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AB: My family tried to.\u00a0 I just can\u2019t understand that.\u00a0 But you know what? \u00a0That\u2019s a trial.\u00a0 Although I\u2019ve changed my name for like 8 years now, they still run up calling me by my birth name.\u00a0 Then it\u2019s, \u201cOh I forgot that you\u2019re Muslim.\u201d Then it\u2019s the pork jokes.\u00a0 It never stops.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n E: It\u2019s one of those things where people laugh at what they don\u2019t understand.\u00a0 Or they fear what they can\u2019t grasp.\u00a0 The thing is that nobody can pretend that they don\u2019t understand it.\u00a0 Because I\u2019ve never come across anything more simple in my life.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Like I remember that when I sat down and asked, \u201cSo, what does a Muslim believe,\u201d and I got the list run down to me.\u00a0 I was like, \u201cYou don\u2019t put up the wall between Christianity and Judaism.\u201d They were like, \u201cNah, it\u2019s all the same story.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n If when you finally get down to reading the Quran, the Bible and the Torah, which is pretty much just the Old Testament, you find that the Quran is just an affirmation of what is correct and isn\u2019t correct within those books (the Bible and the Torah).\u00a0 And then you say to yourself, \u201cHow did that go down when these cats were all from different parts of the world?\u201d \u00a0But they are all confirming each other\u2019s story.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m reading a book right now called Muhammad: The Life of the Prophet<\/span><\/strong>, by Karen Armstrong.\u00a0 It was written by a non-Muslim.\u00a0 So far, I\u2019m only about a quarter of the way through; but it starts out telling you how they originally tried to make Muhammad look like the most evil man on the earth; that he established Islam under the sword.\u00a0 But then you learn that Muhammad only fought when he had to.<\/span><\/strong> Muhammad only fought to defend Islam.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very good book about the man.\u00a0 It just lets you know that this cat was a man.\u00a0 We ain\u2019t trying to tell you that he was anything else but a man.\u00a0 We\u2019re telling you as Muslims that he was the most perfect example of a man to walk the earth so far.\u00a0 And from what I\u2019ve read he is the last one to come of his kind.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n When you get beyond being scared of Farrakhan and what he\u2019s sayin\u2019 — and here as a white person I\u2019m speaking — when you get beyond the ignorance of believing that Islam has anything to do with just people that are blowing up things, that doesn\u2019t have anything to do with Islam.\u00a0 They might do it in the name of Islam.\u00a0 But it has nothing to do with Islam.\u00a0 You can\u2019t argue with it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n When I explain Jesus to a Christian, he can\u2019t argue with me.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t mean argue, saying, \u201cJesus isn\u2019t God!\u201d \u00a0I mean, how much more sense does it make that he\u2019s a man? \u00a0If I was Christian, which to me means to be Christ-like, and God asks me, \u201cHey how come you weren\u2019t more like Jesus?\u201d \u00a0I\u2019ll say, I wasn\u2019t more like Jesus because you made him half of a God [and] I\u2019m only a man?\u201d \u00a0That doesn\u2019t make any sense.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n God doesn\u2019t want things hard on us.\u00a0 God wants things easy as possible.\u00a0 God is going to make it as easy as possible.\u00a0 If you ask and you are sincere, God will bring it to you.\u00a0 He might throw some rocks on your path, to make you trip and stumble.\u00a0 But it\u2019s gonna come to you.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n AB: Talk to me about the first and second time you took your Shahadah (profession of faith).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n E: Well the first time, it was right after I had heard a tape from Warith Deen Muhammad<\/span><\/strong> (son of Nation of Islam founder, Elijah Muhammad, who took most of the Nation of Islam into mainstream Islam).<\/span><\/strong> That just kinda broke down the whole Jesus thing.\u00a0 He explained that we (Muslims) do Christians a great favor by bringing Jesus down to the level of a man.\u00a0 Why would God create a man who is half a God and compare us to him?<\/span><\/strong> And it just sent off a bomb in my head.\u00a0 So I took Shahadah.\u00a0 And then the initial high wore off.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n It was almost like a Christian who says that they accept Jesus.\u00a0 Then they say, \u201cNo matter what I do now I\u2019m saved.\u201d \u2018Cause I was raised with that kinda mentality.\u00a0 Like, \u201cOK, I accept the truth so let me just go out here and sin my butt off and I\u2019m saved.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t really claim to be Muslim though at that time.\u00a0 I picked and chose what I wanted to believe.\u00a0 God gave me leeway for a time.\u00a0 But eventually it was time to fish or cut the line.\u00a0 I was coming to a point where I was unsatisfied emotionally, and spiritually.\u00a0 I had money in the bank and a $100,000 car, women left and right — everything that you think you want.\u00a0 And then just sitting there being like, \u201cWhy am I unhappy?\u201d \u00a0Finally that voice that talks to you — not the whisper (of Satan) — the voice said, \u201cWell, basically you\u2019re unhappy because you\u2019re living foul and you\u2019re not trying to do anything about it.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n My stubbornness at that time wouldn\u2019t allow me to talk about it at that time.\u00a0 You get in that state of mind where you\u2019re like, \u201cI can figure this out all by myself.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I finally got humble enough to talk to Divine and Abdullah about it.\u00a0 They asked me, \u201cHow do you feel? \u00a0What do you think it is?\u201d \u00a0So finally I\u2019m sittin\u2019 there taking Shahadah again.\u00a0 From that point on I\u2019ve made a commitment where I\u2019m going to try my best.\u00a0 I\u2019m gonna do my best to make my prayers, let\u2019s start there.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not beat ourselves up because we went out last night and had a drink.\u00a0 Let\u2019s make our prayers and pray for the strength to stop doing one thing at a time.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I\u2019m still dealing with.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n You know, once you get over the big things, it becomes very subtle.\u00a0 It can be as subtle as looking at a man, and not even speaking bad about him, but back-biting him in your mind.\u00a0 The easy ones to beat — well I shouldn\u2019t say easy — the big ones are easy to notice.\u00a0 It\u2019s the subtle psychological stuff that helps you get into who really you are.\u00a0 You gotta be able to face the truth of who you are.\u00a0 If you are not able to face that truth of who you are, you\u2019re gonna crumble, man.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n People question me and go, \u201cYou\u2019re Muslim?\u201d \u00a0And I\u2019m like, \u201cYeah I\u2019m Muslim, but I\u2019m also a professional sinner.\u201d I\u2019m tryin\u2019 to get over it, tryin\u2019 to retire.\u00a0 I won\u2019t front and say I\u2019m better than you.\u00a0 I just believe that I\u2019ve been shown the truth and hopefully that will save me.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Adisa Banjoko is a freelance writer in the San Francisco Bay Area.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Ref: www.islamreligion.com<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AB: My family tried to.\u00a0 I just can\u2019t understand that.\u00a0 But you know what? \u00a0That\u2019s a trial.\u00a0 Although I\u2019ve changed my name for like 8 years now, they still run… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories-of-famous"],"yoast_head":"\n