Hi all!
Here's a bit about who I am and my journey to, through, and out the other side of Islam.
I was first introduced to Islam when I was 18 years old by way of my former husband, a none-too-practicing (at the time) Sunni Muslim from Egypt. We fell in love quickly and soon planned to be married, as he felt Muslim guilt (sigh) over having a girlfriend. I figured I should find out something about Islam if I was going to spend the rest of my life with a Muslim, so he arranged for me to meet the wife of a friend of his who was an American convert. She gave me a Quran and answered my questions and in the coming months we spent many hours talking on the phone. I was curious, but skeptical and asked all manner of perplexing questions, such as, "How do you know aliens didn't write the Quran?"
I had no intention in the beginning of converting, I had decided to learn a bit merely to better understand my fiance's background and beliefs.
I was impressed by the fact that this woman clearly had chosen a lifestyle and not simply a neat set a beliefs to hang on a shelf and pull down when times got tough. I was surprised, but not put off by the fact that she dressed very modestly and wore a headscarf. I thought it was cool that she was so out of the mainstream and I identified with that as I had always felt different from the world around me. I listened intently as she described the relations between the sexes, Islamically-speaking, and thought it made sense to have more boundaries in society. On an unconscious level I suppose I wanted some rules to live by, though I was probably the most free-spirited person I knew at the time.
After some weeks of thinking and reading, I began to feel drawn to Islam on a more personal level. Through my teen years I had struggled with the big questions to the point of almost feeling that I would go crazy. Why, why, WHY were we here, I would ask myself again and again. How could there be a God? How could there NOT be a God? Over and over my mind would race and move in circles and debate itself. By the time I met my husband though I had more or less reconciled myself to agnosticism and had thrown all of my energy and passion into the study of dance. It gave me something to focus on and helped mute the questioning voice in my head.
The month of Ramadan was soon upon us, and I took the surprising step of deciding to take a month off from my dance training and experience the fast. Initially I tried to do both, but a full day of dance classes doesn't really work without food and drink in your body. By this time, Islam was clearly impacting my thinking and affecting me emotionally. However, I had rejected Christianity previously because it didn't provide the proof I was looking for and was not compatable with science. Any other religion would have to pass where Christianity had failed. So despite my attraction to Islam for its structure and unique way of life, I didn't accept it right away because I wanted some concrete proof that I could fall back on in my moments of doubt.
I ended up going to the local mosque in Brooklyn, NY (which incidentally was the mosque that Meir Kahane's murderer attended) for a weekly halaqa for American converts. At some point I was introduced to the idea that Islam was perfectly compatible with science. Intrigued, I went to a lecture on science and the Quran around this time, but I left still unconvinced.
A few months later I was off to Egypt for a 6-week honeymoon and had my first taste of the Muslim world. I was particularly curious about Muslim women and how they were treated in the family, and especially by their husbands. We stayed with my brother-in-law and his wife who fortunately both spoke English. I talked to my brother-in-law's wife about Islam and eventually they brought someone they considered knowledgeable and religious to come answer my questions, most of which at the time centered on the status of women in Islam.
I had issues with polygamy, male dominance, unequal inheritance, etc and I asked about all of those and more. I was struck with how this man had an answer for everything, though the answers were not always what I wanted to hear. After he left I felt depressed and confused and remember crying in frustration. I had developed an emotional attachment to Islam, felt it was probably from God, WANTED it to be from God, but at the same time, felt some of its laws were just too hard to swallow.
I returned to the US not any more convinced than when I had left in an empirical way, but with less fear and more understanding of the Muslim way of life, and this set the stage for me to continue my journey with less trepidation than I had previously felt. I continued attending the classes at the mosque and eventually acquired a copy of "The Bible, the Quran, and Science" by Maurice Bucaille. Though I had approached this subject early on, I was emotionally primed, I now realize, to WANT to accept Islam by this time. The author's thesis that within the Quran there were so many scientific pieces of information that were unknown at the time of its writing that it must have a supernatural author was just what I wanted to hear and see him prove. By the end of my reading the book, I was ready to become a Muslim.
Ok, the curser is wigging out, so I guess I'll make another installment about what happened next. I know you are all on the edge of your seats.
UPDATE: Writing this bit about my journey has inspired me to write a more detailed version of the story and so it is taking a while. Look for it in the bios section....sometime hopefully in the near future.
Topic: On becoming a Muslim