Chapter
11
THE
LIGHT OF ISLAM
By
Carol Bura
“Whoever works any act of righteousness and has
faith¾
His endeavor will not be rejected.
We shall record it in his favor.”
HOLY QURAN 21:94
¨
FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER,
I have never been satisfied with Christianity. I
could never assimilate their belief that Jesus, alaihi Salaam, is the "son of God", astaghfirallah. I used to
think it was a fault in me--that I was of "weak faith". When I was a child, I used to pray to God to
help me believe that Jesus (as) was His son, astaghfirallah. I didn't
feel God responding to my prayer to strengthen my faith in the Christian
church.
I had
a little Jewish friend in the third grade.
I remember being fascinated by her religion. I asked her why she wrote
the word God as "G'd", and she replied that in her religion, even the
word God was considered too holy for
them to spell out. I was amazed at the
supreme power of our mutual God! I remained very interested in Judaism all the
way throughout elementary school, into high school and college; all the while
researching and studying it. I decided that it was the closest thing I had
found so far to what I believed about God.
During college, I joined the Jewish Students Organization, started
taking Hebrew and religious study, and began to make plans for my formal
conversion to Judaism. I contacted one
rabbi at a conservative synagogue and was quickly and purposefully discouraged
by him as to the amount of work and effort it would take on my part. When I persisted, saying that I was willing
to work hard for something as important to me as religion, he said "we
really don't do conversions here."
That was the end of that conversation!
I was somewhat discouraged, but decided to try again at another
synagogue with another rabbi a few days later.
This one told me that I "could convert if I wanted to", but
that I "would never be considered a Jew by other Jews". With this "warm" reception, I was
finally discouraged, and decided to look into other faiths.
I
examined Catholicism, Buddhism, and even Native American spirituality, and I
was getting nowhere! I finally decided
that I would just believe my own beliefs of a supreme and omnipotent God, and,
"go my own way".
I
never even considered ISLAM until I met the man who was to later become my
husband. I had previously always
dismissed ISLAM as a violent religion, full of bloodshed, "holy
wars", and men who abused and oppressed women. This was entirely due
to the western media's gross misrepresentation of ISLAM¾the only exposure
most westerners, including myself, ever have to ISLAM, unfortunately. When I
found out, through casual conversation, that the man I had met was a Muslim; I
was somewhat taken aback. He was so
sweet and warm and caring, and he had a great sense of humor! (A Muslim with a
sense of humor? Impossible!) I really liked him as a person. I thought maybe I should investigate ISLAM
more on my own, as I had just met a Muslim who defied all of the negative
stereotypes that I had in my head about ISLAM and Muslims.
As the
months went by, and as I studied more and more in depth about ISLAM, my
conviction began to grow steadily that this was the true religion. It was so close in many ways to what I
already believed!
Then
one day at a weekly women's lesson on ISLAM
I had been attending though I wasn't a Muslim yet¾one of the sisters
was reading a verse of the QUR'AN that really affected me. It was about the
Jews and their questioning of God's commands in sacrificing the heifer in Al-Baqarah. This verse suddenly affected me so much that, much to my
embarrassment, I began to cry in the middle of the lesson. The sister who was reading comforted me by saying
that the QUR'AN¾the
word of ALLAH, subhana wa ta'ala¾often affects
people this way. That evening at home,
as I was preparing for bed, I went through my usual routine of opening the HOLY
QUR'AN at random and asking ALLAH to select a passage for me to read. The verse
that my eyes fell on as I opened the book read as follows:
“And
when they listen
to the revelation received by the Messenger,
thou wilt see their eyes overflowing with tears,
for they recognize the truth:
They pray: 'Our Lord! We believe;
write us down among the witnesses.
“What cause can we have not to believe in ALLAH
and the truth which has come to us,
seeing that we long for our Lord
to admit us to the company of the righteous?
“And for
this their prayer
hath ALLAH rewarded them with Gardens,
with rivers flowing underneath - their eternal
Home.
Such is the recompense of those who do
good.”
HOLY QUR’AN
5:83-85
This
was the final message to me from ALLAH subhana
wa ta'ala for me to revert to ISLAM!
I was speechless. He spoke to me
through the Glorious QUR'AN. He showed
me the straight path--the TRUTH. I said
Shahada shortly after that, Alhamdulillah. Shahada was a homecoming for me. I felt that my soul had been
set free!
Also,
in direct contrast to the less-than-friendly "welcome" of the Jews
when I expressed a desire to convert, the Muslims all said: Allahu Akbar!
Alhamdulillah! Masha'Allah! Subhana Allah! Ahlan wa Sahlan! Mabrouk! Assalaamu Alaikum! No one has EVER told me I “would never be
considered a Muslim”. To this day, and
always, it warms my heart and soul to go to a gathering of my sisters and
brothers in ISLAM and hear the quiet murmuring of "Assalaamu Alaikum", and see the warm smiles, hugs and
handshakes, and the welcoming outstretched arms of my Ummah! Alhamdulillah, I
am now a hijab wearing Muslimah. I will
never stop thanking Allah for guiding me to the light of Islam!
¨
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