# Famous Asian Model Converts to Islam! - "I Was Enslaved; Islam Gave Me Freedom!”

- Language: en
- Published: 2026-08-26
- Canonical: https://blog.towardseternity.com/en/blog/famous-asian-model-converts-to-islam-i-was-enslaved-islam-gave-me-freedom
- Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPLwLX5-0yQ
- Channel: Towards Eternity

This is the cleaned transcript of the source video. The speech is unaltered.

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I grew up in America. My father is a pastor of the Presbyterian Church. Being wanted or being famous, your life becomes very controlled. It looks like you're in control and looks very glamorous, but actually, now you're tied to, for example, I was tied to an agency. I felt like the agency was just sucking out my soul. I don't make any choices. I just felt like I was so empty. Who am I? Who is Aliza? I don't even know anymore. I was enslaved. Like I could feel the depression like rising. I just felt this darkness rising inside of me and I thought, I need spirituality now. Around the same time, I befriended one person in Malaysia who actually prayed five times a day.

So He gave me some pamphlets. One after another, just changing my mindset. By the end, He said, "Hey Aliza, I think you know quite a lot. I think you should become a Muslim." If Allah wants me to do this, I can't stop it. And I felt light, just so light. And it was freedom. Who is Aliza Kim? Can you tell us briefly about your life? I am a Thai American. I was born in Enid, Oklahoma, a very small town, um, to a pastor. So my father is a pastor of the Presbyterian Church. I grew up in America. Once I graduated from my master's degree, I moved to Thailand where I got into actually the Miss Thailand pageant.

So, um, from there, um, I began acting and modeling, and I ended up in Malaysia, where I became a Muslim 12 years ago. Alhamdulillah (all praise is due to Allah). How was your life in regards to faith? What were you believing in? I was born into a Christian, religious Christian family. Um, my father is a Presbyterian pastor. Um, my grandfather is a pastor, my uncle is a pastor, and, um, they were quite high-ranking in Thailand anyway. So, when I was born in Oklahoma, my father was getting his PhD in theology. And so I grew up very much in the church. Um, I started singing in the choir when I was three, and so the practice of Christianity was always there. I went to church, um, every Sunday.

Even in college, I sang in a Christian a cappella group. So Christianity was a big thing for me, spirituality, believing in God. I remember even exams, you know? I would think, oh, I didn't study enough, but I'd have my cross, and I'd take it there and I'd put it on my desk, and I, if I did well, I will think this is the hand of God. So I was quite a religious girl, but I always prayed to God the Father. I never prayed to Jesus. I never prayed to God the Son. What was the thing that made you question your beliefs? It actually began with my, I guess, gaining a little bit of fame. So, um, I have actually been on TV since I was 12. This is a world that is familiar to me.

Um, I think my mom liked seeing me blossom and being able to be a little bit outgoing. So, um, when she saw that I could speak more, then I got into kids' modeling and this kind of thing. Once I finished my master's degree, I flew back to Thailand to have a "vacation" with my dad. Now, when I got to Thailand, my dad decided, okay, well, he didn't decide. He had to go on a business trip to Geneva, and he left me alone for two weeks. So during this time, there was an advertisement for the Miss Thailand pageant. And I thought, well, this is going to be a free two-week vacation for me. My dad's gone. I might as well have this, you know, nice vacation.

So I went in, I'm not very tall, so I thought, I'm not, I'm not, this is not going to happen, you know? I'm just going to go for the free food. But I got to the top five, and I'm thinking, what am I doing? But that opened up a lot of doors. So, um, I finished the pageant, everything, started doing TV commercials, and it was actually the TV commercials that brought me to Malaysia. So I, um, came to Malaysia to do that as well. Um, I did a reality show, this kind of thing. I ended up in a telemovie, so a movie that was meant for TV, and it was a vampire movie. And my crew was Malay Muslim.

Although at that time, very American, I didn't think anything about religion or anything once I had landed here. I didn't think, you know, these women in headscarves were Muslim. I was just like, oh, this is the fashion here. I didn't think that the men in the beards, they were Muslim. I was just like, oh, they like facial hair here. I didn't think about it. And then so I got on the set, and then I couldn't understand how come my crew and my director and all the other actors, how come they're not eating during the day? And then they're eating so much at night. I didn't know that it was Ramadan. I just didn't know, but I just knew that they weren't eating.

They were asking me to eat, but they weren't eating. So I was like, okay, this is strange. I guess the analogy that I can give is that sometimes we'll see the Hollywood actors, after some fame, you see them fall into depression or worse than that. And you're thinking, why? You have everything. You have everything. What are you doing? So I started to feel that because the feelings were, do people want to know me and become my friends because of me, or is it because of what they think I am? And not only that, because at a certain level of being wanted or being famous, your life becomes very controlled.

It looks like you're in control, and it looks very glamorous, but actually, now you're tied to, for example, I was tied to an agency. And so, I felt like the agency was just sucking out my soul, I guess you could say. Because if you can imagine, once you're at a certain level, at least in the, in the commercial modeling industry, you wake up in the morning, you go on set, you don't need to comb your hair, no nothing. You can just roll into set wearing whatever-- your pajamas if you wanted. As soon as I sit down, someone comes to brush my hair, someone comes to give me my clothes, someone comes to do my makeup, someone comes to give me my food.

I don't make any choices to the point where I didn't, I didn't even know what kind of eggs I liked to eat. I didn't even know what kind of haircut I wanted. Even if I had a haircut on set and then the client comes and they're like, "Oh, we don't really like that hair," they will bring someone from the salon to cut my hair there. So, I just felt like I was so empty. Who am I? Who is Aliza? I don't even know anymore. Don't know how to dress myself. I just don't know. So, I felt like my life was spiraling and that I was quite empty inside and I could feel just as though I'm, I'm just about to slip into nothingness.

And it wasn't that, I just, to tell you the truth, I didn't know what happiness was anymore. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what to feel because I only felt what my script told me. If I was supposed to be sad that day, I'm sad that day. If I'm supposed to be happy that day, I'm happy that day. I didn't even know how I felt. I couldn't clip nails without reporting it to someone. If my skin couldn't get more tan without telling someone because then the makeup would change, and I couldn't lose or gain 300 grams because my facial features and my body would change. I was enslaved. I was so empty and just so lost. So I always felt like, who am I?

From being a very confident American girl, like I could feel the depression like rising. I just felt this darkness rising inside of me, and I thought, I need spirituality now. So at first, of course, I'm a pastor's daughter, I started to look into Christianity and I bought stacks of books to the point where my father was asking me, "Are you going to go to seminary? Are you about to become a preacher or what is it?" So I bought a bunch of books thinking, okay, I always relied on God since I was a little girl. I'm going to ground myself in religion. So I thought, okay, if I'm going to do this as an adult, not as a child just listening to some preacher, I'm going to do this properly.

I'm going to do a research. So I started to read. And to tell you the truth, I'm not really an avid reader, not really. But here's where Allah has started to really guide me on my journey, because I believe that if I could find the earliest church, this is what my mission was, I'm going to find the earliest church, figure out how they were worshiping, that's how I'm going to worship God because that's how He's going to be pleased. Because I knew that Christianity had so many denominations. At that time, it was like 200 different denominations. I said, it just can't be. There's got to be one that has to be the best one.

And when I read the history of how the Bible was put together, I was thinking, now wait a minute, how can a group of men decide what's going to go into the manuscript that's supposed to be coming from God? How can you decide that? That's ridiculous. How can you decide this is going to be in, this is going to be out? That's shocking. Can't. I can't bring myself to trust the Bible. So I thought, okay, let's not think about that anymore. This is freaking me out. So I put the Bible aside and I thought, okay, can't look at the Bible. Let's just look at history. Of course, Christian history is very bloody.

And I thought, if you have to kill that much to convince people and force people to believe, it doesn't feel right. So now Bible is out, history is out. I'm thinking, now what? As a Christian girl, yeah, I can forget to pray, but not only that, I liked to dance back then. If I go dancing one night, Saturday night, and I'm wearing whatever I'm wearing and I'm doing whatever I'm doing, and then I go to church the next morning, is that okay? Not really okay. So I'm thinking, oh, there's some loopholes here. I don't know, I don't know if I'm okay with the loopholes. I'm trying not to think about it, but I'm, I'm not sure if I'm okay with it. I still haven't written Christianity off.

I thought maybe I just needed more research. Around the same time, I befriended one person in Malaysia who actually prayed five times a day. Before this, I had not met anyone who prayed five times a day. My circles just, we just didn't have it. And I would look at my friend and they would do this, Mashallah (as Allah wills), this full-body prayer five times a day. And I would look at them and I would think, I'm a pastor's daughter. I don't pray five times a day. If I forget to pray for two months, nothing happens, you know? So this one friend, they suggested that I attend a class with them, a class that they were going to. And it was a class at Sheikh Hussain Yee's Islamic center.

I didn't know who he was. I was quite scared. What am I supposed to wear? I'm a model. It's not like I have any clothes that's going to be appropriate. So then I went to Sheikh Hussain's, um, Islamic center. So he gave me some pamphlets, and I tell you, these pamphlets were as though they were put in order by Allah for me. That's the way I felt. The first one, I still remember, the first pamphlet was called Anatu. Anatu is the god of the Aboriginals in, um, in Australia. And the reason why Anatu is because their concept of God is the one who doesn't eat and doesn't go to the toilet. So this was going towards Tawhid (the concept of monotheism).

So one after another, just changing my mindset, and I found it very easy. And he was telling the stories of the prophets, so I was thinking, it's, it's kind of familiar. I couldn't catch that Ibrahim is Abraham. I couldn't catch it. I couldn't catch that Musa is Moses. I couldn't catch it. It's just Arabic was just so foreign to my ears at that time. Sometimes people ask, well, you were a model, you were in this industry, all these things. Was it difficult? Not really. Even as a model, I wasn't like the stereotypical model. I didn't go and party and all these things. I would sit in the corner and read my book and just wait for my turn, kind of thing.

So I was thinking, and you know what, this actually, whatever I'm reading resonates with me and fits with my values. I always felt like someone that just was in a position that didn't feel like me. Like, yes, I was in modeling and acting and so many people want to be in that industry, and I felt blessed that I was in that industry, but I never felt like I was in my own skin. When I started to read these pamphlets, I felt like the values in there aligned with me so nicely, you know? So it wasn't, it wasn't hard. Understanding Tawhid (the concept of monotheism), under--, just all these shifting parts fitting together like a puzzle. You know what? I think Islam is more like a concept.

So, so that means I could understand that tracing all the way back to Adam, we've had Islam all along. We've had Muslims all along. I understood. So now I had to think— and I think this is the overthinking, kind of perfectionist, nerdy part of me— man, I want to be a good Muslim, though. Can I be a good Muslim? I don't want to become a Muslim and then I start sinning right away. This is my logic at that time. And I thought, okay, so I need to learn a couple of things. I thought, okay, I need to learn Arabic, learn how to pray, all these things, right? And at that time was when Ustadh (teacher) Sharif intercepted.

I had actually, the day that he started to talk to me like more seriously, I had actually booked a volunteer from Al Khaadem. I thought, okay, I need to know how early do these people wake up, you know, how long does, how long does it take to put on a hijab? Must take a long time. Aren't they hot? And how do they fast? Because at that time, I was even skinnier than this. I was like, I'm, I'm quite skinny. How are you supposed to fast? Am I, am I going to get sick? So I thought, okay, I'm going to follow a lady for a week. I'm going to go to her house at 5 a.m. and just do whatever she does and just see if I can do it.

So I was supposed to meet my volunteer that day, but it was a Sunday, which was the usual class. So I went to class first and Ustadh (teacher) Sharif intercepted first. He was like, "Hey Aliza, so what do you know so far? Do you want to have a chat?" In my heart, I was like, no, Ustadh, I've already done my research. I already feel like a Muslim. I don't need to talk. But he was just so nice that I thought, okay, let me go and sit down with him and just have a chat. So we went into Sheikh Hussain's house actually, and we, we sat down and he started to listen to whatever I'm telling you now actually, so, and then by the end he said, "Hey Aliza, I think you know quite a lot.

I think you should become a Muslim now." And I'm like, uh, I have a volunteer that I'm meeting in like 15 minutes. I think not today. Then he asked me, "Well, what's stopping you?" So I told him, I feel like I need to learn Arabic, and I feel like I need to read the Quran, I feel like I need to learn how to pray. I feel like at least I should know some Hadith (Prophet's sayings). And he's looking at me, and he asked, I remember the question, and I think he finally, or maybe he already knew, he detected the perfectionism. He kind of detected that, and he's like, "Well, how long do you think you're going to take to do that? 20 years? 30 years?

50 years?" And then— and I, I don't know if this is going to sound silly to you and the viewers or not— but the thing that made me cry, and you have to remember I've already been on this research study for like three months or something like that, and then, and yeah. And I wanted the knowledge so bad. I wanted to understand so that I could be a good Muslim. So he said, "Aliza, don't you know that Allah (praised and exalted) only reserves that level of knowledge that you want for a Muslim?" So now, this went inside of me and hit my heart and made it hurt. But by that time, I was crying because I was hurt that I couldn't be, I couldn't be perfect. But I understood.

In that moment, I understood. And Allah put into my heart, number one, to think, you know, Aliza, if Allah (praised and exalted) has taken you on this journey and has already shown you that you've been Muslim your whole life, don't you think that He's going to help you with your father? Don't you think that He's going to help you with your family? So that one was eased. And then I thought, you know, Ustadh (teacher) is right. Every single thing that I've been saying, it's a little bit of showing off. Showing off what I know, showing off what I feel, but it's been, it's just been lip service. I've just been saying it with my lips.

But until I declare myself with Shahada (declaration of faith), I haven't really done anything except for just talk, just say a few words. Why should Allah give me that knowledge when I can't even take the step to submit myself? I understood. So when I was crying the heaviest because I think, Mashallah (as Allah wills), of course, Ustadh was very familiar with Shahadas (declarations of faith), I think he saw that I got to a point of understanding more deep. Then he asked, yeah, "Are you ready?" In that conversation, unplanned, about to go see my volunteer. But I understood. The last thing that I thought once he asked me, if Allah wants me to do this, I can't stop it.

If Allah wants me, I can't stop it. So I said my Shahada (declaration of faith). How was the feeling? The feeling, I'm getting it now. Once you say the Shahada in Arabic, you, you're a little bit blur because you don't even know if you're pronouncing it correctly. But once I said it in English, it, I'm having it now. There's a tingling that goes from the top of your head and it goes down the back of your neck and it goes down your whole body. And I'm feeling it even in my knees and into my feet now. And you feel this wave, and it's as though your old life is just leaving.

Your old life is leaving, that new life is entering from head to, you know, from top to bottom, just like how Adam, his Ruh (spirit) was blown in from top to bottom. I felt it. And then, once it went to my toes, you know how sometimes when the TV station goes out, you have that eeh, that beep? I heard my ears beep. Even my eyesight went a little bit pink. I don't, even my vision was a little bit different. And then I felt light, just so light, so light. Like, wow, okay, so this is it, so light. And immediately after that, um, it was Adhan (call to prayer) for Asr (afternoon prayer). And I went to make Wudu (ablution) without knowing how to make the Wudu.

Someone said, "Do this, do that, do this, don't do that. Okay, do this." And I went immediately to the prayer hall at Al Khaadem and I stood next to another friend that I had made. The whole time, like this, only like this. Only like this, okay like this. And that was my first prayer and as far as I can remember, I haven't missed a prayer since. The first Sajda (prostration) that I understood was at Maghrib (sunset prayer) that night. I went to see my volunteer with her friends. There were five of them. Four of them were reverts. And so, um, we met in the cafe and then after that, we went to one of their houses for Maghrib (sunset prayer).

So my first Imam (prayer leader) was a man, my second Imam was a lady. And the four reverts taught me at that time to make, uh, make Sajda (prostration), the last one, a little bit longer and to make, uh, to make dua (supplication) during the last one because that's when Allah would be accepting. And I'll tell you the one dua that I made every single Salah (prayer) until the end of the year. And I remember the exact words because I said it every single Salah. "Oh Allah, please let my parents accept me as their Muslim daughter." So, the first hot question I usually get once I tell my revert story is, "Well, what happened to your dad?

What happened to your mom?" And I tell you, it's really the power of dua (supplication) because I was still very scared. I was worried. By December was the big day that I had to tell my father that, you know, I had already become a Muslim. This was my promise to Allah. So I took him for dinner. Full man is a happy man first. So that was a strategy. And also remember, it has been one full year of dua (supplication), the same dua that I just said, "Ya Rabb (O, Lord), please, please help my parents accept me as a Muslim daughter." It was over and over, over and over, I didn't give up on that.

And at the end of dessert, I got my courage and I said to my dad, "Dad, I have to update you about me and Islam." And then after that, he said, "Okay, Aliza, you don't have to say anything." Oh no. But after that, my dad just said the most beautiful words, the most beautiful words. He said, "You know what, Aliza? If you believe in the God of Abraham, same like me, I'm happy. And if this religion anchors your heart and gives you peace, it's okay. You go ahead. And you don't have to worry about me, and you don't have to worry about Mom, and you don't have to worry about our family." And then he listed up because we have Buddhists in our family, we have Catholics, we have Protestants.

Now we have a Muslim. So it's going to be okay. And it was just the most beautiful, the most beautiful, soft words, most beautiful. And of course, the next question will be, well, what about my mother? My mother was in America. And my plan, because I'm a clever daughter, my plan was to tell Dad because Dad is the more soft one, and after he visits me, he always goes to visit my mom. My mom was still living in Boston at that time. She has, uh, kidney disease, so she was taking care of herself. So the plan was tell Dad, Dad tells Mom. So my dad goes off to Boston, and they call me, of course, once he lands, everything, he lands everything.

I said, "Okay, tomorrow he's going to tell me that he's already told her." One day goes by, two days goes by. I'm like, I don't want to tell Mom. Mom's going to ask me so many things. But about five days goes, five days goes by. And so I then I had, I had to ask my dad, "Dad, be quiet, okay Dad, did you tell Mom yet? She's not saying anything." And he just casually says, "Yeah, I told Mom already. There's nothing. You want to talk to her about it?" I'm like, "No, no, no, I don't want to talk to her about it." So the story of my parents was just so easy. It was just so easy. And I fully, fully, fully, fully believe that it was because of the dua (supplication).

Never, never, never give up on the dua (supplication). Never forget the dua. Keep going for the dua until you get it. When I became a Muslim, I realized that I had a family. I had a family for the first time that didn't care if I did well in my studies, and they didn't care what my past was. Just being another Muslim sister was enough for them to be kind and to take care of me, even when I was in trouble. And I never had that. I'm an only child. I grew up alone. I have a family. And even if at first I didn't feel it, I was like, why is everyone calling each other sister, brother? I didn't feel it at first, but now it's like, I see a hijabi, she's my sister.

I don't, I don't care where she's from. I don't know, I don't know her, but she's my sister. When I'm walking in Thailand, sometimes I don't know if he's a Muslim, but a brother will walk past and I'll hear, "Assalamualaikum (peace be upon you)." And I'll, "Waalaikumsalam (and upon you be peace)," back. When Islam came into my life, first, of course, I aligned with the values. And then I started to align with the look. And what I found was that with the hijab, people now heard my voice. People now heard my voice. People now heard my intelligence, which I was craving so much because I couldn't share it. I couldn't share my voice. I couldn't share my opinions. I couldn't share anything.

And it was freedom. It was freedom from that enslavement. So Islam is freedom, freedom of the mind, freedom of the voice, freedom to choose who sees what, what I wear. Mashallah (as Allah wills). As a woman who has accepted Islam, do you think this religion devalues women, degrades women? Okay, so, um, there's a misconception, another misconception that Islam degrades and devalues and oppresses women. But I would say that this is so far from the truth. Now, I will admit that sometimes in certain places, culture comes in to the play of how Islam is, you know, practiced, but if we look at the pure Islam, I kind of feel bad for the men, sorry.

I, I, I kind of feel a little bit bad for the men because the men are the ones that really have to go out and they have so much responsibility, whereas Allah has actually lifted the women to so much comfort, actually. The men are supposed to take care of the women financially, physically, mentally, everything, everything. The women, we cook for the men out of charity, you know, we do their laundry out of charity. And of course, we please them to please Allah. But, you know, being a woman in Islam amongst properly practicing men, Mashallah (as Allah wills), Mashallah, you are not oppressed. They will... I, I mean, my voice is heard, I feel seen, I feel protected.

If I'm amongst practicing men, my goodness, there was a time when I was working in an NGO, an Islamic NGO, and we used to take turns giving the Tafkirah (reminder). When it was my turn, all the men will look away or they will look down. They would, they would give me enough respect not to stare. They will listen to my words and they will listen to my reminder, but they will give me so much respect. Even when I go eat at Chili's, Chili's, American restaurant, but in Malaysia, it's halal. I remember I was in whatever I'm in, and the waiter, um, is from Bangladesh. As soon as he saw me, he, "Hello!" He, he looked at the table. "Hello, ma'am.

How, how can I help you?" You know, the whole time, he would look at the table. He gave me enough respect. Mashallah (as Allah wills). Why Islam out of hundreds of lifestyles, religions? So this is also one of the top questions: why Islam? So my answer is because I like the Shari'ah (Islamic law). I like the, I like the rules. And everyone is always very shocked, "You like the rules? What is that supposed to mean? You like the rules? We don't like the rules," my, my born Muslim friends. "We run away from the rules. What are you talking about?" So I said, you know what?

Having come from the head space of being so lost and so empty and having lived the so-called semi-celebrity lifestyle, whatever, I feel the contrast. From not really knowing what you're doing, whether it's right or wrong, to being very clear, knowing that this is correct, this is not correct, and whatever is in between, as long as you're doing something that is not against Islam, Alhamdulillah (all praise is due to Allah). It's very clear. I know how to position my life. I know what to do. So I like the rulings. And even when there are some rulings that we don't understand, why is it two male witnesses or one male witness to two, you know, females? Why? There's always a good answer.

There's always a good answer. If there's one girl, she wants to seek her value in looking beauty, beautiful to the people around her, or just fame or other things, what would you say to that person? Really ask yourself if those things are really going to make you happy, because when you are putting on that makeup and that hair and that, those clothes and all of those things, if you really think about it, you're outsourcing your happiness to those other people. You're drawing on their validation and their acceptance of you so that you'll be happy. It's on them. Your value is with them. And what about the fame? Is the fame really the thing that's going to satisfy you?

The fame is also external. The fame is also coming from other people. You can't be famous unless other people are the ones telling you that you're so great. So is that really something that you want for yourself? Maybe it is, but there's other ways to be famous. You can be famous with the angels. Okay, but that's, you can't see it. You can also be famous because of your goodness. You can be famous because of your, how, you know, righteous you are. If you're telling me that you can be confident in yourself in whatever and looking however and you can still project your voice, you can still be interesting, you can still be proud of yourself, okay, maybe I'll believe you that, yeah.

Find your self-worth within yourself and study Islam, because Islam is the thing that is going to give you back your honor. Islam is the thing that is going to give your voice back, is going to give your dignity back, is going to make you realize that you're more than clothes, more than hair. Search within yourself and keep looking for those answers and don't stop until you have them.