Asalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu. Sorry for the length, but even this is a shortened version of my story.
Alhamdulillah I’ve been Muslim for almost 8 years now, and could never imagine my life going forward without Islam.
Before I became Muslim there was a time when I considered myself a strong practicing Christian, not a bible thumper per say, but I noticed how I cared more than lots of kids my age at the church I went to. The rest of my immediate family were not church goers, and I have always felt like I cared more about spirituality. Eventually when I was in high school I started to go to church less and less, not because issues of faith but more about the changes in the church, and seeing people come that only were there for the amenities rather wanting to get close to God, along with me becoming more involved with high school life.
In college I took a World Religions class that made me realize I needed to get more connected to my spiritual side once again. I consciously realized I was happiest when I felt closest to The Creator. In this class, even though we did talk about Islam, we did not do a very comprehensive examination about it.
The teacher was not exactly prejudice, but there were a couple things he said that were very inaccurate to say and painted Islam in a bad light.
After this class I decided to go farther in my own research of religions, including the origins of Christianity. I soon realized once studying more about Islam how much was not discussed in the class. The fact that no name other than the Prophet Muhammad, alayhi salaat wa salaam, was mentioned was crazy to me, and when I found out that Jesus, alayhi salaam, is the Messiah in Islam as well I was shocked. Not only because of that fact, but because that seems like something that we DEFINITELY should have discussed in an academic setting.
I started to recognize things with Muslims that made me scratch my head, so to say. How Muslims pray in prostration, and this is how the prophets are described as praying in the bible. And how me, a christian at the time, could not seem to remember a time I prostrated to God. How muslims fast, and how it’s not a cop out like lent where you fast from one vice or whatever. WE FAST, and we do it like the prophets. Arab Christians and Jews say Allah too. Just so many things that coincided beautifully and made so much sense once I came across them.
While I was studying Islam I was also reading more of the bible trying to be more in touch with God the way I was familiar with. I decided to go to a church service, and the one thing that bothered me was that in the “worship” songs there were some lines about God and Jesus, alayhi salaam, as if they were synonyms, and this bothered me now. I was invited to a mormon church, and went. The mormon people are very kind people and from what I’ve seen they are very dedicated in their own way, but things didn’t agree with me. They’re very traditional, much more traditional like church service than I was use to, and I didn’t feel like it was a better way to get closer to God.
I was a non-denominational Christian and the evangelical churches are much different than orthodox type churches. The main thing that stood out to me was the book of mormon and Joseph Smith. He claimed to see God the Father and God the son in the woods one day, but there are verses in the bible saying no one has seen God the Father. That’s not even the most crazy part of his story but I don’t need to go into it here.
I had even looked deeper into Judaism, and for a time considered converting to Judaism. But they’re denial of Jesus, alayhi salaam, would never sit with me.
I started to have things happen that were waaay to coincidental. I start to realize there is absolutely no such thing as a coincidence. There are a few that stand out in my memory but there were so much more.
I started a college health class and I recognized one guy from my elementary school of all places. I ask him if he went there and sure enough he was the guy I thought. 10 years gone by and I somehow recognized this brother, subhanallah. I recognized his arabic accent and asked him if his family is muslim. I had seen muslims around before but this was the first time I actually discussed Islam with anyone. I had looked up masajid before but for some reason didn’t know about the one in my hometown. Looking back I know now that Allah wanted him to give me the invitation instead of me going on my own. Allah never had me interact with muslims until I had been studying Islam.
One time I was reading some of the book of revelation, and came across a section about people in a multitude of white, and sometime soon after the same day came across pictures of people on hajj. A MULTITUDE OF WHITE.
The one “coincidence” that stood out the most to me was from my oceanography course. During the class break a girl started to ask the teacher about two seas that meet but don’t mix?? He started to talk about how when waters are of different density and salinity they can collide next to each other rather than mixing sometimes like with brackish water. Interesting quick discussion, and the night goes on. When I get home I later start doing my usual things and eventually watch some clips about Islam.
Came across a video about a scientist who converted to Islam. He was athiest but didn’t want to be ignorant about religion so in his studies he started to read the Quran, and in the Quran he started to notice things that he knew were only recently discovered in the 20th century, among other things. He eventually got to the point where he could not deny it anymore and became muslim. INTEREST PEAKED!
I start going through the comments and there was one where it was just a bunch of verse numbers in the Quran. I start going through them and they were all verses about the scientific miracles within the Quran.
I get to one of them, and the verse is…seas that meet but don’t mix…
HOW?…could I have been doing something totally unrelated to me learning about Islam…an oceanography course, and this came up, then later that night start watching clips about Islam that led me to an ayah that was the exact same thing we discussing?!
Subhanallahi wa bihamdihi, my mind was blown.
I went to the masjid I believe three times, and I told my friend I want to become muslim.
His name is Obada, and my son who is on the way now, is going to be named Obaydah. An homage to him, as well as the sahabi Abu Obaydah.
I hope and pray that my story and others stories can inspire us all to be better and help each other grow in our love for Allah and the anbiyyah, alayhimu salaam.
May Allah make us all pleasing to him and bless us all with the good of this life and the next, ameen
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