# "Stephen Hawking Proved God for Me!" - Ex-Sikh's Journey to Islam

- Language: en
- Published: 2026-10-17
- Canonical: https://blog.towardseternity.com/en/blog/stephen-hawking-proved-god-for-me-ex-sikhs-journey-to-islam
- Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLUxi7svLEE
- Channel: Towards Eternity

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

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My mother's family is a Christian background and my father's family is a Sikh background. Sikhs in the UK have a lot of animosity towards Muslims. The 9/11 attacks happened in America. Few years later, the 7/7 bombings happened where the buses and the London Underground was a suicide attack. My father was meant to get on that train and then I tried to call my dad and his phone was disconnected. And I looked into many different religions. I looked into Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism and Christianity. I was watching a lecture by Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking's proved God for me. From there I thought, you know, what was the worst that could happen?

So I begin reading the Quran and became a Muslim. Father found out was I had come home from school and he found in my coat a topi. “What is this? You stabbed me in the back. You've betrayed your blood. You have betrayed your people.” There was a lot of shouting and swearing. There was an incident on my uncle's birthday and, you know, my uncle was being very buddy-buddy with me, and he hugged me. But then he hugged me in a way that it's like he has me in a headlock, in front of all of the whole family. He's holding a glass of champagne and he pushes it to my lips and then he says to me; “Drink it.” “No, I don't want it.” “Drink it!” “No!

I don't want it!” As-salamu alaykum, brother Reece Byfield. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation. We are very happy to have you at Towards Eternity. I want to start with who is Rhys Byfield? Can you tell us briefly about your life? Wa alaykum salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. My brother, alhamdulillah, it's an honor to be hosted by yourselves. I was born to a mixed-race family. My father is first-generation immigrant to the UK, coming from India. And my mother is an English woman from the UK. My mother's family is a Christian background. And my father's family is a Sikh background. And I looked into many different religions. So I begin reading the Quran.

I took my Shahada and became a Muslim. So I actually kept my Islam secret for two years. My family eventually found out. There was a lot of shouting and swearing that went from this. For the next three to four years, this became progressively worse. I studied a degree in philosophy from King's College London. Alhamdulillah, I graduated with the first class. And then I went on to complete a master's degree in theology, philosophy of religion and religion from the University of Cambridge. And how was your life in regards to faith? What were you believing in? I did obviously attend religious events in a church such as marriages and things like that.

You know, even as a child, the idea of a man being God, it was something that I couldn't accept. Also in the Gurdwara, which is the Sikh holy place, the Sikh temple, I attended things like that. I kind of saw, even at a young age, I kind of saw the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, to be more of a social reformer than a person who had received some form of divine revelation. There is a certain degree of racism that you experience at that time period. The English people, they don't see me as English. And the Asian people, they don't see me as Asian. So you're kind of stuck in a weird place. Just one year before, the 9/11 attacks happened in America.

Few years later, the 7/7 bombings happened where the buses and the London Underground was a suicide attack. And this was like a socialized hatred of Islam and Muslims. What happened was actually on the day of that, my father was meant to get on that train. The train which blew up on the central line. This was the train that he was meant to get on. And then I tried to call my dad and his phone was disconnected. Because I was thinking my dad is on this train. I called my mum and said have you spoken to dad? Have you heard the news? She goes I've been trying to call and the call has been disconnected. But what happened was is he had gone into the train station.

And so he would have gone on one train to get to the Central line. And whilst he was in the Central line, this is when the attack happened. And they basically closed off and quarantined the whole zone. So no one could leave the station, no one could enter. And this is why he had no signal, so he was stuck underground. So Alhamdulillah he just avoided by maybe one or two trains, the train which blew up because he was late that day. At the same time, this was also the rise of the new atheist movement. Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins and these guys are really pushing their agenda at this time period. When I was around the age of 15, 16, this is when he released his book.

I was kind of in between these things. So at the same time, I'm absorbing this current. Absorbing this current and kind of looking and questioning things from that perspective. But at the same time, I also felt a strong sentiment towards that there is the existence of something. I was watching a lecture by Stephen Hawking and I watched this whole thing. It was about the beginning of the universe and he was describing his research and his theories about, you know, how the universe began, going all the way back to the Big Bang. And we reached this point, which was where did the universe come from? The lecture's conclusion is the universe began. Where did that beginning come from?

What caused the universe? And then his answer is “It came from nothing.” And I sat there looking at this laptop screen, looking at this man, thinking, what are you talking about? And then, you know, he excused himself saying, oh, we don't know. And then you're coming to a point where you have established something that we know. Something cannot come from nothing. This is just a basic understanding of things. If there is an effect, there is a cause. And you're saying that all of these, this big bang, the creation of all of our universe came from nothing. And you want to talk about the prior conditions of physics, like these conditions were there just by accident.

It doesn't make sense for a man that was that intelligent, for a man that had so much knowledge. My conclusion is the answer that is on your tongue, the answer that should be coming out of your mouth is the answer you're pulling back. And that was the answer that was most clear to me. That now I saw that this man who lectured me for three hours, he is not telling me science, he's pushing his ideology. That actually there doesn't need to be a conflict between science and revelation. The conflict is there because people inject it in. People impose their ideology in. After watching that video and after realizing that, the belief of God was now cemented in me clearly.

Almost comically you can say, Stephen Hawking's proved God for me. It cemented the belief of God into my heart. It's because we see the divine in the world. We see the handiwork of the creator. There is not one thing in existence that can exist without something else. So when everything is dependent, you have a cycle of dependency. But the thing is, these cycles of dependency have to end somewhere. They have to have a point which leads to something which is independent, which is outside of this structure, which supports this whole. That in all of the universe, everything is contingent. And it requires something to bring it into existence.

It was about now, the question is “Ok, if God exists, who is God? Who is the one that deserves this title of God? And what is God?” That said, I thought the natural starting point would be to look at the oldest religions. And the idea of, you know, classical paganism, that you had to bargain with gods and you had to do these sacrifices. And to me, it just sounds very, like, nonsensical. Like, why would this supreme being, who created everything, who has control over all things, why do you need to bargain with him? God is above that. God is beyond this kind of anthropomorphisation, this kind of we're imposing how we deal with each other on God.

So this for me was very very off-putting and I saw this in all of these ancient forms of paganism. Either kind of forms of social control where leaders and kings were, they used these positions of divine, of supposed divine authority to keep control. That was my first issue and I I looked into many different religions. As for my father's side Sikhism, Sikhism its founder is Guru Nanak. Guru Nanak grew up a Hindu. He was quite dissatisfied between the disagreements and disputes between Hindus and Muslims. And he says that he went out to meditate and to seek clarity on this issue. On Guru Nanak's journey is, he actually went to perform the Hajj.

But when he came back from this journey, he came back with certain religious ideals that became clear. Likewise, within a lot of these Indian traditions such as Buddhism, Sikhism, they were syncretic faiths. A syncretic religion is one that adopts the cultures and religious practices around it and incorporates it into its own religion. So within Sikhism, there's a very clear example of this. Their prayer is more closer to like a Hindu form of prayer. But if anyone was to go to modern-day India, you would see that actually this is very common. You would see Hindus attending the masjid and going to maybe Hindus even joining a tariqah. There are Hindu Naqshbandis in India, for instance.

There are, you have Muslims attending and going to the shrines of Hindus and trying to get blessings from their priests and to do these things. This kind of mixing of religious traditions and which kind of like from a sociological perspective we call it village religion, right. This level of village religion is very common in India. Sikhism is a man-made religion and also I looked into Hinduism as well. The biggest challenge of Hinduism is that actually there isn't a religion called Hinduism. That's the first problem because Hinduism is a colonialist term. When the the British came to India, what they did is is they saw a bunch of brown people worshipping and doing religious practices.

And they just said, actually, you know what? These are all one religion. They have these different... They just grouped everyone together into one one bracket, that these are the... Like, the Hindu is coming from the Indus River, right? So these... This is just the religion of these people. It became very very clear that this was just social control, and this was a way of keeping the masses in check, and things of that nature. And I looked into Judaism. Within traditional Judaism, it's not possible to convert to Judaism. You have to be born a Jew to be part of the chosen people of God. It's an ethnic religion in this sense. Now this idea, it didn't make sense to me.

The second issue was actually looking into the Jewish tradition itself and the relationship that the biblical Jews had with their prophets, and how the tradition itself records that, you know, throughout history, the Jewish people didn't keep, as is mentioned in the Bible. The Bible records that the Jewish people did not keep the covenant with God. And likewise, you see that there was some degrees of biblical corruption that had taken place, the corruption of stories. One story where they say that he sent a man out to war so that, just so that the man could to die, and then he could marry his wife.

And all of these kind of stories where, you know, this tradition doesn't make sense, that these are people that were chosen by God. And in the same book, the book is praising prophets and and their, and how they are with God, and their truthfulness. But at the same time, they're showing them not just being human, because there's a difference between making a mistake and then making huge mistakes. And and there's certain contradictions. The natural step would be to take a look at Christianity. And when you dig deeper into Christianity, you see what's happened. And the idea of the Trinity or someone being the literal son of God. You know, Jesus is God. The Father is God.

The Holy Spirit is God. But there is one God, but three persons. This means that each personality has to have distinct thoughts, distinct desires. Because if you say, no, they have the same thoughts. They have the same ideas. They have the same wills. Everything is the same between the three of them. Then mathematically, they're the same person. You've collapsed into one being, right? If they are all co-equal and co-eternal, how do they agree on anything? What if Jesus didn't want to die on the cross? Because the Bible says that he called out on the biblical turn.

He called out and said, “Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?” So clearly, he didn't want that the crucifixion to take place. So how did this willing take place? It doesn't make sense. Jesus himself said to follow the Torah and was a Jew. He was a Jewish man. So when we take these statements, the I am statements and things like that, in light of Jewish theology, we realize these statements don't mean Jesus is God. They don't imply like deification. First of all, to be a son of God in the Jewish tradition just means to be a pious person.

When a person is in the Jewish tradition, when a person is speaking on behalf of God, they are given a status in the Jewish tradition as if they were God. We have to understand something very clear. Firstly, the Bible refers to entities other than God as Elohim, where they're given the status of the symbol of divinity. Meaning, this person is a representative of God, but they are not God himself. The second point is when we look at the Gospels themselves. On one hand, you have Gospel statements of Jesus saying he prays to God, saying, don't follow me, follow God. I'm not good. Only God is good. What this means is Jesus is saying, I am a representative of God and I am a true prophet of God.

And he himself commands what? To pray to God, to follow God, to follow the law of God, and not to obey him, but to follow the law and to worship God alone. You see that the bible does not actually have that presentation of Jesus as God rather this is something that Pauline theology has superimposed on the tradition. I was nearing the end of this journey, and I was dissatisfied because, you know, I'd gone through this thing with Stephen Hawking. I had found this belief in God. But then, at the same time, I had gone through these traditions and felt that they haven't given me the answer that I'm looking for.

There was a Muslim in my class at this time, and he said to me, you know, “why don't you just read the Quran? Just give it a go, try it.” So from there I thought, you know “What's the worst that could happen?” So I begin reading the Quran. And at this time, I was using my PlayStation, the PlayStation 3, and using the internet browser to watch it in secret because I didn't want anyone to know that I was reading the Quran. And I was reading this and I think I started from Surah Fatiha until Surah An-Nas. But what stood out for me was the simplicity of Islam, the directness of Islam. Islam doesn't give these overly detailed or overly dramatic stories.

The Quran gives you clear stories with a clear moral. And it's giving you this direct hit. And what I saw in the Quran was those same corruptions in the stories of the prophets had been clarified. Allah says the Quran is the muhaymin. It's the one that is the supervisor, the protector, the one that is over the others. And it clarifies those mistakes and it clarifies the errors. Allah is saying to us, when we look at the earth, “Don't you see how perfectly designed it has been for us?” This is what we call in our days the intelligent design argument. Allah is saying “Look at the world around you. Think with a clean heart and mind.

And you will see that Allah is the only one who could have created this. This is what really appealed to me. That Islam offers a simple, rational and complete way of life. The Quran gives clear and precise laws that make sense. And you can see that if society was to follow these laws, there would be clear benefits for society. If the laws of Islam are upheld, whereas if they're not and you fall apart, you start to see how certain things create evils in society. How not following these laws create problems and corruptions in society. How Islam wants to preserve people's honour.

How it wants to establish families so that people have no embarrassment or no abandonment and that every person is given their due right. And this was something that I didn't see in any other tradition that was presented so cleanly and so easily. And what happened that you decided to take your Shahada? And how did you feel when you took it? Can you take us to those moments? I was watching some lectures on YouTube about the signs of the hour, the signs of the day of judgment. And when I reviewed this, this is when the fear entered my heart. That any time, it could be at any moment, I could die. And do I want to die in any state other than the submission to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala?

And this is what led to my conversion. That although we delude ourselves, that we don't think about death. When that reality hit, I knew. I rushed now. I called my friend immediately and said “I want to take my Shahada today. There is no time.” And in that moment when I realized I could die tomorrow, I could die later today. There was no tomorrow, there was no later, there was nothing. It was now, the Shahada needs to happen now. So I called my friend and then he told me to come to his house. And then we drove to one of his family friends who was an imam of the masjid. And he came and Alhamdulillah I took my Shahada with him. We went through the meaning of the Shahada.

At the time when I was reciting my Shahada, even though there was only a few people in the room, it felt like the room was closing in on me at the time. Like there was an intense weight that was on me. But from the moment that I said “Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah, wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah.” The moment I said this, I felt the weight of the world come off of me. I felt the weight of my sins leave me. I felt my worries leave. It was that feeling of, you know, fresh air. You know, when you step out of the plane and you get to feel the fresh air on your face again. That's how I felt after my Shahada.

How did your family and the people around you react to your conversion to Islam, especially your father? Initially when I took my Shahada, I knew that this would be a very difficult thing. So I actually kept my Islam secret for two years. I'm at home, I'm just trying to act like normal. But then outside, you know, I'm attending the masjid, praying salah, maybe changing the way that I dress. My family eventually found out. The way that my father found out was I had come home from school and he found in my coat a topi, the head covering. And he found it in my pocket and he said “What's this? You've stabbed me in the back. You've betrayed your blood. You've betrayed your people.

This is not acceptable.” And there was a lot of shouting and swearing that went from this. For the next three to four years, this became progressively worse until it led to, you know, violence and insults. I'd wake up early in the morning and go to school early. And then I would come home very late, maybe like 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., so I could just avoid my father. So his reaction was more about the cultural impact and how would he have to explain to people that his son is Muslim. Because what had happened was, my dad wanted to argue with me again about a time. And then I basically just sat him down. I said “Look, I'm not going to leave my belief. I'm not going to leave Islam.

So either you have to accept me as a Muslim or just leave me and I will leave you.” And then after that day, we never argued on this matter. However, just because my father had given up, that doesn't mean the rest of my family members on my dad's side had given up. There was an incident on my uncle's birthday. And the whole family had come. And you know, my uncle was being very, you know, buddy-buddy with me and trying to make me feel comfortable. And we ate some food. And then, you know, he kind of, you know, he hugged me. But then he hugged me in a way that it's like he has me in a headlock.

And then in front of everyone, in front of all of the whole family, he's holding a glass of champagne and he pushes it to my lips. And then he says to me, drink it. And I said, I don't drink alcohol. And then he shouts and he says “Oh my God, man, what is wrong with you? To say, like to shame me in the moment, to say, just drink the alcohol.” And then I took the glass from him and like, not to throw it, but pushed it harshly onto the table. I said “I don't drink alcohol. Anyone who drinks alcohol will only shame themselves.” This is what I said to them.

And then at the end of the party, of this party, after they had got drunk, and they were not able to walk, and they were not able to get in their cars and drive home. And I said to them, the person who you were like being rude to and trying to embarrass is the one who's arranging your cab home. And there were many instances like this that happened even amongst my cousins later. Like we had had a family gathering and there were many people. And I was very thirsty, it was a very hot day. And my cousin he got up And he said to everyone “I'm gonna get a drink. Would anyone like a drink?” One cousin said “I would like Pepsi. I would like this.

I would like water.” And I said “Yes, can you get me water please?” And he said “I will get you alcohol or nothing.” And I said “I want water.” And I thought he was joking. And then he went away, and he came back, and he genuinely did not bring me the drink. And I was just thinking, what kind of nonsense is this? So one of the main issues that my father had is that the framing of how Islam is viewed. That from his perspective, Islam is the religion of Pakistani people. Recently, maybe a year ago or two years ago, I took a DNA test and I was expecting my father's side just to be Indian.

Whereas my father's side, yes predominantly Indian, but also parts of Pakistan, parts of Bangladesh, and a large portion, I think was like 24% of his DNA is coming from Afghanistan. I said to him, you know, actually, you're not that Indian. You're actually, in fact, the majority of your DNA is non-Indian. And a large portion of it is Pakistani and Afghan. So we had to, I basically said to him, so I said to him as a joke that, you know, shall we get some Kabuli pulao or something? I said, this is our dish. Have you ever experienced an extraordinary event you felt that you had a special connection with Allah? I was walking home one day and it began to rain very, very heavily.

I'm talking like the type of rain that would like flood the drains. So where all of the drains, they're flooding now and the streets are starting to become like overflowing with water. The water is coming onto the pavement. It was very, very heavy rain. And I was walking home and then I walked under, there was a shop where there was like, you know, like a supermarket and they have like those barrier things. So I went underneath this to get like some refuge from the rain. I made dua to Allah (swt). First, what I wanted to ask Allah was to stop the rain till I get home. So I said, can you stop the rain till I get to my road? Yeah, I don't know why.

You see, I don't know why I felt this way to ask. And I stepped out from underneath. And then I realized there was no rain. It had completely stopped. And I walked from where I was to my house. This was like an hour and a half walk. So I walked and when I got to my road, the rain started to trickle again. But this was like light drops of rain. And then the moment I got to my doorstep, the rain continued exactly how it was before I made the dua. When you have a problem, speak to Allah (swt) like you would speak to your friend. Don't think I have to be overly formal. Yes, there is a sunnah of making dua. But once you get started talking, speak. Because Allah is not an idea.

Allah is hearing you and is listening to you. How do you see the difference between Rhys before Islam and Rhys after Islam? Islam gave me the ability to take my strengths and qualities and put them towards good things. I haven't changed. My perspective of the world has changed. And it's given me things that I thought that I wouldn't have. I like to talk. Before Islam, people didn't want to listen to me. They didn't want to talk to me. Now people want to listen to me. People invite me to the masjid to talk to them. It's Islam that raises the person. When I was a non-Muslim and in secondary school, I didn't give much effort to my exams. I didn't give much effort to my education.

If you told me you're going to go to Cambridge University when you're older, I would say to you, you're talking nonsense. Now, if you ask me, how did you go to Cambridge University? I'll say, bi-idhnillah brother, it was easy for me to get a first class degree. It was easy for me to go to Cambridge University. When I was doing my degree, my grandfather died, my grandmother died. It was like COVID time. My son was one year old. I needed to have a job and I was traveling two and a half hours to Cambridge and two and a half hours back to work as well. Allah facilitated this for me. How challenging was it to embrace an Islamic lifestyle? Like avoiding harams, praying five times a day.

Were these difficult for you or fasting the whole day? I would say that fasting, salah, this wasn't hard. The challenge is with the environment. If you are with people that are always calling you towards haram, then what's going to happen if you're going to make these mistakes and you're going to do these things? So it's when you remove yourself from those environments for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, then you can get yourself out of that cycle. But at the same time, I would say that no one transforms overnight. And the best thing for you and the best way is to choose good companionship. Because these people will help you. What impressed you the most about Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)?

The thing that impressed me most is how he embodies leadership. You see someone who's soft. You see someone who cares about people. You see someone who is together. You see someone who is always looking at the people and looking for how can I help them? What do they need? What are they struggling with? And he's looking at the needs of the people, the wants of the people, how they can be helped. And this is his style of leadership. However, even with that softness, he was the most brave. There's a hadith in which I remember that, but they say that there was a sound in the outskirts of Medina, like there was someone was going to attack them. They heard a loud bang and loud sounds.

So they left, they got their armour quickly and they went out. And as they were riding out, they already see that the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was coming back by himself. He'd already gone and he was coming back by himself and said there was nothing. It's okay, I checked it. We can go back to sleep. So it's this mix of what true masculinity is and true leadership of being soft, loving and caring, but brave and standing strong for your principles. If there was a chance to speak to all the non-Muslims in the world, What would you want to say if you had one minute? We all need to stop for a moment and ask a simple question. “Why am I believing in the things that I believe in today?

Am I a Christian because my parents are Christian? Am I a Sikh because my parents are Sikh? Am I a Hindu because my family are Hindu? What's the reason that you're following these religions and these traditions that you're committed to?” It's not easy for a person to be told they're wrong or to accept that their worldview is wrong. In fact, it's one of the hardest things to do because it hurts your ego, because you're telling yourself that your conception of the world is wrong. But stop for a moment. Wouldn't you prefer to have the truth than to live in falsehood? What's the bigger shame? Living in falsehood or taking a small hit to the ego and accepting and challenging your worldview?

Read the Quran. Read what Allah wants from humanity. Read the guidance. Read what Allah wants from you. Read the life of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). And if you have questions, reach out to someone. Just engage. Challenge yourself to see, what is this religion about? At the very least, at least you just learn what Islam is about. Have you also converted to Islam but don't know where to start? Or maybe you've been a Muslim your whole life but want to make a fresh start and learn Islam from scratch. That's exactly why we built the Step Islam app. It's a completely free and ad-free app that teaches you about Islam in a clear, organized way.

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