UAE | Heritage and Culture
Journey to Islam leads to first fast
It was his wife's dying wish. "Find me someone who will help me convert to Islam," she told her husband from her death bed. A few hours later, she had passed away.
- By Siham Al Najami, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:36 September 2, 2008
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Dubai: It was his wife's dying wish. "Find me someone who will help me convert to Islam," she told her husband from her death bed. A few hours later, she had passed away.
It was a year prior to his wife's death that the couple started their journey towards Islam. On a drive to Abu Dhabi, Abdul Rahman slid an Islamic CD into the player of the borrowed car. "I was just bored so decided to give it a try," he said.
It was that CD that was the turning point in his life. The journey ended three years down the line, when Abdul Rahman embraced Islam alone, after two tough years of loss and immense pain.
"I enjoyed discovering Islam through the CD and decided to share it with my wife," he said. "From that day on we started studying and learning about Islam together. The concept and definition of one God is what attracted us to the faith."
Back in 2005, the ambitious and hard working 37-year-old held a position of general manager at a Dubai company and was accustomed to a lavish lifestyle thanks to the sizable income he earned.
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In her ninth month of pregnancy, his wife suffered from complications and discovered that she was in the last stages of cancer. The couple lost their first child, a boy.
Knowing she had little time to live, the wife was keen to embrace Islam before it was too late. Her final request from her husband was to find someone to help her announce the shahada, or declaration of faith.
Abdul Rahman vividly remembers the winter's day she embraced Islam. "It was the same day she passed away," he recalled. She was on heavy medication but her faith in God was strong, he said. "It was me who was weak."
"Will you convert to Islam?" she asked him on her death bed.
"No" he responded.
"Why not? But we studied Islam together," she joked.
He rushed to find someone to help his wife say the shahada. "I didn't know the Emirati man who helped us but he found us someone from a mosque nearby whose name was Abdul Rahman," he said.
"After embracing Islam around nine months ago I changed my name to Abdul Rahman in honour of the man who taught my wife the shahada," he said.
His wife's death left Abdul Rahman shattered. "I lost my wife, lover, companion, and friend of 11 years, and I also lost my boy.
"At that time I couldn't function without her," he said.
Upon falling into the darkness of depression he was befriended by Shaikh Anwar from the Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities in Dubai, who assists new Muslims.
"He was the only person who stood by my side at my time of crisis and showed me the beauty of Islam," he said. "I knew in my head that Islam was the right religion for me. I still needed to feel it in my heart."
With strong faith in God, Abdul Rahman is now working to rebuild his life piece by piece after losing his support system and falling into a financial crisis. "I went from earning Dh40,000 a month to having only Dh2 in my pocket", he said.
Although this year's Ramadan is his first, Abdul Rahman tried his first fast a couple of days earlier to see whether he was up to it.
"It is not that difficult," he said. "With strong belief and good intentions the experience is very rewarding. Surely there is a physical reward but the real prize is the spiritual reward as it brings with it a sense of accomplishment."
Do you remember the first time you kept a fast? How was the experience? As a non-Muslim, have you ever tried fasting? What was the reason? Do you know anyone with an interesting conversion story? Tell us at letter2editor@gulfnews.com or fill in the form bellow to send your comments.
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