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.  […]

Search for Peace: Young Adult

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

Which one seems nicer to you to live in, a jungle or a cottage in a jungle? Mountains or a cave in the middle of the mountains? I guess we all agree that the latter alternatives look nicer places for living. Why is it so? Have you ever thought about it? This must be because humans always tend to put some boundaries around them considering these boundaries as the means of protection.

These limitations are supposed to keep us safe from probable dangers which mostly act as a threat from the more powerful groups to weaker ones.

Jaime, being raised in a Christian family, did not define any borders for her activities. She did whatever she wanted. She used to smoke and use drugs. It was like nothing could control her.

A program on TV made her interested in doing research about Islam. She wanted to know the reason behind all the troubles Muslims are involved in. The more she read, the more she got interested. She never thought she would become a Muslim but later on, she thought why not?!

Islam looked like a sweet border for her activities. In fact, it could protect her. She became even more interested in realizing that she did not have to quit any of her favorite activities. She could keep on waterskiing and snowboarding. The only activities she had to give up were the ones that she had no reason for doing and they were even harmful! This was why she did not see Islam as a limitation but as protection instead.

Now, she is very proud of being a Muslim and having a Muslim husband who was the first reason for her interest in religion. She believes that Islam respects women far more than any other religion and this is why Hijab is obligatory.

Islam has brought her peace. Before that, she was very eager to become a star in Hollywood but after becoming a Muslim she found everything she had been looking for, PEACE!