Make me a Muslim

 

“Islam began as something strange and will revert to being strange as it began, so give glad tidings to the strangers.”

-The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (Muslim)

Ramadan is mostly fasting, praying, reading Quran, making dhikr and, nowadays, surfing the web. We do not only have to check facts and details concerning the fast or browse some ayat; we intuitively search for material that vitalizes and boosts our iman. And that's really good!

Somehow my computer refused to play the BBC Learning Zone clips that I wanted to watch and when I started to get frustrated and began clicking around, I discovered a really nice BBC 3 documentary, Emily Hughes' "Make me a Muslim". I typed the title in the youtube-searchbox and detected the documentary split up in four episodes. 

I was especially moved by Saffiyahs story, as she's about the same age as I am.

In my opinion the documentary is a good reminder to all of us that "becoming muslim" does not mean becoming a serious, perfectly synchronized, niqab-wearing - not that it's a bad thing - mu'min. It means only a start, a beginning. It means growing as a human being, growing in who we can be: respectful, awake, conscious adults. Avoiding the extremes, understanding Islams's organic nature, striving for the "happy medium".

Although some material is rather bizarre - keyword "co-wife" - the documentary offers a somehow realistic picture of what it is like for today's female converts. Yep, this is rather girls' stuff ;)