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.