Question:
As-salam Alaykum,
As-salam Alaykum,
I seek guidance in matter that causes me great confusion. I am a young women living in Canada I was baptized Christian at birth and converted to Islam in 2008. I fell in love with simplicity of the Oneness of Allah, Sufism and the poetry of Rumi. Sadly I haven’t been able to sustain a lifestyle that is proscribed to a muslim woman. I feel torn, I feel like a hypocrite.
Yesterday I cam across the passage by Attar of Nishapur ‘Christians and Muslims’ – where the mother tells her son to return to the religion of his birth.
Should I return to the religion of my birth and of my family and community? Would I be doomed as an Apostate? How do I begin the journey to the Straight Path?
In peace,
Answer:
wa `alaykum salam
wa `alaykum salam wa rahmatullah,
Since you greet us twice we return the greeting twice, once for your Christian self and once for your Muslim self.
Our Shaykh, Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani is praying for easing of the constriction in your heart.
God has been kind in guiding you to the stage you are at. The first obligation in Islam is to testify that there is no God except Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet, (upon him and on all prophets the peace and blessings of God).
Once you have accepted this, there is no turning back – not due to fear of apostasy, but due to the intense reality of that affirmation.
As to obligations and duties, our master Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani says: “you must take on the duties of Islam as much as you can bear and not overload yourself. Your Islamic ‘outfit’ must fit you like a comfortable suit of clothes. Else if it is too tight or too loose it will be uncomfortable and eventually you will discard it. ”
Therefore seek out a community of like-minded persons, where religion is not simply a set of rules and regulations, but is actually a path of love, mercy, guidance and compassion, full of wisdom and blessings. That is where you will find your fit, God-willing.
God bless you,
Taher Siddiqui
