[…] I was born to British parents in Darussalam in Tanzania in 1964.  […]. I was educated at the famous Roman Catholic Monastic School […] and went on to study history in the London University.  However, I left my education unfinished.

Currently, I am working with an Islamic media company based in England and engage myself in dawah activities [preaching] including lectures on Islam in London’s famous Hyde Park.

[…] I grew totally disillusioned with the British educational system.  It was thoroughly Eurocentric and projected world history in a way that suggested that the civilization attained its full glory and apogee in Europe.  Having lived in Egypt and seen some of the majestic ruins which only archaeologists have access to, I found the West’s interpretation of history totally fallacious.  I began a private study of histories of other peoples of the world, various religious scriptures, and philosophy.  I was practicing Buddhism for nearly three years though never formally embraced it.

The study of the Holy Qur’an immediately attracted me.  Its message had a magical appeal and I grew convinced that it was a divine revelation.  I believe only Allah guided me, none else.  I don’t know what made me deserve Islam.

[…] I was dissatisfied with Christianity from the age of eight.  The concept that was taught to us through rhymes such as Hail Mary!  Was not at all acceptable to me.  While on one hand, the Christians described God to be eternal and infinite they felt no compunctions in ascribing birth of God from the womb of Mary.  This made me think that Mary must be greater than God.

Secondly, the Christians’ concept of the trinity was a puzzle for me.  The similitude like Canadian Maple leaf being one despite three sections appeared utterly inapplicable.

The crunch came when an Egyptian started questioning me.  Despite being confused about the Christian belief I was trying to be dogmatic as most white, middle-class, English Christians do.  I was flummoxed when he led me to accept that God died on the crucifix, thus laying bare the hollowness of the Christian claims of eternity and infinity of God.  I now came to realize that I was believing in as absurd a concept as two plus two is equal to five all through my adolescent years.

The West’s pre laid, programmed life intensely repelled me.  I began to question if a person has to live a life merely to get strait-jacketed in a rigorous schedule.  I found Europeans struggling a lot to enjoy life.  They had no higher purpose in life.

The West’s capacity to brainwash its people became plain to me when I discussed the Palestine issue with Egyptians and Palestinians.  […]

Egyptians were poor, suffered hardships, yet were happy.  […] But in England I found people shallow, materialistic.  They try to be happy but happiness is superficial.  Their prayers combined songs, dances, clapping but no humility, nor intimacy with God.

I realized that popular opinion in the West was totally hostage to the Zionist-controlled media.  The question of Palestine was one among these.  My conversation with Palestinians revealed how the West had believed in myths about Israel.  First among them was that the Jews had the right to return to their original homeland in Israel.  Secondly, they conveniently described themselves as Semitic while the fact was that most Jews of the world were Slavs who had later converted to Judaism.  Thirdly Israel’s economic miracle was theorized to create the economic and scientific myth.

The fact was that I never got to know the Palestinian side of the issue.  I got convinced that the people of the West were brainwashed by the media.  I found that the US was trying every trick to punish nations indulging in small violations of human rights in the third world but was itself sending death squads into Latin American nations to liquidate their leaders who refused to toe the US line.  Such hypocrisy is never criticized by the US media.

[…] The Western psyche emphasizes one’s individuality.  This is at variance with Islam.  Any sincere Muslim feels disturbed.  He or she is constantly bombarded by sex and sexuality.  Most girls lose virginity by 13 and it is normal for girls to have three to four boyfriends.

The dilemma before Muslims in the West is as to how to integrate with a society so steeped in sex, drugs, drinks and sexual intimacy.  And if no integration, then how to save themselves from ghettoization.

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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.  […]

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