Assalamu Alaikum and peace be on to all of you I'm here today I just wanted to share
with you briefly my story as to how and why I converted to Islam so I'll just get started
so growing up I actually was raised in a very devout Catholic household without fail my
parents used to bring us to church every single sunday at least to practice all of the holidays
and celebrate all the holidays and the religious sense my parents were fast on Fridays I actually
went to Catholic school my entire life so definitely very well-versed in the Catholic
faith but the one thing I will say is even just growing up I did know a lot about the
faith but I was never really brought to think about why I was particularly doing things
or you wouldn't really think very deeply into theology particularly and um you know it was
after the fact when I finished high school and I started going to post-secondary education
like College University that was when I finally actually started thinking a little bit about
my faith maybe it was the rebellious sense in all of us when we finally become somewhat
independent we want to be our own person but definitely it was a little bit more than that
I remember you know just going to school after the fact and it was the first time in my life
I was actually intermingling with people that were not of the same faith group with me just
because you know going to a Catholic school all my friends were Catholic you know I was
a good girl I never really went out a ton so I can't say that I really had a lot of
friends outside of my faith group but when I actually went to college university I actually
for the first time interacted and met you know Muslims as an example and it kind of
made me think about my faith in a greater sense like I remember you know just going
to church and thinking for the first time in my life like you know we are not supposed
to be worshipping idols so why do we even have you know like statues inside the church
that people are praying towards or if we're supposed to be praying to the one God like
why are we praying to the Virgin Mary or why are we praying to other people in saints when
you know God is the creator of all things and God is the Almighty um in that sense like
I just kind of raised a lot of questions or started thinking simply about you know Trinitarian
issues and the fact that if Jesus was praying who was he praying to if he is God or why
would he be in need particularly like a lot of these things no matter who I would talk
to you wouldn't really have a great resolution you know just to name a couple of other things
like if God if God is eternal that how could God die like I really just couldn't wrap my
head around a lot of these issues and the more research I did the more I realized that
a lot of these theological issues came after the fact and the pure Christianity was actually
Unitarian but it was the later kind of additions that changed the faith to make it what we
what we know what adds today particularly meaning kind of more of a Pauline Christianity
but I won't get into that so generally at that point that was kind of when I was questioning
a little bit more but I really didn't have much of a solution I just had questions I
started kind of looking into agnosticism just because I figured you know if Christianity
is wrong and you know all of these other religious are quote-unquote polytheistic and I can't
really accept that there are other polytheistic or that they're not particularly religions
they're more kind of like ways of thinking and whatnot I don't really want to be involved
with any of these and I never really found a good monotheistic solution but at the same
time I wasn't really looking much into religion um you know but then I got to a point where
I actually got a discussion about religion with some Muslims actually when I was at school
and I really didn't know much about their faith to be quite honest I had all of the
stereotypical kind of ideas as to what Islam actually was you know the fact that it was
terrorist mongering and a violent faith and you know they just want to convert every one
by the sword quote-unquote or you know intolerant they just want to kill everybody that didn't
agree with them you know very very shallow kind of ideas as to what the space was but
the more I kind of started asking questions about it the more I was kind of finding myself
strangely attracted to this religion basically because of the fact that they believed in
the existence of the one God they believed in God's oneness they believed in God's eternity
everlastingness you know but without all of the mental confusion it was just you know basically
belief was broken down into the fundamentals and it was something that everyone would be
able to digest without actually having to do any mental gymnastics so long story short
I started looking a little bit further into Islam not really wanting to particularly accept
it as my religion but still attracted to it nonetheless um I started taking a religious
studies course where I actually was able to look at Islam from an unbiased kind of scholarly
perspective and again I found myself kind of being attracted to it because of its um
you know rationality and the fact that Islam could meet kind of belief in science halfway
it was rational or it was rational sorry but it had proof at the same time it wasn't
just asking you to believe without any questioning or proof whatsoever so again looking into
the Quran I found the exact same thing you know Allah would command his servants to question
or think about things or ponder about things and that was something that I definitely wasn't
used to previously with the Bible and something that was very attractive for me actually pondering
and meditating about my religion um you know it kind of gave me some kind of peace in my
heart that I was really again becoming very attracted to but again I wouldn't accept Islam
as my religion until I was entirely sure about it you know so again reading more into
the Quran I was finally also able to put Judaism and Christianity into perspective particularly
looking into the role of prophets Jesus is seen in Islam as a prophet and not not being
divine and again if you look at the Bible from a Quranic perspective you'll see again
all of these proofs in the Bible the fact that Jesus peace be upon him attests to the
oneness of God and never anywhere in the Bible does he ever claimed divinity simply um you
know so reading it to the Quran it was slowly kind of answering questions for me you know
when I would bring up all of these horrible arguments that I would see online and whatnot
to people of faith that were actually well-versed in their religion um you know I would always
find some kind of resolution whenever I had a question about Islam I always thought that
it would kind of be a breaking point and this would be the reason why I can't particularly
believe in this faith but it always ended up being to the contrary and you know along
my journey I was probably looking into Islam for maybe about I would say two years or so
and it was continuously the same thing where it was just it was working for my benefit
and not on the contrary and basically whenever I would see all of these negative comments
online or get all these negative comments from people or even myself argue with people
it would just bring me to gather more knowledge about the religion and actually got me to
a point where I was very comfortable accepting Islam for what it was but I still didn't make
that final step of affirming my faith and then I found it was actually just one very
last driving point that brought me to accepting Islam when I when I was actually very close
to accepting Islam I was doing an internship in Edmonton where I was yeah I was in school
at the time and this was coming to an end and I was on my way back to Calgary where
I would actually be living with my older sister for the first time in many years because she
had actually been in Edmonton for university and I was in Calgary it was just a big jumble
but anyways so that was a very first time I would be living with her in years and I
just remember one morning I remember this very vividly and it was actually the middle
of Ramadan I wasn't practicing or anything yet at that point I'm still looking into Islam
but I heard like some crazy rustling noises and business going on in the kitchen and I
was like what is this what is going on and it was really early in the morning and then
I found my sister in there eating bowl of cereal and like she had all this food around
her and I kind of questioned her as to what she's doing and I realize at that point that
she was trying to attempt to fast so everything kind of came together at once and I realized
that at the same time when I was looking into Islam my sister was also even though we were
separately living in completely different cities and didn't talk about religion whatsoever
we're actually going through the exact same thing so that kind of brought me to a point
where I was feeling a little bit more comfortable in my decision you know to potentially accept
Islam and my sister and I we ended up actually going to a lot of religious lectures and lessons
together and kind of furthering our knowledge together and searching together and we got
to a point a few months later where we actually ended up a testing and our affirming our faith
in Islam together and sing our Shahada alhamdulillah and since then it's been about four years
so I've since then you know my life has changed dramatically for the better finally as a person
that I just I feel so whole you know before Islam I would I would go to bed at night and
I would honestly not be able to sleep because I felt like I was purposeless and I felt like
you know extreme fear of you know what was going to happen to me you know am I just like
this lump of flesh and I'm just gonna die and rot in the ground like I just really felt
unfulfilled and I felt like there was no purpose for me but in my life now I can say that every
single moment of every day I feel like I'm accounting for it and I actually have a purpose
and our purpose is to worship the Creator and our devote and devote our life to the
Creator in the way that he has outlined in the Quran very very simply speaking but anyways
so that's my story I'm gonna keep it short and leave it at that but inshallah I hope
any of you out there perhaps benefited from this story and I hope to be a service to anybody
you know with any questions about Islam whatsoever I would love to kind of dispel any myths and
use my knowledge that I've gained over the past couple of years to you know maybe inspire
you guys in some some way or at least provide you with some knowledge or answer any of the
questions that you've been burning to have answers to but for now Assalamu Alaikum
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