“On a quiet night eight years ago, on a Skype call, I took my Shahadah, beginning my journey towards pleasing Allah.” This is the only answer I give when I’m inevitably asked “what my story is.” If that seems boring, that’s because it is. The more interesting question to ask me is, “Why do you dedicate so much time to Ilm? Why take so many classes?” With each stage, my motivation matured, reflecting both my progress and changes to my online environment. So, what better way to commemorate my 8th revertsery than going through my journey so far and the lessons that can be extracted from it.

After I became Muslim, I knew I needed a functional community, so what better way to look for this than Reddit! I mean- the answer is literally anything else, but it was 2019, not 2025, and Reddit’s reputation wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now, so… cut me some slack. What I found was a, at the time, brand new server. The perfect time for a new Revert to settle in. Being around other Muslims was great for me, as it was my first introduction to Islamic social standards. Though in the first few years, not much clicked academically, so I didn’t learn much beyond everyday phrases.

During the Pandemic, the current server owner got too busy, and I was offered the chance to take over the server. After some reassurance that I had the potential to do so, factoring in my prior experience running secular communities, I agreed. With COVID keeping all of us inside, we vc’d… a lot. Talking about all kinds of social and political issues within the Muslim community, this would spark my first major motivations to take gaining knowledge seriously:

“If I want to help other Muslims I need knowledge.” And quite amusingly, “I think many arabic translations of classical books fall flat so I should learn the language.”

These motivations are good; they meant that I was reading more and taking in knowledge through videos. But there were some lessons I haven’t learned yet. The most important of which I wouldn’t learn until 2022, “Don’t separate yourself from other Muslims.” While my friends at the time were passionate individuals, it came with the caveat of a deep hatred for those seen as “too conservative.” This was unbalanced, and unfortunately, common from 2020 to about 2022. Once I started taking classes at Al-balagh and started moving to WhatsApp and Zoom programs, this lesson finally sank in, leading to my first shift in my motives.

“If you have influence, you need to learn or you’re dragging people down.”

There is a hadith that states,
“The Prophet (ﷺ) said: A man follows the religion of his friend; so each one should consider whom he makes his friend. “ and another stating, “Ibn ‘Umar reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, “All of you are shepherds and each of you is responsible for his flock. A man is the shepherd of the people of his house, and he is responsible. A woman is the shepherd of the house of her husband, and she is responsible. Each of you is a shepherd and each is responsible for his flock.” Muslims are held to account for the influence they carry. This makes likability a beautiful test from Allah if handled well, or a noose that you’re tying around yourself for the Day of Judgment.

This realization came just in time as I started volunteering with Islamic Organizations for their Revert Support programs, where I developed a passion for teaching and helping others, leading me where I am today.

“If I’m learning, I need consistent sources.”

This is less of a motivation and more of a reflection of one of the ways I matured in the last couple of years. Reading and watching videos are both beautiful ways to use our technology for our benefit, but my approach had one major flaw: I was using so many resources that I ended up struggling to keep track of what came from where. Making me less articulate than I could be and putting me in the odd situation where I had holes in my ILM. The way I decided to fix this is by signing up for Al-Balagh’s two-year Islamic studies program and a proper Arabic course. With enough dedication, I hope to eventually step into teaching myself so I can guide others away from the mistakes I made throughout my journey.