By Maude Murray

“That which We have revealed to thee

of the Book is the Truth–

confirming what was (revealed) before it:

For ALLAH is assuredly–With respect to His servants

–well acquainted and fully Observant.”

HOLY QUR’AN 35:31

I WAS BROUGHT UP WITHOUT RELIGION.

When it came time to go to college, people asked me what I wanted to “be” or “do”. I had no idea except that I wanted to know what was good and true. I didn’t realize that I was searching for something; but I did try to go to the best place for obtaining knowledge–and that seemed to be Harvard University. How I ever got in there is beyond me; but what is even more astonishing is how anyone as naive as I was could actually find something real there; but it did happen, and it was like this:

By accident, to be with a friend, I took a course I didn’t need on the history of science or philosophy. When I walked in the first day, I found a slightly yellowish man talking about Pythagoras in a very high-fallutin way. I hardly understood a word and wasn’t even very interested, but it was clear that the teacher knew things to a depth that I could not have imagined possible.

I didn’t care about the lecture, however, I was fascinated by being in the presence of real knowledge. About halfway through the lecture he used the word “truth”. Then he back-tracked and said, “I mean the Truth with a capital ‘T’”. As soon as I heard those words, I knew that I had found what I was looking for—and I realized that I had been looking for the absolute truth very assiduously without having the exact words for it. I was absolutely magnetized for life by the love of truth. Well, after class I asked him what the “Truth with a capital ‘T’” was—as I still didn’t know that! When he said that God was the Truth, I was surprised; but I recognized the fact that this had to be the case. Then he said that God was also the Good, the Beautiful, and so forth. I understood the Shahada then in a certain way. That is, I realized that God was the essence of everything I’d loved. After that, I learned about religions and accepted the “religion of Truth”. The teacher was a Muslim.

In a way, it is surprising that anyone who started out so straight and clear would get off track—because from the first moment I had a compass firmly planted in my heart, or a flame, or a seed which was to become a tree. However, that experience was followed by some 40 years of errors with great flashes of light and good too. I remember storms, tears, darkness and (as it were) deaths. This was mostly due to the fact that I did not read the QUR’AN much so I didn’t know many things that I needed to know in order to judge correctly. Nonetheless, ALLAH Ta’ala guided my heart by faith and after one thing led to another, He left me alone with QUR’AN and sort of pulled me through the tunnel so that I came out as a Muslim in spite of everything!

“He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book;

in it are verses basic or fundamental;

they are the foundation of the Book:

others are not of well-established meaning.

But those in whose hearts is perversity

follow the part thereof

that is not of well-established meaning.

Seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings,

but no one knows its true meanings except ALLAH.

And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say:

“We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:”

and none will grasp the Message except men of understanding.”

HOLY QUR’AN 3:7

It seems to me now, as I look back 40 years to when I was 17 and first heard of ISLAM, that it was exceedingly easy to recognize the Truth of ISLAM. Actually becoming a Muslim has taken another forty years! It is amazing to me that everything I had to learn from experience and “from the Heart” —was all in the QUR’AN from the start.

“Let there be no compulsion in religion:

Truth stands out clear from error:

whoever rejects evil and believes in ALLAH

hath grasped the most trustworthy handhold,

that never breaks.

And ALLAH heareth and knoweth all things.”

HOLY QUR’AN 2:256

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