Ali Ataie – When A Foreign Exchange Student Tried to Teach Me About Islam

But now look at ourselves,

maybe we

were leading lives

completely heedless

of Allah So how did we get here

then?

Think about it.

How did you get to

How did you get to Islam?

It's a nirmah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

At one point we were totally heedless.

At one point this was not a priority

at all. I'll tell you something, when I

was in 9th grade,

I was at the San Ramon library

and I was just studying there and a

South Asian brother who was an exchange student,

I think he was in my history class,

he saw me there

and he said, what is your name? I

said Ali. He said, oh you're a Muslim

and I said,

no not really, my parents are Muslim, I

think.

Said, oh, really?

So, he started to tell me about the

meaning of La ilaha illallah,

and he started to tell me about Islamic

ethics,

And wallahi, I started laughing in his face.

I mocked and derided him. I made fun

of him. I made fun of his accent.

I can remember this very, very clearly.

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala did not give up

on me.

You probably have similar

stories in your own life.