Salam from Brazil
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Salam aleikum brothers and sisters,
I have had a very unusual journey in Islam. I am an afro-brazilian born in Brazil from enslaved africans ancestry. I moved to Europe and there I became friends with muslims that introduced me to Islam indirectly. Some of their practices caught my attention but I didn't know much about them. I was an atheist and I used to think that being a muslim was some kind of cultural way of living like let's say buddhists which would mean that could be christians(by faith) and muslim(by culture) at the same time.
8 years ago I started to feel more and more interested into learning about islam after a few conversations with them. At first it was interesting that they didn't drink alcohol, eat pork and some of them even would go to the extreme of changing a shopping cart at the grocery store if someone mistakenly put a bottle of alcohol in their cart.
Of course, I was a militant atheist and skeptical to the core. I loved shocking people with their contradictions in the bible, it was easy for me because almost every christians I knew were christians but didn't really study the religion or even read the bible. I made many of my friends become atheist bigots just like I was.
However, I was eager to find out(probably to argue with them) more about islam and it started to amaze me. I was presented with a beautiful love message from the Quran and that muslims are actually required to study things deeply without accepting people's arguments blindly.
I started reading the Quran and I was looking for opportunities to get closer to the community. This lead me to a few frustations
- My friends were wrong in many ways on how they lived their lives according to the Quran I started to think. They smoked weed and did some other unlawful things. From the 5 pillars of islam I was shown, they only applied 2(Fasting during Ramadan and Shahada) to their lives.
- One of my friends was trying to explain Hadith and Sunna to me. He got many books of Buhari and started to tell me some of the tales in it.
- They seemed to be worst than the Christians(Protestants) I knew with all the contradictory hadith.
I remember that this day my friend told me about a hadith where an angel has filled Pharao mouth with sand so he couldn't pronounce the Shahada before dying. And I was shocked. I was sad that an Angel of islam was such a mean creature. However I kept reading the Quran and looking for understanding the God of islam. I found out that Angels had no free-will but at the same time that Angel took action to stop Pharao from becoming muslim. The more I learned about islam the more I found out contradictory and insulting hadiths to my intelligence or insulting me personally. They were mainly about music, cats, camel pee, angels, prophet muhammad, slavery, African muslims(like Bilal).
I still felt that God existed at some point and God motivated me to keep searching for the truth. 7 years ago I said the shahada, I started going to a sunni mosque, going to arabic lessons at the mosque. I started fasting during Ramadan and I started asking questions to local imans and other truth seekers. One day after seeing a few big arguments at the mosque and muslims diving themselves because of how the khutbahs were being ministered I lost my interest in the islam community so I became a solitary muslim i prayed to God everyday to guide me to the straight path. I insisted in al-fatiha words.
But one day (4 years ago) I found a video of Edip Yuksel (https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzCy9tagxjc) and my mind was blown. Since then I have peace of mind. I am in love with the message of God. Edip Yuksel words have helped me find peace and incite me to study the Quran with a critical eye.
Thank you for this forum. Peace!
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Peace khalidzsche.
Welcome to the forum.
GOD bless you.
Peace. -
peace,
Welcome to the forum.
lol@"changing a shopping cart at the grocery store if someone mistakenly put a bottle of alcohol in their cart"
I started asking questions to local imans and other truth seekers.
And what was your experience with the local imams?
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But one day (4 years ago) I found a video of Edip Yuksel (https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzCy9tagxjc) and my mind was blown. Since then I have peace of mind. I am in love with the message of God. Edip Yuksel words have helped me find peace and incite me to study the Quran with a critical eye.
Welcome to forum,
what u find in these four years about that advance believers of book quran. ( commonly two sub catagorised coders and non coders) same way like sunni and non sunni.
and its good how you reserach and think about all of it with eye of critics but make sure open that eyes for (life time) regarding every matter/label/book/interpretations.(1736).
and there will b a time come when u see things on more broader level.
usually we see things improving by these means.
knowledge, effort, timetaking, critical/neutral thinking, experimenting, experiencing, open to new ideas etc.
we apply all these things while getting education,work and everything.
BUT when we apply these things in FAITH/religious matters and we improved more its mean according to random perosn we are going towards ?athiestism? label by (weaker knowledge people of religion/tradition/system) to (stronger knowledge of religion/systems/traditions).
history is showing (rebellion) make you more prominet.
abraham was the first example set who stand against the misconception of weak knowledged ones.
he wins his claim though against (tough/hard)opponent.more we study more we effort more we improve so brother dnt stop at just EDIP although edip contributed a lot in writting books and fighting against misconception of sunnis/other people. we must say thanks to him for his services for showing people the critical way of thinking in lot of common matters.
in REALITY we dnt know much, what we have is information from visible and invisible (Sources).
PEACE and blessing of God on you brother.
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And what was your experience with the local imams?
I have good relationship with a couple of local sunni imams. The one I am closer, is so hungry for knowledge that man. I admire him a lot. He is always studying something new.
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Hi Khaled,
It was very interesting to read your story and very happy regarding how you ended up finding out E. Yuksel. He is also one of the people that I admire. I can also suggest you (and of course others) these three people to help you better understand the true islam
H. Yilmaz https//presentationofislamandquran.com/
Quran Centric https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCMI9ztQ07hS1MlmjQ9KS0uQ/featured
Sam Gerrans https//www.youtube.com/channel/UC2cKxya6J9Qt3ly11IzrSOQI am also happy to help out for any questions if I have the knowledge )
Best Regards
Ayg?n
