The most difficult part of becoming Muslim was telling my family that I was converting away from Christianity. My parents had me baptized as a baby, raised me to be Christian, I went through confirmation classes and even got baptized as an adult signifying Christianity as my choice. While my parents knew about my search of different religions and engaged in discussion, they seemed to assume I’d land on Christianity.
When I told them I was converting to Islam, they initially treated it as a phase; to them, Islam was an experiment to test my faith, to figure out who I was, or simply to try it. But the more I talked about Islam, the more they realized I was committed to my choice.
A lot of the conversations were answering questions about Islam and why I found Islam to be good for me. Some of my family thought that covering myself in abaya/hijab meant I was hiding my personality and conforming to some oppressive concept.
Being the only Muslim woman in the family physically showed a divide of beliefs, and my family worried that choosing Islam meant I was going to separate myself from them. Thankfully, it’s been the exact opposite, and along with many conversations and prayer for guidance, choosing Islam has brought me closer to
my family.
Islam encourages and requires Muslims to care for their families and remain close to them in case they need help in any way. Islam changed my mindset from being an individual to being a sister. I lost some friends when I became Muslim, but I gained a community (an ummah) of sisters and brothers in Islam.
The biggest change I had to make to be Muslim was to establish prayer. As Muslims, we pray 5 times a day. The first prayer of the day, fajr, is around 5 am in the summer, and I had to set many alarms because it was difficult to wake up. I started praying in English and then slowly learned the prayer in Arabic through recitation, with the help of sisters and brothers.
Initially, I didn’t know exactly how to pray, and made mistakes. Those mistakes used to bother me because I’m a perfectionist and I thought I was disgracing Allah or doing something haram, and I would get frustrated and down on myself. But then I learned that Allah rewards our intentions.
Mistakes aren’t punished, especially if you don’t know any better; simply ask for forgiveness and guidance and do better next time. That level of forgiveness and mercy from Allah taught me to forgive myself and to step back from the intensity of my emotions.
The benefits to establishing prayer were bigger than I expected. I’d had a rough year personally and wasn’t able to sleep for months, only passing out when I was exhausted. Islam was giving me peace mentally and when I established prayer, the first day I completed all 5 prayers on time, I was able to sleep throughout the night and wake up rested.
I was so relieved.
I was also shocked that something as simple as praying 5 times a day would physically and mentally calm me down so I could rest. After that night, praying 5 times a day became a necessity for my well-being, and it became easier. Prayer still calms me down every time I pray, which makes me more thankful each day as well.
Learning Islam 