A Convert's Conundrum : My personal experience

So, it's been a while since I blogged because I've been working on the podcast, alhamdulillah!

I've also been keeping busy with doing some online courses here and there. Not too long ago, I attended a course about the Names and Attributes of Allah by sheikh Moutasem al-Hameedy. If you are a regular follower of mine on here or anywhere else, lol, you all know by now how much I appreciate learning from the sheikh. It's been a journey for me to find someone whose words I can resonate with as well as agree with in terms of following the Qur'an and Sunnah in a well-balanced, well-mannered way. There was an essay competition where the attendees were asked to share their experience with what they have learned from the course...and while I think that the journey to Allah is ongoing and not just something you can understand and develop in a month or two, I decided to write and share my journey even before the course took place. I only wanted to share it because I feel like A LOT of converts go through these phases I went through and I hope that this can help sisters who are still stuck in that rigid, technical-only mentality/phase. I think this a really important reminder for all new Muslims, new and old converts and even born Muslims. Islam enters the tongue and should reach the heart and the heart should turn the words back out into beautiful actions. May Allah always keep us steadfast and balanced on His deen and bless us with the best of manners, ameen.

When I first became Muslim back in 2011, I remember it so vividly as if it was just yesterday. I was sitting there in the auntie’s apartment uttering the heavy words and weight of the shahadah only to find myself feeling light as a feather as tears streamed down my face. As the words came from within my soul and left my lips, I felt a sense of serenity, peace and an indescribable presence within my heart. I felt home. I felt I finally belonged somewhere safe in this harsh, unpredictable world. I never experienced such a spiritual awakening in all my life and it was from that day on where I would embark on my journey to Allah. 

The very first prayer I prayed felt surreal; it was what confirmed deeply in my heart why Islam was the truth. I couldn’t describe such a feeling except that I felt fresh, vibrant and connected. I truly felt that Allah was with me and that He was near. There really are no other words to describe such a feeling except that these feelings were similar to what I had experienced when I first took the shahada. 

As I began my journey with zeal, I wanted to learn everything and anything that would bring me closer to Allah. I had not realized that all the baggage I had been carrying from my childhood; all the traumas and negativity would hinder my learning experience. That initial feeling of  purity and spiritual awakening slowly began to tarnish without me even realizing! The first  couple of months were like a “spiritual”  bootcamp for me. I tried to learn everything all at once and as quickly as I could. I had been blessed with this gift which my Creator had given me, of course I had to act quickly and strive to get to know my Lord! Afterall, I had a lot of catching up to do and making up for all those years where I  was lost in complete darkness and heedlessness!  Little did I know, all this urgency to seek knowledge and practice everything perfectly all at once for fear of letting down Allah was actually hindering my self-development and identity as a Muslimah!

I never knew that seeking  knowledge was supposed to reach deep into the soul and awaken what was already there, our fitrah. The external influences mixed with my past traumas would only allow me to focus mainly on the technical aspects of Islam and how it was all or nothing. In retrospect, I feel like I was ‘programmed’ to only have fear of Allah and if I didn’t do the right thing,  Allah would  punish me and  there was no room for hope and mercy. I connected to Allah out of fear and fear alone. I thought loving Allah meant only fearing Him and worship stemmed from ‘because I don’t want Allah to punish me.”  Through all of this, I started turning into a very rigid minded Muslimah. Everything was black and white, I became judgemental, arrogant and these were traits I had carried with me from my  pre-Islamic days. I thought getting close to Allah was only through the physical aspects of worship as well as chasticizing and condemning people who didn’t outwardly practice Islam correctly. Subhanallah! What ignorance had I fallen into? I would have moments in my heart where I felt something wasn’t right and this couldn’t be what Islam was all about...

Fast forward some and severe challenges and hardships began to befall me. My misunderstanding of Allah and His Names & Attributes drove me into a dark hole and I only found myself questioning Allah and falling into victimhood. At this  point, the lens of my heart became tainted.  I thought I was moving forward to only find out that I was  moving backwards. I questioned if  I made the right decision  by becoming Muslim and why is life getting harder? My thoughts started cornering me. The only escape was through an automatic response from my heart to make constant duaa. This went on for quite some time until these challenges and hardships brought me to one day attend sheikh Moutasem’s classes at my local masjid . 

I wanted to mention that this was where my journey to truly KNOWING Allah and learning about His Names & Attributes began. Subhan’allah, how Allah used him as a source of guidance to opening back up my heart to revisit that spiritual awakening I once discovered when I initially became Muslim! Bringing up the sheikh is by no means an ‘insert here’ to praise him but it was through his classes that really allowed me to tap out of my external delusions and tap back into my internal reality. I think of his teachings and methods as a way of “reprogramming” me to unlearn all the misinformations and misunderstanding which I drowned myself in as a new Muslimah.

The struggles I faced humbled me and by default, I had no way out but to surrender. I was beginning to (re)discover the Names & Attributes and experience them in my heart. Whenever I would reflect on why something happened or why things worked out the way they did, I started shifting my thoughts away from my mind and allowing them to find themselves back into my heart. 

Allah is near and not far.  

Things were happening for me and not against me! My Merciful Lord was taking care of me and He was not doing things to harm me nor punish me but He was doing things for me, to teach me and allow me to truly connect with Him sincerely, from the heart. I never knew there was a place for this in Islam! To actually experience the Names & Attributes of Allah instead of just memorizing them for lip service! 

A whole new world opened up to me but what the most beautiful thing is is that this world already exists within me!  As I reflect more on the verses of the Qur’an and the many aHadith,  there are countless references to the heart and soul and how sakina could be found there if it was not corrupted but we just need to tap into it. How important it is to take care of our hearts and souls! Heart work isn’t hard work, but we just need to make time out of our busy schedule to reflect and remember Allah. I’d like to add here that I also had misunderstood the term ‘introspection’ because I thought that meant sitting alone with your thoughts. I thought that it meant to think about life and to reflect upon the things I did wrong and that I needed to change my mindset. I’ve only began to understand that introspection means diving deep into the heart only to bring to surface what is already there! What is most profound to me is that connecting to Allah is not through the mind like I had always thought. Rather, it is only through our hearts do we connect with our Lord, “Those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism), and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah, Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.” (13:28)

I feel like I’m on a new journey . I feel like I have so much more to share but I am limited due to the word count. 

Had I discovered Islam only to re-discover it? 

It seems so. 

I feel like the Names & Attributes course has opened up a new dimension into my soul as before I was looking at Allah with a magnifying glass but through all of this I feel as if this awakening has prompted me to use a microscope to look deeper and understand what it means to feel the love for Allah. As this is still a new journey for me, I continue to find myself sometimes reverting back to overusing my mind, but I can now feel it is easier to sense these weak moments of overthinking and realise they are coming from my nafs. I’m eager to continue this journey to Allah and to again experience those moments of joy where I felt in my heart I found home, insha’Allah.