Amina: A Muslim Convert in the UK

Amirah : This Is The Story Of How I Became Muslim

I was born in Arkansas to Christian parents, who were also born in Arkansas. In fact as far back as I can trace all of my family has come from the Southern states here in the United States. I was raised here all my life on a farm, where you get up in the morning, milk cows, feed the chickens and do the rest of the chores. My father was a Baptist minister, which is just a sect. of Christianity, such as Catholics, Methodist, etc. These are all "Christian" religions, but with different doctrines. It could be best explained as to the differences that are between the Sunni and the Shiite. I am Sunni by the way.

The town that I lived in was completely white raced and all Christians. In fact this was the scenario in a 300 mile radius of me. So I had never been exposed to any other cultures or religions. But I had always been taught that we were all created equal in the eyes of God, and that there was no difference in race, color, culture or religious practices. Later I discovered that this was easy for them to preach and teach as long as they stayed closed minded and these other people did not invade their world.

The first time I seen a Muslim was while I was in college at the University of Arkansas. I will admit at first I stared at the women in their "different clothing" and the men with the towels wrapped around their heads and wearing "night gowns". But the first time I had the opportunity to get to know a Muslim lady that I felt comfortable with in asking questions, it started a thirst in my heart and soul that will never be quenched. Alhamdolilah!!!

I will never forget her, she was from Palestine and I would sit for hours listening to stories about her country and the culture, but what intrigued me most was her religion. Islam. This lady had an inner peace about her. Like no one I had ever seen. I can remember so well even today her telling me about the prophets, peace be upon them, and ALLAH(swt). Even though I had never voiced this to anyone, I had always questioned in my mind the concept of what Christians called the "trinity" and why we had to pray to Jesus(pbuh) and not to God directly, and why so much emphasis was put on "Christ" and not God.

My friend did everything she could do to convince me that Islam was the only religion that would take me to heaven, and that it was not just another religion, it was a way of life. My friend graduated six months later and returned to Palestine.She was killed two weeks later outside of her home. I was devastated, it was like a part of me had died with her. We knew that when she returned home our chances of ever seeing each other again in this life was very unlikely, but she told me that what was most important to her was that she seen me in the here after in "paradise"

During this time I had met and made friends with a lot of people from the middle east. They also helped me deal with the lost of my friend. This was also when I came to love the Arabic language. It was beautiful. I would listen to their tapes of the Quran for hours, even though I didn't have any idea what they were saying. Even today, I love to have someone read to me from the Quran, and I still can't understand what is being said, but it still touches my heart and soul. I didn't have time to really learn any Arabic in college, I was lucky to remember my homework assignment. But I am trying very hard now to learn how to speak and read it, insha’allah. And for those who have ever listened to me speak Arabic or type in "Arabic English", they can tell you I have along way to go. And I thank them for their patience and "tutoring".

After I left college and returned to my "community", I didn't have the honor to be around Muslims any longer. But the thirst had never left nor had my love and desire for the Arabic language. Which I might add infuriated my parents and other friends. This confused me, because I had always been taught that we were all equal in God's eyes. I guess there were a few exceptions to this concept for my friends and family.

Then in the Spring of 1995, Allah (swt) brought someone into my life. This person was such a wonderful example of what a Muslim should be and what Islam was about that once again, I began to ask questions. I was even taken to my first mosque. That will be a memory that shall forever be etched into my memory.

For 8 months I studied everything he could possibly find me and read and listened to tapes continuously. Then on February 15,1996, I officially embraced Islam. ALHAMDOLILAH !!!!!!!! Our engagement was broken because his parents were against the idea of him marrying an American. Even though we are no longer engaged, I respect and admire him greatly. And I would never give up my Islam.

Since Feb.15, my life has taken many turns. When I became engaged to an "Arabian" or "foreigner", my family was in shock, they rarely spoke to me. I also lost most of my American friends. BUT when I embraced Islam, my family first tried to have me committed to a mental hospital, when that didn't work, they completely disowned me. They did make calls to me to tell me that they hoped I rotted in hell....and calls from my so called friends stated the same desire. Yes this hurt, even though my family and I had many differences, I still loved them deeply. Alhamdo lilah wa "subhanaallah" my eman (faith in Islam) was strong.

The last time I spoke to my family was two days after the bombing in Saudi Arabia. My uncle and cousin were killed in the bombing......my family called again to tell me of the news and to "assure" me that my family members that were killed in the bombing loved me....BUT their blood was on my head and all my terrorist friends. I cried for days, but once again, my eman stood strong and I continued.

The next turn in my life was when I returned home one afternoon four days after the bombing to find that someone had shot at windows of my home, and spray painted "TERRORIST LOVER" down the side of one of my vehicles. The police were no help to me at all. That same night while chatting in the "Muslim Chat" I heard gun shots ring out. They had returned, and finished almost all the remaining windows that were left in my home, and killed my pets that were outside

Upon the arrival of the police I was told that unless I could give positive identifications of these people and the vehicles they were driving, then it would almost be impossible for them to be found. I begged them to check my vehicles for any damage, I wanted to go to a motel so I would feel safer. I was told absolutely not, they were concerned that my "TERRORISTS" friends could have planted a bomb in one of them as a trap for the police. I crumbled to the ground on my knees crying out for ALLAH'S(swt) mercy and guidance.

Allah's answered very faithfully. I was attacked one night in a parking lot by an unknown man that proceeded to beat me, stab me, break my wrist and fracture some ribs. This person has been caught, and is awaiting trial, but at this time he is only doing public service work for this town. Last week when I went to pick up my clothing at the dry cleaners I was informed they had been lost, these articles included all my hijabs, jilbabs, abayahs and khimars. How convenient for them to lost these items.

The town I live in is very small and there are no other Muslims or Arabs even close. The closest mosque is 120 miles away. Even though I am alone as to the fact that I do not have any other Muslims to visit with and learn from, alhamdolilah, ALLAH is always there!!

What little knowledge I have about Islam has been gained through reading everything I can find on the inter net, and through my true friends and family on the Internet. I will never give up......but I would like to thank a very special Palestinian brother for his love, support, friendship and prayers during these past few weeks. You know who you are. God bless you richly. To my other Muslim brothers and sisters on the Internet, I love you and I thank you.

I am not writing this story in hopes of gaining pity. I do ask that everyone continue to pray for me, or anyone that is reading this to be assured that ALLAH(swt) will never let you down. But the injustices and prejudices that we Muslims face here in the United States and around the world has got to come to an end. It has to be acknowledged and dealt with, I know I am not alone in this fight. It is time that the media print and show the "TRUE" side of Islam. ALLAH(swt) will prevail!!!!

And one final thought, to my friend who first shared her knowledge of Islam with me.....I know that on February 15 of this year, you smiled down on me from paradise and gave ALLAH(swt) all the praises, and insha'allah I will see you again.

I love you all.

Source:http://www.convertstoislam.com

Ultra-Orthodox Jew Accepts Islam By Melech Yacov

When I was born I was given the Hebrew name Melech Yacov. Today I still live in the area in New York where I was born. We were a semi-religious family; we belonged to a Chasidic congregation to which we went every Saturday, but we did not keep all the strict observances required in Chasidic Judaism. For those who don't know, Chasidism is known in the mainstream as "Ultra Orthodox" Judaism. They are called so because of their strict observances of Halacha (Jewish Law) and their following of Jewish mysticism (cabala). They are the strange people that you see walking down the street wearing black suits and hats and letting their beards and sideburns grow long.

We were not like that though. My family cooked and used electricity on the Sabbath, and I didn't wear a yarmulke on my head. Moreover I grew up in a secular environment surrounded by non-Jewish schoolmates and friends. For many years I still felt guilty about driving on Saturdays and eating non-kosher food.

Although I did not observe all of the rules, I nevertheless felt a strong sense that this was the way that God wanted me to live, and every time I omitted a rule, I was committing sin in the eyes of God. From the earliest days, my mother would read to me the stories of the great Rabbis like Eliezar, the Baal Shem Tov, and the legends from the Haggada (part of the Talmud other than the Halacha) and Torah.

All of these stories had the same ethical message which helped me to identify with the Jewish community, and later Israel. The stories showed how Jews were oppressed throughout history, but God always stood by His people until the end. The stories that we Jews were brought up on showed us that miracles always saved the Jews whenever they were in their greatest time of need. The survival of the Jews throughout history, despite all odds, is seen as a miracle in itself.

If a person wants to take an objective view on why most Jews have the irrational Zionist stance regarding Israel, then they must understand the way by which we were indoctrinated with these stories as children. That is why the Zionists pretend that they are doing nothing wrong at all. All of the goyim (gentiles) are seen as enemies waiting to attack, and thus they cannot be trusted. The Jewish people have a very strong bond with one another and see each other as the "chosen people" of God. For many years I believed this myself.

Although I had a strong sense of identity as a Jew, I could not stand going to Saturday services (shul). I still remember myself as a little boy being forced to go to shul with my father. I remember how dreadfully boring it was for me and how strange everyone looked with their black hats and beards praying in a foreign language. It was like being thrown into a different world away from my friends and the people I knew. This was what I thought I was supposed to be, but I (and my parents) never adopted the Chasidic life like the rest of my family.

When I turned 13, I was bar-mitzvahed like every other Jewish boy who becomes a man. I also began putting tefilin (Hebrew amulets) on every morning. I was told that it is dangerous to skip putting it on because it was like an omen and bad things might happen to you. The first day I skipped putting on tefilin my mom's car got stolen! That event encouraged me to wear it for a long time.

It was only a little while after my bar-mitzvah that my family stopped going to synagogue altogether. They could not stand the three-and-a-half hours of prayer and felt that getting me bar-mitzvahed was the most important thing. Later on, my father got into a silly quarrel with some congregation members, and we ended up not going at all to services anymore. Then something strange happened: my father was convinced by a friend to accept Jesus into his heart. God willingly my mother did not divorce my father for his conversion to Christianity, but she has kept a silent hatred of it ever since.

This was also a period in my early-teen years when I sought to find something to identify with. My father's conversion helped me question my own beliefs. I began asking questions like: What exactly is a Jew anyway? Is Judaism a culture, a nation, or a religion? If it is a nation, then how could Jews be citizens of two nations? If Judaism is a religion, then why are the prayers recited in Hebrew, prayers for Eretz Israel, and observance of "Oriental" rituals? If Judaism was just a culture, then would not a person cease to be a Jew if he stopped speaking Hebrew and practicing Jewish customs?

If a Jew was one who observes the commandments of the Torah, then why is Abraham called the first Jew when he lived before the Torah came down to Moses? Incidentally, the Torah doesn't even say he was a Jew; the word Jew comes from the name of one of Jacob's 12 sons, Judah. Jews were not called Jews until the Kingdom of Judah was established after the time of Solomon. Tradition holds that a Jew is someone whose mother was Jewish. So you can still be a Jew if you practice Christianity or atheism. More and more I began to move away from Judaism. There were so many laws and mitzvahs (good deeds) to observe. What is the point of all these different rituals, I began to question. To me they were all man-made.

I was fascinated with Native American culture and their bravery in the face of the white settlers who stole their land. The Native Americans had over 250 treaties broken with them, and they were given the worst strips of land that no one wanted. The story of the Native Americans is similar to that of the Palestinians. The first Palestinians were living in Palestine for thousands of years and suddenly Jews replaced them, and the natives are forced into refugee camps in which they still live. I asked my parents how the Palestinians are different from Native Americans, and the only answer I got was "because they want to kill all Jews and drive them into the sea." My understanding of the Palestinian people put me above any of the Jews, their leaders, and Rabbis whom I once viewed as wise men. How could any good Jew deny that Palestinians were killed and forced from their land to make way for Jewish settlements? What justifies this act of ethnic cleansing – the fact that many Jews died in the Holocaust! Or is it because the bible says it’s "our" land? Any book that justifies such a thing would be immoral and hence not of God.

When I reached high school, I became interested in philosophy and read many of the great thinkers of the past. I spent time with good friends who read philosophy and who went along with me through the bumpy paths to Truth. One of the philosophers who had an impact on me was the Jewish-born Spinoza. Spinoza was a 17th century Talmudic student who questioned everything he was taught such as the belief in life after death, a belief that is found nowhere in the Torah. In fact many of the early Jews didn't have such a belief. Spinoza was expelled from the Jewish community for his views. I enjoyed reading his views on the Bible, which he said could not be taken literally without a boat-load of contradictions and problems.

Then I read two significant books that completely swept away any ounce of sympathy I had left for Judaism. The first book was called "On the Jewish Question" by Abram Leon. Leon was an underground Communist organizer in Belgium during World War II, and later he was caught and died at Aushwitz. His book answered the age-old question: Why did the Jews survive for so long? He gave a superb historical account of the Jews from the age of antiquity to the modern day and shows that their survival was by no means a miracle. In the words of Karl Marx, "It is not in spite of history that the Jews survive but because of it." First, he shows how much of the Jewish community left Israel on their own accord before the destruction of Jerusalem. Then he explains that the Jews were valuable to the kings and nobles of the middle ages because of their status as middle men. Then he shows how during the process of capitalist accumulation the status of Jew finally took a downward turn and they were subsequently persecuted for their usury.

The second book that affected me greatly was called "Who Wrote the Bible?" by Elliot Freedman. It takes up the historical task of Spinoza. The book proves that the Torah is actually written by 4 different people. Freedman explains to us that there were 2 different traditional accounts from the Kingdom of Israel and Judah, and that a redactor intertwined them together to get the Bible we have today.

Besides reading philosophy with my friends, we also took up many different political causes in our youth. We experimented in everything from Republicanism to Communism. I took up reading all the works of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Trotsky. I found in Marxism what I felt was missing in my life. I believed that I had found all the answers to everything and hence felt intellectually superior to everyone. The philosophy bandits (as I like to call us) got together and formed our own little Socialist club. We went to different activist events like protests and labor strikes.

After meeting all the different cult groups that surrounded the political left in America we all became disgusted at the way they acted and denied reality. No revolution would be made in a country by this type of people. Fighting for social change cannot win by using methods of the past.

Although I gave up the fight for revolution, I became an active pro-Palestinian organizer. This is the one cause about which I was very passionate. We were very small and attacked by the mainstream which gave me a sense of pride. I wanted the world to know that not all Jews are bad people. It shames me to see people whom I once looked up to support the aggressive regime of Israel. The lies coming from Israel are nothing less than holocaust denial.

Although I gave up Judaism and looked at this world as the ultimate aim of man, I was never really an atheist. However, I had a strong hatred of all religion and believed that it was a tool of the people in charge to use to keep everyone else in check. When you see the way fundamentalist Christians act in America, doing things like denying science and upholding values of old white men, you can understand why I was skeptical of all religions. The way Jews acted toward Palestinians did not help either. Nevertheless, I still believed in God in the very back of my mind. But with religion gone, I had a big emptiness left in me. I sometimes even wished that I was a religious person because I felt that they lived happier lives.

Honestly I do not remember what got me interested in Islam, especially after many years of strong anti-religious feeling. As a child, I remember hearing my mother talk about Islam, and how Muhammad (peace be upon him) worshipped the same God as us, and also how Jews are related to Arabs through Abraham. So in a way I kind of accepted Islam as just another religion that worships God. I have a faint memory of my cousin (a Chasid) who said to me that if a Jew gives up his life as a Jew and lives like a Muslim, he wouldn't be committing any sin! Looking back I am astonished to have heard such a thing.

When September 11th happened, there was a surge in anti-Islamic propaganda in the news. From the very beginning, I knew that it was all lies because I already had developed the perspective that everything in the media protects the interests of those who control it. When I saw that the most militant people in attacking Islam were fundamentalist Christians, Islam started looking more attractive to me. I thank God for what I learned in my activist days, because without the knowledge of society and the media, I would have believed all the garbage that I heard about Islam on the television.

One day I remember hearing someone talk about scientific facts in the Bible so I wondered if the Qur’an had scientific facts in it. I did an Internet search and I discovered a lot of amazing stuff. I subsequently spent a great deal of time consuming articles on various aspects of Islam. I was surprised of how logically consistent the Qur’an was. As I read the Qur’an, I would compare its moral message to that of what I learned from the Bible and understood how much better it was. Also the Qur’an was not nearly as boring as reading the Bible. It's fun to read. After about 5 months of intense study I said my shahada and officially became Muslim.

Unlike my old religion, everything in Islam made sense. All the practices like prayer and Ramadan I understood already. Although I imagined Islam to be like Judaism in which one follows a series of different rules dogmatically, I was wrong. My understanding of the world also matched what Islam taught me – that all religions are basically the same but have been corrupted by man over time. God didn't make a name called Judaism and Christianity and tell people to worship him. God taught the people only Islam; that is submission to Him alone. It is as clear and simple as that.

* This story was taken from the website jewstoislam.com

Hindu Bhraman Dr. Meena Embraced Islam

A Conversion Story: Martin John Mwaipopo - Former Lutheran Archbishop

(It was December 23, 1986, two days away from Christmas, when Arch Bishop Martin John Mwaipopo, announced to his congregation that he was leaving Christianity for Islam. The congregation was paralysed with shock on hearing the news, so much so, that his administrator got up from his seat, closed the door and windows, and declared to the church members that the Bishop’s mind had become unhinged, that is, he had gone mad. How could he not think and say so, when only a few minutes earlier, the man had taken out his music instruments and sang so movingly for the church members? Little did they know that inside the Bishop’s heart lay a decision that would blow their minds, and that the entertainment was only a farewell party. But the congregant’s reaction was equally shocking! They called the police to take the "mad" man away. He was kept in the cells until midnight when Sheikh Ahmed Sheik, the man who initiated him into Islam came to bail him out. That incident was only a mild beginning of shocks in store for him. Al Qalam reporter, Simphiwe Sesanti, spoke to the Tanzanian born former Lutheran Arch Bishop Martin John Mwaipopo, who on embracing Islam came to be known as Al Hajj Abu Bakr John Mwaipopo) Credit must go to the Zimbabwean brother, Sufyan Sabelo, for provoking this writer’s curiosity, after listening to Mwaipopo’s talk at the Wyebank Islamic Centre, Durban. Sufyan is not sensationalist, but that night he must have heard something - he just could not stop talking about the man! Who would not be hooked after hearing that an Arch Bishop, who had not only obtained a BA and Masters degree, but a doctorate as well, in Divinity, had later turned to Islam? And since foreign qualifications matter so much to you, a man who had obtained a diploma in Church Administration in England and the latter degrees in Berlin, Germany! A man, who, before becoming a Muslim, had been the World Council of Churches’ General Secretary for Eastern Africa - covering Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and parts of Ethiopia and Somalia. In the Council of Churches, he rubbed shoulders with the present chairman of the South African Human Rights Commission . Barney Pityana and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ‘s chairman, Bishop Desmond Tutu. It is a story of a man who was born 61 years ago, on February 22 in Bukabo, an area that shares its borders with Uganda. Two years, after his birth, his family had him baptised, and five years later, watched him with pride being an alter boy . Seeing him assisting the church minister, preparing the "body and blood" of Christ , filled the Mwaipopos with pride, and filled Mwaipopo Senior with ideas for his son’s future.

"When I was in a boarding school, later , my father wrote to me, stating he wanted me to become a priest. In each and every letter he wrote this" , recalls Abu Bakr. But he had his own ideas about his life, which was joining the police force. But at the age of 25, Mwaipopo gave in to his father’s will. Unlike in Europe where children can do as they will after age 21 , in Africa , children are taught to honour their parent’s will above their own.

"My , son , before I close my eyes (die), I would be glad if you could become a priest", that’s how father told son, and that’s how the son was moved, a move that saw him going to England in 1964, to do a diploma in Church Administration, and a year later to Germany to do a B.A degree. On returning , a year later, he was made acting Bishop.

Later, he went back to do Masters. " All this time, I was just doing things, without questioning . It was when he began to do his doctorate , that he started questioning things. "I started wondering … there is Christianity, Islam, Judaism Buddhism each different religions claiming to the true religion. What is the truth? I wanted the truth" , says Mwaipopo. So began his search , until he reduced it to the "major" four religions. He got himself a copy of the Qur’an, and guess what?

" When I opened the Qur’an , the first verses I came across were, ‘ Say : He is Allah , The One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begeteteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him? (Surah Ikhlas)’ ", he recalls. That was when the seeds of Islam, unknown to him, were first sown. It was then that he discovered that the Qur’an was the only scripture book that had been untampered with, by human beings since its revelation . "And in concluding my doctoral thesis I said so. I didn’t care whether they give me my doctorate or not - that was the truth, and I was looking for the truth." While in that state of mind he called his "beloved" Professor Van Burger.

"I closed the door, looked him in the eye and asked him ‘of all religions in the world, which is true’, I asked.

‘Islam’, he responded.

‘Why then are you not a Muslim?’, I asked again.

He said to me "'One, I hate Arabs, and two, do you see all this luxuries that I have? Do you think that I would give it all up for Islam?’. When I thought about his answer, I thought about my own situation, too", recalls Mwaipopo. His mission, his cars - all these appeared in his imagination. No, he could not embrace Islam, and for one good year, he put it off his mind. But then dreams haunted him, the verses of the Quran kept on appearing, people clad in white kept on coming, "especially on Fridays", until he could take it no more.

So, on December 22, he officially embraced Islam. These dreams that guided him - were they not due to the "superstitious" nature of the Africans? "No, I don’t believe that all dreams are bad. There are those that guide you in the right direction and those which don’t, and these ones, in particular, guided me in the right direction, to Islam", he tells us. Consequently, the church stripped him of his house and his car. His wife could not take it, she packed her clothes, took her children and left, despite Mwaipopo’s assurances that she was not obliged to become a Muslim. When he went to his parents, they, too, had heard the story. "My father told me to denounce Islam and my mother said she did not "want to hear any nonsense from me", remember Mwaipopo. He was on his own! Asked how he now feels towards his parents, he says that he has forgiven them, in fact found time to reconcile with his father before he departed to the world yonder.

"They were just old people who did not know. They could not even read the Bible…all they knew was what they had heard the priest reading", he states. After asking to stay for one night, the following day, he began his journey to where his family had originally come from, Kyela, near the borders between Tanzania and Malawi. His parents had settled in Kilosa, Morogoro. During his journey, he was stranded in Busale, by one family that was selling home brewed beer. It was there that he met his future wife, a Catholic Nun, by the name of Sister Gertrude Kibweya, now known as Sister Zainab. It was with her that he travelled to Kyela, where the old man, who had given him shelter the previous night had told him that that’s where he would find other Muslims. But before that, in the morning of that day he had made the call to prayer (azaan), something which made the villagers come out, asking his host why he was keeping a "mad" man. "It was the Nun who explained that I was not mad but a Muslim", he says. It was the same Nun who later helped Mwaipopo pay his medical fees at the Anglican Mission Hospital, when he had become terribly sick, thanks to the conversation he had had with her. The story goes that he had asked her why she was wearing a rosary, to which she responded that it was because Christ was hanged on it. "But, say, someone had killed your father with a gun, would you go around carrying a gun on your chest?" Mmmhhh. That set the Nun thinking, her mind "challenged", and when the former Bishop proposed marriage to the Nun later, the answer was "yes". Secretly, they married, and four weeks later, she wrote a letter to her authorities, informing them of her leave. When the old man who had given him shelter, (the Nun’s uncle) heard about the marriage, when they arrived at his house, they were advised to leave the house, because "the old man was loading his gun", and the Nun’s father was enraged, "wild like a lion". From the Bishop’s mansion, Mwaipopo went to live in a self built mud house. From earning a living as the World Council of Churches’ General Secretary for Eastern Africa, he began earning a living as a wood cutter and tilling some people’s lands. When not doing that he was preaching Islam publicly. This led to a series of short term imprisonments for preaching blasphemy against Christianity.

While on hajj in 1988, tragedy struck. His house was bombed, and consequently, his infant triplets were killed. "A bishop, whose mother and my own mother were children of the same father, was involved in the plot’, recalls Mwaipopo. He says instead of demoralising him, it did the opposite, as the numbers of people embracing Islam, increased, this including his father in law.

In 1992, he was arrested for 10 months, along with 70 followers, charged with treason. This was after some pork shops, against which he had spoken, were bombed. He did speak against them, he admits, saying that constitutionally, since 1913, there was a law against bars, clubs and pork shops in Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Mafia, Lindi and Kigoma. Fortunately for him, he was acquitted, and immediately thereafter, he fled to Zambia, exile, after he was advised that there was a plot to kill him. He says that that very day he was released, police came to re-arrest him. And guess what? "The women said no ways! They said that they would resist my arrest physically against the police. It was also the women who helped me cross the borders unnoticed. They clothed me in the women’s fashion!", according to Mwaipopo. And that is one of the reasons that make him admire women.

"Women must be given a high place, they must be given good education in Islam. Otherwise how would she understand why a man marries more than one wife…It was my wife, Zainab, who proposed that I should marry my second wife, Shela, (her friend), when she had to go for Islamic studies abroad", it’s the bishop who says so. Yah? To the Muslims, Al Hajj Abu Bakr Mwaipopo’s message is, "There is war against Islam…Flood the world with literature. Right now, Muslims are made to feel ashamed to be regarded as fundamentalists. Muslims must stop their individualistic tendencies, they must be collective. You have do defend your neighbour if you want to be safe", he states, also urging Muslims to be courageous, citing the Islamic Propagation Centre International’s Ahmed Deedat. "That man is not learned, but look at the way he has propagated Islam".

Miracle of God

Why would he convert to Islam?