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My name is Khadija and this is the story of how my husband and I
came to embrace Islam
I can remember standing in the kitchen of the house I lived in
when I was just 7 or 8 years old and looking towards the door that
went outside. I prayed to a god whom I wasn't sure existed and I
begged Him to show himself to me if He was really there. Nothing
happened.
I can remember being 9 or 10 years old and writing a letter to God
and hiding it in the heat register in my bedroom, thinking God, if
He existed, would come and retrieve it and answer my prayers. But
the next day, the letter was still there.
I had always had a hard time accepting the existence
of God, and of understanding the beliefs taught in Christian
churches. Even though my parents weren't very religious, and
rarely went to church, they thought it was best that my two
brothers and I go. We were allowed to choose our religion when we
very young. I think I was about 6 or 7, and my brothers were 1 and
2 years older then I. I chose a Methodist church for no other
reason then it was a few blocks away from our house, and my
brothers chose a Lutheran church because it was also close, and I
hadn't chosen it.
I went to the church until I was 13 years old. I was baptized and
confirmed there when I was 11. I went along with the baptism and
confirmation because all children who were 11 received
confirmation, and if they hadn't already been baptized, that was
done at the same time. Even then I knew that doubts about God and
Christian teachings were things best kept to myself.
When I was 13 my family moved to another town with no churches
within walking distance, and my parents weren't eager to get up
early and drive us kids to church, and so our religious training
stopped until I was 15 and my mom suddenly found religion. She
began attending an Assembly of God church, occasionally dragging
my dad along. I went willingly. I had already begun a search for
God that wouldn't end until I was 42 years old.
I remember being "born again". Caught up in the fervor of the hell
and damnation that the minister preached at the Assembly of God
church. I became "high on religion" thinking I had finally
found "Him." Little did I know, but the high would be short lived,
as I again began to have doubts and unanswered questions.
When I was 17 I met the daughter of an assistant Baptist minister
and began going to their church. From the time I was at least 6
years old my dad had sexually abused me and I told the assistant
minister about it. He arranged with my parents to let me live with
him and his family in a type of "private foster care." My dad paid
him $100 a week. My parents also attended the church for a brief
time, until the minister announced on the pulpit that my dad was a
child molester. Before that though, my mom, dad and I were each
baptized at the church.
One day after spending the day with my parents I returned to my
foster home only to find the house empty. Cleaned out. Not a stick
of furniture. We found out that the minister had been caught
embezzling from the church and he and his family had left town in
a hurry. I returned to my parents home and the abuse.
As a result of what that minister had done, what little faith I
had in God was totally lost and I fluctuated between believing,
Agnosticism and Atheism For the next 25 years.
When I was 26 I went to 3 months of Rights of Initiation for
Catholic Adults and then was baptized and confirmed in the Roman
Catholic Church. I had been allowed to by-pass the full year of
classes because I hadn't called the church to inquire about
converting until 3 months before the Easter Vigil Mass when
confirmation for adults was held.
I had entered the Catholic religion with the same philosophy that
I had once heard Alcoholics Anonymous has, "Bring your body, your
mind will follow." I didn't really believe in God, or in the core
teachings of the Catholic Church, but I wanted so badly to believe
in a power higher then myself, that I went faithfully to mass 7
days a week, hoping that somehow I would start to believe. But
after several months, I began to realize that it wasn't going to
happen, and my mass attendance became a once a week thing, then
once a month, until when I was 30 and met the man who today is my
husband and who wasn't Catholic, I stopped attending mass
altogether.
I had never told anyone, before my husband, that I didn't believe
in God. I don't think he took me seriously at first. I don't think
he had ever known an Atheist. And he couldn't understand why I
would have been going to church if I didn't believe in God.
My husband is 29 years older then I. We've had a wonderful
marriage for these last 10 years. When we first met, I still
desperately wanted to believe, and kept making him promise me
that "When you get to Heaven" he would ask God to give me the
strength to believe, and he if at all possible, he would give me a
sign, one that I couldn't chalk up to my imagination, so I would
know there really was a god. He always promised me he would.
We were living in rural Alabama when I was 32 years old. I
developed ulcerations on both corneas and when they healed, I was
legally blind. Because of damage from infection that had been done
to the tissue that donated corneas would have to adhere to, I
couldn't find an eye surgeon who believed that transplanted
corneas wouldn't be rejected.
I was still searching for God. I was searching for hope of
something better then what this world had to offer. Of some kind
of evidence of the chance for existence after death, some way to
achieve it.
As a teenager I had watched Pat Robertson on the 700 Club, and as
a young adult I listened to faithfully Jimmy Swaggert. In my 30's
I watched programs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. All the
while hoping that one of the ministers would say something that
would click in my mind, and I would finally know, "Yes, there
really is a god." None of them ever said anything that caused that
connection to happen, though many said things that confused me
even more.
During the first 10 years after I became legally blind, I tried
attending different churches, Baptist again, Assembly of God
again, non-Denominational, Church of God, Mormon, and even studied
up on Wicca. But I always lost interest after just a few months.
Things the religions taught just didn't add up. There were just
too many things left to faith. Things that had no proof other then
one's faith. I couldn't believe something when the only proof was
some words in a book that in large part didn't make sense.
I remember one night when I was about 35 years old, lying in bed
and praying to God, whom I still wasn't sure existed, and asking
Him that if He did exist to lead me to someone who could help me
to believe. But I found no one.
At age 36 I acquired a Braille Bible and started reading it, once
again hoping to find proof of God's existence. But with the Bible
being so hard to understand, with so much of it not really being
explainable, I lost interest after reading just a few of its books.
At about that time, though still wanting to find God, I gave up my
search. I had become completely disillusioned with religion.
On September 11, 2001 I was sitting at my computer. It was before
9 a.m. and as usual the television, which was sitting to my right,
was turned on for background noise. I heard the sound that is made
to notify viewers of an important news announcement. I stopped and
turned towards the TV. A reporter began talking and one of the
towers of the World Trade Center showed in the background. He said
an accident had happened. A small plane had hit one of the towers
of the World Trade Center. I'm legally blind, but I could see well
enough to know that it wasn't a small plane that had hit the
tower. The hole was massive. And I didn't think it was possible to
accidentally hit something so big.
As I watched, another plane flew into the other tower. I couldn't
see the plane itself, it was too small for me to see even during
the instant replays with my face practically pressed up against
the screen, but I saw the fireball that exploded away from the
building.
I jumped up and ran into the bedroom and told my husband to hurry
and get up because terrorists were flying planes into the World
Trade Center buildings! He immediately got out of bed and came in
to the living room and sat in his recliner and began to watch. It
was about 9 a.m.
As time went by it was announced that a plane had been flown into
the Pentagon and another hijacked plane had crashed in
Pennsylvania. I wondered when it would end? And what in the world
was going on??? At one point the reporter said it looked
like "debris" was falling from the buildings. My husband said it
was people jumping. Something he has never been able to forget. I
was grateful that my vision was to bad for me to be able to make
out what even looked like "debris." The reporter said a part of
the first tower had fallen away from the building. He spoke in a
kind of hesitant voice. Now I wonder if he was unsure of what he
was seeing. Because we later found out that a part of the building
hadn't fallen away. The building had completely collapsed.
A female reporter was crying and a male reporter hugged her. I was
crying too. And my husband hugged me.
For weeks afterward I would start crying for no apparent reason.
I'd be riding on the bus and have to turn my head towards the
window and pretend I was looking out so that other riders wouldn't
see the tears escaping my eyes.
When we were in a restaurant, I'd have to use my napkin to dab the
tears welling up in my eyes before the other diners noticed and
wondered if I was some kind of a nut.
I was Christian then and I cared. And I was devastated. I couldn't
understand how a religion could promote such violence, as the
media was saying Islam did. It made no sense to me. So I decided
to find out for myself. One way or another I wanted to know the
truth. Because of my partial blindness I was limited to
information from the Internet. Finding braille books about Islam
in Braille or ink print that was large enough for me to read was
impossible. I was able to use a computer because I had
magnification software installed so I could enlarge the font on
the screen to a size that I could read.
I did searches and I began to read about Islam. I went to web
sites that taught the basics of Islam, and I joined Muslim women's
e-groups where I was able to ask and get answers that I confirmed
through further research.
I've always been a skeptic. It's always been hard for me to
believe something that I didn't understand. I was never one to
believe something simply because someone said it was so. I had to
know it in my mind as well as in my heart.
While studying Islam I learned that the god Muslims worship is the
same god as that of Christians and Jews. The god of Abraham and
Moses. I found that Islam doesn't promote or condone hatred of non- Muslims, nor does it condone the killing of innocent people.
By studying Islam I found the answers that the media wasn't
telling us and I came to know that Islam is the True Religion. I
read a lot of convincing evidence, but the things that proved to
me that there is a god, and that Islam is the True Religion and
that that the Qur'an is the Word of God, were those in the Qur'an
itself, specifically the things that are of a scientific nature.
The things that have only been discovered by scientists only in
the last 100 years. The only one who could have known those things
1400 years ago was God.
For example, One day I was at a web site that was about some of
the scientific proofs in the Qur'an. One of the verses in the
Qur'an tells about the death of our own solar system.
Al-Rahman 37-38
"When the sky is torn apart, so it was (like) a red rose like
ointment. Then which of the favors of your lord will you deny?"
There was a link that went to the NASA web site.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991031.html
When I clicked the link I had no idea what was going to be on the
next page, but what I saw took my breath away. Tears came to my
eyes. I knew - if I had had any doubts left - I knew at the
moment, that Islam is the True Religion of God.
The page the link took me to showed what looked like a red rose.
It was the "Cat's Eye Nebula." Which was an exploding star 3000
light years away. It had been photographed with the Hubble Space
Telescope. Scientists say that it is the same fate that awaits our
own solar system. Muslims refer to it as the "Rose Nebula." It had
been described in the Qur'an 1400 years ago. People back then had
no way of knowing about it. Only God could have known.
On September 12, 2002, the day of my birthday, scientists again
using the Hubble Space Telescope found a second Rose Nebula. A
from God to all mankind. This time the scientists called it by its
rightful name, "The Rose Nebula."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/09/12/hubble.rose/index.html
After accepting in my mind as well as in my heart that Islam is
the True Religion, I knew that I was already a Muslim and the only
thing left to do was to profess my faith.
I looked in an Internet directory for mosques in my community. I
called the one in the next town and told the person who answered
the phone that I wanted to convert to Islam, and asked him when I
could make my Shahada. He told me to be there at 4 p.m. on
Saturday when the imam would also be there. I told him that I ride
the bus everywhere and it wouldn't be running late enough for me
to be able to get back home and so could I come earlier? He said
to not worry; someone would give me a ride home. I arrived as
scheduled, and as God had scheduled, so began my new life.
I have since come to realize that on that day, the greatest event
of my life occurred. I had always thought that the most wonderful
thing to ever happen to me was the day that I married my husband.
But I now know it wasn't. The most important day of my life was
the day I made my Shahada and accepted Islam as the way of life
God intended me to live. It was the day I acknowledged that Islam
is the way to salvation, to Heaven, and I made a choice to
practice it.
I can't say my reverting to Islam thrilled my husband. He believed
what the media was saying about Muslims and the religion. He
didn't like it that I went to the mosque several evenings a week
and left him home alone to be bored. One night after he was
finished complaining about me going yet again I sat down a few
feet away from him and I calmly told him, "I will never ask you to
practice a religion you don't believe in. I love you too much to
try and force that on you. But I do want you to learn about Islam
so that you will at least understand what it is that I believe." I
then stood up and went into the bedroom and finished dressing to
go to the mosque. I kissed him goodbye and I left.
When I returned home I found his whole attitude had changed. He
was bright and cheerful. That night, before going to bed, he began
to learn about Islam.
My husband began going to the mosque with me. While I studied with
the sisters, he would talk with a brother and ask him questions.
At home he read things on the Internet, and books that he had
borrowed from the mosque. We would discuss different things he was
learning, and when a reporter on television would relate the
latest lie or myth I would point things out to him and explain the
truth.
When the day came and he told me about how some aspect of Islam
was to be practiced, in a "know it all" tone of voice, as if it
were a fact, something that I myself didn't know about, I asked
him to tell me "How do you know that???" and he replied, "Because
it's in the Qur'an!" I was stunned! He believed! He knew that
Islam was True! If it was in the Qur'an, as far as he was
concerned it was true! Thirty-six days after I publically
professed my faith in God and His messenger, prophet Muhammad, my
husband professed his. We had an Islamic marriage ceremony the
same evening. I cried when my husband made his Shahada. I knew we
would be in Eternity together!
A month before, a brother had asked me what I thought the chances
of my husband converting were. I didn't want the brother getting
his hopes up, or expecting more of me then I could deliver and so
I bluntly told him, "Zero." I said, "I can't imagine someone so
dramatically changing their beliefs after having believed
something else for 70 years." But 14 days before his 71st birthday
he embraced Islam as his religion and his way of life.
In the Muslim community we have found another family. We have
found friendship, love and acceptance that was taught in the
Christian religions we practiced at different points in our lives,
but that we felt never actually existed among most of the members
of the churches we went to.
Most of the Muslims in our area are immigrants, but we have found
no intolerance of Americans weather they are Muslim or not. We
were both welcomed into the family of Islam the very first time
each of us went to the mosque. We've always felt welcome and
accepted.
Since embracing Islam We have found direction and purpose for our
lives. We have found the meaning for our existence. We have come
to realize that we really are here only for a short time and that
what comes afterwards is far better then the fleeting pleasures
that this world has to offer us.
I have found a sense of security concerning life after death that
I had never known before. We have both come to see the problems
that we once saw as being major as actually being opportunities to
grow. We thank God for what we do have, as well for what we don't.
Today we are Muslim. We still care about 9/11. I still cry when I
think a little too much about the events of that day. My husband
still remembers the people jumping from the buildings. We wish all
we could say about that day was where we had been when we "heard"
that the WTC had been attacked. But we did see it happen, and it
was the most devastating thing to ever happen in our lives. But
from tragedy came victory. From death has come the knowledge that
we will have life after our death. And it will be spent together.
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