As Salaam Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu,
Every Muslim must overcome many challenges for Allah’s sake. It is as Allah said in His Qur’an:
Do men think that they will be left alone on saying, “We believe”, and that they will not be tested?
[29:2]
When I was still a new Muslim my father was my biggest adversary. He attacked every single aspect of Islam and I was left to defend Islam and myself without anyone to rely on. Alhamdulillah, the wisdom of Islam is undeniable and I won the majority of our confrontations and the only times I was bested is when my anger got the better of me. I guess I owe my debating skills partly to my father.
When we debate we refine our own thought process and this helps us make our own beliefs clearer to ourselves. Providing that you are on the truth because when the kuffar debate in favour of their kufr you see them dig deeper and deeper holes for themselves as they anguish to defend the indefensible. They get to the point where they reject part of their book without their realising it and when you show them the part they denied they become enraged… its all good fun.
Last night I was thinking about the aftermath of one of the fights my father and I had. After I refuted him, he turned to me and said something which exposed his true intentions to me. He said, ‘It’s alright for you to be Muslim now, but you can’t die as a Muslim’. I laughed and then said, ‘I didn’t accept Islam except to die as a Muslim’.
My father couldn’t careless what any of his children believed, until it came to me accepting Islam. His own beliefs were a muddle between Christianity, movies he watched and this fictional book ‘The Celestine Prophecy’. He would in one breath tell me how he doesn’t believe in Christianity (despite crosses and pictures of Jesus around his house) and complain to me that I left it. My brother was an atheist for a long long time and he used to debate with my father on the problems of religion but my father never reacted badly. Even though he believes in God, he prefered my brother’s atheism to my Islam.
My father was a proof to me of the truthfulness of Islam. I could read the verses about the disbelievers and say, ‘yep, that’s my father’.
Now, I am married to a wonderful Muslim woman and I have two kids with a third on the way. I am doing my best to raise my girls as Muslims and I get one of the best feelings ever when I hear the shahadah or when I hear ‘Mommy’s a Muslim, Daddy’s a Muslim, Sabah’s a Muslim, Dhuha’s a Muslim’.
My father failed in his attempt to get me to leave this beautiful deen and now I have dropped his name and I never speak to my girls about him. For me and them, he never existed. I profess my absolute bara for him and his kufr.
All praise and thanks belong to Allah alone.
