That Book That Changed My Life – An American revert who became a Mufti

That Book That Changed My Life

This is a story of an American who “reverted” to The Right Path. He is now a scholar of Islam and is spreading its teachings among Muslim children through a school in Pakistan. Here is a short version of how it all happened.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. I was brought up in a very religious Baptist family. Baptists are Christians that do not follow the Pope. They are Protestants, the 2nd largest branch of Christianity. Once. while I was still in Grammar school, I asked my teacher about the concept of Trinity. This is a concept in Christianity that states that although God is “One”, He is represented in 3 separate ways. i.e. the Father.
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When you reduce this equation to mathematical formula, it is written as: 3=1.
Now any student of Maths will tell you that this is impossible. Either or but 3 can be never equal to 1. My teacher didn’t have an answer to this as no Christian does. This is a matter that goes against all laws of Mathematics. This formula of 3=1 places all the Christians in a dilemma as the basis of their faith is not supported by any logic whatsoever. I started searching for the truth about my Lord.

The problem is that I did not know where to begin or where to look.
In the 1960’s and 70’s there were only one or two Masajid and very few Muslims. I stared looking at the different religions in the books of the libraries in my neighbourhood and my college. All the religions promised pretty much the same thing. that if you were good and did not commit bad deeds you would go to paradise. I started to look at books written by non-Muslims about Islam. For some reason this religion seemed to appeal to me. However the books I was reading were full of errors and lies about Islam and our Holy Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam. In spite of the wrong infornation I was reading Allah was still guiding my heart towards the religion of truth. One day I walked into a bookstore and saw an English translation of the Holy Qur’an. I went ahead and purchased it. I went home and read the entire Qur’an from Surah Fatihah to Surah An-Naas.

I was convinced that this was the truth from my Lord. Soon after completing the reading of the Qur’an I went into a masjid and recited the Kalimah-eShahadah. This was on Friday, August 27, 1974. It was the happiest day of my life until I came to Pakistan and joined the madrasah and graduated on August 18, 2004. While studying in the madrasah I met many students from all over the world. I learned all about my new religion and found out that the propaganda of the west is completely wrong. Islam is a religion of peace and brotherhood.

The racism that I faced in America doesn’t exist in Islam. The proof of this fact is that my best friend Maulana Mohammad Ahmad is from Germany, and when his sister accepted Islam in 2003 he asked me if I would marry her. So on April 4th of 2004 an American with brown skin married a German with white skin in Pakistan in a traditional Muslim ceremony. This proves the universality of Islam.

I’ll never forget the day I walked into that bookstore and how a book changed my life forever

Hassan Ali Sulaiman