A Journey into Conversion - Part I

This is a true story - mine. This is the first part of many

A Journey into Conversion
Part I

I converted to Islam deep in the fall of 1999 at a mosque in London Ontario. Surrounding me were my ‘Sisters-in-Islam’, Canadian women who had converted to marry their boyfriends or older women like myself who embraced it for its practicality, its allure.

Most of that allure was from a charismatic Imam; a Moroccan trained at Al Azhar University in Cairo Egypt who eloquently described his religion and ignited a latent mystical passion sparked some years earlier.

My intrigue started while studying early Renaissance art at the University of Windsor. That Islam had flourished while Europe was in the dark ages, illuminated by commerce bringing with it as all international trade does, different philosophies, goods and politics rejuvenated from the books of antiquity and the studying of them.

While finishing my degree at the University of Windsor I had the unfortunate luck of my landlord moving to Lebanon and him renting the bottom part of his house to acquaintances of his. They made it their mission to harass me into moving from my apartment because in their mind, I shouldn’t have contacted the City on the landlord who was slapped with building code violations and fines for inadequate upkeep of my unit.

I guess the building department felt that I should be able to walk down my stairs without the risers falling out from under my feet. That the gas pipes should not be rusted enough to break causing a massive gas leak that forced myself and my landlords family to be evacuated from the house in case the neighborhood blew up on New Year’s Eve, the night I moved in.

By the Spring, months after the neighbors from hell moved in, I had just spent three weeks extended a garden plot by good old foot and shovel, cutting the foot high grass and cleaning up their garbage they left outside their back door attracting the neighborhood rats.

Often while I was working in the yard wafts of the smell of hashish from my neighbor’s home mixing with the freshly dug earth or the just cut grass. I would notice the guy peek out of the kitchen window from time to time to see how I was progressing on the garden.

On the last day of the preparation after adding manure and peat, I noticed him looking again. I sat down for a breather, wiping the sweat off my face and listening to the kids play. Two police officers walked into the back yard telling me they had a complaint from the guy that I was digging his garden and that if I planted anything, he would pull up the plants.

So? I responded. I would just replant them. While explaining that the guy didn’t bother with the yard work he came out and started yelling at me that I had no right to come down off of the balcony that his friend had to rebuild on orders of the building department, that the yard was for his to use only.

Undaunted I yelled back at him that he didn’t bother keeping up the yard, that I was doing all the work and their filth was attracting rats into my apartment. The police officers looked at me as if, lady your not afraid to yell at this guy who could very well get his gang of Lebanese thugs to kick my butt?

While I was at it I brought up in the same tone he honored me with, his hashish habit and the comings and goings of his friends at 3am in front of the cops. They male cop did a double take and started laughing. The guy went back in the house. The cops left and I went back to planting my seedlings.

It came time to water them. The garden hose was behind me. As I turned around I noticed it moving, sucked up like a spaghetti noodle. I waited, then went to get it off the wall mount. It was gone. They took the damn hose!
But all was well it was a sign they moved out. Not only did they take the garden hose; they took their own belongings and the landlords appliances stored in the garage, so when he returned from Lebanon, he didn’t have anything to cook off of!

Within the week I had new neighbours. I came home from work to find the grass had been cut a new coat of paint of the front porch. What a relief! A load of stress had immediately fallen away leaving some room for joy. My new neighbors were a wonderful Lebanese woman and her three kids who in the weeks to come became my surrogate family.

And then there was Joe. (named changed to protect the not so innocent)


Continued in Part II...