displayed in a way that only now makes sense to me: I started covering up more. Again, I WAS FREE.

A HUSBAND
One of the many truths that I discovered about myself was that I loved “M” deeply. He was my first "teacher of Islam" and he still is the best. We both tried to deny it, conceal it, fight it... until we started trying to see if we could have a future. As much as I appreciated Islam, I was still a convinced Christian. We decided that we could make it work because we wanted the same things, and that we would get married. He never denied that he would be happy if I converted, but at the same time he accepted me as I was and I never felt under any pressure to change, because he was telling the truth.
I decided our children would be raised as Muslims, because he was a better Muslim than I was a Christian (This was before I learned our children could only have been Muslims anyway!).
I started thinking that I had to learn a lot about Islam if I was to raise a team of little Muslims. So I told a close Muslim friend of mine, and she took me to the mosque.

THE MOSQUE
The first time I set foot in a mosque was the first day of Ramadan this year, with this friend of mine, we were out together and she was looking for it. It was only an empty carpeted room in a basement, but I felt a kind of peace there i never felt before. The following Friday my friend asked me if i wanted to go with her. I was scared but i couldn't resist. I didn't know anything, I didn't even bring a scarf for my head. As we got in an old lady snorted something at my friend pointing at me and then at her head... I was intimidated, luckily my friend had a spare scarf. When the sisters would come in and say “Salam aleykum” I knew what the answer to that was, but I was too shy and I felt like a bit of a fraud, so I would say “Hi” instead.
When I heard the Adhan I felt something really strong inside. I felt exposed. I felt naked in front of a simple fact: "It doesn't matter how scary this is, you know you are never going to settle for anything less because this is the best thing you can possibly do. So, do it".
I was sitting at the back and tears were rolling down my face during the recitation.

I wanted that.

DENIAL
It was overwhelming, there's no other word to describe it.
After my first ever visit to the mosque I went for coffee with two Muslim friends (of course I was the only one having coffee as they were both fasting), we were talking about my wedding to “M” and one asked me if I would ever consider converting to Islam. "NOT A CHANCE!" - I said defensively.
Probably I was identifying my religion with my culture and my personality and I was reaffirming my individuality. I wanted to exorcise my fears of being a minority within my own family, being absorbed by my Muslim husband and my Muslim children and simply "disappear".
So I spoke to my fiancé about it and we made sure there would be a space for me as a Christian in our family, that there would be a Christmas tree, etc. I felt reassured.

With such a loving, intelligent, open minded husband-to-be, why would I need to change my religion?
Why would I need to even consider it, especially after so many years spent learning how "not to ask" questions of faith?
Why would I need to put everything under discussion again?
Why, after finding this balance, should I ask myself if it is "the truth"?
If I live my life as a good person, why would I need to become a Muslim?

And especially - given all the question above - WHY DID I FEEL I NEEDED TO JOIN ISLAM SO DESPERATELY???

NOW
I admitted it to myself. In my heart I passed the point of no return. In my heart I am Muslim already. Outside the forum only 4 people know. The rest will know after I say my Shahada. As for my family, I plan to break the news when I have already been officially Muslim for a while, so they can see that there's no need to be afraid: it's just a happier version of me.

Thanks to Allah and to all the people that helped me getting to this point.

[dhak1yya]

Re: Tell us your story :)

InshaAllah I'm going to tell my story of how I came to Islam but its rather long and convoluted so I'm telling it in parts.............

Part One...

I was brought up in a family that did not have much religion. My dad is a complete atheist and my mum is somewhat buddhist but has not practiced it in years, decades even. Just as an example of how atheistic my upbringing was, when I was five and in my first year at school, I had never heard of Jesus (as) until it was nearly Christmas and the teacher started going on about Bethlehem, mangers, wise men etc. I shocked her greatly by asking "so who is this Jesus anyway?" and did not understand any of her explanation and I remember thinking "okay so he's this guy that was born in a stable in Bethlehem" lol :p

I gradually learned a little about Christianity at school, and I pondered some of the things, like how God could see you wherever you were, however for the most part the impression that I got was that God was just some figure that was told about to children to make them behave, and at my first school believing in God was akin to believing in santa claus and the tooth fairy (astaghfirullah)

My parents lack of religion caused problems when I needed to understand about death. I don't think I really understood death until I was seven years old. A tv schools programme we watched at school terrified me because it was about people being rescued from under the snow in an avalanche, and the idea of being buried under snow and unable to breathe terrified me. I tried to ask my parents about death, but they shied away from the question and could not give me answers. All they said is that when you are dead your body shuts down so its like going to sleep and never waking up. (I have suffered from insomnia to varying degrees ever since!!) - because I was too young to concieve of the idea of consciousness ending, the idea I had of death was being trapped inside a lifeless body buried under the ground, or being trapped in infinite darkness unable to see, hear, touch, taste or smell anything. So I was terrifed by thinking of anything relating to death. Even one hymn we used to sing at school scared me cause it was about how the sun keeps on rising and setting until the end of time or something - cause it reminded me of death.

Very very interestingly with regards to the way Christians teach about God, just last week a friend of mine who is from a Muslim family and is doing teacher training said how shocked she was cause she had to observe an RE class where the teacher was teaching the children about the Passover using lego men, including a lego man God character. She was sitting there totally shocked and flabbagasted saying "astaghfirullah astaghfirullah" over and over cause she couldn't believe half the stuff in the biblical account of Musa's (as) life or that anyone could possibly make a lego man of God. Two inches tall lol :p My experience was the exact opposite of that.................... coming to realise somewhere between the age of eight and ten years, that God actually is infinitely great, powerful etc, and not some cartoon character sitting on a cloud that obviously doesn't exist cause aeroplanes and space ships go above the clouds and they never found an old man sitting up there!!!

Once I understood the concept of God being infinite and not like any human, I still wasn't sure if God really existed. I discussed God and religion at my middle school (age 8-12) which was a Catholic school so did a rather better job of teaching about God and Jesus (as), also when I was ten I sat next to a Muslim boy in class and we used to talk about religion. A lot of the stuff he said made sense, about heaven and hell and God judging people and making the bad people go to hell. I think he also told me that Muslims don't believe that Jesus (as) is the son of God, that he is a messenger of God. My mum also taught me a little about Islam and Muhammad, cause I told her about the boy who sat next to me and she recognised he was a Muslim from his name - though what she taught was from a historical point of view as she is not a Muslim. I formulated the view that as the Buddha lived about 500 years before Jesus (as) and Muhammad :saw: lived about 500 years after (my mum couldn't remember the exact date lol :p) that God sent messengers every 500 years and wondered what messengers arrived in the years 1000 and 1500 ad and thought the next messenger must be coming soon. I kind of fluctuated between believeing in God and not believing in God and thinking that the people who started up religions were just wise people who had good ideas about how to live your life.

I started believing in God properly when I was twelve. At that time I was having a very bad time. I had been bullied in school on and off since I was six, but it was very bad that year as pretty much all the girls were treating me like a leper, the way twelve year old girls can be like, to the point when I actually believed I was inherently inferior, unlikeable, abnormal, possibly even suffering from some weird form of mental disability that stopped you being able to have friends. Also I was forced to do piano lessons and put through exam after exam by my piano teacher who had old fashioned, harsh teaching methods and had long since removed any fun from the lessons, and I was scared of her. I was supposed to be doing the grade six piano exam (which is equivalent to GCSE in piano) in the next month or so, we were just waiting for the exam board to set the date and I was terrified cause I really was not ready to do the exam. I was also not doing as well at school as I had done before because of undiagnosed dyslexia which of course I knew nothing about but I was struggling with subjects that I had found easier in the past because of increased necessity to read a lot of text, organise and plan work etc. So my confidence was at absolute rock bottom, in fact the lowest and most unhappy I ever was in my whole life. (including when I was diagnosed with depression a few years ago)

I used to listen to the radio late at night cause often I couldn't sleep, and one night I was listening to this Christian preist talk about converting to Christianity. He was saying that you should come out of the darkness and into the light and ask Jesus (as) to save you. (or stuff along those lines) I was starting to think maybe God does exist... certainly I did want to move out of the darkness and into the light.

So I prayed. Before I prayed I thought about God........ I wanted to make sure I prayed to the right God, and not a false God or a devil of some sort. I was about to do what the man on the radio said and pray to Jesus (as) but I suddenly thought what if the Muslims are right and Jesus (as) is not really God? Then I thought, even Jesus (as) (i.e according to Christians) talked about God like God was greater than he was, and the Muslims prayed to God as well, so when I prayed I started something like "Dear God, The One God, who made the universe and sent Jesus and Muhammad and Buddha and any other messengers........" and I continued with something like "I want to be in the correct religion of people who follow you and not false gods" -------- I really can't remember the exact words, only the general meaning of what I was trying to say. Years later when I first read Surat al Fatiha I was struck by the similarity of its overall meaning and the meaning that I meant when I first tried to pray sincerely.

I felt better after I prayed and at some point I had a dream or a vision where I was a train that was stuck in a dark tunnel which was a dead end and didn't know how to get out, and that God brought me back along the tracks out of the tunnel and onto a long straight track that went over the hill into bright sun and flat countryside, and that there was a station just over the hill, so I could start going along the straight track in the light.

The next day or not many days later I was looking at my calendar and worrying a great deal about the oncoming piano exam. It was february. Then all the numbers on my calendar seemed blurry except one square - tuesday 28th. I remember thinking "tuesday 28th" I suddenly thought " this is the date of my piano exam" then I dismissed it as a silly thought.

Until my next piano lesson when my piano teacher and my mum were discussing the date of the exam which had come through. I was outside the room......... my piano teacher said the exam was on tuesday 28th march and it was like my heart stopped...........!! Thats when I knew that God existed and answered my prayer.............................!!! alhamdulillah!!

Also (though I did not realise that this was also answering my prayers until years later cause I only prayed for help not for this specific outcome and would never have dreamed of praying or hoping for such an outcome) my piano teacher developed a severe illness that stopped her ever teaching piano again a week or two later. This meant I had to take the exam without any help or preperation (my parents don't know enough about music to help me at that level) which actually was a very good outcome cause there was no pressure on me at all as it was like "you poor thing, your teacher being so ill that she can't teach you right before your exam" and me failing the exam (inevitably) was because of that.

So anyway, thats the first part of my journey to Islam................ how I came to believe in God from being brought up Atheist. There's still another fifteen years before I actually made it to Islam............

[dhak1yya]

Re: Tell us your story :)

Dhakiyya's story Part Two (this is turning into a mini series lol :p)

~~~~~~

Some of the stuff in this may seem like I'm revealing sins from my past however there is important information that is relevent to my long and convoluted journey to Islam and also to serve as a warning to people who don't take certain things seriously. You'll see what I mean when you read it.

~~~~~~

I had to keep my new found religious belief secret. If I told my parents about why I believed in God they would say I imagined it, or was kidding myself or some such thing. I had also heard my dad ridiculing the idea of believing in God. He would never do this to religious people out of politeness, but he made his views known to his family.

My life improved dramatically after that, not least because I no longer had to endure piano lessons or piano practice. My confidence was improving although I did not yet have the confidence to stand up to the other girls at school. I very soon went to secondary school though, and I remember going there for one day in the last summer at middle school, where we were put in our classes and met our form tutor etc, and I was very glad that hardly any of the girls from my primary school were in my class, and I made friends with four different girls just on that day. One of them, who I'll refer to as N, was the one from her middle school that was bullied. Sadly for her many of the kids from her primary school were in the class and already the other girls I made friends with told me not to like her. At that point I was very pleased to hear this, it was an assurance that I was not likely to be the one that everyone hated in my new school.

When I started the following september, sure as I had predicted, N was the one that all the girls didn't like. After a morning of joining in with them running away from her (astaghfirullah) and all the other mean stuff I had endured through my last year of primary school (astaghfirullah) I had an attack of having a conscience, and remembered God and Jesus (as) (although I didn't believe he was the son of God, I did believe that he was a great teacher and perfect role-model) and I realised I could not go on like this. I also knew what it was like to be in her shoes and did not feel comfortable inflicting that on someone else, so I decided I was going to make friends with her again and stop being mean. At the time I believed that this would mean I would be bullied along with her, however I also realised that I would still have at least one friend and we could face the bullying together. As it happened, I didn't lose a single friend over it, and I gained a friend, N, who is the only one from my school who I am still in contact with. I was known as the one who would hit anyone who picked on N, and one boy even tried to deny he'd been mean to her one time when I went to "talk to him" about bullying N. In doing this I was no longer bullied because if I had the strength to stand up for N, then the bullies assumed I'd have the strength to stand up for myself.

This episode proved to me that God changes people for the better, and that anyone has the ability to choose to do good instead of evil, and that you feel a whole lot better in yourself if you choose to do good. retrospectively, because Allah guides people sometimes because they do good, occasionally I wonder if had I not made the right decision here Allah may have sealed my heart and never guided me. Though of course only Allah knows for what reason He guided me.

That is the time when my deen al fitr was the strongest. Having no decent guidance (although I had Christian teachings at school I knew some of it was wrong and was not sure how much other things from it were wrong) unfortunately I became progressively more astray from there on.

In some ways I became a right little religious zealot. I became perhaps a little too confident in my belief that I knew for sure that God existed and that Christians are wrong about stuff. I used to argue with my RE teacher. One time I went into RE with "666" on my forehead (as a rebellion against Christianity - I did not believe in Satan - because the only description of Satan that I had heard is the Christian one who is like an evil version of God) Its things like that that make me wish I'd have learned about Islam a whole lot sooner - cause then I could have gone into RE with the Shahada written on my forehead in Arabic calligraphy or sommat :p but Allah knows best!

I also went into teenage rebellion which included rebelling against Christianity although I really wanted to be a Christian but could not because I refused to believe that Jesus (as) was the son of God. I did the normal teenage rebellion stuff and was frequently getting into minor trouble at school. Also the problems I was having with dyslexia were getting worse but again it was not suspected because I was clever at hiding my weaknesses and also I was not aware that I was having more trouble than the other kids with reading and writing stuff, I thought everyone found it just as hard, but they were more dedicated students than me.

One way of rebelling of the Catholic kids was by doing ouija boards. Due to hiding my religious beliefs at home, my brain had become compartmentalised - atheism lived on very strongly in part of my brain whilst the other part was a religious zealot of a religion that comprised one person (me) cause I thought I was the only one that knew that Jesus (as) was not the son of God (:rotfl: <--retrospectively) I could see nothing wrong with ouija boards and the atheist part of my mind said they were a load of rubbish anyway and I was just humouring the other kids by joining in.

I did not realise at the time but this was not my first experience of the occult because I was already very good at palmistry. I learned the very basics from a magazine that was little more than a beginners guide written by someone who knew nothing about it and just got a load of random facts out of a book probably. What I did not realise is that palmistry and other forms of divination is not about reading the signs and knowing what they mean, but about channelling psychic ability and/or getting information from the unseen via jinns. I thought I was just blagging when I was reading palms, and it was just coincidence that people said how good my readings were and how this and that was right or came true. My dad was impressed with what he entirely believed was my blagging skills and for at least two years running I read palms for charity in the annual village fair.

Ouija boards work because you get jinns on the board that spell out words. I had a vague idea that there were spirits that came to the board and that sometimes you might get an evil spirit, but it was okay because if you ask the spirit its favourite number, and it said 666 it was an evil one. Any other number therefore and it must be a good spirit (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

astaghfirullah!!!!!!!!!(for all the oiuja board related stuff)

So the messing around with oiuja boards was a fun game for quite some time. We even did them in class when the teacher was not looking. Me and three friends even got caught doing a ouija board in RE once(!!) They way we did them was with the board written out on a piece of paper and we used a coin instead of a glass. That way we could carry them around in our blazer pockets. However fun turned to freaking everyone out when it predicted the death of my friend's boyfriend. I have no idea if this came to pass or not, most of what I remember of the board's predictions turned out to be total rubbish. Afaik no real harm was done at this point.

At school once a year they sent us to a convent for a "reflection day" where we did stuff that was to deepen our relationship with God. One thing I remember very strongly was we were given a candle and a piece of paper and sat around a small fire and were to write our sins on the piece of paper and burn it in the fire. In pen I wrote the usual nominal stuff you learn to mention when catholics start going on about sins. (non catholics did not have to go to confession but we learned plenty about confessing anyway and were encouraged to say sorry to God for sins anyway) Then in the wax from the candle I wrote "ouija board" (I didn't want the teacher to see it even though he was the same one that caught me and my friends doing one). I had a ouija board in the top pocket of my blazer and planned to burn that descreetly later. I burned the paper with sins on. Later in the day, when I took out the paper with the ouija board on it, subhanAllah it had gone completely blank! As I kind of knew they were wrong, I promised God I would stop doing them.

A couple of years later though, a friend persuaded me to teach her how to do one. I refused several times before (astaghfirullah) she persuaded me. Which I really regret becuase this time around it was not just harmless fun. As far as I remember I only did the one to show her how it was done, and the spirit we got was a boy who was killed on a nearby road (or so it claimed) my friend went and looked it up in the library (it gave the year that the accident happened) and found that a boy of the right age had been killed where it said. (I say it cause I now know that the ouija board does not have spirits of dead people, but evil jinns pretending to be the spirits of those people) This was when I was in the sixth form at school.

My friend became obsessed by the ouija board, and this was the same year that ayrton senna was killed on the race track. she was a big fan of motor racing and was very upset by his death, and became obsessed with him and was channelling a spirit that claimed to be ayrton senna on the ouija board who said he was following her around everywhere. I did not believe that it was ayrton senna, that it was an evil spirit playing tricks and told her to stop doing it. the spirit told her it didn't like me and there was evil spirits hanging around me.

At the sixth form party (the school allowed us to have alcohol at the party) she got very drunk and although I was at the other side of the room I noticed her leave the school hall. I ran after her and followed her into the toilets, asked her what was up and she was crying saying she wanted to kill herself (amongst other things she said) she refused to listen to me saying she should not kill herself, and she left the school building and started walking towards the road saying she was going to throw herself under a car. It was like she was posessed by something, even though she was slender and not sporty at all, and I was very strong cause I was competing at area to national level in Judo, it took every last bit of strength I had to restrain her and drag her back to the school building. The next day she said that "ayrton" told her I had saved her life. Some time after that she started having fits for no reason. Initially she was diagnosed with epilepsy but after seeing specialists at the hospital they said that she did not have epilepsy - but they did not know what she did have. Personally, I think she was posessed. She got worse too, she started hitchhiking across the country to follow motor racing events, and even travelled abroad to pursue her obsession. She got volunteer work stewarding at race tracks and I was told by someone that one time doing this she wandered out into the track in the middle of a race and had to be pulled back by another steward, and afterwards she did not remember she had done this. After this I lost contact with her, so I have no idea what happened to her. May Allah keep her safe and guide her to Islam if she is still alive inshaAllah.

Other freaky/occult/psychic stuff has happened to me as well, too much to list here. I spontaneously developed the ability to astrally project (where the soul wanders around outside the body), and have had foreknowledge of events, in particular knowing that people were going to die. And all the while my brain happily suppressed these experiences and kept them safe from the atheist part of my brain. (mostly, barring the odd experience that totally freaked me out)

No Christian I ever met had any explanation for any of this other than that all of it was from the devil. Even my very early experience of God and understanding that Jesus (as) is not the son of God, and other stull that I "just knew". I believed that a lot of what I experienced came from God, apart from the ouija board stuff, although some stuff I was not sure about, like astral projection. I used to say the Lord's Prayer over and over if I thought there were evil spirits around. Whilst I was at school I used to go to a "nightclub" run by evangelical Christians and remember being upset by their propaganda. I wanted to go to the main preacher and tell him he did not need to lie to make people believe in God, that the Truth of God stood up on its own without lies and propaganda.

At university once again I tried to be Christian. I was well into ice hockey by then, and had quit judo, and I got a job at the ice rink to pay for my training and living expenses etc (I was the last uni year to get a grant and it was a measly 2 grand to cover living expenses for the whole year. I was malnourished pretty much throughout uni) and one guy I worked with was a Born Again Christian. One time he tried to heal my sore throat, and not only did he not succeed to heal it, I got the worst flu I ever had so far (inshaAllah) Also one of my best friends was gay and he said that she had "gay demons" and I should not hang round with her cause apparently the "gay demons" were contagious. I asked him if Jesus (as) really would tell me to abandon my best friend just because she was gay, and he said yes. So I told him where to stick his "gay demons". I also told him I did not believe Jesus (as) was the son of God. I can't remember what he said but once again I could not be Christian and felt completely alone and isolated like no-one in the world believed what I did.

end of part two...........

[sisterKhadija]

My Story about reverting

Assalaam Alakium,

Since we have this nice new area, I thought I would repost my story. Original is here: http://www.ummah.net/forum/showthrea...t=77734&page=2

I am a revert to Islam, Alhamdulliah as well as my 74 year-old Father who was raised as a Confederate Southerner in North Carolina during the depression and the times of the KKK.

We were Lutheran Christian before. Islam is fastest growing because it is the Truth. When the writings of the Lost Books of the Bible are not mentioned in the Bible or any other books we have today, except the Quran, that tells you something. Everyone I know as a Christian are not true Christians. They are Holy on Sunday to repent and pray and backstabbing-cussing-sinners the other 6 days. In my life I have never been in the presence of a true Christian role model including all the people at the Church I grew up in.

The Church even created a Haunted House every year on Halloween as a fundraiser. To this day, I do not see how people can dare dress as a Witch on Church property and scare people.

In reading History and knowing the Bible is a cut and paste job from the times of Constantine and every Holiday from Christmas to Valentines Day were originally Pagan Holidays, it made me think. My Dad has no schooling, but understands the Bible like a Scholar. once we read the Quran we both knew heart mind and soul it made so much since. That day we both felt like a weight of stress about religion was removed and neither one of us have ever had a question in our brains that needed to be answered.

GOD knew when the books were written what the times would be like in 2006. He needed to make sure the last book given to us would make since even after it was read 1400 years later. He knew by the time Constantine put the Bible together, no one could interpret the words easily as we do not speak in the language like "For art thou". He knew times were going to be hard enough as it is, so by giving us a simply easy book like the Quran would make our Spiritual life easy so we could spend more time to handle the stress of work and bills.

To me it was like, what makes more sense. For example, the Bible story of Jesus (PBUH) being born was 1 sentence. That's ridiculous, of course there is so much more to the story. come on now! JESUS (PBUH) WAS BORN! That should take way more than a mediocre sentence. Compare the Bible story of Jesus (PBUH) being born to the story in the Quran. The reason it is one sentence in the Bible is because Constantine could not admit that Jesus (PBUH) spoke of Mohammed (PBUH), or else he will loose all his power and Christians would turn.

Did they ever stop to think about how Jesus prayed? He bowed like we do as Muslims. That kinda tells me he was doing what Abraham (PBUH) did which is what Mohammed (PBUH) did to tell the people to stop being Pagan and go back to our roots.

Alhamdulliah GOD has chosen us to the right path.

Salaam,
sister Khadija :D :inlove: :ahb:

[Saint Poetry]

Re: My Story about reverting

Well where to start...

I was born into a christian family, a very devout christian family mind you. they taught me how to be a good christian, so i read the bible, went to church, and worshipped the christian "God". this went on for years to come until one day when it all came tumbling down around me and i was left standing as bare as i was born.

March 28, 2003 I wake up and its another one of those days. god how i hated those days. i did my business and went to school. first few periods were boring and the same as usual. but then i had art class. i walked groggily into the classroom. i took my seat and put my head down. the class went on and the teacher gave us an assignment, so i started working on it. the people at my table were talking and there was this one girl who wouldnt stop glancing at me, i didnt understand why, at least not until she asked, "What would you do if i asked you out?" and i simply replied with no interest, "I'd say yes" and so it began. i finally had a girlfriend after years of being alone.

March 29, 2003 I wake up happy and renewed, im thinking i might call my dad and tell him i got a girlfriend, he would be so proud. i walk downstairs and into the living room with a radient smile on my face until i look at my mother. my mother, brother, and step-father were in the room, they all looked sad. i was concerned so i asked them, "Whats wrong?" my mother looked at me with red puffy eyes and said,"Your father is dead" i stared at her for a moment and shrugged it off then turned to walk away. "He shot himself" she said. i stopped dead in my tracks. i turned and looked her in the eye and saw it was true and ran upstairs. i sat on my bed and turned on the tv, yet i didnt look at it. my brother came in the room, sat next to me and said, "Let it out". i looked him in the eye and then i burst into tears. in my heart, god didnt exist, not the christian god i had read and heard so much about.

A few months later i looked into satanism. it looked interesting and it was dark and morbid, so i thought "eh why not?". we did unspeakable things as satanists, and we didnt even know what we wer doing cuz we werent doing it right. we made sacrifices to a false god. until one day we had nothing left to sacrifice, so i best friend at the time stepped forward and knealt before me. i lifted his head and look into his eyes and a single tear ran down his face for he saw my love for him as i would love a brother. i threw his head aside as if pleased with the sacrifice and waved my hand. they bludgeoned him with a 2 by 4. i left that group and never looked back, ive despised Lucifer ever since that day and if the day comes when i may be able to return the favor then i will gladly take it.

a few months later i found buddha...kinda. i studied buddhism to find it a pleasing religion. yet i never really got into it more then studies. i let it go with time and learn to live without it.

Summer of 2003 I found christ, i looked at him in a new way, so i was born again, as the christians put it. my faith was solid until i came to washington. in washington i met a beautiful girl, she was gorgeous and i woulda done anything for her. she told me about Wicca and i converted. i was wiccan for a little over a year and a half.

Summer of '05 i found christ again, and once again i was reborn, i read the bible everyday, i went to church 3 times a week. i was living the good life. i thought i was happy for once. this went on until Summer of '06.

Summer of '06 i came to the conclusion that i might be gay, so i couldnt be a christian, so i left the faith. i looked into myself for awile to see what i wanted. i didnt know until last month.

Now. I have done the declaration, i even did it with someone on the phone. i took the shower, i did what was needed for me to be happy. i felt renewed, as if life is just that much sweeter. i cant wait for the new adventures ill have, and i hope some of yall will join me, for you joined me in my past, now follow me into my future.

[Firdes]

Re: Tell us your story :)

I'm not really sure where to start, the beginning was too long ago, lol.. For a start I'm an unconventional 40 year old woman. I was born into Islam as my family are Turkish Cypriot. My parents moved to England in the 60s and brought their culture over with them but not their religion (I'm not entirely sure when the Turkish Cypriots lost their religion).
Therefore I was brought up without being taught about Islam, was told we have Eid, but didn't know the meaning, for a few years they put up a Christmas tree, but one day told me I was too old.

My father and most of the men in the family were very arrogant, womanising. I remember my dad's English girlfriend when I was two.. he then proceeded to have various other affairs, one with my mum's sister in law. As a teenager I started to rebel, eventually dating only English men as I didn't want to end up with anyone like my dad. As a girl he made me feel inferior, so I rebelled more, I became more like a man myself to prove to him that I could still make something of myself. There were talks of marrying me off to my first cousin in Cyprus, I had another cousin in England (15 years my senior) who started grooming me at a young age for himself whilst playing the 'older brother'. .. so I rebelled more, distancing myself from everything Turkish. This unfortunately included any faith of any sort. I started to beleive in nothing; we died and that was it.

I had several more relationships (living with two), still not married as I didn't want the same unhappy marriage my parents did, hey I didn't even want children. Yet as I got older (mid 30s), I was feeling very spiritual and always had questions about my puprose in life, etc. To cut a long story short, a couple of years ago I started seeking more knowledge, I started to read the bible so I could argue about it better (I thought religion was the root of all evil), but I didn't really get on with it, so I decided to move onto the Qu'ran. During this time, I met a lovely, patient (English) man who moved in with me. I wanted to know early on in the relationship that if I wanted marriage/kids, it was okay with him (rather than waste another 6 years of my life with another loser). He said he'd do anything for me and the day before my 40th birthday in August we were married.

I agreed with a lot of things I was reading in the Qu'ran and it was answering a lot of my questions, everyday I started believing more and more. I didn't want to deny my faith any longer, after all it would be so ironic if I went to hell when my name means Paradise (yes, it should be Firdaws, but in the Turkish alphabet there is no W, so was changed to Firdevs, then the V got dropped). I thought it was one of (many) signs. I declared to my cousin (who lives in Morocco and who is a practicing Muslim) that I now believed in Allah and that I was indeed a Muslim. I then found out that it is haram for me to marry a non Muslim.. I was very upset, however, I realised that instead of my deen getting weak, it was getting stronger and inshallah, one day, my husband will revert.

I am a much better and happier person now I've found the truth. I try to do something towards it every time I can. Last year was the first time I fasted during Ramadan, it's been 2 years since I gave up alcohol, haram foods, etc. I wish I had done these things sooner as I regret a lot of my jahil life, but Allah knows best and I'm forever grateful that he chose to guide me at this point in my life.

There is still so much for me to learn, but there are still many changes to be made. I work in the music industry, I listen to music, I wear make up, I don't wear hijab, etc... but my heart is filled with Islam and insallah there will be many more changes, for the first time ever in my life, I now want a child and I hope it's not too late for me.

One thing I'm feeling very guilty about is that I have not started my 5 times a day prayers. Firstly, there is no one to show me, but I've found some links that I can look to learn from, I have my prayer mat ready. Not sure what I'll be able to do about work as I'm the only Muslim here out of 200 people.

There is a lot more I would like to share, and a lot more I struggle with which I hope you, my brothers and sisters can help me with. I feel very lonely as my family aren't religious, sometimes I don't know who to ask for help, inshallah I will make new friends here, especially with my fellow sisters. Thank you for creating this part of the forum for people like me who don't have the confidence to post much on the regular forums.

May Allah continue to guide us all.
Firdes

[Hadiyah1]

Re: Tell us your story :)

Well im gonna make this short version of what lead me to become a revert.

born into a sikh family and at one point very into the religon,
from early age however my first best freind at age of 4 was a muslim, since then i always had muslim mates aswell as other religions so i was familiar with the faith. when i reached college a freind of mine who was a muslim died at age of 18, from then i lost faith in my religion completely and searched for answers, i went on to uni and a path which i was doing wrong, i thought i was happy but really i wasnt and was just enjoying the moments of which i had. during uni i become very good mates with a few muslim girls and i enjoyed their company and began to learn about islam, i thought i would try fast with them and i did that was a year and half ago, i began learning more and during this time signs where appeared, one day i was at uni and i noticed a book i went to pic it up because it was in the most oddiest place where nobody would have left such book there, it was a islamic book and that shocked me and i still have it today, i felt it was allah trying guide me or somthing, at this point i began to notice things and change within and outterself, i became more aware of things and i cant explain but more relaxed and well happy like not fake happy but happy. i fasted again and this time and last year began to pray, i learnt and still am learning. many things have happen which are to personal to tell but i have always come out of them ok i guess, what im trying to say is that i learnt allah would never make me go threw somthing i couldnt handle and so all that i went threw has been kismet and has lead me to this path. my name Hadiyah means gift, well i asked poeple to think of a name that they may think would suite be becuase i wanted to change it, this name i liked but was unsure, about weeks and months later someone close to me said that he had been in his shop and some man had given his dad a hadiyah, his dad said to the man wat is a hadiyah this man said a gift. at that point this somone remembered that i had mentioned that name as one i may one few months before, this shocked and amazed this somone. i asked who was the man that had said this hadiyah word, this somone said a MOLVEE (cant spell it a teacher of islam) thats where my name comes from.

anyways basically my story is that i was lead to this path and over the past 2 years was introduced to important people that would help me and stand by me. i have a long way to go yet, but i am there and i believe and im happy.

so much more to this story but i will intime tell you more.

allahafiz

[carol_au]

Re: Tell us your story :)

Asalaam alaikum and Jazak Allah Khair for your story akhi

What a wonderful blessing to hear your story.. specially the way it has been a journey that has obviously not been an easy one. Masha Allah, it has encouraged me so much.

May Allah bless you and continue His work in you ..stand strong akhi

ameen.

[dhak1yya]

Re: Tell us your story :)

Part three of Dhakiyya's reversion story.....

.........................

So, I was working at the ice rink when I was in London, I took the job to finance my ice hockey training and to be able to afford to eat (incidentally yes it is the same ice rink in London where the recent shooting happened)... I looked at this calendar which was pinned on the wall and had a different website for each day of the year. For June 21st, i.e. the summer solstice, it was a pagan website. I made a mental note to go there. Whilst doing my A levels I had played guitar in a rock band where the lead singer was a pagan. Incidentally the drummer was a born again Christian. Weird combination I know!! but we got on fine nevertheless... and the pagan singer had taught me about some forms of divination which I was fairly good at, and some of her pagan ideas sounded reasonable.

My life at that time wasn't that easy, I was very broke and frequently went without food because of a lack of money. Sometimes friends would buy me food cause they took pity on me. The job at the rink did not pay well and on two occasions men threatened to knife me up because I told them to follow the ice rink rules for the public session. On both occasions my reply was "yeah! come on then! knife me up!" and one of them threatened to get his sister to beat me up and i waited in anticipation for her arrival to do just that, prepared to fight her, next time I was there but she didn't show up. I also had a reputation in the ice hockey league I played in for fighting. On one amusing occasion I beat up this woman who turned out to be the ref's wife. :rotfl: (it was a non league game) I spent most of the rest of that game in the sin bin..... So I had enough of a rep for being hard/tough to get along in a very tough world.

My attempts to be Christian once again were failing. Apart from getting severe flu when the Christian who was trying to convert me tried to heal my sore throat, I was getting into arguments with him about basic things, like he told me to stop being friends with another woman cause she was gay and he said I'd catch "gay demons" from her and become gay myself. He also told me that I had to believe that Jesus (as) was the son of God which I didn't believe. The friend who was gay showed me a copy of "the satanic bible" by Anton Lavey which I read part of but concluded it was not a good philosophy to live your life by. I parted company with Christianity after the "gay demons" argument, but this was the last in a long series of arguments. Unfortunately whilst trying to understand this rather warped version of Christianity I picked up a few warped ideas about monotheistic religion. I very much got the impression that Christianity was all about doing everything you can to get away from nature, that nature was bad and made you sin, the real human nature was sinful and you had to get away from that.

So when I started looking into paganism, I saw a much more gentle, kind philosophy that embraced human nature and nature itself, and sought to harm none, and to find the religious practices that were just right for you and so on. Extreme tolerance is the nature of their religion, I worship my gods, you worship yours (sounds familiar? lol :p surat al kaafiroon is a good one to quote to pagans) and each is just as valid (that's where the similiarity ends....) - in reality the pagan community is nothing like as tolerant as they think they are but we'll come to that later....

At uni I knew a couple of pagan guys and started hanging round with them, and also I found pagan internet forums and posted there frequently, learning more and more about paganism.

Yet I did not become pagan really straight away. I was still monotheist and following my own personal religion. Within the pagan community this was not only acceptable but commendable, that you are following your own path and not letting anyone dicate to you. My personal religion based on deen al fitr and early experiences of God in my life with no religious guidance, fitted in much better with the pagan community than any Christians I have ever come across. (with the possible exception of unitarians who I had not come across then) I still prayed to God in my own way like I always had, I still recited the Lord's Prayer when I wanted comfort from God. I used to pray frequently for a husband. I did not have much success with men, at this time most of my previous boyfriends had drug problems and the relationships were short and unsuccessful. The only non drug addict one, who I was going out with before I went to uni, had other problems including thinking that everyone around him was gay. He frequently went on and on about how and why he thought his best friend was gay, and the relationship ended not because he accused me of flirting with other men, but he accused me of flirting with women(!!) which was a complete fabrication of his imagination. I didn't want a boyfriend anyway, I wanted a husband. So I prayed to God for a husband. Then one day whilst I was in the middle of my finals I was getting ready to go out when a weird thought popped into my head "better look nice cause I'm meeting my husband today" to which I thought "that is totally stupid." I was going to help out at a charity stall to give me a break from uni exams. However whilst I was there I met a man who a few days later asked me out. The first time I looked at him it was like "where have you been all my life?" and we got on well right from the start, we talked about every subject under the sun. He told me he had been Muslim not so long ago but was disillusioned with it. I talked about paganism, because I was interested in it. He was very knowlegable and at that time his mum was a practicing pagan. (she later went back to Christianity) Within a short time, by western standars, we were married.

I was getting more and more interested in paganism. I was interested in shamanism as a result of studying anthropology at uni (amongst other things in a "jack of all trades" biology based degree) - but this interest soon went on to many other things. Because my husband had (and still has) a huge collection of books on all subjects, and because he had been pagan before becoming Muslim, he had many books on paganism which I read.

One book was a small, red book which I read the first three lines of. It made no sense whatsoever and I stopped reading it. From that point all kinds of peculiar things started happening. For a start the number 93 started cropping up everywhere. I found out that the book in question was a "revealed" text by Aleister Crowley which was believed by his followers to come from God or gods. However it is the babblings of a shaytaan. 93 is a sacred number according to Crowley's philosophy. I found out about Crowley's religion from other pagans, the more I learned about it the more I liked it. I both liked and felt contemptious towards his jinn-babbled book, but I felt more and more drawn to it, and his philosophy. I became more and more involved with the pagan community, going to rituals at all eight times of the year (the solstices, equinoxes and festivals spaced between those) going to talks, lectures, meeting and making friends with pagans. I learned how to do rituals, divination, I learned about different types of occultism and pagan religions. I became very knowlegable about it. I became a proper full on hardcore pagan/occultist. I also became very arrogant. Intellectual arrogance is a big feature of the hardcore pagan/occult community. The internet forum I became very involved with, to the point that I was very good friends with the people who ran it and almost became a moderator, was a harsh place, where those not intellectual enough, those who showed weakness or did not fit in with the quite harsh interpretation of pagan morality, got shot down in flames. Interestingly many of them toughened up and conformed...

I got involved with an "order" (group) that was very similar to freemasons/knights templar, but had been turned, by Crowley, to fit in with his philosophy. A pagan/satanic version of freemasonry would be a description many people would say was fit for this group... I was initiated into the group, attended meetings and rituals (all totally totally secret, there was a very solemn oath of secrecy complete with threat of bodily harm before joining - although in reality many people had broken that oath and had never been mutilated) .....

...........but all their initiations and rituals, and all other pagan rituals..... were unfulfilling. Yes sometimes there was a high like you get at a party when you are with friends, but no more, nothing spiritual. One of the things at this "order" I was in left me feeling completely and utterly detached from the real world, such that you might want to jump under a tube train to see if it is real or not (though i was not out of it enough to actually do that) - but never did I feel any kind of spiritual fulfilment. The analogy of it is like you are in the desert searching for water. Christianity was like dirty water. It quenches your thirst but the impurities stick in your throat after a very short time and you don't want any more. Paganism is like a mirage. From the distance you think it is a great lake, a sea of spiritual fulfilment which you will reach at the end of the ritual...... but when you get there, there is nothing but sand.

................to be continued......

[.: Anna :.]

Re: Tell us your story :)

hmm looking forward 2 ur continuation insha allah this is very interesting sis

[dhak1yya]

Re: Tell us your story :)

Dhakiyya's conversion story part IV its getting rather dramatic so I thought I'd use Roman numerals :p

------------------------

Running parallel to my spiritual life was my political life. Before Islam these were very much separate, but my political beliefs are important to mention because it was a political statement that made me first realise that the Qur'an was indeed written by the One God I always believed in (more of that later)

My mum has always been an ardently political person. As long as I can remember she has campaigned for the Labour party and has even stood for election a few times. Before that she was a feminist and has been involved in more direct politics. I was taken on my first demonstration when I was still in a pushchair. My political beliefs initially were carbon copies of my mum which I later rejected, but she taught me to stand up for what I believe in, that ordinary people can change things, and by her example she taught me that it is possible to hold an opinion and stand up for that opinion in the face of everyone else thinking you are wrong.

As a teenager I was very depressed about what was going on in politics, massive amounts of poverty in the world, the destruction of rainforests and other vital resources, the fact that the economy worked so the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, human rights abuses, massive injustices and so on. I was afraid that horrific human rights abuses in the past, like what Nazi Germany did, would be repeated. I was very conscious of the fact that some of my great grandparents, being Jewish, may well have been the victims of the Nazi regime if Germany had managed to occupy England. I was very strongly against racism. I joined both Amnesty International and the Anti Nazi League, and did a fair amount of campaigning and fundraising.

However I did not know any political system that would even go a small way to solve the problems of the world. Communism was very nice in theory, but in practice.... well look at the USSR which still just about existed then... so I resigned myself to the fact that the current western system was inevitable and bought into the thinking of the current Labour party, which at the time still was a socialist party, because it sought to temper the current system by looking after the poor by taxing the rich. So I started campaigning for the labour party. ***cringe cringe cringe****

I was not long at university, however, when I had a massive and radical change in my political ideas. The primary cause of this is that I was learning about hunter gatherer tribespeople living in the most remote and inhospitable parts of the world with only stone age technology, who were better fed than I was. I was there, in the lectures, starving hungry because the government thinks its reasonable for students living in London to live on just two grand for the whole year, learning about well nourished, happy, hunter gatherers. I still consider that their lifestyle is a very good, healthy sustainable lifestyle and that they should be allowed to continue to hunt and gather on their lands for as long as they want to.

After one lecture, which was opened with the words "Today's lecture is about the Kalahari Bushmen. It was in the paper this morning that the Botswana government has just kicked them off their land so they can go diamond mining" I joined Survival International, a charity that campaigns for the rights of tribal people around the world. That was the charity I was volunteering for when I met my husband alhamdulillah.

The other major influence in my political opinion shifting was learning about ecology, and realising just how much damage capitalist consumer society was doing. Contrary to popular belief, the world and nature is not in danger. However humans are putting their own survival at risk, because subtle shifts in the global ecosystem will render earth inhospitable for humans, and that will result in global famines, amongst other problems like freaky weather (which incidentally we are already seeing a little of.) And a friend I made at university taught me a great deal about subtle and not so subtle ways of protesting, and how to change your lifestyle so you consume as little as possible, boycott the worst of capitalism and how living an environmentally friendlysustainable lifestyle is in itself both a boycott of and a protest agianst capitalism. My newly found husband also knew a lot about alternative lifestyles and how to be an anticapitalist.

Having reconsidered politics entirely I became an anarchist, for the simple reason that human beings cannot govern themselves. I resigned from the Labour party with a letter which read something like "having studied the entire history of human civiliasation, I have concluded that the high point of human cultural evolution is the upper palaeolithic so I have become an anarchist and can no longer be a member of the Labour party" I didn't get a reply :p

I got more and more into anti-capitalist protesting, and I was one of a thousand or so people who were illegally detained by the police for seven hours in the rain at Oxford Circus that time. This was in the late 90's. Whilst detained, we discussed how much we hated capitalism, usury and all kinds of financial corruption, particularly the corruption of the IMF and WTO. The centre of that financial corruption was well known... the World Trade Centre, and we discussed how cool it would be if someone blew up the world trade centre. (note to intelligence agencies who didn't bother to read the rest of this post.... that was when I was an anarchist/anti capitalist protestor, long before I converted to Islam) We believed (wrongly, it turned out) that if the world trade centre was blown up, the western capitalist economy would collapse.

My husband was also involved in the same political things I was, although he didn't get so much time to go on protests as I did. We ran a reasonably environmentally friendly household, we practiced ethical consumerism and so on. However he did not agree with my religious practices but didn't stop me.

Bizarrely, it was the crowleyan "order" that I was in that caused me to first look into Islam. Crowley hated Christianity to the extent that any enemy of the Christians was something that was at least worth looking into. Some aspects of Islam he had a lot of respect for, and reading between the lines of his memoirs (the oh so modestly titled "the confessions of Aleister Crowley, an Autohagiography") he might have become a Muslim had he not been so much at the mercy of his sexual deviations (only Allah knows.) I realised that the alleged spiritual leader of the "order" was actually a practicing Muslim who had nothing remotely to do with the order (he died many centuries before) and would have had nothing remotely to do with it and would have shunned the whole lot of them especially Crowley. (I'm "not allowed" to say who that leader was on pain of... not very nice things.... but you can work it out who he was because Crowely hated Christians so much. and no, he wasn't a prophet, but Muhammad :saw: is listed as one of the people Crowley considers some kind of a saint.)

This, combined with what the "order" was called, combined with the fact that the jinn who babbled the text of the little red book looked like an Arab (according to Crowley's description of it) and the babbling took place in Egypt, I decided that instead of trying to gematria-ise it in Hebrew (the language of choice for modern occultists cause of the Qabalah) it ought to be gematria-itised in Arabic. (Gematria is when you transliterate words into a language where the letters also have numerical values, like Hebrew and Arabic, and then add up the letters, and make up mystical significances for those numbers which then apply to the word. It was a favourite hobby of Crowley's whose name added up to 666. obviously innit ) However I quickly realised that the book contained its own undoing when gematria-itised in Arabic. The name of the jinn adds up to 93 in Arabic, but the root from which the name would be devised (although in itself its not a proper Arabic word) comes from ayn wa zayn which has meanings such as weak, wretched, poor, destitute. If it comes from God or a god, as Crowley wanted to believe, why would God or a god call himself such derogatory things?

I also realised that Islam was bizarrely almost completely overlooked by occultists, and that the Arabic language and Islamic mysticism was a large influence in modern occultism, but no-one could see it. It was not only Crowley, but the idea of going to the "mystical east" and bringing back pearls of spiritual wisdom, just like many crusaders did, leading to orders like the freemasons and knights templar, was a common one to occultists. But ask them what religion they think the pearls of spiritual wisdom came from and they will name buddhism, hinduism, qabalah and all kinds of hippy/trendy things......... but looking at the base of knowledge on which occultism, the qabalah in particular, was based..... it came from Islamic spain, it came from sufism, it came from Muslim scholars like Ibn Arabi. Yes, it had been massively distorted and added to, but I theorised that qabalah (Jewish mystical tradition) had actually been learned from Sufis. (the tradition as it is cannot be traced further back than Islamic spain, although Jewish mysticism existed before this, its form was not like it is today)

So this made me start looking into Islamic mysticism and sufism. Not that I knew anything about Islam, or the difference between proper sufism and deviant sufism. And I was still a long way from becoming Muslim. But thats where it started.

At around the same time in my political development, my husband was teaching me about the situation in Palestine.

And this was happening in the months following 9/11 which is probably why my husband was teaching me about Palestine. (incidentally, when the second plane struck the world trade centre, and it had to be a terrorist attack and not an accident, my first thought was that it was anarchists or anti capitalists that had done it) I also took an online "racism test" which told me I was strongly racist against Arab Muslims (it measured subconscious racism) which I was very surprised about so learning about Palestinians is a good way to counteract subconscious racism against Arab Muslims. Incidentally a few months after learning about the Palestinian conflict and Islam in general I retook the test and came out not at all racist against Arab Muslims alhamdulillah :up:

In the midst of all this, for a really quite boring reason, I had to move to Wales at 24 hours notice.

..............to be continued..................................

[Rosheen]

Re: Tell us your story :)

This is my story....

I have been brought up as a Catholic (Irish mum) and English dad who converted to catholicism. I am not sure entirely why dad converted, I think it was to please my strictly catholic granny. I went to church regularly as a child and hated it! It was dull and had no meaning to a kid who would rather have been watching cartoons at home! My earliest memories were of being forced to church, howling one saturday on holiday in Ireland because it was a feast day and we had to go to mass 2 days in a row! lol

I have always believed in God, and one God alone. Though at points in my life I have questioned His existence, the way most humans do. I always remeber my dad's story of how one day he and my mum were so poor, and my dad was walking through the park praying to God to help when suddenly out of nowhere a fiver floated down in front of him! This was years ago when a fiver would have been a few days groceries.

At about 9 we moved to St Johns Wood in London around the corner from Regents Park mosque. Everytime we went to the park I would stare in fascination at the golden dome...little did I know this would be the venue for my conversion.

At school we never learnt about other religions. As it was a Catholic school they were allowed to purely teach Catholicism in RE and never touched on other religions. I always knew there were other religions and learnt more from mates in my late teens....i remember having a really nasty row in uni with a Sikh girl who called me stupid for eating meat.....saying we ought to know better! My arguement was that God provided us with the animals...

At my time in uni I suffered depression and started to self-harm. It was a horrible time in my life and I was a very ill-behaved person. I would lie in bed awake all night wondering why I felt that way, trying to read the Bible....gaining no comfort from it.

About 2 years later I married my then boyfriend. My husband is a non-practising muslim, he drank and ate pork. He has subsequently stopped eating pork and cut down the drinking (not that he was addicted or anything he is a good man!) We never really discussed religion, my mum was never very comfortable with it; and implored me to get our future children baptised.

Any way....me and hubby began trying for a family, but 3 years on nothing has happened. Early this year I suffered an early miscarriage. I was depressed and got drunk the night it happened. The next day I woke up and decided alcohol was a waste of time, not a cure for ills and gave up alcohol. I then decided to evaulate my life, and start researching Islam. I had been having dreams i the last year where I was wearing hijab...and was happy.

Reading into Islam it all made perfect sense. I had 2 good muslim friends who always have a positive outlook on life a great contrast from my usual negative outlook.

I then gave up pork much to hubby's surprise. I never once discussed my research with him. Then on 28th March I woke up and decided that was the day I would take Shahada and there would be no stopping me!!! I wanted to have my 2 friends witness it, but one decided we must go back to my old stomping ground; St Johns Wood and Regents Park mosque! So thats what we did, and mashallah i am a muslimah!

Sorry story was so long.......there is actually more but thats to be saved for my memoirs! lol