Jeffrey Lang – My Journey to Islam Dr HRVATSKI
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Okay. So peace be upon you.
In the name of God, the merciful, the
compassionate.
Oh,
if I'm going to read this, I'm going
to have to take my glasses off.
So now I can't see your reactions. That
might be better action.
First of all, I'd like to thank you
for having me and for showing up here
today, all of you. It was quite a
shock to get invited to England.
I really had very little idea that,
you know, that anybody knew me here. And
probably many of you don't know me. So
I thought this first
talk would be a sort of an introductory
talk, where I explain why I'm here, how
I got here, so to speak.
And then,
and then we'll just, you know, have some
question and answers. Many of the issues I'm
gonna raise today during this talk, I'll talk
more about in the coming days. So this
is sort of
like,
you know, sending off. So is that all
right?
So I begin this talk by talking about
how it is I became a Muslim
and then if time permits,
then I'll talk about
the difficulties encountered after becoming a Muslim, especially
with regard to fitting into the mosque culture
in America.
So
how did I become a Muslim? I remember
when,
you know, I did become a Muslim. I
often would go to websites
or read pamphlets put out by Muslims, and
they would claim that I converted from Christianity
to Islam.
And I did not convert from Christianity to
Islam. I converted from atheism
to Islam. I did not believe in God.
Can you so I used to leave the
door of my office
at
University of San Francisco unlocked,
because I knew I would enter eventually lose
my keys. So I left and unlocked, so
I could get in and out of there
without having to keep going down to the
main office and asking them to make a
new key.
So once all students would leave books in
there, assignments, things like that. So one day
I walked down to the my office. I
walk into my office. The door, of course,
is open. I go in there, and I
see
a green text sitting on the middle of
my desk.
And I assumed a student left a book
there.
And I walk over to it, I look
at it, and on the cover of it
it says the holy Quran and English interpretation.
And I look at it, and I thought,
who left that there? Immediately, I knew who
who must have left it back there. It
must have been my family, my adopted Muslim
family.
And then I thought, what are they trying
to say by this?
I thought they said they didn't want to
talk about religion anymore. Now they're leaving a
copy of the Quran on my desk?
Are they trying to convert me?
I mean, God, I mean, they're not even
religious people,
you know.
Mahmoon took me to bars and discos.
Maybe they're saying if I don't become a
Muslim, they're not good. Our friendship can't continue.
You know, all these I'm a very sort
of
skeptical person,
pessimistic. I always assume the worst to begin
with. But then as I thought about it
more, I realized this was like a peace
offering.
I could see in their faces they were
embarrassed when they said they or indicated they
didn't want to talk about religion anymore. I
thought this was a way of sort of
smoothing things out. Jeff, we don't want to
talk about it, but if you really are
interested in our religion, here's a copy of
the Quran. It's our scripture.
I knew it was our scripture anyway, from
other conversations.
So I took it as a peace offering.
And I didn't even bring the subject up
again.
I put it on my
shelf actually, I put it on my coffee
table in my
apartment in Diamond Heights in San Francisco.
I left it there.
And then a couple of weeks passed,
and I,
you know, when I was a grad student
at Purdue University, I shipped all my books
by the cheapest method possible
to my office in San Francisco,
and none of them had arrived yet.
The only books I had with me were
the ones I brought in the U Haul
and moving van from California
from Indiana
that I drove out to California with. And
it was only like 20.
So in no time at all, I had
run out of things to read.
So I had nothing to read this night.
I looked at the magazines. I had already
read them twice.
I turned on the TV. It was Johnny
Carson. So boring. I turned it off.
So do you know who Johnny Carson is?
Alright.
So now
I'm sitting in my
sitting in my
apartment
and nothing to read, and I'm looking around,
and I look over, and there on my
table,
side table,
is
an English interpretation of the Holy Quran.
So I pick it up and think,
why not?
I'll read a few pages. I'll get bored.
I'll put it down.
You know, maybe lucky hopefully, it'll warm me
to the extent that I'll go to sleep.
No. I mean, seriously, I didn't I wasn't
expecting much.
You know? Although, you know, some scriptures I
had read were very beautiful. I had beautiful
stories. So I thought, you know, maybe the
stories, the myths, etc. Will be interesting.
So I pick it up.
I pick it up.
I wanna get through this part in the
next 10 minutes.
I pick it up.
I am boring, you know, am I not?
Yeah.
It's like when I teach mathematics, you know.
I'm really into it, and then I look
at my students,
and I'm getting all excited, and I turn
to my class, and they're all, like, looking
at me, like, can we leave now?
I pick it up
and I look at the first sura. I
turn to the first sura, and I'm just
reading it out of academic curiosity,
and in the name it's it's obviously
a hymn of praise
to me. It's like a psalm for those
of you who know the Bible.
Lisa starts that way.
In the name of God, the merciful, the
compassionate, all praise be to God, ruler of
all worlds,
master of the king, or master of the
day of judgement.
Actually, the day of requital, the day of
recompense, the day when counsel settled,
to you alone, and then it goes on
from there.
And I'm reading it and I'm thinking, oh,
a hymn of praise.
And I get to the end of it.
And then as I get to the end
of it, I realize, oh,
the last few lines
slipped
into
made the subtle transition into a prayer for
guidance.
Show us a straight path, the path of
those whom you have favored, not those who
have gone astray, or upon whom is violence
or wrath.
And I thought, what a clever author.
You know, he tricked me into making a
prayer for guidance, a supplication for guidance.
Clever man.
So
I assume the course I assume the Quran
had a human author.
So I turned to the next Surah and
it begins Aleph, Lam, Niin, 3 Arabic letters,
then that is the book
wherein no doubt is the guidance
for those who are on their toes or
vigilant.
So I read it and I look at
it and say, so are you talking to
me?
Are you saying that this prayer for guidance
that I just inadvertently
made, you're now saying that this is the
guidance that I was seeking?
And I look at the opening line and
again it says, that is the book.
And I thought
the author has a very
interesting style.
See, from this point in the Quran, the
beginning of the second surah from here on
out,
the perspective is God addressing
the reader.
God speaking to the reader.
I always thought, you know,
scripture should be like the ones I was
exposed to. Stories,
ancient history,
story a biography
of a prophet or something. This is direct.
God talking to the reader, addressing the reader.
I thought, now this the author of this
book definitely was original.
He clicked he actually wrote a revelation from
God to humanity,
which is what you would think a revelation
would be. But not only that, he has
a very engaging style.
He he gets you to ask questions,
and then get then gives answers and then
creates more questions.
Somehow, this Quran, he wrote him a style
that gets you into a dialogue with the
scripture, like that just brief dialogue I just
mentioned. I have that experience repeatedly as I
read through the Quran.
This dialogue, I find myself drawn in. I'd
ask a question. Few lines later, sometimes a
couple passages later, maybe
I would see an answer. And then I
would create another question. And then I was
involved in this veritable dialogue with the scripture.
So,
okay. I have to stop in 4 minutes
and give the taper a break.
So,
so I keep on reading the Quran. I
think I'm impressed by the author's
original and ingenious style.
And then the next several verses,
the next several passages,
summarize the Quran's major themes,
talks about who get could be guided by
the scripture, who can't, sort of the prerequisites
for getting guided. I thought, that's very clever.
Sort of same way we write math text.
And then I come, of course, to this
famous allegory, which you would expect after you
get through an introduction.
The Quran is going to talk about
homo sapiens, human beings,
and their origin and what their life is
all about in the famous allegory of the
first man and first woman.
So that begins in the 30th verse of
the second Sura. Should I stop here?
Okay.
We just have to give him 1 minute
to switch.
So
I've come to the 30th verse of the
Quran. Now up till now, I am impressed
with the author's style, but I'm only 30,
what, 36 verses into the
Quran. I'm not so impressed and I'm captivated
by the scripture.
But I come to the 30th verse and
it begins, behold, your Lord said to the
angels.
Behold, your Lord said to the angels.
So we're about to hear a heavenly announcement,
a heavenly election,
a great moment.
So, this great election. 'Behold, your Lord said
to the angels,
I'm going to put a vice strength of
mine on earth, a viceroy, an emissary, a
representative of mine. This is a noble election.
God is about to create man and sign
him a noble role.
I immediately said to myself,
no, he obviously got the story all wrong.
Man is not put on earth
to fill some noble role. He's put on
earth
as a punishment,
because that's, in my religious tradition, the one
of my birth, the one I abandoned, and
I'm not putting it down, but that's the
way the story is told. And I felt
the author
got confused
when he was,
you know,
repeating the story.
I mean, this was my perspective.
Behold, your Lord said to the angels, I
am about to put a vice chair of
mine on earth.
And then the angels
said, and the angels said, will you put
there in one who will spread corruption
and shed much blood,
while we, the angels, celebrate your praises and
glorify you?
Glorify your holy name?
And I read that verse,
and
I just stared at it. I couldn't I
was captivated.
I was angry. I could feel the heat
rising inside me.
Just look what it says. When you put
there in 1, God says, I'm gonna put
sign these humans this noble role.
The angels say, are you gonna create this
being who spreads corruption and sheds much blood?
This most criminal, violent, destructive creature. And then
criminal,
violent, destructive creature,
and put them on earth in this role
when you could create us
as they plainly say, while we celebrate your
praises and glorify you?
How could you create this
and assign them that role when we are
clearly
more deserving
and more appropriate.
Are you following
me? And that was my question.
Child hood.
All of it just encapsulated
in
those 15 words.
And I was shocked. I thought the author
is committing theological suicide. You don't I thought
the author is committing
thought the author is committing theological
suicide.
You don't ask the most
poignant
question in the history of men's theological
reflections,
a question for which there is no rational
answer.
In the beginning
of the story of the first man, I
wanted.
At least wait till the end of the
scripture.
But don't put it from the start.
I had to find out how I answered
the question. It's as disturbing as I thought
the question was. How it brought back all
my childhood. I had to find out.
And so I was hooked. I wanted to
see how the author answered that question. So
I began reading through the Quran, And I
immediately got some hints, but it didn't fill
in the picture. So I kept reading and
reading and reading.
And to tell you the truth, and this
is what I'm going to talk about
tomorrow, at tomorrow's lecture, for the youth, for
the people who consider themselves youth.
By the time I had finished the Quran,
all the arguments I had against the existence
of God,
all the premises I had built
against this existence, 1 by 1, I saw
them falling apart.
So by the time I finished the Quran,
I had no more argument against the existence
of God.
But not having an argument against God is
not the same as having a reason to
believe in him.
Once my daughter Jamila asked me, daddy, I
understood you know, we go on walk after
walk after walk, and we discuss these things.
I understood how you found in the Quran
answers to all your objections to the existence
of God.
But what made you believe in God?
Very bright girl.
Because she understood
not having an argument against is not the
same as having a reason to believe.
And I told her, honey,
it's hard for me to explain,
but as I was reading as best as
I understand it, as I was reading through
the Quran and 1 by 1,
the sort of fortress
of the wall I had built between myself
and the belief in the existence of God.
As that wall began to crumble 1 by
1, piece by piece,
And the more I began to doubt my
atheism, the more the power of the Quran
began to affect me.
And the Quran is written in a very
interesting style. In the beginning,
it's very it's quite technical.
Goes into a lot of specifics, laws and
rules and regulation. By the middle, it takes
you into stories, beautiful stories,
powerful allegories.
Towards the end,
the emotions of the Quran picks up, and
it, like, reaches a crescendo
and brings it all to this
beautiful,
powerful,
burst of
spirituality
and
eschatology. And they're all comes together in brilliant,
pounding images.
And by the time I was getting towards
the end of the Quran and my atheism
began to fade away, I began having these
powerful spiritual moments
when I felt I was in the presence
of this tremendous divine embrace.
I remember reading the surah,
You know,
when I got to the end of that
Surah, I cried like a baby
for 20 minutes. I didn't even believe in
God.
And it brought me to tears.
And, you know, I would try to deny
these experiences
as I was having them. I would try
to step on them.
They kept on they just kept coming.
And I and it was whittling away at
my atheism.
So by the time I was finished with
the Quran,
I
had severe doubts
about
the nonexistence of God.
So I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know what to do.
So I figured
I have 4 more minutes.
So I I was, you know, weeks
oh, yeah. You changed it. Sorry.
Weeks were passing now,
and I just wanted this
experience that I had of reading the Quran
to go away. I couldn't sleep sometimes.
When I would walk to work, I would
think about it. When I was sitting at
work, it would keep coming back to me.
The questions it raised, the issues, the power
it had over me. I mean, I was
an atheist. I shouldn't be having these experiences.
I needed to talk to somebody.
And I couldn't talk to the family that
had
had
been adopt that adopted me because they didn't
have it was clear they didn't have much
knowledge of religion.
So I thought I would go. I heard
there was a mosque on campus
and I thought I would go there. And
a Jewish student, female Jewish student, good friend
of mine, pointed out to me. We were
walking by the church one day, St. Ignatius
Church, this big beautiful spiraling church.
And we're walking by the rear of it,
and she pointed to the basement and said,
do you see that
basement door down there, down the stairway?
I looked down, long stairway, down to the
basement, beneath the church.
She said, that's where the Muslim students pray.
She said I heard they have carcasses down
there.
You know, dead bodies.
So I said but this was long before.
But now I remembered her saying that. And
I thought I would go to the place
where the Muslim students pray.
And ask them questions. I didn't want I
wasn't gonna
become a Muslim. That's out of the question.
But I thought maybe they could help
could soothe me and get this out of
my system.
So in any case
so I walk over to the church one
morning.
Now I told myself I was gonna go.
Sunday, I told myself I was gonna go
the next day,
but I had already done what I now
it was Wednesday, and I thought I would
try one more time
to get up the courage to go.
So I stood out in front of Harney
Science Center, and you just you walk across
the parking lot, and there's the church.
Harney Science Center, where I am in my
office.
And I'm looking and I'm staring at the
mosque, and it was a day like today
in Manchester.
It's kind of cloudy, but but the sun
was starting to break through.
So I finally said, Jeff, come on. Just
do it. So I marched over.
And I get with my head down,
and I come to the the stairways
down into
the church,
to the basement.
And I start to get nervous,
sick to my stomach. No. No. Wait a
minute. I'm not going down. No.
Let me let me just go check to
make sure that's the place where the Muslims
really pray. I don't want to be
so I look around the church looking for
any other more likely entrance, because it's really
a humbling entrance. I mean, it's in a
dark basement. It's the stairs stairway is dark.
This mold on the side of the wall.
It couldn't be that. So I went around
looking for other
entrances to the mosque.
There's nothing.
So I went inside the church. I thought
I'd go inside there and ask
somebody might know. So I went inside the
church,
and the only person there was a janitor.
And I went up to him and said,
and I looked really nervous.
Could you tell me where the mosque is?
And he looked at me like he was
gonna hit me with the broom.
And
he looked at me like, are you nuts?
I didn't even think he knew there was
a mosque there. I quickly just walked out
of the church,
stood in the now the sun was breaking.
I felt such a relief to be outside.
Then I
thought, I'll just go try that stairway
down beneath the church in the basement, underground.
So I went up, walked over, stood there
looking at it. I stood there for about
5 seconds.
And then finally, I said, okay. Let's go.
So I start walking down the stairs. Every
foot
closer, every step closer, the more weak my
knees got.
I walk 7 miles a day. Back in
those days, I actually used to run 10
10 kilometers to 10 miles a day. I
have very strong legs. They were shaking by
the time I got to the doorway.
I reached out to grab the door, my
hand was shaking.
I said, I turned around. I was in
a panic. I turned around.
I rushed to the top of the stairs,
stood there.
And I thought to myself, Jeff, are you
an idiot?
You go in and out of doors every
day at this university.
Get off.
At most, there's nobody there or there's students
down there.
What's on the stairs?
I turn
around, head back down the stairs.
Same experience. My knees are getting weaker. Try
to reach the door. My hand's sweating now.
It's shaking. My head's
I couldn't do it. I turn around again.
I walk quickly back upstairs, catch my breath,
take some deep breaths.
And then finally, I said to myself,
I'll never get down those stairs.
So I looked up to the heavens.
I don't know why we human beings do
this, but we often do this in this
sort of situation.
I looked up to the heavens, and it
was majestic and beautiful.
The clouds were dissipating. The sunlight was starting
to shine through them.
I looked up to the heavens,
and
I made something I hadn't made in many
years,
a voluntary
prayer.
And I said,
oh
God, if you are really there,
you know, because I wasn't quite sure,
give me
the strength to go down those stairs and
go inside that door.
And then I stood waiting.
I was waiting for a sign.
I would have settled for anything,
you know, a bolt of lightning,
a bird laying on my shoulders,
an earthquake. San Francisco, we have earthquakes all
the time.
You know, I would have taken it. I'm
waiting for some sort of sign. What an
idiot I am, but it's true. I was
waiting for a sign. No sign.
I turned around,
walked down the stairs,
put my hand on the door, pushed it
open,
and there were 2 students inside.
And they looked at me and they said,
Can can we help you?
Immediately, I got nervous.
And I started calling out names of Muslims
I know.
Is Mahmoud or Amar or
Siraj here?
They looked at me, again, like the janitor
upstairs.
No, nobody by that name here.
What's their what's their family name? I said,
Gandil?
You don't know them.
Of course not. They never go to the
mosque.
So I said
thank you for your time. I'm sorry. I
must be in the wrong place. I turned
around to walk away and then the one
of the students who happened to be from
Malaysia, and he was wearing traditional Malaysian dress,
short guy, Abdel Hana.
I'd find out his name later. He said
to me, would you like to learn about
Islam?
I said, oh yeah, sure.
Why not?
So he said, well, come on in.
So I started to step in and he
said, please take off your shoes, we
pray here.
I thought, yeah, okay.
Alright. So I took off my shoes.
So I walked in and I sat down
and they said, what would you like to
know about Islam? I said, well, I've been
reading quite a bit about it. By that
time, I had not only written read the
Quran, I had read several other books.
And
they told me, they started talking to me
and saying some things
and I couldn't relate to any of it.
And finally Abdel Hanaan said after about 3
minutes into his conversation, the other student, his
name was Mohammed Youssef, he was Palestinian
and he was dressed in western clothing
And Abdel Hanaan said to me, something about
how when the angels take your souls when
you die, they beat them and strain them
out of the carcasses. Torture them.
I I remember when he said that, my
response was, you know, I think I gotta
go.
You know, I think I have an appointment
in my office.
I didn't, but I thought
that was just so lame.
So I was ready to leave.
Just then, as I'm turning, as I'm excusing
myself, the door opens.
And now
the skies have cleared, and the sun is
going down.
And it's going down right behind the door.
So the person who opens the door gets
silhouetted.
It's brilliant silhouette of a human form, but
it's just not any human form. This fellow
has a long beard, and he has a
turban on his head,
and like granny glasses,
and he has a cane,
He's wearing a robe that comes down about
calf length
and sandals.
I'm looking at him, and there's this biblical
silhouette at the door.
He looks like Moses coming out of the
Sinai.
So I thought, Wow,
I gotta talk to this guy.
So he walks inside the door, takes off
his shoes, walks inside his door, holds his
hands up like this, as if he's waiting
for a share of something,
closes his eyes and mutters something.
So then he,
puts, you know, resumes his normal
posture,
and then he walks over. Oh, no. He
says something to Mohammed Youssef.
So this fellow also must be an Arab
then. Says something to Mohammed Youssef.
This brother goes,
He goes, professor.
So this brother walks over. As he's walking
over, they tell me, that's brother Hassan, brother
Hassan.
His name is Hassan Zara.
He walks over. He's obviously some sort of
big shot in the masjid.
But he's a student. He's pretty young. He's
in his mid twenties.
He walks over. He sits down next to
me, puts his hand on my
leg like that,
and, trying to get me to relax.
And then he says he could obviously see
I was nervous.
And then he says, what's your name?
First person that asked me that.
And it was a nice personal touch. Remember
that when you talk to somebody about your
faith?
Treat them like a person.
So he says, what's your name?
I said,
Jeff Lang. He said, what do you do
here? I said, I work at the University.
I'm in the mathematics department. He said you're
a professor? I said yes.
He looks at the other 2.
And then he says,
so you came to hear something about Islam.
I said, well sort of.
And he said,
what would you like to know?
And I told him I told him what
I knew about the religion through reading
it. And he was quite impressed.
And then he started telling me something.
Rules and regulations,
you know, one after another, one rule, another
rule, another rule. Thinking why is he giving
me the rundown on the law?
And then
it was going getting very dry, so I
told him,
well, thank you all for your time. I
really appreciate it. I thought he would be
more fascinating than he was,
really. You know, it turns out just another
student with this fancy garba,
but, he was a very spiritual man,
but I could already sense that. But he
said to me, so I told him, and
I meant it this time, thank you for
your time, but I really got to get
back to my office now.
And then he said to me,
you have no other questions?
And then I said, no. And I started
to get up, and then I remembered
one just came to my mind.
I said, can you tell me
what it feels like
to be a Muslim?
I used to ask good questions.
Can you tell me what it feels like
to be a Muslim? I mean, how do
you feel
in your relationship to God? How do you
experience it? What do you experience?
And he looked at me.
Turns out this guy was sort of an
expert
at dawah, at
talking to others about his faith.
He was
the head in the United States of the
Tablighi Jama'at.
And, he was one of 2 heads. There
were 2 in the United States. He was
one of them. Even though he was a
young student.
But I could tell his question caught him
off guard. My question caught him off guard,
because he didn't know how to answer it
immediately.
And then he lowered his head like this
and thought for a while.
And then he made another supplication. He closed
his eyes,
muttered something to himself.
And then he started his answer to my
question like this. I'll never forget it. It's
as if
it was both a call and a prayer.
He started
Allah
and then he then he said
Allah
is so merciful.
And he loves us
more
than a mother
loves and his and the words he used,
her baby child.
He said, and yet,
and then he said, and and yet we
can do nothing
except
by the will of Allah.
When we breathe in,
it is by his will.
And when we breathe out,
it is by his will.
And we take when we take our foot
off the ground to walk,
to take a step,
we've never accomplished that except by Allah's will.
And with our foot, we'd never reach the
ground again,
except
by his permission.
And then he said, when a tiniest leaf
falls from a tree He wasn't even looking
at me. His eyes were closed, and he
was like talking to himself.
When a tiniest leaf falls from the tallest
tree and twists and turns on its journey
to the ground,
he said no segment of that journey would
take place
except by Allah's command.
And then he said, and when we pray,
we put our nose to the ground,
we feel a peace, a joy, a rest,
a coolness.
That's impossible to describe.
You just have to experience it to know.
And I
he got done. That was it.
He looked he looked disappointed.
Like, what I just said does not make
sense. He looked
disappointed.
But you know, when I was listening to
him, how much I wish we could trade
places,
so I could just know that
spirituality,
that yearning, that
agony, that ecstasy, that yearning for his Lord.
Of course I was an American, he was
an Arab,
you know, I was a Western, I was
an atheist. Of course it was impossible.
And then he said to me,
because now it really was gonna get leave,
he said to me, so would you like
to become a Muslim?
I looked at him, like, are you
nuts? I looked at him and said, no.
I laughed.
No. No. Thank you. Actually, my hands were
sweating. The back of my neck was getting
wet. I felt panic. I felt my whole
body getting hot. But I I laughed it
off. I said, no. No. Not today. I
it's not for me. I just just came
to ask him questions.
Then he looked at me, you know, like
he was looking through me.
He said, I think you believe in this.
Why don't you just try?
Now when he said that
before he said that,
I could see my friends laughing at me.
I could see my myself trying to explain
it to my mother, how I became a
Muslim.
I could see people,
stumbling over explanations to old friends of mine.
Some of them were dead by now.
But, you know, all these voices
and
and and heat rushing through my body.
But when he said that, you know, I
think you believe in it, why don't you
just try?
Suddenly I just calmed down.
I didn't feel anything anymore,
Just blank. Then I remembered my words my
mom used to tell me. My mom used
to tell me, son, if you believe in
something,
that had nothing to do with religion
if you believe in something and you believe
it really truly in your heart,
you should pursue it
wherever it takes you,
even if all of humanity is against you.
And she said that was something about that's
a very German thing.
My my parents are German,
but every everybody believes it anyway.
So in any case,
I remembered it, and I got comforted from
it. And I looked at the 3 three
brothers there. Now there were 2 more that
came in.
Rossley and
another brother from Malaysia.
And I looked at them all, all the
brothers there, 5 now, and I told them,
yeah, I think I'll become a Muslim.
And you should have seen their faces.
They look like
the Apollo engineers after the first successful moon
landing.
You know, they were all congratulating each other
and smiling, and a couple of them were,
you know,
hugging each other. It's amazing reaction. I thought
that they just had become Muslims.
And,
and just then the door opens, and another
brother,
biblical looking brother comes in the door dressed
just like brother Hassan.
He comes in. It's burly though. He looks
like Burl Ives. I don't think you know
who that is. Old American singer, big burly
guy, sort of like Santa Claus.
And,
his name is Mustafa. And they say Mustafa,
the brother wants to become a Muslim.
So Mustafa comes running over and he grabs
me
to give me this big, you know, the
Muslim triple hug, which I had never had
up until that point.
They give me a hug and then Ghassan
says to me, he hasn't become a Muslim
yet, Mustafa. Mustafa goes like this, let's go
with me.
Like he discovered something very precious,
fragile.
So then Ghassan says to Mustafa: So tell
him what to say, Mustafa.
I wanted to give Mustafa the moment.
So Mustafa then takes me through the shahada
very slowly.
And that, you know, he's whispering it.
Can you go a little louder? I can't
hear you.
And then he repeats it for me in
English. You know, I I testify that there's
no god but god.
So he says, are you ready? And I
said, yes. He takes it takes me through
it. And
I said,
and
I tell you, with each word,
I felt like I had been
dying of thirst
all those years.
And with each word of the shahada, it
felt like somebody was dripping a drop of
water into
a parched throat.
And,
and so I became a Muslim.
And, I walked out of there that day,
a Muslim.