I Had No Choice But To Become A Muslim

Bismillahirrahmaanirrahiim.

In the name of Allah most gracious, most merciful.

It is very easy, to say “Laa ilaaha illallaah, Muhammadan rrasuulullaah,” which means “there is no God but almighty God, and Muhammad is His messenger.” It is also very easy to do the testimony to Islam or what we call the shahada and that is to say, “Asyhadu anlaa ilaaha illallaah, wa asyhadu ana Muhammadan rrasuulullaah,” translated “I bare witness that there is no God but almighty God, and I bare witness that Muhammad is His messenger.” Anyone can do that, no problem. But what comes with it, now that’s a different story.

Sheikh Yusuf Estes once puts it like this, when other religions say “join us and you will go to heaven, guaranteed” Islam does nothing like that. It is the only religion in the world that guarantees that it’s followers can go to hell. Well, he’s right, but Islam says there is a way, but it won’t be easy.

Muslims pray five times a day, and must do ablution before each prayer, Muslims fast in Ramadhan for the whole month, Muslims must pay zakah to the poor, Muslims don’t drink alcohol, don’t have sex outside of marriage, don’t gamble, don’t eat pork, and must do this and that, yes, it’s not an easy way of life, especially for someone new to Islam.

So in my mind, I wonder…

What if I decided that I want to choose another religion, maybe they have an easier way to worship God. Okay, there are couple of choices that looks promising, but, wait a minute, every time I look closer into that religion, I found no satisfaction. I studied the basics of it, and just through the basics, I knew that there’s something not right in it, either the holy book isn’t in it’s original form, there are contradictions in it, or the system of belief is not personal, you don’t have a direct relationship with God, or you have to pay money, or the concept of multiple Gods, pantheism, etc. I just couldn’t be satisfied, how can I worship the one and only God that way?

I looked and looked and looked, only to find more and more errors and contradictions and I was disappointed.

What happens after that…

Then I got frustrated, started questioning religion, maybe I should just give up religion, stop believing in God, and start to rationalize everything, and think that religion doesn’t make any sense, and think that God is imaginary. Oh it feels good, I feel freedom, for a while.

When life feels empty…

Then I got confused, I got nothing to hold on to. Why am I here? How can the world possibly create itself, by chance? Who created the universe, the sun, the moon, the planets? Who designed our body to work like this, who programmed our brain, who planned our blood flow, can anything in this whole world create itself? ask yourself that question, and honestly, can it possibly?

Those questions are so much stronger and more torturing than asking why God don’t heal amputees? or why prayers sometimes don’t work? or why there are bad things in this world?

I had no choice but to believe in God…

But I still think that Islam is not an easy faith, so I tried to disprove Islam, I looked for mistakes in the Qur’an, yet there are none, I tried looking in the Shari’a, yet everything makes sense, I tried finding bad teachings of Islam and bad teachings of Muhammad (pbuh), yet I just couldn’t find any.

Okay, so I couldn’t fight Islam, I guess I’ll just take a closer look…

I dug deeper into Islam, only to find beauty, and peace. I found beauty in it’s sincere ways of worship, in it’s traditions, in it’s way of life. Suddenly, it becomes easy to do what Muslims do, because you want to do them.

I had no choice, but to become a Muslim. Not an easy way, but a fair and balanced way. Alhamdulillah.

 

Knowledge Is Power

Bismillaah,

I used to be very cautious when it comes to discussions (or debate) about religion, because I was afraid that it might give my iman (faith) a negative impact. I was afraid that I might find and realize the negative side of religion, and as a result, I might leave Islam behind. And yes, the discussions did bring up questions, in my mind, some of them are very difficult to answer at the time. And yes, the questions damaged my iman, a little.

Now, I realize why those questions damaged my iman. It’s simply because of ignorance and I didn’t care enough to find real answers. When somebody told me that hijab is an oppression to women, or when somebody told me that Islam gave no positive contribution to the world, or when somebody told me that Muhammad (pbuh) was a liar, or even when somebody misquoted the Qur’an, I took that information, tried to process it, but there were missing ingredients and one of them was knowledge. When the processing is done, the result was iman damage, for certain.

My iman, weakened, by my own ignorance…

When you replace ignorance with curiosity, you will find knowledge, and when you have knowledge, you will look at things differently. You will look at the world through the glasses of knowledge, and things will be so much clearer. Now with that knowledge in possession, discussions regarding religion becomes a media to strengthen the iman rather than to weaken it. You now know how to separate blasphemy from the truth.

There are some bits and pieces of information about Islam that, without proper knowledge, perspective, and idea of the whole picture of the religion, are easy to manipulate and they can be used against Islam itself.

Some of them are bits and pieces of the history of Islam, some are from the shari’a (law of Islam), and some from Muhammad’s (pbuh) life story and sayings.

There are some issues in Islam that some people call controversial, but when you look deeper into it, it makes perfect sense. If you need some examples, you can start with this book (or free ebook available) called “Answers To Non-Muslims’ Common Questions About Islam” by Dr. Zakir Naik. In that book, Dr. Zakir Naik gives very logical explanations to some of the common questions like polygamy, the veil, and sects in Islam.

Da’wah is a duty

Da’wah, or to invite others to Islam, is our duty as Muslims. In the Qur’an it says:

“Invite (all) to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious.” 16:125.

Now, how in the world can we do that without enough knowledge. How can we invite people to Islam when we ourselves have doubts?

Defending our faith

Today it’s so easy to post something anonymous on the internet. Muslim-haters from all over the world write and publish hate posts and spreading lies about Islam. We as Muslims need our knowledge to defend our faith, or at least to guard our own iman.

Acquiring knowledge

There are so many resources you can pick, some are even for free. You can spend more time with your ustadz or Islamic teacher, ask questions in your local Muslim community, read more books, download free lectures available on the net (so many!,) or you can use one of my favorite resource, and that is www.youtube.com, believe me, alhamdulillah, our brothers and sisters has made ready for us videos worth watching.

The Qur’an encourages Muslims to learn and acquire knowledge. “He has taught you that which [heretofore] you knew not.” (2:239)

Shadaqallaahul aziim. Wallaahu alam.

 

Islam: Peace

Islam means peace, Islam also means submitting to God. So in other words Islam is peace acquired by submitting oneself to God. The term “Islam” I took for granted, now it mean the world to me, it is my way life.

In the Islamic school that I teach, there is a framed picture of words hanging inside the office wall. It says something like this “Believe that everything belong to God, and we will not be afraid of losing” Masha Allah, how wonderful is that.

My mother (Almarhumah) passed away just a couple of years ago, I love her so dearly she was my number one person in life. She died from cancer, it was probably the hardest episode in our life. Alhamdulillah, my mom died in peace, she submitted herself to God completely. As one of the closest to her, I felt a very deep sadness I couldn’t even talk about it until probably a year after. She belonged to Allah, and this world we live in is only temporary, it is a test of faith for the real life, the eternity. Innalillaahi wa inna ilaihi raaji’uun, everything that comes from God, will return to God.

 

Personal Introduction

Bismillahirrahmaanirrahiim.

In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful.

My name is Muhammad Abdullah Azis, I was born in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country, and was born into a Muslim family. Not only that, I spent most of my school years in Al-Azhar Islamic School in Jakarta, Indonesia, from kindergarten to junior high. Does that make me a good, knowledgeable Muslim? Hmm, if you said yes, think again.

As a little boy, I was told to do prayer five times a day, to fast in Ramadan, and to recite the holy Quraan. And so, I did what I was told by my parents and by my school teachers. All I knew as a child was, those are the things that you HAVE to do if you want to go to paradise. But inside, I wasn’t really feeling it, I was only doing it because I was told to do so and everybody’s doing it.

Growing up in the modern world, the video game generation, I slowly began to forget about religion, I felt like God has nothing to do with anything in my life except for when you’re really desperate for something, than you go to Him.

After I finished college (I studied art and design), I studied western music with a music professor from Germany. She was a very straight-forward person and very knowledgeable. Seemed like she knew everything about history, social politics, and so on. I took her as one of my biggest influence. She always taught her students to be critical about everything, and to have a big curiosity, and most of all she told me to read history. Those are the lessons I later found very important.

Then, after 9/11, she started making really bad comments about Islam. She said that Islam is a religion of violence, and that the hijab for women is a tool to make Muslim women stupid so that the men can do whatever and marry several other women, she said also that the history of Islam had been distorted and that the holy Quraan is also distorted, and most of all, the most heart-breaking thing was when she insulted the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) with really rude comments, saying that he was (please pardon me) a sex addict and a pedophile.

That really hurt my feelings, badly. But what did I say to her? nothing. Why, because I had nothing in my knowledge to defend Islam. I knew little about history, let alone the history of Islam, I knew little about the content of the holy book, and I knew very little about the prophet Muhammad (pbuh). You see, even though I studied as a young boy in an Islamic school, but I was only there because my parents wanted me to.

I felt lost, the person I thought knew about everything, a person of my big influence, said those things about my religion, and my parents religion. Being a young man still looking for my own identity, bombarded by the images of terrorism in the media, I even went that far thinking, what if she was right? what if Islam is not the best religion? but I kept telling myself to be strong and keep my iman strong, that’s the least I could do.

A few years later I started teaching music for young children as well as adults, I teach music in an Islamic school, and a Christian university. As an educator I felt that I have a huge responsibility. As an educator, I feel that I really need to fill my head, because whatever you teach, you need sources from all kinds of knowledge. In both places I teach, the Islamic school, and the Christian Uni, I found a really nice atmosphere of faith, and norms of religion slowly creeping back. I also learn that by being an educator, you’re not always right about something.

I still do my prayers, I still fast in Ramadan, but now as an educator, I think differently. No more ignorance! This time I need to know why I do all those things, and I need to know who the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was before I follow his ways.

Alhamdulillah, God showed me the easy way back to Islam, and that way is through technology, yes, the technology of internet, where I watch many many videos on youtube about Islam, and where I downloaded many resources from audio visuals, to ebooks. I found tons of resources that are free because it is part of a da’wah. Alhamdulillah.

Now, through this blog, let me share with you my journey for the truth.

Wassalamu alaikum,