Matthew Moes
November 5, 2000
 
Many of us who have accepted Islam as our religion prefer the term "revert" over "convert" because it is our belief that we have actually "gone back" to being Muslim rather than converting to something new. "Islam" refers to a state of submission to God, and the "Muslim" is the one who submits. In this sense, all of creation is in a state of submission - the stars and planets, the weather, the plants, animals, etc. are all operating within this submissive state - obeying their Lord and Creator performing the functions they were created to perform without the ability to disobey or rebel. In this sense, every newborn baby is also born in a state of "Islam". But as he grows older and matures to an age of accountability, this natural state of submission is replaced by the ability to choose between right and wrong. His instinctual knowledge of right and wrong remains, thus giving him a conscience which calls him to the truth throughout his life. He can then choose to act on this call by seeking divine guidance as to what right and wrong really is, or he can choose to ignore this call - which results in crimes against himself and others. The beautiful thing is that as long as he remains alive in this world, he still has a chance to turn to that guidance and repent for his wrongdoings. For the one who has never submitted to that guidance, it is a matter of making the committment to do so. For those who have submitted themselves to God, but find themselves falling short, it is a matter of repenting and turning back to him once again.

 
It is my firm belief that it was by listening to my conscience, that I came back to a state of submission to God. My parents reared me in a typical middle-class white-American home in the midwest. We were Catholics, so we attended Mass once a week with Sunday school after church during the school year. I attended public school for my secular education. I would say my value system developed as a combination of these three environments. As I grew up, I always had a yearning for the "real meaning" of things. I could not stand "phony" or pop-culture and I had always been taught to question and keep an open mind. After the 8th grade, (which is when the Catholic Church performs the sacrament of Confirmation (a willful confirmation of one's Catholicism that renews the Baptismal commitment made by his parents when he was a newborn), I began grow increasingly distant from the Catholic teachings. I had an amazing difficulty remaining awake during Mass, while at the same time, my discussions with my Priest (always friendly and productive) were leading me away from church dogma toward my own evolving philosophy of God.

 
This personal philosophy was not necessarily shunned by my parents or the Priest in whole. Some of its details were challenged, but no one ever suggested that to remain Catholic I would need to give any of my own ideas up. As an example of this open-minded attitude, I was interviewing my Priest for a research paper I was doing in school on Voodoo (10th grade). I read that Haitians were Catholic, but also practiced Voodoo at the same time. So I asked my Priest about the apparent conflict. He replied by telling me that as long as the aspects of Voodoo that were practiced were not in conflict with their Catholic beliefs, there was no overall conflict to prevent them from practicing Voodoo. I did not buy this answer, though the fact that Haitians were Catholics and Voodists was enough of an evidence to me that he was telling the truth.

 
I personally felt that a Catholic should be committed to the particulars of the Catholic church. I did not buy into the notion that I could believe whatever I wanted to and then still claim to be Catholic - to me it reeked of hypocrisy. And I personally objected to some of the particulars of the Catholic church. I did not believe I had any obligation to the Pope, for example. Neither did my mother or her mother for that matter, but it did not stop them from remaining Catholic. For myself, I felt that such inconsistencies could not be overlooked, and I decided to break from the Catholic church.

 
My conclusion was that all religion was man-made anyway and that I should learn about spiritual matters as much as I could throughout my life from a variety of sources - seeking the truth in them for myself, and being held to account for my own mistakes with the hope that my sincerity would be a pardon for my shortcomings. The basic tenets of my belief were:

1. That all people worshipped and believed in the same universal God regardless of time, place, or particular manner of worship.

2. That there were certain people throughout time who were gifted with spiritual knowledge, such as the founders of the world's religions, and other so-called prophets or philosophers.

3. That basically the teachings of these great people were the same, though differing in detail in accordance with time, place, and circumstance.

4. That the original teachings of all these great men were corrupted by people who came after them through institutionalization and in some cases conspiracies to manipulate masses of people for personal gain or control.

5. That some great Truth existed, tying all people and life together.

6. That science was the observation of how God does things, and thus could never conflict with true religion.

7. That all events occurred for a reason rather than mere coincidence, and in the end led to some greater good.

8. That it was the responsibility of each person to seek Truth in order to understand the meaning and purpose of their lives.

 
It was this philosophy that governed my spiritual thinking at the time that I discovered Islam. I was about 19 years old at the time, a freshman in college, and a new father. So many things were happening at that time, all of which I believe to have been working in harmony towards my discovery of Islam. I loved college, despite it being my first year which comprised mostly general requirements. I loved the learning and thinking that was taking place. At the same time, my wife was pregnant and while the odds of financial doom loomed over this otherwise miraculous occurence, I was hopeful with the belief that children were always a divine gift. And finally, on the job, which was a third shift position in a residential center looking after mentally and physically disabled adults, I had the long hours of the night to keep awake with discussions about school and life. The supervisor was a Muslim, and it was from his contributions to these discussions that I first gained a decent exposure to Islam.

 
I slowly began to realize that the teachings of Islam were consistent with the philosophy that I had arrived at on my own. In the mean time it challenged my assumption that ALL the teachings of prophets and philosophers had been corrupted over time. In fact Islam maintains that its orginal sources have been preserved in their entirety, including the texts themselves, the explanation of those texts according to the Prophet Muhammad, the way his followers understood and carried out his teachings, and even dictionaries giving the meaning of the words in those texts according to their contextual meanings at the time!

 
This challenge to my assumption was not an easy one for me to set aside. And becoming convinced of the purity of the religious sources was something I would become more assured of over time. In the beginning I resisted, preferring the freedom to do whatever I wanted rather than to submit to a system that claimed divine guidance. But the challenge continued to haunt my conscience: If this is divine guidance, and it has indeed been preserved, then I would be a hypocrite to continue to deny it in favor of my own philosophy. For I could no longer claim to be searching for truth if I had already knowingly rejected the truth when I did indeed encounter it.

 
When my child was born I thought of the responsibility I now had as a father to give her a value system that would enable her to think for herself and to look for and depend on God's guidance in her own life. I wondered how I could communicate my own abstract thinking to a developing child without any structure or form. And while I resisted Islam, I somehow still found myself intrigued with the possibility that it could fill the void I was up against regarding my daughter's spiritual development.

 
The push came one day at work after a chat with our Muslim supervisor when I muttered to a co-worker (after the Muslim left) that I could never see myself accepting Islam. Her response caught me off guard when she said that if she were to decide to make a religious committment, that she would choose Islam! The reason being that it is a complete way of life. She reasoned that a real religious committment could result in nothing less. And it struck me that she was right. Besides, Islam presented the cure to so many social ills: it empowered the downtrodden while it preserved the individual's right to his wealth; it taught forgiveness, but empowered the oppressed with self-defense; it provided religious structure without a heirarchy of church officials; it did not ignore scientific discovery and advancement, but rather encouraged it and gave it purpose...

 
And the list went on until I realized and admitted that this religion of Islam was an affirmation of my beliefs, empowering me with guidance to move forward on them with the certainty that my philosophies were not just personal ruminations, but rather signposts that any thinking person would have come to along the road of seeking the truth. And though I may have remained skeptical in some things in the beginning, it was only a matter of time before I discovered that Islam was God's guidance and not the philosophical constructs of another human being susceptible to error. And thus, Islam is not threatened by questions and doubts, but rather holds their answers.

 
I think I caught my Muslim supervisor off guard the night that I told him I wanted to accept Islam. But it was a pleasant surprise to him, and he brought me some booklets explaining basic tenets of the religion while instructing me to make a simple prayer: "Ask God to guide you to the Truth. If you are sincere, then He will guide you to it wherever it may be."

 
After taking the time to follow his advice over the next few days, I eventually presented myself to him during one of my breaks and told him I was ready. He told me that accepting Islam was very simple. He said it was a matter of taking an oath to the following "I bear witness that none is worthy of worship other than Allah (God), and that Muhammad is His final Messenger". And I took this oath right there, with him as my witness. That was 1992. I was 19 years old at the time. And that marked the beginning of my return to Islam.