in the name of Allah the most
beneficient the most
merciful asalam alikum I took my shahada
in
2010 so I'm practically the newest kid
on the block around here um and uh it's
the best decision I've ever ever made in
my life I was reading the Bible um
around Thanksgiving of um
2010 um over the phone with a
friend and um read a couple of uh books
of the Bible that I started asking
questions and I started asking about
different religions and
um after that I asked about Islam
and I started doing more search about
other religions I canceled most of them
out and I started researching about the
history of the Quran I Googled it you
know and then I was intrigued that the
book was was intact for 14400 years and
one thing led to to another and I kept
on
searching uh but my turning point was
when I found the history of the cabba I
was raised raised Catholic I went to
Catholic school for eight years and I
was never told that the Caba was built
by Prophet Ibraham alisam and prophet
ishmail alisam and when I found that uh
the Caba was built by them I was uh
really
upset that I I I felt like I was lied
lied to from the Catholic Church why
they kept this away from me um before
that growing up in Catholic
School um never never ever believed in
the original sin that's something I did
just didn't didn't believe in and
um didn't question the statues the
statues I just didn't understand that on
one hand they teach The Ten Commandments
on the other hand they have statues so
it just didn't make any sense and when I
found when I read the Quran I I think I
found um a Quran Explorer and I listened
to the Quran in Arabic and English and a
week later I think I took my shahad in
front of my computer and then two months
month a month later I did it officially
in the
Masid hardest thing guess my family
family my family is just um I've been
called every name in the
book uh but it's okay you know I'm um
I'm the happiest I've ever been so it
doesn't
matter read read that's all that's all
they have to do just read or just not
even read listen listen to the Quran
online I mean it's all over the place
so since uh my first Ramadan was last
year
um it was
empowerment empowerment I I never fasted
in my
life and um I didn't think I could do it
I was actually real scared that I was
going to fail so I started praying
asking Allah to help me to guide me and
it was the easiest thing I've ever done
I think after the first 3 days of course
but
um uh what sums it up is empowerment
discipline um
pety I mean there's so many words that I
can't even describe