“Touched by The Adhaan in the Land of Senegal”

A scent and a sound has the ability to evoke much…Sometimes all it takes to urge on a memory or promote a change is a subtle scent and a sweet sound. When the words of the adhaan “Allahu Akbar…ALLAH is the Greatest” coincides with the whispered yearnings of the heart, it lays the foundations for change. And so was the case of an American brother, whose life’s journey changed its course through the sweet melody of the adhaan…

“Bismillahi Walhamdulillah, Assalaamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatu.
I begin in the Name of ALLAH. All Praise, bounteous Praise and never ending praise be for Him and may peace and blessings always be conveyed upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam). I would firstly like to begin by discussing the difference between being born a Muslim and reverting, that is, accepting Islam from your own free will. Reality is, we all are not born with personal values and morals. Our personal values and morals are developed by our guardians and parents. Taught to us by them and as such it becomes our foundation. In actuality, their values and morals become ours.

So if your parents raised you as a practicing Muslim, your morals and personal values are then beautifully structured by Islam. Islam becomes your foundation And in fact structures how you think, how you act, even your attitude and personality. For those non muslims like myself, who have investigated Islam, we have found that Islam proves itself to be a Light of Guidance. I am also quite sure that you will all agree that Islam provides solutions to all of life’s questions, problems and differences. Now if you were born with this manual for your life and if you were raised as a practicing Muslim you probably wouldn’t know the issues or the doubts or the emptiness or hopelessness that those outside the fold of Islam deal with and we have always dealt with since we were born. We were not raised in a structured or proven lifestyle like Islam is. We were instead given the incorrect fundamentals by our parents, which we assumed were correct. And at the very least we thought that they were good enough to get by. So we were left with nothing more than what our parents taught us, to assist us in dealing with all that life threw at us. As for that emptiness and hopelessness, we learnt that it was a natural part of life and we learnt to suppress it and pretend it is not there.

Looking at children in today’s time, we observe that they they are so immersed in all the technological gadgets which western society provides like computers, electronic games, internet and cellphones that they don’t really have the inclination to look at the natural world that surrounds them and reflect on it. Similarly from the time we are young we fill our lives with all these activities, supressing those feelings of emptiness and those unanswered questions but as the years pass we realise that those feelings and that emptiness are still there. It is the memory of that life, a life of trial and error; a life of hopelessness and uncertainties; a life of confusion and doubt…that you leave behind when you grasp the strong handhold of Islam. No matter what age you embrace Islam, you finally find peace, purpose and meaning to your life. And it is never too late and you are never to old to investigate and discover Islam. Islam, which is indeed a detail map and manual for our lives and really how much easier is it to do things with a manual.

I, like so many others, was not born Muslim. In fact I was not born into any religion at all. I was born in a suburb of New Jersey and later we moved to a country or rural area just outside of the city of New York. In a place like this where we were raised without the television and computer games, we learnt to occupy ourselves as children. We would spend much time outdoors with nothing but nature to keep us busy and entertained. I believe that this had been the beginning of me contemplating my world and surroundings from a young age.

While I believe that these positive effects of my childhood weren’t completely lost, but the acts of youth, the teenage years and adolesence had covered up the light which ALLAH had put in my heart as a child. From the age of eighteen I pursued a number of varied lifestyles, I took up sky-diving, jumping out of a plane at high altitudes. I thought that the thrill of having near-death experiences might help me to ascertain my purpose in life. While trying to fit in with that crowd, I realised that this was not a lifestyle that had any truth to it and so I ventured through a few regular mundane jobs. Thereafter I joined the navy in the United States.

Still dissatisfied and searching, I moved back to New York and became involved with a small group of African musicians from Senegal. At the core of the lifestyle of these musicians was the drug marijuana. As weeks and months became years I became very addicted to this drug. Amidst this mental confusion and fog I had the opportunity to travel to the land of Senegal. And one of the first mornings that I was there, about five in the morning, I heard,

“Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!”, which of course is the adhaan and that moment was a life-changing one. For as you can imagine, my searching heart was greatly touched by it.

So when I returned to America, I was intrigued by what I ignorantly perceived to be Senegalese customs but were in fact a part of Islam. I started researching and investigating and discovered that I was in fact becoming magnetically drawn to Islam. Coming across a book of Islamic invocations, I memorised it. And as time passed, even though I wasn’t yet a Muslim, I would read the English translation of the Quraan and pray what I had memorised. Then I decided to embark on a spiritual and physical cleansing for ten days. So I stopped eating pork; I stopped drinking, smoking and taking drugs, Alhamdulillah. After the fourth day of changing my lifestyle completely, again even though I was not yet a Muslim, I now found myself saying the shahadah.

However, because I had no contact with any Muslims and knew of no Masjids, I took the shahadah with just ALLAH as my witness and just endeavoured to live the best Islamic lifestyle that I could live for the next couple of months. I then had the opportunity to fly to the capital of the island of Bahamas which had one Masjid and about twenty Muslims. I took the shahadah again at this Masjid and actually took shahadah and made nikah on the same day. I married another revert who had also taken the shahadah at this very same Masjid in the Bahamas. Alhamdulillah, we have lived as practising Muslims and have been blessed with a child.

I believe that when you can revert to Islam in the middle of nowhere, on an island and without being in contact with other Muslims, it is only by the Will of ALLAH. It proves that ALLAH chooses you for Islam. I strongly assert that Islam has all the solutions from personal hygiene to how you treat your parents. Personally my parents have no problem with me being a Muslim. They have witnessed first hand what it means to be a Muslim child…to treat your parents correctly, with the dignity and respect they deserve; it means you love them more because you have motivation to and you maintain family ties because Alhamdulillah, it is an opportunity to give them dawah too.

Islam is a light that diffuses all darkness and depression, bringing with it tangible peace…it is as simple as that, SubhanALLAH!” 

http://youtu.be/knu-HYHA0wM