"Journey to Light"
by Núr
Bism'Allah al-Rahman al-Raheem
Copenhagen, 7 February 2004
I'll try my best to be clear and hopefully not bore those
that read this too much. I'll start at the beginning...
I was born Anna Linda Traustadóttir to Icelandic/Danish
parents in Reykjavík, Iceland in 1966 and baptised
into the Lutheran Church. My family moved to Vancouver, Canada
and then to New York City when I was young. I finished high
school at 16. In 1988, I got my B.A. from McGill University,
Montréal, Canada. Since then I have been travelling
around the world, studying and working. Denmark has been my
base since 1990.
In 1997, while studying Arabic in Cairo, one of my English
girlfriends, a born-again Christian bought me a portable Bible,
with both the Old and New Testaments. I was extremely pleased
because I had decided that I needed to know what the Bible
was and what was in it. And I felt that I could hardly call
myself Christian without consciously studying the Bible.
In 1998, whilst studying at Damascus University, I read the
whole Bible, from cover to cover, taking notes as I went along.
Once I had completed it, I realised that there were too many
inconsistencies, too many things I didn't agree with. Like
the Old Testament's portrayal of God and women, not to mention
all the things that Paul wrote in the New Testament. And when
I read about the holy men, the Prophets, like Noah, Lot, David,
etc., I found that I didn't respect them. I love and admire
Moses (from the Old Testament) and Jesus (from the New Testament).
Having already read the Torah, I tried getting a complete
Jewish Talmud, to no avail. I'd always heard that Jews (except
for Reformed) do not recognise someone who converted to Judaism.
Also, many, though not all, Jews are Zionist (those who support
Israel). And I am terribly anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, and
so, by default, pro-Palestinian. I also wanted a religion
that would accept a convert. I dabbled with Buddhism but decided
this was not for me, as Buddhists don't believe in God. And
I strongly believe in God, always have. Buddhism is still
interesting as an alternative way of life. My mum and I used
to discuss Hinduism and so I was very interested in it, but
there are just too many Hindu gods for me. Therefore Hinduism
was out of the question. That, and the fact that you cannot
convert to Hinduism.
When I had my son, Andrés Ómar, in October 2001,
I was asked whether he would be baptised, and even then I
refused. I felt that innocent children would surely be welcome
in Heaven, baptised or not. Anyway, how could I introduce
him into the Christian religion when I myself did not call
myself a believing Christian, though I was born and raised
as a Protestant? I didn't believe in the Trinity, in Mary
as the "mother" of God, in Jesus as the "son" of God, in Jesus
dying to cleanse us of our sins, in Jesus crying out in Aramaic
on the cross: "Eli, Eli, lama sabakh-tha-ni?" I mean why would
Jesus cry out: "My God, my God, why hadst thou forsaken me?"
when Jesus knew he was sent on a mission by God as a prophet
of God?
I grew up being one of the most anti-Muslim, anti-Islam people
you could ever meet. This is true: I was. I had also been
anti-Arab before moving to Cairo to study Arabic (I thought
Arabic calligraphy was beautiful). I'd grown up in the States,
raised on American movies, which always
portrayed Arabs as fundamentalists, radicals, women-oppressors,
religious fanatics, terrorists, never normal ,
average people. The large majority of people who are anti-Arab
has never been to any Arab country. The reality there is very
different.
In 1999, I went back to Damascus to work at an embassy. There
in 2000, I met an engineer named Mohannad. We married soon
after we met. To be honest when I married Mohannad, I married
him because I loved him, even though he
was Muslim. Over time, I realised I loved him because
he was Muslim. A good Muslim. I had meet many Muslims
here in Denmark and in the Middle East, and just like in my
life, I've met some nice and not-so-nice Christians, Jews,
Hindus, Buddhists, etc. I thought all those Muslims I'd met
were representing Islam. And whenever I asked Muslims questions
about Islam, one thing struck me: Nearly everyone claimed
to be an expert in Islam, even those who gave me, I later
found out, false information. It would have been more prudent
just to say: I don't know/I'm not sure. Yet I never judged
Christianity or any other religion by its followers. Strangely
though, I judged Islam by every Arab I meet, even though 1)
not all Arabs are Muslim. Some are Protestant, Catholic, Jewish,
Druze, Coptic, Alawite, etc. And 2) most Muslims aren't Arab.
Muslims can be Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, Macedonian, Malay,
Russian, Thai, African, Bosnian, American, Swedish, etc.,
and of course, Arab. I had been raised not to be prejudiced,
but I was. It took me a long time to realise this.
It's only after countless hours of discussion, and at times
arguments (!), with my husband that I came to be open-minded
enough to realise that I didn't have the full picture.
During Ramadan, November 2002, I asked Mohannad whether he
would help me read the Qur'an in Arabic. He had little time,
but I was determined to read the Qur'an in Arabic with the
help of a good translation. When I read the Qur'an, Islam's
holiest book, I thought it was beautiful, so scientific, so
compassionate, so feminist! Nearly all the books I'd ever
read about Islam, all written by non-Muslims, showed Islam
in a negative light. Those people who wrote against Islam
sometimes gave partial quotes from the Qur'an, leaving out
the rest of the verse, or they would translate the verses
incorrectly, on purpose or by mistake. I knew enough Arabic
to know that what I was reading was unlike anything I'd ever
read.
So much science, so much knowledge that has been only recently
discovered. I mean the Prophet Mohammad mentions: black holes,
space travel, DNA and genetic science, evolution (transformation
and mutation), geology, oceanography, embryonic development,
aquatic origins of life... WOW! I had always heard that the
Qur'an was basically just a watered-down version of the Bible,
but none of this was in the Bible! I wondered how someone
over 1400 years ago could have written anything like this!
Some of these ideas were only discovered this century. Then
I thought, well, Arab scientists, astronomers, mathematicians,
cartographers were so advanced for that time, maybe some of
them got together and wrote a book, loosely based on the Torah
and the Gospels. But then I studied it further and realised
that the Arabic scientific revolution followed
the arrival of Islam. Then I read that Muslims believe that
the Qur'an was given to Mohammad through the Angel Gabriel,
and is the continuation of God's word. Muslims believe that
parts of the Torah and parts of the Gospels, that speak of
Jesus' life, are inspired by God, or "Allah" as God is called
in Arabic. Not just Muslims, but Christian and Jewish Arabs
also call God "Allah." Muslims revere Abraham, Solomon, Moses,
Jesus, and Noah, in fact, all of the Biblical Prophets. It
is also mentioned that there are other prophets that came
to other nations to help them become better people. It's said
that Buddha was one of these prophets, but that he along with
Jesus, never meant for people to believe he was superior to
God, just that he was a messenger of God. They also believe
that the Prophet Mohammad is the last prophet, until Jesus
returns to Earth.
It says in the Qur'an that Allah can put a veil over our eyes
and a stone over our hearts so that we can neither see nor
feel the message of the Qur'an. Only when Allah is ready for
us to know it, do we understand. On 12 December 2002, I had
an incredible dream that started me thinking and contemplating
religion more deeply. Dreams are very important in Iceland
and dream interpretation is practically a science! I never
thought I needed a religion. Religion fascinated me, but I
had believed I was doing fine just believing in God, taking
bits from different religions until I got my own cocktail:
"Anna's Mix."
In January 2003, I started looking at the Internet, just doing
searches like: "Islam," "Qur'an," "Muslim," etc. In March,
whilst in Reykjavík, I got the opportunity to speak
with one of my best Icelandic girlfriends, a Muslim, and she
recommended a really good English translation (the Abdullah
Yusuf Ali version), to go along with the original Arabic.
In April, I received it and started using it as a supplement.
In May 2003, my Icelandic Muslim friend returned the visit
and stayed two weeks with us. We started talking about the
Qur'an. I told her that I wanted to translate it into Icelandic.
She told me it was her dream too. We agreed we would do it
together. We used our time together well, discussing Christianity,
Judaism and Islam all day, every day. She had questioned her
Lutheran faith, considered Judaism, visited Israel ("Occupied
Palestine" as far as I am concerned) twice, and only on her
second visit, started to consider the other side of the Arab-Israeli
conflict. She got interested in Islam. She had earlier gone
a similar path as I, coming to the same conclusions. Back
in 1995, when she told me she'd become Muslim, I behaved badly:
I was extremely negative. Shame on me for being unsupportive!
Now I found myself seeing myself Muslim. I told my husband
about my revelations, and he questioned me at length. He asked
me to wait with changing my religion. He told me that becoming
Muslim would make my life more difficult, that people who
didn't know Islam would treat me differently, that at this
time, in the year 2003, and in this world we live in, people
would ridicule me. He said I might lose contact with my family
and my friends if I took on the Muslim faith. He feared that
people that didn't know me so well or that I hadn't seen in
a long time, or ever met him, would think he was forcing me
to become Muslim. I told him if that were true, we could not
have got married, for when we married, I was Christian, and
had remained Christian up until then. Also, I argued, people
who have known me at all know I am a strong-minded, true feminist/humanist,
that I am opinionated, but not narrow-minded, and that no
one can control me...My parents have tried for years to no
avail!
I decided then and there that if friends and family didn't
want any contact with me because I decided to become Muslim,
so be it! My religion is mine and I am proud of my research
into Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam.
It has taken me years and countless hours of reading and soul-searching
to get to this point. My belief in God is something I have
always taken seriously and I have never been ashamed to declare
this faith, even when others ridicule me for believing in
something they say we cannot see. I argue, look around you,
how can you not believe in a supreme being that created everything
around us. And for those of you that view Islam as some kind
of cult, it isn't. It's one of the biggest religions in the
world, if not the largest: One in four people on this planet
is now Muslim, and it's the fastest growing religion.
So finally, on 4 June 2003, I decided to officially become
Muslim so that I could go on Hajj to Mecca. I had been searching
for answers for a long time, since my childhood, and by the
mid-1990's, I was buying books on different faiths. Deep inside,
I imagined I would find the answers for me. I remember the
first time I heard the "Azan" (the Muslim call for prayer,
when a fellow says "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) from a minaret
at a mosque). It was a bright, sunny, February Sunday in Cairo
in 1997, so church bells were also ringing, but when I heard
the call for prayer, tears streamed down my face, without
my realising it. I wasn't Muslim, but it moved me. One of
my oldest and dearest friends, a Catholic, was in Beirut a
while ago, staying at a hotel and woke up to the call for
prayer at 4.30 during her first night in Lebanon. She thought
it was so moving that she also cried.
When I read the Qur'an, I feel it in my stomach, deep in my
gut, that this is right for me. The inspirational beauty of
the Qur'an makes me sometimes cry. It's an all-encompassing
way of life. No other religious book ever moved me to tears.
The Qur'an is simply put the most complex book I've ever read.
The more you read it, the more you both understand and at
the same time, question. The Qur'an is meant to inspire you
to learn more. Every time you read it, you peel off different
layers of understanding. I am not an expert; I never will
be. Even if I read from it every day for the rest of my life,
I will still learn something new. It's full of mysteries.
I still also supplement my Qur'anic studies with Biblical
studies like the "Gospel of Barnabas," "The Torah," etc.
I've also since got some new Muslim girlfriends over the Internet.
Whilst searching the net, I came across an Icelandic Muslim
site: www.islam.is, and I contacted the writer. We started
a correspondence. Around New Year's 2004, I sent her a report
I wrote entitled "Islam in Iceland 2003," which I am submitting
to the Saudi Government, she suggested we three work on the
translation of the Qur'an from Arabic to Icelandic (Kóraninn),
as she also speaks Arabic. So it seems that we will be three
Icelandic Muslim women working on translating the Arabic Qur'an.
For those of you looking for a good English version, I've
heard the Muhammad Asad translation is also very direct, but
I myself have yet to get hold of it.
I did however buy an incredible amount of reading material
in Kuala Lumpur last summer. It's a new Muslim's mecca for
books. I really stocked up! My husband, son and I stayed a
month in Malaysia. What an incredible place! Of Islamic areas,
I had only been to the Arab Middle-East and here was a whole
new Islamic world in South-East Asia! The experience was wonderful
to say the least. I had always been fond of Islamic art and
architecture, and all of Malaysia is both an indoor and outdoor
museum! Under the former Muslim Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad,
Islam had a revival. He wants to unite all the Islamic countries,
not just in a so-called Islamic Union, but he also wants one
currency, a gold dinar. What a visionary! Islam needs more
men and women like him!
I always try to be positive, so I think it's a very exciting
time, the 21st century! If someone like me can become Muslim,
there's hope for anybody! The friends that I have discussed
religion with recently know that I have become Muslim, and
without fail, they have been extremely supportive. I was a
bit surprised that they were not shocked. They said they knew
one day I'd find my niche (I'd been searching so long), and
they were happy for me. Some even call me by my new Muslim
name: Núr, which means light. I also still use Anna
Linda, because it's the name my parents gave me and it represents
part of the person I was for 36 years. Núr is just
the continuation of me!
So ends my story: "Journey to Light," a journey which is,
in fact, just beginning!
Maa is-salaama wa Allah makum!
Núr |
