We Asked 10 Converts: Why Islam?

Money and women and alcohol power. basically feeling like I was on the football team I was a superstar, I was on the paper. Because I wanted to show people why Islam was a danger as a religion.

And in the end I decided to write because today everybody feels challenged. We don't know what to do. I see his character, I see the way he treated other people.

I see how he treated his enemies. So I thought to myself, okay, let's close the books. Stop.

This is going in the wrong direction Coming into Islam has given me more than just the ultimate purpose, I didn't feel like I'm changing. I felt like I'm adjusting, I felt it was a continuation. How was your, you know, teenage years.

The teenage years for me was quite, quite hard because, growing up, I thought these things would make me happy. Going out, partying and drinking, girls. When I got to the age of 18, I was absolutely calamatized by money and women and alcohol, power.

I used to have a godlike complex, and, I used to think I was better than people. Honestly, I used to think nothing can touch me. I used to think I had some sort of significance and it was very, very wrong.

I really hated who I was. I used to think these things would make me happy because I couldn't be happy. Nothing made me happy in this world.

I was never happy. I could have all the money in the world. I'd have ten women around me.

I’d have a big pile of cash behind me. I'm not happy. Nothing made me happy.

Nothing would make me happy no matter what I'd done. And the older I get, the higher the levels got, and the more I get. And the more I wouldn’t be happy.

So, you know, it got even worse because I thought, if this can't make me happy, nothing's going to make me happy. And I was miserable. I was absolutely miserable, I was lost, I had no guidance.

I would drink myself to death on the night. No one's there for me when I was down and out and no one was truly there for me as a friend, you know, they'd only want me to go down with them. We'll all go down together.

And what I used to think was a friend. It was not a friend at all. I know that now.

What was your purpose before Islam and what is it after Islam? My belief system was that, you know, YOLO as we call it in the UK. You only live once, so it's live life to the fullest.

The problem with that lifestyle is that there is no purpose. And so when there's no purpose, you fall into that kind of existential crisis of basically feeling like there's no reason to live. And I did get to that point a lot in my in my earlier life, where it's kind of like after the lights have gone of dims and after the party stops, then what's the purpose of life?

So Islam gave me not only a purpose in the next life of being able to attain long lasting happiness in Jannah, but also Allah has given me gifts that I can use in this life, my voice being one of them, you know, my interaction with people being another. So I think coming into Islam has given me more than just the ultimate purpose, but a life's purpose as well. What else happened that attracted you more to Islam?

I remember hearing the Quran for the first time, and it was just so fascinating, so attracted to it, that just I don't know what it says. I have no clue. Right.

I don't understand Arabic at that time, but it touched me in the recitation. And I felt when I understood Islam that it was not something new. I felt it was universal.

I felt it was a continuation. I didn't feel like I'm changing. I felt like I'm adjusting, knowing all the prophets, knowing the Old Testament, the New Testament.

I felt like Islam was just the last testament. And then finally realizing that Islam is just the continuation of the same message. That makes sense.

It’s like, It was “La ilahe illallah, Musa Rasoolallah. ” “Isa Rasoolallah,” “Nūh Rasoolallah, Ibrahim. .

. ” and now it's “La ilahe illallah, Muhammad Rasoolallah. ” It’s the same you know there's one constant which is La ilahe illallah.

and there's variables. The prophets changed. It was just perfect.

It's the only thing that makes sense. You have been to Umrah many times but when you went to Umrah for the first time what was it that affected you the most and why? When I went to the Masjid Al-Haram So many people in one area, all races, all colors, every single country.

And I knew this was the answer. The people were here for the pilgrimage, for Allah. Not like the Vatican.

The people are there to see the Pope or. . .

Bu they were there for God. These are true pious believers. And then there was a cure, an answer for racism.

It's world peace. And that was the big moment for me. Islam is, cure for everything is the answer to every problem.

It's a guide to life. It's a way of life. What surprised you the most while doing your research?

The story about Hint. There was something that like a switch, like I had to change and it was because I thought Hint, she was the wife of one of the enemies, Abu Sufyan, and in a way she gave money to kill Hamza, the favorite uncle of the prophet. And that was what happened on the battlefield.

He got killed. They even paraded with his ears and cut off his nose and horrible stuff. So the prophet was deeply sad of course, of what happened, and years and years later he became powerful.

He came to power in Mecca. And then there was Hint and I was reading this book and I thought, okay, now she gets crucified or her head gets cut off or something like that. But he said, well, I cannot look at her right now, but everybody is forgiven.

And if you want to stay here and live among the Muslims, it's possible. If you don't want that, you can go. But blood shedding is over now.

And I thought to myself that she was forgiven. If you can forgive someone who kills a relative, especially a favorite uncle of you even starts parading with parts of his body to show other people that she humiliates you. And whatever you stand for, that means you have such a great character.

It's very special. It's something you don't see. And that's what he did.

So I thought to myself, there was a really special guy. And when I thought that, I well, I have these arguments for him being a prophet. I see his character, I see the way he treated other people.

I see how he treated his enemies. I think he is a prophet. But then I thought to myself, well, that's horrible because I already accepted this oneness of God.

And now I say he is a prophet. If I say there is only one God and Muhammad is his prophet, that's almost shahada. So I thought to myself, okay, let's close the books.

Stop. This is going in the wrong direction. What is the trait of the Prophet (pbuh) that impressed you the most?

The Prophet (pbuh) would always somehow adapt to the people they used to talk to. It’s an amazing trait that he used to have His behaviour would never be the same with all the people. I mean, he would always be just.

But if a child would come to him, he would adjust. If a desert dweller would come to a Bedouin, he would adjust. If an educated people would come to him, he would adjust.

He would adjust to everyone. A woman would talk to him. He would adjust.

He would always come down to the level of the people. Even change of speech, even change his behavior. Even sometimes people would ask the same question, but knowing their background, he would give them an answer that they need to actually understand and that would connect and help them achieve the change that they need in their life.

I think that's something amazing. What impressed you the most about Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)? The fact that the Prophet (pbuh) was not, he was not allowed by Allah to chill out.

He wasn't given any time for relaxation. If you study the Sira of the Prophet (pbuh) and those 13 years and all the battles that he supervised and the battles that he engaged with and the treaties that he had written that was given to him from Jibril to have written and whatever. If you just look at his life, it was nonstop.

And it's just unbelievable how that rate of activity consistently on an individual whose job it was to deliver the message, regulate the people, act as a judge, act as an arbiter, inspire the people, educate the people, be a warrior, a general, a head of state, a husband, a friend. How does he do that? It's because of the wahy.

It's because God mandated that. And of course I wasn't that anti-Islam anymore because of what I read, what I saw, and what I experienced. What I tell you now, it sounds a little like a fairy tale, but it really happened.

In the end there were all these books at the table, and when I had this feeling of, yeah, okay, this is shahada in a way. I said, well, I put all the books away and I put the books on the high shelf, but there were so many books that a lot of books fell off the shelves. And one of the books that fell off the shelf was the Quran.

And when I picked it up, my hands was on a page with Surah 22. Ayah 46. And it says, “It’s not the eyes that are blind, but the hearts.

” And I thought to myself, that really is my problem, because it wasn't the eyes. I really could see what I written down myself. Nobody forced me to write this book.

Nobody said, you have to write this or that. I started writing myself and I could see it with my own eyes, but I still couldn't accept the fact that is that he is a prophet. There is this one God, I just couldn't.

So it wasn't my eyes that were blind, but it was really my heart. I couldn't accept it. I think my nafs, whatever, my ego I couldn't accept it.

And I said, well, God, I don't care if it's the God from the Bible or the Quran, give me a sign or something so that I 100% sure know this is the way. And I went to bed. But when I woke up, I felt very secure in myself.

I really feel very secure. I've never been more secure about anything else. The whole anxiety or the whole doubting issue disappeared.

Like snow in the sun. And I thought to myself, well, I think I'm a muslim. Well.

And then of course, I had to tell other people. What were the final steps of your journey to Islam? I mean, I woke up one day and I was at the lowest at the lowest.

And in my mind I said, what are you waiting for? You know, you know this is the truth. I went to university and I saw my friend Kamal and I said, I need you to come to my house tonight.

I said, I need your help with something. So he said, are you okay? I said, you just have to come.

So he said, okay, no problem, I'll come. It was an exam. I was studying with some people upstairs in my house and Kamal called me from downstairs.

I'm here. So. Okay, I'm going to come down.

So I went downstairs. It was night and I just looked at him. I said.

. . he said, what's wrong bro?

Are you okay? I said, I want to be a muslim. And he said, oh, he said, I knew it.

He said, I knew it. I said, what do you mean? He's like, remember that long taraweeh?

And then we prayed together. He said, in sujuud I was praying, oh Allah, this guy's looking for you. Guide into Islam.

Let him embrace Islam. They just said, repeat after me. I already knew what I have to say when I said my shahadah I felt that heaviness being lifted from me just by saying those words.

The way I slept that night was just different. If you had a chance to speak to all the non-Muslims in the world, what would you like to say if you had just one minute? Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Oh, you sitting at home now. You have times when you don't know why you're alive. You have times of sadness and loss and grief, and the fun just isn't working the way it used to.

You have pain, and maybe sometimes you don't know why you're alive and you want to ask somebody to help you, but you don't know how to ask. And everything feels like it's strange and unreal. God is one.

When you feel like this, look at a rose. Look at a rose in the garden and think that it makes scent for us. When you feel like this, look at the bees and just think how amazing that honey is so tasty.

And it's also a healing. We give it for sore throats just think about how nature is there for us, and how beautiful it is that the rain goes into the ground, into the roots of the trees, and then the trees grow a leaf or a flower, and then that flower becomes fruit that we can just eat. And it has goodness for us and feel the loving and benevolent presence of your Lord.

Be sincere. This is probably the most difficult thing in everything you do. Every book of hadith starts with this hadith.

“Innamal a'malu binniyah. ” Every action is according to its intention because it is intention, sincerity, ikhlas. As Sufyan Al-Thawri (ra) said that “"Ma wajatu shai' alai ashaddu min neyati" I didn't find anything more difficult upon me than my intention.

Sincerity. If you're sincere, if you really want God, you want Allah, you will find it. You'll find it.

So if you're sincere, anything you do in life, I think in the end, the outcome is always going to be positive. I would tell them, there has to be purpose behind the normal kind of daily grind of life. This isn't it.

And if you think this is it, then that has to be the saddest conclusion that anyone can come to. Because this life is a roller coaster. It's full of trials, it's full of hardship, it's full of difficulty, it's full of injustice, sadness.

So if this is it, then why were we created? I would invite them to think. I would invite them to consider the cycle of life, to take a flower, to look at how that flower grows from a seed and blossoms into something beautiful, and then wilts and dies again.

I would invite them just to stand in front of the ocean, and to look at the depths of the ocean, and that life exists in the in the darkness of the ocean, to take a leaf and look at the intricacies of the design of one single leaf and to ask themselves, where did this come from? Where did this come from? What is the purpose of this leaf?

What is the purpose of this flower? What is the purpose of the ocean? And then to think, I too am a part of that creation.

So if there is a purpose of a leaf and the purpose of a flower, and what is my purpose? That's what I would ask them. I would say as a people, we need to learn how to think.

So we got so caught up in living that we don't think much. Like what are we living for? And why are we living?

And sometimes you have to pause life and stop and think. Don't get influenced just by your heritage. It's like, because I'm born in England, the Church of England, I'm going to be a Christian.

That means if I was born in Israel, I would have been a Jew. So it's not about what's the truth, it's just about what I inherit. I don't think religion should be an inheritance.

We should search for the truth like. And we should research. My message would be, don't listen to the media.

Don't listen to politicians that speak negative about Islam. Do your own research. You're always responsible for your own knowledge.

If you don't understand anything, do research and it's very easy. There's a lot of content on social media. You can read a lot about Islam, go to a mosque, speak to an imam, go to Muslims, talk about this religion and just don't follow like blindly what the media and politicians are telling you.

Do your own research and then you will find out inshaallah that Islam is the solution and Islam is the truth. I would tell all the non-Muslims of the world that you are born Muslim. You are born knowing that there is a higher power.

It's the best feeling in the world when you finally revert to who you were when you on your first day, taking a breath on this earth when you were Muslim. It's the best to revert to that kind of mindset because it's who you are naturally. We all know that there's an afterlife.

We all know that there is a God, and it's through the teachings and people and society that we kind of stray away from that. So I want you to see Islam is not some sort of abstract, different pushed off to the corner kind of cultural concept, but instead Islam is a universal message for all of mankind. To be Islam you just have to believe that there is one God and Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is his last and final messenger.

That's all you have to believe. I became much more happy after I became Muslim, so I would like to invite everybody to become Muslim just because it brings peace to your soul and peace to your heart. It is the truth.

It resonates with heart and soul. At least look at it from an Islamic perspective. Try to read and study the life of the prophet.

Try to understand what the Muslims believe. Not so much the behavior of Muslims, because there are a lot of Muslims that don't live like Muslims, including myself. I don't always live like a muslim, I should.

We all do. But you should look at the example of all examples. And that was the Prophet.

And if you study his life, perhaps you'll find guidance that leads you to, to the truth.