Maryam, a Muslim convert from India
Maryam, a Muslim convert from India, shares her emotional journey of converting from Hinduism to Islam. She expresses her love for God and the joy she has found in her new faith, emphasizing that love is the automatic response to God’s love.
The Conversation
I’m going to be as natural as possible. And when do I have to stop if I’m not doing good? My name is Mariam and I’m 27 years old and I come from India. I belong to Hinduism and not a very practicing family, okay?
Like, not so religious. Religion was always a confusion and just for the sake of doing it, we used to do it. I mean, none of the family members are so practicing. But yes, they are very rigid and they are believed, but they are not practicing.
See, it was not that I knew about Islam or I knew about Muslims because honestly speaking, the place from where I come from, although there were Muslims there, but the whole 23 years there I have never met any Muslims.
I never actually interacted with them until I was here in UAE. And I was always scared of them, honestly speaking, because that is what I was taught from childhood that, you know, they are not good people.
Terrorism is related to them. They are terrorists. They are bad. Stay away from them. But then I used to work. I used to work in Barclays over here and I had Muslim friends, I had the sunny friends and they were very good.
And that was the time that I realized that, okay, these are humans and these are really nice people. It was their nice behavior that first attracted me towards the people, not to the religions. Still I am not getting to the religions, just the people.
Not people related to a specific country, but people related to Islam. This was what actually attracted me that how come they are so nice, they are so kind, you know, they are so helping. That was the first time I started, you know, actually knowing about Islam.
You know, when you go to these Islamic centers, there are so many books lying there with the basic questions that you have in mind about Islam or God or the Creator. I started picking up those books.
I started searching online. And that is how I, it’s like for one year I think I had one year, yeah, before accepting Islam or one year I had studied it or not the Quran, only from the online or the Googling and all that.
See, it has just made me more strong. As a person, it has just made me more strong. And as I said, I’m learning. I don’t have that much knowledge, you know, but I am learning. There are times in your life when you will have to beg in front of your Creator, you will have to fall.
He will make you fall, so that you beg in front of Him. There will come a time like that where all your ego and all your strength and power and money will fail. And I think that realization happened after.
accepting Islam. Before that it was always like, oh okay, I have my parents, I have that car, I have that, I have so much and so much money. But when everything, it’s like Allah takes away everything from you to show that okay, now, now what are you going to do?
I have taken everything from you. I think that Allah had put that strength in me at that point of time that I will not step back no matter what. When I took the Quran in my hand, I literally even if now I say my hands shiver, it’s like I cried and cried and cried holding it.
I just cried. I cried for, I don’t know, more than half an hour. I just kept crying. If you believe in God, you trust that God. That is all I will say that you just need to trust that God in whatever you are doing.
If you do not have that trust, that faith in God, then it’s just your lips that are saying that you believe in God, but you actually do not. Once that faith enters in you, it will be automatically followed by the actions, by your deeds.
