Abdur Raheem Green – How I came to Islam

The brothers asking how I came to Islam. So I'll answer the question because I'm, there's a lot of people here I'm not going to answer it again.

Now I'm not gonna answer it again in, in Ottawa,

Ottawa, Ottawa, I say us who are right, but Forgive me for that. So inshallah our kids

here who are first of all brothers and sisters, I'd like to say that Alhamdulillah, that Allah Subhana, Allah, He guided me to Islam.

And I don't know what I did in my life, to deserve the honor

of Islam.

Because there is nothing, there is nothing

so precious as Islam. There is nothing so good as Islam. There is nothing. And I can't think that if I put all the good things I did today in my life, I didn't even deserve one little bit of Islam from that. So it's, first of all, I say, it's only from the mercy of Allah subhanaw taala that he guided me to Islam.

The if you mean, when you asked me that question, what are the things that you think influence in your life to help you come to Islam?

Then

one of the things that, like our sister hears from Egypt, I was actually spent, my parents lives in Egypt for 10 years.

They spent my parents lived in Egypt for 10 years from when I was nine, to when I was 19. My parents lived in Egypt, and I used to go there every year, for my holidays. Now, I admit that there must have been about 12 years ago now. So okay, things could have changed. But living in Egypt had a profound effect on me.

Why? Because I saw the manners, and the morals and the mentality of those people. And it impressed me so much. Because I came from a land England

where the people as I described them, and I described it as, and I wouldn't think it's much different here. The land of the living dead.

They're alive, but they're dead. They're alive. But they're dead. They get up in the morning, they go to work, they sit on the tube, you know, the underground Chicka, Chicka, Chicka chicka.

Go to their work,

sit down, come back to the to turn on the TV, eat a dinner. And then on the weekend, feel like Frankenstein, right? It Go and charge themselves up.

Go to the disco go to the cinema try to have a good time. You know, they try so hard to enjoy themselves.

But really, you find these people are dead.

And whatever happens, they complain. I mean, they're so rich. In reality, compared to the people I saw and was dealing with in Egypt, they're like kings

that they always got something to complain about. Oh, my eldest son, oh, the weather this and oh, I do this and oh, this and all that. And oh.

So then I would go, and then I would go to Egypt.

And I would see these people, most of them extremely cool.

In cases in Cairo 12 million people crowded into a city built for 2 million people.

But how are these people?

I looked at them.

And they're happy. And they're smiling and they were really alive. really alive. People.

You know, it's like, when you come from England, and you go to Egypt, it's like, so alive. It's like frightening. You know, it's like to alive You know, oh my God, let me hide you know, it's like, too vibrant. You know, first I couldn't overtake us I could overload. But as I got the beautiful things, everything was in sha Allah, Masha, Allah byelorussia you know, like that. It doesn't matter if Allah wills it, you know? It's beautiful.

You know, they don't complaining. They're not in this. I mean, I remember one story.

My mother told me about this guy.

Who assuming is used to be a diver in the zero club. And in the big pool at the Olympic Olympic sized pool in the zero club, right? They have this huge diving board, 25 meter diving board or something like that. And they also have these wires that you used to go across and used to put the goals for water problems, right. One day my mother told me this guy size up a 25 meter port and fell onto the wire and chopped his arm off clean. Okay, he came out

You could manage

things like that, you know,

it seems like that, really, it's beautiful. And I, you know, I just fell in love.

And then I used to see, you see, I was brought up in a very strict Roman Catholic school, I went to a place called Ampleforth college, which is a Roman Catholic monastic school, a monastery, you know, where they have monks and stuff like that.

And they're these people, you know, the Christians, you know, the, especially the Catholics, they have this thing called the mass, right. And in this mass, in this MOS,

in this MOS, what happens is, so they say, they have the buddy, and, sorry, they have the bread, and they have the wine.

And according to them, this bread and this wine, you know, they have all these songs, and you know, and singing, and then the will the rituals and the incense, and the thing goes on for about one and a half hours, right. And after this, the high point is that this piece of bread is supposed to be transformed literally, into the flesh of Jesus. And the wine is supposed to be transformed literally, into the blood of Jesus. Now, remember, Jesus is supposed to be God. So therefore, you start eating the flesh of blood, and drinking the blood of God. Okay, that's what you do. Right?

So I used to see this and all this type of stuff going on, that I used, one of the things I used to ask this month is, you know, okay, when we've eaten this, and we've drugged this, you know, what happens afterwards, you know,

weren't very happy, you know. And when we started asking questions, like, you know, how can Mary be the mother of God? How can God have a mother that's supposed to be eternal? God supposed to be without beginning and without end? is infinite? So how can you give birth to the eternal God? If God had a mother, she must be a great to God. And

I will start asking these type of questions. And they just tell us shut up and don't ask questions. And, you know, you better believe we're gonna go to hell. Okay, so we never had any answers for these things.

So I would come from this. And then I would go back

to Egypt, icicle Egypt, my home, Egypt was my home. You know, I got to a stage when I got to the stage when I decided there was ever a war between Egypt and England, I will go and fight with Egypt.

Right. And my mother said to me, my mother once said, my mother once said to me, she will go we're gonna go to Israel to the Holy Land to go and see the things that said, I'm only gonna go to Israel if I go in a tank.

Right? That's how I used to be. And I wasn't a Muslim.

That's what I love the people of Egypt and that's how I loved Egypt.

Okay, and I have to say,

that may Allah subhanaw taala showered his great blessings and mercy and forgiveness upon him because he's dead. Now, we had a cook in his name was Ibrahim.

And this man, I used to see him pre. There, he was the simple telethia. You know, he then he was and he was such a sweet time gentleman. I've never met anyone that's sweet and kind of genuine. And a guy used to pray five times a day that he was praying, you know, so many times work in the kitchen or even in spray.

You know? So Pamela, and then I go back to remember I'm going from this, seeing this man, standing in front of Allah, praying, putting his prayer mat, just praying standing there, him and his Lord, and then I'll go back to this church was always ritual and incense and this and that.

And it came to my mind that look, surely this man, our cookie is the one who's worshipping God in the humble way. In a simple way, this must be how God wants to be worshipped. You know, it's like no one explained it to me like this is the thing and the whole attitude that people have trusting him Allah relying upon Allah, putting our faith in Allah subhanaw taala Subhan Allah was so beautiful. And then I go back to England, you know, and this is the contrast I would see. So these things

so my brothers and sisters, I'll continue where I left off Sharla about how I came to Islam. So we were mentioning

Before the call to prayer from the dinner,

and I was talking about my experience and my time in Egypt, and how what a good effect that had on me personally and amongst the things that

you see, I have to say though, although Mashallah the character and the personality of the people had a very great impact upon me. And also watching my

you know, the man who used to be our cook, who not only watching his prayers, but Mashallah, also his behavior and his manners.

Get the kids into trouble.

So, and how kind and how very, very time he was to me and my brother, even though it used to be very naughty. Like some of

these, he was very kind to us, we learn something very impressive, but I have to say, in 10 years in Egypt, only two people ever spoke to me about Islam.

One was because I question.

So in reality, only one person in 10 years ago, I wasn't living there the whole 10 years. But if 10 years good enough for my holidays, only one person ever spoke to me about Islam. But somehow a lot of these words that this one person said there was a very big impact on me.

And Bella was asking about

is not?

Well, it wasn't us about asking about dollar and how to get down and stuff like that.

So

this is what he did. I was working at the time, I was working in an oil rig service in tugboat on the Red Sea.

And he was the

second in charge of the boat.

And he came down, and he started to ask me questions about my religion. What do I believe? Do I believe this? Do I believe that? So I was telling him, you know that I believe that, you know, Jesus is God, and he's the son of God. And he said, Do you believe Jesus is God or the Son of God? I said, He's both.

And that's not all that, you know, there's three gods in one God. He said, What do you mean three guys, in one God, you believe in one God that you believe in three gods. But I said three in one, you know, and so this went on for about 45 minutes, as I was trying to explain to him that God so loved the word he gave his only begotten Son to die for our sins. And he was trying to, you know, at least he claimed he was trying to understand this

confusion. So at the end of the conversation,

he said to me, so wait a minute, let me get this right. He said, You believe that Jesus is God? said, Yes.

I said, and you believe that Jesus died on the cross? I said, Yes. So he said, so you believe God died?

You know, when he said that, really? You know, it was like, mentally, I was just knocked out. I mean, it was just, all my life. I've had doubts about Christianity, all my life, I, you know, knew there was something wrong. But it took this man to spit it out to me in such a simple way. How could I believe that Jesus was God, because if Jesus died on the cross, then God must have died. Or at least a part of God must have died. But you can't kill Gods God can't die. So, of course, when he said that, I didn't immediately think, Oh, I must embrace Islam and this and that, because, you know, it's a bit too much of a shock to my system.

But it was something that really struck me off on a search.

And I've always been, as I mentioned, dissatisfied with Christianity. And I've also always been very dissatisfied with the type of life that I was brought up because I was brought up in a very, quite a rich family. And my parents were quite well off. My father was with us, a merchant banker. That's why he was in Egypt.

And you might have guessed already by saying we had a cook, we had quite a luxurious lifestyle.

But

there were things that, you know, I just didn't,

I just couldn't accept

and that was what is the purpose of my life? Why am I going to this school my parents who sent me to this very expensive private school, for what? So I can get very good qualifications, get good results in my exams, so I can go to university, a good university and get a good degree. So I can get a good job. So what so I

could earn enough money to send my children back to the same school so that they could get good qualifications to get a good degree, so that they could get a good job so they could send their children back to the same school. And I thought, is this the purpose of life? Is this the meaning of life? This?

I said, there must be more to life than this.

And Christianity didn't give me the answer. Christianity was part of the pocket. So I

practice Buddhism, actually, for about two to three years, I practice Buddhism.

But I didn't find the answers there. I read about practically every single religion,

Eastern philosophy, new age, religions,

different philosophies, Western philosophy, Eastern philosophy, psychology, everything that I could read about even magic and black magic, I was looking everywhere, wherever the answers were the answer to this.

So this is how I was until I got to a stage where I had invented for myself a religion, I invented my own religion.

But in reality, I knew that this religion was really not much good. It was a mixture of everything. And I realized that, you know, I needed my life to be disciplined. That's what I said, because I had it stood in my mind, as we are brainwashed in this society, that wealth equals happiness. That's what society tells us. Western society tells us that happiness is not you know, worshipping Allah subhanaw taala, doing good deeds and pleasing your Lord, no. Happiness is by acquiring the material, things of the consumer society, a nice car, a nice house, a nice wife, nice children, nice holiday, you know, buy this, buy that have this have that. And when you surround yourself with enough of

these nice things, you'll be happy. That's what they tell us.

So this is what I put, if I'm going to be happy, and I want you to be happy, I really want you to be happy, I need money. If I've got money, I can buy myself happiness. I can have a nice dish, I can have a nice set, I can have all of these nice things. But I realized that in order to be successful, I needed discipline in my life. I needed a disciplined way of life. And I also needed God to be behind me. If God was gonna be behind me. That's it, I'm gonna be rich. Sound thinking? doesn't make any sense. But it's how I'm thinking.

So I said to myself, who are the richest people in the world, who did the least amount of work in order to get their money?

So I thought, you know, the Americans, the American dream, you know, from rags to riches, you know, like all that hard work and struggling and climbing and yujiro. Japanese, these guys don't stop working. Right. It also wants to

know, Saudi Arabians, right? They've been sitting on that camels for 1000s of years going along.

to myself, I said to myself, that can't be coincidence, I said, There's got to be something in their religion. And that honestly, that is what motivated me to go and find a translation of the Quran. And

like I said, I never ever, ever would have looked at this level. You're at the time. You remember, the Iranian Revolution was like very strong as about 1012 years ago. Okay. In fact, one of my great ambitions was to go and assassinate Ayatollah Khomeini, I hated him so much, right? All I saw was bloodshed and murder and this type of stuff. I said, you know, no one, in that time will think to look at Islam, very, through Allah's mercy, you know, but this is what guided me to go and take a translation of the Quran. Now, the Quran,

brothers and sisters in translation is not a very big book. It's not very big. It's in fact, maybe, you know, half the size, three quarters of the size of the standard novels that they bring out these days. Okay, it's not very big. There's not very much words in it.

And I would say Today's the read a lot. I didn't used to watch much TV because TV was so rubbish in Egypt, right? We didn't used to watch it. So we used to read and read and we were actually a family of readers. And we used to read so much. So I could read like a standard novel, maybe in a day, a day and a half, you know, maximum take me two days to read, you know, three 400 page novel, right? Two weeks later.

Two weeks later, I was still reading the code.

Why? Because I've never read a book before.

It's totally strange, especially for a Westerner, you know, we're used to things beginning at the beginning and ending at the end, right. So called and sort of begins in sort of like, you know, in the middle and sort of goes here and there. So I would read it, and then reread it, and then go back and think about it, or read it again. And that's how it was two weeks. When I before I went to bed, when I got up in the morning when I was on the train was on the tube when I was on the bus, reading code and the whole time. I remember until this day, brothers and sisters, that I was traveling across the river Thames on the train. I remember I was sitting and I was sitting, I can remember on

the right hand side of the train, looking out at the reason I was reading a CT scan.

And at that moment, I remember I said to myself, if I have ever read a book that is from God, this is the one

I have ever read a book from God, this is the one and then brothers and sisters, I went home that same night. And I remembered how our cookie brain how it used to print. Not exactly but I remember used to bow and use the prostrate. And there are some verses in the foot and talking about washing before you pray and these things. So as the best I could I started to pray

Two weeks later, and you're supposed to Allah through some, you know, really amazing coincidence, but I found myself outside a bookshop. I was supposed to go right outside the tube station. In fact, not supposed to go left outside the tube station, I would write

and I saw this bookshop. So I said I must come back here. So I'm on my way back, I came back Arabic And the thing I bought let me go in there. So I went inside and I started looking at a life of Prophet Mohammed and these type of things. So I was looking around. And at that time, even though I was working in the city, and I was selling life insurance at the time, and I had my pinstripe suit, you know, my three piece pinstripe suit, okay, tailor made my brochs from brookstreet. Okay, my leather briefcase, you know, but at the same time, I had long, long hair and a big beard because I didn't tell you that I was a bit of a hippie at the time. Okay. One of the things that I was going

through was like this drug type of experimentation type of stuff. Okay, so I was, you know, what, something that I was, again, part of this whole process that I was sort of looking for solutions and some deeper reality. So I must say, I suppose that looks a bit like a Muslim. But anyway, this guy come up to me and says, Are you a Muslim?

Sir? What do you mean Muslim? I said, I tell you what, I believe there is no government, Allah, and that Muhammad is His Messenger.

Thank you very much.

Why don't you come back to pray? Why don't you come with us? She's okay. And he taught me how to make boo boo. And I stood there, you know, I was praying and look you whatever, what's he doing now? You know, like, because I didn't really know how to pray. You know, I just didn't bury them frustrating like I knew so. But all I remember is I came out and asked who was Marshall, all the brothers are coming, or this and that. And one guy wrote the whole Salah out with all the Arabic and everything on a piece of paper, you are fantastic. And everyone wanted to help me and this is not give me books and all that type of stuff. I remember I walked out, and I was I was like, someone had

given me, you know, a hot shower inside, you know, and I was feeling so beautiful. But actually brothers and sisters.

Even though I spent my whole life really, from when I was young, looking for this truth.

This is the

this is the pull of the the pull of the dunya the attraction of the dunya.

In reality, what happened was even though I was so happy when Islam came to my life, that dunya pulled me right back down, right back

those friends,

drugs, habits,

parties,

music, TV, or all of those things, your friends, this type of stuff. I remember that same Weekend Update first going to the mosque and I'd be praying and stuff like that. After a whole week I used to go to the mosque. I didn't even work. I used to just go to the mosque. Even I used to get forget this work, man. Let's go to the mosque. You know, that happened for a week. I was like, like that. And then my my girlfriend at that time she was up in Bristol, which is like, three hours away from London. I went there. I used to go spend the weekend with her. She was studying in university. I went there. I went to the into a flat. I started praying,

you know, and then as I turned around, she's looking at me with her mouth open, right? What are you doing? So I was praying off become a Muslim.

Right?

How could you become Muslim? She said,

you know, and then she said this amazing thing, which don't ask me to explain it. She said to me, why didn't you leave me something to find out? Anyway, I'll let you think about what that means. But anyway, the reality

Brothers and sisters, this is the reality. I love to have more than I love.

I left Islam for her. Because I thought that the most important thing in my life and that time was my girlfriend.

And I stopped praying. I didn't leave his families I did. I never used to say I'm not, you know, I used to stop for the lousy left. I used to be at parties drunk,

sitting down, telling people about Islam. I remember sitting with this girl sitting around me I was telling about the seminar said it's so brilliant and this little girl, tell us more. To drunk.

This hour was

eating pork sausages and bacon with a glass of Pinot in my hand. You have a Muslim, I'd say stuff well,

but it's them nothing. But I swear to you, brothers and sisters, I swear we're lucky. The two years between when I did that, handler, align His mercy

brought me back to Islam. Those two years was the worst two years of my whole life. And who is worse than the one who knows the truth and doesn't follow the truth.

Who is worse than the one who knows the truth and doesn't follow it. I guarantee you, there is no one worse than the one that knows the truth and doesn't follow.

All I can say brothers and sisters, that I don't know what I did.

That Allah in His mercy, he made me understand

that the idol I worship my girlfriend, the idol, she was a bird that I put above Allah subhanaw taala. Because I disobey Allah for her. So she became my, she became like,

an older showed me a few times, how useless how temporary is the level of the things of this world that we worship, that they are nothing, and they are false.

Because she

went off,

like, it always happens in this society,

you will find that always happens. She went off, she found some other guy she was interested in, and this and that, and my life was just falling a bit too this route 100 111 Allah let this happen to me, woke me up.

So paralyzed. And I was you know, I knew I knew why. I said to myself, you know why your life is a mess. You know, what's the truth? You know, you should be praying five times a day, you know, you should be worshipping Allah subhanaw taala.

You know, you should be doing that.

And hamdulillah that Allah, Allah Buddha to the stage when I realized, and through His mercy, I changed.

I made a promise to Allah that I will stop praying five times a day or less, and I don't know if I can give up anything else. But I will pray five times a day and I will never stop.

And hamdulillah when I started as Allah says, the prayer keeps you from evil deeds. So when I started playing,

I found it so easy. I stopped smoking, I stopped taking drugs. So smoking, even when my girlfriend came, because the reason I started praying is because I was asked to tell you, I might as well tell you, right. So what happened was, my girlfriend had gone off to Spain and my parents lived in Portugal. So I went to see them in Portugal. My daughter went to Spain because she was studying Spanish in either in the university. But I knew she was up there with her, you know, whatever, right? Although she didn't break up with me, she was still out to be left, right. So she said, Okay, um, you know, I was saying that she said, I'm gonna phone you. So I was waiting, waiting, then wait

two weeks, and she hadn't phone. And I was going absolutely crazy. So this is what made me realize I said, Oh, Allah, I saw like, she just met her phone. If she just phones to Dale tomorrow, I swear, I will pray to you five times a day and I won't stop.

You know, but Subhanallah I tell you, I tell you.

The same afternoon, I made that. The same afternoon my father came and said, such and such, you know, your girlfriend's on the phone.

I don't even remember I just put Hello, lt are coming thing. I went I took also, I started. Like I said, I gave up smoking. I gave up drinking. I gave up the drugs. And when my girlfriend came, I said I was so uncomfortable. Sitting next to him, I said, You sleep in that room and I'll sleep in this room. Even my mother came says What are you doing? She said, you know, she

just,

you know, couldn't

100 intervals. This is from that time handling alone, His mercy and the law. I kept my promise in Sharla hope I kept

I promise and Allah subhanaw taala in his mercy has increased me and knowledge from that day.

And I hope increase me in taqwa from that day. So I really know brothers and sisters handler, amazing. I look back and I think maybe there was something and I know what Cooper is light.

And I also know what it's like to be a Muslim, and not to be practicing Islam.

And I know what it's like to be inside Islam and like I said to you before I say to you again, I can't think what I did in my life, to deserve the mercy and the blessing and the beauty. That is this pure

and beautiful religion, the only true religion that Allah subhanaw taala revealed for our benefit, and hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen