I GIVE UP HOLLYWOOD /Christian Woman Converted To Islam- Jaime Brown

I was a Christian growing up I would go to a Catholic Church for me it felt very ritualistic and it felt very hypocritical don't do this don't do this and it's like it was very much driving a point home of like being afraid and the problem was that when I would ask the questions they would never get answered so what was your view of Islam back then we as Americans were fed this big lie about how Muslims are evil people all we would see are these images of men in the streets like you know a lot rallying and fighting I found my way to Los Angeles I worked with a lot of celebrities Kanye West Snoop Dog for while I was living the dream life I had money I was traveling once you get there you're like okay well now what Hollywood is a very very dark place to prove that ask any child actor why is the suicide rate so high why are all these celebrities overdosing on drugs how come none of them are happy they're all searching for something I somehow managed to find a copy of the Quran I could not put it down you couldn't take that thing away from me Mom I have NOS for you she's like oh my goodness you're moving to Morocco alone I landed in Morocco and from there my life changed how did you take your shahada it was such a hard thing to say in Arabic but such an easy thing to say from the heart your heart just lights up and you're like okay this is it and then you you run to it and and then hopefully stick to [Music] it asalam alikum sister Jamie Brown thank you so much for accepting our invitation as Eternal passenger we are very happy to have you with us I want to start with who is Jamie Brown can you tell us briefly about your life Salam alikum and first of all thank you for inviting me I appreciate that very much uh my name is Jamie Brown I am American and I grew up in the United States as a Christian and even as a child I was always interested in different religions what did they mean what did they believe in as I was older I got reintroduced to church found my way to Los Angeles and was working in Hollywood when I somehow managed to find a copy of the Quran and the rest is history I suppose can you tell us about your life while you were in Hollywood what type of Life were you living how did your Hollywood journey start uh before I left for Hollywood I was working as a hair stylist in a salon and I also did graphic design my mother is a fabulous wonderful graphic artist I was doing hair full-time and I went out to California thinking that I was going to work in a salon out there but then I got hooked into the entertainment industry right away you know they always say in Hollywood it's not what you know it's who you know and it's absolutely true I met one of the most amazing people I've ever met um someone named Lisa bwe she looked at me one day on the day we met and she said said you don't know this yet but I'm about to change your life I shifted from doing hair into doing production and then I found myself on set of a TV show and I thought like wow I could I could do this this is more fun than standing behind a chair I would say by most people's standards I was living the dream life and then as things kind of progressed I was feeling less and less fulfilled I was living in Beverly Hills I was working an amazing job I had money I was traveling I was just having a blast and at the end of the day I said you know this is really fun but okay what else is there you know you once you achieve those goal those goals that you think you have once you get there you're like okay well now what you know the things that a lot of people think would make you super happy no they really don't it's just a normal life on a bigger stage you do start to realize right away that a lot of them are not happy mostly everything in Hollywood is fake you know you see these celebrities with their big mansions those are rented for the video shoots um you see them driving around in exotic cars those are rented they arrive on set on a flatbed truck you know there's a lot of amazing things that happen there but it's a very very very dark place Salam alikum brothers and sisters we saw that 80% of our audience including this video are not subscribed to our Channel as you know we are a nonprofit organization and advertisements are disabled on our videos so the only reason we are asking for this is to suppress the truth it may seem like a small act but inshallah it may be a means of guidance for many people now let's click the Subscribe button and let's walk as an eternal passenger in gentem people believe that people in Hollywood have a wonderful very happy life as someone with a Hollywood background do you think that's really the case no I think there are a handful of people in Hollywood that are very happy Hollywood is a very very dark place the more you know about it the more you want to run away from it to prove that ask any child actor why is the suicide rate so high why why are all these celebrities overdosing on drugs why if they have all the money all the fame all the ability to travel live in a big house take care of their family buy the clothes that they want go to the places that they want to go to all these VIP experiences that everyone dreams of if they have all of that how come none of them are happy how come none of them feel fulfilled you know I'm sure there are some I'm not saying I shouldn't say none the majority of them it's a lot of empty promises you know in Hollywood you're sold this dream that like come to the life of Glitz and Glamour and fame and fortune and it's like it's not it's not that way they're all searching for something so before Islam how was your life in regards to Faith what were you believing it I always believed in God I was a Christian growing up I was often times in a Methodist Church with my friends I spent some time in the Mormon organization with my best friend in junior high I studied a lot about religions and I always knew that there was only one God and I always knew that I had a deep connection there but something always felt a little bit off I would go to a Catholic Church for me it felt very ritualistic and it felt very hypocritical there are some specifics about a Catholic Church that really didn't sit well with me but I was a child and that's what my parents did and I didn't really have a choice and I always remember I left church feeling the same as I did when I walked in and I always thought like shouldn't you feel uplifted if you're coming here shouldn't you feel something and in the Catholic Church it just felt like everything was just on this schedule you had to say certain things at certain times you had to do certain things at certain times and and all of this felt like it was really going through the motions for me in terms of Faith you looked into Methodist Church or Mormon churches what did make sense to you in Catholicism one of of the big factors in Catholicism is they they do a thing where you take communion in church you take this wafer the priest gives it to you but you can only take it under certain situations my mother was divorced so she wasn't allowed to do that as if she was impure everything was always about Jesus Jesus Jesus and it was always about how Jesus is so forgiving and this and that and I said so you don't think Jesus would allow my mom to do this like you don't think that she would be forgiven they went their separate ways they're peaceful they get along great they're friends why is this such a terrible thing to do in your life so much so that you you aren't even allowed to do certain things in church and I didn't like that and then the Trinity didn't make sense to me it's like father son Holy Spirit Jesus and God are the same Jesus Is God In the Flesh no it's not what I always thought what is it that's going on down here on Earth that God can't see or that God can't hear or that God needs to physically come down here to to witness in person that doesn't make sense God sees everything he doesn't need to come down here in the body of a man nothing was a major deal breaker but it's a lot of little drops in a bucket where okay wait that didn't really make sense I'll let it slide and the problem was that when I would ask the questions they would never get answered in your opinion what is the biggest and most obvious difference between your former Faith Christianity and the religion now you believe in Islam the biggest difference for me is the concept of Jesus being a prophet versus Jesus being part of a trinity because I believe that God is one I have never thought that the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit 1+ 1 plus 1 does not equal one I always kind of search for something because that part I never really agreed with all of that and so I think the fact that we really examine Jesus's life and what he preached not what the church preaches so we look at what did Jesus say Jesus never said worship me Jesus never said pray to me and if Jesus had his face on the ground and he was praying if he was God In the Flesh who would he be praying to it doesn't make sense and I know how things go because when you're in a Christian Church it's just this is what we believe like how dare you question that and I experienced that firsthand when I would ask pastors of not just one church but several and I would constantly get the same answers and it's always like believe that Jesus is God pray to Jesus don't ask questions and and I love that Islam says oh absolutely not don't take anybody's word for it and you better ask questions so what was your view of Islam back then did you have any prejudice against Islam early on I didn't really have any Prejudice towards Islam I didn't like the news that was showing all the terrorists and you know all we would see are these images of men in the streets like you know allahar rallying and fighting and they're showing them with you know big machine guns and they're just portraying them on the actual news as if it was on a Hollywood set We As Americans were fed this big lie about how Muslims are evil people and they're you know they're out to get us no they're not I just thought it was this kind of mysterious religion that I didn't know about nor did I have a reason to know about because I thought it was so different than my own upbringing that I thought well you know let them do their thing I'll do my thing I don't know it seems kind of crazy they're on carpets in public and they're do I don't know what they're doing let them live how did your journey to Islam begin I was working on a show and one of the colleagues that I was working with he would disappear on Fridays for a few hours and he would leave and I always would ask him like where are you going like why do you always just disappear like I know you're not taking lunch what are you doing and so he told me well I'm I'm Muslim and on Fridays we go and we pray and then I responded with well why don't you just come to church with me one time see how you like it and he said definitely not thank you but I'm not at all interested in that and then that made me angry I couldn't understand why he didn't even want to give it a chance and I said what has him so stuck on his religion that he won't even come for 45 minutes on a Sunday and so that's when I asked him I said okay I would like to read your whatever book that you have and then I would like to come back to you and tell you using your own verses why this doesn't make sense and why you should be Christian and hopefully then you can be saved and you know come to Jesus and then he said sure sure I'll give you the book I started reading it and I was like oh wait a second this actually makes sense okay hold on now and so then I became really interested and I started reading and reading and reading and as you can see I was unsuccessful in converting him to Christianity but I was extremely successful in and becoming Muslim myself so didn't go as I thought it would but alhamdulillah it was the best outcome one of the things I really loved was that there's one copy not a hundred or more um you know there were so many different versions of the Bible and I always thought well how come my friend sitting next to me she has two extra verses in hers but but on my text those verses aren't there who's editing this when I learned that there was only one Quran and not a single letter has changed I was like who I was always exposed to this concept of you know just believing just believe well if you don't believe then you don't have faith and I'm like well shouldn't it make sense what I'm believing in and I would ask the Pastors in the church I would say well Jesus is God in the form of Flesh so God came into Jesus's body but Mary gave birth to Jesus so you're telling me Mary gave birth to God no and then if God was in Jesus's body and then they nailed him to a cross and killed him so God died okay so who's running the world so as I started to read the Quran and it was really teaching like no Jesus was a prophet so all these things did not make sense and then as I started to read the Quran it just felt right you just know that it's just like there's something that that your heart just lights up and you're like okay this is it and that's something that I think foreign Muslims will not understand it's it's a way that you just it's like you I don't know you just you just know and you're happy when it happens and and then you you run to it and and then hopefully stick to it was it difficult for you to leave your career after you decided to become a Muslim absolutely not super easy I was tired of it there was nothing fulfilling left anymore you know you have this this Vision that you think that La is going to be and then once you get there you realize whoa it looks a lot different than it does on TV the reality of living there is a lot a lot different than what I expected it was amazing it was fun but I had pretty much squeezed everything out of La that I needed and at this point I was looking for something else way more fulfilling than you know driving a fancy car living in a fancy neighborhood doing the things that I did I none of that mattered to me at all and people would say oh how do you how do you just pack everything into one suitcase how do you just get rid of all your stuff and I said who cares about things and I and I joke with my friends and I'll say and they're like oh I could never leave I have all I have all my stuff and I'm like stuff who cares what is it about your bed frame at your house that is just so wonderful that you can't separate yourself from that I'm like come on who cares it's just just things they're just belongings so for me it was really easy to just leave a life where like the materialistic life is so praised when I moved I had a very illegal uh rage sale we will call it on Sunset Bev bouard where I maybe this was preparing me for souk life uh in advance and I didn't know but I put down a big sheet of plastic on the ground outside of a park in Sunset Boulevard and I just put all of my stuff on it and I just told people like take what you want after starting reading the Quran why did you leave your dream City LA and move to Morocco the reason why I left Los Angeles is because I knew that as somebody who knew she was about to officially take the shahada I knew that with the people that I was hanging around with the lifestyle that I was living you know the job that I was working at I felt really out of place in the place that I felt the most in place with before if that makes sense I really fit in in LA and I I loved every bit of it but then as soon as I found Islam all of the things that I used to love I just didn't want to be a part of anymore and so I knew that I couldn't just call call my friends one day and say hey uh by the way so I'm just going to be Muslim and I'm going to wear hijab and we're probably never going to hang out again because the placees you want to hang out I don't want to hang out and things like that so I knew that I had to remove myself from my surroundings so that I could change myself and so when I moved to Morocco I didn't tell anybody that it's because I wanted to be Muslim and so on the way after I left La I came back home for about a week to just kind of like you know say goodbye to my family and you know make a little pit stop before heading to Morocco so I did that but I didn't want to tell my family anything about it because I just didn't want their opinions of Islam to maybe affect me or maybe doubt what I wanted to do or second guest hey you know you're moving to another continent Alone with nobody there if anything goes wrong and you don't speak either of the Lang languages like you don't have a job lined up you don't have a house in place like are you good you know so I didn't want them to to kind of discourage me from doing that and so I kept it to myself and when I said my shahada I didn't really tell my family for about a year what did you tell your parents and family when you were moving to Morocco for what reason were you moving you told them when they asked me why I was moving to Morocco my answer was why not I'm a very brave Fearless person I'm not afraid of a challenge I'm very spontaneous you can give me a wild idea and say hey do you want to do this and I'll be like yeah let me get my coat let's go you know I'm that kind of person so I called her from Los Angeles I said okay Mom I have news for you I'm leaving La and she said ah you're finally moving back home I said nope M to Africa two months and she's like oh my goodness she's like Jamie nothing you do even shocks me anymore she's like you're moving to Morocco alone you what are you going to do there I said I don't know I'll find out when I get there I guess and so you know I look back and I oh St for law for all the times I've stressed my parents out with just doing crazy things but although they might not agree with all my choices they definitely support them then what happened you were Amazed by the Quran so how did you move your next steps towards your shahada so once I got this copy of the Quran I could not put it down you couldn't take that thing away from me I was reading it all day every day and this goes back to people always ask me why Morocco why did I choose Morocco to move to make my Hijra and I say I don't know I have no idea because I would read the Quran and every single time that I did it started off as a whisper I would always like you know close the book and then I would I would think about Morocco and I didn't think anything of it at first I was oh yeah okay cool and then it started to become more and more obvious and it was like the whisper became louder and louder I'm not scared of anything so I said well if I can move to LA by myself surely I can move to Africa by myself so I packed everything and took one suitc case and decided to move to agadir Morocco I was doing that because I wanted to say my shahada in a Muslim country December 15th 2010 I landed in Morocco and from there my life changed can you tell us how you felt when you took your shahada in detail please it was New Year's Eve 2010 and I went to Casablanca and the heni mosque this big huge mosque right on the shore of the ocean I kind of went in like this back door area and they asked me all these questions like you know is anybody making you do this like are you ready are you sure I said okay they gave me some instructions of course I was filmed camera with gigantic lights in my face I am shaking like a leaf so nervous I don't speak Arabic obviously so I I open the door and I'm blinded by this like camera light and I look out and I can just see what looks like a NeverEnding group of people and they're all just like staring at me so of course it made me so much more nervous so he's got his tiny mic like this you know he's telling me this and he's you know this whole thing and so I say it and afterwards I hear this this Roar of Allah abbar Allah abbar and I was like they're all doing that for me why do they care like I didn't understand why like why anyone cared and why they were so excited I'm like nobody here knows who I am like what is the big deal it was it was such a hard thing to say in Arabic but such an easy thing to say from the heart and then you know the the door closed I took a minute because they were asking me to pray they were like okay pray to work CAU but I didn't know how to pray and so I felt like I was being very fake because I didn't know what I was doing and they were super emotional and they seemed very into it and I was like uh stand up bend over stand up face on the ground I don't know and I didn't know how to pray so I felt really kind of inadequate right away because I'm like okay here I am a Muslim and then all these Muslims are praying and I still feel like the new person that doesn't know what to do and so I was like uh okay and I I just kind of prayed not really knowing what I was doing but I was so still almost in a State of Shock about what I had just done so it almost felt surreal and then after that the the few weeks after I had taken my shahada it was really just this overwhelming gush of emotions and I just felt like a totally different person and I was just really really thirsty really thirsty for Dean have you ever come across a hijabi person and what thoughts crossed your mind I met my friend's mom mom who was Muslim and she had come in to Los Angeles for a visit and I got to meet her and we took a walk down the boardwalk uh on Venice Beach and she was wearing a long sleeve of Baya and a hijab and of course I'm asking her the usual questions aren't you hot aren't you hot in that you know like do you really wear that all the time like what what if you want to go swimming or and this is me asking a million questions and she was so strong so so so strong I can't even talk about I'll get emotional she was so strong in her faith and it really inspired me to kind of look deeper into it like how is she like torturing herself in this heat you know how is she how is she so committed and so dedicated that she's not going to even let even her wrist show you know and I was so truly inspired and like it's hard not to cry because I get really emotional about it and um she inspired me so much that I named my daughter after her so she was definitely my first impression of a Muslim and the best impression of a Muslim how did you start wearing hijab when I first put hijab on I was coming in on a flight to Morocco at night and I had a backpack with me on the plane and in that backpack was a scarf a big thick ridiculous scarf I remember getting off that plane and saying to myself this is it as soon as I get off plane and my feet touch the Earth here in Morocco this is when my second chapter of my life truly begins and I want to start that off on the right foot so I took that scarf and I went into the bathroom in the airport and I tried to wrap it up nicely and I did not do it very nicely but I said well you know it's my first time we'll see how this goes and so I put it on and I wrapped it around and I've never taken it off since that day alhamdulillah for the people that say you know it's very restrictive it's very oppressive it restricts my freedom nobody was holding me at gunpoint to put a hijab on you know when I left Morocco and I came to the United States again people ask me why don't you take it off you're not in Morocco anymore I said well my faith does not depend on my location I don't want to take it off and I think a lot of people were shocked that when I came back to America that I didn't take it off do you also give da to the people around you and how do you do this so I do give dawa all the time I like to call it unspoken dawa meaning how do I carry with myself in public when I'm around someone that's maybe looking at me strange because maybe they've never seen someone in hijab or maybe they don't know what to think of me because I'm white I don't speak with an accent I don't look like I'm from the Middle East so I'm the colorful outgoing friendly Muslim that speaks in the same accent they speak in you know so a lot of times people will ask me questions and I will give daa to them if they initiate it I don't chase people down and try to teach them about Islam but you know friends or people that I know or even strangers if they ask me questions I always say I'm not here to preach to you I'm not here to convert you to Islam I'm here to to help you and answer any questions that you might have but you know I'm not going to push my religion on you so did anyone become Muslim after being inspired by you okay so I was living in Morocco and there were several of us and we were all sitting at this Cafe a few tables away was a girl and her mother and the girl was probably like 13 or 14 maybe 15 and she kept staring at us and we didn't think anything of it you know uh some of us were wearing like the traditional like well I don't know how traditional is but thear with the two pieces and some of us were in the CB she kept staring at us and oddly enough we're all white and we all have blue eyes so in a Muslim country we do kind of stand out you have a table full of like seven blue-eyed white reverts yeah people are going to notice you know I just kind of kept my eye on her and I noticed that she started crying and she was crying for quite a while and I felt really bad and I had my laptop at the time I wanted to leave her a little note but you know I do speak Moroccan Arabic but I wanted to leave her a note in fousa so I took a paper and I opened my laptop and got on Google translate and I'm trying to write out in Arabic a note to her saying like you know whatever you're crying about may Allah lot easier pain so as I'm writing this note I'm almost done and her and her mom stand up and they go to leave and I'm thinking I cannot let this girl leave I have to give her this note they start to leave and they kind of like are walking past our table and I flag her down and I said it's SL excuse me excuse me and so I and I brought her over and I kind of said do you speak English and she didn't I'm trying to tell her like hey I'm actually writing this and I show her on my screen I'm like you see this I'm like I'm writing this for you and so I just hold up my laptop so she can just read the Arabic and she just bursts into tears and so you know she speaks English a little bit you know they always say like no I don't but they they speak English you know so she tells us she was like I was sitting with my mom and I've been wanting to wear hijab for the past few months I haven't felt the strength to be able to do that I don't know how to like break it to my friends that I want to start wearing hijab and she said when I looked over at all of you and not only are you all reverts but you're all covered and you're all like very covered she said it just really made me realize how strong it must make you and she says as a born Muslim we're so scared of what our friends think but seeing that you guys care what no one thinks and you're doing it clearly for the pleasure of Allah it just makes me want to put hijab on so much more now so of course all of us are crying at this time and we're like come here come here we all give her a big hug and we exchange numbers and oddly enough about two weeks later I happen to run into her and her mother she went from wearing skinny jeans and a crop top t-shirt to wearing full maxi skirt long sleeve in full hijab and I was really really really happy to see that we know that Islam brings solutions to every issues of Life what are the three biggest problems of the American society you think that Islam can solve I would say it's not three it's the entire Society the entire Society needs help the entire Society has completely fallen from Grace I think Islam would benefit America in nearly every aspect and I don't mean that in a very dream way it just mean it's a it's a guideline you know Islam is not this like rigid set of rules that are going to make your life miserable no it's a guideline to live a complete and happy life in a way that you're pleasing Allah at the same time and if you just make small changes I feel like it would have immeasurable benefit to society but I can't pinpoint a PL an area where where Islam would fix something because it Islam would literally fix everything everything if you had a chance to speak to all the non-muslims in the world if you could address them what would you like to say to them don't listen to what you see on the on the media do your own research talk to a Muslim you want to know what goes on inside of a mosque show up to one walk inside don't draw your opinion of Islam or Muslims based on what you see draw your opinion based on what you experience because it'll be the opposite of what you've been shown after Witness what's going on in Gaza many non-muslims were really interested in Islam from America as well so how do you see the future of Islam in America well I can't say for sure because I can't see into the future but I do know that after 911 there was a huge amount of reverts that came from that so I think this is a lot different because when we looked at 9/11 we were told that terrorists did it which obviously they didn't we were told that these terrorists were attacking us on our homeland and despite being attacked in our own home there were still so many reverts coming out of this now we're looking at something where you see the world and the way they're looking at what's happening in Gaza their their hearts are shattering so if you can produce a lot of reverts from an event that directly hurt Americans think about how many reverts can come from a situation where we are not being attacked we're just witnessing evil and so I think a lot of people have seen the unshakable [Music] face the unshakable faith of the Palestinians as Muslims we need to learn from them you know you see these people that are experiencing truly unimaginable tragedy and we don't have to imagine it because we're seeing it in real time and despite truly unbearable human conditions they all have their fingers up and they're all saying every time and for the world to witness the way that Muslims truly rely on Allah you don't see from those Muslims there the reaction that the world would expect you see the exact opposite you see the tender moments the soft Hearts you see people helping each other the world is finally seeing Muslims are not the monsters that we've been portrayed as for so long you know we're not characters in movies with you know strips of fabric tied around the head and guns everywhere that's that's not that's not the Muslim the Muslim is the one who's who's getting killed at Al AXA the Muslim is the one who is burying his wife and his 11 children and still saying alhamdulillah alhamdulillah and still having the strength so the world is seeing that the Muslims are truly a group of gentle-hearted faith-based people who knows that it truly does take a village to raise a child and so when we see all these children that now have no family look at how these doctors are caring for them as if they're own and and we're seeing this side of Islam that's undeniable you can take away everything from a Muslim but you cannot take away our faith may Allah allow you to inshah enter his paradise and uh thank you so much for your efforts inshah to to be an ambassador of Islam thank you so much for having me a mean to everything that you said and if anybody's watching this please make jeel for my parents that they become Muslim insh inshallah [Music] oh

Channel: Eternal Passenger

Views: 670,972

Keywords: Eternal Passenger

Id: NcUOI9SrFkE

Length: 33min 6sec (1986 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 06 2024