The revert story of brother Daniel: :
poeticislam:
We are publishing this in order for people to benefit and hopefully encourage others, with permission from the brother. *Note*: This is not the same Daniel that I posted the video of.
"Bismillah (In the name of God)
To understand how I came to Islam, we must start from the beginning. I was brought up in a non-religious household, funnily enough, my parents often said to me that they would let me grow up and choose my religion once I was old enough. However I always had a belief in God. Due to living in Britain and because of the influence of my Spanish side of the family, I saw myself as a Christian, I was never christened or baptised, but it was almost as if being a Christian was an extension of my nationality.
So while I did not go to church, I would sometimes pray to god, usually when I wanted something, but it was prayer nonetheless. Despite seeing myself as a Christian, I never understood the concept of praying to Jesus, I always felt as if I was praying directly to God as opposed to praying to Jesus.
Another concept that I had been brought up with that was apparent in Islam, was the idea that we are responsible for everything we do. I could never agree with the idea that Jesus died for our sins, because something my parents had always instilled in me was that you are responsible for all of your actions, and ultimately on the Day of Judgement we will have to answer for them.
In 2000, my father was in hospital for 11 months, after these 11 months he passed away. They often say that tragedy can bring you closer or take you away from faith, for me, it did not make me lose any faith, I still believed that there was a God, and that the death of my father was just fate.
My life went along, as I left primary school, then on to secondary school, then sixth form. I still had a belief in God, but it was never manifested into anything other than the occasional prayer, once again usually when I wanted something. I wasn’t particularly searching for anything, but I was open to other ideas. In fact one day, representatives from a local church knocked on my door asking me about my beliefs, they even conducted some sort of prayer for me. However I did not feel any sort of spiritual connection when they were doing this, I just kind of stood there. They promised to come back and speak to me the week after, so the week after I just never answered the door.
Another thing that I felt has to be mentioned is an anxiety that I had to death before I found Islam. I had this feeling that I could die at any moment, but I did not know what would come after, it really affected me with certain things and certain choices I made, and would leave me very worried sometimes.
I find it very hard to pinpoint when I began to consider Islam. Despite the medias attempts to paint Islam in a negative light, I never bought into it, while they attempted to put the blame on certain people for the events of 9/11 and 7/7, I’ve always had the belief that you can’t judge a whole group of people by the actions of one, and even more importantly I understood that you can not judge a religion based on the actions on its members. In fact I sometimes even defended Islam, though my argument was horrible, one time I said “Ice Cube is a Muslim, and you wouldn’t say that to him,” alhamdulilah my knowledge is a little bit better than that now.
I think the first time Islam entered my consciousness was one night in 2007, I was in bed, and as you do, was skipping through TV for something to watch. On ITV there was a show which was on the different religions interpretations of Jesus, focusing on Christianity and Islam. Here for the first time was something that made sense to me, I could never understand the idea of Jesus being the son of God/God on earth, however Islam saying that Jesus was a prophet just seemed to make perfect sense to me. Other topics on the show which intrigued me was the coming of Dajjal, the Mahdi and the return of Isa (Jesus). The next day I spoke to a friend of mine, a Muslim, who had also seen the show, and we began to discuss it a little bit.
Another thing that made me look into Islam was this book that I had that was about Muhammad Ali. The book was made up of the narrative and then quotes from the man himself and pretty much everyone involved in his life. They would discuss some of the acts of charity he would perform, and he would talk about how it was because of Islam. The fact that Muslim’s are encouraged to give in charity, was something I admired, as charity was something that my parents had always encouraged me to take part in
After this I began to speak to friends of mine about Islam. A particular friend of mine, called Noor, who I admired due to his manners, became my main source for information on Islam. As I began to speak to him, I realised that the reason that he was so well mannered was because of Islam which piqued my interest even more. I also would speak to one of my teachers, an R.E. teacher, who after telling him of my interest in Islam, encouraged me to look into it further and further, I even remember him showing me off at a Record of Achievement night, telling some people that I was becoming muslim.
During A-Level revision in around March/April 2008, I would go to a local library to revise. This library is situated in a well known Jewish area, so there selection of Islamic books was very small, however there was one book called the complete Idiots guide to Islam. So while I was meant to be revising, I would either A) finish my revision as quickly as I could or B) abandon revision all together to read this book. The more I read of this book the more I started to believe that Islam was the right religion for me, and was the right path to Jannah (Heaven). I would read about Jannah, in vivid descriptions, and realised this was where I wanted to be. I would read about the importance of prayer, and the dedication showed by Muslims to the prayer and I would marvel at it. I would read about Allah and my heart would fill more and more with faith. I would read about how Islam was more than just a religion, how it was a way of life, how there were hadiths for everything we did in life, we had been given the guide on how to get to jannah. However I still would not take my shahadah (testimony of faith).
The more I researched online, the more my faith grew. When I heard the Athan (call to prayer) on Youtube, it was one of the most beautiful sounds I had ever heard. I even researched how to take the shahadah, but I still did not take it. I bought a copy of the Qur’an that I took with me on holiday to Spain, and this just increased my faith even more. But still I did not take my shahadah.
The reason I did not take my shahadah, was due to a stupid fear that I seemed to have. I had this idea that I would be somehow interrogated by the people at the masjid, with them expecting me to know everything. I also had this idea that I may be viewed as an outsider, not looked down upon, but maybe not taken seriously as a Muslim, how wrong I was.
In January 2009, I had just finished my January exams and something took over me, I decided to take my shahadah. It was late at night, and for some reason I can remember the moon being quite bright through my window. I found an online clip of someone reciting the shahadah, and copied what they said. I immediately felt different spiritually, like a burden had been lifted, my heart felt open. But the changes did not come over night. I only told Noor, and the next day when I saw him he gave me a big hug.
For a while, while I had taken my shahadah, I was kind of stuck in the middle. I wanted to learn how to pray, but did not know how to go about, I gave up pork which wasn’t too hard anyway. I had never drunk alcohol or been involved with girls in that way so that was never a fitna (trial/test) for me. I wanted to know and learn more about Islam, but I just didn’t know who to turn to. I still had this fear of going to a mosque. I also had a paranoia of what some people would say including my mother. At the time my mother was seeing a Christian guy, who was speaking to her about trying to become a Christian. She was raised a Roman Catholic, but after my father died, she pretty much lost faith. I had no problem with this, however one time I was watching Ali, a film which I watched a stupid amount of times, and he came in. He then said he thought it was stupid when Muhammad Ali became muslim. This of course cast doubts on how my mum would receive the news.
However despite all this I still had the intention to learn things such as how to pray etc, but due to my fear of going to the Mosque I never got around to it. Then on August 10th I was at a friends house playing FIFA, when my friend got a call that was for me. It was from Noor, who said that he wanted to take me to the mosque to teach me how to pray. He was with another friend of mine who I had not seen in a while, in the time that I had not seen him, he had got onto the deen (way of life i.e. Islam) stronger than he was before alhamdulilah. So a group of us set off to Regents Park Mosque. There, one of my friends took me to speak to another guy, who began to ask me about why I was interested in Islam, why I wanted to take my shahadah, then he went to go speak to the Imam. I performed Maghrib salat (one of the five daily prayers) in jammat (congregation), following the movements of everyone around me, then the imam called me up.
He also asked me some questions, then I took my shahadah again. Subhan’Allah (Glory be to God), any fears I had of people being hostile in the masjid were completely wiped away, for about 15-20 minutes I stood there receiving hugs and kisses, gifts from the brothers, I was given a book on how to pray, I was given some cake, I was given some attar, but I did not know what it was for like 10 minutes, the brother gave it to me while he was shaking my hand, and I did not have time to look at my hand to see what it was, I just felt something round, I had this idea it was a battery for some reason. This outgoing show of affection was very overwhelming. As the crowd began to disperse, I received my certificate from the Imam, then got some food, because obviously things like this can make you hungry. We stayed in the masjid for a bit, talking with the brothers who were interested in why I came to Islam, and then made our way back to my friends house, where his family were also very happy to hear I became Muslim and I received congratulations and gifts from them aswell.
This reaction was the complete opposite of what I was expecting. I was expecting hostility, but what I felt was love.
The journey was not over, as I still had to tell my mum. The day after, I did not pluck up the courage to tell her. However I had heard how my mum had seen my friends auntie, so I began to wonder if my mum had found out the news from her. So the next day after that, as soon as I woke up I thought I have to go and speak to her about this. I picked up my certificate and walked into her room, shaking. I told her I had something to tell her, and handed her the certificate, she read, it, got up and hugged me. Now the two things that I was worried about, going to the mosque and telling my mum had been quashed within a matter of a couple of days. Me and my mum discussed a few things, how Islam would change things for me, how I was still the same person etc. My mum knew that as a person I would not change, and even told me she was proud of me.
A few days later my first Ramadan (the holiest month in the Islamic Calender) started, something which I looked forward to and kind of dreaded in equal amounts. However any worries about Ramadan were gone when I began to feel the sense of brotherhood. The mosques were packed, everyone was together it was beautiful. I also used Ramadan as a way to boost my iman a lot. I started from scratch with the basics, learning salah etc. I started off praying with the book in front of me and began to memorise more and more.
Ever since that Ramadan, it has been one big learning experience, we as Muslims are always encouraged to gain knowledge which is something I love about this deen. We are always striving to increase our iman (faith). Sometimes I think about where I would have been had I not accepted Islam, and it is scary to think, as you can see from what I have written, I wasn’t a particularly bad child or teenager, however spiritually I would still be lost, with no sense of purpose in life. Alhamdulilah (Praise be to God) I was guided to Islam and Alhamdulilah for everything since then.”