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From Christianity to Atheism I was born in 1985 and grew up in Oslo with my mother, stepfather, little sister and little brother. My mother always believed in God and it affected me especially. By having a missionary from western part of Norway as my teacher in the second and third grade strengthen my awareness about the existence of God and made me aware of my identity as a believer in God. I enjoyed spending Sundays in church; first at Sunday school and afterwards the service. To believe in God was natural for me and I initiated God in my life in all my thoughts and worries. But this ended when I became about 14 years old and Christianity became incomprehensible and provoking; I alienated religion and God. They call it civilization I started at high school in downtown Oslo and had to live with a class friend and her mother to finish high school due to my family moving to inner Østfold. Gradually I moved to another class friend and her mother, before I moved to an apartment at St. Hanshaugen, which I shared with my first friend that I lived with. I decided to work for a year after completion of high school and used to spend my time at the bookshop. I enjoyed myself in the book business because I have always enjoyed reading and acquire knowledge about everything. When I think back to those times I feel the powerlessness, chaos and displeasure. I could not accept my lifestyle; described in Norwegian as exercising success, civilization, freedom and modernity. Displeasure + curiosity = Reflection and action After a year in the bookshop I began to study bachelor of philosophy at Blindern; a subject we used many hours at complicated texts of philosophers who wrote pages about time travelling, if it is possible. This subject was just not after my taste but it certainly made me reflect about many things (I have always done that but now even more systematically) upon my life and the surroundings. The second semester I changed my subjects to among other things “religion in a globalized era”. It was in this class I first saw a Norwegian girl with a hijab, she sat in the front row and it “struck me” that this is an evidence for me: It is something bigger that I have missed, which I had to discover. It was an insisting curiosity combined with displeasure. I was displeased and disappointed about the fact about what I had been socialized into. Where people saw modernity, civilization and freedom, I saw injustice, suppression, double standards and hypocrisy. I decided to search about Islam. My father: “Choose your fights! – Be true to yourself” From the age of 6 I have spent many summers in Casablanca with my family. The life there and the connection between people and the call for prayer etc made a huge impact on me. Especially the certainty that it is absolutely no guarantee that what we learn here and our way of life is the universal, the best, the one great truth. That combined with my upbringing about being true to myself regardless the consequences and to choose my fights made me independent, self confident and ready to make those decisions in my life that I felt were important. This lead me to the decision to take a year away from my studies, stop working, let my apartment go and travel backpack through Europe by train and stay in Morocco for a year. The turning point The year in Morocco is indescribable. I cannot express the words that will justify my experience there. But it was extremely demanding and extremely rewarding. The set of books for Islam was sent to me by a friend of mine and for a period I went daily to the library in “Dar America” to study. There the Moroccan guards also taught me the Moroccan language and I got the opportunity to attend to a seminar with an Afro-American Imam. I was absorbed in his lecture; what he said about Islam’s view on women, the understanding of women, was the most beautiful I had ever heard anyone say about women and being a woman I recognized myself in this understanding about the being of women, the role in the community, rights and duties. I travelled around in Morocco and met many wonderful people who took care of me, and for a long period of time I travelled with crocky busses to a school for the blind children and youths. One of the teachers was also blind and very good in the English language and he said yes to discuss Islam with me. Many things he said provoked me but I knew why it did; it was unaccustomed thoughts which I did not understand. But he made me understand SubhanAllah, about why we should regard our self as the slaves of Allah. Why we should serve Him. Not because He needs us, He does not need anything from us, it is we who desperately need Him. “IF you exist…” Everything I learned about Islam and discussed and saw in practice made sense. It made so much sense that I began to manifest Islam’s wisdom in my daily life; the way I dressed, ate, thought etc. At this stage it meant nothing for me whether God existed or not; it was fine, it was not only about great values, it was also the recipe for how to leave these values and then enjoy the benefits. I wrote travel logs to the local newspaper back home about how I experienced Islam, and I was determined to fight for this religion which was so misunderstood back home. I had seen how the Muslims prayed. My host family that I lived with the first three months in the family’s apartment had a friend who used to pray some times. My good friend and her father did the same. But they were also the only ones that I saw of my circle of friends there that looked upon themselves as Muslims. I remember so well one morning I was alone that I put my forehead on the carpet and said that IF you exist God, make me conscious of that. And I blushed; for an atheist there is nothing more humiliating than the position of sujood. It took some weeks before I bought the Quran. When I bought the Quran and I sat down one evening with it, I was very anxious about what was really written in the Muslims Holy Book and from that day I was convinced. I had not read the whole second chapter before I knew that verily I was created and closely watched over. Verily nothing was coincidental, good fortune or bad fortune, and verily this was the words of Him, who created me, and verily this book contained the recipe for how I should arrange my life and that it was the best I could do for myself. By accepting this I felt complete.
Just a few days before I moved home again I reverted. I had learned the shahadah from my Muslim friend and I had asked her to teach me the prayer. May Allah reward her and her family with all the best. Amin. Still I did not revert “publically” until six months later; to show my family back home that this was not just “a thing”, something spontaneous and cool, but a deeply serious choice of life that I intend to manage my life after.
Alhamdulillah for everything and thank you Allah for all the strength, courage and self-confidence He is pouring over those He want, Allahu Akbar. La hawla wa la kuwwata illa billah. May we be Muslims until we die and get our taqwa strengthened for each moment that passes on and thus be amongst the successful at the Day of Judgment. Amin.
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