"You Should Have Been Born a Muslim!"

I will never forget that day… when that innocent, offhand comment deeply impacted on me.

My mom and I were shopping in our local mall. Though I don’t know the date, I do remember it was two years ago and in winter (or thereabouts), because I remember wearing one of my thickest and warmest pashmina scarves on my head. Strangely enough, I also remember that we were going down an escalator to the bottom level. I was gazing around me at the glittering shops, when out of the blue, she said:

“You should have been born a Muslim!”

I was quite amused and was just as casual when I replied:

“I know!”

Why did I say that? Probably because I agreed with her that I was behaving very Islamically, even though I was not a Muslim (yet!). Islam seemed to come natural to me – and particularly the hijab in this case! I could have added in my comment to her: “I know I should have been born a Muslim, because, yes, I do behave like one, and I don’t fit in with the world’s (and the church’s) way of seeing things. God alone knows how many people have mistaken me for a Muslimah! I cannot help but believing in what Islam teaches about modesty and veiling!”

Her comment struck in my heart a renewed kinship with Muslims, and at that moment I wished I really was one. Perhaps it was then that my fascination for Islam really took off from the milder interest and respect it was before. All through my three-year journey as a Catholic (four if you count the year I was in Catholic classes), through the convents I stayed at, through my fighting for modesty to be upheld – and fighting the nuns who told me to remove my veil in church! – through all of this, my love for Islam tugged at the back of my mind and demanded to be explored.

And in the end, alhamdulillah, I was reborn a Muslim.

It was recently, that I began reflecting on my mother’s comment after hearing people on the Islamic radio stations reiterate that we are all born as Muslims. It is so ironic what she said to me that day, because little did she know how right she was! We are born Muslims!

We were all created with this innate desire (fitrah) to submit in worship to the One God – Allah (SWT). Then, when we grew up, our culture and family religion was taught to us and we believed what we were taught, at risk of losing that fitrah given to us at birth, or associating others with Allah Ta’ala. If our family belonged to a religion which associated others with Allah, one would often end up thinking that this was okay. Raised Christian, I never knew a time when I did not believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were also God, even though it didn’t make sense logically. It was a challenge to leap into the total truth about the Oneness of God (tawhid), because it was not easy giving up a belief I had had all my life. But by the grace of Allah Ta’ala, the Infuser of Faith, I came to believe. All it takes is a desire to believe – and if this is strong enough, nobody can take it away from you. Being born into a Muslim family, a child is fortunate indeed, but to be a revert is also an immense privilege, because reverts can appreciate Islam from an outsider coming in.

I have returned to fitrah; I have come back to tawhid.  And, now, if my mother ever had to say:

“You should have been born a Muslim!”

I can reply in all confidence:

“I was!”