My Way to Islam by Dr. Bilal Philips

My Way To Islaam
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Page 1 of 6
I was born in Jamaica, which is an Island in the Caribbean, on the shores of Central America. I’m sure most of you know about it. It seems to be most important for Reggae, in the world of music, and rum for those who are into drugs. It is also known as an area of tourism.

I was born into a Christian family, my mother being an Anglican and my father a Presbyterian. My father’s father was one of the leading church scholars in Jamaica who had learned Greek and Hebrew, and was quite a figure in the world of Christian ministry.


I did not spend much time in Jamaica. At the age of 11, I migrated with my family to Canada; so I really don’t have too many recollections of religious practice there beyond, as a child, not wanting to put the penny in the plate. We were all given coins to take to church and when the plate was passed around you had to put the penny in. I remember doing so only because parents were there and you couldn’t put it in your pocket. But I used to do so reluctantly, wondering to myself “Why are we doing this? I would much prefer to use it to buy candy or something else. ”



What has left the biggest impression on me while growing up in Canada in my primary and secondary education was having to go swimming naked. We weren’t allowed to swim with swimming trunks, unless you had a special permit, something from the doctor to get you out of it. So we all had to go swimming naked and of course showers after gym were just in a big hall with showerheads and everybody showered naked. I felt shy about it. I couldn’t really understand why we had to do it, but this is what we had to do.



Much later in life, I came to realize that there was a philosophy behind this. This was something being introduced as a means of breaking down the feelings of shyness that people naturally have to exposing themselves in front of others. This is a product of the Darwinian approach to sociology and psychology wherein feelings of shyness are looked at as being a sickness, a sign of some kind of mental problem. Since animals are not shy; and we don’t find dogs and cats etc being shy of being naked amongst their kind, why should human beings be shy?



With regards to Christianity in my primary and secondary education, Christianity was Sunday school. Sunday school was where you met girls, and arranged parties, but in terms of religious instruction, although I guess it was going on, most of us as children or young people were oblivious to it.



My only exposure to Islaam at that time was in some of the cartoons that I watched. They gave an image of an Arab riding on a camel with a sword in one hand and the Qur’aan in the other; with the basic idea that you either accept the Qur’aan or lose your head. I can remember one song called, “A-hab the Arab”. Later on I came to find out that there was no Arabic name called Ahab, and there are no Arabs by the name of Ahab; but this was the name of the song, “A-hab the A-rab, Shaykh of the burning sands”. This was the image. And in terms of reading, the only reading material I can remember really is the “Thousand and One Nights”, which was basically a book of pornography, about the sexual lives of the sultans and the caliphs.



After completing high school, my family and I traveled to Malaysia. Both of my parents were teachers, and they came to Malaysia to join the Colombo plan. This was a project to help the Malaysian government in their educational program.



There my friends were mainly expats, and I can honestly say that there were no visible signs of Islaam in the society, beyond the impression which was made very clear to us as expats that you don’t mess with Malay girls, otherwise you will get killed. It had no connection with Islaam; it was just Malay really.



Years after becoming a Muslim and on making Hajj, I encountered a number of women in Makkah and Madeenah wearing white coverings, and they looked similar to the people that I had seen in Malaysia. I then asked a few of my friends who these people were, and they said that they were from Malaysia. I was very surprised because I had never seen women like that in Malaysia. My friends then explained to me that in Malaysia, women didn’t dress like that, but they would carry their Islaamic dress in a bag to the mosque. All the time I had spent in Malaysia, I had never seen these white garments covering their heads and bodies, because people didn’t wear it in the society!



During this period my parents adopted an Indonesian boy, whose name was Aws Suleiman. His name was contracted to “Wesman”. He was born in Malaysia but was from Indonesian parentage. And because of the fact that at the time, Indonesians who were born in Malaysia would not be given an opportunity for higher education beyond high school or A levels, he didn’t have a chance to go to University/College.



My mother had taken a liking to this particular boy, and being concerned about the fact that he didn’t have any future, wanted to take him to Canada so that he would be able to continue his education. As the Canadian government insisted that the only way he could be taken was if he was adopted, my parents adopted him. And so, my brother, my sister, and myself, lived together with him for some years there in Malaysia before going to Canada.



Now, here was a Muslim element in my family, which had no real impression on me. I should mention that according to Islaamic law adoption is not permissible. His father was dead and my parents took him in, and his name was changed. His family name was changed to our family name.



He was a quiet and shy Muslim. He never said anything to us about Islaam. Sometimes we opened his room door, and if he happened to be praying near the door, the door would bounce him in the head whilst in he was in prostration. We would close the door and ask each other, “What is he doing in there?” But I felt embarrassed to ask him about it and he never said anything to us though he was Muslim within the family. If my mother was preparing pork for all of us, she would prepare fish for him. We understood that he was eating different things than we ate. During the month of Ramadan my mother would get up early and prepare sahur for him, so he could fast. He fasted, he prayed, he did his basic Islaam in the family but he never said anything to us.



As for myself, during my school days I got involved in music. I came to be known as the “Jimmy Hendricks” of Sabah, emulating his style of dress and the type of music he used to play. I had my own rock group. This was basically the focus of my life until I finished off high school and decided to go back to Canada to further my education on a tertiary level in University. I was accepted into the University of Simon Fraser and I went to do a degree in biochemistry.


Simon Fraser University was at that time one of the more experimental universities in the sense that they were introducing the credit hour system. This was not followed by the other universities, which were following the British system of the single course throughout the year. What you found there was a great looseness in the whole structure of the University. There were a number of American students in this University who were influencing the others with their ideas. The professors in the liberal arts program, Sociology, Humanity, Sociology, Psychology and Anthropology, were from the Timothy Leery School.



Timothy Leery (who died a few years back and had his remains shot off into space on a rocket) was the discoverer of LSD, psycodelic drugs. At any rate these professors, following the tradition of Timothy Leery, used to begin classes by passing out a bag of marijuana, and after everybody had smoked up, discussion began. As I said Simon Fraser was quite different from most universities at the time. The situation was quite fluid.



At the same time, there was a separate introduction of ideas of Communism in the minds of the students. Though my major was Bio-chemistry, we had to take these other subjects as electives and these ideas of communism were being introduced so that they would guide and provide leadership for that student revolt. Eventually the campus was shut down and the students took over the administration. The protest at the time was against Canada’s involvement with America in the Vietnam War.



During this period I was directly involved and I began a conversion to what was called revolutionary politics. I scrapped Christianity because it was really something that was not implemented in my life so to speak. If somebody were to ask me if I was a Christian up to that point I would have said, “Yes I am a Christian”. But what it meant to be a Christian; that was left to the individual’s interpretation, and I guess that’s the way it is today for most people who are Christian.



I began to do a lot of reading in Marx/Leninist literature, and I was exposed briefly to some Islaam through the autobiography of Malcolm X. However, it was read as a part of required reading. For you to be a solid revolutionary in those days you had to read certain books. You just had to get through these books to be able to say, “I read these books”. So I read it amongst a lot of other books. There was some interesting information, probably I would say regarding his early life, in terms of the type of racial injustices that existed in America. This awoke me more, along with other such books, to the oppression which existed in Western society and made me more open to embrace the Communist ideal of a just society. The Communist banners of equality, justice and fair distribution of wealth etc, were very attractive at that time.



So, I converted to Communism, I dropped out of school and finished basically what was called an associate degree, two years in bio-chemistry. I left Canada and went down to the United States because this was where revolutionary activities were taking place. I joined a group there in Los Angeles and San Francisco known as the “Soledad Defense Committee”, which was basically involved in gathering funds for a court case that was going on at the time for both the Soledad brothers, as well as Angela Davis who was imprisoned at the time.



I had gone down there with a lot of ideals about Communism and its implementation. What I noted was that there were a number of discrepancies in terms of the morality of the people involved.



After one rally, where we had marched with placards through the city; there was a set of donations collected and taken back to the headquarters. I wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes but I didn’t have any more money so I asked the person in the office if they could lend me some to buy a pack of cigarettes. He said, “Oh it’s OK’. Next thing, he pulled open the drawer and gave me some money out of the donation box to buy cigarettes. I took it, and went and bought the cigarettes. But something struck me. How could this be? Here we were, gathering this money to help these peoples’ legal cause, and then so easily they would take from this money to buy me cigarettes. And they even told me “It’s OK, we all get our basic things out of it.”



I came to find out that in fact everybody’s rent was being paid out of these funds. People were buying cars for transportation, parties were organized with these funds, drugs and alcohol were bought with these funds. It really bothered me. I continued with them, but this thing kept eating at me, and just left me really disheartened.



The final straw was at a major rally held in Los Angeles, where the leaders of the various organizations such as the Black Panthers and others that were active at the time, got together. Everybody there was drunk. It was done in a big park and people were just drunk out of their minds! After a lot of talk, it was just a whole drunken scene. This to me, though I won’t say I wasn’t involved in drugs at that time like everybody else, was something like: you don’t do this when you are involved in party activities and things.



It was supposed to be controlled. I mean that’s what people said, but the fact of the matter is that there was this wide-open lack of discipline amongst these people, and I felt inside myself, that this was not going anywhere. I could see there was no real future in it.



Probably one of the most popular books for standard reading at that time was a book called, “Soul on Ice”. The person who wrote it was a member of the Black Panthers. The book was basically about raping white women; about how many different white women he had raped. However, it was presented in such a way that people were looking at this as being his reaction to racism in America, which was all perfectly justifiable.



But I couldn’t get over it! To me, this just seemed to be the book of a serial rapist! I couldn’t see the other side of it.; but this was standard reading.



After the rally in the park in Los Angeles I decided to go back to Toronto, and get involved there with the people who I was more familiar with.



I went back and joined a group called Black Youth Organization, which worked with the black students union in the University of Toronto campus. This was still an extension of Communist politics with some element of Nationalistic teachings.



We would focus on black Canadians and try to elevate their consciousness towards the oppression which existed at that time. But again, I found myself in a situation where it was mainly students, and young people talking to young people. We weren’t really affecting anything in the society. Probably, my biggest exposure here was the further reading of books of famous writers of the past.



The most striking thought I can remember of that era, was that of a writer Fredrick Douglas. A black man who had been freed back in the 1800’s, and was quite outspoken for the cause of black people in America. He made a statement saying, “The limits of oppressors are defined by those who they oppress”, where he put the responsibility on the oppressed, that they are the ones who ultimately define how much they will be oppressed.

That left an impression on me, in that it indicated that the state of a people is determined by their own consciousness. If they don’t want to be free, if they don’t want to be liberated, if they don’t want to be educated, then they won’t be. You really can’t make people free; people have to want to be free

During this period I had some exposure to Islaam. We had a standard movie that every body had to watch known as “The Battle of Algiers”, which documented the Algerian struggle for independence. Of course the battle cry during that struggle was “Allaahu Akbar”.



There were women wearing hijab and hiding weapons under their outer garment, so there was something of Islaam there. I also came in contact with the black Muslims, Elijah Mohammed’s followers. I went to the States again and visited some of their temples. Although I was impressed with what they had in terms of personal discipline, outwardly at least, the idea that God was a black man struck me as being ludicrous. I’d given up on the idea of God anyway, becoming Communist, but that God could be a black man who should be worshipped, became even more ludicrous to me!



I didn’t really find anything attractive about Islaam at this period, so I just continued to be involved in the activities of the organization. I continued to play music and at that time I used to play in nightclubs and for rallies to raise money for the activities of the organization.



But slowly again, I found myself in a state where I didn’t see any future in what we were doing. We were not affecting any major change in the society; it seemed really not to be going anywhere.



At this time what caught my attention was a movement in South America. I think they were called, the “Tuparaymous”, or “Ttuparmarous” or something like this in Argentina. They were urban guerillas and had taken the struggle to the streets, fighting the government directly. In the States too there were movements like the SDS (Students for Democratic Society) which were also taking that route.



It seemed like that was the only thing left. Talking and rallying didn’t seem to be going anywhere. The only thing left now was to take the battle to the streets. So, I decided to apply and to go study urban guerilla warfare in China. I went to the Chinese embassy in Ottawa because Canada maintained relations with China during this period. I went to see the Ambassador and the person in charge of education to make this application.



What struck me was that the person who came to see me was a chain smoker. I mean he was smoking the whole time! Very strong cigarettes without filters even, the whole time! He would start another cigarette after fininshing the current one, and to me, the idea of control of cigarettes, drugs and these types of things, was important. It struck me as something that wasn’t very good. Here was a person, who was a representative of the revolution and he had no personal discipline!



At any rate, I filled out my application and they told me, “We’ll send you word as soon as the OK comes”. I went back to Toronto and waited. This was over the Christmas holidays of 1971,



At this point what I found was that a good friend of mine who was in the leadership committee of the organization which I belonged to, had accepted Islaam. She became the wife of a known speaker today, Dr. Abdullah Hakim Quick, who is currently involved in lecturing in different parts of the world. Knowing that she had accepted Islaam caused me to say, “Well let me have a look”, because she was, perhaps, even more of a fervent communist than I was. She was a Moaist, which was like the extreme wing at that time. She had virtually memorized Mao Zedong’s Red Book and would be able to make quotes, almost any time quotes were needed from Mao. For her to convert meant, to me, that there’s got to be something behind this. So I asked her for some books and began to read.



The first book I read was called “Islaam the Misunderstood Religion” written by Muhammad Qutub. This book basically was a comparison between Islaam and all of the other systems that were out there such as Christianity, Communism, Capitalism, and Socialism, from a social point of view, political point of view, economical point of view; from all of the various aspects. So after reading that book I was convinced that Islaam really had the best program for human society. I was convinced that Islaam was the best system for establishing justice in human society.



I continued to read other books, among them “Towards Understanding Islaam”’ by Mawdudi, and I became more and more convinced of the reality that Islaam really did have the best program.



But the concept of God was something, which didn’t just re-appear immediately. It isn’t that merely because you would like to believe, you start to believe. Having denied God for some years, it would take time before belief in God was something that became a part of my life again.



Having reflected and discussed etc about God and belief in God, the turning point for myself came for me at a time while I lived in the commune. I had my own room where I kept a lot of books, and people would come in to read them in my room. I didn’t allow people to take them out of the room. They would come in and sit at my desk and read. On one occasion, I was lying on my bed, and some people had come in and were sitting at the desk reading. I had gone into a state that was between waking and sleep. I was aware of people in the room, but yet I was dreaming.



I saw myself going into this warehouse with a bicycle of mine. I was walking it into the warehouse, and the farther I went into the warehouse the darker it got. I started to get this feeling of fear because of the fact that I had a fear of darkness. The farther I went in, the more this feeling started to overcome me that perhaps I might not be able to get out of this place. I would continue, turn back to make sure the entrance through which I came in was still there, and each time I turned I could still see it, although it was getting smaller and smaller. Eventually a time came when I turned around and there was no entrance. I was in total darkness.



I got this fear that was basically saying to me, “If you don’t get out of this, you will never get out.” I guess it was a fear of death or whatever, but I was just overwhelmed by it and I wanted to get out, so I started to scream. I was aware of the people in the room. I started to scream out to them “Help me!”, but the words wouldn’t come out. They were stuck in my throat so they couldn’t hear me. I wasn’t able to get out of the situation. I kept screaming until I reached a point when I realized that there was no way out. I was lost, totally!



At the point when I realized this, I gave up. I woke up and sat and thought about this. To me, it was like a confirmation that there was a force beyond me. A confirmation of the existence of God in that, I wasn’t able to get myself out of that situation. The people in the room were not able to help me, and were it not for that which was beyond me to get me out of the situation, I couldn’t have come out of it.



That had a marked effect on me. Shortly after, I decided to accept Islaam
When I was taught how to pray, the sujood in particular, I realized that my adopted brother was a Muslim! At that point, I was happy, but I was shocked that he had understood all this, and had never said anything in all these years.



I went out to Ottawa, because my parents were there, and he was out there studying with my parents in the University. He was very happy to see me. I was happy too, but upset at the same time. I was upset with him, because, as I asked him “Why all these years that you were with us, did you never say anything?!” He said he felt embarrassed, and also that for him to say anything to us that might influence us to become Muslims, would be a disservice to my parents who had helped him and he felt shy about causing any problems in the family.



But I told him that he has an obligation to God, and that obligation is above all else. As he had that knowledge, he should have shared it with us, and given us the right to make that choice for ourselves.



After that I returned to Toronto and began to study Arabic and Islaam. I continued to play music for a little bit as nobody had told me it was haraam or forbidden; but at that point I found myself there in night clubs playing with the other members of the group, and everybody else in the group would be high on drugs. Here I was playing in a club where everyone is drunk, and you know it’s like being in another world. I was amongst them, but I was not a part of it. The corruption there became so obvious to me that I felt myself out of place and that I shouldn’t be there. So it wasn’t too long after that, that I decided to just pack it in, sold all my musical equipment, records and everything, got out of it and started to focus on studying Islaam.



At this point I traveled to England. I joined the Jamaat Tableegh because they were the most active Islaamic group at the time.



There was a particular individual known as Colonel Saab or colonel Amiruddin from India who was a very, very vibrant personality and he took a group of us to England for the first major Ijtimaah there called the Sheffield Ijtimaah.



I spent about three months in England with the Jamaat Tableegh. I had gone there for seven days. That was my initial commitment, seven days; but they have a way of getting you to make sacrifices that you don’t necessarily want to make at that time. So I ended up being there for almost 3 months and I was recently married. Actually I was married about three weeks before I went off for this seven-day trip, and in their gatherings they would point me out and say, “Look at this brother, look at the sacrifice that he made! He just got married and he’s out with us, he’s spending time and he’s going to spend even more time.” Of course after saying that I was obliged to spend another couple of weeks, till eventually it became three months. My wife was writing me frantic letters, “If you don’t come back…” Finally I managed to extricate myself and get back before my marriage was destroyed.



That was a learning experience for me. I had gone there with the intention of increasing my knowledge about Islaam. Alhamdullillah, Colonel Amiruddin taught me Tajweed, proper recitation of the Qur’aan. I had been told that in England, at the many mosques that they had, were scholars who you could learn with. So, wherever I went, whenever we stopped at any of the mosques, I would sit under the scholar there and take my notes, asking questions etc.



I came back to Canada and announced to my wife that we were now Hanafees. She said, “What is a Hanafee?” I explained to her that we are Hanafees because the Jamaat was teaching that you had to follow a Madh-hab. You had to follow one of these schools of Islaamic law. And although they did say that the four Imams were all the same, somebody would come along and tell you, “You know who the greatest Imam was? Imam Abu Haneefah! He was the first, most Muslims are Hanafees, so then we’re all Hanafees, and that’s the best thing to be.”



So I became a Hanafee and I informed my wife that she should be a Hanafee also. Whilst I was there I also learned the prayer for women, because the Hanafee’s teach a separate form of prayer for them. It was quite a tricky form of prayer. If a woman has to learn how to pray the Hanafi way and has not learnt it early on, she’ll find it quite tricky. It involves a certain degree of gymnastic ability. In any case I learnt it so I could teach it to my wife. I taught it to her, and after that we moved and were living next to the masjid in the house of a brother from who we had rented an apartment.



His name was Mahmoud Hayaal and he was originally from Egypt. His father had been a scholar in Egypt and was part of the Ikhwani movement, and one of the students of Hasan Al Banna. I started to learn Arabic and Fiqh from him. We started to look at the books, and he was explaining different things to me.



I started to find these discrepancies between what I was now learning, and what I had learned when I had gone with the Jamaat Tableegh. He was from the Shaafi‘ee school of thought, and he explained that this is the Shaafi‘ee position and showed me the evidence for it. I began to see these differences that led me to believe that I needed to learn Arabic thoroughly and study Islaamic law from the sources myself. So I applied to go and study in Saudi Arabia at the University of Madeenah. I was accepted there and began my studies.



I completed a BA in Usool-ad-Deen or Islaamic Studies, and following that I went to Riyadh and did a Masters in Islaamic theology.



When I went to Riyadh my parents were actually there before me. They were teachers. They had left Malaysia, gone back to Canada and then to Nigeria, where they taught for some years and then proceeded to Yemen. From there they came to Riyadh and began teaching at a school called the Minaret School and I was invited there while doing my Masters to start teaching Islaamic Studies.



I took on this responsibility of teaching students who were mainly expatriates. These were the children of expatriates working there. Their parents had studied in America or England and wanted their children to continue studying in an English medium school. Most of the students were Westerners from a Western background, and the previous Islaamic studies teacher was originally from Pakistan; whom they had brought there to teach. The students just wore him down. They were thoroughly westernized and he just couldn’t handle them.



In Pakistan and India students are quiet. The teacher comes in, everybody stands up, the teacher speaks and the students are quiet until the class is over. While students in America, have a sort of rebellious attitude. They like to talk in class, and if they find a teacher is weak and doesn’t have a strong personality, they will just chase him or her out of the classroom, by throwing spitballs at them or whatever.



Thus this individual didn’t last any more than half a term. He packed his bags and left, so they asked me to step in. And of course, having come from a western background I really knew how to deal with these students. We developed a good rapport and I continued to teach there.

In the course of teaching, I came to realize that there was a major lack of materials in English to convey the type of basic information that I felt needed to be conveyed about Islaam, which was not from a particular Madh-hab point of view, but an open approach to the presentation of Islaamic teachings. It required me to start doing a lot of writing, and preparing notes for the students. Eventually I prepared some books and tried to publish them back in 1981. I wasn’t successful. I couldn’t find a publisher. It wasn’t until about 1985 that I published the first two books, one was called “Polygamy in Islaam”, and the other “The Devil’s Deception of the Shia”. These two books were addressing particular problems that existed in America at that time.



Polygamy was a big issue from the point of view that when a person is a convert Muslim, the first thing that non-Muslims like to ask is “Why do Muslim men have four wives?” This was the first question, so I felt that it was important to write something on the topic.



The other problem was that of Shia’ism, which was being promoted at that time very strongly in America amongst convert Muslims. This was after the revolution in Iran. This was an unfortunate situation because the revolution on the one hand was claiming that we’re all the same, we’re all Muslims, there’s no difference between Sunni and Shia’ and so on; but at the same time the Shia’ites would focus on Muslims to convert them to Shia’ism. It seemed to me to be a definitely devious approach; because on one hand they were saying there was no difference, but on the other hand they were trying to convert ignorant Muslims to Shia’ism as apposed to going to non-Muslims and clarifying what Islaam was.



During this period, I finished my Master’s at Imam Ibn Saud University or King Saud University, and I began a PhD in University of Wales, with the focus of my PhD being that of “Exorcism in Islaam”. A lot of people were asking me “Why exorcism? Couldn’t you find anything else to write about?”



For me, I began this study of exorcism, which involved traveling to different parts of the Muslim world and investigating, because it was something that was out there. And although I had studied all the way up to a Masters level, I really didn’t get a clear picture as to what was involved, as to the rights and wrongs of exorcism. So I decided to make that the focus of my PhD. At the same time I wanted to utilize it as a means to provide in the Orientalists’ circles, material that was authentic on the Islaamic teachings about the spirit world: the human spirit, the world of the jinn, and the world of the angels, because this would become a major part of the thesis. Anybody researching the spirit world in Islaam will find the writings of Orientalists in which they have gathered folk tales and myths of Muslim people from all around the world and have presented this as being the Islaamic view of the spirit world. This in fact puts a lot of confusion in the minds of people, and anybody studying it would come out thinking that Islaam has a very confused concept of the spirit world. So I felt that this thesis would also provide a foundation for the correct understanding.



Whilst doing the PhD, the Gulf War came up. Prior to the Gulf War, I was invited out to the base in Tehran. A Saudi Arabian cultural information tent had been set up. There we provided information about Saudi Arabian culture, much of which of course is from Islaam, so it meant explaining things about Islaam to them. We took the troops into the city, helped them purchase things, showed them different aspects of Islaamic society, took them into mosques etc, and in the course of six months before they were processed out of the country, Alhamdullillah more than 3000 of them had accepted Islaam.



Following that, I joined the Saudi Arabian Air Force headquarters in Riyadh in the Islaamic Affairs department, and continued to do work amongst the American Military who were in the country. I went to the United States with the American military and helped them set up an organization known as the “Muslim Members of the Military” which established places of worship and little libraries in the entire major American bases across the world. The whole momentum for Islaam within the military picked up to such a degree, that within two years after that, the first Muslim Chaplain was designated for the military. The Navy and Air Force followed soon. Islaam has continued to grow in leaps and bounds within the American armed forces



After two years, I transferred to the UAE where I joined up with a charitable organization by the name of Dar ul Birr. I set up a Da’wah center for them in Dubai, where I had with me four other brothers and sisters who were involved in Da’wah, and Alhamdullillah it has been quite successful.



We had on average about a person daily accepting Islaam, most of whom were from the Philippines. There was a large number also from India, and from Hindu and Christian backgrounds as well as Americans. The American navy ships come through there, so we had set up a network of people to help us. We worked with the taxi drivers, who were mostly Pathans from Pakistan, and when they drove anybody who questioned or asked them anything about Islaam or anything related to Islaam, they immediately brought them to our center so we could provide information for them. A number of them also carried pamphlets inside their taxis.



I’ve also been involved in giving lectures about Islaam on Sharjah television as well as Ajman television, two television stations of the UAE. I have set up a department of foreign literature in Sharjah for publication of Islaamic material, which besides supporting the Da’wah center by providing pamphlets for distribution also continued the publication process which I began in Saudi Arabia of trying to produce good material in English that conveys the body of Islaamic knowledge which is available in Arabic.



At the same time I also began to teach at the American University in Dubai, which is an American University, very western. The students there were very westernized.



I taught a course there called “Introduction to Islaam”. It is again an issue of Da’wah or explaining Islaam to students. Many in my class were Muslims, but the vast majority of them didn’t pray or fast. Many of them that had taken this course as an elective thinking it would be an easy few credits. They were quite surprised to find me there shaking them up. Alhamdullillah it was a good experience, after the term was over a number of them came and told me “You know we started praying now, we appreciate what you had said to us”.



And of course I have and currently am involved in lecturing in different parts of the world; such as Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, England, India, North America, and the Caribbean etc.
So, this path has not only been my way to Islaam in the sense of my conversion, but my way to understanding Islaam. Because coming to Islaam didn’t end with my conversion, but has been a continual process of education, continually increasing my knowledge and also sharing that knowledge with others. This process or this path as you can see began in a state of ignorance, where the only images of Islaam were very distorted images. There were contacts on that path with Muslims, but those Muslims had no effect on my life either because they were not practicing Islaam as it should be practiced, or because they didn’t feel a responsibility to convey the message of Islaam to the non-Muslims around them.



As such, it would be my advice then for you to know that it is a responsibility on yourselves to live Islaam. Whether you have enough knowledge to propagate it and explain it to others or not, at least by living Islaam, by being examples of Islaam, you may give others who are non-Muslims an opportunity of being exposed to Islaam.



Whether it’s in a work situation, at school, with your neighbors or whatever, this is a continual responsibility on you. You should feel ashamed if you are not involved in it. You should feel sinful because, in fact, you are in sin if you do not share this information. To have knowledge of God’s revelation and to not share it with others around you to the level of your own ability is in fact a crime. This is a sin. And for those of us who have sufficient knowledge to convey it and to propagate it, it is very important for us to be actively involved in this matter.



We need to work together where others may help us, because it’s always difficult when one is on one’s own and one is by one’s self, to have the courage to share. But when we are with others, when there are others supporting us, encouraging us, then it becomes a lot easier. So I would hope that out of this you all would reflect on this responsibility.



And for those of you who are non-Muslims I hope you have not been offended by anything I said, especially if you are Christians. I’m just telling it like it was for me. I’m not saying that every Christian experienced what I experienced, but I know till today Christianity for most people tends to be very nominal. We are Christians because our parents were Christians, but what it means to be a Christian, few people really know. And as such I would invite you to look at the teachings of Islaam and see what it has to offer.



Islaam, in no uncertain terms, represents the way of life which Prophet Jesus himself brought, but which became distorted and diluted to the point where it has very little effect on the lives of Christians today.break}