A story of my adorable sister in Islam

I always admired the person that searching the truth and finally they found Islam as an absolute truth religion. Their journey such an inspire story to read and hear. It amazing how does Allah shows the way to His servant. Here I would like to share a beautiful story about my sister, who had revert to Islam, her name is Somaiyah.

"I was thinking that I could sum up why I converted so those who are interested may read inshaAllah. I am not married, therefore I didn't convert for any man, which however is a prejudice among other prejudices that most converts convert because their husband happens to be a Muslim. And if so is the case with some, then congratulations and praise be to Allah swt that they found a person on Earth who was used by Allah swt in order to lead the woman to Islam.

Why I converted is deeper than just a personal belief and a feeling, it's not either as a punishment for anyone that I know because I would never do that to somebody and it wouldn't benefit myself either in any way. I started question Christianity already as 15 years old or maybe younger. I wondered why when I read the Bible I found tons of rules that I followed, but I hardly saw any other Christians who followed. And the ones who followed the rules still didn't believe you had to follow the rules to go to Heaven, it was more for your own sake to follow the rules. This started my journey in wondering and thinking, and a journey to be able to let go of my little shell of Swedish culture and religion and open up for the whole world and realize that even Christianity is not Swedish from the start and it's not foreign or scary to read about other religions.

I read about all religions, both Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and some small religions in Africa. It was more for my own knowledge's sake, not with the intention to one day just pick a religion and convert. I still believed in Christianity even though I didn't understand these things and even though I had my questions. But no religion of these made sense. You can't believe in more than one God, it's just not possible for me. And you can't build up a religion on nothing or on nonsense without prooves and "just because it feels good and it makes it look more serious". And Islam for me felt scary. I was affected by the prejudices that both people I knew, schools and media taught us. It was all about that Islam is a religion in the Middle East where the men can hit the women, the women are oppressed, the best thing is to blow up a building in the West which is also called jihad, that Allah swt will be born again in form of an egg from a man etc. I wonder today how on Earth I could believe in this nonsense back then? But I didn't let the prejudices overtake me, instead I went to the books and texts of Islam and the explanations in it.

I read and I studied and I searched for an answer on every question and every prejudice that came up in my mind, and when nothing I found was even close to the thing I had been taught I seriously started to wonder. Why is it so that a religion which seems so beautiful is so misunderstood and has so much prejudices in the West? I continued reading, I continued studying, but I didn't just follow blindly. I questioned, I argued with Muslims, I e-mailed different teachers of Islam, I craved an answer on everything I wondered about, every little detail was important for me to understand in order to clear my mind up. And I realized that Muslims are just as different from eachothers as Swedish Christians are.

Some are active, some are practising, some believe, some are just Muslim by name, some have misunderstood, some understand perfectly, some take advantage of their culture, some leave their culture totally and follow the real Islam. How could the West say that all Muslims are in a certain way when they in reality were so individual and different as a people could be? By then I started to wonder what I was doing, how I dared to do like this. I was thinking that it is so stupid to even consider converting because nobody would accept it in my family and I knew no Muslims in real life either who could support.

There were no Muslims in the village where I lived and I don't think that I had even talked to a Muslim for real before that. But I was thinking that it's not the Muslims that shall affect me or that shall be important, it's the religion itself because the religion is perfect but the ones who practice the religion are not perfect and can make mistakes. And with the risk to get Christians against me now, but this is my conversion story and something made me convert logically; the final decision to convert came when I started wonder why Christians believe God is able to make mistakes. God was almighty, I already knew that, then how can He be able to make mistakes according to Christianity? And how do I come to this sollution you may now wonder if you are not a Muslim yourself. It is as simple as that, that God doesn't create Adam and Eve, put up rules that they shall live after, send prophets to the Earth to make the people continue the rules, and then suddenly realize that this didn't work and instead send a son and let all people who just believes in this go to heaven.

Why would God create humanity and put up rules and don't know before that He would suddenly have to send a son in order to clear things up? It's like changing the whole routine of the world, it's not a small thing to do. God could just not make mistakes, and there was an easy explanation in the Quran about this matter and about the claimed crucifiction of the prophet Jesus (ra). The prophet Jesus (ra) was never crucified, another person was taken in his place and God let Jesus come up to heaven without dying. One day Jesus will come back and spread the real word of Islam, not come back as the son of God. The second thought is also about the rules that I followed, but many Christians didn't follow.

I felt that many Muslims didn't follow the rules in the Quran either, but at least they didn't deny them and didn't say that you don't need to follow them in order to go to heaven (some deny and some claim you don't need to, but like I said there are nonpractising almost nonbelieving Muslims too in this world). But why did so many Christians say that the belief itself is the most important and you can live your life however you want as long as you believe and still go to heaven? It didn't make sense to me because for me there shall be rules that you follow if you follow a certain religion. Your country or culture shall never go before the religion and if the culture or the country has something against the religion, then it's the religion you shall follow and not the opposite. So why are there rules in the Bible but so many Christians said that when Jesus came you didn't have to follow the rules anymore because he took it away, even though according to the New Testamente in the Bible Jesus himself is supposed to have said "I didn't come to take away the law"? Isn't it then clear that we shall still have followed the rules from the Old Testamente or at least not deny them?

But humanity isn't stupid, humans aren't stupid. And we are not less intelligent today than the persons who lived 4000 years ago. If the persons before the prophet Jesus (ra) came to Earth could live after rules that God almighty had put up for them, then sure we can live after the same rules today. Life doesn't become easier through the rules, but it becomes more fair, more right and more secure from the rules. And humanity isn't stupid to follow rules, God would never have to take the rules away, we already follow hundreds of rules within every country and change the rules when we visit another country. It's only bad excuses to not follow rules that we simply don't like or feel uncomfortable with. Specially these two thoughts, that God can't make mistakes and that there is no logical explanation to why the rules were taken away for some but not everyone, made me feel that Islam is the true religion and that it's a Muslim I should be instead.


Every year there are many persons who join Islam and who face different kinds of difficulties. It's like Allah swt says in the Quran chapter 29 verse 2: Do the people think that they will be left to say, "We believe" and they will not be tried? We shouldn't follow a religion just because our parents or our family do, even the first Muslims were converts and their families were against their decision. We are being tried and we have to deal with the problems in having a different faith and living a different way than what the majority of people and family find normal and most common. But who do we fool if we follow our family and not the true path, our family or ourselves? For indeed it's only you who will be judged for your actions on the Day of Judgment.

If you don't stand up for who you are and become a Muslim because you are afraid for what people will say, think or do, then it's only you who take the damage in this life and in the hereafter. We are many in the same situation, if some can then inshaAllah everyone can. Even back in the days people in the prophet Mohammad's (saaws) time said that they rather followed the religion of their families and fathers, than to take a new religion even though the message was so clear for them. The Quran 2:170 And when it is said to them, "Follow what Allah has revealed," they say, "Rather, we will follow that which we found our fathers doing." Even though their fathers understood nothing, nor were they guided? In the start I hid my conversion for seven months. Though every day it became harder and harder to not be able to be the one I wanted to be.

I couldn't dress modesty enough, couldn't pray, couldn't eat the right food, couldn't study Islam whenever I felt for, couldn't read the Quran in tranquility without fearing someone might come and find out I am no longer a Christian. The summer the same year a few months after my conversion was the worst for me. I felt the pressure of dressing like everyone else, bathing and sunning like everyone else, and people asked what's wrong but I couldn't tell them the truth. My chance came when I could move to my own apartment when I was going to start study on university after the summer.

Still I wasn't brave enough to be an active Muslim and I was also not having much energy for the practising of Islam because of my fear for telling the people around me that I am a Muslim. It was eating me up from the inside, the fear and the nervous mind and feelings. So one day, two months after I had moved out, I made the decision to take on the hijab. I had been praying five times a day for a while and everytime I prayed I felt stronger and stronger, believe me the prayer makes you incredibly strong in faith and confidence. After I took on the hijab I knew I couldn't go back, I didn't want to and I never wanted to go back. I only wanted to go further, go on the right path, and be the Muslim I for so long time had wanted to be. And thanks to Allah swt I could finally be free."



I'm proud of you my sister. You are an example to all the Muslim and non-Muslim women. With your manners, worship, smile, even when you are walking down the street, you are an example to everyone and you will indeed inspire many people, without even saying a word. I'll make du'a, may Allah bless you and purify you my sister in Islam. You've found the right way, alhamdulillah. I love you sister,for sake of Allah and Rasulullah.