Assalamu alaikum,
Thank you Anyabwile, Muslimah and Intuition for your nice welcomes! Anyabwile, congrats on your shahada, alhamdulillah, how special that you took shahada in Ramadan!
Intuition thanks for your comments
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I know I'm still a baby in Islam but sobhanAllah I feel like I've been a muslim my whole life, and alhamdulillah I've had the opportunity to learn a lot about Islam -- I even dropped out of school for a year to study it and practice it more! alhamdulillah.
I would be glad to tell the story of how I came to Islam. I was raised in a mormon family, but stopped believing in high school and especially when I went to college and began studying it more closely and found all of the lies. For awhile I had no religion, but I wasn't too concerned about it.
Then I found a friend online who told me several small facts about the practical aspects of Islam, such as a woman's rights in marriage, and the fact there is no sabbath, and how the charity is given, among others. A lot of these things were so wonderful compared to how mormons do things, so I was totally intrigued and I researched Islam online, but I felt I couldn't trust most of the things I found online until I had a better basic understanding, and also I really wanted to visit a masjid.
I attend school in a fairly small town, but alhamdulillah there is a masjid here, it is the only one within about 50 miles or more I think, and alhamdulillah it was right here right down the street. I wanted to call the masjid but I was so nervous about calling because I understood that men and women are separated and I was shy to talk to any men, and also I had never been in the situation where I knew nothing about the culture of people and I wasn't sure what to say, but alhamdulillah I just decided to do it and a very nice brother answered the phone and I told him I just wanted to learn about Islam and I wondered if there was a place I could go, and he gave me a phone number for a sister in the area and I was so glad that I could talk to a woman. So I called her and told her the same thing and she was so happy to work around my schedule and do whatever I wanted.
So we agreed to meet at the masjid and she brought an american sister with her, and the three of us sat in the masjid and just talked, and now I don't even remember what we talked about but I felt very comfortable there. I took the other sister's phone number, and they invited me to attend a weekly class they hold for the new converts at the sister's home, so I went for a couple of weeks, but I was busy in school and I just decided I needed some time to think over what I had learned so far. They gave me a copy of the Qur'an, and then I didn't talk to them for several months, but I was really so preoccupied with Islam and I was thinking about it all the time. Alhamdulillah my heart became so soft and everything I learned about Islam became easy. One day I was in my room with my roommate and her friend and they were talking about religion. They happened to ask me about my religion, and for some reason I just said, "I'm a muslim." And my roommate was shocked, she said I had never told her, and I guess they didn't really believe me because of course I didn't dress like a muslim or do anything like that, so I got out my Qur'an and showed them and then they believed me and they were totally shocked. Not bad shocked, but more like they were impressed. This all happened before September 11th, and alhamdulillah that it did or I don't think it would have gone as well.
After that, I knew I should take shahada but I was still apprehensive because I lived on campus in basically a public place with guys around all the time and loud music and whatnot, and I didn't feel I could truly be a muslim by living in this place. But I finally decided I should do it anyway and Allah would put me in the right place, so finally in June of 2001 I took shahada, and alhamdulillah that very same week the american sister I had first met said she had room in her apartment for me to stay with her if I needed. May Allah bless her heart, she has become one of the best friends I have.
I stayed with her for quite awhile, but then she moved to Kuwait which was closer to where her husband works and then I had to move to a different town, not too far away, about 30 miles, but still far enough to make it difficult to keep contact with my muslim friends. The town I moved to had literally no muslims, and most people there didn't even know what Islam was. The life there distracted me and I wasn't able to practice my religion as well as I wanted, and I finally decided I needed help to get in a better place, so I told myself to focus on Allah and ask His guidance. I started reading the Qur'an every day, with the plan that I would finish the entire Qur'an straight through and then make istikharah about what I should do.
But Allah didn't want to wait for me to finish the Qur'an. About 3 weeks after I started reading the Qur'an I got a phone call out of the blue, the caller ID had a strange number and I had no idea who it was until I said hello and I heard the familiar "salam alaikum!" of my friend who had moved away! I was so thrilled to talk to her since I hadn't talked to her for a very long time since she left. But then it got even better -- she was here visiting!! SobhanAllah, I left everything I was doing to spend all my free time to visit her while she was here, and during that time my deen grew so strong because I was spending so much time in an Islamic atmosphere. Alhamdulillah, Allah answered my prayers in such a beautiful way!
While she was here, she told me about how she decided to come to visit. It was summer time, and most of the people in Kuwait were going away for the summer. She had had some trouble getting her residency and whatever else she needed in order to be able to get a flight to the US, so instead her friend had offered to take her to Lebanon for the summer. She said that sounded very nice, but she also had wanted to come back to see all her friends, so she wasn't sure what she should do, since it was unlikely she could get a plane ticket in time to come for the summer. She was almost going to go to Lebanon, but at the last minute all her paperwork went through and she found a flight and she said she actually purchased the ticket the night before she left and didn't even have the ticket in her hand until she was on her way to the airport. She could only get 3 weeks to visit, which she was sad she couldn't have more, but she said she just felt that she needed to come here to visit.
SobhanAllah, I told her I knew why she needed to come here -- for me! Allah answered my prayer with her, sobhanAllah. After I spent all that time visiting with her I felt a burning in my heart that I loved Allah so much and I didn't want to go back to the empty life that had no Islam. So even after she left I kept going to our other friend's house who she had stayed with and I kept myself there as much as I could, and about a week after she had left I began wearing hijab alhamdulillah, and that's an entirely different story about my adventures with hijab and the people at school and at work!
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But alhamdulillah, there were no major problems and everything went fine, and now I can't imagine myself going out without my hijab, and I can't imagine myself in a life where I'm not surrounded with muslims to help support me in my deen... this is so important, and alhamdulillah Allah is making the way easy for me.
Well that was a very long story, sorry for that! But to me I still feel how beautiful it was to come to Islam and how beautiful Allah has made my life with Islam.
SobhanAllah... Allah kareem, Allah kareem
Alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar!
If you made it this far, then thanks for reading
assalamu alaikum
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I just recently found this site and I have been reading the topics and I think everyone here is so nice and friendly, and it's a great atmosphere here alhamdulillah.
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