My journey from 7th day Adventist to Islam

By Habiba Harun (New Zealand) 

I was raised by my seventh day Adventist mother and never really had much to do with my dad. Unfortunately, I was sexually abused at a very young age, first when I was five at a Christian school, then from age 6-12 by my music teacher who also happened to be a Christian minister. When I was 13, I rebelled and I blamed Christianity. I started drinking, taking drugs, smoking, and I became very promiscuous. Many men took advantage of me at that young age. I also called myself pagan, I didn’t understand paganism, I just wanted to rebel from Christianity, Astagfirullah!

Praise be to Allah,  it was then that I met my husband, Harun.  At the time he was Ryan, a born again Christian. He had come to Christianity from atheism a year earlier, when he woke up outside a church after a night out drinking. He felt something inside him, like there has to be a God, and accepted Christianity.

When I met Ryan, I had a huge crush on him and wanted him. Unfortunately I thought the way to get a man was through my body, but he didn’t want my body. He resisted me completely. Then he asked me to go to church with him, and I said ‘**** church’, Astagfirullah. But after about a week of getting to know Ryan and what a decent man he is, I went to church with him. And it was amazing. These were good Christians. Not pedophiles like the people I had encountered, much the opposite, people who followed God. I felt an overwhelming shame for my rebellion and my actions and I became a born again Christian.

I came to accept that yes I had bad experiences with Christians, but not all Christians are like that, and Christianity does not condone what had happened to me. This is why now I never judge a religion on the actions of its followers, God is perfect, we are not. But there was still something missing;  we didn’t quite know what.  So we went to different churches trying to find the right one. I also researched other religions, mostly Sikhism, for the sake of Evangelism. My Sikh friends directed me to the Quran, as this is a book that was read by Guru Nanek and it has a lot pertaining to Christianity. I never got round to getting.g myself a Quran or researching it until I saw some Maori Muslims in town. I told them my address and they bought us some books and dvds. Ryan was interested in seeing what the Muslims had to say too.

We looked through some of the information but still weren’t convinced, so I went to Jumah. I was so scared that they would hate me if I didn’t cover every inch of skin on my body. I was expecting a bunch of foreigners in burqas, but instead I was greeted by reverts in beautifully designed abayas, and one of them gave me some lollies. haha I thought this was nice, so different to what I expected. Then an Egyptian lady came in, she hugged me and was so welcoming. She was respectful towards Christianity and that was so nice. I got her number and she told me to ring her any time with any questions. That night when Ryan got home from work he was kind of sad because I’d gone to the Mosque without him.

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By this time I had learned that Muslims have to prayers 5 times a day, I just didn’t know when they were.  So I rung that lovely lady from the mosque and asked her when it would be good for my husband to go to the Mosque. That evening he went to Magrib. When he still wasn’t home an hour and a half later,  I was worried.  What had these Muslims done to him, I asked myself?

He arrived home smelling of Arabic perfume, wearing a white hat, and smiling a smile so warm, I had never seen anything like it. ‘I converted!’ He told me excitedly.
I was horrified. I had enjoyed learning about Islam, but converting? This was something else. I was ready to take on this imam. So Harun took me to Isha prayer, and I tried to challenge this imam with the power of the Bible and of the holy spirit.  But he knew the Bible well, and he showed me why Islam is the truth through Bible scriptures, and he explained why the concept of  trinity doesn’t work using Bible verses. I could not and cannot deny that the Bible is preaching Islam for the most part, and it’s easy to see where it has been changed. He read me the beginning of Surah (chapter) Maryam and he read me Al Fatiha and I couldn’t deny Islam.  So I took shahada (testimony of faith),  Alhumdulilah!  it was like that same amazing feeling I got when I became Christian but a million times stronger. 

I knew I had found the truth. Alhumdulillah! Allahu Akbar!