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Sa’ad Laws, Ex-Christian, USA
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Description: How the autobiography of Malcolm X guided a white, middle-class, American teenager from “cow country” to Islam.
By Sa’ad Laws
Published on 26 Jul 2010 - Last modified on 26 Jul 2010
Viewed: 3074 (daily average: 5) - Rating: 4.7 out of 5 - Rated by: 27
Printed: 129 - Emailed: 6 - Commented on: 0
Category: Articles
> Stories of New Muslims
> Men
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 I have often been asked how I came to Islam. I mean, it isn’t too
often you see a white guy from “cow country” turn to Islam. I guess the most
amazing thing about the whole thing is where I started. Now, I am not one of
those stories of brothers who you hear were in gangs, addicted to crack, or
worshiped devils at stone altars. I come from quite a typical background. I
have two sisters; a brother; and both my parents are still married. My father
is an engineer; while my mother is a housewife (or domestic engineer, as she
likes to say) and we are as middle-class as you can get. My family lives in a
small country hamlet, just to the south of nowhere. To give you a glimpse of
how rural it is, there is a general store about a mile from my house, where the
lady who runs it say “ya’ll come back now, ya hear” when ever you leave the
store.
Religion was always a strange subject in my house. My
father is an Irish-Catholic by birth and my mom is a Methodist. We went to
church on occasion, but for the most part, religion was a “spiritual” matter
that you just had in your heart. I can remember as a kid looking at a small
figurine of Jesus (which I had “borrowed” from the family nativity set) and
wondering why do we go to “number two” when we pray or want something? Why don’t
we just go to “number one”, God? Growing up, the whole concept of the trinity
never made since to me, but since I lived in a spiritual Christian family, this
wasn’t really an issue.
As I got older and entered high school, I quickly
noticed that I was a bit different. In my school, like in most schools in
America, there were basically four groups with whom you could be associated:
the “Alternative”, the “preps”, the “crack-heads” or the African-Americans
(being that 90% of the county I grew up in was white, they ended up being
somewhat alienated and kept to themselves). Then there was me. I have to say
looking back now, that this was one of the blessings of Allah. I very much
feel like Allah was protecting me from all sorts of things which, had gotten
involved in them, could have brought me down later on. For example, I was
always in search of a “girlfriend”, much like any other typical high schooler.
However, whenever the situation presented itself for me to take advantage of, I
always found myself overwhelmed with shyness and I wasn’t able to do anything,
not even move my lips. I am extremely grateful for this now, even if I wasn’t
then.
Although I hung out with the “Alternative” group, I
never really felt like I fit in. They liked to talk about music, trash their
friends, and do drugs or some other mindless pastime. I, on the other hand,
was interested in the Black Panthers, Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X. This made
me look a little odd to say the least and I received more than a few tags as
being a “Black wannabe”. It was at this time, while in the eleventh grade,
that I began to read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the ultimate anti-white
leader, or so I was told. I read his book, and the more I read it, the more I
couldn’t put it down; his story was amazing to me. He came from nothing and
then…there he was.
But, it was the chapter entitled “Mecca” that would have
the most profound effect on me. In it, he told his story of how he was
affected by the generosity and compassion of, not only the Muslims he met while
making the Hajj, but also by Islam itself. I read that and thought to myself, “who
are these guys?” So, I went to the school library and started to check out
every book that I could about Islam. I was amazed at what I read; here they
believed in the same principals I has found so innate within myself. They said
that there was only One God, that Jesus was not his son, but a rightly guided
Messenger and Prophet. I was taken aback. I knew that whatever this “Islam
thing” was, I needed to be a part of it.
At that time I considered myself a Muslim. If you had
asked me what my religion was, I would have said Islam. I hadn’t taken my
official shahada mind you, but in my heart I was a Muslim. I was a bit naďve
at that point though. I knew that Muslims were supposed to pray, but I didn’t
know how many times, or how to pray and so on. I didn’t know much, and there
wasn’t anyone for me to learn from at that point. I was just kind of walking
around saying “hey, I’m Muslim”. It was then that I got the jump-start that I
needed. A friend of mine got a bit agitated by me saying I was a Muslim all
the time (I was a bit over zealous at this point) and said that I wasn’t really
Muslim. “You don’t even pray,” he told me. I thought to myself, you know
what…he’s right. I knew I needed to take this being a Muslim thing a step
further. That’s where I ran into a problem.
Who were these Muslims? I didn’t know a Muslim or where
to meet any. There wasn’t exactly a mosque down the block from my house you
have to understand. You could have literally found gold more easily than a
Muslim where I lived. So, I searched the phone book and came across a mosque
in Washington D.C. But, that was unfortunately about two and a half hours away
and might as well have been two thousand miles away. When I first called them
I was so nervous. Here I was about to talk to a Muslim! They were very
pleased by my enthusiasm towards Islam and my eagerness at becoming a Muslim. But,
they wanted me to come to the mosque. This would of course be a problem.
At the time I was still in high school and under the
reign of my parents, who also controlled my extended whereabouts, especially
since it was the family vehicle that I was driving. My chances of getting that
car for a trip to D.C. were slim at best. What was I going to do? I couldn’t
get to the Muslims, so how was I going to be a Muslim. I asked them if they
could come down here, but that was to no avail. I needed to do this now; I
couldn’t just sit around for another year or two with this. It was after much
prodding that I finally convinced the brother to let me take my shahada right
then and there, on the phone. I guess that might have been a first…conversion
by phone.
So, that is how I came to Islam. I can truly say now,
looking back on the whole story, that I was overwhelmingly blessed by the way
Allah guided me to Islam. I look back now and see my old friends from high
school and how lost they are. Then I look at myself. I mean I know that I
have more than a few rough edges and that I have much improving to do, not only
as a Muslim, but also as a person in general. But, I can’t help but feel a bit
awed that I was guided and that Allah picked me to be guided and out of where? Nowhere.
I look back and I think…what was it that guided me? What
could have led me to this? This “religion of the Arabs”, that was so foreign
to me that I would have needed a passport just to get in. Then I realized that
what happened to me was from Allah and that He alone has guided me. I feel
kind of awestruck when I think of it. I mean, I don’t know why, but Allah
picked me for this religion of guidance. I feel like I have been saved from
the Hell fire and plucked from the ashes. It is this, my being guided to Islam
by Allah and Allah alone, which is the greatest blessing that I have ever
received.
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