My Path to Allah
This section focuses on women who have reverted or rediscovered Islam. Sister Sumeyra Dyer from Port Lincoln, South Australia, shares her experience below, which can be found in the book 'Islam: Our Choice', published by MCSGA.
I shall start by describing myself, my life and how I was brought to Islam. I was born 44 years ago in Port Lincoln, Adelaide. My parents are Anglican Christian and I was educated at Port Lincoln Infant, Primary and High Schools. As a girl I loved going to Sunday School, learning about Christian teachings and the life of Jesus (a).
As I grew older I was confirmed into the Anglican Church, which means to have accepted Jesus (s) as our Saviour. We were never told anything about Prophet Muhammad (s). However, as I grew older I drifted away from the Church, married and had two children; a son named Damien who is now 23 and a daughter Megan who is 21.
Port Lincoln is a small city of about 15,000 people. It is situated on the west coast of South Australia. The main industry is fishing. Tuna fish, cray-fish, prawns, abalone, scallops, salmon and shark are all caught in this area. It is on the coast and not far away we have a large island named Boston Island.
Alhamdulillah, it is the following event which changed my whole life from which I never looked back.
In 1991 I was working in the riverland in NSW on a table grape property. I was very lonely and homesick. I had been given the Holy Quran by a friend of mine and thought it was the most beautiful book I had ever read. At that time it was Ramadan and there were many Muslims working in the packing shed, packing grapes. Yet I could not understand why only one of them, a young Turkish sister was fasting. One day my curiosity got the better of me so I asked another Muslim sister why she was not fasting to which she replied that the Muslims were working hard and the day was very hot so they were not expected to fast. That night I took my Quran and read about Ramadan.
At that time I had not become a revert but I thought that I would try to fast. I managed it for 5 days only. The young Turkish sister amazed me, her faith was so strong, but she soon left and went to Melbourne to live.
By this time I had decided that Islam was the faith that I wanted to follow because I had only really believed in one God and Christian teachings are quite different in this regard. I wrote to the Islamic Society and asked them to send me a prayer book. I then taught myself how to pray, 5 times a day, first in English and then in Arabic. I asked Allah (swt) many times to lead me to a Muslim who would show me the way to Islam.
One day, a Turkish couple came to work on the farm. I had not met them nor seen them before. I went off for a while behind an orange tree and prayed, then the most wonderful thing happened. Alhamdulillah, Allah (swt) lead me over to those wonderful people. It was as if Allah (swt) took my hand and said 'Come with me'. I spoke to them and told them of my search. They made me welcome into their home and two weeks later I made my Shahadah.
Many of the Australian people with whom I worked were very cruel to me. I had decided very quickly that I wanted to be covered and took pride in wearing my hijab. I shall never forget the first day I stepped outside with my hijab on. Many of my so called friends laughed at me and told me I looked stupid. They told me I had gone crazy. People can sometimes be nasty but I held tight to my faith and in fact it made me a lot stronger knowing that Allah (swt) is my Protector and He is always there watching over me.
Taken: fisabilillah.org
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