Over the 3 to 4 year period of my tumultuous, emotional roller coaster of a journey with Islam, I’ve come to realize that many converts have a few grievances. These are the ones I’ve come across in great abundance. These are my issues.
You just want to be Arab or Black Muslims are a disgrace.
Just like any other convert to any other faith, I’m always pestered, prodded, poked and questioned about why I cam to Islam. I’ve written in brief about it, but never in full detail. So, I guess I will in this post.
I grew up in a primarily Baptist household, but my family has strong ties to the…
My reversion story
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I was brought into a Christian family although my parents consider themselves deists; they don’t have a religion but they do believe in God. My grandmother converted to Christianity when I was one or two months old and as I was her first granddaughter she took me to church with her every sunday. When I was almost 4 years old I learned how to read. Why? Because I wanted to read the Bible. I used to see the book on our bookshell and it would captivate my attention. I tried to “read” it until I did get to read it and started to study it.
I focused on the Biblical stories more than other kids my age and started taking courses when I was only 11 years old. I studied with pastors and ministers, we took leadership courses based on the Bible, the life of Jesus, the veracity of the Bible, etc. All that happened while I was in my first church.
When I was 13 I moved to this other church, another trinitary church. I got baptised in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit… I continued my religious education there but I wasn’t convinced because I kept asking the pastors questions they couldn’t answer. At age 14 I left this church.
As soon as I became 15 I moved to this other church. They did not believe in the trinity therefore they made me get baptised again: this time in the name of Jesus.
I continued studying the Bible, reading, learning… until I met this missionaries, foreigners. They invited me to their school, YWAM (Youth With A Mission) and I got interested in missions. I studied there for about six months and went on a mission trip to the capital: Mexico City. During my trip there I met these guy and his wife. They were missionaries in Morocco, they showed me the Qur’an; an Arabic Qur’an. I held it on my hands and fell in love with the complicity and uniqueness of the language. Of course I didn’t understand a single word but it was so beautiful! About two weeks after that I met another missionary and he showed me how Muslims prayed. It was enigmatic to me.
As soon as I got home I started to study the Bible way more and I found out many contradictions in it. No pastor could answer my questions and I felt betrayed.
I stopped going to the church. This lasted a year.
I was confused, I felt lost. Everything I believed in was a lie (to me) and I didn’t know what to do, where to go; so I remembered that Qur’an I had seen months before and started my research on Islam. I searched google and read on Islamic websites… I read, read and read.
I was confused… you know the websites don’t show up an order of knowledge, it’s just knowledge spread and articles so I was pretty confused, I didn’t know what to do (again) until I started talking to this Saudi guy. He told me about Islam for months… he was very patient and answered all my questions and I kept resisting the urge to convert. I was so annoyed and lost because he kept talking about Islam, Allah and the prophet Muhammed and for me everything was Jesus, so I thought of Muhammed as something disgusting: idolatry.
He was patient with me. He used all the sources he had and showed me videos on youtube (usually Ahmed Deedat’s videos) and I kept ignoring him. Only caring about me and my idea of God.
One day he showed me a video in which they showed how the prophet Muhammed is mentioned in the Bible by name. I watched it and I gave up on my faith. I started to have dreams in which I used to see Jesus, or my idea of him, looking at me, disappointed, and that thought would break my heart. I used to cry to sleep, I was in despair. My beliefs, all those years, were all a lie. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know anybody to tell it to.
I gave up on myself and told Ryan (the Saudi guy) that I wanted to convert and he said “no, not yet; you have to be 100% sure”. I agreed to wait but after one week I said again “Ryan, I want to convert, what should I do??”. He said “you have to wait more, you have to be sure and don’t let your emotions decide for you…”. Again, I agreed to wait, but after a week I said again to him “Ryan, I want to convert”. He got really happy and on skype he told me to repeat certain words (the shahada) and I did.
And since October 27th of 2011 I’m a Muslim, alhamdulillah.
The journey hasn’t been easy but full of trials and tests but Allah is taking care of me and helping me strengthen myself, protecting me and guiding me… I am alone in this town, I have not found any more Muslims but inshallah one day I’ll live somewhere with many Muslims.
Allah is the best thing that’s ever happened to me… these months I’ve experienced depending fully on Him, I’ve felt His love and most importantly I’ve felt that He loves me and cares for me; I can feel He is real.
Although I’m not the best person He chose me. In his infinite mercy He looked at me and chose me.
Alhamdulillah.
Alhelí, you are amazing, masha Allah <3
200,000 Hispanic Americans alone accept Islam each year
According to U.S. media outlets, Islam is spreading rapidly among all the sections of the American society.
Islam is most actively spreading among Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Cubans and Spaniards, who make about 35% of newly-converted Muslims in an Islamic center in North Hudson, New Jersey, Tanseerel news agency reports.
Last weekend, The New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/nyregion/09muslims.html reported that there were as many as 200,000 Hispanic converts to Islam in the US. Among them was Musa Franco, a Colombian who converted at the age of 13.
The newspaper also mentioned the name of Miriam Celeste, who converted to Islam in 2002, as well as Muslimah Rodriguez, who after embracing Islam in 2009, started wearing a veil known as niqab.More than 7 million Muslims were living in the United States according to official figures for 2003. However, in subsequent years, the U.S. authorities were not publishing official statistics on the number of Muslims.
Moreover, the Zionist mainstream media began to spread lies that the number of Muslims in America is no more than 3 million people. They began to write lies in 2007, when Muslim organizations in the U.S. said the number of followers of Islam in this country increased in 2007 to 12 million.
In turn, the U.S. Home Security indicated in a report to Congress in 2008 that there were 4 million Muslims living in the country. In June 2010, the Congregation of Christians of America challenged the US Home Security false data. According to its estimates, at least 5.5 million Muslims were lived in the U.S. in early 2010, and the total population of the United States, according to Congress, was 304 million people.Despite the attempts to understate the number of Muslims in the US, almost all media outlets point out that mass adoption of Islam by Americans is a real miracle, because there is an intentional harassment of Muslims and massive propaganda against Islam in the US as in most other Western countries.
Western and Zionist media are trying to present Islam as something foreign to the “Western soul”. However, the result of this anti-Islamic propaganda is exactly the opposite. A growing number of Americans are embracing Islam and returning to their Lord.
I saw the doodle you did called hoejabi. It drawn really well I like it :) But I also know how much I hate that term. It isn't wrong for a hijabi sista to speak out, take photos or show interest in a man. Nor is it her fault that her clothes may not fit well and seem tight or too revealing. Some sistas have a naturally curvy body. I say embrace it and love it. Much of Islam was inspired by women and there beauty especially the mystical parts of Islam.
huh?
i never made a doodle about hoejabis.
-sally
Islam en Español: In Conversion, a New Identity
At the North Hudson Islamic Educational Center in Union City, N.J., there are Spanish-language classes on the Koran and an annual Latino Muslim Day. About 35 percent of the center’s congregation is Hispanic, and there are frequent conversions in which Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Cubans and others recite the Shahadah, a declaration of belief.
While the majority of Hispanics in the United States are Catholic, some studies have estimated that there are as many as 200,000 Hispanic converts to Islam in this country. Among them are Musa Franco, top left, a Colombian who converted at age 13, walking to the mosque with his wife, Candice Elam. And Shari Abdul Malik, top right, placing a Costa Rican flag on a table for Latino Muslim Day at the North Hudson center.
Then there is Miriam Celeste Colo’n, far right second row, who, after converting in 2002, started her own clothing line, Dignity Apparel — “where modesty meets the fashion industry.” Her line combines her urban-Latin style with traditional Islamic dress. And Muslimah Rodriguez, who decided in 2009 to start wearing the veil known as a niqab, and is shown, at right, at an Islamic convention, where she recited a poem on being a Muslim woman.
These photographs were taken by Eirini Vourloumis, who was raised in Athens and baptized Greek Orthodox, but whose mother’s family is Muslim. After 9/11, she grew increasingly interested in Muslim culture, and while at an Indonesian mosque in Long Island City, Queens, for an Akika, or blessing, ceremony for a new baby, met some women affiliated with the North Hudson center. Spending time in Union City, she found many converts who remained immersed in their ethnic food and music but were building a dual identity as Muslims through devotion, dress and fasting.
This little doodle I made is intended to illustrate something that’s caught my attention lately. I can’t help but notice all the hate within the Tumblr Ummah, especially for Hijabis. Heck, I didn’t even know the word ”Hoejabi” before I started Tumblr. I can’t believe how negative people here are.
It seems like most Muslimahs on this site are magnets for Haram Police. (Thankfully, no one has said anything to me yet, but I figure it’s just a matter of time.) It’s astonishing, really, to see people say these things. ”You use bad language”, ”Your posts are un-Islamic”, and for people that post pictures of themselves, ”Your clothes are too tight”, or ”You wear makeup” or ”You do your eyebrows”, all the way up to ”You’re a slut”, there seems to be no shortage of things these people find to nitpick. The most annoying part is that this rarely happens in real life, but people find safety to say things like this behind their screens, on anon.
My qestion to the Haram Police is: Who made you an authority? You’re not a mufti/shaykh/’alim/mullah/imam, you’re just some kid with a computer. Nobody gave you the power to evaluate someone’s Muslim-ness. You don’t know what’s in a person’s heart, and therefore, you have no right to pass judgement. If your intention is to help your fellow Muslims, them by all means, do so. But please do so in a manner that is respectful and uncondescending, because as of now, all you’re doing is bullying.
There’s enough people in the world that hate us, and we’re not making it any better by hating each other.
reblogging for relevant commentary and to remind converts that slut shaming and misogyny are not inherent in Islam, it is created by human beings in order to justify problematic thoughts which need to be un-learned
PSA: white and light skin muslims, actually understand what privilege and racism means before writing about it
because being a white muslim has its complications, don’t get me wrong.
but the day people start equating getting no salaams in the masjid to a loss of white privilege is the day something has gone horribly wrong.
i’m going to need folk to understand white muslims getting dissed in the masjid is not racism. its prejudice yes, but racism, no sorry. because only in that setting of the masjid would people of colour be able to diss the shit out of a white muslim, enact some kind of “power” over them {which is lofty at best}, and get away with it. the real world outside the masjid, that white person goes back to having the upper hand. society goes back to shining their shoes and kissing the ground that they walk on.
racism is not about merely getting your feelings hurt. i’m going to need white muslims and light skin muslims to understand that.
because if racism was simply about getting your feelings hurt because nobody wanted to talk to you in a social setting or invite you to places and booo hoooooo god that feels awful
then people of colour wouldn’t have experienced the violent, psychologically damaging, genocidal effects of racism that has been perpetuated not only in the united states but pretty much anywhere Europeans and white Americans laid down to rest
intersectionality is difficult to understand, but not so difficult that bullshit is pulled out of pocket as legitimate in the name of talking about the problems white muslims face within the community
