Conversion Story by “Ali Smart” – Part 4

Part 4

…The person that’s found Allah, has found Islam

My brother moved to Dearborn in 2000 for a job and my mom moved here after him, and then my sister moved here and like usual, I was the last one to move here, and I went back and forth. And I was working in California for a while, then I came back here. So it’s a nice community, especially for my wife and for my daughter, they both wear the hijab. So living here, you feel that you’re part of the Muslim community, even though obviously, it’s not perfect. And when my wife and my daughter go out in public, nobody looks at them weird or harasses them or anything. So it’s more comfortable. We live in a predominantly Muslim area. So you just feel more yourself, you feel more comfortable being yourself and you know, then you don’t have to always hide your identity.

Islam that didn’t come to eliminate culture, it just came to perfect it. It came to make it better.

If you’re having a hard time, I can give you my advice, I can tell you what I did, it’s not necessarily going to work for you, because every person is different, every situation is different. I’ll try to help, but have faith in God, say dua’s, try to be a better person, because if you want to attract somebody, you have to be attractive, I don’t mean physically attractive. I mean, you have to perfect your iman (faith), you have to be able to exist in the society as a person of substance, as a person who’s knowledgeable. If you do that, you’re gonna find people are going to be attracted to you, all different kinds of people. So try to make yourself that kind of person.

When I became a Muslim, in 1980s, there was no internet. If we wanted to get a book about Islam, we actually had to go find a bookstore, go to book table and buy an actual book, and read it and spend our own money to buy it, and we had to go seek people out and find people. We didn’t have the internet, we couldn’t just go and do a Google search and find it. It was difficult, we really had to put forth a lot of effort to learn about Islam. So well, for people today it’s much easier, there’s a lot more information available, it’s easy to find things out, you know.

And I would say the same thing about Americans who don’t know about Islam who are missing the wonderful opportunity to learn about Islam and become Muslim. That’s your fault, because there’s plenty of information available. Challenge yourself, try to grow and progress as a person intellectually. Don’t be satisfied with your situation. Don’t be satisfied just with working, going to your job nine to five coming home sleeping, going to the bar, going to disco, spending all your money…. don’t be satisfied with that life. That’s not life, that’s not living. Make yourself feel uncomfortable sometimes, do things that you’re not sure about, make mistakes. Ask questions you think people are going to… put yourself out there.

There are triggers, there are things all the time that should make you question.

The most important thing is the purity of your intention and of your niyyah, it all starts with that, like my brother said. When he became a Muslim, he sincerely asked to God, guide me, I want to be guided, guide me, I don’t know what’s going to happen after this. I don’t know what God’s gonna say, what he’s going to require of me, what he wants me to do. But I don’t care. I want to be guided. I’m sincerely asking for guidance. That’s all you need to do. You don’t need to be a college graduate, you don’t need to have to learn Arabic. You don’t need any of that. All you need is to be sincere, to have ikhlas, to have purity of faith and to have a sincere niyya, have an intention that’s pure and sincere between you and God. Forget what everybody else thinks. So, I don’t know why it’s so hard for people. It’s hard for me too, I swear, I feel like sometimes that I haven’t progressed enough in my spirituality. I feel like I’ve made a lot of effort since I’d become Muslim, but there’s still I find all kinds of things I could be doing too, more, myself to progress spiritually.

There are so many examples of people that have so far surpassed us in their faith, which we feel ashamed even to call ourselves Muslims, if they’re Muslims, Why haven’t I gotten to that level? You tell me, maybe I’m not sincere enough. If I learned anything, if I have any good things about my personality, it’s from the dust of the feet of Imam Husayn (a.s), sincerely, I am not worthy even to kiss his feet myself.

People can, wherever however far down you are, you can always move up, there’s always a way to move up, God will always provide you with some kind of path to move up. And the key to that is being sincere. The key to that is being honest with yourself. Honest before God, being sincere, having a good intention. That’s the key. If you do that, you don’t need the internet, you don’t even need books. There’s people that have progressed spiritually not even knowing how to read.

I’ve met people so many times in my life who’ve told me, I know Islam is right, and I agree with you, and it’s a beautiful religion, but I can’t stop drinking. I love alcohol. People came up to the Prophet Muhammad (S) and they said, we love your religion, but can you just delete prayer, can you just delete sujud? And the Prophet would say, well, it’s not up to me, it’s not my religion, that’s from Allah, and I can’t change anything. But people, that’s what they want. So a lot of what stops people from progressing spiritually is they’re a coward.