Fascinating story of how US brother Quentin reverted to Islam. His journey took his across different worlds to ,which helped in seeking Allah and the right guidance. This is his journey in his own worlds
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
All
praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds: The Entirely Merciful, the
Especially Merciful. Glory be to our Perfect Creator and Master. Praise
be to Allah, the Eternal Refuge. I ask for His Peace and Blessings upon
our Noble Prophet, the Last Prophet, Muhammad ﷺ, and his family, as He
bestowed his Peace and Blessings upon Ibrahim ﷺ and his family. I thank
Him for his Blessings upon me, and for guiding me to the Straight Path,
which is Islam, and for removing the veil from my eyes through His Mercy
so that I could understand the Glorious Qur'an is His Direct Speech. I
seek His Forgiveness, and I ask Him for Paradise, and to save me from
the torment of the grave, and the torment of the Fire, and the trials of
life and death, and the evil of the trial of the False Messiah.
I
was raised as a Catholic in the Midwest United States. My grandmother
taught me most of what I knew about religion, and she instilled in me a
deep love of Jesus ﷺ and his mother Mary (peace be upon her) and Saint
Michael the Archangel ﷺ. She was from Ireland.
My parents
sent me to private Christian schools, and I heard about Islam for the
first time in my high school religious studies class. We were taught
that there were five "Great" religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. I came away from that class with the idea that
these religions were equally good and correct: Five different ways of
being "spiritual."
The next time i heard about Islam was
in university in a course about Judaism. The Qur'an on the list of
required books. My copy - the Yusuf Ali translation - was very small. It
had many, many footnotes. We hardly looked at it in class, which was
mostly about the first-century Christian evangelist named Paul. However,
I came away with one piece of new information about Islam that really
surprised me, which was that Muslims also believed that Jesus ﷺ was born
of a virgin.
Islam disappeared from my mind until several
years later, after I had finished college. At that time, I was teaching
English in South Korea. One day, I found a mosque with a bookstore next
door. I went in and met some the owner of the store. He told me that in
Islam, a man's intention is part of his soul. He was very enthusiastic.
Islamic theology seemed very deep and advanced. He had a real passion
in his eyes when he spoke about the religion that I didn't often see in
any of the Christians that I knew.
I have heard other
reverts say that Islam was the last religion that they turned to in
their search for the best way of living. That was also true about me,
and so despite these early encounters with Islam, it did not come into
my heart.
I continued my teaching career in Japan, still
looking for the right way of living. In the ancient city of Kyoto, there
were a lot of little shrines there to different spirits. Most Japanese
had no religion, but I met some people who had a Bible written by a
Japanese man in the 20th century. People said Kyoto hadn't been
destroyed by earthquakes because there were too many gods there. I
didn't find anything in Japan that was worth committing my life to, and I
kept thinking about Jesus ﷺ. I began to pray the rosary a lot.
Christians say the Hail Mary 100 times during the rosary. It goes:
Hail Mary, full of Grace: the Lord is with you.
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
I
had always loved this dark and mysterious prayer. But as I said it over
and over, the last line began to seem wrong. How could God have a
mother?
I stopped saying "mother of God" and replaced it
with "mother of Jesus." But it began to seem strange to be asking for
help from someone who had died. I knew that we could speak directly to
God - He created us, He is always there. So I stopped asking Mary (peace
be upon her) to pray for us. Eventually, I returned to the States.
There, I had a vision of Satan and the Fire.
I was on the
train, going far out into the suburbs to meet a friend. And I was
writing in my notebook, praising God, telling Him how Wonderful He is!
When I waiting for the train to go back, I saw a vision in the clouds. I
saw an old roommate of mine from college. He was walking. He was dead,
and he did not know. He was in the Fire. This man was basically a good
person, it seemed, but he was arrogant. Suddenly, a demon came from
behind him and bit his neck then another demon came and bit the demon
who was biting him then another demon came and bit the demon who was
biting the demon who was biting him. Then a woman came. And she tortured
him. Then the images departed and I saw Satan the Rejected. He flexed
his muscles, as though he was proud of all the evil he had caused. But
in truth, he was just a slave of Allah, like everyone else. And that was
the beginning of my reversion. This vision troubled me deeply, and from
that time, I began to be visited by Jinn.
When the Jinn
spoke to me, I heard their voices through other sounds - through the
sounds of electrical appliances, or running water. I thought that
perhaps, since the Jinn were made of smokeless Fire (Quran 15:27), they
travelled through electrical currents, or through water. They said some
things that were true, but most were lies, which seemed true, until I
thought about them a lot afterwards, and decided that they weren't. I
had never heard voices like that ever before in my life.
I
decided to go to Vietnam. This was as a way to continue my teaching
career, but I chose that place because I wanted to enter the psychology
of suffering people that had been inflicted by my country. Since I was
born on the Fourth of July, I felt a special connection to the United
States. In Vietnam, I became a Prophet - the Last Prophet. Or that is
what I thought.
In Vietnam, I saw a lot of people born
without arms and legs, because of the American use of the genotoxic
chemical weapon Agent Orange. I began to have strange dreams, and to
have visions. And I thought I was receiving prophecies from God. The
Jinn had told me that the world was going to end on 12/12 - December 12,
2012. At the time, I believed it, because I didn't know what Jinn were,
and I didn't know where the voices were coming from. I published my
revelations in a blog called "Visions of the End of the World." The blog
had bits and pieces of texts from all the religions I had studied - the
Bhagavad Gita, the Buddhist scriptures, the Gospels, the Torah, and
eventually, the Quran. A significant portion of the messages were to the
Jews. It seemed to attract their attention, and when I heard the Jinn,
they began to be accompanied by the voices of Jewish people.
God
was telling the Jewish people to change their ways and stop oppressing
the Palestinians, because He told them not to oppress the stranger,
since they were strangers in the land of Egypt. "Do not mistreat or
oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt" (Exodus 22:21).
In fact, Jewish voices often accompanied the Jinn. The other significant
message from God was for the Jews to rebuild the Temple, to reinstitute
the sacrifice they had abandoned, and so "The one who they will call
Messiah will come." But the Temple specified by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 40-43)
was too large for Temple Mount.
Jesus ﷺ never said that
he was the last prophet. So as a Christian, it was not impossible for
me. I began to go to church regularly, in Vietnam. I was reading the
Bible quite a bit, and struggling to understand it. I began to make the
Sign of the Cross backwards. I was deeply affected by my own country's
role in the plight of Vietnam, and increasingly, that of another country
in the region, Cambodia.
Cambodia had experienced a
genocide led by a criminal psychopath named Pol Pot, as a result of the
American interference in Vietnam, which had been a result of lies told
by President Lyndon B. Johnson that became known as the Gulf of Tonkin
incident. The streets of Cambodia were largely empty of people. I felt
an enormous sadness, and since my own country had caused this suffering,
I felt responsible.
I saw that the government of
Cambodia was evil, led by a former Khmer Rouge member named Hun Sen, who
has one eye, like ad-Dajjal. Hun Sen had torn down people's houses near
a lake, and drained the lake, and sold it to the Chinese, in order to
build a strip mall. So, I began to criticize them severely in my blog.
As a result, they began to practice magic on me. But all this time, I
felt protected by God. Even my local friends said this.
One
day in church, a letter came to me from God. It said, "go to Cambodia
and work in an orphanage for one month. And give your guitar to an
orphan." So, I started to get ready.
Then I was visited by
Satan. He was crafty and manipulative. I was being followed by strange
people. One day, George W Bush spoke to me from the toilet - because he
was a member of Skull and Bones. I was very troubled by this visitation.
It was very important for my reversion, because, from this incident, I
realized that I was following the wrong religion. That was because,
following the Christian religion, didn't protect me from visitations by
devils. One time, a big group of shayatin came to my house who were
working with people in the area who practiced magic. I could see them,
and one of them stuck his tongue out at me from a tiny hole in the
ceiling and made an unnatural noise, like hissing. I got out of there I
think that very same day. On the way to the bus, I saw a human devil. He
was riding a red motorcycle. He was the ugliest thing I had ever seen. I
was writing a blog on blogspot, writing all the prophecies that came to
me - the messages from God. It was confusing. Some of it I felt was
true, and some of it seemed doubtful. One of them said: " Forget God and
you will be forgotten." Later I saw something like it in the Glorious
Quran.
Alhamdulillah, I escaped from the devils and their
supporters to Cambodia and Vietnam. That is the place where I started to
become a Muslim in Cambodia, I found an orphanage, called Rainbow
Orphanage near Siem Reap. And I gave my guitar to a young man whose name
was like mine - this is something God told me to do - to give my guitar
to an orphan there. I worked there one month. during this time, I began
to pray lying down, with my face on the ground. It was sujud when I
didn't know how to do sujud. When I was in Cambodia some words came to
me - that I believed were from God - "You will go to ANKOR and then you
will study KORAN" (Ankor Wat is the largest religious structure in the
world, although now it is in ruins). A little while after that, I went
to Ankor Wat.
When I returned to the U.S. from Cambodia, I
applied for a job teaching English in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, i
took a keen interest in Judaism. My grandmother on my father's side was
Jewish and my grandfather's lineage was from Siciliy. His father's
father was an orphan, so we lost track of the origin of our family name,
"Obis." But when I later came to Arabia I thought it must be from
Arabic: عبس, because Sicily was ruled by Arab Muslims for a long time.
And so Obis was probably the Latinate rendering of this Arabic name.
There was some other evidence to support this view. I knew that either
Judaism or Islam was the correct religion, but i didn't know which
religion was right. They had a lot in common: both required circumcision
of males and prohibited pork. So I knew I wanted to be either Jewish,
or Muslim.
I was staying in a hostel in Chicago. I
continued praying by lying face down on the floor: at this time I was
reading the Zabur I had a dream about 'Isa ﷺ he was wearing white, and
walking away from me. Later on, I realized that this was his way of
saying "I never told people to worship me, and I am innocent of your
asking me for help." then in a dream, I saw God He was the Ancient of
Days from the Book of Daniel 7:9 "And the Ancient of Days was seated;
His garment was white as snow, And the hair of His head was like pure
wool." He looked very friendly but also extremely powerful, and He had
seen everything He was sitting in a wooden chair He had a square of
paper in his hand, with the number "12/12."
My father
bought me a Jewish prayer shawl made of white wool, with part of the
Torah written on it. It was made in occupied Palestine. After he got it
for me, I never prayed without it. I didn't understand the Torah. It was
really difficult. I wondered if I would come to Saudi Arabia, and then
move to Palestine, and become a Jew. It was called a tallith. There were
white tassels on the ends called tzizit. The Jews said that Allah's
tallith was light. There was something strange about the tallith. As
recorded in the Torah, Allah told Musa ﷺ "speak to the children of
Yisrael and you shall say to them to make tzitzit on the corners of
their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue cord in
the tzitzit of the corners. And it shall be to you for a tzitzit and you
shall see it, and shall remember all the commands of YHWH (Yehowah) and
shall do them, and not search after your own heart and your own eyes
which you went whoring, so that you remember and shall do all My
commands, and be set-apart unto your Elohim" (Deuteronomy 22:12). All
the tzizit (tassels) of my tallith (shawl) that was made in israel were
white. None of them were blue. I researched the issue. It turns out that
most talliths are made without the blue strand. This is because the
Rabbis are so nit-picky they cannot decide which animal the blue dye was
originally made from. Later on, it reminded me a lot of the Jewish
arguing and quibbling of Surat al-Baqarat. They disobey Allah's word in
the Torah because they still cannot agree on which animal to make the
dye from. So I got a blue pen and colored one of the tzizit blue.
I
went out for pizza and with some visitors to my city, Chicago. I had
been thinking of giving up eating pork for Allah's sake. But when we
were sitting in the restaurant, I realized that the sausage in the pizza
probably had pork but I thought to myself, "it's for the guests, and
it's the only time I will eat it." Then I went home and I said to Allah,
"I will never eat it again."
When I woke up in the morning, there were words in my mind very clear. The words were: " Today I have made you a Muslim."
That was the most wonderful moment of my entire life until that point. I still wonder about it.
I
didn't know what a muslim was, so I looked in the dictionary. It said
that the world "Muslim" meant "One who surrenders to God." It came from
the word "Salaam," which meant, "peace." So being a Muslim meant having
peace because you surrendered to God.
On the visa
application they asked for my religion. I looked up how to become Muslim
online. And I saw that you made the shahada: "There is no god but God
(Allah), and Muhammad ﷺ was a Messenger of God." When I returned to the
States from Cambodia, one of the first things I did was buy a Qur'an, in
English. I had never actually read it before, except for the first
Ayat: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم This Ayat affected me very strongly. Before
I read the rest of the Qur'an, I thought about this Ayat for months.
The Qur'an was just like the revelations that had come to me before,
except it was purified. The speech was organized in a way that I
couldn't find when they were coming to me. When I read the Quran later, I
found the perfect way of expressing it: قل (Say:).When the words and
revelations came to me, they were mixed-up and I could not figure out
how to express them. This is what the Qur'an looked like: I thought, I
knew how Muhammad ﷺ felt.
I didn't know that he ﷺ was
actually the Last Prophet. And I had deleted my blog Visions of the End
of the World because some of it didn't seem right, and I didn't trust
it. Parts were true and parts were not. I had begun a different blog,
which was called, I Am the Last Prophet. So I really believed that
Muhammad ﷺ was a Prophet. And I wasn't sure if I was, or not. I didn't
know exactly what a Prophet was. But I knew in general, that it meant
that God wanted him to tell the people something. And I believed that
Muhammad ﷺ was one. And I believed in One God. So under religion I
wrote, "Muslim." The Saudi embassy in Washington asked for proof of my
religion. But I had never prayed in a mosque. So I wrote down the
shahada, and I went to a public notary, and had the document certified.
My
father brought me to a mosque. The first time I entered a masjid was
1/1/1433. But it was just to see it. He's not Muslim. But he was
supportive of my getting a new religion that would be structured. We
just went to the Muslim neighborhood in Chicago near Devon and Wester
and stepped inside. A sign in the window said: “Don’t talk to
strangers.” Boarding the plane to Arabia, I was still not sure about
whether I would be a Muslim or a Jew. But when I met the Muslims of
Arabia in person, my heart filled up like a balloon. They weren't like
the people I knew in the USA. They were really patient. I loved their
commitment to religion, which was beyond anything I had ever seen. They
were courteous and devout. They smelled nice. I was teaching in the
Aramco program. My students were 18-22, all males. All of them were
chaste, and none of them had ever drunk alcohol. I couldn't believe how
pure they were. It made me really happy. The culture I came from prized
fornication and drunkenness. They didn't consider you a man unless you
fornicated as soon as you were able. Our families were mostly broken up.
At
this time, I was still occasionally hearing voices. The voices and
feelings that I had of being followed by Satan the Rejected and
Illuminati were almost tormenting me. But then, something amazing
happened. I read that, if a person read Ayat al Kursi after every
prayer, he would be protected from devils. By the Grace of Allah, I
memorized this Ayat in Arabic (which is remarkable, because I had zero
knowledge of Arabic and wasn't used to memorizing anything), and I began
to say it after every prayer. The voices immediately stopped.
AlHamdulillah, I have said Ayat al Kursi after every prayer since that
time.
Shortly afterwards, I was moved out of the hotel
where my company had put me, and was moved to another hotel, where I met
some of the other teachers. One of them was an extremely kind Syrian
Muslim, and we became dear friends. He showed me some basics of the
religion. I was amazed to discover wu'du (ablution). I couldn't believe I
hadn't ever done it before. People brought me a lot of books - all
kinds of books about Islam. I heard Shaykh al-Sudais reciting Surat al
Fatihah on the KSU Quran website. I was amazed to hear the Qur'an. It
was
sung, like the ancient people used to sing Homer and
Beowulf - not read in flat monotone, like the Gospels when I used to go
to church. I was amazed to find about how to pray - bow, and then
prostrate. I never prayed like that before in church. We only kneeled
down. I realized that my whole life, I was searching for Islam.
In
that hotel, I had a dream of Allah. There was a big eye that looked
like the Helix Nebula. Inside it, I saw the scales of Justice, and then a
rapid succession of abstract symbols. I fell to my knees saying,
“Allah, Allah.” Allah was much greater than the God I was familiar with.
As
we began our working teaching English, I was learning more and more
about the religion of Islam. My Syrian friend began to introduce me to a
series of extremely gracious and kind individuals who inquired about my
religion, and my belief that I was now Muslim. Eventually, they brought
me to a main da'wa center in Riyadh to speak with a very learned
scholar of the religion - a sheikh - and I still had some small doubt
about whether Jesus ﷺ was the "son of God" in a literal sense, or a
metaphorical sense. My instinct told me that it was only metaphorical -
that "son of God" was a term for someone who God loved. So I asked
whether in Islam, Jesus ﷺ could be called a "son of God" in a
metaphorical sense, and he said yes. I felt very good about this answer
and confidence filled my heart. I made the shahada there in the office
and it was tape-recorded - they put the video on YouTube.
Then
he said we would go to the masjid and make the shahada again. I didn't
know why, but we went there. He told me to repeat after him some words,
which were "Jesus (ﷺ) is a man and a Prophet, and not the "only begotten
son of God" (which, I later learned, was an interpolation, a
fabrication, inserted into John 3:16 by the King James translators of
the Bible, which was used in the English speaking world for several
centuries). After the shahada, which was after Isha'a prayer, many
people in the masjid came up to me to hug me, and many of them had tears
in their eyes or on their faces. I was amazed - "Why are they so happy?
I wondered. He told me to go home and take a shower, which I did.
Then, two incredibly amazing happened - Glory be to God forever and ever.
I
heard many voices which I understood to be angels, saying "Salaam
alayikum!" and "AlHamdulilah" and "SubHanAllah" and "Allah akbar."
Then
I went to my room, and I picked up the Qur'an I had brought from the
States, which was entirely in English, and I opened it. When I looked at
the page, I felt a piece of cloth, or a veil, fell from my face, which
was upon my eyes and I understood, in the same moment, in a flash, that
the Qur'an was 100% the direct speech of Allah and it was not Prophet
Muhammad's ﷺ words but the words of Allah.
One of the last
things that I heard from what I believe was an angel, and it happened
shortly after, was "Your name is Muhammad." So the first Muslim name
that I took was Muhammad Abdullah.
By the one in whose hands my soul is, this is how I became Muslim.
Glory
be to Allah, the Holy, the Sublime, the King, who has no partner and
shares his authority with no one. May His Peace and Blessings be upon
His Final Messenger Muhammad ﷺ and his family as His Peace and Blessings
were bestowed upon Ibrahim ﷺ and his family. May Allah forgive us and
give us what is good in this world and the next, and re-establish our
Khalifa, in order that we may live according to His Laws peacefully with
our neighbors.
الله اكبر الله اكبر الله اكبر
لا اله الا الله
الله اكبر الله اكبر الله اكبر
ولله الحمد
Completed on the Day of 'Arafah
1435
There is no god but Allah.
