I have witnessed numerous brothers and sisters take the oath of faith and revert to Islam. The term revert is preferred to the term convert because Muslims believe that every child is born in its natural state as a Muslim. It is the parents that make the choice to raise the child in a different faith. So anyone that embraces Islam, is said to be reverting back to the faith they were born into, which is Islam. So you are either a Muslim or were a Muslim....how about them apples for Muslims taking over the world! Muslims believe that we are born pure and innocent - starting life out with a clean slate. We do not require to be cleansed or forgiven of any sins - because as infants, we have not committed any. A Muslim begins to be held accountable for his or her deeds when they have attained puberty and mental maturity. Yes, Allah accepts an insanity plea!
If Islam is to be summarized in one sentence, with the understandable limitation that that entails, it is this. Islam is the worship of one God. Other faiths will argue that they too believe in one God and that say the Trinity is in fact different representations of the same God or that their different idols are all pathways to the one God. Islam is the belief in one God, with no ifs ands or buts - period. No saints, no priests, no middlemen, no idols, no images, no creatures living or dead, no natural or supernatural phenomena. Islam puts forth the ideology that no intermediary is necessary between God and his creations. No one can represent God. The Western world's misunderstandings about Islam run so deep that until recent decades, Muslims were also referred to as Mohammedans, under the mistaken assumption that Muslims worshiped Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Nothing could go more against the grain of Islamic teaching as to worship a prophet. It is the remote possibility of Muslims falling into this very fallacy, that underpins the Muslim aversion to depict or see depicted the Prophet Muhammad in any form. It is reported that the Prophet himself forbade this for fear that his followers would out of respect and reverence for him, celebrate his image and thus be distracted from what should be their piercing focus on the one God. An attempt as we say to prevent losing the forest for the trees.
Returning to the subject of bearing witness, every oath taking I am part of (shahada, as it is called in Arabic), never fails to move me. The most recent one was of Amanda and her mother Kari. Given all the negative publicity that Islam gets, if Islam were a business, it would have filed for bankruptcy. It does not cease to amaze me that Islam is still the fastest growing religion in the world and the world's second largest. The largest being Christianity, but with the caveat of including (but not limited to) the Amish, Anglicans, Armenian Apostolic, Assemblies of God, Baptists, Calvary Chapel, Catholics, Christian Science, the Community of Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Coptic Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches, Ethiopian Orthodox, Evangelicals, Iglesia ni Cristo, Jehovah's Witnesses, Lutherans, Methodists, Monophysites, Nestorians, the New Apostolic Church, Pentecostals, Plymouth Brethren, Presbyterians, the Salvation Army, Seventh-Day Adventists, Shakers and many others. Many in the above list will argue that they have few similarities with the others - in effect making them different faiths. By this token Islam is the largest single faith in the world. The only major split in Islam is between Sunni's and Shiites, with Sunnis making up 90%. The split began as a political disagreement over leadership following the death of the Prophet and not as a disagreement over religious beliefs.
Whenever I witness a shahada, the verses of chapter 110 of the Quran (An-Nasr) come to mind.
An-Nasr
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
When there comes the Help of Allah, and Victory, (1) And thou sees the People enter Allah's Religion in crowds, (2) Celebrate the Praises of thy Lord, and pray for His Forgiveness: for He is Oft-Returning (in Grace and Mercy). (3)
Witnessing a shahada serves to strengthen my own faith. It sometimes sends a small shiver down my spine. The call to prayer (adhan in Arabic) has a similar effect on me, as does hearing the Quran recited. One becomes a Muslim by intentionally and honestly stating, "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."
A word about Allah: Allah can be said to be the loose Arabic equivalent for God. It holds some special linguistic and grammatical properties, which is why Muslims refer to God as Allah, instead of the English word god. The English word god can be made plural - as in gods, and it can be made feminine - as in goddess. Allah the Arabic word for God, holds the distinction of being neither masculine nor feminine and neither singular nor plural. Allah is therefore not a reference to a different or mystical god - simply a reference to The God. Allah in Arabic derives from the root Elaha in Biblical Aramaic. Most people have the misconception that Allah is the term used exclusively by Muslims to refer to God or that Allah is the Muslim god. Arab Jews and Christians also use the term Allah to refer to God. So Allah is an Arabic term with some unique characteristics that are lost in translation to English. Allah is not proprietorially a Muslim term.
So ponder this.....if Arabic were the only language spoken on planet earth, anyone that believed in God, regardless of their religion - Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim or Mormon, would be calling upon Allah.
The "amazed" Reluctant Blogger
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