I realized that even from the childhood that Allah was present and calling me to a relationship with Him. I didn’t always understand it, but I felt the pour since childhood and it was a matter of me reaching the point where I said ‘yes. I submit’ I want to do all that I can to fully develop this relationship.
“You’ve seen me pointing this weapon on you, don’t you know I could have shot you?” And the man looked at me, with a smile on his face, and he pointed his finger to the sky, and said in his broken English: “I only fear Allah.”
It was February, and I was playing guitar in a carnival in Rio de Janeiro. It wasn’t a good day for me, I was sad due to many stuff in my life, and I was in the street and I said I would go home. I was drunk with my guitar and I said I would go home. Walking in the street to my house...
We convert because we find truth and beauty in Islam. We convert because we find freedom from objectified in Islam. We convert because we don’t let the media tell us what to think. We convert because Islam speaks to our nature. We convert for a million reasons.
I was in a state of shock. I didn’t know that Jesus was in the Quran. I didn’t know that there were stories about Moses, Lot, Noah, and other prophets. I didn’t know this all was in the Quran. When I knew it, I was actually in a state of shock and I thought “Oh wow”.
It started actually when my elder brother converted to Islam. The reason why he converted to Islam was that he married a Turkish Muslim woman. So being his sister and wanting to protect him in his decision, of course we went to Islamic centers...
My son asked: “Mom, if Jesus died for our sins on a Friday, and then as you say, he was resurrected three days later on a Sunday, then who ruled the world for those three days?” I thought about the logic to this question and at that moment, I knew that it did not make any sense.
After a year of being his roommate, I took his Quran home over Christmas break. I used the index to find and read verses about Jesus, Mary, Abraham, Moses, Joseph and other people I knew from the Bible. At first I disbelieved in what I was reading because...
When I was eighteen years old I became a member of the local Zionist youth movement known as the Mizrachi Hatzair. But, when I found out what the nature of Zionism was, which made the hostility between Jews and Arabs irreconcilable, I left several months later in disgust.
So time kept going on, and after a while, I actually met a Muslim and we started talking. And I was like: “Wow! You do that really? So do I.” It just started getting to a point where I maybe I need to read more about this. So I went online and I started reading...
I was always looking for what’s wrong with Islam. There has to be something wrong with it. So I would question and I would question and he would always say to me “Jill, Islam is logical”. Every single thing that you want to point out as a problem with Islam...
I was invited to make certain that this new interpretation of the Quran was easily understood. My work, of course, required that I read the Quran over and over again. Well, as you can imagine, having no knowledge of Islam, I had hundreds and hundreds of questions. I was shocked...
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