|
Prominent Converts to Islam
"There are as many paths to God
as souls of Men"
|
Click on the images to
read
their conversion stories
|
 |
Muhammad Asad -
Leopold Weiss
Statesman,
Journalist, and Author
"I
knew now, beyond any doubt, that it was a God-inspired book I was holding
in my hand: for although it had been placed before man over thirteen centuries
ago, it clearly anticipated something that could have become true only in
this complicated, mechanized, phantom-ridden age of ours.... |
 |
Knud Holmboe -
Ali Ahmed
Journalist and Author
Overtaken
by a painful crisis of identity and faith, he gave up writing and sought
refuge in a French monastery.....but something must have struck a chord,
for a year on, we find him emerging from his retreat with his early interest
in Islam confirmed.
|
Top
 |
Rene Guénon - Abd
al-Wahid Yahya
French Intellectual,
Author and Critic
"Modern science in disavowing the principles [of traditional metaphysics
and cosmology] and in refusing to attach itself to them, robs itself both
of the highest guarantee and the surest direction it could have; there
is no longer anything valid in it except knowledge of details, and as
soon as it seeks to rise one degree higher, it becomes dubious and vacillating."
|
 |
Frithjof Schuon
"Islam
confronts what is immutable in God with what is permanent in man."
|
Top
 |
Wilfried Hofmann
German
Social Scientist and Diplomat
"I
began to see Islam with its own eyes, as the unadulterated, pristine belief
in the one and only, the true God, Who does not beget, and was not begotten,
Whom nothing and nobody resembles … |
Top
 |
Lord Headley
Al-Farooq
Leading
British peer, statesman and author.
"Islam and Christianity, as taught by Christ
himself, are sister religions, only held apart by dogmas and technicalities
which might very well be dispensed with...." |
 |
Hedley Churchward -
Mahmoud Churchward
Artist
Hedley Churchward became the first recorded British 'Guest of God'...
|
 |
Charles Le
Gai Eaton - Hassen Le Gai Eaton
Former
British diplomat and Author
"I
did not see how I could put one foot in front of the other unless I understood
where I was going and why....All I knew was that I knew nothing - nothing,
that is to say, of the slightest importance - and I was paralysed by my
ignorance as though immobilised in a dense fog....." |
 |
Jemima Goldsmith
- Haiqa Khan
"It
would seem that a Western woman's happiness hinges largely upon her access
to nightclubs, alcohol and revealing clothes; and the absence of such apparent
freedom and luxuries in Islamic societies is seen as an infringement of
her basic
rights. However, as we all know, such superficialities have very little
to do with true happiness.... |
 |
Sir Archibald
Hamilton
Statesman and Baronet
"There
is no religion that is so maligned by the ignorant and the biased as is
Islam; yet if people only knew, it is the religion of strong for the weak,
the rich for the poor...
|
 |
Yusuf Islam
Former Pop star Cat Stevens
"I realized that this was the true religion;
religion not in the sense the West understands it, not the type for only
your old age. In the West, whoever wishes to embrace a religion and make
it his only way of life is deemed a fanatic. I was not a fanatic....
|
 |
William Burchell Bashyr Pickard
Author, Poet and Novelist
"I purchased a copy of Savary's French translation of the Qur'an
.... It was as if a ray of eternal truth shone down with blessedness upon
me....
|
 |
Marmaduke Pickthall
Translator of the Quran
Pickthall converted to Islam in
1917 and soon became a leader among the emerging group of British Muslims.
|
 |
Peter Sanders -
AbdulAdheem Sanders
Photographer
For Peter Sanders, faith and photography have both been part of his spiritual
development. It was his search to capture the essence of reality that
led him to Islam and, with camera in hand, to the door of the Kaaba......
|
 |
Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood
Author
Author of some forty books on Islam and other
subjects. She gained her honours degree in Christian Theology at the
University of Hull in 1963, and Post Graduate Teaching Certificate in
1964, with distinctions in theory and practice.....
|
Top
 |
Muhammad Ali
- Cassius Clay
Boxer, Three times World Heavyweight Champion
"I
have had many nice moments in my life. But the feelings I had while standing
on Mount Arafat (just outside Makka, Saudi Arabia) on the day of the Hajj
(the Muslim pilgrimage), was the most unique............" |
 |
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
- Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor
Basketball
Player
Acknowledged by many players as the greatest basketball
player of all time, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the most visible Muslims
in the American public arena.
|
 |
Jeffrey Lang
Author and Professor of Mathematics
He was conquered by the Qur’an...“Painters
can make the eyes of a portrait appear to be following you from one place
to another, but which author can write a scripture that anticipates your
daily vicissitudes?..
|
 |
Colonel Donald S. Rockwell
Poet,
Critic & Author
"The democracy of Islam has always
appealed to me. Potentate and pauper have the same rights on the floor
of the mosque, on their knees in humble worship. There are no rented pews
nor special reserved seats...
|
 |
Alexander Russell Webb
Former US Consul, Writer and Journalist
"Unless one feels his mental
independence and determines to exercise it firmly; unless he divests himself
completely of the prejudices acquired from those with whom he has been
in constant intercourse all his life, and which cling to him more closely
than the barnacles to the ship's bottom, his investigation will be of
little real value to him...."
|
 |
Michael Wolfe
Author
and Journalist
"After twenty-five years as a writer in America,
I wanted something to soften my cynicism. I was searching for new terms
by which to see......."
|
 |
Malcolm X - Malik
el-Shabbaz
"My pilgrimage broadened my scope.
It blessed me with a new insight. In two weeks in the Holy Land, I saw
what I never had seen in thirty-nine years here in America. I saw all
races, all colors, -- blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans -- in
true brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshipping as one!"
|
 |
Hamza Yusuf -
Mark Hanson
Director-Zaytuna Institute
"As a westerner, the child of civil
rights and anti-war activists, I embraced Islam not in abandonment of
my core values, drawn almost entirely from the progressive tradition,
but as an affirmation of them..."
|
For more more conversion stories click
here.
|
|
Introduction
Top
