Islam improved my life as a woman
Diana Beatty, or Masooma Amtullah, is in Colorado. She had a bad
stereotype images of Muslims. But when she came into contact with
Muslims and began reading Qur’an, she says, she completely changed.
I
am a 23-year-old college student, studying physics and training to
become a teacher. I am a native of Colorado, US. I converted nearly
three years ago now.
My father and brother are electricians. I have
only one sibling, my brother, who is 27 and is married with two young
children. My mother is a legal secretary for the county attorney’s
office. My father is an alcoholic and smokes a lot and his habits make
the household very stressful and unhappy at times because he tends to be
very selfish and angry. My mother is bitter about him often and lives
in a loveless marriage, I think. But to most appearances they are an
ideal family. They keep dogs at the house, and that along with the
alcohol makes visiting difficult but I try to go when I can.
In
college I met a Muslim for the first time. Only after meeting some
Muslims did I slowly come to realize how ignorant I was about
Islam and
Muslims; a lot of what I had learned growing up was quite erroneous, but
for the most part I just never heard anything at all about it.
I
became curious about the religion because the good manners of the
Muslims I met appealed to me, as well as the sincerity and worship
aspect of the Muslim prayer. The idea of a religion which guided us in
every aspect of life was something I had been looking for. I was raised
Christian and at the time of meeting the Muslims was quite religious and
studying the bible seriously. But the questions the Bible left
unanswered for me, the Qur’an answered.
At first I did not like to
read Qur’an, but the Muslims I knew, I took them as my example of what a
Muslim is like and saw that the stereotype I had been raised with just
didn’t fit. I wondered how I knew Bible was right and Qur’an was wrong,
especially when so much was similar between them, they seemed to
originate from the same source. I could not believe my Bible study
teacher when he said something very negative about Qur’an. Nor could I
believe that these Muslims who were in general far more religious and
worshipping of God than the Christians would go to hell for sure, as I
was taught.
As I continued my study, I was able to read the Bible in a
new light and see contradictions and even errors and scientific
fallacies that before I had dismissed as due to my failure to understand
the Word of God. But these errors and contradictions were absent in
Qur’an. And what Qur’an said about God and our purpose and all these
things I found more logical and easier to understand, and I knew that I
believed God would provide us with a religion that we could understand
and that was fair.
It was a difficult time but over a period of
several months I studied the two religions and Islam won out, I became
convinced that it was the true religion that Allah had sent for us and
so I reverted. At that time I still was not sure about everything, I
still was not sure about hijab in particular, and I did not know
anything like how to pray etc. but in time I started to learn.
It was
very difficult to conclude that everyone I had ever known, my teachers,
my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my preachers, were all wrong.
It was hard to decide to go against my family and do something I knew
they would hate and would not understand. I was terrified to make the
wrong choice, but Christianity teaches if you do not believe Jesus
(peace be upon him) died for your sins then you go to hell, so I was
afraid of being misled. I was afraid that my peers and coworkers and
bosses would react negatively and even that I might be disowned from my
family.
My mother complained about my Islamic dress, that seems to
bother them more than anything, and she will send Christian religious
literature to me, etc. When I first put on hijab she cried for literally
a week and was so hurt, she wrote me a letter saying it was a slap in
the face and I was abandoning how they raised me and trying to be an
Arab. They convinced themselves that I was doing it only for my Muslim
husband (I ended up marrying a Muslim man) and so they didn’t like him
and wished for our relationship to end. I was told by family members
that I was going to hell. It was not hard to give up the non-halal food,
the alcohol, to start praying, to wear hijab (after some initial
difficulty), the only thing that was really hard was hurting my family
and being constantly pushed by them.
In this process, I did lose a
few who just could not handle the change but most of my friends did not
really mind. Nor did I have any problem obtaining multiple jobs of my
choice in hijab. I am generally not discriminated against at all on the
college campus, although you do have to get used to stares and a more
formal relationship with coworkers. I find most respect me a great deal
for doing what I believe. It is only my family who has a great
difficulty, because it is their daughter. Well, and men never know what
to think when I decline to shake their hand.
It is difficult to
describe to someone who has never felt it how Islam can change and
improve one’s life. But Islam changed me totally.
I have no doubt
about our purpose in this world and that I am following the right path, I
have a certainty I never knew before, and peace that goes with it.
God’s plan makes much more sense to me and I feel I have an idea where I
belong. Plus, through Islam, it is rarely an ambiguous question if
something is right or wrong, unlike my Christian friends who often doubt
if they are doing the right thing. I finally have a hold on the things
that really matter and am not lost anymore. I didn’t even really know I
was lost before, but when I found Islam and looked back it was so clear
to me that I had been searching for years. Alhamdolillah, I was guided.
Islam also improved my life as a woman in that I find good Muslim men
treat women with so much more respect than is found in American society
that I am raised in. I feel special to be a woman.
As a woman I
earlier found myself faced with incredible responsibility of working
full time and raising a family and cooking and cleaning and never
fitting in fully to any of those roles. As a Muslim woman I feel freer
to look at myself and choose the path which truly suits my nature and
have others accept that, and I feel like a woman and it feels good; like
coming home. Reverting to Islam feels like coming home.
Articel by: arabnews.com
