My Shahada Video

On September 13th, 2010; in the privacy of my home, I made the decision to revert to Islam. OK so maybe it is strange for a person who is born into a Muslim family to be undertaking her Shahada, and to do it to a video camera, to be uploaded to You Tube and viewed by hundreds of witnesses around the world. Well, from the beginning, I have never done anything that could be perceived as "regular". So, this was not so unusual for me...

But why would a woman, born to a Muslim father and a revert-to-Islam mother be taking her Shahada? Quite simply, I was not brought up in the faith. My father was very private about his religion and while he was a very proud Muslim, he never enforced his beliefs on us. Rather, he left it up to us to decide our path. I know, for most Muslims, that is so unconventional, but we never were what anyone could consider "conventional".

So, that being said, it was such an emotional experience when I took my Shahada. Yes, even in the privacy of my living room, sharing a deeply private and spiritual emotion with the world, but yet being completely alone in the act; and maybe it was even more emotional in that environment.

I know that my father's prayer over the years were that we would come to find Islam and embrace it, but sadly he was not alive to witness it or experience it. I only pray, that Dad somehow found himself here with me that night, and that he witnessed the intensity of the moment, the beauty, and the joy that flooded me and seemed to seep out into the room and into the video.