Hello Everyone
My name is "Paul". I became a part of discovering Authentic Islam through Free-Minds Network not too long ago. When I first heard about Islam, I was in a high-school global history class as 15-16 year old youth. I made up my mind that I wanted to become a Muslim. With much opposition from my deeply religious Christian family members, the only one who bought me a copy of the Quran was my mother, who valued what I found in the Quran and my Pediatric Hep. C Liver Specialist was Egyptian and Muslim himself at this time in my life as a teenager, when I was on chemotherapy injections to fight what was known as the worst case scenario of Hep. C Virus. So, we used to talk about Islam and I asked him about the rituals, the Sacred Holy Cities Mecca & Madinah Al-Muwarrah, Egyptian Muslim Culture, and the Quran itself. I learned so much, despite the daily physical torture my step-father put me through at the time and threatened to have me arrested for disobeying his controlling orders not to convert to Islam and I would be killed by people in our local area. After I graduated from High School in June 2002...I moved away to a more populated town away from the rural areas where my folks lived. About 4 months after I turned 21 years old in October 2004, I took the step and officially reverted to Traditional Islam. Prayed the 5 daily prayers, kept Halal in diet and relationships, read Quran daily without fail, fasted when health permitted me to during Ramadan, celebrated the Eid Feasts, and went to the mosque once a month on a Saturday night in a neighboring city to enjoy some potluck dinners with Muslims. Life was fine and good, yet I realized how much empty I was inside. At the time, I haven't realized the treasures and gems of Authentic Islam to cultivate within my heartbroken soul. After some time, I fell into old behaviors and worshipped other gods than AllahSWT. For about a year or two on and off, I was a Hare Krishna devotee through ISKCON. (Yet, I chose not to become an "initiated" devotee, due to the hope of something of a better and higher taste of spiritual bliss, which I would later reclaim as a Muslim once again.) Through all the religiosities of deep confusion and intense distress of my soul in the fall of 2008, I pulled out my prayer rug, sat on my knees, lifted my hands upward toward the heavens, crying for the idolater that I have become to ask Allah to forgive me and restore me back to my spiritual "purity", "joyfulness" and complete "innocence" I felt when I first became a part of the Muslim faith when I was 21 years old way back in October of 2004. Now in the mid-Winter of 2008-09, I was 25 years old and on my knees as much as I possibly could to seek the face of God, yet I didn't realize right then the changes taking place in my soul, which was battered by false hopes in gods I who could speak, let alone transform my badly damaged soul. So, I started "talking" with AllahSWT vocally in voice or mentally in ym mind wherever I would be or happen to go in my wintertime walks and places I would travel with friends, family, or loved ones anywhere. Some people in my town thought there was something wrong with me, like having delusions or auditory and visual hallucinations, yet this wasn't the case at all like they thought of me as experiencing. I just was talking with AllahSWT and I didn't care what others thought of or looked at about me. In fact, I still "talk" with AllahSWT and as the Prophets Abraham, Moses, David, Dhul-Al-Qarayn, Dhul Al-Khifl, Hud, Yunus, Jesus and Muhammad (peace and may Allah's blessings be upon them all), I still experience the physical sensations of angels and jinn all around me, when I feel either of their presences. Yet, I feel the Ultimate Presence of AllahSWT, as a Heavenly Parent and Mercifully Loving Monarch in my life nowadays. I do believe Hadith is true, yet such is always open to interpretation as the Quran is by all people...NOT just the scholars within their religious universities and mosques. Prayer to me, is not blind rituals as the Traditional Salat has become over the past 1,400 years since the Prophet's (SAW) passing in 632 CE/10 AH. I read my Yusuf Ali Deluxe Hardcover Holy Quran. Still have doubts about the divinity of the Holy Quran and still doubt some about Life after Death, but I don't doubt the Last Day and the Judgement of Humankind by AllahSWT. Yet, in time, I shall be fully and spiritually restored in my life as a Muslim. Free-Minds is a beginning start of the spiritual recovery process, although I am half-way there to full restoration, by my choice to surrender to My Creator and Sustainer, AllahSWT. So, I am writing a book full of journal entries about my spiritual recovery and restoration in my Islamic faith in all its entirety Quran, Hadith, Sunnah, with new perspectives on worship, congregational and private, with studying the Halal-Haram issues of Muslim Life. This book I am writing in my handwritten manuscript in preparation to type up is titled, "Journeyman of Faith". Truly, I am a "journeyman", a Sufi Muslim by traditional religious Islamic standards. This is my story of my "Journey To Islam". Be blessed by AllahSWT. Post some messages later.
In AllahSWT,
PAUL PERRY
Peace,
Kindly visit the link below
http//restorereligion.blogspot.com/
Peace,
K.Vivekanandan
