ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Converts To Islam Sister Mardiyyah I am a forty seven year old wife, mother of three and grandmother of one. I was born & brought up as a Methodist Christian. As a child I was Christened and sent to Sunday school, even becoming a Sunday school teacher. Both at Sunday school & day school I always came top in religious instruction exams.

Even then though, I remember thinking that I wished I could really believe and accept Christianity wholeheartedly, but I always felt that something was wrong or something missing. Why if there was only one God did we worship Jesus? How if God was not human could he have a Son? Why did we refer to God as three- the Holy Trinity? As far as I was concerned God was God, on his own Full Stop! My fathers family were not practising Christians but my mothers were.

My great grandfather had even been responsible for the setting up of the Methodist Chapel in his village. This was the same chapel I attended and where my family were very well known and always treated with the utmost respect. After I met my future husband, who told me he was an atheist, I stopped attending Chapel and teaching at the Sunday school.

Over the next few years my husband & I had three children and like a lot of people I followed the traditions of my family and had them christened and sent them to Sunday school. I may not have agreed wholeheartedly with Christianity but I had nothing better to offer them. I attended weddings, christenings & burials and some Easter & Christmas Services and Chapel Anniversary Services, always thinking that I really wanted to believe more than I did and always feeling something was missing.

Having three children my life was always busy and I didnt really give much thought to religion on a day to day basis but then about fifteen years ago I became involved in local politics. Attending a party political conference, one of my fellow delegates was a Doctor, a Bangladeshi Muslim. We struck up a friendship and would talk, not just about Politics but many other things including religion.

I had for some time admired things like Islamic buildings and art, I also liked the clothing that Indian women (not necessarily Muslim wore Salwar Kameez, particularly the printed fabrics and scarves). From the few things I had learnt about Islam and Muslims from newspapers etc. I could see that my colleague was a pretty poor Muslim.