THE CANADIAN MUSLIM MUSSA F.
The Canadian brother Mussa F. embraced Islam and wrote his story to Noor Al Islam Magazine.
My name is Moussa but it was not always Moussa, and, in fact, it still isn’t but I prefer to remain anonymous in telling you about myself for family reasons that will become obvious later on in my story.
I was born in a normal middle class European family, and I had a normal middle class upbringing with no particular problems other than the usual problems which any western family experiences. My parents did their best to make sure that I had a good education, the usual toys, Christmas presents, outings, and holidays away from home etc. that other children around me had.
Religion was a subject rarely discussed in my family and was generally confined to marriages, baptisms, and funerals. Islam, although a major influence on the history of humanity in the past to my well-read mother, is now regarded by my parents as a hindrance to modern day progress, an oppressor of the rights of women, and a general all-round source of terrorism, fanaticism, and political problems for the world as a whole. What is worse it is, to them, a strange and foreign religion.
A previous incident in my family, on the subject of religion, has left me in no doubt that my conversion would not be accepted and that it would only lead to division if I told them about it. Thus, although I have been Muslim now for several years, I have not yet dared to tell my family about it, and this has been made easier by the fact that I live far from them. I do phone them regularly and write letters as often as possible: however, visiting them would be a little difficult without them discovering, because of prayers, eating habits etc.
Since the death of my Grandfather, when I was an adolescent, I started to try to talk to God, and the first thing I asked God was to help my Grandfather to get to heaven. Since then I have always believed in God, but it was not until I found myself teaching in an international school in India, several years later, that I first began to question the fact that Christianity might not be the true religion from God.
The question I first asked myself was« Why did God only give prophets to the Jews and then later to the Christians? » Did He really leave all the Indians, Africans etc. without a prophet throughout most of their history?»
The answer to this question came to me through a German family I met who were Bahais. They told me that every nation has had its own prophet. They did not, however, tell me, and I don’t think they knew that the origin of this valuable piece of information was the Qur’an. (See sourate No. 10 (Younes) verse 47, Sourate No. 19 (Ibrahim) verse 4)
This revelation made a lot of sense to me, and I began to look into other religion’s beliefs and to have respect for the Bahais’ beliefs to the extent that when asked by a Muslim friend a few years later which religion I liked, I replied that I think the Bahais have the right idea about religion. The Muslim friend seemed very perturbed at this as he asked me what these Bahais believed in. I told him that they believed in lots of different prophets including Mohammad (P). He said that if they believed in Prophet Mohammad (P) and in The Quran they should be Muslims. When I asked why, he said that in The Quran there is a verse which states that Mohammad is the last Prophet (Sourate 33, verse 40).
I did not, at all, like the idea of being a Muslim as it carried with it many associations of violence, fanaticism, being undemocratic etc. but I decided that, as someone who considers himself to be open minded, I ought at least to read The Quran before making any definite decisions. Upon reading The Quran (in translation), I learnt that the Muslim does not have the right to attack anyone unless he is attacked first, that there is no compulsion in religion, that the best men are the ones who treat women well, that Muslim men and women were encouraged to get an education, that Muslims should give to the poor, and many other things which seemed to be the opposite of how I viewed the behavior of the Muslims of the world at the time.
After stalling as long as I could and getting my Muslim friend and others to verify the translation of the verse about Mohammad (P) being the last Prophet, fear of not following the Prophet whom God wanted me to follow and the realization that Mohammad (P) was that prophet who pushed me to admit to myself that I was a Muslim so I had better start getting used to it.
My first two years as a Muslim were a bit difficult as regards the attitude of the Europeans around me; but then they turned marvelous as I discovered more and more about this totally comprehensive religion which God has given us. And, to my great surprise, not only were the Muslims not at all violent or unfriendly, they were the warmest, friendliest, and certainly the most hospitable community I had ever met, and when they called me their brother you could see that the Islamic idea that all Muslims should consider themselves as members of one family was a powerful sentiment that even the egoism and selfishness of the modern world had not yet managed to eradicate.
Sometimes, I would discover later that those who at first seemed overawed about the fact that I had become a Muslim were in fact not too strict in their practice of the religion, but there was, nevertheless, a definite bond between all Muslims which only someone who had not been Muslim before could fully appreciate. One brother in particular that I met struck up an excellent friendship with me in a very short time and basis for this friendship was our attachment to Islam. However, I noticed that he seemed reluctant to pray with me and always seemed to have an excuse not to do so. Finally, during a discussion about politics, he mentioned that he liked the political system in Iran.« Just a minute, » I said,« Are you a Shiite?’’ I could tell that my brother in Islam was not too comfortable with this question, and to be honest, I was kind of dreading the reply as I had grown to like this particular brother a lot but had serious doubts about the Shiites.
Weren’t they the ones who thought that Ali (A.S.) was a prophet instead of Mohammad (P)? My first Muslim friend had told me that he was not sure whether the Shiites were Muslims or not.
« I prefer Muslim, » was the reply given by my brother. When I insisted on this point, he said that he was Shiite, and I then asked him what the difference between Sunnis and Shiites was. Already I sensed another few weeks, possibly months, of heavy reading ahead of me, but I listened intently to everything that he said as I loved this brother a lot, and I did not like this new division which had come between us.
From the very beginning of this latest research, I knew that once again, as with other religions throughout history, politics had reared its ugly head in our religion and had led my brothers in Islam astray but I did not know whether God wanted me to try to put my brother on the right track or whether, in fact, 1 was the one who would once again have to admit that I had been on the wrong track.
At first, I thought that the division had been created after what I knew to be the four enlightened Caliphs: Abou Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali (A.S.). In addition, I realized that I could not trust what the ShiiteHadiths say to prove the case of the Shiites and that I could not trust what the SunniHadiths say to prove the case of the Sunnis. I decided to start by reading Sunni books about Ali and the other Caliphs.
My first book was a Sunni book about the life of Ali (A.S.). Although it did not mention any of the GhadeerHadiths it did mention that Ali was to Mohammad« as Haroun was to Moussa » . I also noted that before the battle of Siffin, Ali said to Mu’awiya’s messenger« I had a problem with Abou Bakr, Omar, and Othman as I believed the Caliphate to be my right’’ - a statement which he also made, according to another Sunni book about Abou Bakr, six months after the beginning of Abou Bakr’s rule and thirty years before the battle of Siffin.
No research into SunniHadiths would be complete without a look at the collection of Boukhari’sHadiths and the local Sunni imam helped me in this by pointing out the section which is about the qualities of the Prophet’s companions. After reading three pages about Abou Bakr, two pages about Omar, one page about Othman, and one page on how Aisha was the best, favorite wife of the Prophet and the mother of the believers, I finally came across threeHadiths about Ali. The first was about how he didn’t like a certain nickname that people gave him. The second was: «I (Prophet Mohammad (P)) am the city of knowledge, and Ali (A.S.) is its gate ».
And the last was the one about Ali (A.S.) being to the Prophet (P) as Haroun was to Moussa.
There was also a footnote which suggested that one should be suspicious of anyHadiths about Ali.
Later, I discovered SunniHadiths such as:
« Ali is the leader of all believers after me’·’ (Attirmidhi vol 5, Page 296).
« Whosoever accepts me as leader must also accept Ali, may God protect his followers and defeat his enemies » (Muslim vol 2, Page 362) etc.
I also read manyHadiths and parts of the Qur’an which refer to Ahlul Beit.
But I loved this person called Ali (A.S.) from the very first book I read about him. I loved the way he tried, to the end, to do what he believed to be right even though it seemed that everyone was against him. I know that, in politics, those who win are usually the most corrupt, and I certainly did not like this character called Mu’awiya who seemed to me to be in search of political power above all. Also if Ali (A.S.) was the gate to the city of knowledge, how could he not know that Abou Bakr, Omar, and Othman were the best men for the job of caliphate after the Prophet’s (P) death?
Once again I realized that I had to change tack, and once again I was worried in case the people around me would take it badly. But my fears were unfounded as the Sunnis in my community who were on the whole very good and serious Muslims accepted my change of opinion and direction in a brotherly way. They tried to convince me that I was wrong at the beginning (the imam even spent ten weeks talking about the qualities of the Prophets’ companions), but when they saw that I had done a lot of research they saidAlhamdulillah you are Muslim. I continued going to the same mosque until I eventually left again to work in Pakistan, and both my Shiite Muslim brother and my first Muslim brother still treat me as if I were their real brother, and they are both like brothers to each other.
I plan to tell my parents of my conversion to Islam when I get married in the hope that this would be easier for them to accept on such an occasion. Please say some prayers for my family as well as my new found brothers and sisters in Islam.