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The day I became a Muslim | page 1, 2, 3, 4
As the realm of Islam expanded, the process of conversion was simplified. All a prospective convert needed to do was state the basic tenets of the faith, and in doing so, accept them. That remains true today. To convert, an individual must simply stand in front of witnesses and declare, in Arabic: "La Illah Allah, wa Muhammad rasul Illah." Or rather, "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet." Known as the shahada, this statement is the basis of Islam. All else flows from that creed: the acceptance of the Koran as the literal word of God, the submission to his authority and the respect for the tradition (hadith) of the prophet. I knew all of that. I had read books. I had studied. But not for the last time, I was brought face to face with the insurmountable gap between books and reality. Nothing I had read had prepared me for that moment, and nothing could have. In that heat, everything was calm and still. Everything seemed so simple. I was being offered a choice. I was being asked to join. This wasn't a college fraternity or a volunteer organization or the glee club. This was a religion, and a dozen smiling, curious, excited faces stared at me and waited for my decision. I said yes. "So all I do is recite the shahada?" I asked. The imam nodded. "That is all, and then we write your name in our book." "So I all I do is say, 'La Illah Allah, was Muhammad rasul Illah'?" "Yes, that is all." Over the centuries, there has been heated debate among Muslim scholars and theologians about how the shahada must be expressed. The point is for the believer to believe these words, but not everyone who says them believes them. Sometimes, they may be said under duress or pressure, or uttered hypocritically. Some theologians had declared that it was preferable for someone to say these words "in their heart," silently, than to utter them falsely out loud. As I sat there, I repeated the shahada to myself over and over, as if trying to hear how it sounded inside my soul. I had always wanted to go to Mecca, and now, if I became a Muslim, I would be able to. But the promise of an exotic pilgrimage wasn't sufficient. Did the words sit right? Did I believe? Islam respects the tradition of Judaism and Christianity and stresses that Allah is the same God that Abraham heard in the wilderness and that Christ beseeched on the cross. That makes the first part of the creed unobjectionable to someone raised in the monotheistic traditions of Europe and the Americas. The trouble is with Muhammad. The idea is not simply that Muhammad is a prophet of God, but that he is the last of the prophets and that he and only he got God's message right. Because the Koran was revealed in Arabic, and not written down by subsequent generations (or so say Muslim theologians), nothing was lost or distorted in the process of recording God's message. Islam, for Muslims, is the same message given to the Jews and Christians, but where earlier people had misunderstood God's teachings, the Arabs got it right. I didn't really believe that, but then again, I wasn't sure I really believed much of what I had learned about the Bible. The question wasn't whether I should relinquish one tradition for another but whether I was prepared to make such a major step so casually. Before I could fully consider, my mouth started moving, and I leapt.
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