For many of my brothers and sisters born and raised in Islam, particularly in the Arab world, Muslim converts seem to always be something of a novelty. They are proud of us, delighted by our recitation of Qur’an, and are fascinated by our stories of conversion. But, at the same time, they almost universally assume that we do not actually know anything; and they, regardless of how much or how little they may know themselves of the religion, feel obligated, and indeed, entitled, to teach us…even if we have been Muslim for years, for decades even.
As well-intentioned as this may be, frankly, it is incredibly irksome.
Most of us did not accept Islam suddenly. We came to the Deen through study, and that study only intensified after our conversion. Many of us faced estrangement from our families, often open hostility from parents and siblings; we became like foreigners in the countries of our birth; we change our names, our friends leave us, we face prejudice and discrimination, and frequently the Muslim communities to which we turn in the West expect us to adopt Arab culture and traditions, or Asian. Suddenly we have to like hummous and maqloubeh!
Those of us who can, make hijrah. We go to a Muslim-majority country, where we do not know anyone, do not speak the language, and have no support network.
We are constantly targeted by groups, like Jama’at-Tabligh, or Jihadis; and everyone is always trying to set us up with a wife or husband, to “complete the other half of our Deen” or to “protect” us from committing zena. Bro, we voluntarily left the kufr that allowed us to commit zena; we had access to it as much as we wanted…and we left it….don’t worry..
And through all of this, what we have to sustain and fortify us, is the study of our Deen. Not only do we read the translation of the meanings of the Qur’an, we read several translations. We read commentaries, we read tafsir, we read several biographies of the Prophet ï·º , we read the collections of hadith, and the commentaries on them; many of us study the science of hadith authentication. We study comparative fiqh. We study Islamic history. We read the biographies of the Sahabah. We study ‘Aqeedah. We read fatawa. We do not do this because it is in a school curriculum, we do not do this because anyone told us to; we do it because it is important to us to understand our religion.
The point is, dear Brothers and Sisters, please do not assume that a “new” Muslim has no knowledge. And bear in mind that a “new” Muslim, may actually have been Muslim longer than you have been alive.