Question:
As salaam alaykum,
I recently left Christianity and am pursuing Islam. I am looking for some good advice on how to proceed with conversion and maybe some helpful people or websites about it. Thanks for your time!
Answer:
Wa `alaykum salam,
May your path be full of blessings here and hereafter.
Say Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah, wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullah which means “I bear witness that there is no god but God alone, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” This makes you a Muslim. Muslims in your area can help you learn more about prayer and other important aspects of a Muslim believer’s life.
The most helpful people to keep company with are the Sufis but you need to center your trust on a single master, not just anyone. Until you meet one in person my advice is to pledge your loyalty (bay`a) to our Master online, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani, who has the most followers among Western converts in our time and who has representatives and circles of remembrance of God (dhikrullah) all over the world. He is represented by our beloved teacher Shaykh Hisham Kabbani who is based in Flint, Michigan (USA) but travels very often.
If you like to read, Martin Lings’s Muhammad : His Life Based on the Earliest Sources will help you toward better understanding the relationship with the Prophet Muhammad (upon him blessings and peace) whom we refer to in the second half of the shahada. You will also find a few topics of interest here.
My advice if you convert is to let time pass for you to digest and grow before you mention this to non-Muslim relatives so that you will avoid hurting or alienating them unintentionally.
Hajj Gibril Haddad
