I am an American Christian revert to Islam. I was brought up Christian pretty much, but I never really practised or cared about religion much until I was in late teens. I went through a phase where I hated God for some unknown reason. I don’t know if it was because I was trying to be “in” or “find myself” or what; but for some reason I blamed God for all of my faults, for my bad childhood, the flu, the Raiders didn’t win the super bowl, whatever it was, it was “God’s Fault”.
I was into Satanism and Voodoo, witchcraft, you name it, I was into it. I didn’t care much about anything, my life, my family, nothing. I did what and when I wanted to; I skimmed by using other people, I was into guns and drugs, partying and hardcore Satanist rock music. I was over all a pretty bad dude. Anyhow, it all caught up with me when I was around 20 or so, and I ended my butt in jail for five months.
That gave me some time to think. I really didn’t think a lot about God while I was there until one day I was bored or something, I decided to read the Bible… There were tons of them there, so I said why not. Well, much to my surprise I found the Bible… Amazing, I didn’t realise that everything I was looking for (or so I thought) was in this book. God … what a concept especially from a former Satanist, it was unheard of … but I began to study, I couldn’t get enough; I started reading and didn’t stop until I got out of jail.
One night I was reading the Bible in the light coming through a crack in the door after lights out, I was reading the story of Jesus (May the peace and blessings of Allah be unto him) in Matthew, and… Wow… I wanted to be like him. I could just imagine him, living his entire life for God, I wanted to be like his followers, to be close to God to love and worship God, at that moment in my life nothing else really mattered to me. Nothing was important in this world other than God.
Anyhow, I decided I was going to get baptised there in jail. However, for some strange reason, the day I was supposed to be baptised was the day they let me out of jail. The other crazy thing is they let me out of jail early, a mistake on their part… I wasn’t supposed to get out because I had other warrants other places, and was waiting arraignment on felony charges… (I was a bad guy) anyhow, the other charges were dropped, I was out of jail (Alhamdulillah) and a free man, free from jail, free from my self torment … (or on my way to freedom anyhow).
I soon came back to my old ways, but I was still never the same, I had promised God that I would never forsake him again, and this is a promise I have kept. When I was out I changed a lot, I started going to church, my family all thought I was weird, because I was Jim “anti-God,” the last time they saw me, now I was going to church? They all thought I had some crazy ulterior motives for seeking out God. Like I said I quickly went back to my old ways, drinking a lot, illicit sex, back to my hardcore Satan rock but it was OK because all I had to do is ask Jesus to forgive me overnight and boom I’m saved! Right?
Anyhow, I moved away from home again, for the 200th time, and in with some guy I met on the Internet down in South Carolina, just to get away, things were OK there for a while.
Well, one day I got the feeling that I needed to be close to God again, I started to feel that empty again like I did before when God was out of my life. It was pretty crazy, because I had pretty much not really did anything for God anymore, I was more about myself again. But for some reason I felt this pull back again, and strange as it sounds, to the middle east also, I had no idea what for but it was like one of those things, those got on the Internet and started reading, I felt that I needed to learn more about God.
So I started online looking at websites about the ancient near east and stuff like that. I came into the Syrian Orthodox church, where people speak Aramaic, which was the language Jesus spoke. Surely this will get me closer to God. I learned that it was the earliest form of Christianity. Wow I thought, I had found my calling, I thought that was what I was supposed to do, and I assumed that this middle east hankering I was having was God telling me that I was to be a missionary and go convert those nasty “Muslim people”.
I was sure that is what I was supposed to do. I knew at this point that my life was for God and God alone, I thought about Missionary and Seminary School very much, I am not sure where it came from like I said but it was just a realisation that there really was God, that he was very real and that I needed to quit the things I was doing. So that is exactly what I intended to do.
Well, I figured that if I was to convert these Muslim people I should know something about their religion, you know so I could better show them how wrong they are and so I could better convert them to worship Jesus. Well, I had figured it would be just a bunch of nonsense, everything I had heard on the news about “Islamic terrorists”, how they worshiped some “Moon God” or something and the big black box in the desert.
However, I realised very quickly that it was not completely true… The more I read the more I wanted to learn. I pretty much abandoned my studying of Aramaic and Christianity in exchange for Arabic and Islam (I had to know a little of the language to convert them). The biggest problem with me was that I was starting to be really like what I was reading about Islam. I started telling my family, you know these Muslims are not that bad, they are not as strange as everyone thinks. Inside I knew that I was a Muslim, right from the start I felt that this is what I should be doing!
They told me, “You need to tread very carefully Jim. You need to be careful because Satan is looming and you are now a good Christian and all he wants to do is divert you from the truth, you can get “sucked in” by this evil religion, Islam is Evil and violent, Be careful!”
I started talking about Islam every day. To my friends and family, setting them strait on some of the wrong ideas they had about Islam. And I even started to implement some of the things I loved about Islam into my Christian worship, prostrating, bowing etc. Because I learned that is how Jesus prayed. A Muslim friend I had met said to me, “Jim, you are a Muslim; you just need to learn to accept it, accept that Allah has blessed you and led you to the truth.” And I knew she was right. You have to understand how devastating this was to me to learn what I had believed was wrong.
I suppose for some people the conversion was not hard, it was coming to the truth and that was easy … well, for me it was hard. I thought I was abandoning everything I was taught. I knew inside and Allah was telling me this is who I am. I knew this was the will of Allah, (Alhamdulillah). But I would not let myself believe it, and I went through the worst struggle of my life. I had Muslims I had been talking to online telling me: Jim, you are already a Muslim, and I knew I was. And then I had the Christians from my church telling me that the Prophet (peace be unto him) was a ‘demon possessed’ and that Islam was not the right way, that I was getting myself into something horrible and evil. My family told me that I was torn.
It was by far the hardest thing I had ever gone through. I have been beaten as a child, finding dead bodies in my house, being essentially kidnapped and taken from my mother, not to see her again until 15 years later. Severe anxiety disorder that put me in the hospital five times a month, and tons of other things I won’t even get into. But those things were easy compared to the suffering I was undergoing now, my mental suffering, Jesus… Allah…. Muslim… Christian… So long I had loved Jesus… So long I had worshiped him as God, to realise that I was wrong. Jesus was not God, I knew this and it was the hardest thing to admit it to myself.
I was still very new to Islam and I did not know a whole lot. So I went by what people told me and the little that I had read, finally I made my decision. I could not turn from the truth any longer. I had admitted to myself that I had been so blessed that Allah had shown me the truth! Alhamdulillah! I called my very first Muslim friend and did Shahadah with her on the phone. And then there was peace….
My anxiety has all but gone, I have cut my medication in half and on my way to removing it completely, I have quit smoking, I quit drinking, I quit cursing, I quit doing drugs…and I leave in August for Cairo, Egypt not to convert Muslims as I earlier believed but instead to study Arabic and Islam (Alhamdulillah).
I still have problems with my family. However, they don’t like that I am a Muslim, although they have come to realise that this is really a life decision for me, that it’s not some phase or something like that. Insha’Allah they will realise the truth, I am trying to set an example. They have seen a huge change in me. Insha’Allah they will know that if I can change, they can also.