I am a mild, peaceable and politically tolerant Muslim scholar who chose to embrace the faith of Islam because of its powerful spiritual truths, its emphasis on peace and justice, its racial and ethnic inclusiveness and its charitable spirit towards the poor and needy.
From the very day on which I excitedly spoke my Shahadah in a British mosque in parrot-fashioned Arabic — interestingly, as the only Caucasian amongst hundreds of happy and congratulatory Asians — I have been recording my spiritual journey not only in various articles for magazines and newspapers, but also in poems that I use, most days, as my primary means of examining, making sense of and expressing my thoughts, feelings and experiences. This essay is a short prose description of my journey.
My voyage into Islam commenced on that worst of days: 11 September 2001. I was already a well-established scholar and university academic (an associate professor) when 9/11 occurred and I could immediately see through the mistaken claim by several governments and the media that “the world had changed” because of a dangerous new phenomenon which was supposedly widespread within Islam: militant radicalization. Unlike many people who seemed unable to find alternative explanations, I knew from my own extensive travels in Islamic lands and from research and reading that violent extremism exists, but only as a tiny fringe element, within all religions and that the great faith of Islam is no more violent than the faith I had practiced for decades. Indeed, I knew that Osama bin Laden was no more representative of Islam than Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was of Christianity.
Continue reading “Professor Joel Hayward’s Journey to Islam”
Islam - My Choice 