After this rather unfortunate episode with Judaism, I decided to worship God as Adam, Noah, and Abraham did, since none of them were Jews or Christians. I believed that Jesus was a man of God who was sent to reform the Jews from the very error in their religious practice that still afflicts them to this day: they follow the letter of the Law, but not the spirit of the Law. For instance, the extremes that even orthodox Jews employ to bend the Sabbath restrictions are too numerous to mention here. Also, Faith plays little or no role in Judaism. The Christianity of modern times calls for nothing but faith. Go out, kill someone, say you believe that Jesus died for our sins, ask Jesus for forgiveness, and you'll go to Heaven. I'm sorry. Neither my heart nor my mind tells me this is OK with God. In my understanding of God, good deeds and daily worship are what He requires of us. He would also require some form of repentance from a murderer before forgiving such a grave sin. Even the Bible tells us faith without deeds is worthless:

Closer inspection of the New Testament also pointed me in the right direction. It turns out, Christianity is not a new religion at all, it was God's gift to the Jews which they refused (at least most of them) to accept:

One evening in Germany, I was looking around in the Videothek [German for "video rental store"] when I came across a film with Anthony Quinn called, Mohammed, Der Gesandte Gottes [English: "Mohammed, The Messenger of God", the English/American title is The Message]. On a whim, I decided to check it out. I knew very little about Islam or Mohammed at the time, but did know that it was a monotheistic religion that Christians didn't like very much. Since my wife and I lived in a neighborhood of Köln (Cologne, Germany) with a high Turkish population, I was kind of interested in this if only to better understand the religion of these fellow foreigners in Germany.

The Message is a film about the life of Mohammed starting with the point in his life when he starts receiving revelations. It portrays the difficult process he encountered of spreading God's word to the pagan Arabs of his time. From this film I learned a lot about what Islam really is, as opposed to the many myths propagated by Westerners since the Crusades. After seeing this film, I felt I had found what I was looking for. But being the skeptical person I am, I decided I would first place it under the same kind of scrutiny I had placed Judaism before accepting a religion based on the interpretation of one film director.

As chance would have it, soon thereafter I had another opportunity to travel to Israel again where I could observe Muslims and their behavior, this time around with a little more objectivity; I still found much value in the ways of Judaism, yet I felt Islam was meant for me, being the non-Jew I am. While in Akko and in Al-Quds (Jerusalem) I was able to meet Muslims and talk to them. I found their hospitality met, if not exceeded, that of the Jews I had encountered on this and my previous trip to Israel.

Interestingly enough, Muslims have no logical reason for being kind to Americans. It is our government that supports the Israeli military. Israeli Jews, however, have every reason for being nice to American tourists, yet the more conservative Jews can exhibit a typical Israeli "lack of politeness", which although does not equate to rudeness, certainly borders on it at times. This I experienced on my first trip to Israel when trying to acquire a certain book for a German professor who specializes in Jewish history. The owner of the bookstore in Jerusalem which would have been most likely to carry this obscure book practically interrogated me about my professor and what he teaches in a most unfriendly way. To summarize, my dealings with Jews have been very mixed: a few very positive, many neutral, and some down right negative. My encounters with Muslims, however, have been singularly positive. This observation of Muslim behavior is based on encounters at home, abroad, on vacations, at university, at my various places of employment, and random encounters in day-to-day life. I'm sure there are some Muslims somewhere (or at least people who consider themselves Muslims) who are bad-tempered, violent, and hate Americans, although I've never encountered them.

To be fair, when comparing and contrasting religions, it is important to weigh not only the moral behavior of each religion's adherents, but also its teachings, laws, and beliefs. If people were to judge Christianity solely on the deeds of its followers since its inception by Paul, it would no doubt not fair well at all since atrocities like the Inquisition, the Crusades, persecution of Jews, wars between Christian countries, brutal treatment of native peoples wherever any Christian nation landed in the world with the goal of expanding their empire, etc., would surely deter anyone from considering this religion. So, it must have some attraction in its belief system or practices, otherwise it would not be the world's most popular religion.

Back to my own saga. While still in Germany, I decided I would start the same type of serious investigation into Islam that I had performed with Judaism. The people-side of the religion looked great, but I still needed to look into its laws, beliefs, and moral codes. I tried to get a copy of the Qur'an with an English translation while in Al-Quds (Jerusalem), but I only managed to get some small collection of chapters at an Arab bookstore. It is interesting to note that the store owner did not ask any money for this.

All of sudden, my life situation changed. My wife was pregnant. We were extremely happy about this. Our studies, however, were taking longer than we had expected and our finances were running low. It was time to move back to the U.S. and finish our degrees there. My life was suddenly centered around economical survival. Our daughter Sarah was born and our lives changed completely. Somehow I managed to help with caring for Sarah and finish my last full-time semester with good grades. Then, the job hunt was on. My first two jobs didn't even pay the bills. After many long evenings of self-study and training myself in the latest technologies of my profession, I finally got a break. About the time my career and financial situation had stabilized I no longer needed to burn the midnight oil to survive.

Ironically, it was the strong faith of a Christian co-worker whose e-mail signatures always ended in a Bible verse that reminded me of what I still needed to take care of: that promise I had made to myself to finish checking out Islam. I got a copy of the Qur'an with both the original Arabic and the English translation next to it and started reading. I knew after reading a few chapters, "this is it!". I was still cautious, since adopting a new religion before being absolutely sure can be disastrous thing. So, I went on the Web and starting visiting web sites both for and against Islam. I also called and talked to a former co-worker who is Muslim about my thoughts. Ironically, the more anti-Islamic literature I read on Christian web sites, the more I was drawn to Islam. Their arguments were flimsy and their view of the religion completely skewed. They helped me put the last nail in the coffin of the American Judeo-Christian tradition for me in my life.

Through reading the Qur'an and a small collection of Hadith, I felt pretty confident that I wanted to become a Muslim. I was still pretty nervous though. Giving up my former life and committing myself to praying 5 times a day and fasting during Ramadan was leaving me kind of anxious. Could I be a good Muslim? What if it's too much for me? I felt that I needed a sign from God before I actually contacted anyone at the local mosque in order to begin the formal process of accepting Islam and converting. So, I prayed to God and asked Him for a sign (it was something dealing with my work), a sign that would be statistically improbable. I promised God that I would not delay my conversion to Islam any further should he grant me this favor I asked of Him. I also asked Him to not grant me this sign should He not want me to become a Muslim.

Well, All Praise be to God the Highest! He came through for me! He made the improbable reality and I went without delay to the mosque. I arrived at a time when there wasn't a prayer, but I got enough information so that I could e-mail the mosque with my intentions. Due to some upcoming events at the mosque, I wasn't contacted until a little over two weeks later by phone and asked if I could pronounce the Shahada that coming Friday. It is most interesting to note that Allah repeated the sign I had requested twice (tripling my original request!): on the 8th of July, on the 15th of July, and finally again on the 22nd of July. Who says Allah doesn't answer prayers? On the 23rd of July 1999 I became a Muslim.

Since becoming a Muslim, many people (both fellow Muslims and non-Muslims) have asked me which aspects of Islam were most influential in my decision to submit entirely to Allah. After careful consideration, I have numbered them in their order of importance to me personally: