I’ve been a revert to Islam for about 5 years.
My life before Islam, well I was a Born again baptised Christian. Brought up in a Christian family. Live in a Christian area with loads of my friends being Christian and the church being, kinder the centre of the town.
I 1st learnt about Islam in year 4 at first school and I honestly thought that Muslim worshiped the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and did everything to be like him. I went thought school thinking that all other faiths, apart from Christians, were wrong and that Christianity was the true faith. My family still think that. The last 2 holidays I had whist I was as school with my family. We went to Turkey and Morocco. I went into my 1st mosque in Turkey and it was so beautiful inside. I had to wear a head scarf because of my age and our guide said the prayer in Arabic and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I ever heard. When I was in Morocco, I heard the call to prayer 5 times a day and thought it was lovely apart from the dawn prayer which irritated me as I wanted my sleep. Whist I was there all my friends and my family went out of the hotel in shorts and t-shirts. However, I went out of the hotel once and felt so conscious about my legs, so for the rest of the holiday when I went out of the hotel, I wore my trousers which I only brought 1 pair with me. I felt so much better and coped with the heat fine. After theses holidays, I started to think about Islam and started to read into the faith a bit more. In 2005 when I was working at a horse riding school, I thought about become Muslim and didn’t know why but then left the thought for a few more years.
The spring of 2007 there was an interesting program called The Retreat. It was about a group of Muslims and none Muslims finding out a bit more about Islam. For the Muslims, it strengthen there faith and for one of the none Muslims, who was a lady, she had a dream that she became Muslim so on the last day of the retreat she said shaharda. After the program had finished, I sat and thought to myself for a little while and then said to myself that if I was in her position I would have converted to Islam as well. I then went onto the internet and started to read about Islam and watching video on YouTube. In October 2007, I decided to look up, online, how to convert to Islam. I found the shaharda and said it to myself and became Muslim in my heart and trout myself how to pray, only in English. Around the same time, I joined a message Islamic board and came across a Muslim sister that lives in my town and we started chatting online and not long after we met up on the beach in my town. I was very nervous as I hadn’t met a Muslim before and that she was off the internet. We got on very well and I love her 3 kids too. We are still friends to this day. She took me to my local mosque in Bournemouth and that is where I made my conversion official and got a certificate as proof of my conversion for when I go on Hajj in the future, insha allah (If Allah wills).
The reason why I converted to Islam was in Christianity, I found it hard, how could Jesus (pbuh) be the son of God and seeing him as a prophet made a lot more senses to me. The way that Muslims worship God also appealed to me and I felt I could focused on worshiping God so much better than as a Christian.
I started to wear hijab soon after I converted as I wanted to be identified as a Muslim. The 1st day I wore it out, I was going to collage and found it a very nerve-racking thing to do but once I got there I was fine. It did come off when I wasn’t practising but will tell about that later. Now I can’t imagine not leaving my home without the scarf on my head. I really love it.
The 1st people I told that I converted to Islam were my collage friend and they were fine with it. Telling my parents I’d converted to Islam is the most hardest thing that anyone can do. I wrote everything I need to tell them in a letter and I was going to give it to them and then run away and hear there reaction at a later date but I didn’t run away, I stayed. In summery, they were shocked that I changed my faith and that they were conserved for me that I’d been forced in to converting to Islam. I was not forced and it was total my choice to change my faith from Christianity to Islam.
I went thought a very ruff patch in my new faith. I moved house before Christmas 2007 and found it very hard to practise Islam in my new home which was a mixed gender house and the only rooms I could take off my hijab was my bedroom and the bathroom. By the beginning of 2008, I wasn’t practising Islam any more as I found it so hard. Over the next year and half, I met up with my Muslim friend in Weymouth when she was down from London and I e-mailed her regerly. I even went up to visit her in London, once, after I met her husband in Weymouth. After every time I contacted her or saw her, I wanted to practise Islam again and I did for a few days after but everyone I know around me, put pressure on me to stop practising and I gave in to them every time.
In the summer of 2009, I had quite a few bad things happened to me. I crashed my car for one, my boyfriend I had over the last year and half, dumped me and went out with his house the same day he dumped me. It drove me complete bonkers as she was a loud up at my house. I was not a happy bunny and due to me being so angry over everything, my land lord and land lady kicked me out of my home because I was upsetting all the other people living there with my behaviour. I moved into a council run hostel thing. Soon after I moved there, I got a text message from a friend up in London, inviting me to go on a New Muslim Project Ramadan Retreat up in Leicester. I said I’ll think about it and will get back to her. That same week, my Auntie came round to help me un-pack my stuff and I told her about the text message. She said, go for it, if I wanted too. I was worried about what my mum was going to think so I didn’t tell her. I started fasting as it was Ramadan by that point and I went up to Leicester and had a good time. Things I enjoyed the most was praying with other people as I normal pray on my own and breaking my fast with everyone. I stayed up in London till Eid at the end of Ramadan. I prayed my 1st Friday prayer there and my 1st Eid prayer there. I loved it. My mum found out I was in London and wasn’t happy as I didn’t tell her I was going up there. When I got back to Weymouth, I went round to hers and stood next to her in the kitchen and sided and said to her that I’ve gone back to practising Islam. She wasn’t surprised but could see it brought me peace and it did and still does bring me peace inside myself now.
The last few years, I have found things very hard and very up and down but the 1 thing that has kept me strong is my faith in Allah and Islam and I total not regret becoming Muslim and it is one of the best desertions I’ve made in my life.
I pray that Allah will keep me on this path and that all who read my story will be inspired by it. It is not an easy path, as you have read but Alhumdulillah (Praise God) I’m still here to tell you my entire story on how I found Islam. Insha allah (if God wills) this is not the end for me and may Allah give me strength for everything I have to face in the future.
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