Chapter 1
Ash-hadu an la ilaha illa Allah, Wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulu-Allah. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
On the 8th of July lying in my bed I repeated these, first in Arabic and then in English, my mother tongue. I spoke quietly, always aware of the fact that someone might burst into my room. And the someone who I feared the most was my adopted mother, Veronica. I could just about beg my sisters and father not to tell, and as for my brother, he didn’t care less. It was a completely different story if my mother found me, an 18, nearly 19 year old girl with her phone upstairs after 10 pm, which was her designated bedtime. I mean I have seen what has happened when she found out that my sister kept her phone upstairs at night. I don’t have the best memory but that’s one night I remember about two years ago when Veronica burst into my room which I shared with my sister and shouted at her, demanding to have the phone. My sister was 24 years old. You will be surprised to learn that my brother never got scolded for keeping his phone upstairs. He was 16 or 17 years old. Sounds rather ironic.
On this certain night, I would have been doubly punished. You can’t expect a strict Catholic mother not to react to her child reverting to Islam, the “heresy”, the “ satanic” religion. May Allah guide those who mistakenly think like this to learn the real, beautiful truth. But it was Allah’s will that I didn’t get caught that night. The only time I got caught was after I had told my adopted parents that I was a Muslim. Did they believe me when I told them I was a Muslim? Did Veronica believe me? Yes. She believed I was a stupid, misguided naive and lonely young inexperienced child who had fallen in love with a violent Muslim who was corrupting her so he could have sex with her and leave her with extreme Islamic ideas. Of course as it turns out, I am happily engaged to this young man, who is a good Muslim with a strong deen.
This is my story, the life when I was ignorant of the truth and then opened my eyes and heart to know the truth and how I reverted to Islam.
