Praying directly to God attracted me to Islam

Not convinced by the concept of trinity, Erin (Sumaya Fannoun) wrestled with the concept of faith and looked for the right path. In this first of the two- part narrative, she explains that she became Muslim when she began to research and study Islam.

THE intention of writing my story is that for Allah’s sake, I may help someone who is searching for the truth, to realize that they have found it in Islam. I began writing this on Easter Sunday, kind of appropriate, I think. I have been a Muslim now for seven years, Alhamdulillah (all praise is for Allah). I first learned of Islam while attending university, from a Muslim friend of mine. I had managed to get out of a very good, college-prep high school believing that Muslims were idol-worshipping pagans. I was not interested in learning about a new religion.

I held the ethnocentric view that since the US was a super power nation, we must have the best of everything, including religion.

I knew that Christianity wasn’t perfect, but believed that it was the best that there was. I had a long-held opinion that although the Bible contained the word of God, it also contained the word of the common man, who wrote it down. As Allah would have it, every time I had picked up the Bible in my life, I had come across some really strange and actually dirty passages.

I could not understand why the Prophets of God would do such abominable things when there are plenty of average people who live their whole lives without thinking of doing such disgusting and immoral things, such as those attributed to Prophets David, Solomon and Lot (peace be upon them all) just to name a few.

I remember hearing in Church that since these Prophets committed such sins, how could the common people be any better than them? And so, it was said, Jesus had to be sacrificed for our sins, because we just couldn’t help ourselves, as the “flesh is weak.”

So, I wrestled with the notion of the trinity, trying to understand how my God was not one, but three. One who created the earth; one whose blood was spilled for our sins, and then there was the question of the holy ghost, yet all one and the same!

When I would pray to God, I had a certain image in my mind of a wise old man in flowing robe, up in the clouds. When I would pray to Jesus, I pictured a young white man with long golden hair, beard and blue eyes. As for the holy spirit, well, I could only conjure up a misty creature whose purpose I wasn’t sure of.

It really didn’t feel as though I was praying to one God. I found though that when I was really in a tight spot, I would automatically call directly on God. I knew inherently, that going straight to God, was the best bet.

When I began to research and study Islam, I didn’t have a problem with praying to God directly, it seemed the natural thing to do. However, I feared forsaking Jesus, and spent a lot of time contemplating the subject.

I began to study the Christian history, searching for the truth. The more I looked into it, the more I saw the parallel between the deification and sacrifice of Jesus, and the stories of Greek mythology that I had learned in junior high, where a god and a human woman would produce a child which would be a demigod, possessing some attributes of a god.

I learned of how important it had been to “St. Paul,” to have this religion accepted by the Greeks to whom he preached, and how some of the disciples had disagreed with his methods. It seemed very probable that this could have been a more appealing form of worship to the Greeks than the strict monotheism of the Old Testament. And only Allah knows.

I began to have certain difficulties with Christian thought while still in high school. Two things bothered me very much. The first was the direct contradiction between material in the Old and New Testaments.

I had always thought of the Ten Commandments as very straight forward, simple rules that God obviously wanted us to follow. Yet, worshipping Christ, was breaking the first commandment completely and totally, by associating a partner with God.

I could not understand why an omniscient God would change His mind, so to speak. Then there is the question of repentance. In the Old Testament, people are told to repent for their sins; but in the New Testament, it is no longer necessary, as Christ was sacrificed for the sins of the people.

“Paul did not call upon his hearers to repent of particular sins, but rather announced God’s victory over all sin in the cross of Christ. The radical nature of God’s power is affirmed in Paul’s insistence that in the death of Christ has rectified the ungodly (see Romans 4:5). Human beings are not called upon to do good works in order that God may rectify them.”

So what incentive did we even have to be good, when being bad could be a lot of fun? Society has answered by redefining good and bad. Any childcare expert will tell you that children must learn that their actions have consequences, and they encourage parents to allow them to experience the natural consequences of their actions. Yet in Christianity, there are no consequences, so people have begun to act like spoiled children.

Demanding the right to do as they please, demanding God’s and peoples’ unconditional love and acceptance of even vile behavior.

I wrestled with the notion of the trinity, trying to understand how my God was not one, but three. One who created the earth; one whose blood was spilled for our sins, and then there was the question of the holy ghost, yet all one and the same!