From Christian to Muslim: One student's coming out story

“I keep in mind the day I did it. I weekday in a very Food town car parking zone for forty-five minutes and contemplated what I had merely done and the way it was about to affect my life.”

William Rhew, a 21-­year-­old former Pentecostal Christian raised in town, Tenn., is discussing his conversion to Islam. He says he doesn’t correctly match the Muslim stereotype.

“I don’t seem like what folks concern,” Rhew says. “I don’t have a beard; I’m not Arab.”

The senior at Johnson City’s East Tennessee State University reborn in 2012 throughout his senior year of high school. Christianity, he says, left him with several queries, therefore, he set to “look for answers” on his own. He initial learned concerning Islam from a high school friend, a Muslim lady named Sophia. She referred him to Taneem Aziz, a creation member of a neighborhood house of God in town.

“(Taneem) is liable for most of my learning concerning Islam currently as a result of what I didn’t learn from him, he gave Pine Tree State the resources to find out from, like (websites on) and books, and a replica of the religious writing,” says Rhew.

He was attracted the faith he says, thanks to the “simplicity of UN agency is God. I discovered that God is God. I found that lovely. (Another) factor I realize attractive … is that Islam encourages you not solely to be pure in heart and mind, however, to be respectable, to appear helpful. (And) we have the first Holy book — we can see what was written.”

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His call to convert that he initially unbroken a secret from his immediate family and friends occurred two months when he started finding out the faith.

“Many of my friends UN agency have reborn had spent 3 or four years learning Islam before they were even thought-about to convert,” Rhew says. “Although it was a little hasty, I did place plenty of effort into researching the faith before I jumped into it.”

The scariest half, he says, was “realizing that everything you once were religiously is currently (thought of) as wrong or part wrong, and you've got to come back to terms with the fact that some things ought to be relearned.”

One of the toughest things concerning changing wasn't knowing however others would react, he says. “I didn’t extremely set out, therefore to talk, as Muslim with my friends and even still a number of my family don’t recognize.” His oldsters, he explains, discovered his new faith through his actions.

“They had identified one thing was quite entirely different after I began not to eat pork, (though) I never had a factor for alcohol, I never drank. (But) They detected my patterns were a bit different. I used to be awakening at an odd time early within the morning, doing one thing they weren’t certain (what it was), that was prayer. And that they saw UN agency my (new) friends were.”

Religion, he says, is currently a taboo subject at home: “We don’t refer it as a result of it creates conflict, and that’s not what I need. It’s not productive.”


“Wil might believe otherwise from what we wish him to believe. However, I'd not dialogue him or place him down,” she says. “It’s onerous to grasp concerning entirely different cultures. You've got to find out and take into thought what the opposite person is thinking. I don’t place down somebody else’s faith (even if) I don’t settle for it myself. It’s not my place to evaluate them. (And) I feel one among the items Wil has shown Pine Tree State is you can’t push (religion) down; folks ought to believe it for themselves.”

Rhew, UN agency is president of the Muslim Student Association’s ETSU’s field chapter and attends the native house of God a minimum of once every week, says the media doesn’t facilitate because it will influence folks to understand all Muslims as extremists. “I want the voices of traditional Muslims would be detected over that of the extremists’,” he says, “because, sadly, the additional extreme voices yell louder.”

He suggests that folks take the time to talk with Muslims rather than creating generalizations.  “Assumptions area unit terribly dangerous,” Rhew says. “Assumptions area unit what have the US within the state we tend to area unit in currently. … Don’t judge the US by what you see or hear.”

“Diversity is nature’s beauty,” he believes, and once he meets folks of various faiths, he needs to grasp additional concerning them and their religions.

“I’ve forever had AN interest in faith and culture, and that I suppose partly that attributed to my turning into Muslim — I used to be willing to find out concerning it.”