As salam alaikum,
Reading the path a new Muslim took to reach Islam has always fascinated me, and I am sure everyone else too. As someone who was “born” into a Muslim family, I never had to ask myself the most difficult questions, and I can only imagine how difficult and excruciating it must had been for each and every convert/revert. They not only had to deal with the most difficult theological issues, but often time faced more difficulty with the prospect of being isolated from their loved ones. No wonder, Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace) said that a revert to Islam gets double the reward than someone who was born into a Muslim family. All revert stories are special on their own merit and worth reading, yet it is more profound when you read about someone you know personally. One of such is brother G. Waleed Kavalec. Many of you know him from various Yahoo groups as well. His conversion story is pretty remarkable and I am sharing it with the rest of you. You can also visit his website at http://www.islamawakened.com/. Maqsud Sobhani My Path to Islam Let me give you the general picture: I am white, 'middle class', and rapidly passing a half-century in age. 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 "Hollywood " prison. No riots, no tear gas, no beatings (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 U.S. prisons have to accommodate the faiths of the inmates, within limits) 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 Texas.) 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! This account is not for my own fame or agrandizement but for the sake of Allah. If any good comes out of this story all the credit is due Him; only the mistakes are my own. G. Waleed Kavalec ------------------ "O my Lord! bestow wisdom on me, and join me with the righteous;" ó - - Quran, al-Shuara 26:83 ===== please visit and join: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IslamicMinds/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/TXWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> *************************************************************************** {Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy Quran-16:125) {And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33) The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim] The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all." [Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest". Yahoo! 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