{"id":29434,"date":"2026-03-27T12:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T12:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=29434"},"modified":"2026-02-27T19:54:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:54:52","slug":"a-gift-from-heaven-my-journey-from-christianity-to-islam-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/a-gift-from-heaven-my-journey-from-christianity-to-islam-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gift from Heaven: My Journey from Christianity to Islam2"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Gift from Heaven: My Journey from Christianity to Islam Ali Al-Sheikh \u2013 Dar Al-Sadiqeen In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful Dedication To the sacred personalities and the pure souls of all the prophets and messengers, from Adam (peace be upon him) to the Seal of the Prophets (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and to their chosen successors and loyal supporters\u2014upon them be the best of prayers and peace. To their rightful successors: the righteous scholars who act upon their knowledge, the trustees of the religion. To all the martyrs who sacrificed their lives so that the word of truth may prevail, and who watered the tree of religion and faith with their pure blood throughout the ages. To every human being who possesses a living conscience, who rejects blind imitation, and who lets reason alone judge in the search for truth and reality. Ali Al-Sheikh (5) Introduction \u2014 A Brief Account of My Life and Guidance I was born and raised in the city of Baghdad, in a devout Christian family that deeply believed in and followed the teachings of the Church. Therefore, it was natural for me to follow what I found my parents and grandparents upon. In the early days of my life, I underwent the baptism ceremony (1) in the church like other children, and at the age of seven my father sent me to receive communion (2). That period was one of the beautiful times of my life. (1) Baptism: A ritual of washing with water symbolizing purity. Christians believe that Christ (peace be upon him) adopted this rite and made it obligatory in the Christian Church, as baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity is considered a sign of purification from sin and impurity and an official affiliation with the Church of Christ (peace be upon him). (2) Communion: Common in our Eastern church\u2014and certainly in Baghdad\u2014when a child reaches the age of seven, in order for Christian teachings to become firmly rooted in their soul, they are sent to church during the summer holiday for a period ranging from three weeks to a month to learn prayers and some rituals and religious hymns. (7) I learned many things. The spiritual atmosphere in the church, along with the encouragement and support of my family\u2014and in addition the child\u2019s love of learning and recognition\u2014all helped build my Christian personality. I do not exaggerate when I say that the memories of that period remain in my mind to this day, as I still remember some of the rituals and hymns I learned then. When I grew older and matured, these beliefs and teachings became firmly rooted within me. I practiced religious rituals such as prayer and fasting, attended church regularly\u2014especially the main Sunday Mass\u2014and learned how to declare repentance and seek forgiveness from the Lord by confessing before the priest in the church. The priest would sit inside a small wooden room not exceeding one square meter, with a single door covered by a curtain containing two small openings\u2014one for men and one for women. We would sit before the priest and confess our sins to him; he would instruct us not to return to them and would require us to recite certain prayers and hymns for forgiveness. My love for Christianity grew even stronger when my father sent my younger brother (8) to the monastery (1) to study religious sciences and become a priest. My brother would come home only once a year for a short period, so my father would occasionally send me to visit him there. I would observe the spiritual atmosphere dominating that place, which left a deep impression on me. I also used to ask my brother about his studies and the subjects they learned, and he would tell me many things I did not understand at the time. I admit that deep down I envied him for the life he lived, withdrawn from people and worldly matters. When I passed the age of twenty, these beliefs became even more deeply rooted\u2014unfortunately not through awareness or research, but through blind imitation and accepting all church teachings as unquestionably true and as the teachings of our master Jesus Christ (peace be upon him). It n<\/p>\n

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ever crossed my mind to examine or investigate these beliefs. Perhaps I cannot be blamed for this, as I saw most people living in the same way. Being preoccupied and immersed in material worldly life confined the mind to one direction: thinking only about securing a happy life in this world. As for the Hereafter, religion, worship, and beliefs, (1) Monastery: A private religious school in Baghdad from which a student graduates as a priest. (9) they were nothing more than customs and traditions inherited from parents and grandparents, practiced merely out of imitation. Attendance at church was not for properly learning Christian beliefs, but simply to perform the rituals commanded by the church, to declare repentance and seek forgiveness, and at best to listen to some moral and educational advice. Among the most important beliefs I strongly held was that Christianity alone is the true religion, and all other religions are myths and falsehoods. Judaism was false because the Jews did not follow the Savior Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) and thus deserved God\u2019s wrath. Muslims as well\u2014therefore anyone who was not Christian would not enter Paradise no matter what they did. As for the Christian who believes in Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), loves him, and follows him, his destiny would inevitably be Paradise regardless of his deeds, because his sins had been forgiven through Christ (peace be upon him). My father also had a very negative image of Islam and Muslims. Whenever Islam was mentioned, he would describe them poorly and tell us stories that defamed the character of the Noble Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). He used to say that Muslims insult Jesus Christ (peace be upon him)\u2014whom he believed to be the son of God\u2014and his mother, calling them liars and mocking them. I remember that when the Qur\u2019an was recited on television, my father would order us to\u2026<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Gift from Heaven: My Journey from Christianity to Islam Ali Al-Sheikh \u2013 Dar Al-Sadiqeen In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful Dedication To the sacred personalities and the pure souls of all the prophets and messengers, from Adam (peace be upon him) to the Seal of the Prophets (peace and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1548],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-women-in-islam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29434"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29451,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29434\/revisions\/29451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}