How does a middle-aged, white Scottish man living in the Scottish Highlands end up becoming a Muslim – especially when he hasn’t properly met a Muslim in his life?
‘For me, it all started when I heard the call to prayer from a local mosque while on a beach holiday in Turkey. It woke something up inside me and inspired me to begin a spiritual quest,” Scottish man said.
“Back home in Inverness, I went to the local bookshop, bought a Qur’an and started to read. While reading, I always asked God to guide me on the journey I had set out on”.
“A lot of praying. A lot of time on my knees”.
The Qur’an really shook him. He believes that it’s quite a scary book to read because it tells so much about oneself. Some things that he found out about himself, he didn’t approve of that. Thus, he decided to make some changes.
“I knew that I could stop reading the Qur’an and halt the process at any time, but I also knew that would mean giving up something really important. And I knew what the end result of this process would be: I would be a Muslim”.
He kept on reading in fact at least thrice, looking for the catch. “But there was no catch; I was quite comfortable with everything”.
The difficult part in all of this was him wondering who he would become. “Would I become strange, dress differently, speak differently in the eyes of others?”
“I would spend time conducting searches online, looking for the stories of people who had gone through this experience themselves. Nothing ever seemed to quite fit the bill – each person’s journey, of course, is unique”.
According to him, online resources are great to find out how to pray in Arabic, to listen to the Qur’an read out loud or perhaps to listen to some Islamic music.
“After those 18 months, however, I considered myself a Muslim. I was praying five times a day, fasting for Ramadan, and eating and drinking only what was considered acceptable according to the teachings of the Qu’ran”.
Hence, after that, he found out that there was a small mosque in his town.
“I popped along, knocked on the door and introduced myself”.
“I was accepted from the very beginning, however, and am now a constant within the community. I still had things to learn, of course”.
“What is Islam – and how do you divorce that religion from somebody’s culture? It’s important to point out that it’s Islam you have to accept, rather than any cultural specificities from out in the world. You always retain the freedom to define your own identity, so long as you stay true to the written tenets of the Qu’ran”.
He now declares himself as a white, middle-aged Scottish Muslim and is absolutely happy with it.
Courtesy: Independent
