''FBI Is Here! What Have You Done?" - The Story Of An American Missionary Who Converted To Islam
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What was the thing that made you question your beliefs? I was a missionary I grew up in a place called the Bible Belt, which there's more churches than there are McDonald's. And he looked at me and he stuck his finger in my face and he says, You're a muslim man. I returned the finger and I said, No, I'm not a muslim. My name and that word will never be connected. He says the FBI's here. What have you done? What have you done? And the guy puts a Kalashnikov. The two people that were with me, they just hit the ground. I looked and I said ‘’La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah’’ Assalamu aleikum wa rahmetullahi wa barakatuhu I'm Haroon. American Muslim revert. I'm 43 years old.
I live in south Mississippi. I have a farm. I'm a farmer. I've been a muslim since. Since 1998, 99 somewhere right around there. I lived in Saudi Arabia, moved there when I was 20. I lived there for ten years After that, I moved back to the United States, where I live now. What was the thing that made you question your beliefs? So I was a Southern Baptist Christian. I grew up in a place called the Bible Belt, which there's more churches than there are McDonald's. I studied the Bible. I was a youth minister. I was a missionary. I served in a mission in Guatemala time. When I exited Christianity, I was a youth minister in a Southern Baptist church. That's how it pretty much led me to here.
How did you first hear about Islam? I was in high school and I learned about they they taught us all the different religions, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Of course, it was slanted. The people that were teaching, that were all Southern Baptists like me, which they were not going to give the whole truth. But thank God, you know the test that we had, it gave the five pillars of Islam. It told us that Mohammed, peace be upon him, was a prophet. Of course, when it was taught to me, it was like, well, this is what they believe. And that was from when Abraham left Ishmael in the desert. Isaac was the one that was to carry the Prophethood. That was the way it was explained.
But they did give a good picture of Islam. There was nothing mentioned that would damage the religion. It was just saying, well, that's for them and this is for us. What was the think that made you question your beliefs? So reading the Bible in the New Testament, studying Jesus, peace be upon Him with the Christian belief that Jesus was God and He was also the Son of God. That's what took me away, because he never said, I'm your God. Pray to me. It came later on with the apostle Paul or Saul, and also in the Book of Matthew there is a place where he was with three of the we'll say Sahaba. He was with the three of the apostles and he was going into a garden where he told these three.
He says ‘’wait here’’, because if they find me, they'll kill me. That was a very human trait. That's something that if a God was saying something like that would be like, I don't care what you do, I'm going to go here. I'm not worried. So at least that was the thing that I knew was true. And then I prayed to God alone. And that was the, I say, evolution of how I became Muslim. Can you tell us about your journey from Christianity to Islam? I'll tell you the story, how it happened. I had been 19. Probably right around 20. I was driving to church. I was going to teach my youth ministry, which they were from 15 to 18. That was that was the age group that I was teaching.
I was at war with myself, like I needed God. I needed him in my life. I needed the right path to God. I was sitting there. I had my Wrigley's spearmint, chewing gum in my mouth. I was chewing and I'm driving my Ford F-150 down a highway in Mississippi going to church. I said, okay, God, please show me the way. Show me this path that you want me to be in. Show me the truth. I need it now. Know. Please, God, please give it to me. And it just in my mind, I said, you know what? I'm going to take this gum and I'm not going to look and I'm going to throw it. And I said, if it goes out that window, then I'm no longer going to believe in Jesus is God, and I'm just going to pray to God.
So I threw that piece of chewing gum, and then I turned my head and I looked. I looked down, I looked down. I pulled over on the side of the highway. I got out. I walked around the truck. I opened the door. I searched high. I searched low. The gum was gone. Got back in the truck and I passed right by the church. So after this event had taken place, I met someone that I knew when I was in college studying. He's from Saudi Arabia. His name is Ali El-Gamaty. He's from the very southern tip of Saudi Arabia, a place called Bisha. We had met up. He asked me, he says, What's your religion? And I told him, I said, I'm without religion. He says, What do you mean? What's this?
There's no such thing as without religion. What do you believe? I said, Well, I pray to God. And he said, okay. He said, So are you a Christian? I said, No, I'm not a Christian. He said, Well, what do you think? Jesus, peace be upon him is. I said, He's a prophet. He's a man just like me and you. He says, So he's not the Son of God. And I said, No, he's a man. He's a prophet. He delivered a word and he delivered a message. And, you know, I believe what he came what he said was true. And he said, okay. He says, well, what do you think about the Prophet Muhammad? Peace be upon him. And I said, well, he says, Do you think he's a prophet? I said, Yeah, I do. I said, I think he's a prophet.
He had a word also, but I don't believe that was for me. I believe that it was for a different group of people and he looked at me and he stuck his finger in my face and he says, You're a muslim man. And then I returned the finger and I said, no. I said, I'm not a muslim. And my name and that word will never be connected. So that day there was something inside me. It was like a dot. There was some type of dot that had been put in my heart. So back in the day, I had my old Packer bill. You know, it was not many people know what a Packard Bell is today. They don't exist. And so I would I go on there and I would ask Jeeves which Jeeves was the Google of today back then.
So I would go and Ask Jeeves, just type in Islamic topics. One day I'd come home from work and I was, you know, just following my normal routine, come home from work, take off my shoes and everything and get comfortable and sat down at my computer. You know, what is Islam? You know give the five pillars of Islam. When I read them for some reason, I read Lailahe illallah Muhammedur resulallah and I said, I believe that. And then I read you know make Hajj to fast. To pay zakat, to pray. Every pillar that I read. It was like something had opened. I can't explain it. It was like if my heart was being painted or a light was opening inside me.
Then once I had finished reading all the five pillars, I knew that I couldn't go any other direction. That was the only direction that I could go. And there was a link to it said How to be Muslim. So I clicked that link and there was a small PDF that opened up. I'm holding this piece of paper and then I felt I went to the bathroom. I took my shadah in a bathroom by myself. I went in the bathroom. Lailaheillallah, Muhammadur Rasulallah I washed myself in the bathroom and then from that point I started praying. And your family, how was their reaction? So one day I was praying and I forgot to lock the door. The door opens and Ali he comes in and he says, Oh hey, he's what are you doing?
And I'm I'm standing in prayer. He walks away, and then I finish prayer. And I quietly I kind of tiptoed in the living room there, and he's sitting on the couch. He says, Are you making fun of me? Says, You're making fun of my religion. And I sat down beside him and I sat there and I said, Ali, I said, I have something I need to tell you. And I said, I'm Muslim. I took my Shahada and Subhanallah this guy, it's like he took his Shahada that day. We weren't on the best of paths, you know, and in those days we did things we weren't supposed to. And that day was when this group of all of the Saudi Shabab there were they it was like they become Muslim.
They wanted to be good because they saw me and they wanted to be good examples. At that time, Ali, he says, well, we have to go to the mosque. You have you been to the mosque? I said, no, I don't know. I don't know anything about the mosque. And he says, So we have to go to the mosque. So that Friday, that Jumah was a homecoming, I was hugged and kissed and picked up and, you know, shown off and taken to this one and taken to that when invited for dinners, four days, I probably didn't spend money after that for two months because they all wanted me to eat in their home.
And it was the most beautiful thing was when I first went to that mosque there in Pensacola, just it was it was a wonderful time. So my grandfather had had a heart attack. He was in the hospital. And I had I had driven back from Pensacola, Florida, where I was living to be there with him in the hospitals. We have a waiting room and there's a telephone there and there's always someone sitting near that phone answering for all the families that four people are having surgeries. So I was sitting there and my brothers in Islam knew that I was you know, my grandfather was ill and there was a Saudi brother. His name was Muhammad sitting there and the phone rings.
And my aunt, which is she's the loudest one in our family. Her voice carries for four miles, phone rings. She grabs the phone. I didn't know the conversation. I'm just assuming what he told her was, is Haroon there? And then my aunt Haroon. Haroon is there a Haroon here? Haroon family. And I just kind of I think down in my chair. And then Muhammad, he tells, oh, wait, Carly, Carly is Carly there? And then my aunt's curious. Now she's wondering. So I hear, huh, Carly? Islam. So Islam, huh? She does that and she. She passes the phone to me. I'm. Yes. Hello, Aleikum salam. Yeah, okay. I got to go by. So at that point, my whole family found out all at once. They all knew.
And the answer, the response was, oh, you know, it was very simple. What was the major change for you after becoming a muslim? So the Saleh al Ghamdi, he told me, he says, okay, so you're Muslim now. He says, I have a company. You're going to do good in Saudi Arabia, come to Saudi and let's let's work. I move there to Saudi Arabia immediately. When I got there, Saleh had taken me to a place in the place it's called Jubail, Saudi Arabia. It's Marcus, the Joliot Da'wah Center. They educated me, and I learned from some of the best people there. You know, I just sat back and watched and just telling my story, you know, we would be in front of a group of 2000 people just talking.
You know, we'd be telling telling them how we embraced Islam. They just love to sit and to listen to what we had to say. That was how I got to Saudi. Can you tell us about an unforgettable event that happened in the Da'wah Center? There was it was a prayer time. And I was coming there to the Da'wah Center. So you have in front of the masjid, there's a bathroom. And then right after there there's a big open area and then you can go inside the masjid and then you have upstairs the Da'wah Center and all. So I came walking up and there were three people standing there, three from India I could tell. They were Hindu from the gold rings, that they were wearing the gold necklaces.
So I walked up and I said, Oh, I said, Do you need some help? They pointed, they said, Oh, this place is for Muslims only. And I told him, no. I said, it's it's for anyone. Anyone can come inside. It's a Da'wah Center, you know, that's basically propagating the religion of Islam. And he says, no, no, it says Muslims only. And then I looked up on the word the bathroom. It says Muslims only. And I said, oh, that that's for the bathroom. And I don't even know why that's there. That shouldn't be there. I said, you can come inside and see the place. He says, No, no, no, no. This is for Muslims only. We're not going in.
So there was a bucket of water that was connected to the air conditioner catching the condensation to water the flour. So I took that bucket of water and I dumped it in the flowers. I turned it upside down and I stood on top of it and I pulled that sign, Muslims only off. And then I set the sign in that bucket and set it back where it was and they thought like, we're going to jail, we're all going to jail. We're done. And I was like, No, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait. Don't run. Come, come back. Come, please, please. There was one when Saudi guy there was like, oh, what did you do? What happened? I said, Just, just stay away. Just wait. I'll talk to you later.
I brought these three guys in the mosque and they were terrified. You could just see the whites of their eyes. They were so scared to be inside there. And I said, okay, look, I said, We're fixing to pray. I said, You all sit back here, watch what we do, then I'm going to be back. I'll talk to you. You know, after prayer got there, got all my guys, all my Indians and Pakistanis and Filipinos, we all sat there in our circle. We got they were bringing books for them and everything in their language. We got to talking to them and telling them, you know, the basis of our religion. Two of those brothers, they both embraced Islam on the spot. They they prayed the next prayer. We went to eat.
We had, you know, we ate together. But the third one, you know, he was hesitant. And I felt from him he was there. He knew what we were saying was true. But I felt there was something else holding him back. So about two days passed and I went to his labor camp. In this labor camp, it's just a bunch of men living in a place shared accommodations, shared bathrooms, not the best of living conditions. And I went there to him. He was in one room with probably about five or six other people. They were all Hindu. They were all looking at me and I'm talking about Islam and everything. And then they're all looking at him and they're saying, like, what do you you know, what are you doing?
So at that point, I knew what was going on with him is that he was afraid what they were going to say or what they were going to do. So we left that night, took him out to eat and everything, and then he took a shahadah that night. But he said, I can't tell anyone. And the brothers around me at that time, they said, It's okay, no problem. You keep it in your heart until you feel that you're safe, that you can come out and you can tell people. I told him I did the same thing. You know, I didn't know that I wasn't. But I felt bad when I embraced, I didn't tell people because I felt, I believe something so strongly that I need to tell it.
I was just afraid that I’ve had the same fear that he did. He got the good advice. He got the right way. And that's the first three. Insha'Allah, from those three. You never know. You know, you don't know what's coming from them. It's like a tree. Those three could be millions in the future. How did 9/11 affect your life and what kind of difficulties have you experienced as an American Muslim at that time? That was a very difficult time. I was out working, I was doing my job and I had no idea what was happening. I received a call on my cell phone. It was one of my brothers. His name's Rashid Khatib. He called me. He said, Are you okay? And I told him, I said I don't know why.
And at that point, I started get afraid. He told me. He says, You don't know what happened. I told him no. I said, I don't. I don't know what happened. I said, Just please tell me quickly. He said, Your country has been attacked. Is your family okay? I told him. I said no. I said, I don't know what what's going on? What happened? He says the World Towers have been attacked and the Pentagon also has been attacked. And he says, Where are you? I said, I'm right here at this place. And he drove to me. It was a moment that, you know, there was there was no sense that there was it was something that happened that was so atrocious that damaged us so greatly.
And it was a moment that when, you know, when he told me, he says, are you okay and is your family okay? It was it was terrifying. And then I started to think, like all of the people, the children that were inside there was a daycare center inside there for the people that work there. After he took me home. He made me he said, you're staying with me for a few days because we we had no idea what was happening. We didn't know where it was coming from. We didn't know what was going to happen next. I received a phone call from my brother and he said to me, he says, What have you done? And I said, Wait, hold on a minute. What do you mean?
He says, You've brought the most shame to our family than anything. What have you done? I said, Jamie, I said, Wait a second. I said, Hold on. I said, What's happened? He says, The FBI's here. They've come here and they're asking questions about you. And I said, okay. I said, There's just rest assured there's nothing I've done nothing wrong. He says, You run away from the United States and you've ran to this terrorist group. I said, Just please calm down. I said, Give me the telephone number of the FBI agent. I'm going to call them and I'm going to get this straightened out.
So what had happened is the FBI agent went to my grandfather that I spoke of earlier when the FBI agent knocked on the door, hold up their badges to an old man like that with already a preexisting condition. He had to go to the hospital. They had to rush him to the emergency room because he hit the floor. I got the number of this FBI agent. I called it up and I was infuriated. I was so angry at that point. I had got on the phone with him and I said, yes. I said, This is Carly. I heard that you're looking for me. He says, Oh, yes where are you? We've been searching everywhere for you.
And I told him, I said, Well, you being the FBI, if you have any sense, you'll contact the consulate where I'm registered and I'm living here in Saudi Arabia. I'm not hiding from anyone. He says, Well, we need to talk to you. We've been searching for you and we need to ask you some questions. And I said, okay. I said, But first, if you go to another family member of mine, when I get back to the United States, I will find you. I will come to you where you are at in your office, and I will teach you a lesson you'll never forget. He said, Do you understand? You're threatening me? I said, Yes, I understand that. I said, I am threatening you.
I said, You will not go to another family member or friend or anyone else that is related to me. I says, okay, well, let's we need to ask you some questions. So he starts asking about all these and he starts asking about all these people. I told him I said, Look, let's make a long story short. If any of my brothers are involved and have we're a part of this type of this thing that happened. I said I'm involved as well. He says, Wait. He says, Do you understand what you're saying? I said, Yes, I understand very well. I said, We were students, we were workers. We were, you know, sometimes we barely had money to, you know, to get food that we wanted or, you know, go out and do things.
I said, there's no way that we could have any of them could have had any part in this, what they what had happened. I said, furthermore, it's not even an act of Islam. It's an act of a terrorist, which is not what we are. So the conversation went a little bit farther, but there was one thing for sure that I didn't want to harm my family. I didn't want people to think that I was part of this. September 11th was it was not an act of Islam. It's very defined in our religion that if you take the life of any innocent, if you take your own life, you're excluded, you're out. There are some people that have been misguided that do have evil and hatred, and they are lovers of this life.
They're not really followers of our religion because our religion promotes peace and submission to one God. And it's in the name Salaam is Salaam, and that's peace. If our religion is named peace, you know, how can it be that this religion is such terrorist and horrible people? If you just go and you follow the teachings and you read the Koran and you read the sunnah of the Prophet, then you're going to know what this religion is. You cannot take this religion from what one person said or what one website said or what one preacher had published a book about. You need to go and look at it yourself and you will find the truth.
But the only way that you're going to have the truth in your heart is asking God to bring it into your heart. You must go and submit yourself. Open yourself up to God. If you believe in God, open yourself up and let Him show you the right way. What did you do after going through all these difficulties? Did you return back to the US? So after 9/11, I continued. I stayed in Saudi Arabia. Everyone loved America. After September 11th, everyone was, Oh, we feel sorry for America. They they were too. They supported America. Everyone was all about this horrible thing that happened. It's, you know, it's a terrible thing. That all changed.
And I'll never forget the day the American forces entered Afghanistan that day, the whole world changed. The whole Islamic community changed. I was coming out of the McDonald's that day. I was working I came out of this McDonald's, and I have my white shirt and my tie and the you know, the white guy there, I stand out. There was a group of kids standing over. And then out of that group of kids, there was a wad of spit, came and hit, landed right in the center of my tie. And I looked at that point and I'd never been spit on before. And I just couldn't believe, you know, such a thing just happened to me, you know? How did I get spit on? At that point, then, all these types of things.
There was so many attacks that was taking place on Americans, people inside compounds that were being killed. You know, these people, the enemies of Islam, which are the terrorists. They were seeking people out in their homes. I had to be careful at that point. All my friends, they said, you can't go out. You need to stay home. You can't go out in the streets. And at that point, my Arabic was strong enough that once I spoke Arabic, it was hard to convince people that I wasn't that I wasn't an Arab or I wasn't someone from Islamic country. So when we would go out, people would say, Oh, hello, hey, how are you? And I would say you know, what do you want? They would say, Oh, I'm sorry.
I thought you were American. I say, You know, I would say, oh, I'm not American. And then at that point, it was I protected myself where we were waiting for a brother out in the street. There was a caprice kept circling. I saw it one time, two times. I'm always aware of what's happening around me, and especially at that time, this caprice comes and it stops and the guy puts a Kalashnikov, Russian made Kalashnikov firearm out the window. The two people that were with me, they just hit the ground. And I'm standing there and I'm thinking, like, if he's going to shoot, they're dead. We're all dead. I can't run this way. I can't run that way.
I looked and I said, Lailahe illallah Muhammdur rasulallah He pulled the gun back inside the car and he says, You're forgiven. And then he drove away. The Shahada, I mean, it's been a protection for me since that day in the bathroom to that day facing a firearm. Is America a suitable place to live your religion for you and your family? A country built on accepting everyone you know. It's an accepting country. However, the laws and the culture just like you go anywhere. Laws are going to state that, you know, I have the right to practice whatever. I want to practice cultures a little bit different where we're not really culturally accepted.
I've had numerous issues with my children in school and I've told some people that I'm Muslim, never spoke to them again. I've got friends that, you know, they're in the church and they they don't want anything to do with us. And I have lost friends because of that. I can't just go up to someone and tell them that I'm Muslim. I worked for a company one time, and one of the questions that I was fixing to I was going to get promoted. So this promotion, the manager that was there had told me, he said, Oh, your religion was in question. He says, We actually discussed your religion and we didn't know if that would be okay for you to be put in a position that you're going to be put in.
And in Americas standard. At that point, I could have owned the company. I could have you know, they all would have lost their job. They would have sent me a check to, you know, support me for the rest of my life. Because if they said they said that statement. But when I heard that, you know, it opened up the channel for me to tell them, well, this is what we believe, you know? So I looked for the opportunities and I don't I don't want to damage the religion any further. You'd be in the news. Muslim guy gets issued $2 million because he was discriminated against at a job interview. You know, I don't I don't want to damage the religion.
I want to take every opportunity that I can to spread the world. And that's what I do. We just have to be careful in the US. But it is, you know, it is a place of justice. You know, you don't have to worry. You will always get the justice. You will always be, you know, as far as the law is concerned, but socially, not so much. while I was on my way to the Mosques of America tour, I got pulled over and one of my headlights just went out all of a sudden. And so when I got pulled over the the sheriff's deputy, there were three vehicles. I don't know why there were so many. And so I said I said, I'm a YouTuber. Do you mind if I Video. He says, oh, no, no, go ahead, you can.
So I got the camera out and I said I was having problems with the video. I think my camera was full. So I went out, I just went live. I said, okay, I'm just going to do it live. So I went live. I set the phone on the back of my car and this police officer, he's coming up. He didn't know, you know, he they went and checked everything out. I was I didn't get arrested. I didn't have any criminal background. He told me, well, you need to fix your headlight. And I said, I will. I'll get it fixed. And this is I'm curious. He said, I just have to know. And then I knew exactly what he was fixing to ask. I said, okay, here's my door, here's my opportunity.
So, you know, all these blue flashing lights in the background and here I am, you know Haroon the American Muslim revert, fixing make Dawah to a police officer and seven or eight other standing there with firearms and dogs and everything else. So he asks, he says, I have to ask. He says, What's your YouTube channel about? And then I told him. I told him exactly, you know, I was able to deliver a message to him. So you gave dawah Right. I think it was in 40 seconds or less. I believe it was. It was a very quick I said, do you know about Islam? Do you know what we believe? And, you know, he's like, no. And I said, Would you mind if I tell you?
And then, you know, I had the chance I just witnessed to him real quick and shook his hand. Which police officers don't shake the hands of anyone because that puts them in a vulnerable spot. When I stuck my hand out, which is very uncommon, I assumed that he would just stand there and he would he would shake my hand. But in that video, he actually accepted my salaam. You know, he accepted my hello. Now all of them. I said, Hey, guys, I'm you know, I told him my YouTube channel. So now from that one video, now all of those police officers, I'm sure they went and they watched it.
When they watched it, the way the algorithm algorithms in YouTube work, so many other people around them that are friends with them and know them, they were suggested those videos. If someone is curious about Islam, how should that person search about this religion? So if you're interested in Islam, the first thing would be, you know, you're going to look online. But for every one good website we have, that's true. We have a thousand that are built to mislead. And even among our own beliefs and our own religion, we have certain people that believe something completely separate from what our Koran and our prophet teaches us.
So I would say that going to the Internet and then also finding someone that can help you, that you can ask questions that you trust and, you know, there's a mosques. There are mosques everywhere. If you just go Google mosque near me, you're going to find one. You can find a mosque and find a good brother to help you out. What is the quality of Prophet Muhammad (sav) that impressed you the most? It would have to be his humanity. You know, the humanity of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is the example and it is the example that we all aspire to be. He was so humble and kind to everyone. I've never seen harsh words that he's given even when he was getting on to someone.
If he if he was telling them something that they did wrong, it was still in a way that they wanted to hear it. They wanted to hear it. It was never like we get on to our children. it was delivered in a way that people wanted to receive. And that's the way that I like to make dawah when I make my dawah when I tell people about Islam is I try to think about how would the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), approach this person. This is our belief. It's a belief of submission in peace to one God. You know, it's it's the to strive and to be more like him is what we're all wanting to be. What would you like to say as your final comments?
So my final comments is that I've been given so much and I've been rewarded with this wonderful things that I have, and now I want to give myself back. My journey is right now and Inshallah for the rest of my life is I want to be in mosques, I want to be in Da'wah centers, I want to be inside your homes, from your mobile device to your televisions. I want to be able to be heard and I want my word and which is the words of Allah (swt) to be heard throughout the world and to be accepted, Insha'Allah
I live in south Mississippi. I have a farm. I'm a farmer. I've been a muslim since. Since 1998, 99 somewhere right around there. I lived in Saudi Arabia, moved there when I was 20. I lived there for ten years After that, I moved back to the United States, where I live now. What was the thing that made you question your beliefs? So I was a Southern Baptist Christian. I grew up in a place called the Bible Belt, which there's more churches than there are McDonald's. I studied the Bible. I was a youth minister. I was a missionary. I served in a mission in Guatemala time. When I exited Christianity, I was a youth minister in a Southern Baptist church. That's how it pretty much led me to here.
How did you first hear about Islam? I was in high school and I learned about they they taught us all the different religions, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Of course, it was slanted. The people that were teaching, that were all Southern Baptists like me, which they were not going to give the whole truth. But thank God, you know the test that we had, it gave the five pillars of Islam. It told us that Mohammed, peace be upon him, was a prophet. Of course, when it was taught to me, it was like, well, this is what they believe. And that was from when Abraham left Ishmael in the desert. Isaac was the one that was to carry the Prophethood. That was the way it was explained.
But they did give a good picture of Islam. There was nothing mentioned that would damage the religion. It was just saying, well, that's for them and this is for us. What was the think that made you question your beliefs? So reading the Bible in the New Testament, studying Jesus, peace be upon Him with the Christian belief that Jesus was God and He was also the Son of God. That's what took me away, because he never said, I'm your God. Pray to me. It came later on with the apostle Paul or Saul, and also in the Book of Matthew there is a place where he was with three of the we'll say Sahaba. He was with the three of the apostles and he was going into a garden where he told these three.
He says ‘’wait here’’, because if they find me, they'll kill me. That was a very human trait. That's something that if a God was saying something like that would be like, I don't care what you do, I'm going to go here. I'm not worried. So at least that was the thing that I knew was true. And then I prayed to God alone. And that was the, I say, evolution of how I became Muslim. Can you tell us about your journey from Christianity to Islam? I'll tell you the story, how it happened. I had been 19. Probably right around 20. I was driving to church. I was going to teach my youth ministry, which they were from 15 to 18. That was that was the age group that I was teaching.
I was at war with myself, like I needed God. I needed him in my life. I needed the right path to God. I was sitting there. I had my Wrigley's spearmint, chewing gum in my mouth. I was chewing and I'm driving my Ford F-150 down a highway in Mississippi going to church. I said, okay, God, please show me the way. Show me this path that you want me to be in. Show me the truth. I need it now. Know. Please, God, please give it to me. And it just in my mind, I said, you know what? I'm going to take this gum and I'm not going to look and I'm going to throw it. And I said, if it goes out that window, then I'm no longer going to believe in Jesus is God, and I'm just going to pray to God.
So I threw that piece of chewing gum, and then I turned my head and I looked. I looked down, I looked down. I pulled over on the side of the highway. I got out. I walked around the truck. I opened the door. I searched high. I searched low. The gum was gone. Got back in the truck and I passed right by the church. So after this event had taken place, I met someone that I knew when I was in college studying. He's from Saudi Arabia. His name is Ali El-Gamaty. He's from the very southern tip of Saudi Arabia, a place called Bisha. We had met up. He asked me, he says, What's your religion? And I told him, I said, I'm without religion. He says, What do you mean? What's this?
There's no such thing as without religion. What do you believe? I said, Well, I pray to God. And he said, okay. He said, So are you a Christian? I said, No, I'm not a Christian. He said, Well, what do you think? Jesus, peace be upon him is. I said, He's a prophet. He's a man just like me and you. He says, So he's not the Son of God. And I said, No, he's a man. He's a prophet. He delivered a word and he delivered a message. And, you know, I believe what he came what he said was true. And he said, okay. He says, well, what do you think about the Prophet Muhammad? Peace be upon him. And I said, well, he says, Do you think he's a prophet? I said, Yeah, I do. I said, I think he's a prophet.
He had a word also, but I don't believe that was for me. I believe that it was for a different group of people and he looked at me and he stuck his finger in my face and he says, You're a muslim man. And then I returned the finger and I said, no. I said, I'm not a muslim. And my name and that word will never be connected. So that day there was something inside me. It was like a dot. There was some type of dot that had been put in my heart. So back in the day, I had my old Packer bill. You know, it was not many people know what a Packard Bell is today. They don't exist. And so I would I go on there and I would ask Jeeves which Jeeves was the Google of today back then.
So I would go and Ask Jeeves, just type in Islamic topics. One day I'd come home from work and I was, you know, just following my normal routine, come home from work, take off my shoes and everything and get comfortable and sat down at my computer. You know, what is Islam? You know give the five pillars of Islam. When I read them for some reason, I read Lailahe illallah Muhammedur resulallah and I said, I believe that. And then I read you know make Hajj to fast. To pay zakat, to pray. Every pillar that I read. It was like something had opened. I can't explain it. It was like if my heart was being painted or a light was opening inside me.
Then once I had finished reading all the five pillars, I knew that I couldn't go any other direction. That was the only direction that I could go. And there was a link to it said How to be Muslim. So I clicked that link and there was a small PDF that opened up. I'm holding this piece of paper and then I felt I went to the bathroom. I took my shadah in a bathroom by myself. I went in the bathroom. Lailaheillallah, Muhammadur Rasulallah I washed myself in the bathroom and then from that point I started praying. And your family, how was their reaction? So one day I was praying and I forgot to lock the door. The door opens and Ali he comes in and he says, Oh hey, he's what are you doing?
And I'm I'm standing in prayer. He walks away, and then I finish prayer. And I quietly I kind of tiptoed in the living room there, and he's sitting on the couch. He says, Are you making fun of me? Says, You're making fun of my religion. And I sat down beside him and I sat there and I said, Ali, I said, I have something I need to tell you. And I said, I'm Muslim. I took my Shahada and Subhanallah this guy, it's like he took his Shahada that day. We weren't on the best of paths, you know, and in those days we did things we weren't supposed to. And that day was when this group of all of the Saudi Shabab there were they it was like they become Muslim.
They wanted to be good because they saw me and they wanted to be good examples. At that time, Ali, he says, well, we have to go to the mosque. You have you been to the mosque? I said, no, I don't know. I don't know anything about the mosque. And he says, So we have to go to the mosque. So that Friday, that Jumah was a homecoming, I was hugged and kissed and picked up and, you know, shown off and taken to this one and taken to that when invited for dinners, four days, I probably didn't spend money after that for two months because they all wanted me to eat in their home.
And it was the most beautiful thing was when I first went to that mosque there in Pensacola, just it was it was a wonderful time. So my grandfather had had a heart attack. He was in the hospital. And I had I had driven back from Pensacola, Florida, where I was living to be there with him in the hospitals. We have a waiting room and there's a telephone there and there's always someone sitting near that phone answering for all the families that four people are having surgeries. So I was sitting there and my brothers in Islam knew that I was you know, my grandfather was ill and there was a Saudi brother. His name was Muhammad sitting there and the phone rings.
And my aunt, which is she's the loudest one in our family. Her voice carries for four miles, phone rings. She grabs the phone. I didn't know the conversation. I'm just assuming what he told her was, is Haroon there? And then my aunt Haroon. Haroon is there a Haroon here? Haroon family. And I just kind of I think down in my chair. And then Muhammad, he tells, oh, wait, Carly, Carly is Carly there? And then my aunt's curious. Now she's wondering. So I hear, huh, Carly? Islam. So Islam, huh? She does that and she. She passes the phone to me. I'm. Yes. Hello, Aleikum salam. Yeah, okay. I got to go by. So at that point, my whole family found out all at once. They all knew.
And the answer, the response was, oh, you know, it was very simple. What was the major change for you after becoming a muslim? So the Saleh al Ghamdi, he told me, he says, okay, so you're Muslim now. He says, I have a company. You're going to do good in Saudi Arabia, come to Saudi and let's let's work. I move there to Saudi Arabia immediately. When I got there, Saleh had taken me to a place in the place it's called Jubail, Saudi Arabia. It's Marcus, the Joliot Da'wah Center. They educated me, and I learned from some of the best people there. You know, I just sat back and watched and just telling my story, you know, we would be in front of a group of 2000 people just talking.
You know, we'd be telling telling them how we embraced Islam. They just love to sit and to listen to what we had to say. That was how I got to Saudi. Can you tell us about an unforgettable event that happened in the Da'wah Center? There was it was a prayer time. And I was coming there to the Da'wah Center. So you have in front of the masjid, there's a bathroom. And then right after there there's a big open area and then you can go inside the masjid and then you have upstairs the Da'wah Center and all. So I came walking up and there were three people standing there, three from India I could tell. They were Hindu from the gold rings, that they were wearing the gold necklaces.
So I walked up and I said, Oh, I said, Do you need some help? They pointed, they said, Oh, this place is for Muslims only. And I told him, no. I said, it's it's for anyone. Anyone can come inside. It's a Da'wah Center, you know, that's basically propagating the religion of Islam. And he says, no, no, it says Muslims only. And then I looked up on the word the bathroom. It says Muslims only. And I said, oh, that that's for the bathroom. And I don't even know why that's there. That shouldn't be there. I said, you can come inside and see the place. He says, No, no, no, no. This is for Muslims only. We're not going in.
So there was a bucket of water that was connected to the air conditioner catching the condensation to water the flour. So I took that bucket of water and I dumped it in the flowers. I turned it upside down and I stood on top of it and I pulled that sign, Muslims only off. And then I set the sign in that bucket and set it back where it was and they thought like, we're going to jail, we're all going to jail. We're done. And I was like, No, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait. Don't run. Come, come back. Come, please, please. There was one when Saudi guy there was like, oh, what did you do? What happened? I said, Just, just stay away. Just wait. I'll talk to you later.
I brought these three guys in the mosque and they were terrified. You could just see the whites of their eyes. They were so scared to be inside there. And I said, okay, look, I said, We're fixing to pray. I said, You all sit back here, watch what we do, then I'm going to be back. I'll talk to you. You know, after prayer got there, got all my guys, all my Indians and Pakistanis and Filipinos, we all sat there in our circle. We got they were bringing books for them and everything in their language. We got to talking to them and telling them, you know, the basis of our religion. Two of those brothers, they both embraced Islam on the spot. They they prayed the next prayer. We went to eat.
We had, you know, we ate together. But the third one, you know, he was hesitant. And I felt from him he was there. He knew what we were saying was true. But I felt there was something else holding him back. So about two days passed and I went to his labor camp. In this labor camp, it's just a bunch of men living in a place shared accommodations, shared bathrooms, not the best of living conditions. And I went there to him. He was in one room with probably about five or six other people. They were all Hindu. They were all looking at me and I'm talking about Islam and everything. And then they're all looking at him and they're saying, like, what do you you know, what are you doing?
So at that point, I knew what was going on with him is that he was afraid what they were going to say or what they were going to do. So we left that night, took him out to eat and everything, and then he took a shahadah that night. But he said, I can't tell anyone. And the brothers around me at that time, they said, It's okay, no problem. You keep it in your heart until you feel that you're safe, that you can come out and you can tell people. I told him I did the same thing. You know, I didn't know that I wasn't. But I felt bad when I embraced, I didn't tell people because I felt, I believe something so strongly that I need to tell it.
I was just afraid that I’ve had the same fear that he did. He got the good advice. He got the right way. And that's the first three. Insha'Allah, from those three. You never know. You know, you don't know what's coming from them. It's like a tree. Those three could be millions in the future. How did 9/11 affect your life and what kind of difficulties have you experienced as an American Muslim at that time? That was a very difficult time. I was out working, I was doing my job and I had no idea what was happening. I received a call on my cell phone. It was one of my brothers. His name's Rashid Khatib. He called me. He said, Are you okay? And I told him, I said I don't know why.
And at that point, I started get afraid. He told me. He says, You don't know what happened. I told him no. I said, I don't. I don't know what happened. I said, Just please tell me quickly. He said, Your country has been attacked. Is your family okay? I told him. I said no. I said, I don't know what what's going on? What happened? He says the World Towers have been attacked and the Pentagon also has been attacked. And he says, Where are you? I said, I'm right here at this place. And he drove to me. It was a moment that, you know, there was there was no sense that there was it was something that happened that was so atrocious that damaged us so greatly.
And it was a moment that when, you know, when he told me, he says, are you okay and is your family okay? It was it was terrifying. And then I started to think, like all of the people, the children that were inside there was a daycare center inside there for the people that work there. After he took me home. He made me he said, you're staying with me for a few days because we we had no idea what was happening. We didn't know where it was coming from. We didn't know what was going to happen next. I received a phone call from my brother and he said to me, he says, What have you done? And I said, Wait, hold on a minute. What do you mean?
He says, You've brought the most shame to our family than anything. What have you done? I said, Jamie, I said, Wait a second. I said, Hold on. I said, What's happened? He says, The FBI's here. They've come here and they're asking questions about you. And I said, okay. I said, There's just rest assured there's nothing I've done nothing wrong. He says, You run away from the United States and you've ran to this terrorist group. I said, Just please calm down. I said, Give me the telephone number of the FBI agent. I'm going to call them and I'm going to get this straightened out.
So what had happened is the FBI agent went to my grandfather that I spoke of earlier when the FBI agent knocked on the door, hold up their badges to an old man like that with already a preexisting condition. He had to go to the hospital. They had to rush him to the emergency room because he hit the floor. I got the number of this FBI agent. I called it up and I was infuriated. I was so angry at that point. I had got on the phone with him and I said, yes. I said, This is Carly. I heard that you're looking for me. He says, Oh, yes where are you? We've been searching everywhere for you.
And I told him, I said, Well, you being the FBI, if you have any sense, you'll contact the consulate where I'm registered and I'm living here in Saudi Arabia. I'm not hiding from anyone. He says, Well, we need to talk to you. We've been searching for you and we need to ask you some questions. And I said, okay. I said, But first, if you go to another family member of mine, when I get back to the United States, I will find you. I will come to you where you are at in your office, and I will teach you a lesson you'll never forget. He said, Do you understand? You're threatening me? I said, Yes, I understand that. I said, I am threatening you.
I said, You will not go to another family member or friend or anyone else that is related to me. I says, okay, well, let's we need to ask you some questions. So he starts asking about all these and he starts asking about all these people. I told him I said, Look, let's make a long story short. If any of my brothers are involved and have we're a part of this type of this thing that happened. I said I'm involved as well. He says, Wait. He says, Do you understand what you're saying? I said, Yes, I understand very well. I said, We were students, we were workers. We were, you know, sometimes we barely had money to, you know, to get food that we wanted or, you know, go out and do things.
I said, there's no way that we could have any of them could have had any part in this, what they what had happened. I said, furthermore, it's not even an act of Islam. It's an act of a terrorist, which is not what we are. So the conversation went a little bit farther, but there was one thing for sure that I didn't want to harm my family. I didn't want people to think that I was part of this. September 11th was it was not an act of Islam. It's very defined in our religion that if you take the life of any innocent, if you take your own life, you're excluded, you're out. There are some people that have been misguided that do have evil and hatred, and they are lovers of this life.
They're not really followers of our religion because our religion promotes peace and submission to one God. And it's in the name Salaam is Salaam, and that's peace. If our religion is named peace, you know, how can it be that this religion is such terrorist and horrible people? If you just go and you follow the teachings and you read the Koran and you read the sunnah of the Prophet, then you're going to know what this religion is. You cannot take this religion from what one person said or what one website said or what one preacher had published a book about. You need to go and look at it yourself and you will find the truth.
But the only way that you're going to have the truth in your heart is asking God to bring it into your heart. You must go and submit yourself. Open yourself up to God. If you believe in God, open yourself up and let Him show you the right way. What did you do after going through all these difficulties? Did you return back to the US? So after 9/11, I continued. I stayed in Saudi Arabia. Everyone loved America. After September 11th, everyone was, Oh, we feel sorry for America. They they were too. They supported America. Everyone was all about this horrible thing that happened. It's, you know, it's a terrible thing. That all changed.
And I'll never forget the day the American forces entered Afghanistan that day, the whole world changed. The whole Islamic community changed. I was coming out of the McDonald's that day. I was working I came out of this McDonald's, and I have my white shirt and my tie and the you know, the white guy there, I stand out. There was a group of kids standing over. And then out of that group of kids, there was a wad of spit, came and hit, landed right in the center of my tie. And I looked at that point and I'd never been spit on before. And I just couldn't believe, you know, such a thing just happened to me, you know? How did I get spit on? At that point, then, all these types of things.
There was so many attacks that was taking place on Americans, people inside compounds that were being killed. You know, these people, the enemies of Islam, which are the terrorists. They were seeking people out in their homes. I had to be careful at that point. All my friends, they said, you can't go out. You need to stay home. You can't go out in the streets. And at that point, my Arabic was strong enough that once I spoke Arabic, it was hard to convince people that I wasn't that I wasn't an Arab or I wasn't someone from Islamic country. So when we would go out, people would say, Oh, hello, hey, how are you? And I would say you know, what do you want? They would say, Oh, I'm sorry.
I thought you were American. I say, You know, I would say, oh, I'm not American. And then at that point, it was I protected myself where we were waiting for a brother out in the street. There was a caprice kept circling. I saw it one time, two times. I'm always aware of what's happening around me, and especially at that time, this caprice comes and it stops and the guy puts a Kalashnikov, Russian made Kalashnikov firearm out the window. The two people that were with me, they just hit the ground. And I'm standing there and I'm thinking, like, if he's going to shoot, they're dead. We're all dead. I can't run this way. I can't run that way.
I looked and I said, Lailahe illallah Muhammdur rasulallah He pulled the gun back inside the car and he says, You're forgiven. And then he drove away. The Shahada, I mean, it's been a protection for me since that day in the bathroom to that day facing a firearm. Is America a suitable place to live your religion for you and your family? A country built on accepting everyone you know. It's an accepting country. However, the laws and the culture just like you go anywhere. Laws are going to state that, you know, I have the right to practice whatever. I want to practice cultures a little bit different where we're not really culturally accepted.
I've had numerous issues with my children in school and I've told some people that I'm Muslim, never spoke to them again. I've got friends that, you know, they're in the church and they they don't want anything to do with us. And I have lost friends because of that. I can't just go up to someone and tell them that I'm Muslim. I worked for a company one time, and one of the questions that I was fixing to I was going to get promoted. So this promotion, the manager that was there had told me, he said, Oh, your religion was in question. He says, We actually discussed your religion and we didn't know if that would be okay for you to be put in a position that you're going to be put in.
And in Americas standard. At that point, I could have owned the company. I could have you know, they all would have lost their job. They would have sent me a check to, you know, support me for the rest of my life. Because if they said they said that statement. But when I heard that, you know, it opened up the channel for me to tell them, well, this is what we believe, you know? So I looked for the opportunities and I don't I don't want to damage the religion any further. You'd be in the news. Muslim guy gets issued $2 million because he was discriminated against at a job interview. You know, I don't I don't want to damage the religion.
I want to take every opportunity that I can to spread the world. And that's what I do. We just have to be careful in the US. But it is, you know, it is a place of justice. You know, you don't have to worry. You will always get the justice. You will always be, you know, as far as the law is concerned, but socially, not so much. while I was on my way to the Mosques of America tour, I got pulled over and one of my headlights just went out all of a sudden. And so when I got pulled over the the sheriff's deputy, there were three vehicles. I don't know why there were so many. And so I said I said, I'm a YouTuber. Do you mind if I Video. He says, oh, no, no, go ahead, you can.
So I got the camera out and I said I was having problems with the video. I think my camera was full. So I went out, I just went live. I said, okay, I'm just going to do it live. So I went live. I set the phone on the back of my car and this police officer, he's coming up. He didn't know, you know, he they went and checked everything out. I was I didn't get arrested. I didn't have any criminal background. He told me, well, you need to fix your headlight. And I said, I will. I'll get it fixed. And this is I'm curious. He said, I just have to know. And then I knew exactly what he was fixing to ask. I said, okay, here's my door, here's my opportunity.
So, you know, all these blue flashing lights in the background and here I am, you know Haroon the American Muslim revert, fixing make Dawah to a police officer and seven or eight other standing there with firearms and dogs and everything else. So he asks, he says, I have to ask. He says, What's your YouTube channel about? And then I told him. I told him exactly, you know, I was able to deliver a message to him. So you gave dawah Right. I think it was in 40 seconds or less. I believe it was. It was a very quick I said, do you know about Islam? Do you know what we believe? And, you know, he's like, no. And I said, Would you mind if I tell you?
And then, you know, I had the chance I just witnessed to him real quick and shook his hand. Which police officers don't shake the hands of anyone because that puts them in a vulnerable spot. When I stuck my hand out, which is very uncommon, I assumed that he would just stand there and he would he would shake my hand. But in that video, he actually accepted my salaam. You know, he accepted my hello. Now all of them. I said, Hey, guys, I'm you know, I told him my YouTube channel. So now from that one video, now all of those police officers, I'm sure they went and they watched it.
When they watched it, the way the algorithm algorithms in YouTube work, so many other people around them that are friends with them and know them, they were suggested those videos. If someone is curious about Islam, how should that person search about this religion? So if you're interested in Islam, the first thing would be, you know, you're going to look online. But for every one good website we have, that's true. We have a thousand that are built to mislead. And even among our own beliefs and our own religion, we have certain people that believe something completely separate from what our Koran and our prophet teaches us.
So I would say that going to the Internet and then also finding someone that can help you, that you can ask questions that you trust and, you know, there's a mosques. There are mosques everywhere. If you just go Google mosque near me, you're going to find one. You can find a mosque and find a good brother to help you out. What is the quality of Prophet Muhammad (sav) that impressed you the most? It would have to be his humanity. You know, the humanity of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is the example and it is the example that we all aspire to be. He was so humble and kind to everyone. I've never seen harsh words that he's given even when he was getting on to someone.
If he if he was telling them something that they did wrong, it was still in a way that they wanted to hear it. They wanted to hear it. It was never like we get on to our children. it was delivered in a way that people wanted to receive. And that's the way that I like to make dawah when I make my dawah when I tell people about Islam is I try to think about how would the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), approach this person. This is our belief. It's a belief of submission in peace to one God. You know, it's it's the to strive and to be more like him is what we're all wanting to be. What would you like to say as your final comments?
So my final comments is that I've been given so much and I've been rewarded with this wonderful things that I have, and now I want to give myself back. My journey is right now and Inshallah for the rest of my life is I want to be in mosques, I want to be in Da'wah centers, I want to be inside your homes, from your mobile device to your televisions. I want to be able to be heard and I want my word and which is the words of Allah (swt) to be heard throughout the world and to be accepted, Insha'Allah