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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Converts To Islam Maryam In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate! My Journey to Allah I always feel somewhat tongue-tied whenever anyone asks me why or how I ended up embracing the religion of Islam. How do you fit a life-time of seeking God into a few sentences? The most truthful answer I can give is that I believe God has called me to Him and asked me to follow His Messenger Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him.

I was born in Melbourne and raised in a Bahai family; my parents both converts to a religion which originally began as a breakaway Islamic revival sect before evolving into an independent religious movement. I grew up believing in God and wanting to make the world a better place. This was the beginning of my Muslim journey, even if I didnt know it back then. Conversion, I once read, is not a single event: its a lifetime process. It has peaks and troughs, leaps forward and steps backward.

There may have been a moment when I first became conscious of my duty to submit to God and follow His Messenger, but my first tender steps towards my Beloved Creator began way before my adulthood. As a teenager I was an active Bahai, I prayed and fasted regularly and kept to a fairly strict code of personal morality. I was a normal teenager, of course, and enjoyed going to the movies and gossiping on the phone with my girlfriends.

But I also did volunteer work within the religious organisation, and it was during my youth year of service that I experienced a brief lifting of the veil in what seemed like an amazing burst of other-worldly love. During an intense prayer session in which I had devoted my life to God, He grasped my soul and gently flooded me with His tender loving mercy. I developed an intense urge to study Arabic and enrolled in a course the next year.

This brought me into contact with Muslims and I quickly became interested in the religion behind the language. As a Bahai I believed that the was sent by God, and that the Quran was His Word, but now I began to learn what Muslims themselves had to say about their religion. Instead of Islam being a legalistic religion encrusted with outdated rules and regulations, I began to see it as a living faith with the ability to spiritually enrich the lives of those who truly sought to implement it.

One of my teachers had a quiet humility for which I longed.