Millions in the U.S. converted to Islam after 9/11, meet one of them

most american muslims who are riverts uh have a similar story if they were around it not during 9 11. um where you're kind of like who are these people and why did they do this and you start googling it and like in my case i'm pulling it up on the computer uh because i'm seeing it on tv you know islamic terrorists and i'm like what is islamic i mean what is islam and the funny thing is i knew muslim people i had muslim friends but you know you think it's like christian christianity jewish judaism hindu hinduism buddhist buddhism and you know muslim muslimism you know uh yeah i didn't know the word islam i really didn't even know the word islam yet and this was 2001 the day of september 11th yeah because my son was at school i was at work we left everybody we just shut down work and i came home because i got a notification my son was gonna be coming home so i get on the computer i thought he's gonna he's he was in fifth grade and he's gonna have tons of questions right so i better start looking this up you know if he asks who did this why did they do this all this i need to have all this information right so i'm looking it up online um what is islam and the first thing that pops up and this had this not if something else had popped up i may not even be muslim right now um literally the thing that popped up that i the first thing i clicked on the first link i clicked on what came up on the screen was like you ever see the simpsons where it's like that cloud and it says the simpsons comes out of the cloud um it was sort of like that only what came out it says islam equal sign peace islam equals peace i was sitting on my kitchen table and right over the my laptop is the tv in the family room and i'm watching the towers falling for like the 50th time and you know that they've repeated it on cnn i'm like that doesn't look peaceful who are these people so that made me the fact that that popped up made me want to keep looking so i clicked on some more and then i'm like well it doesn't look peaceful and then i'm reading well what do they believe and or what are they called and then it said the people who follow islam are muslims i'm like wait my friend mo is muslim cool so that made me keep reading and keep reading and then i uh came across a couple different um verses out of the quran and so then when my son got home i you know i'm like honey do you want to talk about all this is about what i said well you know what happened it was oh yeah like a plane hit you know yeah yeah yeah that sucks can i go over to keith's house sure play basketball all right i just kept reading i was fascinated and i'm like well what do these people actually believe and said uh you know that they pray to god and god in the arabic is allah that's the same god as jews and christians pray to because it's an abramic religion i'm like okay so it's sort of like a branch okay cool i was in morocco for a while and i went to a catholic church in morocco and opened up a bible and it was in arabic wait you know i'm looking and i said wait that says allah because i recognize the what allah looks like in arabic i don't read arabic but i know a few i can recognize some of the words and i said that says allah he goes well yeah i said but it's catholic it's christians yeah but this is an arabic speaking country i said wait so christians in arab countries say allah well yeah why would they say god that's an english word like oh okay i kept reading and i'm like well i pray to god i don't pray to jesus i'm like well then who is do they believe in jesus you know and they and so i'm reading like islam and jesus and said they believe that jesus is the greatest of all prophets that he will come and judge the living and the dead on judgment day and all these things that christians believe and i'm like well what the heck's the difference this seems like a part of christianity is there any difference other than the scarf you know and a lot of christians wear scarves you go to like south america women are wearing scar head scarves to get you know to go into a catholic church i don't wear it very much in public unless i'm going to be at a muslim event if it's going to be all muslims then yeah i wear a head scarf if i'm not going to be around muslims i still dress you know modestly i don't you know wear short skirts or you know i wear long pants and long sleeves and loose garments you know but i won't wear a headscarf because people are cool with a tunic and leggings and my long beautiful hair flowing but i put it in a bun and wrap a scarf around it and suddenly i'm a terrorist so like really come on man i went to high university in reynoldsburg high school and you know i'm as much ohio as anybody else here i had a guy come up from behind me and i didn't even see him and he came up from behind me and he said um i had to defend effing terrorist like you in afghanistan i start to turn my head to see because i don't even know he's there i'm have my shopping cart headed toward my car and i start to turn around as soon as i do he takes you know my head and just bashes it down and those little bolts that stick up you know it hit and went like that and cut me he goes running and so these two um what i thought were young african-american kids teenagers take off after him literally jump on top of him and make him you know to stop him in his place so they bring him back these two kids turns out the two kids they're not just a couple young african-american teenagers they're somali immigrants refugees muslim and they saw a muslim sister being hurt you know that's how islam is like when it comes down to it we look out for each other because we're all considered you know pariah in the society oh and i've had you know just weird looks and people walking by and flipping you off and you know just you name it like i was coming out of a meyers store and uh i'm walking out she's walking in all of a sudden i feel this and she's pulling my scarf and she goes i'm liberating you she goes and tries to pull it off i'm like ow you know like you're choking me and she's like literally yanking at it and she goes she goes there's no reason you shouldn't have you shouldn't let any man make you wear that i said lady i'm single and there is no man right now in my life and you know and if there was if he told me to wear it i would probably choose not to because he told me to and she was right on sister and i said let me explain how this works you know and so i explained that it's you know it's uh it's not totally obligatory you know like it's it's totally a woman's choice if she chooses to wear it or not that's why a lot of muslim women in western countries we do we wear it sometimes you know somewhere at all the time some don't wear it at all she was actually progressive she was a bernie supporter turns out yeah who knew and uh you know and she goes i'm so sorry she finally did apologize i'm so sorry i said well next time don't just go up and rip things that's assault you know that's that's kind of illegal and you ripped my scarf and she offered to pay for it like now

Channel: CGTN America

Views: 18,795

Rating: 4.8903742 out of 5

Keywords: @cgtnamerica, CGTN, China news, China, Television, Network, covid-19, coronavirus, news

Id: 1VW8VdsBiII

Length: 7min 47sec (467 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021