At some time in your life, someone may come up to you and ask why. Here's your answer. By Michelle Al-Nasr
As Muslim women we get asked this question on a daily basis — why? Why did you become Muslim? Why do you wear that? The list goes on and on.
Over the 13 years since I have embraced Islam I have become hardened to the countless number of innuendos and crude comments from the narrow minded people in the world who think I did it all for my husband; but still, every once and a while I let those comments bother me. No, to put it more precisely — they insult me as well as every Muslim woman. At some point in your life as a Muslim woman I am sure you can easily identify with this feeling. Everyone I know has experienced it. I know many sisters who gave up a lot from this world when they embraced Islam — some lost their families, friends, wealth, and others lost their careers. They made the decision to give it all up for their religion — for their Creator, and for a possible chance to get into Jannah (Paradise). They are intelligent, educated beautiful women. They didn't marry Muslim men because they couldn't have it all otherwise and were left with no other option. They made their decision with a lot of forethought.
Allah Almighty Says (what means): "And who is better in religion than one who submits himself to Allah while being a doer of good and follows the religion of Ibraaheem (Abraham), inclining toward truth? And Allah took Ibraaheem as an intimate friend." [Quran 4:125]
For years, I used to get nervous when confronted by the interrogative questioning of non-Muslims. I guess it shocked me when I first became Muslim because people I had have never met all of the sudden felt comfortable to ask me personal questions about my life. It had never happened before in such an in-your-face-manner. I remember one time a teenage cashier at the grocery store asked me if I wore "all that stuff" because my husband "over there" made me do it. I hurriedly attempted to get an entire speech in between watching for errors, over-charges and writing my check. Before I knew it, I had stumbled upon my words out of sheer distraction and had done a shoddy job of making my point. By that time, the people in line behind me were glaring at me to get a move on. I almost always left feeling like an idiot and wondering why I had allowed the conversation to get so out of control. Why didn't I say this or say that instead - I would second-guess myself, going over the conversation again and again in my mind. What could I have said that would have been more convincing?
Then I came up with a strategy. I should have something premeditated to say. I thought, "Okay, I will come up with a standard answer"; this way I would not get caught off guard like had always happened in the past. It seemed to me like I would always get confronted at the worst times - like the time when I had to stop by the store for some baby formula on the way to a doctor's appointment and I was already 15 minutes late. By the time I got to the store parking lot I had discovered that my daughter had a dirty diaper. So there I am hurdling over the back seat in the Texas mid-day summer heat trying to change a stinky diaper and some lady calmly walks up with time on her hands wanting to hold some type of pseudo debate over my decision to become a Muslim. It was clear she had already made up her mind as to my reasons for accepting Islam. And as to whether or not those reasons were fact or fiction, she didn't really care, she was just killing some time. Many of you have had similar situations - been there, done that. Whew, it's frustrating to say the least, isn't it?
Allah Almighty Says what means: "So bear with patience all that they say, and glorify the Praises of your Lord, before the rising of the sun and before (its) setting (i.e., the Salah of Fajr, Thuhr, and 'Asr)." [Quran 5:39]
As I said, I have become hardened to that sort of muscled debate and those types of comments over the years. It really took me some time to fully appreciate my own decision. But I finally realized what I should have been asking myself all along is why did I find myself on the defense, trying to explain my life in under 45 seconds? Somehow I had permitted others to make my decision feel less than mine own. The fact of the matter is that we became Muslim women — because we chose it. Think about this when someone asks you why you became Muslim or implies you did it for your husband—why did they became Christian, or whatever religion they practice—if they practice at all? Let them do the explaining. Why do we need to justify our decision to them? We do not need to explain, unless we feel they are sincere and not just being snide. When we undertook our decision to become a Muslim, it required us to make a conscious life altering decision. It is not something we just saw in a magazine ad one afternoon and impulsively ran to the store to buy. We knew full-well what we were getting ourselves into—the obligation of it all that goes along with practicing our religion, commitments from head to toe—literally.
Most Christian women in the world are Christian by birth. They are repeating the cycle of practicing what their parents did before them, because many times that is all they know. You can look at it like this — if you never leave the backyard to explore, you will never know there is an entire universe out there or what's in it.
Al-Hamdulillaah, Allah blessed us with the intelligence to look over the fence and open the gate of our yards—giving us the universe as it is supposed to be - giving us Islam, a religion under which all people are equal, long before equal rights. A religion that grants women rights and liberty, long before the women's liberation movement was even ever dreamed about. A religion that gave us amazing scientific facts thousands of years before scientists could even comprehend the results. A religion of simplistic truth — there is only one God, Allah.
Yet, still sometimes, when we are confronted by non-Muslims who want to interrogate us, we get nervous. We feel we must explain, and we want to say the right thing. But instead of wasting our time and effort on those that are mocking us or attempting to invent our own rhetoric which will always have its shortcomings, let us say what we were asked to say by our Creator. In the Quran, Allah, tells us how we should respond when asked: "…We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you. And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him." [Quran 29:46]
No explanation needed….end of discussion.