Islam in Spain - A Conversation with a Local Revert from Catalunya.

[Music] uh good evening everyone hopefully you guys are doing well in sha allah some of you may have known the islamic history in spain and probably wondering about the life of muslims in the current year in today's video insha'allah we will be speaking with one local muslim muslim i should say who has been living in spain as a muslim for the past 10 years and i think it would be interesting to get her thoughts and inputs about life as a muslim in barcelona if you're interested let's go ahead and find out about it [Applause] [Music] um finally here i'm so happy you visit me i thank you so much let's let's let's have a seat and and i i found out that this is a newly opened place that's really yes we opened just one week ago then we tried to introduce new halal food in barcelona and and i i will present you some of the food as well oh thank you i hope it's not on my channel i mean is there any specific food that you're trying to make and and you would like to try to offer um to the people yes i make like a traditional bakery in spanish yeah but i i make it all a lot can you share a little bit about your coffee shop yes it's a santa cafema specialty or anything at all yeah i make i make like uh salt uh no how do you say salados in salads savory savory pastries savory pastries all halal then i make i have halal meat i have how you say turkey oh okay everything i have all my sandwich everything you can try is experience emma come the padres she is a muslim from catalonia she has reverted to be a muslim about 10 years ago beside visiting her new cafe i had the opportunity to talk about her experiences as a muslim and and talking specifically about you yourself i mean could you share a little bit just just a briefly about about uh how how was your journey what was the first moment for you to hear the first time about islam and what was your thought okay yes of course uh i am makam de padros i am catalan muslima all my family is catalan and i am muslim like 10 years ago alhamdulillah then this is a really long time ago i remember is i have like maybe 16 17 years old okay yeah and i live in the coast area i live in one village in the forest area okay and we have too many moroccan families okay living there but i don't know too much about islam and i remember when i had 17 i make one very friend of one girl okay have my my age and always every evening we stay together we play like that and i remember one time the family invited me to have like marienda okay just for the people who's not family or merenda it's just a spanish afternoon tea snack we can say yeah well but it's not a tea snack it's so easy then i go first time i didn't know nothing about american people and i see one table like that everything cakes sweets tea coffee meals what whatever i can't even mention too many food and i was shocked i said what is this yeah and then this is like the first thing and i remember the father of my friend she he talked too much about islam yeah in that moment i didn't know what is that was your first time ever yeah yeah my first time and he explained like for me like a histories you know he's playing the histories of his of koran but i didn't know in that time and i was heading hairy heading and i i was thinking oh my god this man is explaining for me his stories yeah yeah yeah very for me like fantastic it's like i didn't understand nothing but it's okay for me i say okay for the food you are happy yeah this is of course and this is what i think was the the first first first thing okay but let me show you your story started let's say when you were 16 to 17 and then it evolved over time this is what's happened like that and i live i don't make attention on that of course i i follow my life yeah then then but i never got relation with this friend but okay even now is my friend still my friend and the father as well the father imagine that when because i i think i read it when i have 26 or something like that imagine 10 years after that and even the father was very very very happy when i come to islam because i i know one part of of my rabbit is for him and then i i remember that when i have like 22 23 years old i remember i have too many questions too many questions about the life about the future about what happened and then when how in my village i have many moroccan friends then i asked them i asked them sorry what do you do when when you die when the people die what happened or this or something i i feel like something but i didn't know that yeah and because before i i never believed in god before and this has happened i have one one time in my life too many questions i don't feel i don't feel like comfortable with my life you know i i go outside with my friends i work and something like that but i i i need something i need something but i didn't know nothing about that and i never i never gonna think it's like god yeah yeah okay then this has happened happen happened and how i want to say and then i i don't remember too much but i start to learning arabic so before even accepting islam yeah meanwhile you started with arabic yes i don't remember too much but i i want to learn it then because um always my life i like the language then i i i try with arabic then i remember i go to cloth to start arabic like because it was very the letters that yeah and then when i was there i i met one sister she she told me look we have one group in sans very big there are too many spanish muslima we can help you and i say okay i will try this and then i contact and i go to rahma but in rahmah before of course they are in one building like uh illegal maybe yes of course illegal and how you say in english when it's like it's [Music] if you don't want hijab it's different okay you don't want his job it's one thing but when when you when you try to make the change of what hijab yeah you you pass from here to here just because of what you were of course me me for example i i try like one year to work hijab because i what i want to be very consciently i have his job and i don't want to take it out yeah but every time i go to the bus the people look at me like that or they say oh you speak catalan how you speak qatar and this is and i say because i am catholic because you are i don't believe now i am from outside or they they tell me go to your country and i was thinking sorry go you to your house too many too many histories like that because when i when i wear hijab i feel that people speak with me like i am not the same person like i am worse then this is a little bit but but you are also saying on a positive note that in the past it has been a lot more difficult but things are really improving and improving even though there are still obvious challenges to it but it gets better yeah that like when these things happen i'm not i it's not bad for me i am like it because i said look look i am catalan and i am muslim and i explain a little bit for the people step by step it's like yes because they don't know yeah but it's it's difficult for the people they they see hijab and you are foreigner you are outside you are visual but for this reason i think in the future the things is changing because it's difficult sorry for saying that i i think you know i am honest yeah because when when when you feel something when you revert when you start to islam you feel very alone you feel very alone you feel very good for one side but you feel very alone because your family is not with you your friends is not with you yeah nobody in your intern is with you yeah then then for this reason i say it's very very important to have one group to support you because you want to feel very very lonely right this is a new new life altogether of course you want to change your life and your father your mother don't understand your friends something they leave you yeah then it's it's so hard when because i i have been one meeting like one month or two months ago yeah but all we are 40 new muslims yeah very nice and most of them they they feel same they feel we are alone we need to make something because yeah now as i'm hearing you i've got goosebumps because obviously uh you know classify and classing myself as fortunate to be able to be brought up even though for me islam is something that you have to choose for yourself even though your family or your communities might be muslim but islam is an active option and choice that you have to choose and that's when you really really practice it because you want to do it and not because you're just following others that's number one but being brought up in a muslim of families and communities i avoid the hardship that you're just mentioning like yeah the loneliness that's actually something that maybe we could get your your advice on i mean for people who are facing this you you would say to find a community of course as a system support yeah for and i and i and i do too many times and when pandemic finish we make one group of women to speak a little bit about islam to to make more easy or to explain you know the easy things how to pray all this in in the beginning is is like very hard imagine it's not your language it's only only we because we don't we don't born with islamic knowledge you know nothing one thing is very easy for somebody because you see your grandma or you see somebody or you know for us is new and so difficult then i think it's very important to to have this or when when this process happened to you have somebody catching your hand and help you help you thank you so much for that [Music] this is alhamdulillah is changing little bit but i think the background of spanish is very hard oh yeah okay okay i think so then it's uh i don't want to say that but this very racist he's pretty racist okay yeah then alhamdulillah this is changing i think the new the new the new people is coming i think they open a little bit the mind yeah but it's very hard and difficult it's very undifficult yeah yeah wow there are most of people this is very nice or respect but other one is very i was really happy and glad to hear her story and knowing how much she struggled to believe in what she had chosen was just inspiring masha'allah may allah bless her i wish everything that we have shared today can make all of us a better muslim inshallah so that would be it from this conversation of this video if this is something that you enjoy or you like we can always do more and let me know in the comment sections what are the questions that you would ask to local reverts in case i didn't already ask for it or she didn't already answer and if you make it until the end of the video thank you so much for supporting uh please consider supporting this channel by subscribing and liking this video shout out to your friends as well thank you inshallah we'll see you in the next video [Applause]

Channel: HalalXP (Halal Food Travel Channel)

Views: 27,103

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Id: CXPpf8se8c8

Length: 15min 56sec (956 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 13 2022