In Search of Hidden Treasure ( Revert Story )

In Search of Hidden Treasure

Allah (swt), in His infinite wisdom, gives us all different beginnings, different circumstances and different experiences to shape our lives. He scatters us all over the earth, wearing different coloured skins and speaking in different tongues, but with His infinite Mercy, He places in each of our hearts the same seed – the fitrah , our original nature.

In many ways my journey to Islam was like a search for hidden treasure. Born to atheist parents, I was raised without any religion or belief in God, but I always had a thirst to learn about religions and different spiritual teachings. My search really began when I was 18, taking a gap year backpacking around Europe . I was in Amsterdam , staying in a hostel by ‘born again' Christians from America . They were full of the joys of their new found faith, entertaining all the travelers with guitar playing and songs about Jesus. I was fascinated by the fact that they seemed so sure about what they believed in, so I began asking them questions about their faith. I spent time in conversation with nearly everyone who worked there, asking all sorts of questions, about creation, judgement, heaven and hell, and the importance of belief in Jesus.

While I admired them as people and the depth of their conviction, I found that the answers they gave to my questions just didn't make sense to my heart. In particular, I couldn't accept the idea that all you had to get into heaven was to believe in Jesus, and that it didn't matter whether you lived a good or a bad life. When it came time to leave, I was given a note from one who had answered most of my endless questions. It read, “If you continue searching for Truth in this way, God will guide you”.

At Uni, my interest turned to eastern religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucian thought. In my Honours year I did a study of Hare Krishna devotees who were living ‘the traditional life' in a temple in my city. I was fascinated to know what would make young women take up such a life style. Didn't they find it difficult living within such a patriarchal system with gender defined roles? How did they feel about the fact women were confined to praying at the back of temple? (I am reminded of the questions I receive from young women now, ‘Why do women have to pray behind the men?' ‘Why can't a woman lead the prayer?'). I found that in essence, the women there were basically troubled young souls, who were desperately looking for guidance and security. One of them said to me, “All I want to do is to serve God and this tells me exactly how to do it.” I respected this sincere desire, and found their commitment level inspiring (two hours of prayer before sunrise), but it was clear to me that this was a path of extremes, and I knew it was not a model of life that could ever be universal.

Tibetan Buddhism was my next stop. In my mid 20's, I started reading books, attending lectures and practicing the ‘art of meditation', trying to achieve the Buddhist goal of stilling the mind and cultivating ‘emptiness'. I went on a meditation retreat with a spiritual teacher who gave us teachings to help ‘overcome our ego' (quite a fascinating concept!). Towards the end of the 10 days, I experienced something during the meditation that I can only describe as a profound stillness, which was quite unlike anything I had ever experienced before. My friend, who is now a Tibetan Buddhist nun, told me that it is these ‘glimpses' that students of Buddhism strive for, because they are a small taste of the elusive state of ‘enlightenment' that is their ultimate goal. Despite this experience, I found that Buddhism couldn't answer my most basic questions, about things like the existence of God and creation. I looked at the Tibetan teacher making his prayers in Tibetan, and the pictures of multi-headed deities hanging on the walls, and I knew that this was a cultural tradition. I knew that we couldn't all be Tibetan Buddhists.

At 27, I went to work in India as a volunteer. Living on an isolated rural hill station away from my own society, I had time to think more deeply about life, about the existence of God and the purpose of our creation. Amazingly, I was only really just coming to realise that I did believe in God. I saw the signs of His existence in the order of nature around me and I thought, “This just couldn't have come about ‘by chance'.” Coupled with this was my growing realisation that there was an aspect of me that wanted to worship, but I hadn't yet found the way how.

One day, during a walk to the temple on top of the hill station, I stopped at the altar of the elephant god Ganesh. I placed a flower down in front of it and a sincere prayer came out from my heart, “God, I know that you are there, and I want to worship You, but I don't know how. You have to show me.” My fitrah had finally found its voice.

A few weeks passed, and a group of people arrived to run their summer course at the centre where I was living. The course was “An introduction to Islam”, and it was for Christian theology students (most of them studying to be priests) from all over India . The course was in English and I asked if I could join. This was my first time to learn about Islam.

One of the first things we had to do was to read the translation of Surah Fatihah and say what we thought about it. I found that when I came to the part which said ‘Master of the Day of Judgement', it made me feel very uncomfortable. God as Love, I was only just coming to terms with, but God as Judge, that was something else. Again I returned to this concept of Judgement. What did the Muslims believe about judgement? The course was taught mainly by Christians, but there was one Muslim, who was an Arabic teacher. I sat near to him at dinner time and plucked up some courage to begin my questioning, “So, in the teachings of Islam, what happens to someone like the Dalai Lama on the Day of Judgement?” I didn't let the fact that he had never heard of the Dalai Lama deter me, and I continued my questioning about many different aspects of Islam.

It took me a year of reading and questioning before I finally decided to take my Shahadah , and it would really need another article to tell you all the reasons why. But perhaps most importantly, the first thing I did was to read the translation of Qur'an, to see what was in this book that claimed to be ‘the word of God'. When you read those words with an open heart, you know instinctively that they didn't come from a man. They speak to your heart in a way that no other words can.

I also read books about many other topics like women in Islam, the life of the Prophet (saws), Divine justice, and Islam as an alternative model to western society. While I found some of the concepts deeply challenging to how I had been raised, they made me look more critically at my own society and I could see where we had gone astray. Gradually I became convinced that Islam really was a Divinely inspired model for the best way to live our lives.

When I reflect on my journey to Islam, I can see how many places I searched for that hidden treasure that is ‘guidance', and how many opportunities there were along the way to become distracted by fools' gold. Now that I know where the treasure lies, I strive to keep it close to my heart, so that it will steer me safely on the journey of this life. What saddens me most, as I travel along the path, is the sight of those who have been born with the treasure in the palm of their hand, and yet they have never opened it to see what jewels lie inside…

I pray that Allah (swt) guides us all to a deeper understanding of the treasure that is the Deen of Islam, and that He gives us the tawfiq to put it into practice, and teach it others. Ameen.