Greek Muslim: Myrto – my journey to Islam

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Questions were racing through my mind.  Does this makes me a Muslim? What is a Muslim after all? And is it easy to become one? And what happens after that? What if I regret?

It was minutes after my shahada (my declaration of the Islamic faith), a few weeks ago.

It took me almost 9 years to believe there is actually a God and choose Islam as the way to worship Him.  But why was that? Having a very hard life so far, full of personal traumatic experiences of which I could not be responsible for during childhood, puberty and adolescence, a person does not have the right to make his own choices by law, I was led to disappointment.

I almost completely rejected the presence of God or of any Divinity in my life.

Although I was completely dissatisfied by the behaviour of the clergy in Greece and still having the words of the burial service which says “rest your servant ignoring all sins,” I decided to start reading about religion.

Feeling tormented, tired and a bit desperate to find answers to my questions, I choose to read religion initially and then philosophy and history of sciences instead of trying to find my way through fortune tellers or tarot readers, drugs or alcohol.

No matter how hard someone tries to numb himself so he doesn’t feel any pain, the pain will always be there, waiting to be confronted. Being deeply ethical and raised with the traditional values of a middle class Greek family , values of honesty, pride and dignity, I did not want to be part of any religious or philosophical group just to satisfy my needs for warmth and affection. And I definitely, loved and honoured my Greek cultural identity and I did not want to imitate or fake any other identity or nationality.

I started researching Christianity and mainly the Orthodox Dogma, then Judaism and Buddhism and finally Islam. I started gradually believing in God, my faith becoming stronger with time. At some point I started having questions about the Trinity, questions for which I found the answers in Islam.

What I realised is that Islam is the religion that closes the circle of Divine revelations. Islam means peace and Muslim means the person who offers himself to God and God only, with no remorse or personal benefit. Allah is not a new invention, it’s just the Arabic word for God, the half moon is not a symbol of blood bathing and revenge but is a reminder that Muslim people calculate the time based on the moon rather than the sun.

At this point I seriously started to consider myself as a believer rather than an agnostic. In the meantime, I moved to United Kingdom, to further educate myself though postgraduate studies. I do not know if it was a sign but while I was in UK, I kept meeting really nice people, the majority of them being Muslims, and I ended up marrying one of them.

I continued reading more and more and was becoming focused on Islam this time. Though not only reading, watching documentaries, attending Islamic lectures, going to Islamic museums, attending Islamic classes.

And there comes the questioning. Do I want to be part of a religion that has so many different variations of interpretation of its Holy Book? Would I want to be part of a group that would be a religious minority in my country? Would I want to be part of a religious group where most people, of the ones I have met at least, are paying attention just to the rules of worship and not the worship itself? Or would I want to be part of a religion which is used by its own followers to inspire hate and hostility?

I got again disappointed but this time not by the religion itself or the philosophy itself or from the Quran but from the followers. And then I realised that I cannot blame the religion itself since I found the answers to my questions, from its followers. I decided to start living as a Muslim for a period of time, to see what it takes and see if it is really so hard. As it is stated in Quran, men and women were created equally having their own free will.

But what does it mean to live as a Muslim? Wearing an abaya and niqaab? Praying 10 times a day? Fasting strictly during Ramadan? Staying at home and having loads of children? Avoiding any kind of joyful experience just in case you do something forbidden? Certainly not, in my opinion.

Islam is not a strict system of rules or a kind of imprisonment. Doing good deeds every single day, trying to avoid bad actions, praying as much as you can, fasting as much as you can, showing love and compassion and always fighting peacefully to improve yourself, progressing and evolving in knowledge day by day, trying your best every single day, this is what it takes to be a Muslim.

I realised that I could live as a Muslim, I just changed the way and the frequency of my prayers, I stopped completely eating pork or drinking alcohol and I wore a headscarf. That’s all. So after this so long journey, I decided to have my shahada done admitting firstly to myself that ‘There is no god but Allah (God), and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah (God).

Written by:

Myrto Z.

Athens, Greece

Turks, Greeks and my journey to Islam

By Tina Stylianidou

My journey to Islam is a sensitive one since my Greek Orthodox family lived in Turkey for most of their lives. Although I was born in Athens, Greece, my father, who was born and raised in Istanbul to a wealthy and well educated family, was like others living in a Muslim country – he held on to his religious identity tightly.

A time came when the Turkish government decided to kick the majority of Greek citizens out of Turkey and confiscate their wealth, houses and businesses. So my father’s family had to return back to Greece, empty handed and basically poor. This is what they, the Turks –’Muslims’ – did to them and this validated (according to them) their hatred towards Islam.

My mother’s family lived on a Greek island just on the border between Greece and Turkey and during a Turkish attack the Turks occupied the island and burnt their houses. So they escaped to the Greek mainland  in order to survive. Even more reason to hate the Turks –’Muslims’!

Greece was occupied by the Turks for over 400 years and we were taught to believe that for every crime committed towards the Greeks, Islam was responsible. That the Turks were Muslims and their crimes were reflecting their religious beliefs. So for hundreds of years we were taught in our history and religious books to hate and make fun of Islam.  In our books, Islam was actually not a religion and Muhammad (pbuh) was not a prophet! He was just a very intelligent leader and politician who gathered rules and laws from the Jews and the Christians, added some of his own ideas and conquered the world.

We were taught at school how to make fun of him and of his wives or his companions. All the ‘caricatures’ and slander against him which is published in today’s media was actually part of our curriculum.

But God protected me so hatred against Islam had not entered my heart. Other Greeks have also succeeded to rid themselves of the burden of the Orthodox religious inheritance placed on their shoulders and they have opened their eyes, ears and hearts to see that Islam is a true religion sent by God and Muhammad (pbuh) is a true prophet, the last of all prophets after a long chain of messengers starting from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ismael, Isaac, Moses and Jesus (peace be upon them all), all sent to mankind to guide the people to the same message.

It was a great help to me that both of my parents were not very religious themselves, they rarely practised their religion and they used to take me to church only during weddings or funerals. What drove my father away from his religion was the corruption he was seeing daily among the priests and this led him to become an atheist.

As a teenager, I loved to read a lot and I wasn’t really satisfied or convinced with Christianity. I had belief in God, fear and love for Him, but everything else confused me. I started searching around but I never searched towards Islam (maybe due to the background I had against it). But in the end, God had mercy on my soul and guided me from darkness to light of the truth – Islam – submission only to One God.

He brought into my life my husband, a born Muslim, and we got married without us really paying attention to the religious differences. My husband was willing to answer any questions I had concerning his religion without humiliating my beliefs (no matter how wrong they were) and without ever putting any pressure on me or even asking me to change my religion. After three years of being married and having the chance to know more about Islam, to read the Holy Quran, as well as other religious books, I was convinced that there is no such thing as a trinity, nor was Jesus God.

I became a Muslim keeping it secret from my family and friends for many years. We lived with my husband in Greece trying to practise Islam but it was extremely difficult – almost impossible. In my home town there are no mosques, no access to Islamic studies, no people praying, fasting or women wearing hijab (the Islamic head cover).There are only some Muslim immigrants who came to Greece for a better financial future and who let the Western lifestyle attract them and eventually corrupted them. As a result, many do not follow their religious practices and are completely lost.

It was incredibly difficult to perform our Islamic duties, especially for me, as I wasn’t born Muslim and didn’t have an Islamic education. My husband and I had to pray and fast with the use of calendars instead of a Muslim call to prayer in our ears and no Muslim community to support us. We felt that with each passing day we were stepping backwards and our faith was decreasing as the wave was taking us in.

So when my daughter was born, we decided to migrate to a Muslim country. We didn’t want to raise her in a environment where she would struggle to maintain her identity where she could end up lost.

Now, after four years of our migration, I feel so homesick, so nostalgic and I wonder if it is time to return back to Greece, the beautiful country that I was born to and try to find a way to combine the wonderful identity and culture of my Greek ancestors as well as my Islamic identity and beliefs. I feel proud and thankful to God that I can be both Greek and Muslim.

Making sense of God and Islam – frequently asked questions answered

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Many people do not know this but Islam did not start at the time of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) – it started at the time of Adam and Eve.

Muslims believe that there is only one God in this world, the same God that Abraham, Moses and Jesus worshipped.

What is your belief about God?

Muslims believe God is one and that He created the heavens, the earth, human beings, animals – everything in this universe.  He has no partners and there is no object worthy of worship except Him.  This means Muslims do not believe that a stone, a tree, a cow or a human being is God and they do not worship any of these.  In other words, Muslims cannot fathom Jesus being God or part of God.  This would go against the very nature of monotheism – of God being strictly one. He does not need anyone but we need Him.  He is the most merciful, He sees everything, hears everything and knows everything.  And nothing is comparable to God.

So why do you call Him Allah?

When Muslims use the word ‘Allah’, that does not mean a different god, a moon god or a cow god.  Allah is just the Arabic word for Almighty God in English or Theos in Greek.  Arab Christians and Jews also say ‘Allah’ because it means God.  We prefer to say ‘Allah’ because it accurately means ‘the God’, i.e. the One God without any partners because if you say God in English, some people might think we are talking about Jesus.

Why are there so many religions?

Muslims believe that all of the prophets from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, David, Solomon to Moses, to Jesus and Muhammad etc. (peace be on them all) came to teach the people the exact same message – that God is one, without any partners and to submit your life to God.  This is what we call Islam because the meaning of the word Islam is “submission”, i.e. submit to the will and law of God.  So, in this sense, we believe that all prophets were following Islam, or ‘Muslim’ – someone who submits to God.  Islam is more than a religion, it is a way of life.

Each time a prophet came, some people believed in his message and they established the religion (Islam).  Then after some generations, the original message was lost and people started creating their own religion, mostly creating partners with God (ex. a cow, human etc.). So then God would send the next prophet to bring them back to the original message of Islam and the cycle would continue.

So, this is why Muslims believe in all of the prophets and all of the books, which are the spoken word of God– the Torah, the Gospel, the Quran, etc. and also believe in God’s angels and the Day of Judgement.

You can say Islam is the pure Christianity that Jesus taught and the pure Judaism that Moses taught before some priests, rabbis and people changed it to manipulate their followers and control them.

If God created us, would He leave us to figure things out on our own?

Just like most mothers would not leave their babies to the streets to take care of themselves, God would certainly not leave his creation without taking care of them.  But how does God provide us with this guidance if we cannot hear Him?  Through the Quran and scriptures He left us with full instructions on how to live the best life in this world and in the afterlife and through the prophets He sent us to teach us the guidance.

Because submission to God is a way of life and not just limited to a religion that you practise once a week, the guidance of instructions from God must cover everything in our lives such as the spiritual, emotional, economical, social and family aspects etc.

So, when people ask Muslims why Islam is strict with so many rules, they do not view it like this.  They consider these guidelines as ultimate guidance in living the best life.  Imagine you were lucky enough to have the richest man in the world mentor you on how to succeed financially, the best family counselor in the world mentor you in family and marriage aspects, the world leader in civilization and politics guide your country on how to be the most advanced nation and the wisest spiritual mentor guide you in gaining the closest relationship to God.  Would you consider those rules and restrictions in your life or guidance?

What is the purpose of my life?

And the biggest guidance is to answer a question that most human beings ask themselves at some point in their lives – What is the purpose of my life? Why am I here?

God gives us the answer to this in the Quran.  The purpose of our lives is to worship Him and to submit our lives to Him.  Read that sentence again.  The purpose of our lives is to worship God and to submit our lives to Him. 

We will be asked about this when we die and are resurrected on the big judgement day.  We will be questioned about everything we did and if we followed God’s guidance and did good deeds.  God will reward those who submitted their life to Him will punish those who did not and this is the ultimate justice system.

 

Free will or not?

God knows everything that we will do but He gives us a chance to live out our lives and gives us the free will or choice in order to provide evidence to us when we are on the Day of Judgement.  In this way, on that day, no one can provide excuses that God’s verdict is not fair.

This is a glimpse to what Islam is so that when you ask a Muslim a question about Islam, you can keep in mind that he or she will answer you from this context.

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photo credit: NPCA Photos

Visiting Greece now as a Muslim – I was nervous and excited

 By Stefanie Danopoulos, 28 years old

The last summer I visited Greece was in 1999. That time I was already reading about Islam and did a lot of thinking. When I came back to Holland I decided to convert to Islam. And after a few months I started to wear the veil, hijab.

I lost contact with my family for almost two years. When I had my first child the contact slowly became better.

My parents always told me that it was not possible to go back to Greece with my hijab. And my biggest problem was that I don’t speak Greek.

My father is from Greece (Korinthos) and my mother is from Holland. I was born and raised in Holland but we traveled to Greece every year in the summer. I think that it is really important that you can explain to the people in their language why you dress that way.

A few months ago we had a conference in Holland and then I met Anna, a Greek Muslim sister. I was so happy and I even took her to my mother’s house to show her that there are Muslims in Greece. My mother was very surprised.

A few months later, they had a meeting in Greece for the Muslims Association of Greece. My parents and sisters were all in Greece and Anna told me that I had to come. And I told my parents I had plans to come and they said that I was welcome. So I booked my ticket and finally after 11 years I came back to Greece.

I was very nervous but also very excited.

The first two days I spent at the conference in Athens meeting other Greek Muslims, alhamdulillah! I had a very nice time.

And I thought that everybody would look at me in a bad way but they did not even care. 

Then I met my family in Ancient Korinthos. I was very, very nervous about the reactions. When I arrived some friends of my parents were waiting for me. They were very happy to see me and one friend of my father asked if I came from dancing because of my clothes. So my mother told him that it is a new fashion. I spoke to some relatives and nobody said crazy things.

I noticed that most of them speak English, so thank God, that was very nice. I didn’t really have the chance to tell them something about Islam because I was there only one day and my parents wanted to show me everything. They were so happy that I came.

I had a great time. And, God willing, next year I will go back to Greece with my husband and kids.

I spent my last day in the island of Andros. It was very beautiful and I even swam in the sea.  Also the people there were very nice and I did not feel left out or something.

In Holland, people look at you in a different way, but I think that it is because of the negative media attention. So most people in Holland see Islam in a bad way and they feel threatened by veils and beards and long dresses. In Greece I felt very relaxed.

I had a great experience and I will go back again for holiday, God willing!

I felt ashamed to ask questions but it led me to Islam

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By Iman Sotiria Kouvalis

I remember seeing Muslim women at my university and feeling sorry for them.  I didn’t know them but when we crossed paths at the cafeteria, I smiled at them because I thought they were oppressed.  I never talked with them but I just assumed that they were forced to wear the veil.

It’s funny that I thought this way because I knew nothing about Islam.  I mean nothing.  I actually thought that everyone in the world were Christians!  Remember, this was about 10 years ago (before 9/11).

But, my interaction with many Muslims made me reflect on my own disconnect with God and the Church.  Although I was raised in a typical Greek Orthodox family and attended church every Sunday for most of my life, as I grew older, church no longer had meaning in my life and there were a lot of questions that couldn’t be answered by the Church.

As I grew older, a dichotomy started to appear where life and religion were drifting to opposite sides.  I couldn’t see how I can make religion relevant to my daily life.  On the one hand, we were raised to think that in order to be successful, we have to go to school, get a good job and buy a nice house and car and on the other hand, we were taught all we had to do is believe that Jesus died for our sins and we would be saved to be successful. On this side, we were taught to always think critically, to question why, to negotiate and on the other side, we were taught to just believe and never question or it would be like blasphemy.  On this side, never do anything unless you know why and on the other side, perform all the rituals and never ask why. 

And that’s how I started to drift away from the Church.  It had no meaning anymore.  I always believed in God and I desperately wanted Him to be part of my life but I had questions.  And I was made to feel ashamed that I had questions. As if I was being a disobedient person.

So my only solution was to be away from the Church because I didn’t want to be seen as disobedient and at the end of they day, I was going to heaven anyway according to Christianity as long as I believed that Jesus died for my sins, it didn’t matter anyway.  I could do anything and get away with it.

But my interactions with Muslims in university years later and seeing how spiritual they were reignited my passion to become close to God again.  I guess you could say deep down I was a little jealous.  How were they so devoted and at peace and I wasn’t even though I was going to heaven and they were not?

I started getting into religious debates with them.  I was determined to convince them that they need to accept Jesus in order to be saved.  But to my surprise, they already believed in Jesus!  I started figuring out that they know a great deal about Islam and Christianity where I know next to nothing about Islam and even Christianity even though I attended Sunday school all my life.

Secretly, when no one was looking, I went to the library to read about Islam in order to convince them that they were wrong.  I only found some really weird and old books.  Remember, this was pre-Google days so there wasn’t that much on the internet either.  One day, I was walking down one of the university halls when I saw some pocket pamphlets on the wall about Islam.  I guess the Muslim Student Association put them there so after I made sure that the hall was empty, I quickly slipped a few of them in my bag.  When I got home, I started reading and was amazed.  One pamphlet even talked about Muhammad in the Bible.  The Bible?  I thought this must be a lie!  But I checked the verse in my Bible, and I didn’t know if it was true or not because I was just reading a translation in English.

I made a sincere prayer to God to show me which religion is the truth.  I wanted to know!  I surprised myself though that I did that because I kept saying, of course, Christianity!  I started attending church every week again, and then twice a week.  This was very strange because I was practically the only young person there.  I started reading the Bible again but this time in order to find answers to my questions.

After months of this, I couldn’t take it anymore and I decided to go to my priest.  Now, anyone who is Greek can understand what a big event this is.  I’m going to my priest to admit that I have questions in my faith and also to ask about the worst enemy of the Greeks: Islam.  My questions were three: 

1. If Jesus died for our sins and we only have to believe this to be saved and go to heaven, then how does that make sense?  That means I can commit any sin and be saved?
2. How can God be 3 in 1?
3. What do you think about Islam?

For the first two questions, he tried his best to explain but it was clear to me that there was a lot of ambiguity in his answers.  When we got to the third question, his eyes bulged out and his skin turned a little red and he told me to just stay away from those people!

I left the meeting disappointed. For the first time, it caused a definite crack in my faith.  I needed to find answers!  But now I was on my own to find them.  And I did.

After more months of intense reading, critical study of both religions and a persistent nagging of my soul to keep searching for God, the truth started coming to me, but I kept fighting it.  I kept telling it to go away.  I am Greek.  I am Orthodox.  I love my lifestyle.  I don’t want to give up everything I was raised upon.  But, in the end, it won.  I submitted to my conscience.  I submitted to the truth and declared that there is no object worthy of worship except God.  Because that’s literally what the word “Islam” means.

Later, I started to realize that I don’t have to give up myself, my family or my culture.  I realized that I can be Muslim and also be Greek, just like so many others around the world who are Muslim but also Pakistani, Arab, Somalian, Bosnian, Chinese or many other cultures.  And in the Quran, I read:

“They are not [all] the same; among the People of the Scripture [i.e. Jews and Christians] is a community standing [in obedience], reciting the verses of Allah during periods of the night and prostrating [in prayer]. They believe in Allah and the Last Day, and they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and hasten to good deeds. And those are among the righteous. And whatever good they do – never will it be removed from them. And Allah is Knowing of the righteous.”  (Quran 3:113-115)

I understood that as Muslims we are to respect people of other faiths for some of them are really sincere and they live God-conscious lives.  In the end, it’s not me who will judge people, only God can do that.

I came to Islam through books.  Through a critical and intense study just like so many other converts to Islam and just like so many other Greek converts to Islam.  And I noticed that my story is not unique.  So many other Greeks that I know today have similar questions as me and the same dichotomy in their lives.  If you are in this situation, you owe it to yourself to find the answers now because we don’t know when we will die.  And to know that God gave us a mind to think critically.  It’s ok to ask questions and it’s ok to find answers.

That is why I started a website called Greeks Rethink.  It’s a website where you can ask questions and find answers about life and God.  You can go to www.greeksrethink.com and read about our stories and our lives or go onto the forums directly and interact with other rethinkers around the world.

Weird reasons why people fast and what your real reason should be

It was lunch time and we were eating, well, except for the host.  She told me she was fasting because it was Friday and every Friday she fasts, out of habit. 

I’ve seen weird things in my life but this one confused me.  A few conversations beforehand, I discovered that she didn’t believe in God anymore.  So, the obvious perplexing question I had was why she would keep fasting if she was not doing it for God??

I guess because as Muslims, we get this question a lot.  Why do you fast in Ramadan?  I usually say that we do it for God to gain piety as the Quran says,

“O you who believe! fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed upon those before you in order that you may attain taqwa.”[Surah al-Baqarah 2:183].

Notice that I translated “taqwa” as piety.  Well, that’s not quite accurate.  Recently, we were all gathered around and the same question came up, how do you translate this rich Arabic word “taqwa” into English?

Some say it is piety, some say fear, others say it is obedience to God.  I’ve heard many translations but nothing quite encompasses the original Arabic word.  The funny thing though is that if you leave it untranslated and just say taqwa, most Muslims know exactly what you mean by the word and sense a deep emotional feeling.

Here’s a good translation of taqwa I found:

Taqwa is obedience to God hoping for the mercy of God and it is staying away from the disobedience of God fearing the punishment of God. 

And just by fasting properly, you can automatically gain taqwa.  Before I fasted every year, I never imagined that would be the result, but when you do it properly, you would be amazed at how much taqwa you gain.

 But do you think that the lady who fasts every Friday out of habit and not for God can gain taqwa?  Most likely not. 

People fast for weird reasons but if we want to feel full and take the maximum benefit from things in life, we need to know why we do things and not just do them because our ancestors did so or society tells us to do so.

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photo credit: diekatrin

Attention atheists – can you explain this?

After watching this video, I wonder how anyone can be an atheist.

Gerasimos Loukatos: my journey to Islam

My name is Gerasimos Loukatos and I was born and raised in Athens, Greece and officially became Muslim in 2008 in Stockholm. Since then I have been experiencing brotherhood and sincere kindness from Muslims, wherever I happen to meet them! My acceptance of the truth of Islam was so natural for me that it came as a relief after many years of searching and trying to understand the meanings of life. I embraced Islam wholeheartedly when I realized that, for most of my life, I was living in the proximity of the Islamic understanding of life and that everything happens for a reason as I was struggling to understand why something happens and what does it mean.

So, my way to Islam, as I have experienced it, begins very early on starting from the early age of seven when I became interested in the unseen. From the age of 11-15, I was given psychology books like Adler and Freud, where I started training myself on deep reflection and critical thinking.  I would often reflect looking into the sky and stars and my surroundings on the countryside outside of Athens.  I thought if my time is limited, how do I want to use that time?  I needed to balance my spiritual and worldly development – my heart and mind.

I read the New Testament and kept the meaning of anything that taught good character. I really had a hard time understanding how Jesus could be son of God and die, but even more problematic was that he died to redeem us from our sins and how an all-loving and all-forgiving God can hold us accountable for the original sin? Somehow the whole concept didn’t resonate in my heart.

Later on I read a few books on Buddhism which I found far more spiritually cohesive but I still had a problem. I couldn’t understand how people can prostrate to a statue! The more I read about religions the more I became confused. At about 20 years old now, I decided once again to review my understanding by examining what I knew and try to understand what is false and what is true. For me, that meant going back to zero…either there is God or not!

So when I returned back to zero, I explicitly prayed to Him, if He exists to show me His signs!

I couldn’t accept the existence of many gods as this would mean the created gods are dependent on the one god that created them! It became obvious to me, if one God created us, He wouldn’t send different messages to different people. So, even if religions are expressed in different ways, their essence should be the same. The fact that religions were different indicated to me that people throughout time had used religion in order to control and manipulate people. After forming a foundation based on these facts, I started an ongoing dialogue of “if…then” with myself. I ended up believing in absolutely one God but not in religions in any absolute sense. I recognized there is truth in them mixed with fiction and it was a way for people to come together to realize that their religion was the same.

This was the most turbulent period for me spiritually partly because I felt so different than most of the people around me. I never enjoyed drinking or dancing or doing things just for the sake of doing them and I never adhered to fashions. These are enough reasons to characterize a person strange or even anti-social and it took me sometime to understand that there is nothing wrong with that if that’s what you are.  Even in terms of intimate relationships, I had a strange understanding that it should be experienced in all three levels, physical, psychological and spiritual in order for it to have any meaning.

Thank God who sent on my way when I was 23, the person that I call my spiritual father! I met Gregory in an interview, on my way of joining a group of people who had far more knowledge and understanding than me in terms of book knowledge. Gregory became in a sense my mentor; it was like sitting at the feet of a teacher in a traditional way of learning. He taught me how not to get lost in the details, nor how to bypass them in face of the whole picture. He taught me that, most often, the same mistakes will come disguised as different ones. He taught me that the purpose can never sanctify the means. He taught me that experience is not always trustworthy, as wrong experience may take you down the wrong path. And when I wanted him to show me that path, he answered me, “I cannot show you the right path. You have to find it on your own and walk on it on your own. I can only try to show you how you will find it.”

He taught me that people who focus on targets risk losing sight of their surroundings. “Every person has his/ her Ithaki and you too,” he said. “Be aware of your Ithaki but always remember, it’s your journey who will take you there!” Well, I guess what I ever say it won’t be enough!

Otherwise, when there was a gathering, I used to remain silent as I felt I couldn’t compete in knowledge with any of the speakers. Until one day, I openly declared that I believe in God but I don’t believe in religions! The director replied, “The older you grow, the nearer you will draw to God.” The only person who stood up to my defense was an atheist but unfortunately none of them understood what I said. That was my last day at the gathering.

Eventually I moved to Sweden as a married man to an Iranian girl. It was my first contact with Muslims even though her family was rather neutral and she was an atheist. After seven years of marriage and three years of trying to make things work, we came to a mutual agreement to divorce in a friendly manner. Thank God once again we didn’t have any children as we realized we had to resolve the problems between us first.

When I met a friend in Athens, who knew both of us well, he told me, “Do you know why it didn’t work out between you? You believe in God while she doesn’t. Differences in view of the world will manifest themselves sooner or later.” Well, maybe he had a point and God knows best!

Several months later I got in touch with a Muslima from another town of Sweden. We communicated mostly by phone and we would discuss just about anything, from philosophy and psychology to religion and politics. Actually I met her in three different occasions over our 3,5 years of contact. She wasn’t a practicing Muslima for some time but eventually we were discussing more and more about religions. I had the same distorted views about Islam, as so many others in the Western hemisphere. Even my earlier contact with Muslims didn’t change my view. However, I was aware of the politics and the propaganda taking place through the media and I was aware that any understanding I had was not objective. So, I used to discuss, listen and reflect, until almost two years ago.

She started telling me that I think like a Muslim, I should become a Muslim, I am a Muslim. At the end I became curious to find out why she thinks I am a Muslim, so I started buying books about Islam and eventually I bought the Quran.

When reading, I came across the two most misunderstood verses of the Quran. One of them was verse Surat An-Nisaa: 34. After listening to the correct explanation of the verse, reading the whole Quran and listening to a couple of lectures, I knew why I was Muslim (in a sense) and why I should become Muslim officially. That Muslima, in the process of guiding me to the correct understanding of Islam, she returned herself in the practice of Islam. In many ways it was perfect between us in having almost everything in common but we had to go separate ways due to her refusal to move to Greece and my refusal to consciously deny Greece. It’s only for God to know what He saves for me and it’s for me to find out!  One way or another, I couldn’t consciously give up my family and alhamdulillah, it is comforting to know that I will not be the only Muslim in Greece!

How has Islam changed my life? Well, in many practical ways, it hasn’t changed it a lot. I didn’t drink, I didn’t go out dancing and jumping up and down and I always strived not to have superficial relationships of any kind. My family didn’t have a problem with my religion either, even though my father doesn’t want to listen a word about Islam, he recognizes my freedom of choice and time given and God willing he will listen some day or even better see for himself. Surprised and disinterested as he might be, he doesn’t hold hard feelings, alhamdulillah.

However, Islam has changed my awareness of my relationship of God, my awareness of my actions and words towards others and my awareness of who I am, why I am what I am, why I am here and where I am going.

What I know from experience is that difficulties will come and they will pass by and if that will not teach us patience it will teach us something we really need to know. So many times I found myself at the edge and being in distress for not finding a way out and so many times I had an opening when least expected! At the end I couldn’t feel in distress even in the worst of situations because I knew the opening would eventually come! And every person I met, every stimulus to every thought or reflection my intellect could perceive, every situation I found myself in, was all part of my way to Islam.  God showed me His signs as I prayed and He revealed to me how things are in truth. Until now, I can’t find a question Quran hasn’t an answer to. I am talking about answers my intellect can grasp and my heart can sense. Surely, I don’t have all the answers but I know where to find them inshaa Allah!

Finally I found the path I was searching for and it’s the straight path! It is difficult to walk on it, due to the many distractions around it, but it’s worthy following it. So, I am not anywhere near an ideal Muslim but if it is one person who played the most important role in my life, that person was my mother. She taught me Islam without knowing it! She taught me to forgive and pardon others for their shortcomings and she advised me to listen to my heart when I can’t see the way clearly. I would give the same advice to everyone who is in search of the truth. Just make sure to clear the distortions before listening to your heart, otherwise you will only hear cacophonic sounds!

 

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photo credit: Atonal Blue

Understand the Quran in 4 minutes

The Quran is not like any other book ever published. For one, it’s the most memorized book on the planet! And two, it’s the only book on the planet without mistakes or editions. Those who are trained in the Arabic language and the tafsir (exegesis) can witness the miraculous nature of the Quran.

But, if you are a novice like me, you might think its formatting or how it switches topics in an apparently random way is a little bizarre. Well, for us novice readers, here’s a breakdown of it in five easy steps:

1. The Quran as a whole

The Quran is a book of answers to life. It comprises of 114 chapters. It speaks about your relationship with God, with yourself and with mankind. It is broken up into two parts:

• information (ex. stories of the past, science, people etc.)
• rulings

2. Index

The second and longest chapter, AlBaqarah, acts as an index for the Quran because it speaks about every main topic in the Quran but in a brief manner. If you study this chapter in depth, you will get a great foundational understanding of the Quran.

3. Table of Contents

The first chapter, AlFatihah, is like the table of contents of the Quran. It only has seven verses and each verse mentions a main theme across the Quran:

• Acknowledging God
• Attributes of God
• Worshiping God
• Guidance
• People who obeyed
• People who disobeyed despite having knowledge
• People who disobeyed but didn’t have knowledge

4. Key phrase

The chapter, AlFatihah, has a verse that is the key phrase you would google to get the jist of the Quran.

ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٲطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ  

Guide us to the straight path.

The most prominent theme across the Quran is based on this verse because at the end of the day, it’s God who decides if you will enter paradise or hell, not you.

5. Keyword

When you get right down to it, you can summarise the entire Quran in one word: guidance. If you google this into the Quran, you will pinpoint your exact target.

It’s unfortunate though because people are always looking for the magic answers to life, wealth and happiness, and some even pay big bucks to find it. If they only knew it’s all in the Quran.

 

 

Christians were on a mission to convert me

Ramadan Timetable for Greece

Our next event: 6th September 2009

I was walking home today when I saw these two Chinese women getting into their car.  I thought to myself that it was different to find at least someone on the street wearing some modest clothes but it was really nice. Just as I finished that thought, they said hi to me and whipped out their Jehovah Witness pamphlets.   I just had to laugh inside because I was about to give them the conversation of their life.

They started with how important the Bible is and that they believe that Jehovah is god and Jesus is the son of god etc. I asked them what their proof is for that and they showed me a verse in the Bible saying explicitly that Jehovah is god.

I smiled, lifted my shoulders and went on offense.  I don’t think they know what hit them. I told them that Muslims believe in the original Bible that was sent to Moses and Jesus, not the tampered copies we have today.

We discussed the lack of preservation of the original Bible and I challenged them to go back to their verse and find it in its original language and book, which obviously would be impossible.

When I asked them what the original language the Bible was revealed in, they said Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.  But of course, I told them, as a Greek myself, the Bible was not revealed in Greek to Jesus (pbuh) because Jesus was a Jew and didn’t speak Greek. And when I went into detail about Paul, who authored most of the New Testament and didn’t meet Jesus, they started to become confused.

They tried to say that even if translations are not 100% accurate, the general meaning is there. But I then asked them how they knew for certain that even if 90% of it is correct, what is the 10% that is incorrect and what if they verse they showed me about Jehovah being god is the part that has been tampered with.

Then, they asked me a good question.

They said, “Well, how do you know which part of the Bible is correct and which is not.” I replied, “Oh, easy, from the Quran.”  Whatever the Quran confirms, than it’s true in the Bible and whatever the Quran says differently, than the Bible has been tampered with.

And because we know for absolute certain that the Quran was revealed from God and was preserved meticulously word for word, letter for letter and vowel for vowel in its original language, there is no doubt in the message.

Then, I left them with a curve ball.  I told them that if the Bible they were holding was actually the original one revealed by God, than I would certainly follow it.  But the only book from God that is preserved is the Quran. And in the Quran it says that there is no one worthy of worship other than God, the Creator.  So, even if they told me that Jehovah, Jesus, a stone, a stick, a fence is god, I could not accept that.

They left baffled, what can I say.

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