I am ethnically a Russian Jew.  My quest began when I was 19 years old.  […] My belief in God was uncertain.  […] One night I was walking to the kitchen and encountered a dark fellow.  I remembered asking him: “Can I keep this vodka in the fridge tonight?”  We shook hands and went to sleep.  After that point, my life changed drastically…

This dark fellow, a Muslim, was the first Muslim I had ever met.  Extremely curious, I conversed with him about his faith.  What’s this stuff I hear about praying 5 times a day?  […]

Our talks were accompanied by our Christian roommate, Wade.  Together, we created “The Jewish, Christian, and Muslim dialogue sessions”.  In it, we discovered many differences and many commonalities.

My interest had then shifted from sex, drugs, and parties, to a massive search for the truth.  A search that I had to complete.  A search for God.  And a search for how to follow him.

In my quest for the truth, I asked myself: “Ok let’s start simple, how many God’s do I think are out there?”  I figured only one; knowing that a divided God is weaker than One God; figuring that if one God didn’t agree with the other, there might be arguments and feuds.  One God was my choice.

Once I opened up my mind to the possibility of the existence of God, I analyzed both atheist and theist beliefs.  The thing that directed me to the latter was the quote “Every design has a designer”.  With that in mind, eventually, I woke up with certainty that God exists.  […]

The major religions I encountered that fell under the title of Monotheistic, where Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  Well since I’m a Jew, I started with Judaism.  One God, some prophets, 10 commandments, Torah, Jewish souls…uh, what: “Jewish souls?” […]

So God makes Jewish souls, and Christian souls, and Muslim souls, and Hindu souls?  I thought all men are created equal?  So, because one is born into a religion that means by the decree of God he must remain in it… even if the person believes it to be false?  Hmm…I don’t agree with that.

Another thing really bothered me…there is no strict concept of hell in Judaism…then why be good?  Why not sin?  If I don’t have fear of strict punishment, then why should I be moral?

Moving on, I discovered Christianity.  Ok, one God, a father, a son, and a holy ghost…one more time: one God, a father, a son, and a holy ghost.  Uhhh, please explain.  How can all those things be one God? 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 right?  So how can you say you believe in only one God?

[…] Ok then, so are you saying that we are all born as sinners?  And to sin is to do something wrong right?  Then you’re telling me that a one-year old baby is guilty of sin or doing something wrong?  […]

Islam; Islam means submission.  The main beliefs are as follows: One God, worship God five times a day, give 2.5% annual charity, fast during Ramadan (to be closer to God and appreciate life…among other reasons), and finally journey to Mecca for Hajj if you are able financially.  Ok, nothing hard to understand so far.

There’s nothing that conflicts with my logic here.  The Quran is a book with all of these interesting miracles and timeless wisdom.  Many scientific facts only discovered recently where proclaimed 1400 years ago in this book.

Ok, Islam had passed my initial religious prerequisites.  But I wanted to ask some deep questions about it.  Is this religion universal?  Yes, anyone can understand these basic beliefs…no analogy or equation is needed.  Does it agree with science?  Yes, dozens of verses in the Quran agree with modern science and technology.

[…] Naming is the very basis which humans identify with objects, both physical and non-physical.  If religion is supposed to be practiced and spread to every person on earth, shouldn’t there be a NAME for it?

Moreover, shouldn’t the name be given to us from God Almighty?  YES, my point exactly.  The names “Christianity” and “Judaism” were not written in the Holy Scriptures.  Humans named them, not God.  […]

Islam is the ONLY of these religions to include the NAME of the religion in its scriptures.  This is so huge for me.

I realized I would follow Islam at that point.  I then became a Muslim.  I knew the truth.  I was out of the darkness.  I came into the light…

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As a Doctor of Medicine, and a descendant of a French Catholic family, the very choice of my profession has given me a solid scientific culture that had prepared me very little for a mystic life.  Not that I did not believe in God, but that the dogmas and rites of Christianity in general and of Catholicism in particular never permitted me to feel His presence.  Thus my unitary sentiment for God forbade my accepting the dogma of the Trinity, and consequently of the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

Without yet knowing Islam, I was already believing in the first part of the Kalima, La ilah illa ‘Allah (There is no deity but Allah), and in these verses of the Quran:

“Say, ‘He is Allah, the One.  Allah is the All-embracing. He neither begat, nor was begotten, nor has He any equal.’” (Quran 112:1-4)

So, it was first of all for metaphysical reasons that I adhered to Islam.  Other reasons, too, prompted me to do that.  For instance, my refusal to accept Catholic priests, who, more or less, claim to possess on behalf of God the power of forgiving the sins of men.  Further, I could never admit the Catholic rite of Communion, by means of the host (or holy bread), representing the body of Jesus Christ, a rite which seems to me to belong to [totemic] practices of primitive peoples, where the body of the ancestral totem, the taboo of the living ones, had to be consumed after his death, in order better to assimilate his personality.  Another point which moved me away from Christianity was the absolute silence which it maintains regarding bodily cleanliness, particularly before prayers, which has always seemed to me to be an outrage against God.  For if He has given us a soul, He has also given us a body, which we have no right to neglect.  The same silence could be observed, and this time mixed with hostility with regard to the physiological life of the human being, whereas on this point Islam seemed to me to be the only religion in accord with human nature.

The essential and definite element of my conversion to Islam was the Quran.  I began to study it, before my conversion, with the critical spirit of a Western intellectual […]. There are certain verses of this book, the Quran, revealed more than thirteen centuries ago, which teach exactly the same notions as the most modern scientific researchers do.  This definitely convinced me and converted me to the second part of the Kalima, ‘Muhammad Rasul ‘Allah’ (Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah).

[…]

I am very happy in my new faith, and proclaim once again:

“I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is Allah’s servant and Messenger.”

By: Dr. Ali Selman Benoist

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