My meditation and contemplation had an impact on me. And honestly, deep inside of me, I felt that there was this burning flame of longing for that Higher Being ready to ignite me. I found myself having thoughts about God in His role as Creator and Sustainer.
There was one question in my mind that nobody else raised. Would this Allah even listen to me? Me, a young, uneducated woman? In my culture, it was men who practiced and carried out all the official rituals. Men live in the monastery. Men are the ones that can obtain a higher form of spirituality.
I was introduced to Islam while I was a freshman at UCLA. Although I had already achieved a certain degree of national fame as a basketball player, in my personal life I tried hard to fly under the radar. Celebrity made me nervous and uncomfortable...
My soul was crying out and even my stubbornness could not squelch the cries. We started working together and discussing our respective beliefs. I had given up on Christianity completely, but when he started asking me questions, my faith surged and I felt I was a ‘Crusader’ defending the Faith from this evil “Moslem”.
I felt angry at Islam! I felt angry at a book that would tell hungry people to be hungry for thirty days. I was angry at the Quran for telling this poor woman not to drink water when always her water is dirty.
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...
My first Ramadan truly showed me how blessed I was. The fact that I was able to get excited to break my fast at the end of the day and truly spend a good amount of hours trying to decide between which meals I would like to cook, while others do not have any options, is a blessing in itself.
I grew up with Islam all around me. I witnessed my Muslim friends performing prayer and fasting during Ramadan. When I was fifteen years old, I wanted to know more about the religion that surrounded me.
The Arabic word “Jihad” is roughly translated as “to struggle and strive in the Way of God.” Jihad is to speak nicely to people when they speak poorly to you. It is a jihad to smile at others when you are not in the best mood. It's a jihad to refrain from intoxicants...
When I was a teenager, there was a meeting of all the Catholic bishops of the world, about 2500 of them, in Rome. After the meeting, they published a book which said, among other things, The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore...
I hated Muslims, I thought all Muslims should die, and anyone who even resembled Muslims, in my mind, that they shouldn't exist, they should go back to their countries... the common American idea of what Islam is, but that was my own ignorance and following the media.
My conversion didn’t come about because I thought that Islam as a religious practice was superior to Christianity, or because I thought Muslims were somehow more pure than Christians. From where I’m standing, those who play the “my-religion-is-better-than-your-religion” card have missed the point of their own religion.
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