HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN ISLAM

were purely man-made, they could be changed at will according to whim, convenience or circumstance.

Belief in the Hereafter I came to feel as essential not merely because it was comforting. If ethical and spiritual values are of Divine origin, we are directly responsible to God for developing our highest potentialities. Each one of us will be called upon to render an account of our life on earth and be rewarded or punished accordingly.

Therefore one who has a firm faith in the Hereafter is willing to sacrifice transitory pleasures and endure hardships to attain lasting good.

As I studied the beliefs of all the major faiths, I came to the conclusion that originally all the great religions were one, but as time passed they became corrupted.

Idol worship, the idea of reincarnation, and the caste system began to permeate Hinduism; pacifism and monasticism became characteristic of Buddhism; ancestor worship of Confucianism; the doctrine of original sin, the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus resulting in an anthropomorphic conception of God and the atonement by the alleged death of Jesus on the cross, of Christianity and the exclusive Chosen People idea of Judaism.

All these ideas which so repelled me were not to be found in Islam. Increasingly I began to feel that Islam was the original religion that alone had retained its purity. Other religions were only partially true. Only Islam contained the whole truth. Above all, Islam provided its adherents with a complete, comprehensive way of life in which the relation of the individual to society and the material to the spiritual were balanced into a perfect harmony.

Although I wanted to become a Muslim, my family managed to argue me out of it. I was warned that Islam would complicate my life since the faith is not part of the American scene. I was told that Islam would alienate me from my family and isolate me from the community. At that time my faith was not sufficiently strong to withstand these pressures. I became so ill that I had to discontinue college. For a long time I remained at home under private medical care, steadily growing worse. In desperation my parents had me confined to a hospital where I stayed for more than two years. While in the hospital I vowed that if I recovered, I would become a Muslim.

After I was finally allowed to go home, discharged, I investigated all the opportunities for meeting Muslims in New York City and making friendships, and it was my pleasure to make the acquaintance of some of the finest people that anyone could ever hope to meet. I also began to write articles for Muslim periodicals and to carry on an extensive correspondence with Muslim leaders all over the world.

As Ramadan approached, my desire to embrace Islam grew so strong that I began to practise the five daily prayers and am now undertaking the fast for the first time. I am doing this with a firm belief that nothing but good can result in living according to my deepest convictions.