My name is Chris Halls and I am a recent convert to Islam in June of 2006.
My spiritual journey has been a long one that has brought me to this point. The journey began quite a while ago when I was in elementary school.
I had an intense spiritual things although my family was basically non-religious, nominal Christians at best but in all practicality they were secular folks, typically secular western family.
However for myself I always had an interest in spiritual things and being an avid reader especially of ancient history.
My first interest was in ancient Greek mythology and I had a very deep interest in the ancient Greek Gods, did much research on Greek mythology and religious practices and religious beliefs and more or less embrace those beliefs as own, then as I moved into high school I came into contact with a philosophy called stoicism and embraced that and liking many tenets of it.
Stoicism was a very popular ancient philosophy in Greece and in Rome having eventually died out when the Roman Empire in the west fell and also under the pressure of Christianity.
From Stoicism I became interested in Mormonism and explored Mormonism and then eventually became a born-again Protestant Christian.
For 30 years I was a Christian, very Avid in my faith sincere in my faith to the point where I felt called to the ministry, I attended by school and I attended Seminary pastoring a church for two years and I was also assistant pastor for a couple years and then due to some political differences with the denomination I was not able to get another church but remained active within the faith until about four years ago when the accumulation of various disgruntlements questions about practice and theology let me read of Chris Christianity and I dropped my Christian faith and was basically nothing.
For several years in that interim I re-explored stoicism, Taoism, Buddhism particularly Zen Buddhism. I also looked at the philosophy of the Japanese poet Basho until I ran across the Poetry of Rumi who perked up my ears at his mysticism and it piqued my interest in Islam in general, so I began looking at Islam and through an acquaintance, actually began looking at Shia Islam first and then when I compared it with Sunni Islam decided that the Shia version made much more sense and so in June of last year 2006 I accepted the faith became a Shia Muslim.
Now the question comes why did I like Shia Islam over Sunni Islam?
To me logic and coherence make much sense they’re important factors in one’s Faith.
What I saw in Shia Islam looking at the five roots of the faith was a constructive building on foundations, first of all you have the belief in God, you follow that with an understanding of how God interacts with human beings the justice of God, then the next roots is that God sends Prophets to let mankind know what his requirements are to worship him, the next step is that God sends Imams to carry on the message in between him and Prophets.
Finally that there is indeed an after light that we are in existence as it were and then there is an afterlife where we reap what we sow.
To me that progression made far more sense than the Sunni presentation of the fire pillars in which the only basic doctrinal point is that of the fact that God is one, the rest of the points all deal with practice and the thing that I started the mulling over was how can one base one’s faith on a set of practices, it makes far more sense to look at Doctrine and then on the doctrine base your practices. ]
So for me the five roots of Shia Islam made far more sense than the five pillars of Sunni Islam and so I embraced the faith.
I find that Islam as a whole is a satisfying religion it is simple and yet at the same time allows for one to have a very deep manifestation of belief, and so I find that in that is satisfying in a sense far more satisfying than Christianity and far more theologically and logically consistent in Christianity, so that is my story and I hope that those who watch this presentation are encouraged and that each one who is not a Believer may indeed find peace and Hope and Faith in Islam
Thank you very much
Feb 11 2025
The Journey to Shia Islam by “Chris halls”
My name is Chris Halls and I am a recent convert to Islam in June of 2006.
My spiritual journey has been a long one that has brought me to this point. The journey began quite a while ago when I was in elementary school.
I had an intense spiritual things although my family was basically non-religious, nominal Christians at best but in all practicality they were secular folks, typically secular western family.
However for myself I always had an interest in spiritual things and being an avid reader especially of ancient history.
My first interest was in ancient Greek mythology and I had a very deep interest in the ancient Greek Gods, did much research on Greek mythology and religious practices and religious beliefs and more or less embrace those beliefs as own, then as I moved into high school I came into contact with a philosophy called stoicism and embraced that and liking many tenets of it.
Stoicism was a very popular ancient philosophy in Greece and in Rome having eventually died out when the Roman Empire in the west fell and also under the pressure of Christianity.
From Stoicism I became interested in Mormonism and explored Mormonism and then eventually became a born-again Protestant Christian.
For 30 years I was a Christian, very Avid in my faith sincere in my faith to the point where I felt called to the ministry, I attended by school and I attended Seminary pastoring a church for two years and I was also assistant pastor for a couple years and then due to some political differences with the denomination I was not able to get another church but remained active within the faith until about four years ago when the accumulation of various disgruntlements questions about practice and theology let me read of Chris Christianity and I dropped my Christian faith and was basically nothing.
For several years in that interim I re-explored stoicism, Taoism, Buddhism particularly Zen Buddhism. I also looked at the philosophy of the Japanese poet Basho until I ran across the Poetry of Rumi who perked up my ears at his mysticism and it piqued my interest in Islam in general, so I began looking at Islam and through an acquaintance, actually began looking at Shia Islam first and then when I compared it with Sunni Islam decided that the Shia version made much more sense and so in June of last year 2006 I accepted the faith became a Shia Muslim.
Now the question comes why did I like Shia Islam over Sunni Islam?
To me logic and coherence make much sense they’re important factors in one’s Faith.
What I saw in Shia Islam looking at the five roots of the faith was a constructive building on foundations, first of all you have the belief in God, you follow that with an understanding of how God interacts with human beings the justice of God, then the next roots is that God sends Prophets to let mankind know what his requirements are to worship him, the next step is that God sends Imams to carry on the message in between him and Prophets.
Finally that there is indeed an after light that we are in existence as it were and then there is an afterlife where we reap what we sow.
To me that progression made far more sense than the Sunni presentation of the fire pillars in which the only basic doctrinal point is that of the fact that God is one, the rest of the points all deal with practice and the thing that I started the mulling over was how can one base one’s faith on a set of practices, it makes far more sense to look at Doctrine and then on the doctrine base your practices. ]
So for me the five roots of Shia Islam made far more sense than the five pillars of Sunni Islam and so I embraced the faith.
I find that Islam as a whole is a satisfying religion it is simple and yet at the same time allows for one to have a very deep manifestation of belief, and so I find that in that is satisfying in a sense far more satisfying than Christianity and far more theologically and logically consistent in Christianity, so that is my story and I hope that those who watch this presentation are encouraged and that each one who is not a Believer may indeed find peace and Hope and Faith in Islam
Thank you very much
By english • Chronicles of the converted to Shia • 0 • Tags: Chris halls, Converted to Shia, Journey to Islam, Journey to Shia, Journey to Shia Islam, Mostabserin