رحلتي إلى الإسلام: ايفون ردلي - My Journey to Islam: Yvonne Ridley

[Music] this is the border point between Scotland and England Scotland is in that direction and I'm going to proceed in that direction to visit Yvonne Ridley even readily converted to Islam a couple of decades ago and I want to hear from her how her journey to Islam started please join me [Music] you sister Yvonne tell me how your journey to Islam started well it started in the unlikely surroundings of a Taliban prison in Afghanistan you were imprisoned yes I was I was held for 11 days by the most evil brutal regime in the world according to George Bush and Tony Blair it was a terrifying experience that I didn't think that I would survive but throughout the ordeal I was treated with a courtesy and respect that I hadn't expected but how did you end up there well I had entered the country illegally without a passport and visa it was the build-up to the wall and I wanted to see what life was like for ordinary Afghan people and so I couldn't get a visa they didn't want Westerners into the country they were on the verge of war so I sneaked in I was determined to to get in and oh who are you working for and at them I was the chief reporter of the Sunday Express newspaper in London and I just wanted to find out the you know what what life was like for real ordinary Afghan people and then they caught you and tell you after two days I was rumbled as I headed back I was done for by a donkey and and fell off this donkey and and and was arrested now what intrigued you about the Taliban I watched them for 11 days and I saw that their religion was more than just something that was carried out on a Friday it was part of their life it was the way they ate the way they slept the way they dressed the way they acted everything had an Islamic context in fact with the Taliban it was quite clearly a way of life and and this made me very interested in how it worked and about six days into my captivity I was asked if I wanted to embrace Islam they asked you yes they invited me and I just said that I couldn't make such a life-changing decision while I was in prison but I said if you let me go I promise I will read your holy book and any supporting literature and against all the odds they let me go a few days later while they still held on to other Westerners I think it could have been because I had acted like the prisoner from hell I I didn't want well I really genuinely thought that they would kill me and any act of kindness that they showed towards me I saw that as a trick you do trust them I didn't trust them I rather foolishly believed George Bush and Tony Blair I mean they wouldn't lie what they sow so I railed against my cactus I spotted them I swore at them I threw things at them I just wanted to accelerate my demise because I didn't want this ordeal to go on for years to be tortured or abused and their response to my very bad behavior was surprised and they kept saying why you acting like this you were our guest and I'm thinking why are they acting like this they're supposed to be brutal and evil but as I say it at while they held on to other Westerners they did release me on humanitarian grounds and when I returned to London I thought I made a promise and I'll keep my word but I also needed to know about Islam because I was interested in matters connected with the Middle East and Asia and I realized just by simple observation of the Taliban that Islam was not something that you picked up and put down again it was a way of life and I thought how can I write with any authority or understanding of the Muslim world unless I know more about this faith players - your experience with the Taliban did you have any exposure about Islam did you mean Muslims before I mean did you what sort of knowledge did you have about Islam what I knew about Islam you could probably write on the back of a postage stamp and all of that was wrong anyway and I began to think about this I mean I was brought up in the northeast of England in a white working-class community nothing as exotic as Islam crossed my horizon at all so I thought well where have I picked up this idea that Islam is violent brutalizes and oppresses women and I could trace it back to television to cartoons to this slow subliminal drip drip drip narrative that anything from the east is violent aggressive and oppressive and I began to realize that I hadn't picked up a book about Islam of the Muslim world but I had been subliminally brainwashed to think that this is an area that is is violent and oppressive so after you came back from Afghanistan you started fulfilling the promise you made started reading books about Islam or saturnine in the Quran or what I began reading the Quran and I was given an English translation by a Yusuf Ali which also had additional footnotes and it had an index in the back so being a lifelong promoter of women's rights I went straight to the back to find the chapter on how to abuse women how to prevent education how to force marriage of course I couldn't find anything and and so I started reading it and was just amazed on so many different levels because the Quran makes it crystal clear that women are equal in spirituality Worth and education and it is totally gender balanced it was incredible reading it so I then began reading supporting literature on women's rights in Islam and even something like the marriage ceremony that I was told is called the NACA women can write out their contract it's treated like a business arrangement you write out your hopes fears expectations it and I'm thinking well this is like the prenuptial agreement that all the Hollywood star I have drawn up so many different things and I was just totally amazed so this drew me in closer and what started out as a fulfillment of a promise that an academic exercise very soon turned into a spiritual journey I already had a core belief in God I was a practicing Christian I went to church maybe twice a month which in secular Britain is bordering on fanaticism so I had that belief in God and reading the Quran was so easy because all of the prophets all of the messengers they were all in there with the exception of Muhammad peace be upon him and I started then reading about the Prophet Salla well assalam and he was an amazing character the most perfect human that's probably ever walked the earth and just an amazing role model for people to follow and then I started to begin to understand why Muslims held him in such reverence and why they got angry and upset if he was ridiculed or his image was portrayed and and so I started reading more about about him as well and so that was really a process how long did it take about two years and I just thought that I'm still believing in the same God but this is making just a little more sense than Christianity and I spoke to various scholars and theologians from the Christian faith as I was moving over and spoke to a lot of Islamic scholars because of my profile through the Taliban experience everybody was willing to help me so I had access to some of the finest minds in the Islamic world but the final realization actually came through speaking to an ordinary brother when he said why aren't you why haven't you converted yet you know you're so close and I said well I'm still stuck on the Holy Trinity God the Father God the Son God the Holy Ghost and he said look what relation was John the Baptist to Jesus and I said well they were cousins and he said so when John the Baptist prays to God he would say uncle God and I said no I said that's ridiculous he said exactly he said another that is how ridiculous the the the Trinity is because you cannot mix human with God and and he said you know that that that very basic very basic so basic so easy to to understand and I thought about it more and and then another friend who was a Christian I was having this discussion with him and his friend who was an atheist chipped in and he said look if you have three messages three post-its stuck on your computer Judaism Christianity and Islam which post it are you going to take notice of and I said well the most and he said well that's Islam and he said you know I don't know how you're agonizing over the problem for you yes and it's sometimes the answers to life are so simple they're staring us in the face and so I then took my Shahada that was June the 30th 2003 and the next day I was moving to Qatar to work for Al Jazeera and I I arrived in Qatar as a Muslim and it was just around the time you know Ramadan was a few months away and I was to be your first Ramadan that was that was where I had my first Ramadan and I was so blessed and lucky to be in a Muslim country that isn't afraid to to wear its faith on its sleeve you know it it was like that you moved to an Arab country made it probably easy for you in the post conversion era because you were you were well known I mean you were in the media people knew you so probably your conversion would have caused a Sarah wouldn't it yes so it was so much easier going to to live and work in a in a Muslim country and learn more about the faith which as I say is is a way of life it's not just something that you put on on Friday prayers and then forget about for the next seven days any backlash from your old friends or your old colleagues yes I mean some old friends and old colleagues or no long old friends you know they they have just not answered my calls or ignored emails or if they see me they look the other way but essentially I'm still the same person still have the same sense of humor and the friends who've stayed with me you know to have total respect for the faith how about the Muslim community in in the UK wonderful absolutely wonderful people of all cultures and backgrounds have really welcomed me into the Muslim community especially the women and you know that this is something that I often talk about when I'm addressing with women's groups I'll say before I was a Muslim out have walked into this room and seen those of you wearing the hijabs and thinking oh you poor oppressed women and I said now I walk into a room full of Muslim women and I'm trying to work out who's the engineer who's the doctor who's the psychologist who's got this profession who's the backbone of the community and I said and you're all mothers and so proud to be a mother whereas the status have been a mother in the non-muslim community is quite different now how about the community of Muslim converts because I I hear from some of them that a while after conversion they feel lonely to what degree is that loneliness it's it can be a lonely existence but it's it's something that I I really I'm not an entirely convinced about because I used to hate my own company before I converted to Islam you know I was forever at the center of the parties and and always surrounded by people and and always out and and but once I converted to Islam I developed a peace that I hadn't known before and I actually now enjoy my own company and enjoy sitting down and reading but I can understand the loneliness because when you convert and and the community embraces you you were you know you do become the center of attention and everybody loves you and and everybody wants you to to do so well and and and then life kicks in and people get involved with their own problems and because converts on part of a big family and quite often abandoned by their own family they can often feel isolated and so I I can see how it could be tough it wasn't for me it for me it was as I say I I actually started to learn to like myself and to have self-respect and self-esteem which is very important and I realized before that that I didn't have that self-esteem any challenges on the professional level I mean you were working in the mainstream media before but now that you've chosen this journey things are not the same are they no I was dropped like a hot brick the BBC referred to me when I put on a hijab the BBC referred to me as the former journalist Yvonne Ridley and I if you are no longer yeah I I it took many letters and and various complaints to different departments to say I am still working as a journalist how dare you called me the former journalist and it it had been quite difficult but people are slowly coming around to to seeing that I'm still professional I still care about journalism and and it's I've changed the style of journalism that I do I used to do a lot of undercover work but now I focus mainly on humanitarian efforts and I still go out into war in conflict zones and you told me before we earlier that you've just been to England yes yes that was that was quite a tough experience people there are you know this expression hang on to the Rope a hold or a tight on to the Rope of Allah the people there they have nothing left but God and it is their faith which is keeping them going and to secularists and atheists you know I would say if you don't understand belief go to it lip and you will see God in is everywhere because that is what is keeping those people going now in addition to your conversion to Islam you opposed the war in Iraq and you stood by the Palestinian people and these two issues were also sources of trouble well I have been a staunch supporter of the Palestinians since I was 13 14 when I first signed a petition when I first heard about the Palestinians and I've always been quite vocal about support for the Palestinians and nobody really took any notice and then the moment I put on a hijab oh my word she's an extremist and and I said but hold on I had these views before it's not me that's changed it's you that's changed towards me and the the plight of the Palestinians it doesn't matter whether you're a person of faith or no faith this is one of the biggest longest running in Justices in the world today and it blighted the 20th century and it's running into the 21st century and it is a real big stain from east to west on our civilization and you know people talk about the siege of Gaza been 12 years I was on the very first boat to break the siege of Gaza and about a 2,000 Palestinians turned out to see the boats arrived why did so many people turn out because there hadn't been a boat arriving in Gaza for more than 40 years this was incredible and you know at the boats there were two boats largely crewed by non-muslims a lot of secularists and atheists and at one point during the dead of night we were told that we were surrounded by Israeli gunboats and we thought you know this is the end our communications were down all the cell phones mobile phones everything was down we were in the pitch-black bubbling around in the eastern Mediterranean and I was with filmmaker Okinawa's who is a practicing Muslim and I said it looks as though this is the end the end and I said do you think that we land up in paradise if we if we die here and he said well yes he said I I can't think of a more noble cause than dying for the Palestinians and I said you know I said you're right and we both started laughing and at the irony that we were going to be sent to paradise by the Israelis you know and and so we were laughing and saying well bring it on and that belief in God just made us feel so strong American it's it's really we everybody else with you know you could see the fear and they're looking at us thinking what are those two Daft Muslims laughing about and it was because we were expecting any minutes that that would be the end of this life but greater things stick up did you end up with a Palestinian passports I did I did I well first it was a miracle for some reason the Israeli boats just disappeared and we were able to continue on our journey we got into Gaza and and there were these banners with our faces everywhere and I just thought they didn't think we were going to get through these are the banners of welcome these are these are the martyrs and so I think a lot of people thought that we were going to be if I remember correctly nobody ever made it after you I think all the other boats were turned down and back and I think a couple did get through after that but then there was the there was the Mavi Marmara and the flotilla crimes and and it was yes nobody has been able to get through since and it was it well it that is probably one of the highlights of my life and if ever my faith and belief in God was tested and I think I passed a hundred percent at that moment on the boat but after that we met Ismail Haniyeh who was then the prime minister of in Gaza and he issued us with passports and I remember saying at last I have a prime minister of whom I can be proud and and that was a great moment as well very good note to end on thank you very much thank you thanks a lot sister [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Al Hiwar TV قناة الحوار

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Keywords: قناة, الحوار, رحلتي إلى الإسلام, اعتناق الإسلام, التحول إلى الإسلام, دين الإسلام, الشريعة الإسلامية, من الضلال إلى النور, نور الهدى, دين الرحمة, رسول المحبة, رسالة الإسلام, القرآن الكريم, قصص, قصة إسلام, عزام التميمي, رحلة, مسيرة, محمد, الله, Alhiwar TV, Al Hiwar TV, My Journey to Islam, Azzam Tamimi, Converting to Islam, Muslim Convert, Convert, Story, From dark to light, Prophet Muhammad, Allah, God, Islam, Religion, Church, Mosque, Trinity, Islamic, Sharia, Yvonne Ridley, ايفون ردلي

Id: WnL4PPeflY8

Length: 31min 1sec (1861 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020