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My Path to
Islam
Let me give you the general picture: I
am 'white middle class' and about to turn 50. (More likely, I already have
by the time you are reading this.)
I went through all the typical
white-middle-class nonsense. I worked for the big corporation. I
climbed up the ranks. I started as a computer operator, went through the
promotions. Systems tech. Programmer. Systems programmer.
Manager over a tech support department. And so on.
House in the fancy suburb, bought my
wife a Volvo, all that kind of thing.
Eventually I went out freelance,
independent computer work. Owned my own company.
Hit my 40's, got divorced, chased
women, drank a lot, chased more women, did drugs, did more drugs.
Did the wrong drug. Found myself
spending much more effort trying to do cocaine than trying to do the work Allah
gave me the talent for.
Found myself eventually in jail, of
course.
But Allah is merciful. He had His
plan.
That jail, a state jail, was more than
a county lock-up, but less than the stereotypical "
(well... I did see two incidents, but
let's not digress).
But the company in jail is not the most
righteous, even for a junior criminal like me. I certainly don't recommend
it as a vacation spot for anyone... for one thing the help is really rude.
;-)
Anyway, I had noticed that there was
one group in there that DIDN'T seem to be out to prove themselves tougher, who
weren't busy trying to run one scheme or another, who seemed to be *unshackled*
by the dark environment we were in.
That group, you might guess, was the
black Muslims. And even that, I later learned, was an assumption on my part.
Some of the brothers were Black Muslims (Nation of Islam) I would later learn,
but most were Muslims associated with Mosques that (generally) joined W. Dean
Mohammad when he led the bulk of the old N.O.I. away from Louis Farrakhan and
his bunch and back to orthodox Islam.
This was good, and one of the signs of
Allah's planning. Because one day one of my black cellmates was in the
same visiting area with his family when I was visited by my
wife.
My wife is black. And word of
this got back to the rest of the inmates in my area. Naturally some of the
bigoted whites thereafter treated me with disdain; no loss as they were not the
sort I associated with. But on the other side of the race line my own
aloof attitude had (unknown to me) been interpreted as prejudice by some of my
non-white cellmates.
Suddenly it was seen that that wasn't
my stance.
Getting to the point, this all led to
my being invited to an Islamic learning session. (Here in the
A chance to get out of the block for a
couple of hours? (And some curiousity.)
I went. They called adzan and then one
of the brothers with a good voice recited al-Fatiha.
It was like nothing I can explain. The
Southern Baptists talk about being 'born again'… Brothers, sisters: is that the
right word!
I cried like a baby. There in the
middle of a room full of felons. Tears streaming down my
face.
Not one of them ever mentioned that to
me. To the best of my knowledge it was never mentioned outside of that room (and
stories like that spread faster than fire in there).
I had $110,000 in a retirement account
when all of this started.
When I got out of jail I had $4,000
left in the bank, and a felony conviction.
I had lost $106,000 but I had gained
Islam. I would pay twice that without blinking.
I do
not need anyone else’s affirmation of my Islam, I have received that from the
ONE who matters!
(By the way, for anyone who wants to
verify, the legal facts I related above are a matter of public record in the
State of
Oh, that $4,000? Just as it was running
out, I ran into an old boss (who knew my troubles) in Wal-mart. He hired
me two days later.
Alhamdulallah once
again!
------------------
"O my Lord! bestow
wisdom on me,
and join me with the
righteous;" ó
- - Quran, al-Shuara 26:83