Despite the considerable amount of anti-Islamic movements and propaganda in the world, the number of those who convert to Islam and accept it as a way of life is increasing. The question is, therefore, why would people want to become Muslims, while they know that they might go through some difficulties and challenges? In what follows, we will try to mention some of the main reasons that make people accept Islam as the best available lifestyle.
In a world that media and politics are standing against a specific religion, many people may blindly accept what the media says. But seeing the amount of budget, human and natural resources that are being spent to conceal a specific religion from the world will give thoughtful people more reason to study and learn about this religion. As soon as they read the Quran in full, not only some chosen parts of it, they will understand the divine spirit of the Quran and its efficacy for human beings.
Muslims are living all around the world, and a Hijabi girl can be “the girl next door” to any non-Muslim. Seeing the routine life of Muslim families proves that what the media says about Islam and Muslims is far from the truth. When the true reality of Islam is uncovered to a person, a religion that leads its followers toward a better and more prosperous life, one surely finds enough reason to convert to Islam and follow its path.
Many people who were looking for the most applicable methods in handling social, cultural, or economic issues, found out that the strategies Islam provides for every aspect of human life are so complete that it leaves no room for further questions and ambiguities.
For example, the rulings of Islam regarding business, economy, management, charity, national or international communication, etc. can answer all the needs of anyone who expects growth and perfection.
Another essential aspect of Islam that can attract people and lead them to convert to Islam is the ethical orders that Islam provides in the individual, social, environmental, and cultural life of human beings. No one can morally or ethically deny these recommendations and descriptions of the righteous servants of Allah Almighty. Every sane person understands the beauty of a good character defined by Allah (SWT) and realizes how practical is this description for the One who is willing to take it as a model:
“The servants of the All-beneficent are those who walk humbly on the earth, and when the ignorant address them, say, ‘Peace!’ Those who spend the night for their Lord, prostrating and standing [in worship]... Those who are neither wasteful nor tightfisted when spending, but balanced between these [two extremes]. Those who do not invoke another deity besides Allah, and do not kill a soul [whose life] Allah has made inviolable, except with due cause, and do not commit fornication. (Whoever does that shall encounter its retribution … Those who do not give false testimony, and when they come upon frivolity, pass by with dignity.” (25: 63 -72)
Another significant aspect that motivates many people to convert to Islam is the miracle of the Quran. The Quran, as a book revealed about 1400 years ago, presents many incredible scientific facts. These include facts about human beings, the universe, galaxies, and black holes, animals, psychology, and all the other aspects of knowledge and wisdom, some of which have not yet been discovered, that makes its readers prostrate for the One who revealed this miraculous book. [1]
According to many of its rules and regulations, Islam has proven to be a dynamic religion. Although the pillars of Islam are not to be changed, rulings of Islam are designed in a way to help humanity reach perfection by dominating and controlling all the newly invented technologies and sciences.
Islam does not allow a person to become the slave of changes and improvements in the society but provides him/her with guidelines to help the perfection of humanity using both faith and tools.
Clear examples of the dynamic jurisprudence in Islam can be seen in the way Muslims avoid corrupt music, games, movies, etc. While at the same time, they use these tools in the right way to help human growth and perfection.
In the age of technology, life is so fast, and human beings are busy with making money, surviving, and getting by their life that they hardly find some time for self-development. However, Islam puts the individual experience of human and his/her peace of mind in priority. The relationship that Islam describes between the servant and Allah Almighty is the One that influences all the dimensions of human life.
Allah Almighty teaches man to rely on Him in every single step that we take. He wants His servants to stay by His side as “Whoever takes for his guardians Allah, His Apostle and the faithful [should know that] the confederates of Allah are indeed the victorious.” (5:56)
The fact that staying on Allah Almighty’s side can bring absolute success and victory for the human being is so empowering that will make them not to accept any oppression. Staying by His side and relying on Him can enrich human beings and making them a self-built, confident, humble, and powerful individual.
“… Whoever is wary of Allah, He shall make for him a way out [of the adversities of the world and the Hereafter] and provide for him from whence he does not count upon. And whoever puts his trust in Allah, He will suffice him. Indeed Allah carries through His commands. Certainly, Allah has ordained a measure [and extent] for everything.” (65: 2-3)
In sum, the lifestyle provided by Allah Almighty is multi-dimensional and, therefore, can answer all the needs of human beings. The ways of Allah in ruling the world are very different from those of Imperialist and capitalist powers. That is why people who start to learn about Islam and study various aspects of the Islamic lifestyle become motivated to convert to Islam and choose it as their lifestyle.
A real believer can find ways that are unknown to others only by obeying Allah (SWT); ways that no other “ism” can provide its followers: “As for those who strive in Us, We shall surely guide them in Our ways, and Allah is indeed with the virtuous.” (29: 69)
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A time comes in everyone’s life, or at least I hope it comes when they realize that they have to not only believe what they believe in, whatever it may be but get out there and proclaim it to the world. Luckily, that time came early for me. I am 17, and I am a convert to Islam which is the belief that I’m proclaiming.
I was raised Catholic. Not internally as much as externally. I went to Catholic Sunday school, called CCD, but the Catholic view of God never played a major role in my childhood. It was a Sunday thing. Anyhow, I started to enjoy Mass around 7th grade. It made me feel good to do the right thing. I was always a rather moral person, but I never really studied the fundamentals of Catholicism. I just knew that I felt good worshipping my creator. […]
Before I was confirmed in 8th grade, in the fall of 1999, I learned a lot about what Catholicism was. The Catholicism of the Church had a lot on viewing Jesus as God in it. Nothing like my “undivided God being worshipped by me with Jesus as an example” train of thought. It was like they just opened up a can of cold, illogical confusion and tried to feed it to me. It didn’t feel right.
I continued with the Catholic Church and kept on worshipping. But I talked to many in the church about my feelings that Jesus wasn’t God but more of a Prophet, an example. They told me that I had to accept him as God and as a sacrifice, and so on. I just wasn’t buying it. I tried to buy it, but I guess God withhold the sale for my own benefit. There was a better car out there for me. I continued at the church.
Sometime in mid-December of 1999, for no reason that I can recall I started reading up on Islam in encyclopedias. I remember making a list of bolded words in the entry for “Islam” in an old 1964 Grolier World Book that I found in my closet, and studying them.
For some reason I was amazed by this faith and that it was all about God and that it was everything that I believed all my life - right here. Previously, I had accepted that there was no faith like I felt inside of me. But I was amazed that I had found this faith. I found out that “my” faith had a name and millions of other adherents!
Without ever reading a Qur’an or talking to another Muslim, I said shahada (declaring your belief in no god but God) […]. As the months passed, I learned more. I went through many periods of confusion, happiness, doubt, and amazement. Islam took me on an enlightening tour of me, everyone else, and God.
The transition was slow. I was still attending Mass five months into my change of faith. Each time I went, I felt more and more distant from the congregation, but closer and closer to God and the Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him.
During Ramadan […], the second time I fasted (the first year, I converted during Ramadan and did not fast), I went to the library during lunch period. It was better than sitting at a table with my friends because I got work done in the library. I swear my grades went up. Anyways, I started talking to the only other Muslim at my school, John. We talked about Islam a little more each day. He’s an awesome brother, and he took me to the mosque on the last Friday of Ramadan.
Going was one of the best things I ever made in my life. God really answered my prayers this time. I thought I would be nervous, but I wasn’t at all. It was the most natural thing I ever did in my life. I felt at home. I realized something before leaving. As I sat there on the floor, praying to God, I realized that the room was full of others, but it was OK.
See, at home when someone asks me what I am doing, I never say I am praying. I never admit it to anyone. It is too awkward. But there, at the masjid, I was praying to God in front of a score of other Muslims, and I felt perfectly fine. Better than fine! I felt secure and safe. It was the most liberating thing since I accepted God into my heart that cold New Year’s Eve almost two years ago.
To be continued…
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The Beginning: Early Life Trials of Clinton Sipes
I grew up in a dysfunctional family setting in the atmosphere of alcoholism, physical and emotional abuse that came from my father. […] I began to imitate what I was being exposed to, this process of imitation began unconsciously. […]
[…] I began to hang out with the young adult type who welcomed my willingness to participate with no reservations in anything under the title of alcohol, drugs, crime, violence and racism. […] After 3 years of this (reform period) I was released. I was a walking grenade.
[…] At 16, I found myself incarcerated serving a 6 1/2 year sentence in the California Youth Authority for robbery, assault and weapons charges. […] I began correspondence with the KKK, and upon my release on parole, I was a full-fledged card carrying hate-monger. […]
With this last violation of parole, at the age of 20, the search for peace began. […] In a haze of anger and rage, I found myself stripped naked in solitary confinement with not even a mattress. Only me and a styrofoam cup. I began to review my past and the negatives which brought me to this point of reduction to the lowest terms.
While I was there my daughter was born. I began to assess my future. […] I said to myself, “Clint, you must make a choice between this evil or a good future. […] I had become alienated from them. I began searching for a purity to purge the cancer of hate from inside me. […].
I became involved with human rights groups and I started my own human rights group.[…] My goal was to reach out to children to help them escape the environmental circumstances that had overwhelmed me once […] but I was still involved in crime. […]
It began upon my arrival to federal prison. An African American offered to assist me in my cosmetic needs. He said he was a Muslim, and Muslims are commanded to help those in need. It struck my interest to check this Islamic thing out. However, I was under the impression that this was a religion exclusively for African Americans. I was thinking, no way I can become a Muslim, I’m white!
Still, I asked this brother for some literature on Islam. I found out about the universality of it, how it transcends color, ethnicity and race. It sounded real and pure. It began to appeal to me. […] I was given a Quran, and as I read the translation, I felt the purity and truth of it. There was no hocus-pocus, no spookism, no mysticism, just plain, simple understanding of the “Truth.” When I heard the Adhan (the call to prayer) I felt a closeness to God that penetrated my heart and soul. After some research and study of the Quran, I discovered its total infallibility, no contradictions in it.
There are religions based on believing in certain sciences, multiple deities, the religion of 3 gods in one. I was a thinking man, and none of them made any logical sense to me.
Here was Islam, based on the belief in One God who created the creation itself out of nothing, and the fact that this book I was reading (Quran) had not one vowel or language changed in over 1400 years was a miracle in itself. Thus, I was sold on the oneness of God and the unity of Islam.
[…] There is only one God and one Religion, and religion is “Submission” to the one God. This is the meaning of Islam. […]
After years of falsehood, half-truths, following others on the road, and then, from within a place (prison) where more than one million people are cast away, the same environment that once honed my anger and hate to a razor sharpness was now the place where Islam greeted me and proceeded to change me into a “Servant of [the Source of] Peace.” […]
The Creator, Originator of the very existence of peace. There is no peace but the Peace of God (Whom all praise is due). I have found this Peace, I am now “Abdus Salam,” the slave and servant of The Originator of the one and only source of Peace...God, The Most High, Whom all praise is due.
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By Clinton Sipes