Lobna Mulla – Feeling Islam Settle in My Heart My Moment of Conviction

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Music for me, really feeling like I am Muslim, and I fully have that

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conviction. It didn't happen in one particular moment, but it was

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definitely an era in my life, and when I reflect upon it, it's

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actually pretty late in life.

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I was around 30, and we were my husband and I with our two younger

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kids at the time, our two older kids at the time, we were studying

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in Egypt and growing up in the I was born and raised in California

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and LA, and growing up, I knew that I was brown, I knew that I

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was Egyptian and I knew that I was Muslim. But how that meshed

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together? Where did the lines, you know, really start and stop? It

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wasn't super clear.

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I was happy to be Muslim. I understood where I where I came

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from. But there were a lot of different points along the way

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where I was just I was Muslim.

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When I went to Egypt,

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it was very interesting, because now we went for a purpose. We went

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to learn more about Islam. We went went to learn Arabic formally for

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myself, at least my husband, you know, did much more than that,

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Alhamdulillah. But while I was there, I'm trying to speak in the

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best that I can, in the in colloquial egyptian arabic. And I

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have an accent. Of course, I have an American accent. And so people

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would question me all the time. Who are you from every single day,

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not just once in a while, every single day, every time I go buy

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something, I was the main, the main, as I am today, I'm the main,

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you know, I procure all the goods for our home. So, you know, going

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the grocery store. Oh, you have an accent. Where are you from? Oh,

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wait, you know, are you from Morocco? Oh, you have an accent.

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You look Egyptian. But what's wrong with you? How come you, how

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come you're talking like that? Are you trying to feign

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that you were, you know, went to some fancy English speaking school

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in Egypt? Are you trying to, you know, show off? And so that

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happened all the time. So question people questioning my identity,

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while, in the meantime, here in Quran, had the very big Masjid

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right in front of us. I remember learning surat al Allah because,

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you know, every, every Yoma, Juma, every, every Friday, that was the

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surah that the Imam read. And I remember I memorized it. It's

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probably the best Surah that I know, after

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Fatiha and

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jozama, because I heard it so much, learning Arabic every single

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day and almost every day in class, one on one with a teacher. God

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bless my teachers. God bless my teachers. They're amazing. It was

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like a terribia session almost every day, a point of spiritual

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development, personal growth. I probably fasted the most outside

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of Ramadan during that time, you know, we'd walk to school in the

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sun and we'd be fasting. Now, it's like, oh, I might get a headache,

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so I probably not going to fast extra day in Egypt, you know, we

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just did it. We had a lot of other Western students that were there

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would conglomerate in our home. We'd have coffee. And so we were

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constantly surrounded by people who were seeking knowledge for the

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sake of Allah, the best people, subhanAllah, may Allah. Bless all

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of my friends that I made there, all of my teachers. It was a real

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learning, not only about my religion, but about myself. So

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people questioning, who am I? I'm learning about Islam. I'm actually

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able now to kind of get a little bit deeper and dig into some of my

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doubts, not Alhamdulillah, but Allah SWT, and that's that would

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have been okay if I did, but understanding there's some things

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that didn't settle in my heart. And I finally came to a place

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while I was studying that

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I may not understand everything, but I trust Allah deeply. I don't

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have these like, Why? Why? You know, why does Allah say this? Why

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does why? What is that verse in the Quran? I don't know. I don't I

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feel unsettled. I deeply felt. I may not have the exact answer, but

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I trust and I love Allah. That formative three years in Egypt, it

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truly changed me. And I remember when I left and I came back, I was

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like, Yeah, I'm American, I'm Egyptian, but I'm definitely,

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definitely Muslim, and that's what matters. If you're

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