Inspiring Story Ma sha Allah! 'Why I chose Islam!'

Asalaam Alaikum to our followers!
We have recently had the pleasure of welcoming a new member to our forum who shared her heart warming reversion story with us.
With her permission we are now sharing it with you. JazakAllah Khair sis Madinah2810

Why I Choose Islam
To fully understand why I reverted it’s important to know some back ground info. At the age of fourteen I was depressed. By the age of fifteen I was suicidal. Why and where this stemmed from is not fully known to even myself, I never went through any traumatic events in my life such a loved ones dying or something that would give me a kind of ‘valid’ reason to be depressed. I just happened and was out of my control. At 15 I found life too difficult, to tedious and painful. Prior to Islam I had only vague and mixed religious views from being brought up in an atheist family and a Christian community. I believed that God existed in my early years of life, but soon the Christian teachings became too complex( ie the trinity) for me to comprehend and I soon gave up on any religious path I was on and called myself an atheist. I took on a very scientific approach to life - to prove something is true, provide evidence.

Just over 2 years ago a girl in my school became Muslim. This information is not particularly shocking to me now, but at the time it gave me weeks of sleepless nights. I had grown to know this girl quite well, at the time I couldn’t have called us best friends because we were not, we simply had a few classes together and had got to know each other.
My view of Islam at 15 was not great. Our school never provided us with much teaching of Islam, even in RME (Religious and moral education) class. What I knew was what I had picked up from the media. Terrorism. Oppression of Women. Hunger for War. Killing all non-muslims. I was convinced Islam was a terrible religion. Convinced this girl from my school was making an even worse mistake.

When someone reverts, it can be difficult to know how to act. I wanted to voice my concern to this girl but I was afraid I would possibly offend her, and be sides, I didn’t have any hard evidence, I’d never seen let alone touched a Quran. After my few weeks of sleepless nights a fretting I finally decided I should research Islam, find the evidence I need to prove I was right.

I never did prove her wrong.

When I started researching Islam, I did of course come across some websites that portray Islam in a bad light. To begin with I was happy with this result, it was evidence that Islam is a bad religion. This research and compiling of evidence against Islam continued for a few weeks and I was very close to confronting this girl with my findings. Then one day I found a web page that contradicted everything I had just found on the previous websites. I couldn’t understand why, this was the exact same verses from the Quran and hadith but they were presented in a different view. A view that actually made perfect legitimate sense. I was a little peeved, I saw this as a set back. I could present my evidence to this girl but if she was going to counter with these new views then I would have no back up. So I took to researching again.

I wont go into great detail about everything I found, just the parts that really sold Islam to me. Like I said at the beginning, all of this happened during a difficult stage of my life, plagued with depression and suicidal thoughts. I didn’t have much religious belief an thus did not think heaven or hell existed.. Holding such a view is probably the reason why I considered suicide so many times. I was finding this life soo difficult and painful, so why stay in it if I would just end it right now? I wouldn’t go to hell, because I didn’t believe in such a think. I’d just be dead, and everything would be over.

On reading about Islam I soon became aware of the concept of this life being a test. Islam proposed that we are tested in this life on earth so that we can be judged based on what we do with our lives. If we do good, we get into Paradise(or Heaven as most people know it) and if we do bad we’ll end up in Hell. Pretty simply stuff right? But for me it was like having an epiphany. This gave me a REASON to keep living. I finally saw a glimmer of hope. Some good might actually come from my struggling. So explain how I felt is difficult, there was no physical show of emotion - I didn’t burst into tears of joy and proclaim this was the correct religion - rather there was an internal change. My heart grasped that small glimmer of hope an refused to let go. From that moment my heart was convinced this was right, my head on the other hand was not.

The fight between following my head or my heart took the longest time to sort out. My heart was screaming “Yes do this! This is right! This is what you need and what you have been looking for!” While my head was saying “ Are you serious.. You can’t be Muslim, Islam cant be right, what will people say…” Over time science finally convinced my head that Islam was right. How the foetus develops in the womb was not know 1400 years ago, only recently has science confirmed the statements in the Quran about this topic as correct. Could an illiterate man who could not read or write, who had a poor education, have thought this up and or guessed it and be completely correct? Statements in the Quran about how the atmosphere has 7 different layers - something science has only proved in the last few hundred years. So how did an illiterate man know this? This same man, who lived in the deserts of Saudi Arabia and had accurately described the waves of the sea. He told people that he knew humans would one day explore space and also land on the moon - his prediction came true. 1400 years ago such a thing would have sounded impossible to the people. He also told his people that Pharaoh’s body had been preserved - and only recently have we discovered it, it was indeed preserved! The list of Quranic Miracles could go on..

It took a while, almost a year after my heart was convinced to finally convinced my head that Islam was true. Through the year I went through all the obvious doubts, I even went on a rampage trying to prove the Quran wrong. It just isn’t possible.

On August 2nd 2010 I went to the Masjid with the revert girl form my school, mum and my aunt to say the shahada and I have never been happier. Without noticing it at the time, Islam ‘cured’ my depression, if depression can e fully cured. I’ve stopped wanting to end my life and I’m totally against such a move now. Some people, especially a few members of my family, may never be able to accept me as a Muslim, but I hope they can at least understand that now I am truly happier than I have ever been.