Compiled by: Abdurahim bin Mizhir Almalki
Safiyah Johnson
In 1992 I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was like an angel, I had never seen a more beautiful baby, and she seemed too good to be true. She was. In November of the same year, when baby Tina was just five months old, she died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). I was devastated and angry, and I didn’t understand how God could take away my child when there were babies in the world who were suffering. At the funeral people assured me, “You’ll see her in Heaven someday.” I would just say, “How do you know I’m going to heaven?” Well, I decided to set out to find the true religion, which would put me on the path to see my daughter again. Having been raised a Christian, I could no longer blindly accept the religion as I did before. I needed answers; I needed something to make sense. Every night for two years I would pray the same thing: “Dear God. I know You already know what is in my heart, but I am hurting. You took away my baby when I wasn’t looking. I didn’t even get to say good-bye. I want to see her again. So, could You please show me the right path? The one You want me to take? I can’t believe that Christianity is what You want of me. It doesn’t make sense to me. So please show what the right religion is so I can get started. Thank You very much. Oh, and could You send me a husband so I can have more babies? Thanks God. Please take good care of my baby, tell her I love her and I miss her very much.”
By the time I finished, I would be in tears. I studied many religions, but none held my interest. I began to think that God had forgotten about me, that He had more important things to do. Then one day when I was working in a bar, I met another woman who worked there. We became friends, and she told about her “Grand Plan.” She asked me if I would go to Malaysia to set up an import/export contact for her, for she couldn’t leave her children behind. She would pay me plus cover all my expenses. I said, “When do I leave?”
I got on the plane with only two suitcases, my purse and no knowledge of how I was going to accomplish my goals, let alone where I was going to stay. I was so excited! I arrived in Malaysia in the middle of Ramadhan. Everyone was so nice to me, but I was paranoid. I kept thinking people were going to mug me, or maybe something worse. But not only were they just being, they didn’t want anything in return.
Never have I met a more wonderful group of people than in Malaysia. When I asked a cab driver why everyone was in such a good mood, he said, “This is Ramadhan, and whenever we do a good deed. Allah will reward us double.” I said. “Cool, God.” At the hotel I engaged in many arguments with the bellboys about which religion is better, Islam or Christianity. I didn’t win one fight. They asked me questions about my own religion that I couldn’t answer. And why on earth was I defending a religion I didn’t even believe in? They would take me out to eat, and not eat. The women wore long sleeves and scarves. If I lost my temper, they would only walk away..
This was too much. Every time I asked them why they did something, all they could say was, “Because the Qur’an tells us to.” Wrong answer for an American like me! That’s like my mom telling me I could not stay up late, “Because I said so.” I needed concrete answers. So, with the help of a Malay friend, I bought a Qur’an and a few other books about Islam. I locked myself in my room for two weeks. I would not come out for anything or anyone. I read the Qur’an and the books. After forty-eight hours I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had found what I had searched for. This is what God wants me to do.
But there was one problem. It wasn’t Islam’s view of Jesus. It wasn’t even the fact that I would have to throw away every article of clothing I owned and start to wear an entirely different style of dress. The problem was how I was going to get my mother to accept the fact that I was a Muslim? I knew this was not going to be easy. I agonized over the decision, not to eat, concentrate, or even sleep peacefully.
The entire time I agonized, I had the same nightmare – that an angel had my child in her arms and there were devils after her. I spend many nights fighting off these awful creatures. They wanted me to stay the way I was, and the angel wanted me to become a Muslim. They were fighting over me. I would wake up drenched with sweat and tears, and often bruised with no idea where the bruises came from. One night I was fighting this devil and it scratched my face. I remember saying, “Don’t you know better than to scratch a woman’s face?” and I kicked it. Finally, after two weeks of this, I woke up screaming, “Alright, I will become a Muslim! I’ll do it today!” I immediately felt the most incredible peace throughout my whole body. I had never felt anything like it before or since, I knew Allah was pleased with me.
I went downstairs to the bellboys who hadf worked so hard to turn me into a Muslim to announce that I was ready to “take the plunge,” only to have them tell me, “No!” They told me that Islam wasn’t something to be taken lightly. Once you became a Muslim, you are a Muslim for life. Then they said, “Oh, what happened to your face?” I looked in the mirror and my face was scratched! I told them of my dreams, and they then agreed that I should be a Muslim right away. They took me to Perkim, a Muslim organization in Kuala Lumpur for new Muslims. I took my shahadah on June 15, 1994. I have never looked back since.
