How I Found My Way to Islam

Assalamu alaikum! I wanted to share my journey to Islam, hoping it might help someone out there. I originally wrote this as a long comment elsewhere, but it got too detailed, so I’m sharing the full version here. May any good from it be for Allah’s sake alone, and may my nafs get nothing from it! Ameen, and bismillah. I embraced Islam at 19. Growing up, I was raised in a Christian household-Protestant, Evangelical style-but it never really clicked for me. Part of it was how strict my parents were about it, but honestly, I started feeling like the whole thing was a bit of a scam. I did that prayer where you ask Jesus to come into your heart, like everyone said I should, and waited for some big spiritual moment... but nothing happened. So I just shrugged and moved on. After that, my connection to Christianity was pretty loose and personal, but I still had this feeling that there was something unique about Jesus, even if I didn’t get it. I became a seeker, I guess, while still doing the usual teenage stuff-getting into mischief and all. I’m almost 44 now, so back then the internet was barely a thing, and my seeking meant reading actual books, you know, those old paper things. One of the first I read was “A History of Christianity” by Owen Chadwick, which convinced me even more that modern Christianity was fishy. Then I picked up “World Religions” by Huston Smith, and the part on Islam really caught my attention-it made me want to learn more later. I read other stuff too, like going through the whole Bible again, but those two books set my direction. Around that time, I started praying hard for guidance. Not just casual prayers, but deep, tearful ones, begging the Creator-whoever or whatever that is-to show me the truth. I wasn’t even praying to Jesus; I was calling out to the One who made everything. Even though I’d mostly left Christianity, I still believed in some kind of higher power, so prayer felt natural. That sense of “something bigger” was always there in my gut. I kept digging into books, and eventually I found a small collection of sayings and stories about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). In Arabic, these are called hadith, which just means traditions. This book was like a best-of compilation, similar to those little Bibles with just Psalms and the red-letter sayings of Jesus. Anyway, as I read through it, one story really puzzled me. It was a sad one: when Prophet Muhammad’s little son Ibrahim (that’s Abraham in English) passed away at around two years old, there was a solar eclipse that day. His followers thought it was a sign-like the sun and sky were grieving for the Prophet’s loss. But when the Prophet heard about this, he denied any connection. He said, “The sun and moon are two signs from the signs of Allah. They don’t eclipse because of anyone’s death or life. So when you see an eclipse, pray and supplicate until it’s over.” I was baffled. Why would he turn down such a clear “miracle”? Back then, everyone believed celestial events were tied to human stuff. If he’d used it to boost his claim, it would’ve made sense-like how I’d learned in Christianity about the star at Jesus’s birth or the eclipse at his crucifixion. But here he was, being completely rational and rejecting superstition. I started doubting my old assumptions about prophets. I even looked into whether this story was historically true, learning how Muslims carefully check their sources-way more rigorously than what I’d seen in Christianity. Turns out, there really was a solar eclipse visible in Arabia around that time, in 632 CE, and the story is in multiple early records with different chains of narration, so it’s solid. Anyway, I thought, “Does this guy even want me to believe he’s a Prophet? That was a missed opportunity!” But it stuck with me. Later, I met two Iranian brothers, one practicing and one not so much. One evening, the more religious one gave me a cassette tape (yeah, I’m old!) of a lecture by a Canadian mathematician who converted to Islam after finding it more logical than Christianity. A few days later, I listened to it, and subhanAllah, the speaker started talking about the very eclipse story I’d been wrestling with! He broke it down logically: if Muhammad was a liar, why not exploit the eclipse? If he was deluded, why didn’t he believe in it himself? But his response showed he was neither-it was sane, honest, and against superstition. That hit me hard. Remember how I’d felt nothing after my Jesus prayer years ago? Well, that night, as I heard this scholar explain what I’d been pondering, I felt something real for the first time. It wasn’t a huge lightning bolt, just a calm nudge, like a tuning fork finally finding its pitch. Pure alignment. Soon after, I started going to the mosque. Islam has truly stuck with me-it has this lasting spirit. Over the past decades, my faith has only deepened, though it hasn’t always been easy. There were ups and downs, tests, and moments of weakness. But I’ve learned that conversion isn’t a one-time spark; it’s the start of a long, refining journey. The spark came that night, and everything since has been about learning, growing, and sometimes painful but always valuable lessons. InshaAllah, my story might be a helpful guide for someone else. Bismillah!