By Bruce Paterson

I would like to take the opportunity to share with you my journey to Islam and I feel that by sharing this experience with you I can help you on your journey through life.  We are all born into different cultures, countries and religions in what often seems a confusing and troubled world.  Actually, when we examine the world around us, we can easily see what a troubled state it is in: war, poverty and crime.  Need I go on?  Yet when we look at our own upbringing and our education, how can we be sure that all the things that we have been told, are in reality the truth?

Unfortunately, most people in the world decide to try to hide and escape from the world's problems rather than stand up and deal with the truth.  Dealing with the truth is often the harder avenue to follow.  The question is: Are you willing to stand up for the truth?  Are you strong enough?  Or, are you going to escape and hide like the rest?

I started my search for the truth a number of years ago.  I wanted to find out the truth about the reality of our existence.  Surely, to understand life correctly is the key to solving all the worldly problems that we are faced with today.  I was born into a Christian family and this is where my journey began.  I started to read the bible and to ask questions.  I quickly became unsatisfied.  The priest told me, "You just have to have faith."  From reading the bible I found contradictions and things that were clearly wrong.  Does God contradict himself?  Does God lie?  Of course not!

I moved on from Christianity, thinking the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians are corrupted so there is no way that I can find the truth from the false.   I started finding out about Eastern Religions and Philosophies, particularly Buddhism.  I spent a long time meditating in Buddhist temples and talking to the Buddhist monks.  Actually, the meditating gave me a good clean feeling.  The trouble was that it didn't answer any of my questions about the reality of existence.  Instead it carefully avoided them in a way that makes it seem stupid to even talk about it.

I traveled to many parts of the world during my quest for the truth.  I became very interested in tribal religions and the spiritualist way of thinking.  I found that a lot of what these religions were saying had truth in them, but I could never accept the whole religion as the truth.  This was the same as where I started with Christianity!

I began to think that there was truth in everything and it didn't really matter what you believed in or what you followed.  Surely though this is a form of escaping.  I mean, does it make sense: one truth for one person and another truth for someone else?  There can only be one truth!

I felt confused, I fell to the floor and prayed, "Oh, please God, I am so confused, please guide me to the truth."  This is when I discovered Islam.

Of course I always knew something about Islam, but only what we naively hear in the West.  I was surprised though by what I found.  The more that I read the Quran and asked questions about what Islam taught, the more truths I received.  The striking difference between Islam and every other religion is that Islam is the only religion that makes a strict distinction between the creator and the creation.  In Islam, we worship the creator.  Simple.  You will find however, that in every other religion there is some form of worship involving creation.  For example, worshipping men as incarnations of God or stones, sounds familiar.  Surely though, if you are going to worship anything, you should worship the one that created all.  The one that gave you your life and the one who will take it away again.  In fact, in Islam, the only sin that God will not forgive is the worship of creation.

However, the truth of Islam can be found in the Quran.  The Quran is like a text book guide to life.  In it you will find answers to all questions.  For me, everything I had learnt about all the different religions, everything that I knew to be true, fitted together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  I had all the pieces all along but I just did not know how to fix them together.

I would therefore like to ask you to consider Islam now.  The true Islam as described in the Quran.  Not the Islam that we get taught about in the West.  You may at least be able to cut down your journey in search of the truth about life.  I pray for your success, regardless.

Dawood Kinney, Ex-Catholic, USA

After indulging in the pleasures of most teenagers, Dawood finds his faith in Islam after being rejected by the Catholic Church

By Dawood Kinney

As far back as I can remember as a child, I was always astounded by this universe in which we live; how everything works perfectly.  I used to lie outside at night on my parent's lawn, staring up at the stars, just amazed at the unfathomable size of the heavens.  And I also used to be amazed at how the human body just ticked along, heart beating, lungs pumping, with no help from me.  And from that early time, I always in some way knew, there just had to be a Creator responsible for all this.

But then as I segued into my teens, it was much easier to succumb to peer pressure, and I lost interest in the Divine and instead devoted my time to alcohol, sex and the immature games of a young male growing up in America.  Growing into young adulthood, my obsessions became money, power, a better house, a faster car, and a prettier woman--all shallow pursuits.

I lived this way for many years, slowly losing control of my life, thinking I was pursuing happiness when all I was getting was more depressed, more confused, and making more and more of a mess of my life.

At some point, my life just sort of spiraled to the bottom and I cracked.  My immediate response was to turn to God, and, having been raised Catholic, it was to that church that I turned.  At the time, I had been divorced and remarried and came to find out that the Catholic Church didn't want me.  Hurt and angry, but also realizing a need for a spiritual order in my life, I turned to Buddhism.

The Buddhist sect I became involved with followed a Tibetan tradition, where importance is placed on gaining empowerments, which are basically blessings from various Buddhas.  At some point I realized I was not really bettering myself, just running around gaining empowerments, performing elaborate rituals.  All of a sudden, I realized that one of the last things the Buddha said before passing away was not to worship him.  I realized this whole practice was BASED on worshipping not only "the" Buddha, but also all these other Buddhas.  I became very discouraged and reverted to my old ways of indulgence in alcohol and other forbidden pleasures.  And once again, I became very depressed, only this time with emotional side effects that began to manifest in very frightening and self-destructive ways.

When I was a young man, I was very much "into" the music of Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam).  When I heard he had embraced Islam, I was in the U.S. Navy at the time and this was during the "hostage crisis" in Iran.  So, I immediately drew the conclusion that Cat Stevens has become a terrorist, and I kept that belief for many years.

A couple months or so ago, I heard he was going to be interviewed on TV, and I wanted to hear about this crazy man who had left a great life to become a terrorist.  Well, needless to say, I was just floored by the interview, because he was certainly no terrorist, but a soft-spoken, articulate, peaceful man who radiated love, and patience, and intelligence.  The very next day, I began researching Islam on the Internet.  I came across a lecture in RealAudio by a brother, Khaled Yasin, and well, this lecture really put me over the top.

The first one by Br. Khaled is really the one that did it for me, but the other two by Br. Yusef (Cat Stevens) really speaks to those of us who did not grow up in a Muslim society.).  It all made so much SENSE, the existence of God was so SIMPLE to understand!  How could I have been so stupid all this time???

Well, the more I learned the more I was convinced that this was truly the path I had been searching for.  It contained the discipline--physical, mental, and spiritual--that leads to true peace and happiness.  But most importantly, it contains that path to God.  Pronouncing my Shahada was such a CLEANSING experience, and since this time, I have often just … cried and cried and cried.  How wonderful!

I have received such a warm and embracing welcome from all Muslim brothers and sisters from around the world; I take great comfort in this, knowing that, despite any adversity or setback, I am literally surrounded by my Muslim family that will never abandon me as long as I remain Muslim.  No other group of people has ever treated me in this way.

I still have a very long and arduous path ahead.  Accepting the reality of Islam is the easy part, walking the Straight Path is the hard part, especially once one had firmly implanted himself in a society of unbelievers.  But I pray to God every day for strength and guidance, and I just take it one day at a time, trying to improve in Islam little by little each day.

Revert Muslims Team

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