1 00:00:00,979 --> 00:00:07,590 Hi I'm Cheryl Fatima I'm Abdullah Sameer's wife. 2 00:00:07,590 --> 00:00:16,049 We had a video from before, we did our first video last week and I was just interviewing 3 00:00:16,049 --> 00:00:22,189 Abdullah and many viewers were asking about me. 4 00:00:22,189 --> 00:00:27,380 So we are doing a followup video and we are going to talk about how she became Muslim 5 00:00:27,380 --> 00:00:28,890 and stuff like that. 6 00:00:28,890 --> 00:00:35,140 So let's get to it then, first question is: What did you believe before you became a Muslim? 7 00:00:35,140 --> 00:00:40,700 Okay so I was raised as a Pentecostal Christian. 8 00:00:40,700 --> 00:00:46,309 My dad was Catholic and my mom Pentecost. 9 00:00:46,309 --> 00:00:55,540 I was basically raised in the Pentecostal denomination, and I tried practising, I tried 10 00:00:55,540 --> 00:01:01,379 believing, and so many things didn't make sense to me. 11 00:01:01,379 --> 00:01:07,720 One of the major things was the trinity concept (3 in 1). 12 00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:14,570 I couldn't make sense of it, so.. 13 00:01:14,570 --> 00:01:22,760 So, that's interesting because as a child even though you were taught a certain religion 14 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:26,950 to be true, everyone around you was following that religion, your parents were following 15 00:01:26,950 --> 00:01:32,790 that religion,and you were taught certain values, yet you were still trying to see for 16 00:01:32,790 --> 00:01:40,020 yourself does this belief make sense, and I think that's great, and that's called skepticism. 17 00:01:40,020 --> 00:01:45,681 Skepticism is something wonderful because it allows us to take what we're told with 18 00:01:45,681 --> 00:01:51,430 a grain of salt and to judge it and decide for ourselves what is true and what is not. 19 00:01:51,430 --> 00:01:56,070 This is one of the tools that we have using our brain, that's a good thing I will take 20 00:01:56,070 --> 00:01:58,750 from your story. 21 00:01:58,750 --> 00:02:03,030 To move on, you were Christian and you didn't have many Muslims around you, you were living 22 00:02:03,030 --> 00:02:09,540 on a small island, and you moved to a big city, how did you learn about Islam? 23 00:02:09,540 --> 00:02:15,480 When I moved to a big city that's when I started meeting people of different faiths and cultures 24 00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:21,319 and it was kinda like a culture shock, but it was really interesting. 25 00:02:21,319 --> 00:02:29,599 I admired meeting people from all around because I was raised on a small island and surrounded 26 00:02:29,599 --> 00:02:32,819 by Christians, same culture all that. 27 00:02:32,819 --> 00:02:41,180 So it was quite interesting, I met some Muslims and they gave me lots of information about 28 00:02:41,180 --> 00:02:45,660 Islam through books and I had a copy of the Quran. 29 00:02:45,660 --> 00:02:53,590 We would have dialogues about religion and the more I learned the more interested I became 30 00:02:53,590 --> 00:03:03,959 and I started doing lots of research and prayed to God for guidance and from there I decided 31 00:03:03,959 --> 00:03:05,430 to accept Islam. 32 00:03:05,430 --> 00:03:09,829 So what did you like about Islam and from what you seen about Muslims? 33 00:03:09,829 --> 00:03:16,909 I really liked the idea of worshipping one God, because the Trinity didn't make sense 34 00:03:16,909 --> 00:03:25,900 to me, and I liked that it also took all the prophets that the Christians believed in, 35 00:03:25,900 --> 00:03:37,459 the same prophets, and that really resonated with me and the idea of one God really intrigued 36 00:03:37,459 --> 00:03:41,849 me and I admired that. 37 00:03:41,849 --> 00:03:46,709 Okay that's good! 38 00:03:46,709 --> 00:03:51,959 So tell us, how was being married, how did it affect your faith? 39 00:03:51,959 --> 00:04:00,310 It was a big support for me,in a time where my family was very unhappy with me for changing 40 00:04:00,310 --> 00:04:10,340 my faith, and changing my way of life, and so you were really my support and were very 41 00:04:10,340 --> 00:04:20,520 practising Muslim so you inspired me and taught me a lot, a lot more than the little I knew 42 00:04:20,520 --> 00:04:22,850 at the time. 43 00:04:22,850 --> 00:04:25,780 It definitely helped me. 44 00:04:25,780 --> 00:04:31,930 How did the marriage affect your faith? 45 00:04:31,930 --> 00:04:35,900 Or what were some of the challenges? 46 00:04:35,900 --> 00:04:43,680 Some of the challenges that I can remember is hijab (head scarf). 47 00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:50,730 I wasn't so strict about it before I met you, and you showed me the importance of wearing 48 00:04:50,730 --> 00:04:53,440 the hijab, and really motivated me. 49 00:04:53,440 --> 00:05:01,180 In the beginning it was kinda tough, especially in front of my family who already felt uncomfortable 50 00:05:01,180 --> 00:05:08,560 with me being Muslim, and now I'm really putting it in their face with the hijab, so that was 51 00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:10,630 certainly a challenge. 52 00:05:10,630 --> 00:05:17,100 But I got over it, like everything in life, you adapt to it. 53 00:05:17,100 --> 00:05:23,890 Another challenge was music, I was a big music lover and I grew up with music all around 54 00:05:23,890 --> 00:05:33,500 me from church to every social setting, back home we were big on that. 55 00:05:33,500 --> 00:05:43,270 Having to give that up was a challenge but I did it for the sake of God and I adapted. 56 00:05:43,270 --> 00:05:49,260 So, incase people are wondering, there is a difference of opinion about whether music 57 00:05:49,260 --> 00:05:54,810 is forbidden in Islam, and the more conservative opinion is that no music is allowed except 58 00:05:54,810 --> 00:06:00,360 let's say vocals, and of course there's every opinion on the spectrum as in certain instruments 59 00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:05,310 are allowed, certain types of music are allowed, or in certain situations like a wedding it's 60 00:06:05,310 --> 00:06:06,320 allowed. 61 00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:11,330 So we were going by the most conservative position, which is what I was following at 62 00:06:11,330 --> 00:06:18,900 the time and I wanted her to follow as well, which is that very little music is allowed. 63 00:06:18,900 --> 00:06:23,000 So we mainly listened to like religious kind of music. 64 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:26,610 At one point Sami Yusuf or stuff like that. 65 00:06:26,610 --> 00:06:30,460 For the most part there was no music allowed in the house and we tried to listen to more 66 00:06:30,460 --> 00:06:32,050 Quran rather than music. 67 00:06:32,050 --> 00:06:42,280 Tell us how it was when I left Islam. 68 00:06:42,280 --> 00:06:55,300 When you left Islam it was a very big shock, I was very sad and I did a lot of prayers 69 00:06:55,300 --> 00:07:02,710 and doing a lot of research at that time to try to find the answers to your doubts, and 70 00:07:02,710 --> 00:07:13,720 to get you back on track and yeah it was like a rollercoaster I guess of different emotions 71 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:32,280 and I just hoped that you would find the answers that would change your mind. 72 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:43,550 What social pressures did you face being with someone that was coming out as no longer a 73 00:07:43,550 --> 00:07:44,550 Muslim? 74 00:07:44,550 --> 00:07:49,970 Yeah it was a big shock to the whole community and I had a lot of sisters reach out to me, 75 00:07:49,970 --> 00:07:56,470 even brothers actually, I had a lot of the Muslim community reach out to me. 76 00:07:56,470 --> 00:08:04,330 I even had one sister tell me that I could stay at her house with all my kids, and I 77 00:08:04,330 --> 00:08:08,570 guess they expected a divorce between us. 78 00:08:08,570 --> 00:08:13,810 They were saying they would be supportive of that. 79 00:08:13,810 --> 00:08:18,670 How is our marriage now? 80 00:08:18,670 --> 00:08:28,110 How do you guys live together and how do you work things out? 81 00:08:28,110 --> 00:08:33,740 I feel that our marriage is all about loyalty and commitment. 82 00:08:33,740 --> 00:08:40,180 Many people wonder as an atheist how do you, are you just going to cheat on your wife because 83 00:08:40,180 --> 00:08:48,329 you have no morals, no belief in God, no God standing over your head saying don't do that 84 00:08:48,329 --> 00:08:49,879 or I will punish you. 85 00:08:49,879 --> 00:08:55,199 This is actually a misconception of many people, they think that atheists have no morals, we 86 00:08:55,199 --> 00:08:58,170 eat babies for fun. 87 00:08:58,170 --> 00:09:04,690 It's actually not true, all humans have values that we have got from certain places, whether 88 00:09:04,690 --> 00:09:13,629 it's from our culture, or from evolution of humans over the centuries, but for whatever 89 00:09:13,629 --> 00:09:15,800 reason we have values. 90 00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:22,880 Some of the values we have are very strong like empathy, the concept of guilt and shame 91 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:25,600 even without religion it's still there. 92 00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:33,720 For me personally it's about committing to my relationship to you despite whether I believe 93 00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:36,860 in God or not believe in God. 94 00:09:36,860 --> 00:09:44,670 I believe in honesty and commitment, and obviously if this marriage wasn't valuable to me then 95 00:09:44,670 --> 00:09:46,170 I wouldn't continue it. 96 00:09:46,170 --> 00:09:51,870 I did continue it because it's valuable to me. 97 00:09:51,870 --> 00:09:58,690 Last question was someone was asking how do we raise our kids? 98 00:09:58,690 --> 00:10:02,600 Because obviously we have different beliefs. 99 00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:12,180 So we teach them critical thinking and to search for the truth and you teach them what 100 00:10:12,180 --> 00:10:19,560 you believe, I teach them what I believe, and they will decide for themselves, and that's 101 00:10:19,560 --> 00:10:28,140 how we both found Islam right, by being skeptical and critical and looking into different ways 102 00:10:28,140 --> 00:10:31,050 of life and we decided for ourselves. 103 00:10:31,050 --> 00:10:32,050 Yeah, exactly. 104 00:10:32,050 --> 00:10:36,769 What we thought was the truth. 105 00:10:36,769 --> 00:10:40,839 That makes perfect sense. 106 00:10:40,839 --> 00:10:54,649 So in conclusion what I want to say is that even though we may have different beliefs 107 00:10:54,649 --> 00:11:05,629 in God, we still hold many of the same values and interests in life, and I believe that 108 00:11:05,629 --> 00:11:11,079 what's most important and what holds people together and makes our world a peaceful place 109 00:11:11,079 --> 00:11:14,310 is mutual love and respect. 110 00:11:14,310 --> 00:11:15,360 Well said! 111 00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:17,460 I really like that. 112 00:11:17,460 --> 00:11:25,189 And I also want to add that it makes a lot of sense that a family stays together, we 113 00:11:25,189 --> 00:11:29,240 have 5 kids together that need our loving family and they need both their dad and their 114 00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:30,240 mom. 115 00:11:30,240 --> 00:11:36,629 This is what family is about, the idea of breaking up a family over something like this 116 00:11:36,629 --> 00:11:43,879 is a very painful and difficult thing to deal with in life, and I'm glad that we are able 117 00:11:43,879 --> 00:11:44,879 to stay together. 118 00:11:44,879 --> 00:11:50,800 I know many people in the world lost their spouses because of this, and I know many ex 119 00:11:50,800 --> 00:11:57,000 muslims in the closet that are not able to tell even their own spouse that they don't 120 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:00,029 believe anymore because they fear losing their spouse. 121 00:12:00,029 --> 00:12:06,910 They know that their inlaws will take their wife away and one case I had a friend in the 122 00:12:06,910 --> 00:12:13,910 UK who told me that even his own mom and dad would side with his ex-wife for custody of 123 00:12:13,910 --> 00:12:18,649 their children rather than him because he's not Muslim anymore, so he couldn't even tell 124 00:12:18,649 --> 00:12:20,410 his parents that he's not Muslim anymore. 125 00:12:20,410 --> 00:12:24,670 A lot of people have to hide this in order to keep the family together, so I am glad 126 00:12:24,670 --> 00:12:29,730 we can be honest with each other and keep this together. 127 00:12:29,730 --> 00:12:33,850 Thanks for watching guys, hope you enjoyed this interview. 128 00:12:33,850 --> 00:12:38,980 Please leave followup questions in the comments or a response video if you like, and we'll 129 00:12:38,980 --> 00:12:50,559 try to make another video with more details and more about our journey. 130 00:12:50,559 --> 00:12:52,059 Bye! 131 00:12:52,059 --> 00:12:55,750 Umm you knew a lot more than me at that time.. 132 00:12:55,750 --> 00:12:56,750 Still... 133 00:12:56,750 --> 00:12:58,439 What do you mean? 134 00:12:58,439 --> 00:13:01,670 I still know more than you.. 135 00:13:01,670 --> 00:13:02,800 (laughs) I don't know about that!