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It was now March of 1993, and my wife and I were
enjoying a five-week vacation in the Middle East. It was also the Islamic
month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from day break until sunset. Because we
were so often staying with or being escorted around by family members of our
Muslim friends back in the States, my wife and I had decided that we also would
fast, if for no other reason than common courtesy. During this time, I had
also started to perform the five daily prayers of Islam with my newfound,
Middle Eastern, Muslim friends. After all, there was nothing in those prayers
with which I could disagree.
I was a Christian, or so I said. After all, I
had been born into a Christian family, had been given a Christian upbringing,
had attended church and Sunday school every Sunday as a child, had graduated
from a prestigious seminary, and was an ordained minister in a large Protestant
denomination. However, I was also a Christian who didn’t believe in a triune
godhead or in the divinity of Jesus, may the blessing and mercy of God be upon him; who knew quite well
how the Bible had been corrupted; who had said the Islamic testimony of faith
in my own carefully parsed words; who had fasted during Ramadan; who was saying
Islamic prayers five times a day; and who was deeply impressed by the
behavioral examples I had witnessed in the Muslim community, both in America
and in the Middle East. (Time and space do not permit me the luxury of
documenting in detail all of the examples of personal morality and ethics I
encountered in the Middle East.) If asked if I were a Muslim, I could and did
do a five-minute monologue detailing the above, and basically leaving the
question unanswered. I was playing intellectual word games, and succeeding at
them quite nicely.
It was now late in our Middle Eastern trip. An
elderly friend who spoke no English and I were walking down a winding, little
road, somewhere in one of the economically disadvantaged areas of greater ‘Amman, Jordan. As we walked, an elderly man approached us from the opposite direction,
said, “Salam ‘Alaykum”, i.e., “may the blessing and mercy of God be upon him”, and offered to shake
hands. We were the only three people there. I didn’t speak Arabic, and
neither my friend nor the stranger spoke English. Looking at me, the stranger
asked, “Muslim?”
At that precise moment in time, I was fully and
completely trapped. There were no intellectual word games to be played,
because I could only communicate in English, and they could only communicate in
Arabic. There was no translator present to bail me out of this situation, and
to allow me to hide behind my carefully prepared English monologue. I couldn’t
pretend I didn’t understand the question, because it was all too obvious that I
had. My choices were suddenly, unpredictably, and inexplicably reduced to just
two: I could say “N’am”, i.e., “yes”; or I could say “La”, i.e., “no.” The
choice was mine, and I had no other. I had to choose, and I had to choose now;
it was just that simple. Praise be to God, I answered, “N’am.”
With saying that one word, all the intellectual
word games were now behind me. With the intellectual word games behind me, the
psychological games regarding my religious identity were also behind me. I
wasn’t some strange, atypical Christian. I was a Muslim. Praise be to God, my
wife of 33 years also became a Muslim about that same time.
Not too many months after our return to America from the Middle East, a neighbor invited us over to his house, saying that he wanted to talk
with us about our conversion to Islam. He was a retired Methodist minister,
with whom I had had several conversations in the past. Although we had
occasionally talked superficially about such issues as the artificial
construction of the Bible from various, earlier, independent sources, we had
never had any in-depth conversation about religion. I knew only that he
appeared to have acquired a solid seminary education, and that he sang in the
local church choir every Sunday.
My initial reaction was, “Oh, oh, here it comes.”
Nonetheless, it is a Muslim’s duty to be a good neighbor, and it is a Muslim’s
duty to be willing to discuss Islam with others. As such, I accepted the
invitation for the following evening, and spent most of the waking part of the
next 24 hours contemplating how best to approach this gentleman in his
requested topic of conversation. The appointed time came, and we drove over to
our neighbor’s. After a few moments of small talk, he finally asked why I had
decided to become a Muslim. I had waited for this question, and had my answer
carefully prepared. “As you know with your seminary education, there were a
lot of non-religious considerations which led up to and shaped the decisions of
the Council of Nicaea.” He immediately cut me off with a simple statement: “You
finally couldn’t stomach the polytheism anymore, could you?” He knew exactly
why I was a Muslim, and he didn’t disagree with my decision! For himself, at
his age and at his place in life, he was electing to be “an atypical Christian.”
God willing, he has by now completed his journey from cross to
crescent.
There are sacrifices to be made in being a
Muslim in America. For that matter, there are sacrifices to be made in being a
Muslim anywhere. However, those sacrifices may be more acutely felt in America, especially among American converts. Some of those sacrifices are very
predictable, and include altered dress and abstinence from alcohol, pork, and
the taking of interest on one’s money. Some of those sacrifices are less
predictable. For example, one Christian family, with whom we were close
friends, informed us that they could no longer associate with us, as they could
not associate with anyone “who does not take Jesus Christ as his personal
savior.” In addition, quite a few of my professional colleagues altered their
manner of relating to me. Whether it was coincidence or not, my professional
referral base dwindled, and there was almost a 30% drop in income as a result.
Some of these less predictable sacrifices were hard to accept, although the
sacrifices were a small price to pay for what was received in return.
For those contemplating the acceptance of Islam
and the surrendering of oneself to God—glorified and exalted is He, there may
well be sacrifices along the way. Many of these sacrifices are easily
predicted, while others may be rather surprising and unexpected. There is no
denying the existence of these sacrifices, and I don’t intend to sugar coat
that pill for you. Nonetheless, don’t be overly troubled by these sacrifices.
In the final analysis, these sacrifices are less important than you presently
think. God willing, you will find these sacrifices a very cheap coin to pay
for the “goods” you are purchasing.
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Please note: The ordination certificate above
was too large to scan in completely - the top line of text is missing, which
says “Let It Be Known To All Men That”
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His Web Page:
www.muslimsweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=92&Itemid=93
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