Page 13 7KH ,VODPLF %XOOHWLQ ,VVXH thing specific totalkabout;otherwisewedon’thaveanything todowithmen.” “Ohhhhh. Muslim.” She said, “Yes, we practice the religion of Islam.” “Islam - how do you spell that?” “I-s-I-a-m.” At the time, I knew that Muslims were all terrorists. She doesn’t even have a beard. How could she possibly be Muslim? “How did this religion get started?” “Well, there was a prophet.” “A prophet?” “Muhammad.” I started some research. But I just came from one religion. I had no intention of becoming Muslim. Theholidays areover. Theboothmoves. She’s gone. I continued topray, and askedwhymyprayersweren’t being answered. InNovember of 1991, Iwas going to bring my uncle Rockie home from the hospital. I started to empty his drawers to pack his stuff and there was a Gideon Bible. I said, God has answeredmyprayers.ThisGideonBible. (Of course, theyput it ineveryhotel room.)This isasignfromGodthatHe’s readytoteachme.SoI stoletheBible. I went home and I started praying: OGod, teachme to be a Christian. Don’t teachme the Jehovah’sWitness way. Don’t teachme theCatholic way. Teach me Your way! You would not have made this Bible so hard that ordinary people sincere in prayer could not understand it. I got all the way through the New Testament. I started the Old Testament. Well, eventually there’s a part in the Bible about the prophets. Bing! I said, Wait a minute, thatMuslimladysaidtheyhadaprophet.Howcomehe’snot inhere? I started thinking, Muslims - one billion in the world. Man, one out of every five people on the street theoretically could be a Muslim. And I thought: One billion people! C’mon now, Satan is good. But he’s not that good. So then I said, I’ll read their book, the Qur’an, and I’ll see what kind of pack of lies this thing is. It probably has an illustration on how to dissemble an AK-47. So I went to an Arabic bookstore. They asked, “What can I help you with?” “I’m looking for a Qur’an.” “Okay, we have some over here.” They had some very nice ones - thirty dollars, forty dollar.” “Look, I just want to read it, I don’t want to become one, okay?” “Okay, we have this little five-dollar paperback edition.” I went home, and started reading my Qur’an from the beginning, with Al-Fatihah. And I could not get my eyes off of it. Hey, look at this. It talks about a Noah in here. We have Noah in our Bible too. Hey, it talks about Lot and Abraham. I can’t believe it. I never knew Satan’s name was Iblis. Hey, how about that. When you get that picture on your TV set and it’s got a little bit of static and you push that button (klop] - fine tune. That’s exactly what happenedwith theQur’an. I went through thewhole thing. So I said, Okay, I’ve done this, nowwhat’s thenext thing yougot todo?Well, yougottago to theirmeeting place. I looked in the yellow pages, and I finally found it: Islamic Center of SouthernCalifornia, onVermont. I called and they said, “Come on Friday.” Now I really start getting nervous, ‘cause now I know I’m going to have to confront Habib and his AK-47. I want people to understand what it’s like for an American Christian coming into Islam. I’m kidding about the AK-47, but I don’t know if these guys have daggers under their coats, you know. So I come up to the front, and sure enough, there’s this six-footthree, 240-pound brother, beard and everything, and I’m just in awe. I walkedup and said, “Excuseme, sir.” (Arabic accent:] “Go to the back!” He thought I was already a brother. I said, “Yessir, yessir” [meekly]. I didn’t knowwhat Iwas goingback for, but Iwent back anyway. Theyhad the tent and the rugswere out. I’mstanding there, kindof shy, andpeople are settingdown listening to the lecture. Andpeopleare saying,Goahead, brother, sit down. And I’m going, No, thanks, no, thanks, I’m just visiting. So finally the lecture’s over. They’re all lined up for prayer and they go into sajdah. I was really taken aback. It started making sense intellectually, in my muscles, in my bones, in my heart and my soul. So prayers are over. I say, hey, who’s going to recognize me? So I start to mingle like I’m one of the brothers, and I’m walking into the mosque and a brother says, “Assalaamu alaikum.” And I thought, Did he say “salt and bacon”?Assalaamualaikum.”There’sanother guywhosaid“salt andbacon” tome. I didn’t knowwhat in theworld theywere saying, but they all smiled. Before one of these guys noticed that I was not supposed to be there and tookme to the torture chamber, or beheadedme, I wanted to see as much as I could. Soeventually Iwent to the library, and therewas ayoungEgyptian brother, his name was Omar. God sent him to me. Omar comes up to me, and he says, “Excuse me. This is your first time here?” He has a real strong accent. And I said, “Yeah, it is.” “Oh, very good. You are Muslim?” “No, I’m just reading a little.” “Oh, you are studying? This is your first visit to a mosque?” “Yes.” “Come, let me show you around.” And he grabs me by the hand, and I’mwalking with another man - holding hands. I said, These Muslims are friendly. So he shows me around. “First of all, this is our prayer hall, and you take your shoes off right here.” “What are these things?” “These are little cubicles. That’s where you put your shoes.” “Why?” “Well, because you’re approaching the prayer area, and it’s very holy. You don’t go in there with your shoes on; it’s kept real clean.” So he takes me to themen’s room. “And right here, this is wherewe dowudu.” “Voodoo! I didn’t read anything about voodoo!” “No, not voodoo. Wudu!” “Okay, because I saw that stuff with the dolls and the pins, and I’m just not ready for that kind of commitment yet.” He says, “No, wudu, that’s when we clean ourselves.” “Why do you do that?” “Well, when you pray to God, you have to be clean, so we wash our hands and feet.” So I learned all these things. He let me go, and said, Come back again. I went back and asked the librarian for a booklet on prayer, and I went home and practiced. I felt that if I was trying to do it right, God would accept it. I just continued to read and read and visit the mosque. I hadacommitment togoona tourof theMidwest onacomedycircuit.Well, I tookaprayer rugwithme. Iknewthat Iwas supposedtoprayatcertaintimes, but therearecertainplaceswhereyouarenot supposed topray, oneofwhich is in thebathroom. Iwent intoamen’s roomona tourist stopand I laidoutmy carpet and I started doingmy prayers. I came back, andwhenRamadanwas over, I started getting calls fromdifferent parts of the country to go and lecture asaJehovah’sWitnessministerwhoembracedIslam.Peoplefindmeanovelty. [Two immigrants converse:] “This guy like applepie andhedrives aChevy truck. He is a red-blooded American boy. He was a Jehovah’s Witness.” “Those people that come in the morning?” “Yeah, those.” “That never let us sleep on Sundays?” “Yeah, this guy was one of them. Now he’s one of us.” Eventually somebodywould come up tome and say [Pakistani accent], “Oh, brother, your talk was so good. But you know, in the Shafi’i school of thought -” The only thing I could do was turn to them and say, “Gee, brother, I’m so sorry, I wish I knew about that, but I don’t know anything about Islamexcept what’s in the Qur’an and Sunnah. Some of them are taken aback and say, “Ha-ha!Poorbrother.Hedoesn’tknowanything.Heonlyknows theQur’an.” “Well, that’s what I’m supposed to know. And it’s been a very loving protection. I think its all in Allah’s hands.”
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