Let's start at a date that I will remember all my life - March 12th, 2007. A date which will live in infamy. Ok....before I get all FDR on you, I better start this BLOG.
I was in a Yahoo Chat Room - Paganism - and speaking to this man in the main room. I had been on some personal crusade lately to expand my mind and actually learn something that had meaning. Was I looking for that in the Paganism room? Nope - I was just hanging out and an Education came to me!
I sat and listened to this man talk about Islam. Islam??? In a Pagan chatroom? Was this guy insane? Well...........divine intervention works in strange ways sometimes.......
Anyway - he's talking about Islam and I'm asking him how he could follow a religion that their God was once referred to as "The Sun God". Basically, I was trying to give him a taste of MY religion.
He continued on to tell me that my facts weren't all together true and that I needed to get this straightened out. He told me to go talk to one of his "brothers" who was very educated and quite a good speaker. Now why would I need to do that? I know plenty about Islam! This is the religion that makes their women cover up from head to toe and treats them like 2nd class citizens.
So I took a bite and followed this stranger to Paltalk.
www.paltalk.com (FREE ADVERTISEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!)
I went to Paltalk and ended up in this chat room called - "Islam Answers Back". This stranger introduced me to his brother Gabrile. I began what turned into a 3 or 4 hour discussion with this educated man about Islam. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not the "typical American" who thinks Islam is about Terrorism and things like that - I'm not THAT dense. I figured it out a few months after 9/11 that it was an inside job.
This Gabrile started sending me to website after website and he supplemented these websites with explinations of his own. Was he telling me information I hadn't already known about Islam? Not really - I had done at least 3 years of research on Islam up to that point - but apparently not all my research was valid. Ninety percent of what he was telling me I already know and agreed with.
Let me explain..................
Christianity is something I rejected from the time I was a small child. I never could quite grasp why we had to pray to a "middle man" when we could talk directly to God. Nor did it make sense to me that God had to have a son! If God is the creator of all things and this wonderful invisible man in the sky - what use would he have for a child? I even got kicked out of a catholic church when I was 8 for asking the Priest why they tell us not to worship false idols and then we have to kneel and cross ourselves infront of two pieces of wood nailed together into a shape of a cross. Isn't that a form of prostration and showing reverence for WOOD?????
I turned my attention toward Paganism - Wicca to be exact - and had been a practicing (and teaching) Witch for 16 years. (This is prior to Aaron Spellings, "CHARMED" and the movies "Practical Magic" and "The Craft" - before it was cool to be a Witch). I also was a Reverend in the Wiccan faith but had still found myself empty the past few years and have always returned my attention back to The Bible.
Are you confused yet? Good.....stay with me you'll see the light soon. (Sometimes it does take a brick to land on your head to make you see.)
Now if I was so anti-christian why did I continue to look into The Bible? Was I looking for answers? No, not exactly. I had studied The Bible many times over my adult life - even went so far as to learn to read some Hebrew and Latin so I could look at the more ancient texts and find the discrepancies in the modern language of The Bible. Was I looking to tell Christians, "See, you got it all wrong!" No, not really. I think I was just looking for a way that I could make sense of WHY Christianity didn't fit me. Why wasn't I able to be like 80-85% of the USA and just swallow this thing called a Trinity?
About 8 months ago - while I was on my 8th reading of The Bible (and when I say "reading" I do not mean like a book - I mean sitting with a concordance and researching every single word for it's historical wording and meaning) I was watching this Christian Preacher on television every night. She was very interesting - to say the least - she had no problem telling her congregation that there were MISTAKES IN THE BIBLE! Of course she was very good at interpreting completely clear statements and making them have this wonderful Jesus-ish spin as well - but I digress about that. Anyway - I was watching her one night and she was talking about a passage in Matthew. (Which passage it was doesn't really matter.) She was famous for putting these passages on a board in various languages so all could see the historical meanings of the "modern" text. Suddenly I saw something that struck me that I hadn't found before - because of my lack of 100% comprehension in Hebrew and Latin - and the fact that I don't speak Arabic. Four little letters - IESA - Jesus in Arabic. Also, this was the first preacher I'd heard on television that was willing to contest that Jesus wasn't this blue eyed man from the Middle East. FINALLY!!! SOMEONE WHO THINKS LIKE ME!!!! Did this make me want to rush out and be Chrisitan??? Absolutely not, but it gave me some validation for my thoughts.
Anyway - back to IESA. I started to look online for those four letters strung together and my handy-dandy Google search popped up ISLAM! Hmmmm......I knew they believed in Jesus but this is the first I had known of his Arabic name. Was I getting somewhere? Well, it was a winding way to get there - but I did see the true light eventually.....but I'm getting ahead of myself now.
Move forward 8 months while I was in this room - ISLAM ANSWERS BACK - Gabrile said IESA! BRAIN CLICK! I understood what he was saying and it made sense. I always believed Jesus was nothing more than a well educated, religious, pious man - a Prophet. It made more sense than he was born of an invisible man in the sky - for some mysterious reason that we'd never completely understand.
Then it happened - "Would you like to be a Muslim?" Um...........no thank you! I'm not here to change my theology - I just came to discuss this Sun God that you've convinced me that I was incorrect. I had informed Gabrile that I still needed to do more research before I'd make a decision like that.
I got offline and lay down to sleep. Suddenly this feeling came over me. Something I cannot put into words. This warmth - this peace - this serenity I had never felt. "Something" was telling me to check out this chat room again - and NOW!
I logged back on - hoping to find this intelligent man again - but alas, he was offline. I sat and talked with a few people in the room - the "regulars" - and like a lightning bolt hitting me I started to cry as I listened to their words of Peace and love for your fellow man. This was BEYOND the Christian 'love' - this wasn't an empty love - these people called eachother "brother" and "sister" and MEANT it! It wasn't just a word - it was a true expression of true emotions and true feelings.
A new person was leading the chat in the room at that time. Science_leads_to_Islam. SCIENCE? Wait! I can relate to that! I started looking up sites about Science and Islam. BIG BANG THEORY WORKS!! Wait!!! I BELIEVE THAT! But how can religion and science hold hands and have a perfect marriage??? Aren't they two separate ideas? Well, why should they be? They are more related than you'd even realize. (More about this in later posts).
Again, that overwhelming feeling came over me - Maybe this was what I was looking for? Everything up to this point left me feeling empty - the only joy I had was researching at this point - and can you find faith doing that? (YES!!! More about this in later posts as well).
"I want to be Muslim" came flying out of my fingers into that chat room faster than lightning. Wait??? Did I just type that?? Oh my gosh, I can't take it back now - but......I don't want to take it back.....it's right......it makes sense.......Yes, I'd like to be Muslim.
Brother Science (We'll abbreviate his name this way) began to instruct me on doing Shahada. (See link below for more information on this). But, could I do this? My mic wasn't working. Brother Science consulted with someone else in the room - Brother Bemumin on whether I could do Shahada now or if I had to wait until I had a mic. It was decided I could type the words and say them outloud.
"Ash hadu an la illaha illa Allahu wa ash hadu anna muhammadan-rasulu Allah."
Simple as that - I was a new born baby Muslimah. These people who were mere strangers to me moments before suddenly were family - TRUE FAMILY! True Brothers and Sisters and the tears began to fall. I continued on the Shahada ritual and came back after performing prayer - making sure to say special prayers for all my new Brothers and Sisters and amazingly this serenity, peace, love and tranquillity fell over me - along with what seemed like hundreds of "starter Muslim" websites and .pdf file books from Brothers and Sisters. RESEARCH!!! YEA!!!!! I started pouring thru the websites and .pdf books and meeting and beginning to love my new family.
So - that's where we were a little more than a week ago today - a new born baby Muslim I became. My given name - as far as I am concerned no longer pertains to me as a Muslimah. I've adopted the name Alia -- nobody calls me that because of my name on Paltalk but that's ok with me.
Now, back to an issue I spoke about way at the beginning of this post - about the Muslim women wearing the veil. I, myself, have adopted wearing a hijab and even a niqab when I'm out in a large crowd. Do I feel like I'm being oppressed wearing it? No! Infact, I feel very safe and I feel very proud to wear them. Men do not dictate to women that they wear these things - they dictate it to themselves! There is no oppression of women in Islam - infact they have more rights than American women! Don't believe me - do the research yourself about Marriage and the Woman's rights. It may be enough to make 50% of you join Islam.......or at least make you ask questions - just do the right thing - ask Islam questions to Muslims. Afterall, you don't go to a mechanic to ask about the sore throat you've had for the past three days!
So, here I am - a new Muslimah and happier than I've ever been in my life! Masha'Allah!
http://www.submission.org/true-shahada.html
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