- I thought you were going
to say, a lovely couple. (laughing) Sorry, sorry. (laughing) Sorry, sorry, sorry. My name is Junaid, I'm 46-years-old, I converted to Islam in 2003, so about 13 years. English through and through, England born. I was born in Sheffield,
I live in Wakefield in West Yorkshire now. But yes, as English as
I think you can get. (laughing) I'm of a Christian
background, Church of England. My parents were, definitely
had a belief and a faith. We did Sunday School up to
the age of maybe four, five, six years old. At that point, we moved
house, and as we moved house, I think that never continued. A belief in faith was always
there in the household, but not necessarily a driven
religious belief or faith, but it kind of always fell within me, as I grew a little bit
older, because it was covered at school, we
always looked at religion, religion was something
that was very important. I then started actually going
to Christian groups myself at not much older than
that, probably eight, nine, 10-years-old. That carried on for quite a few years, so it was always a belief and a faith, and you know, a need or
desire to know about religion. Then I kind of hit the mid teen years and kind of, if you
like, the religious side, the religion side faded away a little bit, the faith never did, the being religious, if you like, never faded,
but the attending classes, the, you know, going
three, four times a week, going on Fridays, going on Sundays, that subsided, shall
we say, and the things that teenage boys do kind of took over. You know what I mean? And as I went through from that stage, there was always this belief, there was always this
faith, I knew there was something bigger than me. I never really thought about what it was, and it was only later on that I realized, I always had that faith and that belief, but if nothing else, it came down to, generally speaking, people are good, if you do good things,
good things will happen, if you give, you'll get. You know, just a nice
approach to life but, not a formal religious aspect within my life,
if that makes sense. I say, I had a good job, I had a nice car, lived in a nice house, I had
the trappings of a great life, and my job at the time, I was in training, so I delivered training courses. I'd been doing it for
quite a number of years, I was well educated, a masters degree, and the training that I did was in a very white male dominated industry, so it was training to white guys who
have a certain mentality and a certain mindset, a
very macho kind of mindset, and the way that they live their life, you know, the work and play was all kind of geared around the same
issues and the same things. And one of the courses that
we ran on a very regular basis was a two week residential
training course, so it was based in a
hotel, all the training was done in the hotel, we were a resident in the hotel, so you've got a load of guys in a hotel where they can pretty much do whatever they want in the evenings, and all they've gotta do
is wonder out of their room into a training room the
next day, and that kind of cultivated a certain attitude and mindset across the course, which
was amusing at time, shall we say. And it was always the same kind of things, the same kind of people. And then, one course, we
had somebody on the course, people went into the bar in the evening, and this person wasn't drinking, and given the kind of
people that we had there, it was sort of, why are you not drinking? And they explained it was,
A, because they were Muslim, and also, the reason they weren't eating during then, they
weren't drinking anything was, it was actually Ramadan. So, my ignorance for Islam knew no bounds at this point, I didn't,
through circumstance, didn't really mix with Muslims, didn't know Muslims, didn't
know anything about Islam. And people were asking these questions, and I found the answers
really interesting, so I just found myself sort of gravitating towards this person and
having a conversation, so, oh, when you say you're
fasting, what does this mean? When you say Ramadan, what does this mean? And then when it gets to
religion, what does this mean? It was quite, it was an
enlightening, eye-opening, incredible experience really,
'cause all of a sudden, and I've kind of categorized it afterwards or explained it afterwards that I found, I was receiving lots
of answers to questions I didn't realize I had, and
it all made perfect sense, and it was all very rational,
and it was just like, wow, oh, so this is the
same religion, in effect, I mean, this is what I've
lived for all of my life. It's not your religion and my religion, there's no difference,
it's the same, also, Jesus Christ is an amazing individual, but he's not God. He's an individual, he's
a person, he's a prophet, that kind of makes more sense, you know. And just lots of things,
and conversations, and sort of, across these two weeks where everyone else would
disappear to the bar, I would be just sat
there tapping this person for information and just
pulling information out and conversing, and gradually all these lights were coming on, and it just made so much sense. And I wasn't looking for
it, I wasn't seeking it, I didn't feel a need
for anything in my life, but all of a sudden, ping, ping, ping, all of these answers were coming, and literally, over two weeks, I think even I was thinking, okay, this is really cool,
this kind of makes sense, but then that breeds an
awful lot of apprehension and I'm not gonna do this. You know what I mean? No, this can't possibly happen. So, there's lots of issues,
lots of potential problems. So, we kept in touch after the course, because the course is residential, they move back to their
part of the country. We kept in touch, and
I just became, I think, the most annoying person in the world, 'cause I was just, so what
about, on the telephone, so what about, so what about, and just question after
question after question after question, and I
think I recognize that I was looking for the flaw, I was looking for the thing that
would stop me ultimately taking this step that
I think realistically, I knew ultimately I was going to take you know what I mean? And I was looking for the flaw. So what about this and what about that, and asking all these questions, and the patience of this individual was phenomenal, was absolutely, I think that God sends
angels in many forms and whoever was guiding them was just, it was incredible, because
I must have annoyed the heck out of them. So, I'm asking question after question after question after question, yeah, trying to find the flaw,
trying to find the thing that would stop me making this move, and eventually, this might
have been six months, they tell me, find this
book, read this book, obviously, the Quran, you know, take this, just have a look, and then
I'd ask another question, and then I'd read something
and I'd ask a question, and they just answered these question, answered these questions,
answered these questions. And eventually, I don't
know, maybe five, six, seven months, they kind of said, right, I think it's time for
you to visit a mosque, I think it's time for you to go and, I can answer so many questions, you know. What do you think? And I was like, yeah,
wow, okay, let's do that. I just said, well, so what do I do, how does that happen? I've never been in a mosque. I'm comfortable when it's church, I'm used to that, I've
never been into a mosque. And so they gave me a few, you know, take your shoes off at
the door, it'll be fine, it'll be fine, everybody will like you, it won't be a problem. I go to the mosque by myself, I drive up, and then I drive past,
and then I drive past, and then I drive past, and then eventually pull up the courage, and
I've never felt so white, I've never felt so nervous,
this is a confident guy, and all of a sudden I'm
sweating, and I kind of went into this place and I see
these shelves with shoes on them, so I'm thinking, okay. So I'm kicking my shoes off,
and a chap just came out and said, hi, can I help you? And I'm thinking, oh, he
obviously thinks I'm here to check the fire escapes,
you know what I mean? And he's just, can I help you? And I say, well, I'm
really interested in Islam, and I wondered if you could
maybe answer some questions. Bang, the cake came out
and the tea and the drinks, and people came around,
it was just, the warmth. Everything I'd been told
would happen happened. It was quite extraordinary, and, you know, hours later, I left the mosque just already a different person. Just the warmth and the, I don't know... Just the attitude that
people had that I'd seen in this other individual and
then other people since then was magnified, if you like. And so, it was easier to
explore and ask the questions and get a bit more guidance, and then very shortly after that, I accepted Islam and, yeah, no turning back. It was extraordinary. But from nothing, from I
wasn't seeking anything to really don't want to do this, you know. How can I stop this happening, to, okay, there's no flaw. Every single question
has a rational answer to it, has an explanation, and it just made sense. Everything that I'd done as a child, so, who was Noah, who was Moses, who are these people
I've kind of heard of, and they're all explained. All of these things were now explained. It all made just perfect sense. When I made my Shahada, it was quite an extraordinary experience actually. Approaching it, I assumed it
would be really difficult, I assumed there would be lots to it, I assumed, I just, again,
assumption, assumption, assumption. I'm not born into this. I didn't know things that other
people may take for granted, I had absolutely no concept of, and once they get explained to me, not all you'll be doing is. And I said, well that seems
really quite straightforward. You know, we'll give that a go. So, as a result then my pendulum swings so far the other way where I thought, oh, this will be easy then. This will be really straightforward. It was very simple. It was very straightforward
but, the transition was really quite visceral
and quite extraordinary. There's just this, I want to say a feeling
of warmth or a glow, I don't know really how to describe it. But there was a physical manife... There was a change, you could feel the change, if that makes sense. Where you just say these words and you say them in
Arabic and then somebody's explaining what that means in English. It's not just the case
of, I'll say these words and we're not going to tell you what the, you know, it's well explained and told. It's a very simple statement
but such a profound statement but such an obvious one. You know, saying I believe in one God and I believe that prophet
Mohammed made peace with people and it is his messenger. And ultimately, you
make in this declaration and so simple, so simple. And this, this, just this, I'm repeating myself, I apologize, but this warmth, this
glow, this, I could feel the transition. It was extraordinary. It was absolutely extraordinary. And from then, the response from people, that, it's
like they were experiencing it as well. The utter joy and, (sighs). It's very hard to explain. It's very hard to put
across but just people were in a very, form an environment but they literally leapt
up and kept hugging me and congratulating, it was amazing. It was amazing. It was absolutely incredible. I mean the concern for me, there were many as I say, I was genuinely looking for the flaw. I'm thrilled that I couldn't find it. But the concerns were,
I think a lot of them were about perception. How other people would perceive me. So, as an example, living in the culture in which I was raised, people drink. And it's a large part of the, when I say drink, they drink alcohol. And it's a large part of the culture. And not doing that might make it difficult to mix with certain
people and certain people might even frown on that. I mean, I now I think, hey ho, you know what I mean, it absolutely has no bearing, no impact now but at the time, that was a big issue. It was, it was not long after 9/11, there was a certain
perception around the world, even with that as I say, my
ignorance knew no bounds, I didn't know a great deal about Islam until meeting people and
then it was a huge transition cause the people that I was meeting was so much in conflict with, or how they behaved
was so much in conflict with what you were seeing
and what you were hearing and what you were being told. It was extraordinary. But you know, there was an issue with regards to that. And a lot of it, yeah it
came down to the issues of perception. How would people view me? I've worked for the same
company for an awful long time. I was well established. I have a roll that put me out into a huge network of people. I stood up in front of
people and delivered training courses. Could I, could I still do that if, was my life going to change? And were those changes going to be, you know, ultimately negative? Was it going to make
my life more difficult? I feel extraordinary even
mentioning alcohol now because at the time, my God, even saying it feels, it feels horrible saying it, it feels weird saying it. Cause at the time, just
seeing a focal part of so many peoples lives and then now that it has
absolutely no bearing, you just think, why do
people waste so much time, money, and sanity, and
why do they allow things to just sap the goodness out of them. I don't know. Maybe I'm just going a
little bit too far but, absolutely no issue. I much prefer not drinking. I much prefer my children
being in an environment where they don't see alcohol. I much prefer, or when they do see it, it's hard to see alcohol
in a positive form when you're a child and all you see is what it does to people. Ultimately the issues that I had certainLy wrapped around
alcohol and perception, how I would perceived
and how I would be seen. A, ultimately don't matter, that they generally don't matter. But the one thing that I found is, I fundamentally don't feel
like I've changed at all. All that's happened is my
life has just got better and better and better and better. Okay, I don't drink, no issue. You know, it doesn't make
any difference at all. But all that happens is, the circle of friends that you meet with, just becomes different. And from my point of view, that's much, much, much better. Because the circle of people I meet with have a mentality and a mindset that there's one God and we
talk about God a lot and you know, this comes into your life and how it affects your life and you just view things differently. Fundamentally I don't think I've changed. I've changed some of the things that I do but overall I feel like
I'm the same person. I'm as good as I ever was. It's just that now that
goodness has a purpose and a reason behind it. Yeah, life's brilliant, all
these apprehensions about how will I be perceived? There will be some people
who wouldn't even know that I'd converted to Islam. Some people wouldn't even know because I just live my life in a way that I'd like to think people
should live their life. Yeah, so if there were any apprehensions, it was the negativity that might come from embracing and accepting Islam and actually it's been
nothing but positive. Everything about the
journey has been positive. You start a new focus and a new drive and a new reason for
getting up in the morning for the things that you do, everything that you do is with a purpose and with a vision and with a view. If you take it to a very basic, a very basic principle, it's to help people around you and then ultimately, you know, so that hopefully
God will be happy. Yeah, so overall, the change
that Islam has brought has been, well, nothing but positive. It's all been positive. There's all positive changes. This change if you like,
within your mentality. When I get up in the morning
I know why I'm getting up, I know why I'm doing the things I'm doing. But also I want to do
things for other people. I want to help the people around me. One of the things I find
in the Muslims that I meet and the Muslims I speak to is this desire to help those around them. The desire to help your neighbor. The desire to help anybody around you. Whether they're Muslim or not,
anybody that comes to you, you're actively trying to
find a way to help them cause if you can help them, if you can help their life, if you can make their
life a little bit better, the world gets a bit better then you know, God should
be happy with that. All of these things is
what people should do. But you now realize why you're doing it. And it's an amazing feeling and it's there all the time. And I see my children doing it. I see my children wanting
to help other people. I see my wife, all my friends, it's extra... You don't lose anything from that. You're gaining all the time. It's not about you giving things away. It's what you get from
helping other people. So, the religion encourages
you to help other people. But all the time that that's happening, you're growing and you can feel this, yeah, this thing, you get a great feeling, a great sense of joy
whilst you live your life. That's, as well as everything that you get from the religion itself. Just, your whole philosophy, your whole way of life is, what can I do to better the world? What can I do to better
the people around me? And as a result, what can
I do to improve myself? I'm not one to giving advice but my first piece of advice would be ask questions. There will be lots of
things running around your head where you're thinking, well what about, what about, what about, what about, ask the questions
because I'm telling ya there will be an answer
and it will be an answer that will make this
journey more easy for you. And ultimately, yeah, do it, do it. I can't be one to tell
you, and it is entirely up to you, all I would say is, the temptation to
procrastinate and put things off in life is a big one. Not with this. If you want life to
get better and improve, I personally would say, yeah, do it. But that's up to you. It's up to you. Ask the questions, alleviate the doubt and yeah, take the step.
A very interesting story
To spend 6 months asking questions about Islam to find a mistake, then finally being convinced is remarkable.