Home
/
Isiam
/
New Muslim Stories
/
My Journey to Islam
My Journey to Islam
Nov 14, 2024 6:16 PM

  

Aisha Bhutta

The Guardian Newspaper, England

  Thursday 8th May 1997

  A Woman on a Mission

  --------------------------------

  Aisha Bhutta, also known as Debbie Rogers, is serene. She sits on the sofa in big front room of her tenement flat in Cowcaddens, Glasgow. The walls are hung with quotations from the Koran, a special clock to remind the family of prayer times and posters of the Holy City of Mecca. Aisha's piercing blue eyes sparkle with evangelical zeal, she smiles with a radiance only true believers possess. Her face is that of a strong Scots lass - no nonsense, good-humoured - but it is carefully covered with a hijab.

  For a good Christian girl to convert to Islam and marry a Muslim is extraordinary enough. But more than that, she has also converted her parents, most of the rest of her family and at least 30 friends and neighbours.

  Her family were austere Christians with whom Rogers regularly attended Salvation Army meetings. When all the other teenagers in Britain were kissing their George Michael posters goodnight, Rogers had pictures of Jesus up on her wall. And yet she found that Christianity was not enough; there were too many unanswered questions and she felt dissatisfied with the lack of disciplined structure for her beliefs. "There had to be more for me to obey than just doing prayers when I felt like it."

  Aisha had first seen her future husband, Mohammad Bhutta, when she was 10 and regular customer at the shop, run by his family. She would see him in the back, praying. "There was contentment and peace in what he was doing. He said he was a Muslim. I said: What's a Muslim?".

  Later with his help she began looking deeper into Islam. By the age of 17, she had read the entire Koran in Arabic. "Everything I read", she says, "was making sense."

  She made the decision to convert at16. "When I said the words, it was like a big burden I had been carrying on my shoulders had been thrown off. I felt like a new-born baby."

  Despite her conversion however, Mohammed's parents were against their marrying. They saw her as a Western woman who would lead their eldest son astray and give the family a bad name; she was, Mohammed's father believed, "the biggest enemy."

  Nevertheless, the couple married in the local mosque. Aisha wore a dress hand-sewn by Mohammed's mother and sisters who sneaked into the ceremony against the wishes of his father who refused to attend.

  It was his elderly grandmother who paved the way for a bond between the women. She arrived from Pakistan where mixed-race marriages were even more taboo, and insisted on meeting Aisha. She was so impressed by the fact that she had learned the Koran and Punjabi that she convinced the others; slowly, Aisha, now 32, became one of the family.

  Aisha's parents, Michael and Marjory Rogers, though did attend the wedding, were more concerned with the clothes their daughter was now wearing (the traditional shalwaar kameez) and what the neighbours would think. Six years later, Aisha embarked on a mission to convert them and the rest of her family, bar her sister ("I'm still working on her). "My husband and I worked on my mum and dad, telling them about Islam and they saw the changes in me, like I stopped answering back!"

  Her mother soon followed in her footsteps. Marjory Rogers changed her name to Sumayyah and became a devout Muslim. "She wore the hijab and did her prayers on time and nothing ever mattered to her except her connections with God."

  Aisha's father proved a more difficult recruit, so she enlisted the help of her newly converted mother (who has since died of cancer). "My mumand I used to talk to my father about Islam and we were sitting in the sofa in the kitchen one day and he said: "What are the words you say when you become a Muslim?" "Me and my mum just jumped on top of him." Three years later, Aisha's brother converted "over the telephone - thanks to BT", then his wife and children followed, followed by her sister's son.

  It didn't stop there. Her family converted, Aisha turned her attention to Cowcaddens, with its tightly packed rows of crumbling, gray tenement flats. Every Monday for the past 13 years, Aisha has held classes in

  Islam for Scottish women. So far she has helped to convert over 30. The women come from a bewildering array of backgrounds. Trudy, a lecturer at the University of Glasgow and a former Catholic, attended Aisha's classes purely because she was commissioned to carry out some research. But after six months of classes she converted, deciding that

  Christianity was riddled with "logical inconsistencies". "I could tell she was beginning to be affected by the talks", Aisha says. How could she tell? "I don't know, it was just a feeling."

  The classes include Muslim girls tempted by Western ideals and need in salvation, practicing Muslim women who want an open forum for discussion denied them at the local male-dominated mosque, and those simply interested in Islam. Aisha welcomes questions. "We cannot expect people blindly to believe."

  Her husband, Mohammad Bhutta, now 41, does not seem so driven to convert Scottish lads to Muslim brothers. He occasionally helps out in the family restaurant, but his main aim in life is to ensure the couple's five children grow up as Muslims. The eldest, Safia, "nearly 14, Al-Humdlillaah (Praise be to God!)", is not averse to a spot of recruiting herself. One day she met a woman in the street and carried her shopping, the woman attended Aisha's classes and is now a Muslim.

  "I can honestly say I have never regretted it", Aisha says of her conversion to Islam. "Every marriage has its ups and downs and sometimes you need something to pull you out of any hardship. But the Prophet Peace by upon him, said: 'Every hardship has an ease.' So when you're going through a difficult stage, you work for that ease to come."

  Mohammed is more romantic: "I feel we have known each other for centuries and must never part from one another. According to Islam, you are not just partners for life, you can be partners in heaven as well, for ever. Its a beautiful thing, you know."

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
New Muslim Stories
Sister Penomee (Dr. Kari Ann Owen, Ph.D.)
  July 4, 1997.   Assalaamu alaykum, beloved family.   "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammed is his messenger."   These are the words of the Shahadah oath, I believe.   The Creator is known by many names. His wisdom is always recognizable, and his presence made manifest in the love, tolerance and...
Jenny's Testimony
  Melbourne, Australia   In the Name of Allah, The Benificent, The Merciful   October, 1998   Often when people ask me ‘How did you come to Islam?’, I take a deep breath and try and tell them the ‘short version’. I don’t think that Islam is something that I came to suddenly, even...
My Journey to Islam
   Aisha Bhutta The Guardian Newspaper, England   Thursday 8th May 1997   A Woman on a Mission   --------------------------------   Aisha Bhutta, also known as Debbie Rogers, is serene. She sits on the sofa in big front room of her tenement flat in Cowcaddens, Glasgow. The walls are hung with quotations from the...
Rita, Canada
  God works in mysterious ways   I suppose we have all heard stories of converts before. They are, praise be to God, becoming very common, and growing in their number every day. But still, I can never forget how it feels to know that another human being whom you know personally...
Michelle
  As-salaamu-alaikum,   I come from a Jewish family in New York. My mother was from S. A. but also Jewish. She never was comfortable with anyone knowing that. When my father died, she remarried a Catholic and became one herself. And that is how she brought us up. From the age...
A Jewish American Embraces Islam
  I saw her radiant face in a mosque that is located on a hill in a small American state, reciting a translation of the Noble Quran. I greeted her and she returned the greeting warmly and cheerfully; we got talking and became good friends in no time. One night, we...
The Veil: The View From The Inside
  By: Nakata Khaula   When I returned to Islam, the religion of our inborn nature, a fierce debate raged about girls observing the hijab at schools in France. It still does. The majority, it seemed, thought that wearing the head-scarf was contrary to the principle that public -that is state-funded -...
Experiences of a Recently Converted Hindu Woman
  "My Experiences and How I Find that Islam does not Oppress Women"   by Sister Noor, University of Essex   I came from a purely Hindu family where we were always taught to regard ourselves (i.e. women) as beings who were eventually to be married off and have children and serve the...
Lara
  In the Name of Allah, most Compassionate, most Merciful   Becoming Muslim   Bismillaah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem   DISCOVERING ISLAM: A CANADIAN MUSLIMA'S STORY   April 25, 1996   As-Salamu Alaikum wa Rahmahtullahi wa Barakatu (May the peace, the mercy, and the blessings of Allah be upon you).   I am Canadian-born of Scandinavian and other ancestry,...
How They Became MuslimWomen
  Islam is being subjected to a fierce attack internally as well as externally with accusations of terrorism, regression and barbarism constantly directed at it. Also, the enemies' attacks are directed to the Muslim woman and her Hijab, which indicates her identity and the degree of her commitment to the orders...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved