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From
Christianity to Islam - A Journey of Faith By Tara Dooley, Chicago Tribune
In
retrospect, Carole Sturm traces her conversion to Islam to a prayer she uttered
as a 15-year-old
in a Roman Catholic church. It was the appeal of a spiritual teenager, raised
in the church, the plea of a young woman who believed in God but struggled with the
Catholic mysteries of faith and forgiveness. “I said, `God, show me what this
means or
show me something else,’” Sturm, 34, said, recalling an afternoon nearly 20
years ago
in Tulsa, Okla. “After that, I figured I was going to hell. I mean, I was
15.” It took about
five years, but God answered her prayer and showed her Islam, Sturm said. “It was
a slow dawning,” said the Arlington, Texas, resident and computer systems
analyst for
Sabre Group, based in Ft. Worth. “It wasn’t like I woke up one night and
said, `This is
it.’” In converting to Islam, Sturm joined a growing number of Americans who
switch to
faiths that have been imported to the predominantly Christian United States. And
like many
others who convert, Sturm said she found that her new religion allowed her a spirituality
and an understanding of God that previously seemed elusive. National
Islamic groups estimate that there are more than 6 million Muslims in the United States,
placing the religion’s membership ahead of several of the nation’s mainline denominations.
There is no formal or elaborate conversion ritual to the faith. Someone who
becomes Muslim must simply declare a belief in one God and recognise Mohammed as
a messenger of God, Sturm said. But like Christianity, attracting converts is important
in the religion, especially as Muslims choose to live in non-Islamic states,
said Yvonne
Haddad, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University. “It is a missionary
religion,” she said. “In the 20th Century, (conversion) has assumed a more important
role.” In many places in the United States, the Muslim community consists of families
from Islamic states worldwide as well as American converts. For
Cherie Lyle, the decision to convert to Islam from the Seventh- day Adventist Church
was prompted in part by the assortment of races and ethnicities she encountered
during Friday afternoon prayers at a mosque on Center Street in Arlington. “I
saw this sea of Muslims that ranged from the blackest black to the whitest
white, and
what came to me was, This is what heaven must be like,” Lyle said. Lyle’s
journey to
Islam began when she happened on a television show about the five pillars, or
basic tenets,
of Islam: a declaration of faith in the absolute oneness of God, prayers five times
a day, gifts to charity, fasting during the month of Ramadhan and a pilgrimage
to Makkah.
Lyle, who had taught Sunday school in her church, said readings of the Qur’an offered
a believable way to understand God and an account of how to live as a Muslim. The
Christian Bible, and especially the writings of the Apostle Paul, had confounded
her with
contradictions. “I had studied very deeply, but I always felt that the hard questions
went unanswered,” said Lyle, who is trained as a lawyer but now teaches at Al-Hedayah
Academy, an Islamic school in Ft.Worth. Although Sturm said that Islam once
seemed a foreign faith to her, it became increasingly familiar as she pursued a degree
in finance from the University of Oklahoma and met students from Islamic countries
who shared their knowledge, including the man she eventually married, Shahzad
Khan. For
Sturm, reading the Qur’an answered her questions of faith in a logical manner.
Islam did
not require her to make leaps of faith, such as accepting Jesus as the son of
God and
path to salvation, she said. “There is no way we can earn our way to heaven without
God’s mercy, but there is more responsibility on the shoulders of the
person,” she
said of Islamic teachings. “That was important to me.” In addition to an
emphasis on
personal responsibility, teachings on the importance of the family and morality
also appealed
to her, she said. Watching his daughter convert to Islam did not feel right, said
Sturm’s father, Charles Sturm. But he came to accept her decision when he saw how
she, Khan and their two children lived their religion. “I would not have
advised my daughter
to do this,” Charles Sturm said. “When she followed the tenets of the
Catholic faith,
she was a good woman. (But) I have no doubt that she is a good woman now that
she is following the religion of Islam.” Although
the teachings of Islam may feel instinctively right to Carole Sturm, following
all of
the customs is not always easy. Lyle and Sturm said they have struggled -to different
degrees -with the Islamic requirement that women cover their hair. Once she made
a declaration of faith, Lyle, 43, immediately took to wearing long, concealing clothing
and to covering her hair. But after she broke the custom for her sister’s wedding,
returning to the covering became more difficult. Now, she sometimes does not cover
her hair for business meetings, she said. Similarly, Sturm does not cover her
hair at
work, where she often deals with Sabre’s clients, although she emphasized that
the company
offers a good working environment for Muslims. “I just haven’t been able to face
the questions and the looks,” she said. “People do take you differently...It
colours how
seriously they take you and what you say.” Despite their difficulties with
dress requirements,
Lyle and Sturm underscored that the decision about what to cover and when
is a woman’s to make. Both women objected to critics who say Islam is oppressive
to women. Examples of extreme restrictions on women’s freedom to work or even
walk unaccompanied outside in some Islamic countries are cultural or political impositions
on Islam, they said. In fact, both said that Islam offers women reign over their
money and names. Requirements of modest dress are for both men and women, and
nothing prohibits sun dresses at home, Sturm said. For both Sturm and Lyle,
Islam showed
them a way to understand God. “It was like seeing God without all the baggage,”
Lyle said. |
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