My story: Karin

I am born in The Netherlands, both my parents are Dutch and we did not practice religion at home.
However, I did attend Sunday school, so I was very much aware of all the stories in the bible. I did believe in God, but was disappointed in the Christian religion because for me it was not logic and it didn't feel just.
For example: the concept of "the original sin" was not acceptable for me, how can I be blamed for something that somebody else did? And the fact that a Pope, Bishop or any other clergyman could judge me, while they were also mere human?
I did believe in Jesus (peace be upon him) but not as God's son, that was not logic either. So I did believe in God but did not accept religion.
I did hear about Islam, but only bad things, especially during the war between Iran and Iraq, I was very much afraid of Khomeiny and his doctrine.

When I got a new job on an Internet department about 11 years ago, my new boss encouraged me to surf the Internet to get some experience working with the net. My first thought was to search information about Islam, for I do not like to be afraid of something without knowing what it is.
First off all I was overwhelmed by the amount of information (already at that time) that was to be found! on the WWW about Islam, and I even found a website in my own language. So I started searching for "women in Islam". What I found took my breath away: Islam was totally different from what I had ever thought it would be. The basic was the same as Christianity, but the main difference was that it was all logic. All the doubts that I had about the Christian faith were not present in Islam, all my questions were answered. I felt like a sponge, I could not stop reading, I had to know more and more and it filled me up and I had to talk about it! But I thought that Muslims were only to be found among Arabs.
So to my surprise I heard about a group of Dutch (converted) Muslim women, who got together once a month in my hometown. I joined their group and was so touched by everything I saw and heard the first time I met them. They were Dutch women, just like me, but they wore head scarves and read the Koran in Arabic! one of the women gave a lecture that made me cry, I hid my tears from the others, but I knew from that moment on that my live would never be the same again.

I had to tell my parents about my findings and prepare them for the fact that I wanted to become a Muslimah. That was very hard, because just like me, they only heard bad things about Islam. So the day I told them that I was going to embrace Islam, I realized it was going to take a lot of talking and patience from both sides for them to accept it.

On August 16th, 1999 I said Shahada, al hamdoulilah. I knew that Islam is the truth and I could never go back. It took me an other 2 years before I decided to wear the head scarf, the main reason for choosing to wear it, was that I wanted to show everybody that I am a Muslimah, I am so proud of my religion. The head scarf was another obstacle for my parents to get over, but after a while they got used to it and now it is an inextricable part of me.

During my time as a Muslimah I have received many blessings from Allah, for which I am very grateful. My life has become full and complete, al Hamdoulilah.

May Allah guide us all and bless us, may He forgive us our sins and save us from the fire, Amien.

Salaam aleykoum,
Karin
Halifax, July 2010

If you would like to respond, please send an email to: webmaster@muslima.ca and we will forward it to Karin