From Enemies to Believers - 10 Conversions to Islam That Shocked Everyone
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Islam, this aggressive and dangerous religion... This cannot be the truth. Please God, please. Anything but not Islam. I was an atheist. I didn't see the point in religion. It was a way of controlling freedom. And so when you get rid of religion, you kind of get rid of God with it, too. I believe that if God had a religion, it would have proof. There would be tangible, physical, manifested proof. In the course of three years, I built this thing. The bomb. So, there was an Islamic center in my hometown. Ramadan, on a Friday afternoon. They're all there. And I was gonna put it there, middle of the night, the night before. And it was easy because everybody hates Muslims.
The ones who I had gotten my impression of Islam from were a bad example. That's not Islam. This is more like Islam. So I just kept reading. I kept reading. My ill feelings started to slowly dissipate. They just went away. I was convinced of Islam easily, but I hesitated because of the bad image of Islam. I read the Quran and I read the Quran, and so, with the third day, I really got into the Quran. Like, this is… I was committed to reading it for hours. And so what happened was, my cellmate said, "You've been reading that book since breakfast. Are you gonna eat or no?" And I just thought, "I'm really into this book. Why? Why? Why? Why?" How was your life before Islam?
What were you believing in? I grew up with a lot of Christian teachings, as most American children do. I knew about them, but to be honest with you, I was getting this nationalist ideology about me. Religion just didn't play a part. It seemed too mythological, too much hocus pocus, maybe, you know? But I believed in my country, you know? I tell people, for lack of a better example, the flag was my cross. That's the best way I can explain that. 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 McDonalds. 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. For a while, yes. I was an atheist. I didn't see the point in religion. I thought that it was a way of keeping people from being happy and being, doing whatever they want to do. It was a way of controlling freedom, religion. And so when you get rid of religion, you kind of get rid of God with it. Well, my journey to Islam began my senior year in college, when I decided I wanted to become a Baptist preacher. I decided not to quit college and go to seminary, but to finish my degree and then go to seminary. So I had one year to finish.
And because of my enthusiasm, I just started dragging all of my friends, colleagues, everybody I met, into a religious conversation, so that I could think about how I could practice saving people, right? The whole mission would be to convert them to Christianity. I always believed in God, since day one. I have never had a moment in my life of, "Hmm, what if there was never a God?" I have never had that problem in my heart. I'm reading the Bible, and I'm reading a particular verse about Jacob, where Jacob says... the first verse that I read was, "No man can see God and live after that." And I'm thinking, but people called Jesus God, and they all saw Jesus, and no one died looking at Jesus.
So the verse was, "No man can look at God and live after." I turned the page to another verse, another story of Jacob. Not only does Jacob see God, he is wrestling God. He has… in a wrestling match, has God by the thigh and says to God, "I will not let you go until you bless me." Okay, wait a minute. You just said that if you even see God, that no man can live after that. Okay, so why is Jacob living after that? And why does God have a form that you can hold on to? And why can't God, being all-powerful, pull away from Jacob? The story goes on. So what did I do? Fourteen-year-old me, raised my hand.
The pastor came over and said, "How can I help you?" I showed him the two verses, and his reaction was, "Hmm, I didn't even know that that was in the Bible." And I said, I kind of… "What? But you're the Bible pastor. You're the one that's supposed to be teaching us the Bible." And as a 14-year-old boy, I asked him, "How do I rectify this? How do I make sense of this?" I found myself reading about other religions. I read about Judaism, I read about Hinduism for about five minutes. I read a book and I just said, "This is the… no, no way." I believe that if God had a religion, it would have proof. There would be tangible, physical, manifested proof.
So I was asking all these other religions: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, whatever it be. They all had the same level of contradictory information. So, there was an Islamic center in my hometown. I ain't really know anything about these people. I'd see them. So I had watched this place before, in several different times, not just once. If I put a bomb here, are they gonna find it? So I don't want that to happen. So on the back side, I found a good place for it. And it was easy because at that time, common enemy: everybody hates Muslims. And in the course of three years, that's what I did. I built this thing, the bomb. I took my time. I was gonna make a big statement.
Now, a lot of people think that's crazy on so many different levels because, how are you gonna get away with that? I had no intention of getting away with it. I knew I was gonna be caught. I knew I would go to trial because they would execute me. I was good with that. Because I wasn't getting my flag-draped coffin, but I believed that eventually, these same people were gonna think of me as a hero, because I was right. And my daughter had told me about this Muslim child that she was in school with. And I blew up. So I thought, "I failed my family because I couldn't protect them. I can't protect her at school from these Muslims." That was my whole thing. I just totally lost it.
And my daughter, seven years old, is looking at me like, like I've just lost everything. And she was… the look in her eyes was like she was even questioning whether she even loved me anymore because I was being so racist, or so, you know, against these one people just because they looked a certain way or they did a certain thing. That was it. You know, after different profanities came out of my mouth and, you know, calling them all kinds of of racial slurs, I guess is the best way to put it, I went up into my bedroom. I kind of sat on the bed and I started to cry a little bit. I said, "Well, you have to find the proof, man.
You know you're right." I believed in myself I was right, because they're evil. They want to kill us all, right? And, and but I didn't have any kind of tangible proof to like show my daughter. I didn't have that. So I had to go get it. Where am I gonna get it? The mosque. Where else? And I went in there, I met with them, and I introduced myself as somebody who just wants to learn a little bit more about Islam. Not a total lie, but didn't tell him what my real intentions were. So, you know, I talked to several… was introduced to several people, talked to several people. It was a Friday. Again, I went on Friday because I knew they'd be there.
I listened to the sermon, the khutbah (sermon), right? And I was like, "Man, that sounds good." They're just saying that because I'm here. I already know. I already know. They probably got people held down in the basement for propaganda videos. I already know. I mean, these are the things that are going through my mind, right? And then they handed me a Quran. And I was told to take it home, read it, come back when you have questions. I was so happy, because in my mind, I felt like I'd just been handed the holy grail of evil, and I'm going to have somebody explain it to me. Wow. That's better than hitting the lottery. Never been called an intellectual person. But a light bulb came on.
Obviously, the ones who I had gotten my impression of Islam from were a bad example. That's not Islam. This is more like Islam. So I just kept reading. And kept reading. My ill feelings started to slowly dissipate. They just went away. And, you know, I get to certain passages in the Quran, you know, like, uh, you know, Allah made us into different nations and tribes so that we may learn from one another, not despise one another. Oh, okay, I can see that right here because this person is involved with local government and Rotary Club and all these other organizations. Oh, okay, I get that. So it started to all go this way. And I read it and I just…
the language, the delivery of the Quran was so unique to me. And I just thought, the way this book is worded is amazing. And so I read the Quran and I read the Quran, and so, with the third day, I really got into the Quran. Like, this is… I was committed to reading it for hours. And so what happened was, my cellmate said, "Hey man, hey, aren't you going to dinner?" I said, "Dinner?" And I was looking up from my Quran. I said, "Dinner?" And then he said, "Yeah, you've been reading that book since breakfast. Are you going to eat or no?" I said, "Yeah, I probably should." I closed the Quran and I went. And I just thought, "I'm really into this book. Why?
Why?" The miracle of the Quran, they're endless. There's no one greatest miracle. People think because I talk about the language of the Quran, to me, the language is the miracle of the Quran. No, language is one of many. And to a psychologist, they might see something in an ayah (verse) about the nafs (self/soul) that is their miracle. To a geologist, something else. To a historian, something else. To a sociologist, something else. To a philosopher, something else. That might be the miracle to them. To a linguist, something else. To a comparative religion expert, something else. The miracles of the Quran are actually dependent on who's coming to them.
That's one of the most amazing things about the miracle of the Quran is, it's not just one stick turning into one snake, right? It's every human being has the ability to find their miracle in this book. This cannot be the truth. And even, it's like I said to myself, "Please, God, please. Don't let this be the truth. Anything but not Islam. Please select something else, but not Islam. Why this has to be the truth?" Yeah. Because I said, "No. How can I follow this religion?" I knew about the picture of Islam in the West.
And I said to myself, "If I go to my parents, my friends, if I tell anyone I'm a Muslim, impossible." So that's why I was convinced of Islam easily, but I hesitated because of the bad image of Islam. I go back to the Islamic center on a Friday, and I meet two guys, two of the original guys that I was introduced to that I'd gotten, kind of built a relationship with now. And I went up to them, I says, "Hey, I want to take shahada (declaration of faith)." True story. They're standing side by side. They look at each other, they look back at me, simultaneously, they go, "No." True story. Oh my gosh. I was, I was blown away.
I was like, "What do you mean, no?" He said, "Brother, you got more to learn." So they look back at each other, they look back to me. "Alright, come on." True story. It was quite an experience. As we were going through it, you know, said it, said it in English, and then we went through and said it in Arabic. And so on that day, on Jummah (Friday prayer), 1991, I said, (I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is His servant and messenger)." And I was a Muslim. I was going to my barber. I remember I was at my barber. I was saying like, "Hey, isn't it prayer time?
It's like Dhuhr (midday prayer) right now, right?" He was like, "Yes, but…" He was like, "Are you a Muslim already?" I said, "No, but I try to pray five times a day because I feel peaceful with it and I'm pretty close," I said. "I'm really pretty close." Then he asked me something which was the thing maybe that I needed at that time. He said, "What if you would die tomorrow? Or what if you would die today? Are you dying as a Muslim? Or are you dying as a non-Muslim?" And, subhan Allah (glory be to Allah), that really made me think. And I didn't get an answer to that at that time, but on my way home, after I went to the barber, I was really asking myself, "Yeah, what am I… what am I dying?
How am I dying? Where do I go?" I mean, death is the best reminder sometimes. And I remember giving my friends a call on my way home, saying, "Tomorrow, let's take the shahada (declaration of faith). I want to do it. I'm convinced." When I took the shahada, it was after ten month of resistance. There was an internal conflict, an internal struggle, knowing that it's the truth, but sometimes trying to find excuses not to accept it. For ten month. It was like a ten-month war inside myself. And all of a sudden, the war was over. And it's like any other war, you're just happy it's over. But here, not in the way that you are defeated. You come out of this with a victory.
And that's what I felt in my heart. It was the right decision. Just I asked myself, "Why didn't take it so long? Why?" And I would work at that store and then it would be salah (prayer) time. I'd run down to the shoe area where they... the shoe warehouse and go make salah quickly and come back, join again. Asr (afternoon prayer) time, go back, come back, go back, come back. I started being regular in my prayer. And my coworkers, they were all like Hispanics, because they didn't call me Nouman, they called me Ali. "Yo, Ali, what you doing, man? Why you being weird like that? Why aren't you looking at me?" Then I have to explain, "I'm praying." "Oh man, yo, you got… you're talking to God?
Yo, can you tell Him to get me a promotion? I need a raise." So they had… then they started asking me questions about... I didn't know anything about Islam. But my friends, you know, my Dominican, Puerto Rican, Cuban friends in the neighborhood, coworkers, they're like, "So like, what's… am I going to hell? Am I…?" I was like, "I don't know." "Yo, you can't eat pork, right? So I'm eating it right now. How you feel about that?" This is what they would do. There's actually a funny story to that, because after I took shahada, again, I'm still not telling my wife nothing, right? She knows I'm going to the mosque, but she doesn't know what to think now.
And so I go there and I take shahada (declaration of faith). I come home, and I just plop down on the couch, kind of like, you know, "Ah, I just got back from work," you know, it's only that word, right? And she goes, "So is everything okay?" Because she's worried that I'm gonna do something, right? She has no idea. And I said, "No, everything's great." She goes, "Okay. Okay." I looked at her, I says, "I'm a Muslim." This is another true story, funny it's but very true. So she said, she said, "What?" I said, "Yeah, I took shahada.
She goes, "You took what?" And so in my infant knowledge of Islam, right, I tried to explain it to her the best way I could, right, using examples of like baptism, okay? And she's like, she didn't know what to think. She stood there and she said, "Well, I'm gonna tell you something right now. I'm not putting anything around my head." "Alright. Well, you're not a Muslim, so I didn't even think that was a conversation. It's alright." And then she comes back a little while and says, "And another thing, if you want more than one wife, I'm not gonna be one of them." And I was like, I was thinking to myself, like, "Man, I'm not sure I want this one." So, she takes shahada. We leave the university.
I'm still kind of blown away, but I like to joke. I like to joke. So I looked at her and I said, you know, I was driving and I looked at her and I says, "So, you're a Muslim now... about that more than one wife thing..." She looked at her… she looked over at me with this mean look on her face and says, "Don't make me pull this car over." I said, "I'm driving! How are you gonna pull the car… I'm driving!" She goes, "I'll pull it over." I was like, "That's cool." I had my now wife of 34 years in college, and we weren't married. We were waiting until I graduated to get married. But we had been dating for three years. We were engaged, we had a wedding planned.
I'm doing all of this mental research. She's thinking I'm gonna be a Baptist preacher. I'm decided I want to be a Muslim, right? But I'm not talking with people. I'm just doing this internally the whole time. So when I show up on the mosque and I take shahada and I come home, I said, "I want to tell you something." She goes, "What?" "I'm gonna be a Muslim." You know, I took shahada. I became a Muslim. And her face looked at me, I mean, it was from, "Hi!" to, "What? What did you do?" I said, "I became a Muslim." She goes, "Why would you do..." and she started yelling and getting upset. And she says, "I don't know what… where did this come from?
I'm not gonna..." and she started just making a list of things she was never gonna do. I'm like, "Calm down. Just be happy for me. I don't care what you do, right? It's for me." So she calmed down. I got that book, The Halal (permissible) and Haram (forbidden), right? So I was reading and I learned very shortly that Muslims don't deal in riba (interest). Well, I graduated with a degree in finance. I specialized in interest rates, how to make money with money. And I'm no longer going to be a Baptist minister. So, I'm like, "Okay, what am I gonna do?" So I started looking for whatever job I can find. And I get hired as a trucking sales rep.
So calling businesses on the phone saying, "Use our truck lines to ship your product," okay? And starting that just to have income. I read a little bit in the halal and haram and it says, "Hey, Muslims don't eat pork." So I go to my wife, I said, "Hey, I learned something." She goes, "What?" I said, "Muslims don't eat pork. So when you're making dinner or whatever, don't give it to me. Just leave it out." She's like, "What have you got..." I mean, she gives me this sad look and a little upset. And then like I joined a cult, really, is what she's thinking. And she's like, "I'm not gonna do this," and she goes on about what she's not gonna do. I said, "Don't worry about you. Do what you want.
Just let me be happy." I read a few pages later and it says Muslim men don't wear gold. Well, I already had a gold wedding band picked out. I went to her, I said, "Hey, can we change this band to silver?" She took off her engagement ring and threw it across the room. I said, "I'm not..." and she gets upset, and then she calms down, and then, "I'm never..." and I'm like, "Okay." But she goes... Long story short, we ended up getting... I talked her into going to a mosque and getting Islamically married. And I went to church and got through the whole wedding like that we already had planned. So two weddings. But she was just tolerating me.
She really liked me, but she thought what I was doing was weird. A few more halaqas (Islamic study circles), and I come home one day and she goes, "I think I'm ready." I go, "Ready for what?" "To be a Muslim. But I'm not going to..." and she gives me this list of things she's not going to do. I'm like, "Hey, this is going my way. Yeah, fine. Good. You want to be..." So she becomes a Muslim. Make a long story short, everything she said she would never do, she now does. I called my father, like I always did in prison, and I told him that I had become a Muslim. And my father, remember, he's super Christian and super strict.
He said, "You did what?" And I said, "I have become a Muslim." "You worship the moon god?" And I… "No, I don't worship a moon god or the moon, or… I worship one God. The God of Jesus, the God of Moses and Abraham." And he said, "No, you don't. No, you're… you've… listen, you're on this Islam," and he said an expletive. And he told me, he gave me an ultimatum. He said, "Look, you know your six-figure income--? Your six-figure inheritance? That's going to be gone. The things that you're going to inherit after me, gone." My family is in the petroleum industry, so very well off.
And I said, "You're going to disown me?" He said, "After today, if you insist upon this Islam religion, you are dead to me. Your all your inheritance, gone." And he said, "Son, don't test me. I will go to my lawyer tomorrow and have him change the will, and you will be completely penniless. You will have no income whatsoever, nothing from me. You will be dead to me, dead to your brothers and your sister. You're done. So choose the words that you say very carefully. Now, will you leave Islam or will you stay in this fake religion?" And I said, "Before I answer, Dad, let me tell you something. I will obey you in everything except this one thing." And he said, "Why?
Before you're dead to me, explain to me why." And I said, "Dad, I have to make my own decision. There's something more than a six-figure inheritance. There's something more than inheriting property. There's something more after this life. And I don't care about this life. So when it comes to matters of salvation, you can keep your money. Give it to my brothers, my sister, give it to charity, I don't care. I have to insist that I become a Muslim and remain a Muslim." And here I am, 32 years later, a Muslim. Alhamdulillah (all praise is for Allah). So after that, I insisted upon becoming a Muslim and staying a Muslim. Uh, I got a letter in the mail about two weeks later.
He had done exactly that. He had gone to his lawyer. The amount that I was set to inherit was $600,000. And that was back in the early '90s. So it was a sizable chunk of money. So why would I put a price tag on… I don't care if it was $600 million. Look, you and I are going to be put in a… in a grave. And we're going to be in front of Allah, the One, the Irresistible. And we're going to be asked, you know, questioned about what we did in life. 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 for people who 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 al-Otaibi, sitting there, and the phone rings, and my aunt, which is, she's the loudest one in our family, her voice carries for miles. Phone rings, she grabs the phone. I didn't know the conversation. I'm just assuming what he told her was, "Is Harun there?" And then my aunt, "Harun! Harun! Is there a Harun here?
Harun family?" And I just kind of, I sink down in my chair. And then Muhammad, he tells her, "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 passes the phone to me and I'm, "Yes, hello. Walaikum salam (upon you be peace). Yeah. Okay. I gotta go. Bye." So at that point, my whole family found out all at once. They all knew. And the answer, the response was, "Huh." You know, it was very simple. Have you ever experienced an extraordinary event where you felt that you had a special connection with Allah?
Um, when I got out of prison, one of the stipulations was that I must keep a job. If I got fired for something I did, that would be considered a violation of my probation. I'd have to go back to jail for the rest of the two years. And so when I got out of prison, I found a job doing construction. The first Friday that came up, I told the boss that when everybody takes lunch, because we had an hour lunch break, I said, "I'm, instead of lunch, I'm going to go..." it was like three miles down the road. I said, "I'm going to go to Friday prayers," because I'm… they knew I was a Muslim. They saw me pray on the job site.
I said, "I'm gonna go to Friday prayers." And he said, "You're not allowed to leave the worksite." And I said, "That's not... I'm not really asking for permission. I'm telling you what I'm gonna do." And he said, "If you leave the worksite, you are fired. Like you're quitting." So I had a choice of stay on the job and disobey Allah's command, or go to Jummah (Friday prayer). And I said, "You know what? I spent four years in prison learning my deen (religion) to do the right thing. I'm going to do the right thing." So I left. I said, "Fine, keep your job.
I'm gone." So I went to Jummah, and I made a lot of dua (supplication) during that Jummah that, "Ya Allah (O Allah), I've come here to give obedience to You, so, you know, help me out here." After Jummah, a young man came up to me. He came and he said, "Brother Yusuf, do you have a job?" And I said, "Yeah, I had a job till today. I actually walked out of the job site and quit it to come here." He said, "My dad," who was the imam (leader of prayer), um, he said, "My dad came to ask me, do you want to work at this pizza shop?" I said, "Of course, I need a job." So he gave me a job starting that day, making double the money that I was making at the construction site.
The time I left the job to the time I had a new job was two hours. When you do something sincerely for Allah, "He will make for you a way out." So doing the right thing is scary sometimes, but that was one of the most beautiful nights I think I ever remember in my life. What was the best attribute of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), that, you know, impressed you the most? His mercy, especially the time he was coming back from Ta'if, trying to call for the people of Ta'if, but being thrown the, you know, stones and against acted. Then when he was offered by the angel of mountain to, you know, crush them, what he said, subhan Allah (glory be to Allah), "Please don't.
Perhaps there might be generations after them, those who would be believing in one God." What I admired most about the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is His mercy. When I read about all these stories, how they treated him, then they fought a war against him, several battles. And then he comes back to Makkah, and he enters Makkah victoriously. And I compared this with all these other examples from history. When someone was treated in that way, and he comes back and turns out to be victorious, how does he treat these people? And he just enters Makkah and people are gathering around him.
He asked them, "What do you think what I'm doing with you right now?" And they tell him, "Look, we know you, we expect only the best from you." And then he said, "It's okay. Just you can go. It's okay." Just like this. It's not easy for a human being. How many times in real life, if we are attacked on the street, verbally or even physically, we want to defend ourselves, and it's a natural reaction. But to swallow and swallow and swallow just for the sake of the message, because he is the example of mankind, he cannot let go of his ego. We can do that. I'm not this one example of Islam. I'm just an ordinary Muslim. His ability to inspire so many different kinds of personalities.
Like the Sahaba (Companions of the Prophet), we think of them as one group, but they're not. There are people that are very temperamental, they're natural leaders. There are people that are, you know, hesitant and quiet, and extroverts and introverts and the intellectual types and the emotional types. All kinds of personalities. And yet, he's not just able to inspire all of them, he's able to make them work with each other, love each other. How do you pull that off? It's one of the most incredible things about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), is that he was able to build a bond between people that ended up changing the entire world.
Reading about his life, it was clear to me that he was someone who was completely without blame, completely doing exactly the right thing in life. I think that was a key thing. I've always been a perfectionist, always wanting to do the right thing, always deeply upset when I feel like I've done the wrong thing. And so being able to know the intimate, moment-by-moment details of the life of this inspirational man, that was a real sense of healing for me, having a sense of what it means to be the best person I could be. And so just seeing him in all these situations as I read these narrations and hear stories about him and get to know him, his whole life is a healing for me.
Have you seen Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in your dream? -Twice. -Really? Alhamdulillah (all praise is for Allah). I was in the desert and I saw in the distance… he took my hand and he said, "I want you to meet other people." And he sat down, and I sat down right next to him. And then he said, "Now look, here is Abu Bakr As-Siddiq." And he said, "And over here is Umar ibn al-Khattab, and this is Uthman bin Affan, and this is Ali bin Abi Talib. And they all love you." And I just thought in the dream, "Why do they love me? I'm nobody. Why do they love me?" But alhamdulillah (all praise is for Allah), that was one of the best dreams that I've had in my life.
I love you, Ya Rasulullah (O Messenger of Allah). I love you. Lastly, if you had the chance to speak to all the non-Muslims in the world, what would you just like to say to them if you had a few moments? Something to say to all non-Muslims in the world. I would like to quote one verse from the Quran: "Do you think We created you just for amusement and play, and you wouldn't be brought back to Us?" If you just look inside yourself, I think you will know that there is one God, and He would never create this universe just like that. There must be something behind that. Go and search for the reason, what is behind this universe.
The ones who I had gotten my impression of Islam from were a bad example. That's not Islam. This is more like Islam. So I just kept reading. I kept reading. My ill feelings started to slowly dissipate. They just went away. I was convinced of Islam easily, but I hesitated because of the bad image of Islam. I read the Quran and I read the Quran, and so, with the third day, I really got into the Quran. Like, this is… I was committed to reading it for hours. And so what happened was, my cellmate said, "You've been reading that book since breakfast. Are you gonna eat or no?" And I just thought, "I'm really into this book. Why? Why? Why? Why?" How was your life before Islam?
What were you believing in? I grew up with a lot of Christian teachings, as most American children do. I knew about them, but to be honest with you, I was getting this nationalist ideology about me. Religion just didn't play a part. It seemed too mythological, too much hocus pocus, maybe, you know? But I believed in my country, you know? I tell people, for lack of a better example, the flag was my cross. That's the best way I can explain that. 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 McDonalds. 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. For a while, yes. I was an atheist. I didn't see the point in religion. I thought that it was a way of keeping people from being happy and being, doing whatever they want to do. It was a way of controlling freedom, religion. And so when you get rid of religion, you kind of get rid of God with it. Well, my journey to Islam began my senior year in college, when I decided I wanted to become a Baptist preacher. I decided not to quit college and go to seminary, but to finish my degree and then go to seminary. So I had one year to finish.
And because of my enthusiasm, I just started dragging all of my friends, colleagues, everybody I met, into a religious conversation, so that I could think about how I could practice saving people, right? The whole mission would be to convert them to Christianity. I always believed in God, since day one. I have never had a moment in my life of, "Hmm, what if there was never a God?" I have never had that problem in my heart. I'm reading the Bible, and I'm reading a particular verse about Jacob, where Jacob says... the first verse that I read was, "No man can see God and live after that." And I'm thinking, but people called Jesus God, and they all saw Jesus, and no one died looking at Jesus.
So the verse was, "No man can look at God and live after." I turned the page to another verse, another story of Jacob. Not only does Jacob see God, he is wrestling God. He has… in a wrestling match, has God by the thigh and says to God, "I will not let you go until you bless me." Okay, wait a minute. You just said that if you even see God, that no man can live after that. Okay, so why is Jacob living after that? And why does God have a form that you can hold on to? And why can't God, being all-powerful, pull away from Jacob? The story goes on. So what did I do? Fourteen-year-old me, raised my hand.
The pastor came over and said, "How can I help you?" I showed him the two verses, and his reaction was, "Hmm, I didn't even know that that was in the Bible." And I said, I kind of… "What? But you're the Bible pastor. You're the one that's supposed to be teaching us the Bible." And as a 14-year-old boy, I asked him, "How do I rectify this? How do I make sense of this?" I found myself reading about other religions. I read about Judaism, I read about Hinduism for about five minutes. I read a book and I just said, "This is the… no, no way." I believe that if God had a religion, it would have proof. There would be tangible, physical, manifested proof.
So I was asking all these other religions: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, whatever it be. They all had the same level of contradictory information. So, there was an Islamic center in my hometown. I ain't really know anything about these people. I'd see them. So I had watched this place before, in several different times, not just once. If I put a bomb here, are they gonna find it? So I don't want that to happen. So on the back side, I found a good place for it. And it was easy because at that time, common enemy: everybody hates Muslims. And in the course of three years, that's what I did. I built this thing, the bomb. I took my time. I was gonna make a big statement.
Now, a lot of people think that's crazy on so many different levels because, how are you gonna get away with that? I had no intention of getting away with it. I knew I was gonna be caught. I knew I would go to trial because they would execute me. I was good with that. Because I wasn't getting my flag-draped coffin, but I believed that eventually, these same people were gonna think of me as a hero, because I was right. And my daughter had told me about this Muslim child that she was in school with. And I blew up. So I thought, "I failed my family because I couldn't protect them. I can't protect her at school from these Muslims." That was my whole thing. I just totally lost it.
And my daughter, seven years old, is looking at me like, like I've just lost everything. And she was… the look in her eyes was like she was even questioning whether she even loved me anymore because I was being so racist, or so, you know, against these one people just because they looked a certain way or they did a certain thing. That was it. You know, after different profanities came out of my mouth and, you know, calling them all kinds of of racial slurs, I guess is the best way to put it, I went up into my bedroom. I kind of sat on the bed and I started to cry a little bit. I said, "Well, you have to find the proof, man.
You know you're right." I believed in myself I was right, because they're evil. They want to kill us all, right? And, and but I didn't have any kind of tangible proof to like show my daughter. I didn't have that. So I had to go get it. Where am I gonna get it? The mosque. Where else? And I went in there, I met with them, and I introduced myself as somebody who just wants to learn a little bit more about Islam. Not a total lie, but didn't tell him what my real intentions were. So, you know, I talked to several… was introduced to several people, talked to several people. It was a Friday. Again, I went on Friday because I knew they'd be there.
I listened to the sermon, the khutbah (sermon), right? And I was like, "Man, that sounds good." They're just saying that because I'm here. I already know. I already know. They probably got people held down in the basement for propaganda videos. I already know. I mean, these are the things that are going through my mind, right? And then they handed me a Quran. And I was told to take it home, read it, come back when you have questions. I was so happy, because in my mind, I felt like I'd just been handed the holy grail of evil, and I'm going to have somebody explain it to me. Wow. That's better than hitting the lottery. Never been called an intellectual person. But a light bulb came on.
Obviously, the ones who I had gotten my impression of Islam from were a bad example. That's not Islam. This is more like Islam. So I just kept reading. And kept reading. My ill feelings started to slowly dissipate. They just went away. And, you know, I get to certain passages in the Quran, you know, like, uh, you know, Allah made us into different nations and tribes so that we may learn from one another, not despise one another. Oh, okay, I can see that right here because this person is involved with local government and Rotary Club and all these other organizations. Oh, okay, I get that. So it started to all go this way. And I read it and I just…
the language, the delivery of the Quran was so unique to me. And I just thought, the way this book is worded is amazing. And so I read the Quran and I read the Quran, and so, with the third day, I really got into the Quran. Like, this is… I was committed to reading it for hours. And so what happened was, my cellmate said, "Hey man, hey, aren't you going to dinner?" I said, "Dinner?" And I was looking up from my Quran. I said, "Dinner?" And then he said, "Yeah, you've been reading that book since breakfast. Are you going to eat or no?" I said, "Yeah, I probably should." I closed the Quran and I went. And I just thought, "I'm really into this book. Why?
Why?" The miracle of the Quran, they're endless. There's no one greatest miracle. People think because I talk about the language of the Quran, to me, the language is the miracle of the Quran. No, language is one of many. And to a psychologist, they might see something in an ayah (verse) about the nafs (self/soul) that is their miracle. To a geologist, something else. To a historian, something else. To a sociologist, something else. To a philosopher, something else. That might be the miracle to them. To a linguist, something else. To a comparative religion expert, something else. The miracles of the Quran are actually dependent on who's coming to them.
That's one of the most amazing things about the miracle of the Quran is, it's not just one stick turning into one snake, right? It's every human being has the ability to find their miracle in this book. This cannot be the truth. And even, it's like I said to myself, "Please, God, please. Don't let this be the truth. Anything but not Islam. Please select something else, but not Islam. Why this has to be the truth?" Yeah. Because I said, "No. How can I follow this religion?" I knew about the picture of Islam in the West.
And I said to myself, "If I go to my parents, my friends, if I tell anyone I'm a Muslim, impossible." So that's why I was convinced of Islam easily, but I hesitated because of the bad image of Islam. I go back to the Islamic center on a Friday, and I meet two guys, two of the original guys that I was introduced to that I'd gotten, kind of built a relationship with now. And I went up to them, I says, "Hey, I want to take shahada (declaration of faith)." True story. They're standing side by side. They look at each other, they look back at me, simultaneously, they go, "No." True story. Oh my gosh. I was, I was blown away.
I was like, "What do you mean, no?" He said, "Brother, you got more to learn." So they look back at each other, they look back to me. "Alright, come on." True story. It was quite an experience. As we were going through it, you know, said it, said it in English, and then we went through and said it in Arabic. And so on that day, on Jummah (Friday prayer), 1991, I said, (I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is His servant and messenger)." And I was a Muslim. I was going to my barber. I remember I was at my barber. I was saying like, "Hey, isn't it prayer time?
It's like Dhuhr (midday prayer) right now, right?" He was like, "Yes, but…" He was like, "Are you a Muslim already?" I said, "No, but I try to pray five times a day because I feel peaceful with it and I'm pretty close," I said. "I'm really pretty close." Then he asked me something which was the thing maybe that I needed at that time. He said, "What if you would die tomorrow? Or what if you would die today? Are you dying as a Muslim? Or are you dying as a non-Muslim?" And, subhan Allah (glory be to Allah), that really made me think. And I didn't get an answer to that at that time, but on my way home, after I went to the barber, I was really asking myself, "Yeah, what am I… what am I dying?
How am I dying? Where do I go?" I mean, death is the best reminder sometimes. And I remember giving my friends a call on my way home, saying, "Tomorrow, let's take the shahada (declaration of faith). I want to do it. I'm convinced." When I took the shahada, it was after ten month of resistance. There was an internal conflict, an internal struggle, knowing that it's the truth, but sometimes trying to find excuses not to accept it. For ten month. It was like a ten-month war inside myself. And all of a sudden, the war was over. And it's like any other war, you're just happy it's over. But here, not in the way that you are defeated. You come out of this with a victory.
And that's what I felt in my heart. It was the right decision. Just I asked myself, "Why didn't take it so long? Why?" And I would work at that store and then it would be salah (prayer) time. I'd run down to the shoe area where they... the shoe warehouse and go make salah quickly and come back, join again. Asr (afternoon prayer) time, go back, come back, go back, come back. I started being regular in my prayer. And my coworkers, they were all like Hispanics, because they didn't call me Nouman, they called me Ali. "Yo, Ali, what you doing, man? Why you being weird like that? Why aren't you looking at me?" Then I have to explain, "I'm praying." "Oh man, yo, you got… you're talking to God?
Yo, can you tell Him to get me a promotion? I need a raise." So they had… then they started asking me questions about... I didn't know anything about Islam. But my friends, you know, my Dominican, Puerto Rican, Cuban friends in the neighborhood, coworkers, they're like, "So like, what's… am I going to hell? Am I…?" I was like, "I don't know." "Yo, you can't eat pork, right? So I'm eating it right now. How you feel about that?" This is what they would do. There's actually a funny story to that, because after I took shahada, again, I'm still not telling my wife nothing, right? She knows I'm going to the mosque, but she doesn't know what to think now.
And so I go there and I take shahada (declaration of faith). I come home, and I just plop down on the couch, kind of like, you know, "Ah, I just got back from work," you know, it's only that word, right? And she goes, "So is everything okay?" Because she's worried that I'm gonna do something, right? She has no idea. And I said, "No, everything's great." She goes, "Okay. Okay." I looked at her, I says, "I'm a Muslim." This is another true story, funny it's but very true. So she said, she said, "What?" I said, "Yeah, I took shahada.
She goes, "You took what?" And so in my infant knowledge of Islam, right, I tried to explain it to her the best way I could, right, using examples of like baptism, okay? And she's like, she didn't know what to think. She stood there and she said, "Well, I'm gonna tell you something right now. I'm not putting anything around my head." "Alright. Well, you're not a Muslim, so I didn't even think that was a conversation. It's alright." And then she comes back a little while and says, "And another thing, if you want more than one wife, I'm not gonna be one of them." And I was like, I was thinking to myself, like, "Man, I'm not sure I want this one." So, she takes shahada. We leave the university.
I'm still kind of blown away, but I like to joke. I like to joke. So I looked at her and I said, you know, I was driving and I looked at her and I says, "So, you're a Muslim now... about that more than one wife thing..." She looked at her… she looked over at me with this mean look on her face and says, "Don't make me pull this car over." I said, "I'm driving! How are you gonna pull the car… I'm driving!" She goes, "I'll pull it over." I was like, "That's cool." I had my now wife of 34 years in college, and we weren't married. We were waiting until I graduated to get married. But we had been dating for three years. We were engaged, we had a wedding planned.
I'm doing all of this mental research. She's thinking I'm gonna be a Baptist preacher. I'm decided I want to be a Muslim, right? But I'm not talking with people. I'm just doing this internally the whole time. So when I show up on the mosque and I take shahada and I come home, I said, "I want to tell you something." She goes, "What?" "I'm gonna be a Muslim." You know, I took shahada. I became a Muslim. And her face looked at me, I mean, it was from, "Hi!" to, "What? What did you do?" I said, "I became a Muslim." She goes, "Why would you do..." and she started yelling and getting upset. And she says, "I don't know what… where did this come from?
I'm not gonna..." and she started just making a list of things she was never gonna do. I'm like, "Calm down. Just be happy for me. I don't care what you do, right? It's for me." So she calmed down. I got that book, The Halal (permissible) and Haram (forbidden), right? So I was reading and I learned very shortly that Muslims don't deal in riba (interest). Well, I graduated with a degree in finance. I specialized in interest rates, how to make money with money. And I'm no longer going to be a Baptist minister. So, I'm like, "Okay, what am I gonna do?" So I started looking for whatever job I can find. And I get hired as a trucking sales rep.
So calling businesses on the phone saying, "Use our truck lines to ship your product," okay? And starting that just to have income. I read a little bit in the halal and haram and it says, "Hey, Muslims don't eat pork." So I go to my wife, I said, "Hey, I learned something." She goes, "What?" I said, "Muslims don't eat pork. So when you're making dinner or whatever, don't give it to me. Just leave it out." She's like, "What have you got..." I mean, she gives me this sad look and a little upset. And then like I joined a cult, really, is what she's thinking. And she's like, "I'm not gonna do this," and she goes on about what she's not gonna do. I said, "Don't worry about you. Do what you want.
Just let me be happy." I read a few pages later and it says Muslim men don't wear gold. Well, I already had a gold wedding band picked out. I went to her, I said, "Hey, can we change this band to silver?" She took off her engagement ring and threw it across the room. I said, "I'm not..." and she gets upset, and then she calms down, and then, "I'm never..." and I'm like, "Okay." But she goes... Long story short, we ended up getting... I talked her into going to a mosque and getting Islamically married. And I went to church and got through the whole wedding like that we already had planned. So two weddings. But she was just tolerating me.
She really liked me, but she thought what I was doing was weird. A few more halaqas (Islamic study circles), and I come home one day and she goes, "I think I'm ready." I go, "Ready for what?" "To be a Muslim. But I'm not going to..." and she gives me this list of things she's not going to do. I'm like, "Hey, this is going my way. Yeah, fine. Good. You want to be..." So she becomes a Muslim. Make a long story short, everything she said she would never do, she now does. I called my father, like I always did in prison, and I told him that I had become a Muslim. And my father, remember, he's super Christian and super strict.
He said, "You did what?" And I said, "I have become a Muslim." "You worship the moon god?" And I… "No, I don't worship a moon god or the moon, or… I worship one God. The God of Jesus, the God of Moses and Abraham." And he said, "No, you don't. No, you're… you've… listen, you're on this Islam," and he said an expletive. And he told me, he gave me an ultimatum. He said, "Look, you know your six-figure income--? Your six-figure inheritance? That's going to be gone. The things that you're going to inherit after me, gone." My family is in the petroleum industry, so very well off.
And I said, "You're going to disown me?" He said, "After today, if you insist upon this Islam religion, you are dead to me. Your all your inheritance, gone." And he said, "Son, don't test me. I will go to my lawyer tomorrow and have him change the will, and you will be completely penniless. You will have no income whatsoever, nothing from me. You will be dead to me, dead to your brothers and your sister. You're done. So choose the words that you say very carefully. Now, will you leave Islam or will you stay in this fake religion?" And I said, "Before I answer, Dad, let me tell you something. I will obey you in everything except this one thing." And he said, "Why?
Before you're dead to me, explain to me why." And I said, "Dad, I have to make my own decision. There's something more than a six-figure inheritance. There's something more than inheriting property. There's something more after this life. And I don't care about this life. So when it comes to matters of salvation, you can keep your money. Give it to my brothers, my sister, give it to charity, I don't care. I have to insist that I become a Muslim and remain a Muslim." And here I am, 32 years later, a Muslim. Alhamdulillah (all praise is for Allah). So after that, I insisted upon becoming a Muslim and staying a Muslim. Uh, I got a letter in the mail about two weeks later.
He had done exactly that. He had gone to his lawyer. The amount that I was set to inherit was $600,000. And that was back in the early '90s. So it was a sizable chunk of money. So why would I put a price tag on… I don't care if it was $600 million. Look, you and I are going to be put in a… in a grave. And we're going to be in front of Allah, the One, the Irresistible. And we're going to be asked, you know, questioned about what we did in life. 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 for people who 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 al-Otaibi, sitting there, and the phone rings, and my aunt, which is, she's the loudest one in our family, her voice carries for miles. Phone rings, she grabs the phone. I didn't know the conversation. I'm just assuming what he told her was, "Is Harun there?" And then my aunt, "Harun! Harun! Is there a Harun here?
Harun family?" And I just kind of, I sink down in my chair. And then Muhammad, he tells her, "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 passes the phone to me and I'm, "Yes, hello. Walaikum salam (upon you be peace). Yeah. Okay. I gotta go. Bye." So at that point, my whole family found out all at once. They all knew. And the answer, the response was, "Huh." You know, it was very simple. Have you ever experienced an extraordinary event where you felt that you had a special connection with Allah?
Um, when I got out of prison, one of the stipulations was that I must keep a job. If I got fired for something I did, that would be considered a violation of my probation. I'd have to go back to jail for the rest of the two years. And so when I got out of prison, I found a job doing construction. The first Friday that came up, I told the boss that when everybody takes lunch, because we had an hour lunch break, I said, "I'm, instead of lunch, I'm going to go..." it was like three miles down the road. I said, "I'm going to go to Friday prayers," because I'm… they knew I was a Muslim. They saw me pray on the job site.
I said, "I'm gonna go to Friday prayers." And he said, "You're not allowed to leave the worksite." And I said, "That's not... I'm not really asking for permission. I'm telling you what I'm gonna do." And he said, "If you leave the worksite, you are fired. Like you're quitting." So I had a choice of stay on the job and disobey Allah's command, or go to Jummah (Friday prayer). And I said, "You know what? I spent four years in prison learning my deen (religion) to do the right thing. I'm going to do the right thing." So I left. I said, "Fine, keep your job.
I'm gone." So I went to Jummah, and I made a lot of dua (supplication) during that Jummah that, "Ya Allah (O Allah), I've come here to give obedience to You, so, you know, help me out here." After Jummah, a young man came up to me. He came and he said, "Brother Yusuf, do you have a job?" And I said, "Yeah, I had a job till today. I actually walked out of the job site and quit it to come here." He said, "My dad," who was the imam (leader of prayer), um, he said, "My dad came to ask me, do you want to work at this pizza shop?" I said, "Of course, I need a job." So he gave me a job starting that day, making double the money that I was making at the construction site.
The time I left the job to the time I had a new job was two hours. When you do something sincerely for Allah, "He will make for you a way out." So doing the right thing is scary sometimes, but that was one of the most beautiful nights I think I ever remember in my life. What was the best attribute of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), that, you know, impressed you the most? His mercy, especially the time he was coming back from Ta'if, trying to call for the people of Ta'if, but being thrown the, you know, stones and against acted. Then when he was offered by the angel of mountain to, you know, crush them, what he said, subhan Allah (glory be to Allah), "Please don't.
Perhaps there might be generations after them, those who would be believing in one God." What I admired most about the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is His mercy. When I read about all these stories, how they treated him, then they fought a war against him, several battles. And then he comes back to Makkah, and he enters Makkah victoriously. And I compared this with all these other examples from history. When someone was treated in that way, and he comes back and turns out to be victorious, how does he treat these people? And he just enters Makkah and people are gathering around him.
He asked them, "What do you think what I'm doing with you right now?" And they tell him, "Look, we know you, we expect only the best from you." And then he said, "It's okay. Just you can go. It's okay." Just like this. It's not easy for a human being. How many times in real life, if we are attacked on the street, verbally or even physically, we want to defend ourselves, and it's a natural reaction. But to swallow and swallow and swallow just for the sake of the message, because he is the example of mankind, he cannot let go of his ego. We can do that. I'm not this one example of Islam. I'm just an ordinary Muslim. His ability to inspire so many different kinds of personalities.
Like the Sahaba (Companions of the Prophet), we think of them as one group, but they're not. There are people that are very temperamental, they're natural leaders. There are people that are, you know, hesitant and quiet, and extroverts and introverts and the intellectual types and the emotional types. All kinds of personalities. And yet, he's not just able to inspire all of them, he's able to make them work with each other, love each other. How do you pull that off? It's one of the most incredible things about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), is that he was able to build a bond between people that ended up changing the entire world.
Reading about his life, it was clear to me that he was someone who was completely without blame, completely doing exactly the right thing in life. I think that was a key thing. I've always been a perfectionist, always wanting to do the right thing, always deeply upset when I feel like I've done the wrong thing. And so being able to know the intimate, moment-by-moment details of the life of this inspirational man, that was a real sense of healing for me, having a sense of what it means to be the best person I could be. And so just seeing him in all these situations as I read these narrations and hear stories about him and get to know him, his whole life is a healing for me.
Have you seen Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in your dream? -Twice. -Really? Alhamdulillah (all praise is for Allah). I was in the desert and I saw in the distance… he took my hand and he said, "I want you to meet other people." And he sat down, and I sat down right next to him. And then he said, "Now look, here is Abu Bakr As-Siddiq." And he said, "And over here is Umar ibn al-Khattab, and this is Uthman bin Affan, and this is Ali bin Abi Talib. And they all love you." And I just thought in the dream, "Why do they love me? I'm nobody. Why do they love me?" But alhamdulillah (all praise is for Allah), that was one of the best dreams that I've had in my life.
I love you, Ya Rasulullah (O Messenger of Allah). I love you. Lastly, if you had the chance to speak to all the non-Muslims in the world, what would you just like to say to them if you had a few moments? Something to say to all non-Muslims in the world. I would like to quote one verse from the Quran: "Do you think We created you just for amusement and play, and you wouldn't be brought back to Us?" If you just look inside yourself, I think you will know that there is one God, and He would never create this universe just like that. There must be something behind that. Go and search for the reason, what is behind this universe.