As a teenager I had watched Pat Robertson on the 700 Club, and as a young adult I listened faithfully to televangelist Rev. Jimmy Swaggert. In my 30's I watched programs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. All the while hoping that one of the ministers would say something that would click in my mind, and I would finally know, "Yes, there really is a God!"None of them ever said anything that caused that connection to happen, though many said things that confused me even more. At this stage I had become completely disillusioned with religion.
On September 11, 2001 I was sitting at my computer. It was before 9a.m. and as usual the television, which was sitting to my right was turned on for background noise. I heard the sound that is made to notify viewers of an important news announcement. I stopped and turned towards the TV. A reporter began talking and one of the towers of the World Trade Center showed in the background.
He said an accident had happened. A small plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I'm legally blind, but I could see well enough to know that it wasn't a small plane that had hit the tower. The hole was massive. And I didn't think it was possible to accidentally hit something so big.
As I watched, another plane flew into the other tower. I couldn't see the plane itself, it was too small for me to see even during the instant replays with my face practically pressed up against the screen, but I saw the fireball that exploded away from the building.
I jumped up and ran into the bedroom and told my husband to hurry and get up because terrorists were flying planes into the World Trade Center buildings! He immediately got out of bed and came in to the living room and sat in his recliner and began to watch. It was about 9a.m.
At one point the reporter said it looked like "debris" was falling from the buildings. My husband said it was people jumping. Something he has never been able to forget. I was grateful that my vision was too bad for me to be able to make out what even looked like "debris."
I was a Christian then and I cared. And I was devastated. I couldn't understand how a religion could promote such violence, as the media was saying Islam did. It made no sense to me. So I decided to find out for myself. One way or another I wanted to know the truth.
Because of my partial blindness I was limited to information from the Internet. Finding books about Islam in Braille or ink print that was large enough for me to read was impossible. I was able to use a computer because I had magnification software installed so I could enlarge the font on the screen to a size that I could read.
I did searches and I began to read about Islam. I went to web sites that taught the basics of Islam, and I joined Muslim women's groups where I was able to ask and get answers that I confirmed through further research.
I've always been a skeptic. It's always been hard for me to believes something that I didn't understand. I was never one to believe something simply because someone said it was so. I had to know it in my mind as well as in my heart.
While studying Islam, I learned that the God Muslims worship is the same God as that of Christians and Jews, the God of Abraham and Moses. I found that Islam does not condone the killing of innocent people.
By studying Islam, I found the answers that the media wasn't telling us and I came to know that Islam is the True Religion. Alhamdullaah! I read a lot of convincing evidence, but the things that proved to me that there is a God, and that Islam is the True Religion and that the Qur’an is the Word of God, were those in the Qur’an itself. The things that are of a scientific nature. Things that have been discovered by scientists only in the last 100 years. The only one who could have known those things1400 years ago was Allaah.
This article was culled from the publications of Deen Communication Limited