SOME EXPERIENCES OF NON-MUSLIMS WITH THE CALL TO PRAYER
"The call to prayer echoed throughout the corridors of the mosque when Jamil slipped off his shoes and entered the prayer hall. After exchanging greetings of "As salaam `alaykum," or peace be upon you, to his fellow Muslim brothers, he proceeded to offer his morning prayer. As he recited verses from the Qur'an in Arabic, his Spanish accent was clearly audible to anyone in listening distance. Upon appearance, many would assume that Jamil was a Muslim man of Middle Eastern descent. But no, in actuality, Jamil is a Puerto Rican Muslim....This scenario is not so far-fetched. Many people often perceive Islam as a religion exclusively followed by people of Arab or Asian descent. However, Latino Muslims are breaking all conventional stereotypes of what Muslims "are" or "should be," proving that Islam truly transcends all racial, ethnic and language boundaries." -
Muslim American Society
"The doctrine of brotherhood of Islam extends to all human beings, no matter what color, race or creed. Islam is the only religion which has been able to realize this doctrine in practice. Muslims wherever on the world they are will recognize each other as brothers ." Mr. R. L. Mellema, Holland, Anthropologist, Writer and Scholar.
"It might have started with the adhan, the call to prayer, that always fascinated that five-year-old boy, and then led him to accept Islam after a long trip across time and place.
However, as I look back, it was as a five-year-old in Bahrain and later as a young man in India, where the sight of Muslims at prayer and the muezzin's call to prayer made the most lasting impression of all my overseas experiences. Just hearing the adhan excited me. It made me feel good inside (as it still does today) and, no matter what I was doing, I always paused to listen whenever I heard it. Little did I know at the time that the adhan would later become such an important part of my life.
-It Started With the Adhan By Mohamed Asad (Michael Berdine)
"Islam - submission to the will of Allah.
I converted to Islam because there came a time when both my mind and my heart accepted that there was no god but Allah and that Muhammad was His Messenger. All that I had believed and upheld before this conversion is at worst wrong, and at best irrelevant. My duty now, the purpose of my life, is to do the will of Allah, to submit to the will of Allah — to strive, In sha' Allah, to be a good, a devout, Muslim.
In terms of the 'Western' explanation that most Westerners will seek in order to try and understand my conversion, I suppose my journey toward Islam began when I first went to Egypt and, as a tourist, visited a Mosque. The Adhan — the call to prayer — had begun and I was struck by its beauty."
"I was given a Quran, and as I read the translation, I felt the purity and truth of it. There was no hocus-pocus, no spookism, no mysticism, just plain, simple understanding of the "Truth." When I heard the Adhan (the call to prayer) I felt a closeness to God that penetrated my heart and soul.
After some research and study of the Quran, I discovered its total infallibility, no contradictions in it.
There are religions based on believing in certain sciences, multiple deities, the religion of 3 gods in one. I was a thinking man, and none of them made any logical sense to me.
Here was Islam, based on the belief in One God who created the creation itself out of nothing, and the fact that this book I was reading ( Quran) had not one vowel or language changed in over 1400 years was a miracle in itself. Thus, I was sold on the oneness of God and the unity of Islam ."
- Clinton Sipes, Ex-Christian, USA (part 1 of 2)
"For the first time in his life he met and talked to Muslims, observing their rituals up close. Hearing the call to prayer and watching people stop everything to turn towards Mecca left a deep impression.
A chance meeting with Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, at London's Central Mosque, proved pivotal.
"I found myself asking him 'What do you actually do to become a Muslim?'. He answered that a Muslim should believe in one God, pray five times a day and fast during Ramadan. I interrupted him saying that I believed all this and had even fasted with my Muslim students during Ramadan.
"So he asked,'What are you waiting for? What is holding you back?' I told him I didn't intend to convert.
"At that moment the call to prayer was made and everyone got ready and stood in lines to pray. I sat at the back, and I cried and cried. Then I said to myself,'Who am I trying to fool?'"