AsSalamakakum,
May Allah guide my words and allow me to speak just and honestly.
I was born to a Protestant family, but at the age of three started questioning the faith. I became very jealous and confused about the prophet Isa. I recall asking my mother,
” If we are all Gods children how come Jesus is the son?”
She responded,
“Jesus is like a Shepard watching over the sheep, we are the sheep and God loves us all like his children. But Jesus is closest to God because he’s the son.”
This just enraged me. How come he is the son!? Then I asked,
“If God breathed life into all of us, how come we are not all a part of God?”
She must have been annoyed with her three-year-old daughter asking her such questions, so she agreed with me.
Throughout my childhood I always pondered these questions. At thirteen, the age where one must confirm their religion, I decided I did not believe in Christianity. To me something was just not right. I thank Allah I was an American child and my family firmly believes in the freedom to choose religion. So my parents were used to my religious rebellion by then and accepted my decision.
Teenage years rolled by and I still searched for my beliefs. I knew I believed strongly in one God. I knew I believed strongly against any statues or symbols representing God, this was strong foundation Protestant beliefs gave me. I believed I could communicate directly with God, but everything else was a blur.
I studied the Torah, I read Chrisna books, books about Buddha and their beliefs. I read about Wicca and even a friend had a Satanic bible that got my curiosity going. However, none of them satisfied my own very personal opinion or beliefs.
I thought I would never find a religion for me. I was so lonely and sad and lost in my second year of university, I prayed to God,
“Please make me a righteous person, a good person and show me the right way to worship you.”
In University I discovered some strange students from Saudi Arabia. They were polite, friendly, caring, and I would see them pray on a mat, with their head to the ground! It was strange and intriguing. I have only heard of this strange religion called Islam once in my 9th grade history class. It was brief. It was something I took little notice to.
As I began to become friends with these new strange people, one day, one of the friends in our new group gave me some books. Women’s rights in Islam, Science and Islam, and How to pray in Islam.
I wasn’t really interested at first, because when ever we were together and I would ask about their thought on the prophet Jesus they would not answer me. When I would try to have a discussion on religions, they would totally avoid the subject!
During these years I had been fiercely rebellious, extremely feminist, and always ready for a philosophical argument. When I finally read the books, about six months later when I was really really bored, I hit eureka!
There it was! The explanations I was looking for. A religion empowering women, respecting women and giving a guidance to living one’s life.
After six more months of research I was proud to go to my first mosque in Reston, VA and say,
“Ash-hadu an laa ilaaha illallah, wa ash-Hadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah!”
❤️ Sister Lisa Robinson
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