Dian Utami
United Kingdom
This lovely couple are my dear friends, Mrs Emi and Mr Mike Daly. I feel privileged to be a witness of their happy moments a couple of months ago, as Mike was saying his syahadah for the first time, in a mosque in Cranfield University.
It was no easy journey for them. They were married for 29 years, both still in their own respective religions. Mike comes from a devout Irish Catholic family, and up until a month before he finally embracing Islam he still regularly went to his church.
While Mrs Emi is always a practising muslim ever since she was little. But living the life as a foreigner in UK, faraway from her homeland and her own family she struggled to integrate Islamic concept in all aspects of her life. Just in the last few years she rediscovered the beauty and the perfection of her religion.
And just then she felt an urgent, almost desperate need, to persuade her husband to become a muslim. Because she loves him, and she wants to be with him not only in this world, but also in the Hereafter. Because she wants Allah to be pleased with them. And because of the doctrine in his religion, Mike believes also in life after death, and that they have to be in the same faith to be rejoined in the Paradise.
She asked help from some of her trusted friends to talk and discuss anything about the principles of Islam with her and her husband. She also continuously prayed for the Lord to give her husband 'hidayah' or guidance. She didn't want to put her husband under pressure, and Mike was never a person to push into doing something he doesn't believe in.
The road she was taken there was long and difficult. But she persevered, and Mike has also done his part of deep thinking, learning, and soul searching. There was a time when both of them felt downhearted and discouraged. Somehow Mike knew that this is the right path to follow, but there were a few things that really concerned him. His parents have passed away, would he ever meet them again if he changed his religion? Can he still pray for them? Would he be able to do all that Islam asked him to do? He's such a shy and reserved man that sometime it was difficult to know what's going on in his mind or what he really wanted to know about Islam.
After about a year, he suddenly stopped going to church, and worryingly became really quiet and spoke very little for about a month. He browsed through lots of recommended Islamic websites. Probably this was the time when he really looked deep into his soul, and sincerely asked for God to be guided.Then he announced to her wife that he was ready to convert, or shall we say revert, to Islam.
My husband and I roped any help we could get from our friends to facilitate this wish. We went with Mr and Mrs Daly to the nearest mosque. My husband showed him how to do the ablution. And then, surrounded by their children and our friends, he testified his faith, that there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger.
After this joyous moment he claimed that he felt really relieved and peaceful, like there was a big burden being lifted from his heart. The process continued with a formal wedding blessing according to Islamic Law. And this certainly had put a big cheerful smile on Mrs Emi's lips. She too felt relieved and grateful to ALlah. That night, Mike went to bed still reading the Qur'aan, and fell asleep with the Holy Book on his chest.
Mrs Emi's task is not yet finished. She, with all her children and her friends, still have to help Mike to learn more things about Islam and how to perform all the rituals. But she's always a strong lady, I'm sure she'll make it.
UPDATE (written on 15-12-2007):
Mike is now, Alhamdulillah, a practising muslim. He did fast all through the past Ramadhan even though he had some health problems.
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