talihahiman-blog

[talihahiman-blog]

Finding Home and Starting a Blog

All my life I have been a curious, questioning seeker of Truth.

I think most people encounter a severe period of Questioning in their lives before they fall back or abandon their quest and resign to stop even thinking about it. But some, like me, remaining searching for a Truth that seems immutable. Finally, Alhamdulillah, I feel like I have found that Truth. And its name is Islam.

This is not a discovery that I happened upon in an instant: there was no thunderbolt from the sky demanding I give myself to it, no massive horde trying to bend me into shape, no men with knives at my throat denouncing me for what I was; no angel hovering beside my pillow, no giant billboards on the highway trying to point me where it thought I should go, no conversion school telling me I was inherently flawed.

This discovery came from a lifetime of asking questions, not accepting vague, mediocre and uninformed answers, the realization that the only way I would find the right answers was to embark on exploring matters of the sacred on my own, and then reading, researching and experiencing first-hand several different paths to the Ultimate. 

Each path taught me profound lessons about myself and my relationship with God; each brought me closer to Him and helped clarify what was really important to me. 

Last year, in particular, after an unexpected end to my marriage, going completely broke, homeless and feeling worthless, I found myself lying on the floor of my greataunt’s bedroom one February evening, still alive after two suicide attempts in one night, with an acceptance that if I was still alive, it was because God willed it.

“You have to show me why You’re not letting me leave,” I demanded of God. “Clearly You’re keeping me here. And I don’t know why. I still don’t even know You like I want to. I have nothing left. I have no will to stay. I’d leave now with no regret if You just let me. But if You won’t let me go, then show me why You want me to stay.” It was a moment of utter surrender.

The answer was not immediate. 

There was a period of three months from that moment where I felt like I was in limbo. No answers, no direction.

In March I decided to move back with my family in Trinidad indefinitely to let the situation and my demand incubate. Slowly, I felt an urging in my heart to come back to NYC and start over, completely alone. It was not at the only option by any means - but it was the craziest possible option. I had nowhere to go, no money, no family here. Yet I was completely homesick. I never understood homesickness was an actual thing until I was in the place that I was born and raised in surrounded by my entire family, and all I could think about was NYC! 

To everyone else - and, admittedly, to even myself - it seemed as if I were jumping into shark-infested waters when I could barely even swim, but somehow I understood that coming back would be the catalyst for God’s answers to my sincere plea that February.

By mid-May, I used the money I saved from working in Trinidad to buy myself a plane ticket back to NYC on June 2. Getting off the plane with nothing but one suitcase and a carry on bag of belongings and marching into the homeless shelter, I steeled myself with faith that if God was bringing me back, He would get me through anything that life could possibly throw my way.

So began the most incredible turnaround of my life.

I was faced with trial after trial, and in oftentimes what appeared to be impossible situations, He always showed up. On time. I learned in a very tangible, undeniable way that a true relationship with God was not simply talking to Him, but an active conversation with Him: you talk, you ask, you explain - then you shut up, you watch and you listen. 

The answer is not always in obvious places.

For most of the year, I also identified as Hindu if anyone asked, and I hated when people asked because it never felt like it correct answer, which I found common to all to all of the religions I involved myself in at some point or the other. While the nature of the missing pieces would change, something was still missing anyway.

As a major world religion, naturally Islam was on my to-do list of religions to learn more about, but l thought that the only thing we might have in common is my belief that Jesus was a prophet and not the Messiah. The end! After all, it was a war religion that suppressed women, right? And they couldn’t listen to music, right? And they could only eat food from halal places, right? And you had to take a Muslim name! Right?! 

And how could I forget: a Muslim group in Trinidad known as the Jamaat-Al-Muslimeen was responsible for an attempted coup d’etat in 1990 that resulted in 24 deaths, severe injuries to the President of the country, and my birth merely three years later meant constantly hearing the story of the “bad Muslim guys” even long before 9/11. Then 9/11. Then ISIS. 

Everywhere I turned the narrative was the same: Islam is oppressive and dangerous. And living in NYC, where the new World Trade Center stands tall reminding us of the tragedy that befell this city and the world before it, it also reminded us constantly of that running narrative. 

How could I ever be one of them? 

Also as a languages enthusiast who loves spending time listening to different things from around the world, I suddenly started to stumble upon several Arabic and English Islamic songs that I really loved and listened to on a regular basis, moved, sometimes to tears, by the beauty of them and pure sense of joy, connection, and devotion contained within them. 

While there were many such songs which captivated me at that time, these two became very special to me:

Listening to these, I couldn’t help but think, “Perhaps we’ve got this Muslim thing all wrong.” 

But I couldn’t seem to get past that point.

It turned out that I started a new job this year, and in doing so found myself a close friend in a Bengali-American Muslimah from a neighboring department. She did not wear hijab nor was fussy about her shirt necklines, but was outspoken about her belief in Allah (SWT) and her excitement about Ramadan, as well as the role that Islam played (and continues to play) in her choices. For the first time, I had a wonderful Muslim woman in my inner circle who was my age, so relatable and so...normal. 

Almost like instinct, I began asking her to tell me more about her beliefs and was fascinated to hear of her stories about the Jinn and why Ramadan is important. Even though I was raised in a country where Muslims were very visible and Ramadan was celebrated visibly, I discovered through conversations with her that even Ramadan was not what I thought it was - and it was certainly more than just getting bags of yummy treats on Eid. (Barfi, kurma and gulab jamun, anyone?)

From the little I had learned through my new friend and my quickly-expanding catalog of saved Islamic songs on YouTube and Spotify, my interest grew quickly about what Islam really said about the big questions. Shortly before Ramadan, another new hire at our organization came in - she was my age, proud feminist, fresh out of breaking up with her neglectful boyfriend, a real move-maker and unapologetically herself. We, too, became instant friends and quickly found ourselves contemplating modern religious thought and female empowerment. She was also an Arab-American Hijabi.

Neither of these new Muslimah friends tried to tell me that I should be like them, but they were both excited to hear of my interest in Islam, and both proud talk to me about their understanding of and experiences in it. I was being pointed in one direction by God now, and it would have been stupid of me to ignore it.

As the days counted down to Ramadan and conversations continued, it felt very natural to decide that for Ramadan this year, I would sincerely undertake to learn about Islam with an open mind. I had technically already started, and I was surrounded by equally open-minded people who would support me along the way - it finally was the right time. I told my friends of my intent to learn for Ramadan but did not tell them that I would also fast.

I started off Ramadan reading the Quran on my phone telling myself I’d just get the gist of it, but after a week it was inadequate - there was so much I wanted to reread and explore that I needed the real thing in my hands. I desperately wanted to let my mind dance between its pages and get lost in it, find gems and other surprises and come back out with a new understanding. After scouring bookstores for the right first* Quran, I decided on a translation by Tarif Khalidi.

 *I already suspected at that point that this one would only be an introduction and that I would desire to read more ‘advanced’ translations and even the original text in Arabic after having a good initial understanding it in English, and this translation struck me as a beautiful cross between capturing not just the meaning but also the poetic and linguistic beauty of the original Arabic.

Ten days into Ramadan, on the second day with my new Quran, one thing was as clear as day: everything that was portrayed to me about Islam was wrong. All of it. The media and sociopolitical landscape is riddled with severe misconceptions and abuse of Islam, and I was completely unprepared for how tainted and ignorant the media perception is when I began to see what it is really is. Seeing past the misinformation and blatant lies being told, I knew that sharing the actual beliefs of Islam with others would become a very important task for me, even if I did not embrace it as my own.

There was also another issue I was praying about in the past few weeks and keeping myself open to answers for, and on the following day the answer came to me in the form of a particular episode of a podcast. I was just scrolling through and clicking on random things to listen to at work instead of my regular playlists to get me through the day, and although I’d been listening to such podcasts of several days at that point, that one was the one that confirmed to me that God was truly listening. Call it convenient confirmation bias if you will - that doesn’t change the fact that it was a direct answer. 

I found myself suspended in time, awestruck and understanding in a different way from any path I had ventured into before that this was it. 

It was what I’ve been on the hunt for my entire life. Everything I’ve done, felt, questioned, experienced, hoped for, run from, aspired toward and battled with myself about converged into that moment. I didn’t know precisely what I was looking for...until I found it.

Allah (SWT) spoke. My heart understood. And without even knowing it then, I accepted it.

I finally found my spiritual home. I am a Muslim. 

Up until now, my travels led me to places that were interesting and useful, but still hollow and incomplete. For the first time, I feel whole.

And so here I am on the 14th day of Ramadan, feeling like simultaneously everything is different yet the same. I have not officially taken Shahada with witnesses, but I know that the real moment when I became Muslim has already happened. It was on that eleventh day on work when time stood still, and everything became clear. 

There are still two more weeks left in Ramadan, and I’m not sure yet if I’d like to take Shahada on Eid, as I will be spending it with my Beng-Am Muslimah friend from work and her family again, and I think that would be a wonderful opportunity to do so. Otherwise, I may choose to wait some more and continue to study a while and find a community that I can be a part of it, not just my bubble of work acquaintances. But if I hold off to ‘study more,’ I feel like I will end up never taking it because I may never feel ‘ready’ - and Islam is a way of life and an ongoing act of submission to Allah (SWT), so I understand that officially converting is only the beginning. I really appreciate how often I see and hear the advice that one does not have to know everything to take Shahada - one simply has to be prepared to know, with the guidance of God.

Regardless of when I decide to take Shahada, I feel quite certain that my wandering soul is home at last, and I feel immediately called to share the things I am learning, contemplating and experiencing as a new Muslimah in NYC. Inshallah, it is my hope that someone out there will be able to either relate or at least learn something new, wonderful and unexpected about Islam along the way!

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