Yes, salam alikum, brother, alumam, brother,
just tell us how you came to Islam,
what your first
encounter was, what you thought about Islam in the past,
what was perhaps a
turning point in your life,
how you then came to the idea of ​​becoming
interested in Islam,
well, I actually
grew up with it, I had a lot of foreign
friends, I
always saw it was a bit
different, they had a bit of a
different meaning in life than I had before, a
bit of fun and so on, of course, but
I had already seen it and
noticed, I knew that Islam existed,
but for me it was like they
said before, Islam is
more for people from Turkey, Morocco or
something like that, and for me it's more my religion,
I've always believed in God,
definitely not
that Jesus
would play a special role, and then there were
the terrorist attacks on September 11th,
and then just out of interest I bought
a Koran, I
thought, how can that be, I could
n't imagine that a religion could be so
brutal or somehow so
terroristic, yeah, I have that too
Before, you never noticed it like that, it
actually only started then. Then
I bought the Koran and
started reading it and it
went on, I can't even describe it. I
thought I'd just start
reading and then I started and
the time went on. I
read for about 2 hours straight or so. I did
n't stop. Then
I was on page 70 or 80 and more and
more. I really got GS when
I read that and at the beginning
I thought, okay, yes, that
's fine, sounds good and that's nice
and everything. Then I kept reading and
then I
carried on living as normally as I did.
And then all of a sudden I started having
strange dreams, really
bad nightmares, like, you ca
n't even describe them.
I saw the worst characters. Then
in my dreams I always read a passage from the Koran and
then they
disappeared, but I could
n't really do it yet.
Then I started to think about
what's going on because it happened practically
every night. I was afraid to go to
sleep. I have the Koran right
next to my bed. laid down and said, when
I fall asleep, okay, then I'll have
everything I
need right there and then I started to think
and then Ramadan was just
around the corner and after that, so I always had old dreams
and then in the dream you had like it was the
Koran festival, you
noticed that the Koran helps, like
a sign of
everything, then it just went on, then
Ramadan was over, I said to my colleagues,
yes, I think I'll try it
out with you too, then
I just grabbed it at first but kept
going like that, I ate pork and I did
n't drink alcohol before, so
that wasn't a problem, but
then I started to think,
ah, if I
eat pork, then that's not okay,
then I have to stop that too,
and then yes, at that time I still
had a girlfriend and then whenever
I was out and about and there
were maybe things that weren't
right, then I would
have these dreams again at night, always
from the moment I had
done something wrong, then
these dreams would always come, I
felt it was like a punishment, yes, I
did that and then the dreams came
and then I I was afraid
to
do something again and then suddenly it happened on its
own. I used to
drink alcohol normally,
eat pork and so on, but suddenly
it was disgusting, yes, I did
drink less alcohol, no, not like
normal people do, maybe
once a month or so, if at all,
actually almost not at all, yes, but then
I looked in the fridge, for example,
at my parents' or something, and there was
some kind of, I don't know, ham
or something lying around, which
suddenly disgusted me, all by
itself, it just happened, I do
n't know, I couldn't eat it anymore, couldn't
touch it anymore, anything anymore, it
just happened and yes, then I just
started to allow the other things too, but
then it was okay for me
at first, I thought to myself because all
my colleagues were like that, they did
n't pray that much or anything,
I didn't really have it, okay, now I'm a
Muslim, yes, I don't eat pork
anymore, I don't drink alcohol, and so on, then
the matter was sorted out for me,
then it went like this for years, I got more and
more books, got more
involved with it and looked at it more, but then
at some point I thought to myself, No,
actually, praying is part of it
and so on and then
I asked a lot of colleagues, yes, I
want to learn to pray and show me
how it's done, they all said I have no
idea, yes, at some point we'll see and
then somehow a really strange
fate came along, I had already done it at that point,
no, not yet, that was fine for me,
for me it was
okay, I didn't have that much knowledge yet and so it was okay for me, I believed in it and
lived like that and thought, okay, that's enough
but then at some point I
thought to myself, no, that's not enough, if
you want to do it then you
have to do it properly because otherwise
you're like everyone else but it was
okay for me at first, then I
met other people who also
prayed and stuck to everything
and there was a
teacher here who used to give Arabic lessons
and I was in the
gym training and
a friend of mine who was there too and who
also came here said to me,
yes, I know someone over there who gives
Arabic lessons in the gym, come
with me, let's we talk together
then I went to him yes, of course you
can come over we can have
a look we can do all of this and so on
you can learn Arabic and so on no
problem and then I was here for a day
I met Mohammed and yes at the
beginning he tried he thought
he had to convince me first he
said come on let's go and have a drink
then tell me an extra sheet and
then he talked a lot talked a
lot and for me it was
actually already clear that I
wanted to do it because it was already finished
then we said okay just call me we'll
make an appointment here and
then we'll do it everything was a
bit behind schedule yes exactly exactly and then I
called him yes I want to do
it now that was Saturday and then I said
yes I want to do it now then we
made an appointment here for Wednesday evening and then I did
everything recited
everything and all of a sudden I prayed
before so I had already
learned to pray I had
already prayed before I was an Islamist and
then it happened and he
said to me yes come on we'll learn Arabic now
and so on We do it and it went so
quickly, so we tried to
learn letters, we said
okay, we'll do five every week
and then when I got home I
thought to myself okay, we started with five, yes,
good, five letters, they were in for 10 minutes or
so, we
carried on with five, another hour
passed and then there were already ten, that was
about ten letters in the first week, okay,
after the second week I had all
the letters down, it all went so
quickly and easily, was it at the beginning
with your girlfriend, how was it then,
well, I have to admit, it went on for a
bit because we were together for six
years and she was
Turkish and at first I thought we would
normally get married, that was
actually the reason why we were still
together, you had
hopes of getting serious and so on,
yes, exactly, but with her it
was actually worse than me,
he actually
ate pork and all sorts of things, but then
we somehow
changed things up a bit together, so it went on until
a certain point, she
also stopped eating pork and so on,
but with praying and so on and when she
went swimming, that wasn't possible,
then at some point I said, fine,
but there's no point like that, yes and then at
some point it was over yes
also because of the religion then yes yes yes yes
that was always a
bit of a pain in the ass it always was a bit of a pain in the ass that was
n't actually okay yes I mean in the beginning
you didn't have that much knowledge and you
think okay it's not that
bad it's bad it's bad
but over time you
really learned that it's a
real sin and then you
gave it up alhamdulillah
yes and then yes my feeling got
better and better I always
liked being here and always from the start the
welcome was great and everyone was super
friendly and nice because that was always the
reason why I didn't go to the mosque
I thought to myself when
I come in there everyone will look at me and
think what does he want here or
something like that I thought but
it was completely different and yes then I was here
more and more and
yes it was just a great feeling and
life is completely different and you love
it completely now because I have a completely
different sense of purpose so many people yes they
waste too much time
worrying about what they're doing
here can achieve or not
and for me it doesn't matter
so I try to stay on my way
naturally and do everything right
and then God exactly exactly and
then I just hope that it
works