After twenty-five years as a writer in America, I wanted something to soften my cynicism. I was searching for new terms by which to see. The way one is raised establishes certain needs in this department. From a pluralist background, I naturally placed great stress on the matters of racism and freedom. Then, in my … Read more
I sat in the Alhambra Mosque in Granada, Spain staring at the script that bordered the walls. It was the most beautiful language I had ever seen. “What language is that?” I said a Spanish tourist. “Arabic,” they answered. The next day, when the tour attendant asked which language I wanted my tour book in, … Read more
(part 1 of 2) Often when people ask me ‘How did you come to Islam?’, I take a deep breath and try and tell them the ‘short version’. I don’t think that Islam is something that I came to suddenly, even though it felt like it at the time, but it was something that I … Read more
I will say right away that I am very young. I am only 18, and that fact seems to astound most people. I think it is proof that we are never too young to begin looking for God, or to understand His truth. I was raised Christian, nondenominational. We were never big church goers, but … Read more
My background was that of a typical California American growing up in the early sixties. My parents raised us five kids as Catholic, but with the divorce of my parents when I was 11, we kind of fell away from the church. In those years, it was very disgraceful to divorce so we felt like … Read more
My story begins in El Salvador. I was born in San Salvador, El Salvador, and at the age of 12 (19 years ago), I migrated to Australia with my mother, my brother and sister. From the moment we arrived in Australia, I remember visiting different Christian churches of differing sects as we used to do … Read more
My conversion process to Islam was a long one (it took 20 years!). It started when I was twelve. I went to this overpriced private school, very Anglophile and we were made to wear uniforms. We studied in Forms as opposed to grades, etc. Anyways, it was in a class where we were studying the … Read more
Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always had a profound relationship with God. Even though I was raised a Catholic, with all its ambiguities, contradictions and confusion, I did my best to stay God-focused and not to give in to the teachings of the Church, because even to me as a child, they … Read more
“The people of the West find it difficult to acquaint themselves with Islam for since the days of the Christian Crusades there has been either a conspiracy of silence or a deliberate perversion of Islamic matters.” (Muhammad John Webster, English President of the English Muslim Mission. An excerpt from an Islamic site he published on … Read more
I was born in Athens, Greece , to Greek Orthodox parents. My father’s family lived in Turkey, Istanbul for most of their lives, and my father was born and raised there. They were wealthy, well–educated, and as most Christian Orthodox who lived in an Islamic country, they held on to their religion. A time came … Read more