How I came to Islam - Anthony became Abdurraheem Green

begin by praising Allah we praise Him we seek his help and we ask for his forgiveness and we seek refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves and from the evil consequence of our evil actions whomsoever Allah guides there is none to misguide and whomsoever Allah leaves to go astray there is none to guide and I testify that Allah alone is worthy of worship and the muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is the servant of allah in his final messenger now let me introduce myself my background I was born in Tanzania in Daraa Salaam my father at the time was a colonial administrator in the now-defunct British Empire and an empire that stretched once upon a time wasn't that long ago over one third of the Earth's surface now the only thing left is some islands in the Falklands that's all that's left of it how things change how the mighty have fallen this is a lesson that allah subhanaw taala calls us to in the quran to travel the earth and see the consequence see what happened to people who came before you who were mightier in power and strength and see what is left of them so anyway my father a colonial administrator that's where I was born in Tanzania and they named me Antony but suave Gavin green okay what you're going to laugh what's worth Vetrov is a Polish name because my mother in fact is polish and being polish she is a Roman Catholic and she always intended that me and my brother Duncan Duncan Charles Alexander green would be raised up good Catholics and so almost from the day that we were born we were enrolled in what is a very famous Roman Catholic boarding school in fact it's a monastic boarding school that means it's also a monastery a place where monks live and teach and this place is called this school is called ample fourth college it's in Yorkshire which is in the north of England so when I was two years old we left dora Salaam my brother was born in London and when we were well when he was like eight and I was like 10 we were sent off to boarding school so from the age of 10 I was sent to this the preparatory school of ample fourth college now before before my mum before they sent us off to AMPA fourth college I think my mum decided it was about time that she taught me some of the prayers of the Catholics and some of the things that they say she better prepare me a little bit for this life in the monastery and although she had married my father who was an agnostic which was not really allowed she was only supposed to marry a Catholic but she went ahead and married my dad anyway and she was considered herself as a sort of not a very good Catholic but she was going to make up for it by sending me and my brother to the school and I remember one night she taught me a prayer a prayer that is used by Catholics quite often it's one of the frequently used prayers when when they have a rosary which is a string of beads on which they count a series of prayers the main prayer that is said it's called the Hail Mary it goes like this it begins like this Hail Mary Mother of God blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus now it was the first bit that when I was a nine year old child hearing my mother say Hail Mary Mother of God I said to myself how can God have a mother God is supposed to be without beginning and without end how could God have a mummy and so I sat there thinking about this mother of God and I decided to myself that well if Mary was the mother of God she must actually be a bigger God than God those were the first questions that arose in my mind and as I went to school and as I began to think more and study more and research more I in fact had more and more questions we used to have to go to confession and our confession I think as far as I remember we had to do it a minimum of I think it was once a year might have been more than that but you know at least there was a certain amount of times you a minimum you had to do it and the priest used to say you have to confess all your sins if you didn't confess all of them then confession is no good and none of your sins will be forgiven now believe me can you imagine a school of boys aged what 11 10 all the way up to 1920 you think we're going to be confessing all our sins and moreover confessing our sins to the very people who are our house masters in other words they're in charge of us now I soon figure that this must be some huge spy conspiracy in order to keep control of people by going and confessing your sins I just write and then I used to ask them why please tell me why do I have to go to you to confess my sins to you why can't I just ask God to forgive me I mean after all after all according to Jesus according to the Bible we would say the actual scriptures Jesus is supposed to have said the only prayer that you need is our Father our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth it is and her give us forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil right that is the prayer as for the other bit they add sometimes in the name of the Father Son the Holy Ghost the power and the glory that's not there they added that if you actually look in the gospel that's the our Father now in the our Father you are asking God to forgive you your trespasses your sins so how come I have to come and ask some priest and you know what they said they said to me well you can ask God if you want to but you can't be sure that God's going to listen to you right so I had a real problem you know I had a real problem with this and I had a real problems with the doctrines of the church I think one of the things that I also had a problem with a very very big problem is the doctrine of incarnation the idea that God became a man now just to mention something about this when I was excuse me when I was how old 11 years old my dad took a job in Egypt he became the general manager of Cairo barclays he opened up Barclays Bank in Cairo and that's for the next ten years of my life that's where I spent my holidays so I'd be going to school in England and to Egypt for my holidays now you see Western society indoctrinates us with an equation the equation tells us wealth equals happiness wealth equals happiness if you want to be happy if you want to enjoy your life you need money because when you have money you can buy a nice car and have our nice TV sets and watch those movies and go on holiday and buy all these things that you so desperately to fill your lives with to make your lives happy this is what the probe this is what they're telling us the whole time yet in reality that's not the case at all and you see my eyes were being opened up to this and I began to ask myself as I went back to school and I have to say I really did not like school at all I particularly didn't like boarding school I just couldn't understand why I was in this monastery on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors miles and miles away from anything and anybody and here I was in this place why what was it all for I began to ask myself you know I used to love my life in Egypt and I come back to England and I I just why why I would ask myself and then this is where I began to ask this question what is the purpose of life why are we here for what reason do we exist what do all these things mean what does it mean love what is life for what is it all about and I figured it I sat down and I figured it and I said yep I am here at school in order to work hard so that I will get good results in my exams so I can go to a good university so I can get a good degree so I can get a good job that will make me enough money so that when I get married and have kids I can send them back to that same expensive public school private school and that they can work hard and get a good degree so that they can get a good job so that when they have kids they can earn enough money to send their kids back to that school right and and then I thought about I thought that's it that's the purpose of life that's what it's all for I said no way I can't believe that's all there is to life and so I began a quest it was not like today I am going on a quest for the truth it wasn't like that it was just I began to think I began to search I began to look through other religions you know anything that I thought might give me an insight and an understanding to what is the purpose of life what is it all about now when I was about 19 something happened very very something very important happen and that was in the ten years that I spent and my holidays in Egypt only one person ever really had a decent conversation with me about Islam now I had many many questions about Catholicism but when it came to anyone challenging me okay or questioning me I would vigorously defend I would become a defender of the faith you know even though I didn't actually believe in it but you know I suddenly became a defender of it was a strange paradox okay I had many questions in my mind but you know especially when it's this Egyptian I mean after all what does he know I'm English we used to rule his chats not a few years ago you know after this conversations been going on for about 40 minutes he he asks me a few simple questions and they've stuck in my head until this day he said so you believe that Jesus is God I said yes and he said and you believe Jesus died on the cross I said yes he said so you believe God died and when he said that you know what it was if Mike Tyson had come and smacked me in the face with a fist right it wouldn't have had I mean I was absolutely flabbergasted because I suddenly realized the irrationality and the just I have to say it the foolishness of that of what I was believing and eyes inside myself of I said of course I don't believe that God died you can't kill God and I realized that all these years I had been taught something I had been indoctrinated with something I had been taught this thing and I always felt uncomfortable with it but you know it just took someone to spell it out for me in clear simple terms look if you believe this and you believe this then you must believe that and I realized that no I didn't believe that but you know what I wasn't going to admit that to him I wasn't going to admit I said that's been very interesting and I gotta go up to my cabin now okay bye you know I don't want to think about it and I went up inside smoking and having a coffee and writing and doing anything to think about except what the guy had been telling me but you know it had its effect it really had its effects you know because after that stage and this is something like I said I'd always been uncomfortable with but that was a big changing point in my life you could say it was an epiphany no one if you're on a spiritual journey a quest for truth you wouldn't have thought of dreamed of looking at Islam and I didn't I looked at everything so I reached this stage when I basically I was I was basically at this stage a hippie okay so I was about now 20 years old 19 20 years old I was a hippie I had by this stage invented my own religion okay this religion was bits and pieces of all the religions that I had studied and I took them all together and I made my own religion okay and so therefore I started to develop this philosophy of my own religion but it didn't take me long to figure that this was the worst bunch of rubbish that I'd ever come across right I mean of all the things I've been through it was the worst and I said to myself forget it forget religion forget spirituality forget all this stuff maybe there's no meaning to life maybe there's just nothing more to life than being rich maybe my problem was is that I didn't have enough money now to show you what I'm thinking of in terms of the money I thought I would need to make me happy I'm thinking here yachts and private jets that's the stage you're like I'm going to need to move up to write so you can imagine my lifestyle before that okay so I'm thinking to myself money ok let's go back to money how do I make lots of money with very little effort because who wants to work hard who wants to spend all the time working you want money and then you want to enjoy that money so less work more money that's what we need maximum enjoyment so I thought to myself let's make a study of this let's start thinking about people who have got money in the world okay and let's think about how they got their money so I started thinking I started thinking about Britain okay lots of money there no problem but too much work what the Industrial Revolution oh no way you know all those satanic Mills and those dark Mills and all that industrial I forget that America in the American dream what is the American dream you're in the gutter and you struggle it's the rat race and you make it you're the self-made millionaire said that is definitely too much hard work the Japanese they've got lots of money but all they do is work that's all they ever do and in those days they were well known the Japanese for being workaholics and then it came to me those Saudi Arabians they've been sitting on their camels going on Norwalk one and they've got all this money that's the one that's let me look at that that's interesting no effort maximum money there's gotta be something there so I said to myself okay let me think about it of course okay what's their religion that book you have a Koran right let me have a look at this Quran it's got to be something interesting there and that that is really what motivated me to go down to the bookshop and I took a translation of the Koran and you know what I really believe it had to be like that way because I was really just approaching the Quran out of curiosity to see what it had to say I was coming with an open mind you know I was not looking for truth I was not looking for what I was just curious to see what did this book have to say was there something there that's all otherwise I don't think I ever would have looked at it okay so I took it down and began reading the Koran now I'm a pretty fast reader and I remember very clearly I was in a train I was going from where I was living across the River Thames okay to Victoria a train station I remember very distinctly I was sitting in the train reading I was sitting next to the window reading this translation of the Quran I looked out of the window I look back and I said to myself if I have ever read a book that is from God this was it and that really I could say was the moment that I realized and I believe that the Quran is from God and it was always my habit you know I didn't just read about things I try to practice them you know you can read and read and read but you know like they say you can look at the orange all day long it looks nice it's pretty it's orange it smells nice but you know how does it taste you have to taste it right okay so that was it so I used to go home and I used to try and pred and really know how to pray I remember seeing our cook in Egypt I used to remember seeing him pray so I sort of try to remember what used to do I remember it used to really impressed me this simple man and the beautiful way he used to pray and comparing it with the rituals in the Catholic Church I was impressed by it so there I was trying to imitate it and this went on for a while and then one day I won't go into the whole story it's too too long to go into it but anyway the short of it is I found myself in a bookshop that was part of a mosque okay so I found myself in this bookshop and all these books and Mohammed and Salah prayer and then I was looking at all this and Wow fantastic look at all of this stuff and I guy comes and he says to me excuse me are you a Muslim I'm thinking why I'm Muslim was it what does he mean by that so listen I said to Martelly I believe there is only one God which is Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger he said you're almost him I said oh thanks this slightly good is it Louie just about to prayed you wanna you want to come and pray there must have been Jim I must have been JaMarcus you never see a mosque at midday I mean I didn't know about Jonathan okay but I went and I prayed and everyone was like and I was like what's going on and I've obviously got it wrong all this time you know and you know but I remember afterwards you know everyone was surrounding me you know and everyone there wanted to teach me the whole of Islam in five minutes you know I remember walking out of that feeling literally like I had been given a shower on the inside and like I was walking on clouds it was quite fantastic now actually I would say that that's about two-thirds of my story that the other third okay we don't have time to go into it maybe another time okay but very briefly I would have to say that in spite of that being the time when I entered into Islam it really took me another two years before I was really able to start practicing properly and you know it was really actually very hard to give up my former way of life you know and the things that I used to do but I you know a lot taught me some pretty hard lessons I don't regret them they're very you know I look back now and I learned some very good lessons from those days but now they were the two most miserable years of my life why because I knew the truth and I wasn't following it actually that's the worst condition a human being can ever be in you know because if you're ignorant you know they say ignorance is bliss actually ignorance itself isn't bliss but meaning when you don't know something you're in a sort of state of innocence but when you know something and then you don't live according to what you know you can't live with yourself it's terrible it's a horrible condition and and that's what happened to me for about two years but al hamdulillah you know al hamdulillah I came back to it Sam I came back to the Dean I never I never used to say I mean I would always say that I'm Muslim you know I would always say that I was Muslim I to people just didn't take me seriously you know there I was at parties and drinking wine and you know I remember sometimes I was sitting at a party and sitting around people telling people about Islam in the beginning yeah really that's fantastic tell me more so I just - God I'm just - you know I've been drinking too much I I can't notice how a Blanc like that that's my condition that I was in but you know handle I love walk me out of that and you know then it happened I lost my heart Allah guided me and I you know came back round and the really the thing that changed me brothers and sisters was this really a simple thing a very simple thing I started to pray five times a day you know people say to me up to him what you know how can I you know what the prayer you do the prayer properly if you really pray fie and that's what I said I promised Allah that I will pray five times a day I said I don't know that if I can do anything else but I will do that and I took it really seriously you know I took it really really really seriously and handle er the prayer when it is said properly is something that itself will change your life now I know you can ask me another question and those two questions you will ask me so I'll answer them before you ask me right number one is how does it feel to be a Muslim and compared to how it was before now I will tell you honestly how it is like if I was to describe it it would be like this imagine you live or imagine you find yourself in a building and this building like any buildings full of obstacles chairs tables lamps stares imagine just even this room if we made it pitch black I mean so dark that you could not see a thing right and we left you here and then we started mixing you all around and everyone had to think now imagine you try and find your way up imagine I try and find my way out I'm going to bang myself hit myself fall over you know you're living in this dark place this is like disbelief this is like the state where you are out of Islam you're in this dark place you don't really know you're going you don't know where you've come from and life is full of obstacles it keeps throwing things at you and you've got real no you don't really know how to cope with them Islam it is really like you open the door and then you stepped outside and you're in the light suddenly you could see suddenly you could understand suddenly everything is clear this is what it is like or you could also say it is like the difference between death and life between being really alive and being dead because this is Islam it brings the light and the peace and the tranquility to the hearts it is a beautiful beautiful thing you know so this is how we could say how I could really compare Islam and I know the other question is going to be what did your parents say and I have to say honestly that me and my parents alhamdulillah have a better relationship now that I'm Muslim than we ever had before I mean if you really were able to get them to be honest right and to tell them how they really feel they would admit without a shadow of a doubt okay the Islam has given me responsibility it has ordered me to treat them with so much respect and they would have to admit that that Islam has been something that's good for me and also good for my relationship between me and them so you know we get on handler now really really well alhamdulillah okay brothers and sisters I hope I've covered most of the how'd I come to Islam questions okay

Channel: Digital Mimbar

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Keywords: islam, muslim, muslims, islamic, quran, koran, allah, muhammad, mohammed, mohamed, prophet, hadith, sunnah, shaykh, imam, lecture, khutbah, khutba, ramadan, bilal philips, sufi, salafi, hanafi, hijab, nasheed, nashid, almaghrib, dars, halaqa, bayan, convert, revert, shahada, dawah, da'wah, maher zain, sami yusuf, atheism, science, atheist, qur'an, recitation, surah, afasy, religion, religious, deen, madhhab, shia, sunni

Id: ni3Qj8NFHWc

Length: 26min 16sec (1576 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 04 2014