Being a still new revert now working as a writer within the Muslim community, I have been asked by many people how I came to accept this beautiful religion. So here is my story – with apologies for the length – and I do hope that you find it of interest….inshaAllah.
I grew up in a traditional Australian, Catholic household, attending Christian learning institutes in Sydney during the 1960s-70s.
They were different times back then – barely a handful of European and Asian classmates and certainly nobody from a middle eastern background.
Society was really conservative in those days, but my late parents encouraged my four brothers and I to speak our minds and to make our own choices, hence my decision while still a teenager to label myself as Christian, rather than Catholic.
The next 20-plus years of my life passed by uneventfully in terms of religion, only attending church for weddings, funerals, Christmas and Easter.
However, as the 21st century rolled around and thanks to a still fairly new phenomenon called the Internet, I found myself becoming increasingly interested in Islam.
But unlike many other ‘westerners’, rather than joining in the hue and cry against Islam following events like 9/11, the Bali bombings and various acts perpetrated by Islamic State, I found myself supporting the 99.99999 percent of blameless Muslims around the world: innocent people like all of you.
People like my former workmate, who successfully sued his previous employer after audibly being called a “terrorist” by his intoxicated manager at a work gathering.
And the brave school-aged hijabi, whom I saw teased by a much older group of Aussie students on a Sydney train just after Nice 2016, which ISIS claimed responsibility for.
I remember discovering many of the falsehoods that gullible westerners are tricked into believing from as early as primary school.
Imagine finding out in my late fifties that Israel are not the “good guys” and that Palestinians suffer daily at the hands of their Israeli oppressors; this is but one example….I have countless others.
As the more you dig, the more you find.
I began to read more and more about Catholic clergy being found guilty of sexual assaults on children, despite the best efforts of ‘The Church’ to cover this up (barring Pope Francis, who admitted to a journalist in 2014 that one in every 50 Catholic priests is a paedophile.)
Mind you, that article was well hidden – but the more you dig, the more you find.
Anyway, as time marched on, I found myself engaging with more and more Muslims, mainly online but sometimes in person.
Without exception, friendly people with tremendous family values, who answered all my questions about Islam, without any agendas or judgement.
One my earliest contacts was with the social media influencer many of you know by the nickname of ‘Stuzz,’ who over the past seven years has become a valued and lifetime friend and who provided me with my first opportunity to write about Islam.
As Steve’s researcher and co-writer for stevedabliz.com, all kind of doors were opened to me, interviewing and in most cases meeting prominent members of the Sydney Muslim community like Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman, Ramia Abdo Sultan, Osman Karolia, Dean Mousad, Bashar Krayem, Bachar Zreika, Dalya Ayoub (now living in Turkey) and Tarek Sari.
All before I had even become a Muslim!
A lengthy coffee meet with a very good Muslim named Jehad Skaf and his wife saw my final hurdle cleared towards accepting Islam – at last realising that while Jesus (a) was a great prophet, he was not the son of God. (How can God have a son?)
Yes, the more you dig, the more you find and on Tuesday 19 May 2020 at the conclusion of a telephone interview for stevedabliz.com with another much-loved Muslim media figure Ahmed Bassal, I finally made my Shahada!
Over the phone, during COVID lockdown, during the final 10 days of Ramadan and on the night Laylat Al Qadr was observed. Alhamdulillah.
My first several weeks as a Muslim were a bit difficult, as with the mosques closed owing to COVID restrictions, I had to wait a couple of months for my first visit to the masjid to pray Jummah.
The Regents Park musallah became my first and I’d have to say my ‘home’ masjid – the regulars there (headed by mosque manager Zeyad Chmeisse) are great.
Another door that was opened to me and which has also become a mainstay of my life over the past two and half years-plus has been my weekly class at the United Muslims of Australia (UMA) in Padstow, a fantastic community where at last count I had around 200 ‘nephews’.
The UMA’s Australian New Muslims Association courses are fantastic and if the incredibly knowledgeable and wonderfully patient ANMA brothers can teach ME to recite the five daily prayers fluently through transliteration, then they can teach anyone!
Throughout my journey to and since accepting Islam, there has been a lot of what I would have once described as ‘good luck’ and ‘coincidence’.
But as we all know, there is no such thing as good luck in Islam – there are blessings. And there is no coincidence in Islam – everything is pre-ordained.
In any case, I was definitely blessed in July last year when a close friend mentioned to me that the Lebanese Muslim Association may be “looking for a writer”.
A couple of weeks later, following an interview with Chief Program Officer Bronwyn Hadife and Multimedia Producer Muhammad Farhan Khan, I was appointed Content Writer/Editor of the LMA.
The time has flown this past seven or eight months and it has been a wonderful experience, working in a team environment with a large group of happy, respectful professionals from a wide diversity of backgrounds.
The current board of directors are doing a great job and 2023 will in undoubtedly see the LMA build on the fantastic results it achieved last year.
This will be my first Ramadan working at the LMA, literally a stone’s throw from the historic, the iconic and the fabulous Lakemba mosque (pictured here), and I couldn’t be more excited.
Ramadan will more than likely have commenced when you read this story. My message to you is this:
Let’s all use this Holy month to come together to support each other and spread kindness, love and the word of Islam.
And please remember that not all reverts are as blessed as I am. They haven’t all had social media influencers, sheikhs, doctors, lawyers, businessmen and other great Muslims of all ages among their supports.
They don’t have multiple teachers and fellow participants texting them about their welfare any time they miss a class. They don’t get paid to do a job they love for the sake of Allah.
Because there are many reverts out there who have absolutely nobody supporting them. Revert ‘sisters’ terrified to tell their parents for fear of being kicked out of home. Revert ‘brothers’ with nobody to confide in, break their fast with or visit on Eid Al Fitr.
If you know even one of these brothers or sisters, I don’t need to tell you what to do for them this month. But I do know that Allah will reward you for it.
Comments