Thank you everyone for all the website and book suggestions it has really been very helpful!
I appreciate all the support and advice so much!

Thank you all for your kind words, suggestions and advice.

I will turn to God and the Qur'an with patience to look for my answers. I just needed some courage to believe in myself and my own intuition, so thanks again for helping me find my path your kindness is really appreciated!

Hi there

Trying to get over the slightly awkward feeling of introducing myself to a forum ( a new experience for me).

I am a 29 year old woman who has had a rather turbulent experience with Islam (over the last six months) and religion in general.

My story... I was 13 years old when I was "questioned" by my church for not agreeing with the other teens that I was definitely going to heaven, I believed quite vehemently that it was God's decision whether I would be admitted and our that our opinions as hunans did not count for much. This basically lead to my family being accused of abuse and the minister nearly hitting my father, my faith took a downward spiral from there.

When I was in my early twenties I had many questions and personal crises that lead me to self help books and general reading on many religions; ancient pagan religions, Buddhism, wicca, etc. I never felt any peace I was lost and wandering.

Last year I met someone who changed my life, an atheist who I fell for really hard. while our "relationship" was rocky his mere presence made me question my beliefs and inspired me to push my boundaries and face my fears. One day during a meditation session I had an experience I can only call a vision. Because I am not really sure I believe in what happened myself, I'll just leave it there. But it sparked a transition that I can bearly believe. Some personal issues between me and this guy caused me to reconsider our relationship and I met someone else, an Islamic scholar from another country. He was leaving in a few days and things spiralled out of control, he wanted to marry me and I was stuck in quite a spot. I converted for reasons unknown to me now and inadvertently caused problems between me and my Mom, very long story.
The interesting thing for me was when I a said the testimony of faith for the second time by myself (because the central tenets of Islam only One God, Jesus and Muhammad were only human etc. Made sense to me) after he left South Africa I felt the greatest sense of peace almost as if all my sins were removed from my body (people think I am habit strange when I tell them this)

To cut a very long and somewhat upsetting story short, I got pulled into a very dogmatic "sect" and was told to cover from head to toe, preferably in black, I could not listen to music, have pictures on my walls ( I am a postgraduate art history student), and should preferably get rid of my dog (who I love so much) and basically led me to overhaul my entire life (to my credit I was in a bad emotional state, I seem to have lost my reason). After a few weeks I didn't even recognise myself anymore. As a naturally critical person I eventually started to question everything but the men sent me to their uneducated wives(no high school education in some cases), it was not very helpful.
Thankfully after months of feeling lost and performing often bizarre rituals I stumbled onto some Qur'an only sites (like this one) and started feeling human again.
What am I looking for? Any help and guidance is always appreciated and I also think i just needed to tell my story, even though I feel extremely vulnerable it was a cathartic experience.
Oh I would also be grateful for any information on the place of visions within the God only belief system.
Thank you!
Peace to all