From Darkness into Light

How a Christian became a Muslim by Ismaa'eel the son of George Gauron ___ It was in the winter of 1996, when Michael Anderson, vicar of our local church in Hordle, the New Forest, England was mentioning how Muslims had prevented the BBC from screening a movie which made fun of Jesus. "We Christians protested" he said, "but the BBC didn't pay any attention and it was only when the Muslims objected, that they backed down." This surprised me. "What had Muslims got to do with Jesus?" I knew nothing about Islām but decided I should be calling them to Christianity. I borrowed some books from him which were supposed to show how to convert Muslims to Christianity. Again I was amazed. Muslims not only believed in Jesus, but also in Abraham, Moses and other prophets I thought belonged exclusively to us. I returned the books, annoyed that we were sharing with them some of our religion. Later, I moved to Manchester and did some evangelizing with Christians, going out on the streets and to people's homes. Sometimes I would meet Muslims and they impressed me with their good manners, conviction to Islām and love of Jesus. Once I gave an elderly Muslim man a tract to read. He looked at me and said, "Listen son, I know more about Jesus than you do!" He spoke with conviction and I couldn't say anything. Later I was talking to an English man telling him he had to be born again. We said this a lot. If anyone accepted Jesus, they'd be born again in a new life. I kept repeating this, until a young lady, sitting near by, raised her voice saying, "You won't be born again until you become a Muslim!" I sensed she knew more about what she was saying than me and walked away feeling quite defeated. My doctor at this time was named "Islām". It used to bother me, looking at his name, "Dr Islām" carved in wooden letters on his desk. I gave him some of our literature to read. He looked at it saying, "I have a better book than this." He was a good doctor and I left off trying to convert him. I used to have a friend who was training to be a teacher and she had to spend time with practical teaching in a school. I was worried because the children in our city were known to be rough and violent. I asked her afterwards, how it went, and she smiled saying, "It was easy, the children were mostly Muslim and were very well behaved." One evening I was passing out our leaflets to a group of men drinking outside a pub, when one of them, shouted out at me, "CHRISTIAN ! You're a Christian !?" He was angry, and looking straight at me, he said, "You've got THREE gods!!" His words were like a dagger going into my heart. Previous to Christianity I had been a Hindu, and we had a whole host of gods to worship and pray to. We Christians worshipped God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but how could God be more than One? Not long before, I had been in a Catholic cathedral in the city and saw people lighting candles, putting them in front of statues, then kneeling in front of them and praying to them. "What was the difference between this and Hinduism?" Hindus worshipped lifeless stone statues and so did these Christians. Even though I didn't have a statue or picture to pray to, I was still praying to and worshipping more than one God. This clearly went against the first two commandments that we Christians unanimously agreed were given to Moses; that we shouldn't take any gods besides Him. I confided my doubts to a close friend. "Don't worry" he said, "Pray to Jesus in the morning, the Holy Spirit at midday and God at night." This didn't make me feel any better. While being a Hindu I had also practiced some Buddhism and then I mixed with Sikhs, thinking they might be right and now Christianity wasn't providing me any real answers. I was feeling very despondent, and decided to leave the city and go out to the Penine Hills some distance away and stay there till some direction came to me.