ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Converts To Islam Brother Ahmad Twenty Year Search begins a Lifelong Journey It seems like I have always been a Muslim. I cannot recall ever believing that any other than Allah created the universe. I used to stare at the sky, animals, trees, etc and just marvel at how magnificent and great the Creator of all of these things must be.

The only problem that I had with religion as an adolescent and young adult was that I was not mature enough to accept that complete submission to the Creator was necessary. My own desires came first. What do I want, and how do I get it? was my primary concern. Throughout other experiences later, I came to understand that my own knowledge was infinitesimally small and that it was my Creator, Allah, alone who possesses all knowledge and who has power of all things.

When I was in sixth grade, my oldest brother became a born again Christian at Immanuels Temple in Lansing, Michigan. He used to try to get all of us to go to church and praise God with him. I remember being asked once when his girlfriend was spending the night at our house, Do you accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?

I dont remember what my exact reply was, but I remember saying something to the effect that I believed that Jesus life was an excellent example of piety but that God alone was my Creator and that I was unable to accept that Jesus was, in fact, God. She seemed content enough to hear that I did indeed love Jesus and went on explaining how that meant I was saved from the fire, and on and on. At the time, I was probably eleven years old.

I started reading the bible with my brother from time to time, but I noticed that I had insights and questions about the passages we would study that he could not answer. I looked through the index and table of contents voraciously, thinking that I would find more references to all of the topics that were important to me, but the verses that I was directed to were always inadequate. In short, I observed that the book was not very well put together.

I remember thinking, this does not seem at all like what the Creator of the universe would choose to tell His creations. Why, for example, in the opening passage in John, would He spend so much time discussing a genealogy? Why did Genesis sound so contrived? Why did Revelations and Acts appear to be so inconsistent with other parts of the book? What was all that symbolism and apocalyptic chatter mean?