The Witness Of The Significant Other
منذ 3 سنوات
445
+I met my husband in 1983. Prior to that I held all the common stereotypes of Islam, that it was medieval, subjugated women, and was violent. I never had any formal exposure to Islam despite a master's level education. Although not practicing the prayers or fasting regularly, my husband was very sure that Islam was the true religion of God. I was aware that although I was under no obligation to convert, he would not marry me without my committing to raise any children we would have as Muslims. I felt he had a sound value system and my initial exposure to the Qur'an did not convince me one way or the other, but I saw nothing I felt adverse about in raising our children Muslim.
In 1988, our first son was 18 months old. Our marriage was in deep trouble for a variety of reasons. I turned to the Qur'an to find ways I could use it to
+I met my husband at Louisiana Tech University. He didn't want to have an illegal relationship with me, so he immediately proposed marriage, asked me if I was interested in reading about Islam and becoming Muslim, and he actually asked me to put a cover on my hair.
I was insulted by the last two requests, and at eighteen, I wasn't sure I wanted to get married. I was attracted to him and wanted to be with him. He discontinued contact with me. I went home and read on my own about Islam. I changed and wanted to many him.
+[From one who was unchurched] My husband was supportive in helping me put my life together. I was recovering once again from emotional problems. He really had very little to do with my conversion. He introduced me to Islam but never asked me to convert. Islam does not require me to, but he returned fully to his religion. As I saw him gradually acquire an inner peace, I became envious. Inner peace was what I sought. So I asked for literature. The more I read, the more I wanted to learn. Islam means "submission to the will of God" or "inner peace." I felt God himself was leading me.
When I was eighteen I married my boyfriend because he was going to Vietnam. I decided to enlist in the Medical Corps. Around that time I was studying Judaism [although a Christian at the time], mainly because they did not believe in the Jesus as Savior thing. But I found out I did accept Jesus as a prophet and the Jews did not! I also accepted the virgin birth, which was another no-no, but everything else about their beliefs was okay with me-much different than the arguments I had with pastors and priests before, so I sort of considered myself a Jew-non-Jew type person.
I was a trained combat nurse and was present during the last days before Saigon fell in Vietnam. (Yes! A bona fide Vietnam veteran with a bronze star and 2 purple hearts!) In 1978 I was sent to Saudi Arabia because the United Nations needed trained personnel to conduct a relief campaign for immunization and care of the cholera epidemic sweeping through south Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Yemen regions. Many children were dying as well as old people. When I could, I watched the Bedouins pray several times a day and the only word I could make out was "Allah," but the devotion of those people impressed me.
I took a tour of the Middle East in early 1980 with my husband. In Cairo my "light bulb" went from dim to bright as I continued my study of Islam. My marriage was in the process of ending and when the divorce came, I had a nervous breakdown because my family
After intense therapy, 1 moved south to return to college and finish my half-completed bachelor's degree. There I met many Muslim students who wondered at my knowledge of their religion. Six months later I was reading the Qur'an full-time and took my shahada during Ramadan in 1989.
+My conversion started when I took a religion class at Purdue University, This first introduction to Islam struck my mind and made more sense (and later, total sense) than other religions I studied. Then I decided to join a study summer tour to Egypt to visit a Muslim. country firsthand, to see the mosques, to talk: with the people. This opened my mind tremendously. From that point on, Islam was the only way for me to go. When I got back from Egypt, I went to the local mosque, and the sisters helped me begin my path of knowledge and life. In November 1993 I converted and have found peace in my life. Before converting I was not religious. I was drinking and being "wild." Islam taught me that this life is the judgment for the after-life and pleasing Allah (SWT) is most important.
+I studied Islam as part of my college major in African and Middle Eastern Studies. . . I did not believe anyone could truly practice Islam in the present age.
I traveled to West Africa as a volunteer and stayed 3 months. In that time, I met true Muslims. When they heard the call to prayer, they ran to the mosque. If someone had extra money beyond his basic needs, he gave it to someone less fortunate. The name of Allah
I became very sick and had to be evacuated to a hospital in the capital. I had no one to comfort me-all my friends were far away. All I could do was pray. I prayed almost constantly for three days. I remembered the conversion story of Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens); he was drowning and promised God he would devote his life to God if God spared his life. I did the same. Within two days, I was back in the village with my Muslim friends, but I still resisted converting.
I was miserable when I returned to the U.S. I could no longer function in a society so far removed from what I wanted. I met many American and Arab Muslims who encouraged me ever so gently to let go and submit to Allah. I became so exhausted from trying to resist the pull of Islam that finally on January 21, 1989, I converted.
These women seemed to have a fascination with what they observed in the Islamic countries. They were moved by what they saw and felt, and they responded by becoming part of that which was introduced to them.
+I was fifteen years old when I first started to learn about Islam. A Saudi family moved in next door, and I
+Before becoming Muslim, I was an atheist and had withdrawn from the church; however, I wasn't closed toward long and in-depth discussions about God and this world. After several years of satisfying but "burnout" type working, I started traveling through South Central America and ended up in Texas. A Muslim community welcomed me to stay and sort out my total and utterly miserable confusion. By the will of Allah, I was guided toward becoming Muslim, saying the shahada, and wanting to be married. This then settled me into a new identity and a different life orientation but without totally losing the old "me."
+My husband wasn't practicing his religion at the time I met him so he had no objections when I decided to go back to church and take the kids. The only thing he requested was that we eat no pork. Visitors from Egypt to my father's business let me see for the first time Islam in full practice. It was then that my husband began to think about putting it in his life more seriously.Then my aunt married a Muslim, and I spent much time there asking questions about Islam. In 1990 I gave birth to my fourth child, and I was caught unaware in my belief. What I mean is I really didn't know I believed
I kept my belief a secret even from my husband for another two weeks. I told him on the phone one day when he called me from work. He immediately started asking me why. He told me it was very serious, that I shouldn't "hop on to it." One must be convinced and not compelled. He cut me short saying "We'll talk about it when I get home." He later told me after he hung up the phone, he cried and thanked God. He promised to try to begin a new life and practice Islam to the full extent. He told me that night, he whispered the call to prayer in our newborn's right ear and the readiness call in her left-something he had not done with our other children.
+In 1983, through friends I met an Arab woman, and we became best friends. One day she asked if I could babysit her daughters, and I did. One night before the kids went to bed they told me their prayers and also wanted to teach me. The next day, she asked me if I considered Jesus the Son of God. I replied, "Really, I have no religion but tell me more about your religion, Islam." It took me two more years from then to say shahada.
+I volunteered to help tutor Saudi women who were studying English as a second language. I found it odd that these women refused to have a man tutor them, but after checking out and reading several books on Islam from the public and school libraries, I began to understand these "mysterious" ladies in black. The women began to open up more and more and invited me into
It was irn the spring of 1988 that I really began to practice. I contacted the local Islamic Association and joined a sister's Qur'an study group. There I met sisters who were and still are great role models and guiding forces for me yet today.
The impact of devout and dedicated Muslims on the lives of these women supports the church growth principle that in Christianity most are converted to a church because of someone they know who influences their lives toward accepting Christ and the church. These women sensed that living as a Muslim fulfilled these people spiritually and they, too, wanted to feel very close to God by being a true Muslim.
+ I was meeting with a group of international students ass part of a conversation group program to practice English. As I listened to a Palestinian man talk about his life, his family, his faith, it struck a nerve in me. The more I learned about Islam the more I became interested in it as a possibility for my own life.
The following term the group disbanded, but I registered for a class "Introduction to Islam." This class "'fought back all the concerns I had about Christianity. As I learned about Islam, all of my questions were
This answered all my questions about the Trinity and the nature of Jesus (all God, all human, or a combination?). God is a perfect and fair judge, who will reward or punish us based on our faith and righteousness. I found a teaching that put everything in its proper perspective, and appealed to my heart and intellect. It seemed natural. It wasn't confusing. I had been searching. I found a place to rest my faith.
+I was in college taking psychology and sociology but felt a need to turn back to religion even though I didn't agree with Christianity a whole lot, especially the way it had been presented to me before in life. After shopping around at all the different religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, I enrolled in the religious studies class in college and took literature of the Old Testament. One of the things that came up was going back to look at the roots of Christianity. It seemed that Christianity was okay then, but it got changed to the point to where women were not really accepted, as well as other changes. Reading through the texts, I came across things that the pastors in our church had never talked about. It really shook me, and it made me begin to question the Bible.
+1 was Roman Catholic. I studied African-American studies as part of my work toward a degree in social sciences. After reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, I felt compelled to understand the power behind Brother Malcolm's transformation after making hall, when he returned to the U.S. and said that racism is not a part of Islam. As I began to study, I felt certain that lightning would strike me down 'for studying another religion. I studied casually for three months, intensely for the next three months, then made shahada to Allah before I first stepped into a masjid for the first time on May 29, 1993. On May 30, 1993, I made shahada in front of witnesses in the masjid.
The change was not a choice for me; it was going home. It gave me answers to questions I'd had and questions I didn't have. I love Islam. I love the concept of ummah. Alhamdulillah, that Allah has seen me fit to test.
+I married someone who was not a Christian and we both were non-practicing in anything religious. I still thought of myself as a Christian. "What else is there," I thought. I still held my belief of God and his creation of the earth, but wasn't sure of the other beliefs I was taught growing up.
The year after my divorce in 1990 I started thinking about what I needed, about what I believed. Early in 1991 I started checking books out of the library and reading about Islam, more because I was curious about it than anything. I slowly read books on it, but also lived my life as I had been living it. It wasn't until the fall of 1992 that I decided I had to do something about it-either get serious about studying it or forget about it. I found several American Muslim sisters in Manhattan, twenty miles from where I lived in a very small town. I studied with them and learned the practical aspects of what I had read for the past year and a half. T took my shahada in December 1992.
+My struggle began many years ago with my search for self-identity. Growing up in America as a black presented meaningful challenges to me during the 1960s
I was a successful professional, but my personal life was a mess. Bad marriage, poor relationship with parents and siblings, discontented with church and God-these all led me to question who I was and why and what I could do to improve relationships with these people and the world in general.
I began to seek out answers by researching black history. I was amazed to find out that most African people came from Islamic states. I later met some Sunni Muslims who shared very impressive information about heaven and hell that touched my Sufi heart. I was teaching speech and drama at a Catholic high school in Washington, D.C. at the time.
I became Muslim in 1974. I was asked to resign at the end of the year because several students also converted to Islam.
Islam cooled me out. It helped me to find God without all of the hangups and guilt I felt as a Christian. I've always loved God, and knowing that I could talk directly to Allah was a welcoming treat.
+1 was first introduced to Islam at the age of fourteen, but because of family conflicts I was not able to learn or practice. After leaving home to go to college, I had the freedom to pursue the religion. The biggest change I had to make (besides the obvious ones of dress, diet, etc.) was to put some distance between myself and my family and former friends. I did this as a protection for myself that would allow me to grow stronger in my religion without distractions. I had little sense of loss because I
