How i became a muslim - S.Ghaffan

"While the entry into a faith like Islam is effected only after a detailed study and enquiry by the learned ones with perfect conviction, we Christians pride over our success in swelling up our ranks by mass conversions of illiterate laborers, who, by circumstances, are forced to accept the Christian doctrines without knowing what they do is right or wrong? An ignorant mind is like a blank sheet, one can draw upon it whatever one's fancy chooses and once the inscription is made to be settled upon such raw material, any artist can pride over the plate having any particular design of his own. If today to win the sympathy of the ignorant masses, we boast before our illiterate converts of our humanity and self sacrifices in the cause of the spread of our faith, will the outer world also forget the Edict of Milan, father, and will all the records of the history of the brutal outrages that Christendom committed against the poor helpless Jews, in its own passionate eagerness and anxiety to swell its ranks, all together totally vanish?" 

I continued: "If you kindly permit me father, I would like to know from you if this Bible in your hands is to be merely read memorized and preached to the others or is it to be acted upon in our daily life? If it is to be acted upon will you kindly show me father, if the Christian world could ever practice the principle of turning the other cheek also if one is already smitten? Could any sincere Christian till now, give away his shirt when his coat was taken away?

Will you, father, surrender our whole house if any body invades our residence and takes possession of any of the rooms in these premises? If the Christian powers of the world really believe in this doctrine of self surrender, why do they maintain their military and the police forces? Kindly tell me, father, if there is any earthly use of merely believing in any golden ideals which can only adorn the pages of some books and which can only be preached but never practiced. Why should we not reasonably accept the doctrine of self-defense taught by Islam and the principle of pardoning our offenders if they are repentant? For goodness sake let me know, father, how can three different ones at the same time be an absolute one, both numerically and also in the essential nature of perfect unity? On what reasonable grounds can the one who is forsaken by God, be God Himself and if Jesus is to be believed as the son of God what claim to the relationship with his father can a forsaken son have?" 

"What right has Christendom to claim any truth in it when its spread was caused by the inhuman atrocities committed by the Christian forces against the poor helpless Jews? The conduct of the brutal outrages committed in the holy name of Christ, has been fully reported even by the Christian authorities on Edict of Milan and by the world renowned Christian Scholar Gibbon in his famous work, 'The Decline and the Fall of the Roman Empire ."

"The Doctrine of Atonement through the blood of Christ, will naturally attract those sinner who have sinned and who do not want to give up sinning under the protection of the doctrine that the price of their sins has already been paid away and however much worst sinners they themselves choose to be, they will not in the least be chastised for their heinous crimes, for, after Jesus having paid away for the sins of man, God must have forfeited His claim to punish the sinners thereafter."

"I tell you father, that whatever be the consequences and whatever misfortune may afflict me, I as one, have decided not to sell away or forfeit my conscience and common sense to the belief in such unreasonable dogmatic doctrines. I have embraced Islam, and if you do not get angry with me and kindly allow me to explain to you the details of my enquiries, I will do it whenever I am wanted to do so I do not like any thought or belief of mine to be swallowed by anyone by force, for the religion Islam, which I now openly declare to have embraced, enjoins that there shall not be any compulsion in the matter of faith as the truth has been revealed against falsehood." 

To my utter surprise I found my father fully attentive to exposing my personal views and convictions and at the end he said: 

"Son! Do not think that your father is a fool I have been occasionally confronted with such ideas during my life whenever I had the occasion of discussing religion with my Muslim friends. But today the sincerity and the boldness with which you expose your own convictions make me bold to decide about the matter. I shall tell you later but, for God's sake keep this matter strictly confined to you. Otherwise be sure we will be thrown out into the street as destitute." 

A few days later my father had a long talk and he decided to declare himself a Muslim. The details of our sufferings and the social persecution we had to pass through is a history by itself. 

I, now, for the information and guidance of every seeker after Truth, openly declare the actual findings of my sincere enquiry that Islam is not only the last of the mighty religions which had revolutionized the world and changed the destinies of nations, but it is also the perfect and all inclusive faith which contains in itself all the good, found partly in all other religions which had preceded it. One of the most distinguishing and striking characteristics of Islam is that it requires of its followers to believe that all the religions of the world that preceded it were revealed by God for the respective people of those ages. 

It is one of the fundamentals of this faith that its followers must believe in all the Prophets who were sent into the world before the Holy Prophet MUHAMMAD as truthful and sinless. 

Muhammad is the name of the Holy Prophet through whom all this comprehensive Faith was revealed in its complete or perfect form and meaning, for humanity as a whole for all times. It is the West that named this Faith as Mohammadanism on the fashion of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. Otherwise the name of this religious order is already given in its book the Holy Quran as ISLAM as quite opposed to the method of naming the order after its founder, the founder of Islam himself is called a MUSLIM as any other believer. As the various prophets preached this same Truth among different nations at different times in different languages, every Apostle of God is spoken of in the Holy Quran as a Muslim. 

Thus I have found, beyond all doubts that Islam is the religion which humanity needs for its progress in all spheres or aspects of its material as well as Spiritual life, to earn Salvation in the end. 

A Muslim has to believe in all the prophets as truthful and sinless and their holy books as the true word of God, revealed for the people and for the age, and also believes in Muhammad as the last of the apostles of God and his book i.e. the holy Quran as the last of the revealed Word of God to abide forever. 

In short, a Muslim embraces, through the holy Quran. Every beauty in every religion, and turns his face from that which has been added to the religion of God by man, and that is Islam. 

With the truth sufficiently explained, will not every one of us love it? Or will not every one of us embrace it? 

This solemn declaration I make just to be helpful to those who sincerely desire to know the Truth which they need for themselves to live the life in this world to reach the blissful destination which is called salvation. 

None can ever deny that there can never be any other way to please God than completely surrendering ourselves to His Will, an act which is called ISLAM. 

Thus the promise of the Lord to Abraham's seed was fulfilled in the Advent and success of the Holy Prophet in establishing the Truth for all times: 

New Testament Acts: 3:22-25 

"For Moses truly said unto the fathers, a Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your breathren, like unto me, him shall ye hearken-in all things whatsoever he shall stay unto you." 

"And it shall come to pass, that every soul which will not near that Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people." 

"Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days." 

"Ye are the children of the Prophets, and of the Covenant which God made with our fathers saying unto Abraham. And in thy seed shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed." 

I once again make it openly known that this true and sincere declaration of some facts is meant for not anyone who does not like to know anything against his fixed belief, but for those free thinkers who are seriously busy in search of the Truth and are ready to acknowledge it irrespective of the quarter or the agency through which it manifests. 

Let me conclude with my sincerest thanks and gratitude to the merciful Lord for I have realized the fulfillment of His merciful promise to guide aright those who sincerely seek the truth.  

By S. Ghaffan

"There is not a nation but a Warner has gone among them." (Quran 35:24) 

It convinced me that Islam alone, is an all comprehensive faith which recognizes all other religions and which contains in it a perfectly harmonious integration of all the good, found partly in the other religious orders of the world. The sacred book of Islam i.e. the Holy Quran, is the final exposition of the Divine Truth in its Perfection which was revealed at different times, through the other heavenly scriptures, in parts suiting the various evolutionary levels. 

The above verses of the Holy Quran bear clear of conception by the human minds. The limitation testimony to the, fact that, as one of the fundamentals of the human mind of the different ages, did not of his Faith, every Muslim has to believe not only allow even prophets like Jesus to speak out the whole in the Holy Prophet Muhammad but in all the other of the truth. Jesus had to depart with many things prophets as truthful and holy and should not make yet to be told to his people. (John. 16:14). Jesus had to tell his people to wait until the advent of the Spirit of Truth to disclose the whole of the Truth. (John 16:13) 

I was further impressed by the Universal aspect of the religion Islam. 

Every answer from the Lecturer was with an unchallengeable authority and with an unbreakable argument. I was awakened to differentiate between genuine truth and the fabrications of falsehood and to know many new factors to which I was blind all these years. But I did not know how to reconcile the dawn of true knowledge of truth with my original blind dogmatic belief and my belonging to the Christian faith any longer. I wanted to find out some failure on the part of the Lecturer to answer satisfactorily some questions or the other, so that I may have some excuse, be that even a false one, to maintain my position in the Christian faith. 

The Lecturer continued after some time with the question: 

"Shall I ask you something if you do not mind answering it for my information? " 

I said: "Yes". 

He asked: "Do you think Jesus to be a son of God or God himself?" 

I said: "Jesus, according to the Christian belief is God Himself in the form of His Son." 

He asked: "Can you ever conceive anyone to be the immortal God and at the same time be a mortal (Man) to be caught in the hands of other mortals to suffer death? Can anything be high and at the same time low, black and at the same time be white? Can there be darkness and the same time light? What philosophy is this?" 

The Lecturer continued saying:  

"Do you ever consider that there is one other question confronting the doctrine of the Trinity which needs to be answered by every Trinitarian that if any three different beings which are three different entities, are also at the same time One, with absolute unity in all the perfect sense or meaning of Oneness, what is the common control which makes them remain three and also be one at one and the same time? If there be any factor of such a wonderful and inconceivable phenomena causing this amazing effect, then that supreme causative power, which controls the number and the unity, will alone be the Omnipotent God and not any one of the three which are only the controlled components." 

"Besides, there arises another problematic question which a believer in the Trinity will have to answer i.e. as to whom is that controls or determines the splitting of one into only three different others, to be neither more nor less in number? There must be some cause for this controlled effect and that the causative factor acting supreme over three will be the Omnipotent God and not any one of the three which will only be the effect of the supreme controlling cause." 

"Similarly, will arise the question, what is the causative power which affects the three to be only one when joining together and not divided into many groups of beings and if there be any such cause, that supreme controlling cause will be the Omnipotent God and not anyone of the three which will only be the subservient one." 

"Under any circumstances no sensible man can ever reasonably believe in any effect whatsoever without some causative factor effecting it." 

"However the Holy Trinity is only a problematic doctrine created by the Christian Church which no logical reasoning can ever prove true." 

I had to helplessly agree to the views of the Lecturer for I could not now reasonably believe in the existence of anything being itself and at the same time being its own opposite. 

"I would like you, Mr. Joseph" said the Lecturer, "to ponder a little over the belief that Jesus being God Himself or the son of God, was so terrified at the impending crucifixion that he shouted: 

"Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani" (My God, My God, hast thou forsaken me?) (Matthew 27:46) 

"What philosophy is that? If Jesus was God Himself, does it mean that God was forsaken by God Himself and can that be God who felt hopeless and shouted to be rescued? 

"Your Bible itself, Mr. Joseph, reports that the son of God was forsaken by his father (God) in which case the forsaken son automatically and quite naturally forfeits his personal merits as a son and his relationship of being a son to his father. What do you say? Of what profitable use can the attachment to a forsaken son be? Mr. Joseph, please tell me." 

I was struck dumb - I did not know what to say and what to do with the faith I already possessed as a staunch Christian. 

"Besides," the Lecturer continued: "Do you think Jesus to be God Himself when he falls down crying, praying to someone else to remove the cup of death by crucifixion? " 

I asked: "Alright Sir, how do you reconcile the violence used by the Prophet of Islam to his being an Apostle of God?" 

Immediately came the reply from the Lecturer: "Please, Mr. Joseph, quote a single instance from the whole life history of the Holy Prophet Muhammad to show that he has ever committed any unprovoked aggression or any single instance of his taking the least initiative in attacking any single soul. Each expedition of a battle he led or he allowed was only in self-defense. Had he not defended as he did, today his advent in this world and his teachings about the truth about God which the world has learnt only through his holy mission, would have become legends of ancient times full of blasphemies for you and for me, only to be read in story books and thus be deluded by falsehood for all times. The Bible does not preach self-defense. The Bible only preaches self-surrender to the extent of handing over everything of one's possession when anything which was in one's hand has been taken away by any aggressor. Does any Christian power follow this?" 

"Apart from the political history of the Christian nations of Europe do you not remember the inhuman methods employed by Christendom to spread its faith?"