My Journey from Being a Christian to a Muslim

I'm tired of assumptions, so I'm writing this to clear the air. My name is Jasmine Sawarda and I am a Muslim convert (or revert, as many of us preferred to be called). I am a divorced woman in my thirties and I came to Islam on my own terms -- not by a husband or a lover or a boyfriend, as many assume. I wear hijab (the scarf that covers the hair, ears, and neck) by my own decision and no one is forcing me to do or say any of this.

I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church from the time I was five until I graduated high school. As a child, I always had a profound love for God. I enjoyed praying and giving my tithe and going to Sunday School to learn about the Bible. The church choir was part of my weekly routine, and I even played handbells for three years. My contentment with my religion started to fade when I was around the age of nine.

You see, I never really prayed "to" Jesus. My prayers of course ended in the customary "in Jesus' name", but to me he was never part of the equation. I prayed directly to God. I preferred songs that sang about God and His greatness or His mercy, but songs about Jesus and fighting for Jesus always bothered me.

One day, I asked my pastor, "How do we know Jesus is the son of God?" He said to me, "Why, because the Bible says so." I started looking in the Bible but only found that Jesus referred to himself as the son of God and God as his Father. But this wasn't unusual. We were all taught that we were children of God, so why should Jesus be any different? The passage I found (John 5:18-24) even quoted Jesus as saying that he can do nothing except by his Father.

Confused, I returned to my pastor. I asked him about the Father/son relationship, and he said to me, "But we know Jesus is the son of God because he performed many miracles." This satisfied my question until we had a Sunday School about the miracles of Moses.

I again sought out my pastor. "Brother H, you said we know Jesus is the son of God because he performed miracles. But Moses also performed miracles and we don't worship him." This time, he seemed to be annoyed with my question. He impatiently said to me, "We know Jesus is the son of God because he had no father."

Saddened, I went home. I didn't understand why he was upset to answer my questions. I thought about what he said and talked with my dad about my dilemma. My dad suggested I start going to Bible Study classes once a week. He thought this would answer my questions and I would have a deeper faith.

So, at the age of twelve I started attending Bible Study classes every Monday. We would sit around two long tables arranged in a T and discuss the topic of the week. Our exercise books were professionally bound and we had homework to do every week. The classes, much to my dismay, focused mainly on the New Testament, specifically the Rapture. I attended without fail every week, but I began neglected the homework for my own investigations.

One day, it suddenly occurred to me that Adam had no mother OR father. So if Jesus is the son of God because he had no father, wouldn't Adam also be the son of God? I waited impatiently for church and looked for the pastor. When I asked him my question, he looked at me and said the most damaging thing that anyone has ever said to me: "If you had true faith, these questions would go away."

What did he mean by that, I asked myself. True faith? I had true faith. My faith in God never wavered for a moment. I just didn't understand the preoccupation with Jesus. Eventually, my faith did erode. I went to church and Bible Study, futilely looking for information that would convince me of Jesus' divinity. By the time I was 20, I stopped caring. I tried to forget God, to not believe in Him. This always worked until I had a crisis, at which point I would immediately stop and pray to God for help, which always infuriated me.

Everything was the same until I was 29, divorced, and a college student. I befriended some exchange students from the Middle East and, inevitably, the conversation turned to religion. I complained about Christianity and its flaws, and they started talking about Islam. About how they believed that Adam, Moses, Abraham, John the Baptist, and Jesus were all prophets. I nearly fell out of my chair! Shocked, I said to them, "You don't believe Jesus in the son of God?" Their faces almost unanimously looked disturbed, and one girl said, "wallah how could we believe this? This is wrong."

I started reading each and every book I could find about Islam. Almost immediately I was able to say the first half of the shahadah (declaration of faith) there is no god except Allah, but I knew absolutely nothing about Mohammed, since Christianity didn't believe in him as a prophet. I tried to find logical gaps in the Qur'an but could not. I asked many Muslims, both scholars and regular people, many questions. No one ever accused me of lacking faith. On the contrary, many of them simply stated that they, too, had the same questions once but they were able to research the answer and were now content.

But, in the end, it was the simplest of things that convinced me. I learned that the Prophet Mohammed recommended that Muslims sleep on their right side or their back, and forbade sleeping on the stomach. This matched exactly what I learned working in the medical field -- that sleeping on the stomach was harmful to the teeth and could cause back problems since it gives no support to the spine. More importantly, all of the internal organs are under greater pressure when we sleep on our stomachs, which can make breathing and digestion difficult.

So I said my shahadah and never looked back. People accuse me of being oppressed, of being a victim, of being controlled by men, but in reality I am freer now than I have ever been. I am able to have faith in God and still ask questions, something I was never able to do as a Christian.

As salam alaikum (may Peace be upon you).