I was brought up in the religion of the Church of England, and
hardly remember any time when Sunday was not English Sunday, a thing that is-or
has become-almost an institution in this country. Also, it was a day when one
was being constantly told not to do this thing, and not to do the other. One was
severely reprimanded for "being naughty on Sunday," as if it was
worse to omitted by other people who were guilty. Not only that, but I had only
to look around me at the sins and wrongs going on in the world, to see that it
had in no way been saved by the death of an innocent man; and on discussing the
matter with people I found that half the people who professed to be Christians
did not really believe all they were supposed to, but held to it, because it
was so much easier not to change or to bother to think for themselves.
The Sunday afternoons were spent in my being obliged to learn
the catechism or a hymn by heart. How much better would it have been had I been
told some real and ennobling truth about
my Creator, than to be made to repeat in a parrot-like fashion the rules of a
doctrine I did not believe in. I was relieved that at all events I was not
confirmed, for that seemed to me to be the culminating point of the whole thing.
I hated the words "Body and blood of Christ," even if in the
Protestant faith they were only meant allegorically and theoretically, and not
as the "real body and blood of Christ" as in the Catholic Church ose
who WL:rL: supposed to be in a position to interpret it-clergymen, f()r instance failed entirely when I questioned them concerning it. What, therefore,
could be the use of a book that was so wrapped up in fable and fancy that no one
could explain it? The Bible is the result of a collaboration of dozens of di
I'lercnt authors. Science and geology prove that the Beginning, as described in
Genesis, is an .utter impossibility. We have also proof that King David never
wrote the Psalms, and that various other parts of the Bible attributed to
different people were not written by them. Thus then, since so many people have
had the task of inventing the Bible, who is to be believed? The Holy Book of
Islam-the Qur'an-on the contrary, has
come to us through only one man, namely, the holy Prophet Muhammad. It has
never been altered, twisted, paraphrased and transcribed as the Bible, but has
remained true to its original copy. The Qur'an appealed to me.
The doctrine of Islam
appealed to me. These, then, are some of the reasons why I have embraced Islam,
a religion that is comforting, uplifting, and sustaining, and why I have discarded
one that has never, from the first word I learnt of it, ever inspired,
encouraged, or uplifted me at all.
Ameena Annie Spieget
An
English Lady
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