I Had to Take Off My Hijab! My Mum Rejected Me Because of Islam!" Emotional Revert Story!
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I started to read the Quran for one arrogant reason and that was that I wanted to find a contradiction I threw away the articles the leaflets the cassettes I put the Quran away it was becoming too much for me mentally, emotionally You know I've I've become Muslim and this is me now. It was a very painful moment when she said to me "I've done my job. I no longer need to be your mother, and you're on your own." And, To be rejected by your mother is very very painful. Very very painful.
I couldn't find where I belong I felt incredibly lonely that it became too much I called my mother and I said to her please come and take me home and I stopped practicing Islam so I took off my hijab I stopped praying Assalam Alaikum sister Aliyah um Raiyyan thank you for accepting our invitation. I want to start with who is Aliyah um Raiyyan? and can you tell us briefly about your life? Walaikum assalam warahmatullah. First of all thank you very much for the opportunity. I was born and raised in East London. I grew up in a predominantly Muslim area it was predominantly a Bangladeshi area and so I would see Muslims quite a lot.
So I'm of mixed race, My mother is Italian and my father is Nigerian from West Africa but I think whenever I'm asked this question I just think Aliyah is a soul that wants to journey to Allah (swt). How was your life in regards to faith? What were you believing in? I grew up as a Christian. I became a born again Christian actually as a teenager. I always believed in God. My mother raised me in a way that encouraged me to be curious about life and purpose and the world and so even though I became a born again Christian there were kind of gaps. So yes, so I questioned.
I questioned the kind of fundamentals of Christianity at a very very young age and found that whilst emotionally and spiritually I was inclined towards a faith rationally it didn't sit with me, and so I actually ended up leaving the faith. My father's background is very very interesting because he was actually born a Muslim, my grandfather was Muslim, when my grandfather died long before I was born my father left Islam and so when he met my mother in London he wasn't a Muslim so I was never you know brought up upon Islam there was no form of Islam he wasn't Muslim. What was the thing that made you question your beliefs?
So I remember going to church with my mother, I would go to church and spiritually and emotionally it would be very very fulfilling but I had questions. I couldn't understand how we were worshipping the son of God. I couldn't understand how in one moment he was the son of God and in the next moment he was the Lord.
But more importantly he was a man that he was a human being like myself and I couldn't understand logically and rationally how I could worship another human being that didn't sit right with me at a very very young age and so I questioned that and I remember one particular day speaking to the pastor of the church and saying to him you know and asking him this question and he said "Just have faith" and it was at that moment that I knew that this wasn't for me. How did you first hear about Islam? So, I I have to take you back to my early very very early childhood in order to answer this question.
So I grew up in a predominantly Muslim area it was a Bangladeshi area, and opposite where I lived, I was I lived on the first floor. I was about 8, 8 years old. I would go to the living room window and lean on the living room windowsill and I would be able to see on the ground floor opposite the road from where I live and there was a makeshift masjid. It was actually a container at the time but from where I would lean as a child I could see into the prayer area of this kind of makeshift mosque, and I found it fascinating.
And I would see them enter and I would see them bow and prostrate, and I would find it fascinating as a child and I would, you know rush to the windowsill, you know a few times a day just to kind of capture this. So around the same age, unfortunately things were quite bad at home my parents were constantly fighting they didn't get on there were constant arguments constant fights, and I remember one particular day there was a huge fight between my mother and father.
And I ran to my bedroom, I was about 8 years old, on my way to the bedroom I took my mother's shawl it was a beautiful kind of Asian shawl that she had been gifted by her Pakistani colleague, work colleague, and I took the shawl and I threw it onto the ground and I made sujood. I prostrated and I said God and I remember, I said God make them stop make them stop arguing and but you know at that time obviously I was a young child I didn't know exactly what I was doing but I was copying what I had seen in the masjid, you know, and I felt that God would hear me because that was a position that was close to God, that's how I felt at the time.
So that was kind of like my first my first experience of Islam, and then there's another one fast forward two years I was 10 years old, I was at school, I came home from school, and we heard news that one of our classmates who was actually in my class, he had finished school, ran over the road to purchase some playing cards that were very popular at the time and he had got knocked over by a big truck and he died instantly. And school wrote home to all his, you know, classmates and invited them to his funeral, which would, you know which was gonna take place in a couple of days time.
So I begged my mum to let me go and there were a few of us who were non Muslims in the class, and she said yes, and I remember saying to my friend Layla who was my best friend at the time she was from Somalia, I said to her can I borrow a scarf and she said yes so she gave me a scarf, and I remember walking into East London Mosque. I think I was the only non Muslim child that went to the funeral and I prayed Dhuhr, and I prayed the janazah prayer, thereafter. And I remember in the Dhuhr prayer making sujood and feeling this sense of closeness that I had felt when I made it, you know two years earlier, and that was kind of like my second experience of Islam.
What happened that you started to become closer to Islam? So things became worse at home considerably worse, there was a lot of kind of DV at home, domestic violence at home. I was affected by that mentally and emotionally and Subhanallah, Allah Allah placed someone on my path, it was a classmate at secondary school now, and she was a practicing Muslim. Out of all of the Muslim girls in my class they were quite cultural but she was you know she was very very practicing. And she was going through something similar at home, but her the situation between her parents was actually far worse than mine.
Her mum was, you know Subhanallah, you know a victim of domestic violence she was beaten up regularly, and yet despite that she was calm, she was at peace. And I remember thinking your family situation is far worse than mine, I'm falling apart, but you've got it together. You know, and what is it? How are you able to kind of get through this? Because I, I'm really being affected by this. And she said "It's my faith, it's my faith that gets me through".
Now obviously I thought I knew who Muslims were but I also felt that Islam was a very backwards religion and I developed a great love for this particular friend, we became very very close, we were completely different, I mean I was wild I was a bit crazy, you know very popular. She was a, you know, Mashallah practicing Muslim, and yet we became very very close. And I started to look into Islam, I started to read articles, at that time it was listening to tape cassettes. I started to read the Quran for one very arrogant reason, and that was that I wanted to find a contradiction in the faith, to save her.
Because I just felt that the hijab was wrong, I felt that it would hold her back from a successful career, a successful life, you know I felt, you know, growing up in the area that I did, what I saw you know, was men walking, you know, two miles ahead whilst their wives walked behind them. You know, these were the stereotypes that I that I had, and so it was interesting because on the one hand I could see that there was something about this faith that produced this beautiful sense of peace in her. And that on the other hand this was going to restrict her this was going to oppress her this was going to hold her back. So I started and we used to debate and, you know, we would talk regularly.
And as time went on I started to become convinced that Islam was the truth. And it terrified me, I started to become convinced, my heart started to change, my mind started to change, I couldn't find anything, all I could find was a comprehensive way of life, all I could find were scientific proofs in the Quran, all I could find in my research was the literary miracle of the Quran. There was nothing and that scared me because even though I was young at the time, I've always been the type of person that if I adopt something if I choose something I give it 150%.
So I knew that as I was beginning to change and I started to become convinced that would mean I would have to change my life, and that scared me. What was keeping you from taking your shahada? And how did you become Muslim in the end? So, fear overcame me. Fear reigned supreme at that time to the point that I cut off from my friends. I threw away the articles, the leaflets, the cassettes. I put the Quran away. it was becoming too much for me mentally, emotionally. I was afraid of what I believed. I was afraid, that I would have to change my life.
I wouldn't say that I particularly loved my life but I was free, right, and to give up your freedom is a very scary thing, particularly when you don't know what you may gain and now I know what I have gained. So, I cut her out, and I just carried on with my life and then I remember revising for my exams. There was a particular weekend where I was revising for my exams but for some reason, I couldn't concentrate. All I could think about was Islam, all I could think about, were the things that I had discovered. It was almost as though I was bombarded by these thoughts.
You know, these thoughts about the the scientific proofs in the Quran, the existence of God, the, the proof of you know, the messengership and it was just thought after thought after thought.. And so I took myself out for a walk around where I lived at the time. Just to get a bit of a breather. I came to a road that I would regularly cross. I stood there waiting for the green man, and the green man came and people were crossing and I just couldn't cross. It felt as though my legs were pinned to the ground.
And the thought that was in my mind was if I cross this road, or in fact any other road, and I'm hit by a car, and I die knowing what I know, what I truly know, what would that mean for me? And it just dawned on me. Why am I not testifying to that which has already entered my heart? So I took myself home, called my friend, she picked up the phone, heard my voice and she was just so happy to hear from me. And I said to her I believe and I need to take my shahada. And that was the weekend and the Monday I took my shahada. Alhamdullilah How did your family react to your conversion to Islam?
Being the kind of overzealous, passionate, you know young person that I was at the time, the way that I told my mother was arriving home, knocking on the door and her opening the door to me in hijab. Not the best of decisions I have to say, not the best of decisions. And she looked at me completely confused and I said yes, you know, I've become Muslim and this is me now. She thought it was a phase. Alhamdullilah it’s been a 24 year phase. Alhamdullilah And it was very very difficult after that. I lost family, I lost friends. I ended up on my own at a very young age, the first few years after becoming Muslim, were very tough. What was the major challenge you faced after becoming Muslim?
I lost a relationship with my mother, so there were a number of things that happened at the time, she was in a new relationship. That man hated, had a hatred for Islam. He turned her against me. And I remember at the age of seventeen it was a very painful moment when she said to me she looked at me I was 17 and she said "I've done my job I no longer need to be your mother and you're on your own." And that was very very difficult. At that age you need your family. And To be rejected by your mother is is very very painful, very very painful. So that was hard.
And then after that to then have to fend for yourself at a very young age to get a job, to be alone, and then a number of other difficulties that I went through at the time which were quite personal, without family support, was really really hard. So I was living on my own and I embraced Islam through a particular group an Islamic group which I ended up leaving and then I ended up kind of going to the other extreme, so I went from one extreme to the other extreme, and whilst all of this was happening with my family I couldn't find where I belonged.
And I was new, you know the transition the identity crisis that you go through as a new Muslim, so I, I face rejection for my family I've gone from one Islamic group to another Islamic group, you know, both kind of at the end of, you know, the spectrum. And I couldn't, I couldn't find my, I couldn't find where I belong I felt incredibly lonely that it became too much, and it was in hospital that I called my mother and I said to her "Please come and take me home." and I stopped practicing Islam.
So I took off my hijab I stopped praying I distanced myself from the Muslim community I still held on to my beliefs though and I think I did that because I did become Muslim from a place of rational conviction. It's just that all of the tests that I went through was just too much. How did you start practicing Islam again? So I got a job eventually I moved out again and just kind of carried on with my life, you know I was free. I didn't have to deal with all the issues that I had faced as a new Muslim, but there was an emptiness.
There was an emptiness and there was, there was always something that didn't feel right, and then it was you know I spent a couple of years like that, and then the emptiness became too much. And I knew that it was because I was living a life that didn't align with my beliefs.
And so I started to come back to Islam slowly and I remember, you know people say that there the shahada was like the sweetest moment of their life, but coming back to Allah and coming back to Islam without the pressures of a group or without someone telling me "This is what you need to do!" "This is halal!" "This is haram!" "This is, you know you're doing things wrong!" No, coming back to Islam organically a journey again between me and my Lord, it was beautiful, it was so sweet, I remember reading one page of Quran every day in English. I started to wrap my hair, kind of like an African style. And obviously that progressed progressed to hijab.
I started to pray again, and I came back to Islam and I started practicing again. Alhamdulillah it was a beautiful sweet moment because it was between me and my Rabb, between me and my Lord. So what effect did this have on your relationship with your mom? So my mother ended up leaving that marriage which was the best thing and she began to heal and I think she's very much still healing. We began to repair our relationship and that took a lot of effort I think from both parts from both sides. And then in 2015 she began to ask questions about Islam and I was living abroad at the time I was living in North Africa.
She began this kind of journey, she had all of these questions, and then in 2015 she said that she wanted to become Muslim and this was at a time where she she had, my mother is an avid reader, she reads, she eats books you know, she loves history and Islamic history in particular, you know ended up kind of creating that curiosity in that sense of wanting to know more. So 2015 she did say that she wants to become Muslim and she ends up taking her shahada.
Very shortly after that she said that she couldn't maintain the faith, and I think that's because of her age, I think it's because she didn't have any Muslims around her, I, you know, I was living very very far from her, and so she ended up leaving the faith. And then 2021 she began to watch some YouTube videos and she came to me she said to me "Oh I came across some, came across these videos by a woman called Ieasha Prime." I didn't know her at the time so I quickly obviously started to research and she's an American sister.
And that led on to my mother watching videos of Sheikh Khalid Yasin, and she came to me she was so excited and she said I have come across this man I don't know who he is but he speaks to my soul. He's so knowledgeable he is someone that understands history you know, and she has a, you know she has an inclination towards history.
And then she would read sorry she would watch video after video after video by Sheikh Khalid Yasin, and she would come to me and she would say you know I've learnt this and you know he's done this series about Jesus I think it's called Historical Jesus and you know she found it fascinating she would just be constantly just watching, watching, watching and coming back to me and I didn't say anything I thought I don't know what's happening here but something is changing and I would just answer questions I wouldn't input. I would just let her come to me.
She would just say this man is incredible so I took it upon myself to find him, so I sent out a message and I just sent out message to my contacts and said “Does anyone have the contact details of Khalid Yasin?” and someone directed me to his Facebook page where, you know he has his number and his email address, I emailed him and I and I told him what happened and I said to him I said to him my mother has come across your videos, this is her past this is what's kind of happened I'm a revert, I told him my entire story and I said I know you're incredibly incredibly busy but would there be any possibility of you speaking to my mum? And I sent the email.
Now Khalid Yasin is a busy man so I didn't even think that my email would enter his inbox maybe it went to his spam or his junk, 20 minutes later he emailed me back and he said it would be an honour and let's talk. So we spoke and I told him the story I told him about my mum I told him everything that she, you know she had gone through I told him about her new kind of discovery and you know the questions that she's been asking and the things that she's been telling me she's developed this love for the Prophet salalah alayhi wasallam you know, she, things are making sense things are aligning and it's not like before and, you know, she's really believing in Islam.
And he asked me a question he said to me what's your mother's name and I said well my mother's Italian name is Josephina, but you know in the European way it's Josephine. And he said my mother's name is Josephine, And he said my mother is in her 90's and she's dying. He said to me, your mother your Josephine is on her way in whilst my mother my Josephine is on her way out.
So he said we're gonna do this, you're going to say to her cause I thought how am I gonna get her to speak to you know I want them to speak but he said to me she may, you know she may not accept even though, you know she likes my videos, he said just tell her there's someone that wants to speak to her about her research, her journey to research Islam, but don't mention it's me, you know let me take it forward from there.
So I went back to her and I said oh there's this man he's a researcher he just wants to ask you some questions and would you be willing to answer a couple of his questions she said: “Yeah sure,” and I said to her oh mom by the way you know in my conversation with him he told me what your name is in Arabic.
She said "No!" I said "Why?" And she said just this morning I was having a conversation with my colleague, who studies Hebrew and Arabic, and I said to him "Do you know what my name is in Arabic?" and he said that he would let me know and she said here you are telling me what it is, and she was like no way, this cannot be happening, and so they ended up speaking, and I was in the zoom meeting, I have actually recorded it, and the way that he dealt with it, may Allah bless him. Ameen.
So they're having this conversation, but for some reason she didn't recognize his voice and he was just asking her questions and it kind of led to what she believed and then somehow he managed to get her to say what she believed, and she believed that there was only one God, and that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam is His final messenger, so she said that in the video, and he said at the end of the meeting he said "Do you know what SKY stands for?" And she said "No", and he said it stands for Sheikh Khalid Yasin.
She didn't hear him, he repeated it as she said "No it's not you", and he said "Yes" and she said "No if I had known it was you I would have been more..", you know, and anyway what followed from that was that they had a couple more zoom sessions, and she ended up taking her shahada again. Alhamdullilah Did becoming Muslim and wearing hijab restrict your freedom? Upon embracing Islam I have gained my freedom because freedom is removing the shackles placed by people. When you truly connect with your creator and you connect with your purpose, you live for Him and you don't live for others and that is true freedom.
So whilst yes I'm now wearing hijab and yes there are certain obligations I need to fulfill for the sake of my Lord I am free because my decisions my choices where I go, what I do, what I don't do is for the one that created and fashioned me. It's not for those who are who are on a similar journey to me. So yes I'm free. But some non muslims say "No you are fooling yourself, we are free" No because they are a slave to something, there is something driving all of us. There is something behind the reason why we get up in the morning for all of us. That could be family it could be a job it could be the, you know, to chase wealth it could be your own desires but we are all enslaved to something.
But I would rather be enslaved to the one who is perfect to whom I came from and I will return to, then to something which is going to end just as I will one day. I once felt that Islam oppressed women restricted them and I realise actually that Islam with culture removed, and I have to point that out. Islam at its purest form values the woman in such a beautiful way according to who she is as a woman. The companions of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam asked, you know, who should I love the most? What was his reply? Your mother. He answered again Your mother.
The way that the woman is honoured, protected, supported, understood by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and then the, kind of, legislations that have kind of taken place via the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam show that the woman is a diamond. Really and truly. When I think about where I would be now If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala hadn't guided me I know that I would be lost. If alive. I wake up knowing that I was meant to be here, I was meant to exist just as I am and that is where I attach my worth, I attach my worth to my Lord. When I do that and I understand that I realize that a woman in Islam is free, is honored, is supported, is protected and is held at such a high regard.
If you had a chance to speak to all the non Muslims in the world what would you say to them in just one minute? I would tell them there has to be purpose behind the normal kind of daily grind of life. This isn't it. And if you think this is it, then that has to be the saddest conclusion that anyone can come to. Because this life is a roller coaster it's full of trials, it's full of hardship, it's full of difficulty, it's full of injustice, sadness. So if this is it then why were we created?
I would invite them to think, I would invite them to consider the cycle of life, to take a flower to look at how that flower grows from a seed and blossoms into something beautiful and then wither and dies again. I would invite them just to stand in front of the ocean, and to look at the depths of the ocean and that life exists in the darkness of the ocean, to take a leaf and look at the intricacies of the design of of one single leaf, and to ask themselves where did this come from? What is the purpose of this leaf? What is the purpose of this flower? What is the purpose of the ocean? And then to think I too am a part of that creation.
So if there is a purpose of a leaf and the purpose of a flower, then what is my purpose? That’s what I would ask them.
I couldn't find where I belong I felt incredibly lonely that it became too much I called my mother and I said to her please come and take me home and I stopped practicing Islam so I took off my hijab I stopped praying Assalam Alaikum sister Aliyah um Raiyyan thank you for accepting our invitation. I want to start with who is Aliyah um Raiyyan? and can you tell us briefly about your life? Walaikum assalam warahmatullah. First of all thank you very much for the opportunity. I was born and raised in East London. I grew up in a predominantly Muslim area it was predominantly a Bangladeshi area and so I would see Muslims quite a lot.
So I'm of mixed race, My mother is Italian and my father is Nigerian from West Africa but I think whenever I'm asked this question I just think Aliyah is a soul that wants to journey to Allah (swt). How was your life in regards to faith? What were you believing in? I grew up as a Christian. I became a born again Christian actually as a teenager. I always believed in God. My mother raised me in a way that encouraged me to be curious about life and purpose and the world and so even though I became a born again Christian there were kind of gaps. So yes, so I questioned.
I questioned the kind of fundamentals of Christianity at a very very young age and found that whilst emotionally and spiritually I was inclined towards a faith rationally it didn't sit with me, and so I actually ended up leaving the faith. My father's background is very very interesting because he was actually born a Muslim, my grandfather was Muslim, when my grandfather died long before I was born my father left Islam and so when he met my mother in London he wasn't a Muslim so I was never you know brought up upon Islam there was no form of Islam he wasn't Muslim. What was the thing that made you question your beliefs?
So I remember going to church with my mother, I would go to church and spiritually and emotionally it would be very very fulfilling but I had questions. I couldn't understand how we were worshipping the son of God. I couldn't understand how in one moment he was the son of God and in the next moment he was the Lord.
But more importantly he was a man that he was a human being like myself and I couldn't understand logically and rationally how I could worship another human being that didn't sit right with me at a very very young age and so I questioned that and I remember one particular day speaking to the pastor of the church and saying to him you know and asking him this question and he said "Just have faith" and it was at that moment that I knew that this wasn't for me. How did you first hear about Islam? So, I I have to take you back to my early very very early childhood in order to answer this question.
So I grew up in a predominantly Muslim area it was a Bangladeshi area, and opposite where I lived, I was I lived on the first floor. I was about 8, 8 years old. I would go to the living room window and lean on the living room windowsill and I would be able to see on the ground floor opposite the road from where I live and there was a makeshift masjid. It was actually a container at the time but from where I would lean as a child I could see into the prayer area of this kind of makeshift mosque, and I found it fascinating.
And I would see them enter and I would see them bow and prostrate, and I would find it fascinating as a child and I would, you know rush to the windowsill, you know a few times a day just to kind of capture this. So around the same age, unfortunately things were quite bad at home my parents were constantly fighting they didn't get on there were constant arguments constant fights, and I remember one particular day there was a huge fight between my mother and father.
And I ran to my bedroom, I was about 8 years old, on my way to the bedroom I took my mother's shawl it was a beautiful kind of Asian shawl that she had been gifted by her Pakistani colleague, work colleague, and I took the shawl and I threw it onto the ground and I made sujood. I prostrated and I said God and I remember, I said God make them stop make them stop arguing and but you know at that time obviously I was a young child I didn't know exactly what I was doing but I was copying what I had seen in the masjid, you know, and I felt that God would hear me because that was a position that was close to God, that's how I felt at the time.
So that was kind of like my first my first experience of Islam, and then there's another one fast forward two years I was 10 years old, I was at school, I came home from school, and we heard news that one of our classmates who was actually in my class, he had finished school, ran over the road to purchase some playing cards that were very popular at the time and he had got knocked over by a big truck and he died instantly. And school wrote home to all his, you know, classmates and invited them to his funeral, which would, you know which was gonna take place in a couple of days time.
So I begged my mum to let me go and there were a few of us who were non Muslims in the class, and she said yes, and I remember saying to my friend Layla who was my best friend at the time she was from Somalia, I said to her can I borrow a scarf and she said yes so she gave me a scarf, and I remember walking into East London Mosque. I think I was the only non Muslim child that went to the funeral and I prayed Dhuhr, and I prayed the janazah prayer, thereafter. And I remember in the Dhuhr prayer making sujood and feeling this sense of closeness that I had felt when I made it, you know two years earlier, and that was kind of like my second experience of Islam.
What happened that you started to become closer to Islam? So things became worse at home considerably worse, there was a lot of kind of DV at home, domestic violence at home. I was affected by that mentally and emotionally and Subhanallah, Allah Allah placed someone on my path, it was a classmate at secondary school now, and she was a practicing Muslim. Out of all of the Muslim girls in my class they were quite cultural but she was you know she was very very practicing. And she was going through something similar at home, but her the situation between her parents was actually far worse than mine.
Her mum was, you know Subhanallah, you know a victim of domestic violence she was beaten up regularly, and yet despite that she was calm, she was at peace. And I remember thinking your family situation is far worse than mine, I'm falling apart, but you've got it together. You know, and what is it? How are you able to kind of get through this? Because I, I'm really being affected by this. And she said "It's my faith, it's my faith that gets me through".
Now obviously I thought I knew who Muslims were but I also felt that Islam was a very backwards religion and I developed a great love for this particular friend, we became very very close, we were completely different, I mean I was wild I was a bit crazy, you know very popular. She was a, you know, Mashallah practicing Muslim, and yet we became very very close. And I started to look into Islam, I started to read articles, at that time it was listening to tape cassettes. I started to read the Quran for one very arrogant reason, and that was that I wanted to find a contradiction in the faith, to save her.
Because I just felt that the hijab was wrong, I felt that it would hold her back from a successful career, a successful life, you know I felt, you know, growing up in the area that I did, what I saw you know, was men walking, you know, two miles ahead whilst their wives walked behind them. You know, these were the stereotypes that I that I had, and so it was interesting because on the one hand I could see that there was something about this faith that produced this beautiful sense of peace in her. And that on the other hand this was going to restrict her this was going to oppress her this was going to hold her back. So I started and we used to debate and, you know, we would talk regularly.
And as time went on I started to become convinced that Islam was the truth. And it terrified me, I started to become convinced, my heart started to change, my mind started to change, I couldn't find anything, all I could find was a comprehensive way of life, all I could find were scientific proofs in the Quran, all I could find in my research was the literary miracle of the Quran. There was nothing and that scared me because even though I was young at the time, I've always been the type of person that if I adopt something if I choose something I give it 150%.
So I knew that as I was beginning to change and I started to become convinced that would mean I would have to change my life, and that scared me. What was keeping you from taking your shahada? And how did you become Muslim in the end? So, fear overcame me. Fear reigned supreme at that time to the point that I cut off from my friends. I threw away the articles, the leaflets, the cassettes. I put the Quran away. it was becoming too much for me mentally, emotionally. I was afraid of what I believed. I was afraid, that I would have to change my life.
I wouldn't say that I particularly loved my life but I was free, right, and to give up your freedom is a very scary thing, particularly when you don't know what you may gain and now I know what I have gained. So, I cut her out, and I just carried on with my life and then I remember revising for my exams. There was a particular weekend where I was revising for my exams but for some reason, I couldn't concentrate. All I could think about was Islam, all I could think about, were the things that I had discovered. It was almost as though I was bombarded by these thoughts.
You know, these thoughts about the the scientific proofs in the Quran, the existence of God, the, the proof of you know, the messengership and it was just thought after thought after thought.. And so I took myself out for a walk around where I lived at the time. Just to get a bit of a breather. I came to a road that I would regularly cross. I stood there waiting for the green man, and the green man came and people were crossing and I just couldn't cross. It felt as though my legs were pinned to the ground.
And the thought that was in my mind was if I cross this road, or in fact any other road, and I'm hit by a car, and I die knowing what I know, what I truly know, what would that mean for me? And it just dawned on me. Why am I not testifying to that which has already entered my heart? So I took myself home, called my friend, she picked up the phone, heard my voice and she was just so happy to hear from me. And I said to her I believe and I need to take my shahada. And that was the weekend and the Monday I took my shahada. Alhamdullilah How did your family react to your conversion to Islam?
Being the kind of overzealous, passionate, you know young person that I was at the time, the way that I told my mother was arriving home, knocking on the door and her opening the door to me in hijab. Not the best of decisions I have to say, not the best of decisions. And she looked at me completely confused and I said yes, you know, I've become Muslim and this is me now. She thought it was a phase. Alhamdullilah it’s been a 24 year phase. Alhamdullilah And it was very very difficult after that. I lost family, I lost friends. I ended up on my own at a very young age, the first few years after becoming Muslim, were very tough. What was the major challenge you faced after becoming Muslim?
I lost a relationship with my mother, so there were a number of things that happened at the time, she was in a new relationship. That man hated, had a hatred for Islam. He turned her against me. And I remember at the age of seventeen it was a very painful moment when she said to me she looked at me I was 17 and she said "I've done my job I no longer need to be your mother and you're on your own." And that was very very difficult. At that age you need your family. And To be rejected by your mother is is very very painful, very very painful. So that was hard.
And then after that to then have to fend for yourself at a very young age to get a job, to be alone, and then a number of other difficulties that I went through at the time which were quite personal, without family support, was really really hard. So I was living on my own and I embraced Islam through a particular group an Islamic group which I ended up leaving and then I ended up kind of going to the other extreme, so I went from one extreme to the other extreme, and whilst all of this was happening with my family I couldn't find where I belonged.
And I was new, you know the transition the identity crisis that you go through as a new Muslim, so I, I face rejection for my family I've gone from one Islamic group to another Islamic group, you know, both kind of at the end of, you know, the spectrum. And I couldn't, I couldn't find my, I couldn't find where I belong I felt incredibly lonely that it became too much, and it was in hospital that I called my mother and I said to her "Please come and take me home." and I stopped practicing Islam.
So I took off my hijab I stopped praying I distanced myself from the Muslim community I still held on to my beliefs though and I think I did that because I did become Muslim from a place of rational conviction. It's just that all of the tests that I went through was just too much. How did you start practicing Islam again? So I got a job eventually I moved out again and just kind of carried on with my life, you know I was free. I didn't have to deal with all the issues that I had faced as a new Muslim, but there was an emptiness.
There was an emptiness and there was, there was always something that didn't feel right, and then it was you know I spent a couple of years like that, and then the emptiness became too much. And I knew that it was because I was living a life that didn't align with my beliefs.
And so I started to come back to Islam slowly and I remember, you know people say that there the shahada was like the sweetest moment of their life, but coming back to Allah and coming back to Islam without the pressures of a group or without someone telling me "This is what you need to do!" "This is halal!" "This is haram!" "This is, you know you're doing things wrong!" No, coming back to Islam organically a journey again between me and my Lord, it was beautiful, it was so sweet, I remember reading one page of Quran every day in English. I started to wrap my hair, kind of like an African style. And obviously that progressed progressed to hijab.
I started to pray again, and I came back to Islam and I started practicing again. Alhamdulillah it was a beautiful sweet moment because it was between me and my Rabb, between me and my Lord. So what effect did this have on your relationship with your mom? So my mother ended up leaving that marriage which was the best thing and she began to heal and I think she's very much still healing. We began to repair our relationship and that took a lot of effort I think from both parts from both sides. And then in 2015 she began to ask questions about Islam and I was living abroad at the time I was living in North Africa.
She began this kind of journey, she had all of these questions, and then in 2015 she said that she wanted to become Muslim and this was at a time where she she had, my mother is an avid reader, she reads, she eats books you know, she loves history and Islamic history in particular, you know ended up kind of creating that curiosity in that sense of wanting to know more. So 2015 she did say that she wants to become Muslim and she ends up taking her shahada.
Very shortly after that she said that she couldn't maintain the faith, and I think that's because of her age, I think it's because she didn't have any Muslims around her, I, you know, I was living very very far from her, and so she ended up leaving the faith. And then 2021 she began to watch some YouTube videos and she came to me she said to me "Oh I came across some, came across these videos by a woman called Ieasha Prime." I didn't know her at the time so I quickly obviously started to research and she's an American sister.
And that led on to my mother watching videos of Sheikh Khalid Yasin, and she came to me she was so excited and she said I have come across this man I don't know who he is but he speaks to my soul. He's so knowledgeable he is someone that understands history you know, and she has a, you know she has an inclination towards history.
And then she would read sorry she would watch video after video after video by Sheikh Khalid Yasin, and she would come to me and she would say you know I've learnt this and you know he's done this series about Jesus I think it's called Historical Jesus and you know she found it fascinating she would just be constantly just watching, watching, watching and coming back to me and I didn't say anything I thought I don't know what's happening here but something is changing and I would just answer questions I wouldn't input. I would just let her come to me.
She would just say this man is incredible so I took it upon myself to find him, so I sent out a message and I just sent out message to my contacts and said “Does anyone have the contact details of Khalid Yasin?” and someone directed me to his Facebook page where, you know he has his number and his email address, I emailed him and I and I told him what happened and I said to him I said to him my mother has come across your videos, this is her past this is what's kind of happened I'm a revert, I told him my entire story and I said I know you're incredibly incredibly busy but would there be any possibility of you speaking to my mum? And I sent the email.
Now Khalid Yasin is a busy man so I didn't even think that my email would enter his inbox maybe it went to his spam or his junk, 20 minutes later he emailed me back and he said it would be an honour and let's talk. So we spoke and I told him the story I told him about my mum I told him everything that she, you know she had gone through I told him about her new kind of discovery and you know the questions that she's been asking and the things that she's been telling me she's developed this love for the Prophet salalah alayhi wasallam you know, she, things are making sense things are aligning and it's not like before and, you know, she's really believing in Islam.
And he asked me a question he said to me what's your mother's name and I said well my mother's Italian name is Josephina, but you know in the European way it's Josephine. And he said my mother's name is Josephine, And he said my mother is in her 90's and she's dying. He said to me, your mother your Josephine is on her way in whilst my mother my Josephine is on her way out.
So he said we're gonna do this, you're going to say to her cause I thought how am I gonna get her to speak to you know I want them to speak but he said to me she may, you know she may not accept even though, you know she likes my videos, he said just tell her there's someone that wants to speak to her about her research, her journey to research Islam, but don't mention it's me, you know let me take it forward from there.
So I went back to her and I said oh there's this man he's a researcher he just wants to ask you some questions and would you be willing to answer a couple of his questions she said: “Yeah sure,” and I said to her oh mom by the way you know in my conversation with him he told me what your name is in Arabic.
She said "No!" I said "Why?" And she said just this morning I was having a conversation with my colleague, who studies Hebrew and Arabic, and I said to him "Do you know what my name is in Arabic?" and he said that he would let me know and she said here you are telling me what it is, and she was like no way, this cannot be happening, and so they ended up speaking, and I was in the zoom meeting, I have actually recorded it, and the way that he dealt with it, may Allah bless him. Ameen.
So they're having this conversation, but for some reason she didn't recognize his voice and he was just asking her questions and it kind of led to what she believed and then somehow he managed to get her to say what she believed, and she believed that there was only one God, and that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam is His final messenger, so she said that in the video, and he said at the end of the meeting he said "Do you know what SKY stands for?" And she said "No", and he said it stands for Sheikh Khalid Yasin.
She didn't hear him, he repeated it as she said "No it's not you", and he said "Yes" and she said "No if I had known it was you I would have been more..", you know, and anyway what followed from that was that they had a couple more zoom sessions, and she ended up taking her shahada again. Alhamdullilah Did becoming Muslim and wearing hijab restrict your freedom? Upon embracing Islam I have gained my freedom because freedom is removing the shackles placed by people. When you truly connect with your creator and you connect with your purpose, you live for Him and you don't live for others and that is true freedom.
So whilst yes I'm now wearing hijab and yes there are certain obligations I need to fulfill for the sake of my Lord I am free because my decisions my choices where I go, what I do, what I don't do is for the one that created and fashioned me. It's not for those who are who are on a similar journey to me. So yes I'm free. But some non muslims say "No you are fooling yourself, we are free" No because they are a slave to something, there is something driving all of us. There is something behind the reason why we get up in the morning for all of us. That could be family it could be a job it could be the, you know, to chase wealth it could be your own desires but we are all enslaved to something.
But I would rather be enslaved to the one who is perfect to whom I came from and I will return to, then to something which is going to end just as I will one day. I once felt that Islam oppressed women restricted them and I realise actually that Islam with culture removed, and I have to point that out. Islam at its purest form values the woman in such a beautiful way according to who she is as a woman. The companions of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam asked, you know, who should I love the most? What was his reply? Your mother. He answered again Your mother.
The way that the woman is honoured, protected, supported, understood by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and then the, kind of, legislations that have kind of taken place via the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam show that the woman is a diamond. Really and truly. When I think about where I would be now If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala hadn't guided me I know that I would be lost. If alive. I wake up knowing that I was meant to be here, I was meant to exist just as I am and that is where I attach my worth, I attach my worth to my Lord. When I do that and I understand that I realize that a woman in Islam is free, is honored, is supported, is protected and is held at such a high regard.
If you had a chance to speak to all the non Muslims in the world what would you say to them in just one minute? I would tell them there has to be purpose behind the normal kind of daily grind of life. This isn't it. And if you think this is it, then that has to be the saddest conclusion that anyone can come to. Because this life is a roller coaster it's full of trials, it's full of hardship, it's full of difficulty, it's full of injustice, sadness. So if this is it then why were we created?
I would invite them to think, I would invite them to consider the cycle of life, to take a flower to look at how that flower grows from a seed and blossoms into something beautiful and then wither and dies again. I would invite them just to stand in front of the ocean, and to look at the depths of the ocean and that life exists in the darkness of the ocean, to take a leaf and look at the intricacies of the design of of one single leaf, and to ask themselves where did this come from? What is the purpose of this leaf? What is the purpose of this flower? What is the purpose of the ocean? And then to think I too am a part of that creation.
So if there is a purpose of a leaf and the purpose of a flower, then what is my purpose? That’s what I would ask them.