around the dinner table of a traditional
Moroccan restaurant with friends where
food and words are shared with a
beautiful cup of tea.
Topics were deep and personal and for
many of us it meant remembering our way
to Islam. Um I was born Mario in aises.
Um I have a Greek origin. Uh, born bread
here. I'm I'm Italian background,
European backgrounds, a Chinese,
European, Philippines, Irish,
Australian, Italian and Irish
background. I want to know your story
why you embraced Islam. My name is My
name is Asa. I embraced Islam 7 years
ago.
And that's it. Alhamdulillah. About in
year 11, I think maybe year 11, I
started wondering about God and about
how I'm supposed to, you know, be closer
to God. you know, I wanted to be
religious. But when I used to go to
primary school, we had religious
education classes, and I used to love
being in those classes, hearing about,
you know, the prophets like Moses and
Jesus and Abraham, peace be upon them. I
was I was like really in love with
Jesus, the personality, his mission,
what he did, what he would say. This was
I was obsessed. All these movies, like
the Jesus movie, they they send to the
third world countries to convert people.
I would watch all these movies. I was
obsessed with and I I really yearned for
wanting to be practicing a religion but
my environment you know my friends
growing up as a teenager I wasn't the
best environment to become a practicing
person but I the dogma of the Pauline
doctrine I couldn't understand it
because like all through the Bible these
messengers and these prophets were sent
that teach this that teach that and then
suddenly Jesus' message started the same
way and then some guy called Paul comes
along and says no we're going to abolish
this we're going to go this way and I
couldn't understand this. I couldn't at
all understand this. I couldn't connect
to being many gods or no gods or your
god. I couldn't use stuff. I couldn't.
It just didn't fit with me. And I'd have
more questions and I'd ask and ask
because my mother was a Bible teacher.
We knew the Bible and I was studying the
Bible. So I'd have these questions,
these extraordinary questions and no one
could answer them. But then I met
Muslims and they would answer these
questions and they would say the purpose
of life is to worship God Almighty on
his terms. My brother, it's a trial
that you're going through.
So don't be afraid.
Allah's there for you. With every
hardship, there is ease.