Questions about your conversion to Islam

Question:
In response to your article titled, "A Quarter of a Century Ago", I have the following questions.

It appears that the major reason for your transition was the failure of the Godless philosophy to provide a good answer to the question of life after death. Religion may have a more comforting answer for us in our difficult times but how do we know that it is the truth. Could our cognitive ability be clouded by the despair we face?

Secondly, have you revisited the Atheist/Agnostic philosophy with an open mind in your post-teenage years? While such a philosophy may be driven by teenage ambitions initially, it could be based on some hard thinking later on in life when the priorities of teenage may not mean as much.

Thirdly, what does one do when one does approach the Qur’an with honest yearning to learn the truth and it still does not provide answers to all the questions. I guess what I am trying to understand is what "honest yearning to learn the truth" is. It certainly can not be not to question because that would be a self negating hypothesis.

Response:
I don't rule out the possibility that what I eventually got was what I wanted to get in the first place. However, I know that I had to go through considerable difficulty in coming to my conclusions. The most significant thing I was trying to work out during my early readings of the Qur'an was the question, whether the book was concocted or was genuinely divine in origin. In other words, I wanted to conclude for myself whether the prophet, alaihisslaam, was what he claimed to be or whether he was an impostor. What I can tell you is that it was not an immediate, final answer that I got. It may appear paradoxical to you, but I was struggling with this question, on the one hand and following the Qur'an in what it was requiring me to do, on the other. Now this may make you suspicious about my methodology, but the truth is that I had no option. I wanted to desperately know whether it was from God or not and therefore, I didn't want to allow myself any reason to regret for not trying enough.

I had a particularly tough time going through surah al-Ahzab (33) which talked about the question of plural wives of the prophet. There were ups and downs in my journey towards faith. But I made up my mind after considering, as much as could be possible at that time, both sides of the story.

A few experiences of that period would help you appreciate what I call God's help to me in my quest.

- At a very early stage at that time, while we were still in the PAF College accommodation, I prayed to the Almighty, for me to be awakened the next morning for prayers. I was a late riser till then, but what happened to me the next morning was that I managed to get up at the time of Azan; not because of Azan, but because right beneath my window, there was a donkey responding to the Almighty's orders to wake me up at the pitch of its voice.

- I asked for God's help to know whether there could be a life after death, and the following month's issue of the Reader's Digest (March, 1977) carried in its 'book section', the digest version of the book: "Life after Life". My late father was a subscriber of it. At that stage I was not as yet confident about the Qur'an and therefore, I had to be convinced through a non-religious source that there was after all a possibility of an afterlife.

- On reading the Qur'an, I concluded that the Almighty wanted me to be extremely cautious about the other sex. I applied the understanding as strictly as I could manage, and the result was that my prayers were filled with such spiritual joy that I wouldn't then normally want to return home from the Masjid after prayers.

There were many other things that happened which gradually strengthened my confidence in God and afterlife. I can see that many of these experiences can be rejected as mere coincidental happenings or the projections of my wishful imagination. However, I was consistently keeping up with my intellectual exercise of reading the Qur'an with an open mind as well.

Regarding your inquiry about re-reading the atheist/agnostic philosophies, my answer would be: 'Yes'. But I must admit that once you have faith, you are biased. I also firmly believe that everybody is biased. However, there is one level for you to be biased within legitimate limits you must allow genuine criticism on your beloved point of view to affect you. I read Russell and Mill more after my conversion than before it. That's what I continued to do apart from reading the Qur'an.

For instance, I do remember that I got stuck on a verse which was apparently giving an understanding that was going against an undeniable scientific reality. I had a feeling that my faith was in serious jeopardy at that time. But then what I concluded as consequence of my understanding of the verse made me an even more confident believer. A brief mention of it might interest you. The last verse of Surah Luqman mentions five things. The apparent understanding I initially got from this verse was that the Qur'an proclaimed that only Allah knows them and nobody else. One of those things was the information about what lies in the wombs of mothers. Given the fact that ultra-sound investigations can lead to confirmed conclusions about what lies in the wombs, I was really upset. However, on a more careful reading of the verse I came to the clear understanding that the verse was mentioning five things but laying claims on about three of them; the claim that it is only Allah Who knows about them and nobody else can know. Amazingly, the claim was not made about what lies in the wombs of mothers. (See Qur'an; 31:34)

Lastly, I agree that, most certainly, you are allowed to question. I can show you from the Qur'an that pondering, reflecting, and questioning is encouraged. However, you can still be frustrated in your quest because of various reasons.

I think it is a test of one's sincerity in seeking the truth not to abandon one's search on not getting answers to some of the questions one has in mind. If you have got answers to some questions and not to others, you should be patiently seeking them from whatever sources are available. However, you should only give up your effort if you conclude that the answer you are getting is completely wrong. But there too be sure that what you understood is what the book is really saying. Quite often I have found people concluding on the basis of their faulty understanding of the Qur'an that what the book is saying is not acceptable to them, although what they were attributing to the Qur'an was not the correct Qur'anic understanding.

Frankly, I can't fully answer this question of yours. What I can tell you is that I myself tried to find the truth and I was helped. The book itself says that whoever will try sincerely will get helped. See 29:69, for instance. However, if there are still some people who claim that they tried their best but couldn't get results similar to mine, I'll not be overly perturbed, because there could be one of the two possibilities. One, the person was not sincere according to the fair criterion of sincerity that God Almighty -- Who is the best judge -- applied. Two, the person tried sincerely, but because of reasons best known to God's wisdom he couldn't get the kind of response I got. From what I understand from the Qur'an, I am very confident that such people shall be rewarded by the Almighty for their sincere efforts, because He will never treat anyone unfairly. The Qur'an says: "And I am not in the least unjust to my servants." (50: 29) One must not, however, forget that He is All-Knowledgeable and that He is the Best Judge.

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