“So be patient, for the promise of Allah certainly is true. And do not be disturbed by those who have no sure faith.” Qur'an 30:60
It has been one year since I officially repented and reverted to Islam, and it has been the best thing to happen to me. As a celebration of my repentance, I am going back to examine the reasons for my reversion in the first place.
I lost my belief in Islam after years of being an unfaithful believer, my parents -regretfully- were not very insistent on instilling religious values within me, so my attachment to the religion was not very strong.
Growing up, Islam -to me- felt like an outlier that boldly clashed with all other aspects of modernity and yet, it was the only element of life that appeared truly holy and venerated by people. In a world that had gone past the old modes of thinking, Islam felt obtrusive and forceful in comparison to the "usual" ways of life, I thought.
I remember my father flipping through different channels on the Radio just to accidentally switch to the Qur'an channel. It felt awkward and out of place as if it was imposing itself on us and forcing us to conform to it. We would then sit awkwardly waiting for enough passages to be read for father to say "Sadaka Allahul Adhim" and switch the station. I remember to this day the feeling of the loosening tensions as the music started to play once again.
When I reached puberty, I was expected to start praying and fasting Ramadan, which I did only during the month. While slacking off on my religious obligations I kept the religion close to my heart and it was always a guiding light for me in the sea of uncertainty.
Until around my 14th birthday in 2020, when I sailed too far from that lighthouse and went astray, perhaps motivated by my teenage angst and rashness I decided to question the centre of my life, Islam and the laws and guidelines of the Deen and by "question" I mean passively consuming a boat load of shitlib content from all sorts of midwit types and taking on those beliefs without much challenge due to my religious illiteracy and disinterest in it.
This all culminated in me properly leaving the religion one day, and it all felt so wrong the whole way through, I felt heartbroken leaving it behind, but the talking heads in my social media kept saying that I did the right thing, and they would never lie to me, right?
The next couple of years would be undoubtedly the worst time in my life because of my weak will and sort of fatalistic acceptance of what my parents' wishes coupled with mild depression and feelings of failure especially after I failed the exemplary student program entrance exams again and missed my last shot at studying there.
Life was miserable for the next 2 to 3 years, I had no friends and no social life in high school and was very much exhausted from education and wanted an out, this resulted in me skipping whole weeks and my marks going down, thankfully my parents were understanding, and I wasn't doing anything wild or dangerous, I was at home getting into new hobbies and delving through the world of ancient history.
In what I thought was a twist of fate, my newest fixation was the sacred religions of ancient civilisations and their mythology and practices which made me resent the modern world for largely killing religion in general and resenting the medieval for replacing the idea of the cult and the pantheon with the restrictive and spiritually dead Abrahamic organised mass-religion viewing it as a lesser form of spirituality that was perpetrated and led by the mass and their mediocrity, this view was largely replaced by an appreciation for the occult elements of Judaism that made me apreciate the idea of monothiesm once I studied it properly in my own time.
This eventually led me to Sufism and the Traditional Islamic way through which I learned that not all spirituality is good since most old religions were largely subverted by demonic influence, which convinced me to stop my venture through the occult traditions of the west and the far-east and focus on the Islamic Tradition and through learning about Islam, I came to love it and see it in its true form.
I also learned that my elders from my mother's side were Sufi saints that learned in the famous Al-Zaituna mosque and spread knowledge across this province, this knowledge was sadly lost when my great grand-father died before my grand-father was born, breaking the chain of learning in my family and stopping it from reaching me.
Nowadays, Islam is a subject of interest for me, and I am dedicated to delving into the world of Islamic sciences alongside my main interest in computer science and the humanities and restoring my families famed knowledge in the religion and being a good influence on the world.