Asalaamu Alaikum Sisters,

I have been thinking about writing my story on how I reverted to Islam but I didn’t know exactly what to write or where to start. Well I figured the best place to start was at the very beginning. So please bear with me sisters.Well…………I have never been a religious person and I wasn’t raised in a religious household growing up. I knew that people like my grandmother went to church occasionally but I never saw her actually go and she never invited me. I had seen people as I passed by the open doors of a church catching the Holy Ghost and jumping up and down and shouting. I thought they looked silly but deep down inside I wanted to feel the joy they were feeling. I wanted to be happy too.

I had looked into several different religions trying to find the one that best suited me but to no avail. Nothing worked for me. I was hopeless so to speak. My mother-in-laws’ church was too confusing. People backbiting and scooping out Sister so in so’s outfit from last week. Or brother so in so preaching the gospel with Rum on his breath. I thought I mustn’t be special enough. Maybe God knows I’m a fake coz I been to this here church 3 or 4 times already and I still haven’t caught the Holy Ghost and Sister Sarah has had it about 7 maybe 8 times this week alone! So I left. I spoke to the Jehovah’s Witnesses that came to my door early Saturday morning. They could answer none of my questions. I lived in the section of Brooklyn that had a lot of Hasidic Jews. They looked religious and content. But everybody knows that only white people are allowed to be Jewish right? Even in the movies all the Jews were white. I even went to some meetings at the Nation of Islam temple in Harlem. But I knew I was in the wrong place when they forced people to give money they didn’t have, checked us at the door with metal detectors and explained to us that on judgement day space ships are going to come down and take all the believers to paradise. Oh and that story about the mad scientist in the Laboratory that invented white people was too much. I had to put my head between my legs to keep from laughing out loud! On the way out a sister told me that I can join their religion and I don’t have to cover up. That they only do it at the meetings and that the NOI is realistic and doesn’t expect you to dress modestly any other time. She assured me that I could still blend in with regular society, and I thought "but I don’t want to BLEND in. I don’t want to have to make sacrifices in my beliefs just to please outsiders". So I gave up and left it alone.

Sometimes on my way to school I would be waiting for the bus and over the loud speaker I would hear this wonderfully calming voice. I didn’t know what it was or what they were saying in this singing kind of voices as it was in a different language but I knew it had something to do with God. I saw some people going in the building, mostly men wearing long robes. I felt like the voice was calling to me but I didn’t know how to answer it or what to do. My heart would fall heavy in my chest and tears would well up in my eyes and I would miss my bus just so I could hear him sing the whole song. Then one day in the summer of 1994 I met a woman through my ex-husband. They had gone to school together and he happened to bump into her (Alhamdulillah) at the video store. Well she was pregnant and so was I. My husband knew I didn’t have many girlfriends and thought it would be a good idea for us to meet and talk about having babies and stuff. She called me that night. I spent 4 hours on the phone with her. Alhamdulillah.

She told me that she was a muslim (OH GOSH I THOUGHT!!). No not Nation of Islam she clarified. A MUSLIM. She explained the differences. What they believed and what it all meant. Needless to say that we spoke everyday on the phone and eventually in person for hours. She answered all my questions and they all made sense. All the while she was giving me Dawah. And when I had my baby she was in the delivery room with me. Her father was a man who carried great respect in the community and I grew to love her entire family. They became my family and two months after giving birth to my daughter, I took Shahada at three o’clock in the morning in the sisters’ living room.

I have moved and lost touch with that sister and her family unfortunately. But they are always in my heart. Alhamdulillah for leading me to the straight path and may the Blessings and Mercy of Allah (SWT) be with them always. I hope to have the pleasure of teaching someone as they taught me.

Asalaamu Alaikum Waramatullah Barakatuh

For Salimah Amatullah Malik and the Malik Family.

Love,

Chanin

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