{"id":5181,"date":"2015-07-05T18:38:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-05T17:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=5181"},"modified":"2015-07-05T18:38:17","modified_gmt":"2015-07-05T17:38:17","slug":"from-darkness-i-came-into-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/from-darkness-i-came-into-light\/","title":{"rendered":"From darkness, I came into light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"From<\/a>Muhammad Jawed:<\/strong> A Russian Jew undertakes a journey to find truth \u2014 from scientology to Judaism to ultimately Islam. Here he narrates his story.
\nI am ethnically a Russian Jew. My quest began when I was 19 years old. I was recovering from my stint with scientology.
\nMy belief in God was uncertain. My goals in life were to be a rock star. I was living in my Pasadena apartment and working as a secretary. One night I was walking to the kitchen, and encountered a dark fellow. I remembered asking him: \u201cCan I keep this vodka in the fridge tonight?\u201d We shook hands and went to sleep. After that point, my life changed drastically. This dark fellow, a Muslim, was the first Muslim I had ever met. Extremely curious, I conversed with him about his faith. What\u2019s this stuff I hear about praying 5 times a day? And about holy war?
\nOur talks were accompanied by our Christian roommate, Wade. Together, we created \u201cThe Jewish, Christian, and Muslim dialogue sessions.\u201d In it, we discovered many differences, and many commonalities. My interest had then shifted from sex, drugs, and parties, to a massive search for the truth. A search that I had to complete. A search for God. And a search for how to follow Him.
\nOnce I opened up my mind to the possibility of the existence of God, I analyzed both atheist and theist beliefs. The thing that directed me to the latter was the quote \u201cEvery design has a designer.\u201d With that in mind, eventually I woke up with certainty that God exists. I can\u2019t explain why, I just felt it somehow. This newfound excitement was accompanied by a sense of responsibility to follow the Creator. The world of religion was my next frontier.
\n\u201cWhere do I start?\u201d There are literally thousands of them. I need a way to narrow them down to a just a few. How do I accomplish such a task? \u201cFind the ones that are monotheistic\u201d entered my mind. \u201cHey that makes sense, since I believe in only One God.\u201d OK, then. This ruled out Buddhism and Hinduism, both being polytheistic faiths. The major religions I encountered that fell under the title of Monotheistic were Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Well since I\u2019m a Jew, I started with Judaism. One God, some prophets, 10 commandments, Torah, Jewish souls … uh, what: \u201cJewish souls?\u201d
\nSo God makes Jewish souls, and Christian souls, and Muslim souls, and Hindu souls? I thought all men are created equal? So, because one is born into a religion that means by the decree of God he must remain in it \u2026 even if the person believes it to be false? Another thing really bothered me that there is no strict concept of hell in Judaism, then why be good? Why not sin? If I don\u2019t have fear of strict punishment, then why should I be moral?
\nMoving on, I discovered Christianity. OK, one God, a father, a son, and a holy ghost. Uhhh, please explain. How can all those things be one God? 1+1+1=3 right? So how can you say you believe in only one God? OK, next major doctrine: Jesus died for our sins and he did this because we all are polluted with \u201cOriginal Sin.\u201d So, Jesus Christ, the \u201cson of God\u201d, had to be murdered to save everyone from Hell and cure us of our sin \u201cgiven\u201d to us by Adam.
\nOK then, so are you saying that we are all born as sinners? And to sin is to do something wrong, right? Then you\u2019re telling me that a one-year old baby is guilty of sin or doing something wrong? OK that\u2019s strange, so based on the actions of one man, all of mankind must suffer? What\u2019s the moral of that story? Punish the whole group if one deviates? Why would God create such a rule? That\u2019s just not in agreement with my logic.
\nIn Islam I found main beliefs as follows: One God, worship God five times a day, give 2.5% annual charity, fast during Ramadan (to be closer to God and appreciate life\u2026among other reasons) and finally journey to Makkah for Haj if you are able financially. I found it to be universal and also compatible with science. Dozens of verses in the Qur\u2019an agree with modern science and technology.
\nAs I sifted through the countless logical facts that I read through and researched, one thing took my attention the most. \u201cIslam.\u201d The name of this religion. I noticed it is written many times in this Qur\u2019an. However, recalling my prior studies, I didn\u2019t remember once seeing the word \u201cJudaism\u201d in the Old Testament or \u201cChristianity\u201d in the New Testament. This was BIG. Why couldn\u2019t I find the very name of the religions in those two books? Because, there is no name in these books! Thinking\u2026I noticed that \u201cJudaism\u201d could be broken down to \u201cJuda-ism\u201d and \u201cChristianity\u201d could be respectively \u201cChrist-ianity.\u201d
\nSo who is Juda? Or Judah, rather. He was the tribe leader of the Hebrews when God revealed His message to mankind. So this religion was named after a person. OK let\u2019s look at who Christ is. He was the person who delivered the message of God to the Jews. So this religion was named after a person. So in recollection, we can deduct that the names of these religions are people\u2019s proper names attached to \u201cism\u201d and \u201cianity.\u201d Regardless of that fact, the very names of those religions are not mentioned in their scriptures. I thought that was very odd. If religion is supposed to be practiced and spread to every person on earth, shouldn\u2019t there be a name for it?
\nMoreover, shouldn\u2019t the name be given to us from God Almighty? Yes, my point exactly. The names \u201cChristianity\u201d and \u201cJudaism\u201d were not written in the Holy Scriptures. Humans named them, not God. The notion that God would ordain a religion for mankind to follow without a name is impossible for my mind to accept.
\nAt that point, both Christianity and Judaism lost their credibility as pure, logical, and complete religions, at least from my perspective.
\nIslam is the only of these religions to include the name of the religion in its scriptures. This is so huge for me. I realized I would follow Islam at that point. I then became a Muslim. I knew the truth. I was out of the darkness. I came into the light.
\nThere\u2019s nothing that conflicts with my logic here. The Qur\u2019an is a book with all of these interesting miracles and timeless wisdom. Many scientific facts only discovered recently where proclaimed 1,400 years ago in this book.<\/p>\n

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