Salam..I randomly found this...hope we could improve to become a better Muslim..
Many things happened at the same time. I left Christianity when I was 10
years old, since I couldn't find anything that made any sense,
especially the Trinity thing.
I was kinda lost since then, until I was almost 14 years old. I
started to think "What am I doing here?" and "I'm so worried about my
marks, about if I'll get a job or not, about my life in general, but I
feel like I'm empty inside. There has to be something, some goal to
achieve" since I thought about death many times and what was after it, I
thought "It can't just be OVER. You're gone and that's it? Your life
has no goal, you just live and become dust?".
During my summer vacation, when I was still 14, almost 15, I started
talking to foreign people. And the person talking about Islam was from
Egypt. I wasn't paying attention at first, I was like "yeah yeah, OK".
And when I entered school again, I was having philosophy lessons and at
the end of school, one of the lessons was about religion. I was turning
the pages of my philosophy book one day (the pages my teacher didn't
talk about) during a lesson. And a veiled woman just caught my eye. She
was wearing niqaab, the full veil. I just got interested and I started
having many questions about Islam. I still had a negative attitude
towards it at first because of the veil itself, it seemed oppressive
(after all, that's how most of the people in the West are "programmed"
to think). I started making questions to that person I knew, but I found
out that I wasn't getting all the answers I wanted, since that person
wasn't practicing Islam much. I was afraid to search by myself because I
was only finding negative things about Islam all the time. So, another
person, this one from Morocco, gave me a link www.islamqa.com.
I guided myself through that link for a year or so, learning about
Islam. I could get all of my answers, alhamdulilah. So, I converted in
my heart, by little information.
Well, the one who first knew I had converted was my sister since I
shared the bedroom with her. She kept it a secret and would ask me
questions but never hurt me or said bad things.
My dad, an atheist (he believes God is energy, and I'm not saying
this to make him feel bad, I'm just stating what he told me he believes
in) discovered I was a Muslim by accident when I was 16. He actually was
the main test I had after becoming a Muslim. He found out I was a
Muslim when one day he came into my room without knocking and I was
practicing how to pray. He saw me doing rukoo' and having a scarf on my
head. His reaction was anger. I never had seen my dad so angry before.
After that, he took my laptop (my main source of information about
Islam), he forbid me to pray (I would pray hidden in my closet, which is
a normal wooden closet, and I would bring bowls with water to my room
to make wudo' for Fajr), tried to force me to eat pork (although I would
give it to the dog we had in the house and pretend it was me who ate
it, hehe), he forbid me to fast. That actually didn't work at all
because I could easily go to the bathroom and spit it all out. So, he
would make me sit at the dinning table while I was fasting and put my
favorite food in front of me and eat it to the last grain, trying to
make me give up on fasting. He would humiliate me in front of guests,
insult me in front of them and when we would go out he would insult me
in front of everyone to make me feel ashamed. So, after that, my dad
managed to get me into psychologists over and over again (he put me in a
bio-psychotherapist and the other appointments I had with
psychologists, I didn't attend since I refused), my mom didn't have a
say in it, she had to actually make appointments for me in the
psychologists. My grandma, a kind of conservative catholic christian
(which sometimes is not that conservative), would tell my dad to put me
into psychologists and to other mental related doctors. After I've gone
through several biopsychotherapy sessions, I decided to wear hijab at
17. I asked help to an Egyptian family to send me some Islamic clothing
and they were actually helping me to stay strong through all of this,
alhamdulilah.
So, when I started wearing hijab, my dad would threaten me day and
night. He would come to my bedroom insulting Allah (subhan wa Ta'ala)
and His Prophet (salAllahu 'alayhi wa salam). He would threaten me
saying he would take off my hijab himself when I was in the street. The
threats became so much that I was forced to step out of my door without
hijab and then put it on when hiding on the stairs before going to
school.
At highschool: I was usually mocked, often stared at, often
mistakenly called a Jehova's Witness or Jew (this can show the ignorance
in the Portuguese society regarding Islam, among other things, lol),
often had silly questions from both students and teachers. Some teachers
were genuinely interested and were just confused, other teachers were
just brainwashed by the news and one old teacher even didn't know the
difference between Shi'a and Sunni and mixed up everything thinking I
agreed with mut'ah (temporary marriage) and he would actually refuse to
listen to any of my answers (what can we do? Some people just prefer to
remain dumb). But I never had really big threats outside of my home. My
biggest threat was really my family, not even a skinhead or nazi waiting
for me outside. (P.S.: I did start having bad marks at school, not
because of the ignorance of questions I had outside my house and the
mockery, but because of the tension I felt while in my own house. Of
course a change of belief is better handled when the family doesn't
react so bad. What I went through outside was little in size compared
with what I would hear from my family. The words of people that you
don't know, don't hurt as much as the word of people you always knew).
After some months of wearing hijab, my dad and my grandma saw I
wasn't giving up. What did they do about it? They planned to send me to a
hospital for mentally-ill people. Why didn't it work out? Let's say I
woke up at 2am to pray Qyiam al-Layl and I heard my parents talking
about this plan. I went panic and contacted that Egyptian family who was
helping me so much. I asked them for a last favor: to help me go to
Egypt. My family's plan of sending me to a mentally-ill people hospital
was my ticket to hijrah (migration, in this case for the sake of Allah).
When I became 18, I took care of the ticket, the passport, etc (with
the help of a friend that was at that time searching about Islam and she
converted some time after I came to Egypt, alhamdulilah).
On the day to say good bye, I pretended I was going to my first day
of school, but I headed to a taxi, past by a christian girl I trusted to
pick up my bag that I had left in her safety, and headed to the
airport. I was going with my school bag, another bag with clothes, my
laptop and a translation of the Qur'an in my hand. On the way to the
airport I was sending messages to the ones that knew I was going to
Egypt, saying to keep secret until I told them to spread the news in
school and other places.
As I finally arrived to the airport, my heart just started beating
so fast, I had thoughts of going back and thoughts of getting in the
plane. I was scared but I just said "Allah, please help me", took a deep
breath and got inside. My travel wasn't easy, I knew what I was leaving
behind: all my family, my belongings, my life. All of this to trust
Allah in all I didn't know would happen to me. I had a big step in the
dark. I never knew the Egyptian family I had contact with, I just met
them through the internet. I thought to myself I maybe needed a
hospital. But still continued, something or Someone made me feel
everything would be alright, so, I trusted Allah's plan. My travel had
one stop in Istanbul. I then decided to call my mom... My mom had a big
shock, as I knew it would happen, and someone in her work was trying to
make me feel even more guilty saying my mom would go to the hospital
(she didn't, alhamdulilah). I told her everything would be ok and for
her not to worry and trust me in this. I had to go. It was time for my
plane. I headed almost losing my plane swallowing my tears for people
not to notice something was wrong. I went in the plane and as its lights
were off, I saw the lights of Istanbul and tears were running on my
face, tears of confusion, fear and guilt. I talked to Allah in my mind. I
asked "Am I doing the right thing? Please tell me". As the lights
inside the plane came back, I opened my Qur'an translation in a random
page and there was my answer... subhanAllah, the first verses I had read
were when Allah told Prophet Moosa ('alayhi salam) not to fear and to
go, trusting Allah, to face the sorcerers of Pharaoh. That was my answer
and immediately my heart felt at ease and I could feel peace
surrounding me.
Claudia sofia simoes
Taken from http://prepareforthehour.blogspot.com/p/my-story.html - http://prepareforthehour.blogspot.com/p/my-story.html
