I was raised in a religious Christian
family. At that time, Americans were more religious than they
are now—most families went
to church every Sunday, for example. My parents were involved
in the church community. We often had ministers (Protestant “priests”)
in the house. My mother taught in Sunday school, and I helped
her.
I must have been more religious than other children,
although I don’t remember being so. For one birthday, my
aunt gave me a Bible, and my sister a doll. Another time, I asked
my parents for a prayer book, and I read it daily for many years.
When I was in junior high school (middle school),
I attended a Bible study program for two years. Up to this point,
I had read some parts of the Bible, but had not understood them
very well. Now was my chance to learn. Unfortunately, we studied
many passages in the Old and New Testaments that I found inexplicable,
even bizarre.
For example, the Bible teaches an idea called Original
Sin, which means that humans are all born sinful. I had a baby
brother, and I knew that babies were not sinful.
The Bible has very strange and disturbing stories
about Prophet Abraham and Prophet David, for example. I couldn’t
understand how Prophets could behave the way the Bible says they
did.
There were many, many other things that puzzled
me about the Bible, but I didn't ask questions. I was afraid
to ask—I wanted to me known as a “good girl.”
Al-Hamdulillah, there was a boy who asked, and
kept asking.
The most critical matter was the notion of Trinity. I couldn’t
get it. How could God have three parts, one of which was human?
Having studied Greek and Roman mythology at school, I thought
the idea of the Trinity and powerful human saints very similar
to the Greek and Roman ideas of having different so-called “gods” that
were in charge of different aspects of life (Astaghfir-Ullah!).
The boy who asked, asked many questions about Trinity, received
many answers, and was never satisfied. Neither was I. Finally,
our teacher, a University of Michigan Professor of Theology,
told him to pray for faith.
I prayed.
When I was in high school, I secretly wanted to
be a nun. I was drawn to the pattern of offering devotions at
set times of day, of a life devoted entirely to God, and of dressing
in a way that declared my religious lifestyle. An obstacle to
this ambition, though, was that I wasn’t Catholic. I lived
in a Midwestern town where Catholics were a distinct and unpopular
minority! Furthermore, my protestant upbringing had instilled
in me distaste for religious statuary, and a healthy disbelief
that dead saints had the ability to help me.
In college, I continued to think and pray. Students often talk
and argue about religion, and I heard many different ideas. Like
Yusuf Islam, I studied the Eastern so-called religions: Buddhism,
Confucianism, and Hinduism. No help there.
I met a Muslim from Libya, who told me a little
about Islam and the Holy Qur’an. He told me that Islam
is the modern, most up-to-date form of revealed religion. Because
I thought of Africa and the Middle East as backwards places,
I couldn’t see Islam as modern.
My family took this Libyan brother to a Christmas
church service. The service was breathtakingly beautiful, but
at the end, he asked, “Who made up this procedure? Who
taught you when to stand and bow and kneel? Who taught you how
to pray?” I told him about early Church history, but his
question made me angry at first, and later made me think.
Had the people who designed the worship service really been qualified
to do so? How had they known the form that worship should take?
Had they had divine instruction?
I knew that I did not believe in many of the teachings
of Christianity, but continued to attend church. When the congregation
recited pieces I believed to be blasphemous, such as the Nicene
Creed, I was silent—I didn’t recite them. I felt
almost alien in church, almost a stranger.
A shocker! Someone very close to me, having dire
marital problems, went to a curate of our church for advice.
Taking advantage of her pain and self-loathing, he took her to
a motel and seduced her.
Up to this point, I had not considered carefully
the role of the clergy in Christian life. Now I had to. Most
Christians believe that forgiveness comes through the “Holy
Communion” service, and that an ordained priest or minister
must conduct the service. No minister, no absolution.
I went to church again, and sat and looked at the
ministers in front. They were no better than the congregation—some
of them were worse. How could it be true that the agency of a
man, of any human being, was necessary for communion with God?
Why couldn’t I deal with God directly, and receive His
absolution directly?
Soon after this, I found a translation of the meaning
of the Qur’an in a bookstore, bought it, and started to
read it. I read it, off and on, for eight years. During this
time, I continued to investigate other religions.
I grew increasingly aware of and afraid of my sins.
How could I know whether God would forgive me? I no longer believed
that the Christian model, the Christian way of being forgiven,
would work. My sins weighed heavily on me, and I didn’t
know how to escape the burden of them. I longed for forgiveness.
I read in the Qur’an,
“…Nearest among them in love to the
Believers you will find those who say, ‘We are Christian’:
Because amongst them are Men devoted to learning, and men who
have renounced the world and are not arrogant.
“And when they listen to the revelation received
by the Messenger, you will see their eyes overflowing with tears,
for they recognize the truth. They pray, ‘Our Lord! We
believe. Write us down among the witnesses.
[And what (reason) have we that we should not believe
in Allah and in the truth that has come to us, while we earnestly
desire that our Lord should cause us to enter with the good people?]
(Al-Ma’idah 5:84)
I began to hope that Islam held the answer. How
could I find out for sure?
I saw Muslims praying on the TV news, and knew that they had
a special way of praying. I found a book (by a non-Muslim) that
described it, and I tried to do it myself (I knew nothing of
Taharah, and did not pray correctly). I prayed that way, secretly
and alone, for several years.
Finally, about eight years after first buying my
Qur’an, I read:
[This day have I perfected your religion for you,
completed My favor for you, and chosen Islam as your religion.]
(Al-Ma’idah 5:3)
I wept for joy, because I knew that, way back in
time, before the creation of the Earth, Allah had written this
Qur’an for me. Allah had known that Anne Collins, in Cheektowaga,
NY, USA, would read this verse of the Qur’an in May 1986,
and be saved.
Now, I knew that there were many things I had to
learn, for example, how to pray properly, which the Qur’an
does not describe in detail. The problem was that I didn’t
know any Muslims.
Muslims are much more visible in the US now than
they were then. I didn’t know where to find them. I found
the phone number of the Islamic Society in the phone book, and
dialed it, but when a man answered, I panicked and hung up. What
was I going to say? How would they answer me? Would they be suspicious?
Why would they want me, when they had each other and their Islam?
In the next couple of months, I called the mosque
a number of times, and each time panicked and hung up. Finally,
I did the cowardly thing: I wrote a letter asking for information.
The kindly, patient brother at the mosque phoned me, and then
started sending me pamphlets about Islam. I told him I wanted
to be Muslim, but he told me, “Wait until your are sure.” It
upset me that he told me to wait, but I knew he was right, that
I had to be sure because, once I had accepted Islam, nothing
would ever be the same again.
I became obsessed with Islam. I thought about it,
day and night. On several occasions, I drove to the mosque (at
that time, it was in an old converted house) and circled it many
times, hoping to see a Muslim, wondering what it was like inside.
Finally, one day in early November 1986, as I was
working in the kitchen, I suddenly knew, knew that I was Muslim.
Still a coward, I sent the mosque a letter. It said, “I
believe in Allah, the One True God, I believe that Muhammad was
his Messenger, and I want to be counted among the witnesses.”
The brother called me on the phone the next day,
and I said my shahadah* on the phone to him. He told me then
that Allah had forgiven all my sins at that moment, and that
I was as pure as a newborn baby.
I felt the burden of sin slip off my shoulders,
and wept for joy. I slept little that night, weeping, and repeating
Allah’s name. Forgiveness had been granted. Alhamdulillah.
*The statement a person makes when accepting Islam
(and many times a day thereafter: I testify that there is no
deity other than Allah, and I testify that Muhammad (SAAWS) was
a Messenger of Allah. |
