HIS JOURNEY INTO ISLAM

I received this email about two months ago from Troy, a 26 year old American man. He wants to share his story on how he became a Muslim and his journey into the Islamic faith. A really interesting read. Thank you so much Troy for sharing your story with the world.....
Hello, I am a 26 year old American named Troy (the world doesn't need to know my full name lol). I formally accepted

 Islam in 2009 when I was still 22. I was raised Catholic although not from a very religious background. I enjoyed reading and learning about the Biblical stories as a kid. The teachings from the Bible were quite simple and straightforward to me as the Prophets all instructed people to worship/obey one God and be a good person. I also enjoyed acting in the Christmas plays. I always played a shepherd in them, and later on in life I would learn about actual Palestinian shepherds. I just found Catholicism confusing by how Jesus, Mary and Saints were given such special status like they were almost god-like. In my mind there could only be one God who had absolute authority and power. And this I remember feeling as a kid. I didn't really understand much about the Catholic rituals such communion and confession for example either. I saw them more to be symbolic, but literally "eating the body of Jesus" and a priest being able to forgive you for your bad deeds was hard for me to grasp. Why would I have to eat a wafer and confess to a priest to be forgiven? Why couldn't I just simply ask God to forgive me? Anyways as I got older as a teenager I lost interest in religion. I didn't enjoy going to Church really. I found it boring and tedious to go a lot, but it was okay to do as a family activity on holidays. I didn't really think too much of it honestly. I was also exposed to other types of Christianity (Baptist/Evangelical) from friends but their type of Christianity seemed a lot different from Catholicism and did not appeal to me really at all. I did not understand why they put so much focus on Jesus alone. It was like they threw God and all the other Prophets to the back and worshipped Jesus instead. I just could not really understand this sort of theology. I later studied other religions when I started college. It was cool to learn about the Dharmic religions, but they were hard for me to understand. I found Hinduism to be complex and Buddhism to be abstract. I though Sikhism was pretty straightforward but seemed like a localized Punjabi religion. I also saw Taoism, Confusionism and Shinto to be abstract and a bit localized (China/Japan). I really did not understand Jainism much, it also seemed very localized (India). I was of course familiar with Judaism as it followed the Old Testament. I find Judaism to be a simple, straightforward religion too but I didn't understand why it completely disregarded Jesus. Although I was familiar with Arabic culture as I lived in Michigan as a kid, I did not really know much about Islam other than they prayed in a Mosque. I used to see Islam as a bit localized as well (Middle East/Pakistan), but I did find it interesting too how Judaism and Christianity started in the Middle East but spread West into Europe and the Americas. One thing I did find ironic is how Christianity came off as being very "Eurocentric" despite it's origins coming from Palestine/Syria/Egypt. Later I understood that it drew influence from Roman culture as it spread into places like Greece, Italy and Spain. Anyways I never had any bad feelings towards Arabs/Muslims as a whole or anything. I understood the 1st Gulf War as a political conflict between Iraq and Kuwait, nothing religious at all. I also saw the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to be more over land/politics/ethnicity/nationalism. I did not really see things from a "religious" perspective. I also vaguely remember the 1st Afghan War (1980s) as a political conflict between Communists and local guerrillas as seen on the film "Rambo 3". The complex Balkans wars also happened when I was a kid. Again I didn't really know about the religious aspect of the horrible conflicts, but I did see them as ethnic/nationalist conflicts between Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians and Albanians. Even after 9/11 I still didn't see "Islam as a whole" as responsible for the attack. I saw it as an attack done by a terrorist organization who was mad over US foreign policy. We can get into conspiracy theories and other political stuff later, but yes I am a rational thinker. With Islam always on the news I thought to myself I should really start to learn more about what it really is. At this point I was not really interested in learning about it from a theological or "religious" standpoint, but from rather a historical, political and cultural standpoint. I thought it was really cool how Muslims from various places like Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, former Soviet Union, etc. all did the same basic religious practices despite them being from very different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I found Christianity to be quite segregated and very different based on ethnicity and nationality, hence all the numerous sects and Churches. After studying Islam and various political issues in the Muslim world on my own I wondered to myself if I could ever get to be a part of this whole spectrum. I continued to study the history and cultures of the Islamic world on my own. I later took an Islamic History class where I actually got to read the Quran and learn the history of the Muslim world from the time span of pre-Islamic Arabia to the formation of the modern state of Saudi Arabia. The class was really fun and I learned about all the various Islamic empires and civilizations ranging from the 1st Caliphates, Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, etc. I also met a bunch of Muslim students in the class. I was able to learn more about Islam from a theological perspective from them. I learned that Islam really did not differ much at all from my previous simple beliefs as a kid: prophets teaching monotheism and good morals. Islam's view on Jesus made far more rational sense than Christianity's point of view. Due to Islam's simple and rational theology, I proudly accepted it. However things were not so smooth at first. First off all I had to learn how to perform Salah and recite Quran in Arabic which is a completely foreign language to me. Of course I had to deal with my family's reaction to my decision. Some of my family did not mind much that I converted, others were skeptical, upset and disagreed with my decision. It was difficult and frustrating for me to deal with, but I can understand that they care for me and want to make sure that I am making my own decisions and not simply following other people's influences blindly. Another major issue I had was obviously still not being very educated in Hadith and Fiqh. This can be quite a challenge for new converts. Sadly some new Muslims fall into extremism because of this. And of course Muslims have to face a lot of bigotry here in the West. Fortunately I was able to continue educating myself about Islam. I also took more religion/historical/political classes in college. I continue to learn more about Islam and religion in general each day, although I am very much into politics, history and culture. Although it can be very rough at times, I am very happy I accepted Islam and hope I never forsake it. I think education is the most important key to being a strong Muslim. I also hope to visit the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia in my lifetime...