So I guess this post requires a brief note about where I am spiritually right now.

I started praying five times a day about three months ago; I sorta learned how to do it online (thanks islamicity.com!) but really only got it right after having a friend teach me.

From the very beginning... I felt deep down in my heart and soul that this was right, but my mind quite reasonably held me back through a combination of skepticism and unwillingness to accept that such a dramatic change could happen so suddenly and without any real warning. I think it was right to wait and give my mind time to catch up. Two years ago, when I first arrived in Palestine for half a year of volunteer work, I visited Jerusalem, and in that city sacred to the three monotheistic religions, I concluded this about faith:

"The intellect demands exactitude through questioning, but can never achieve certitude. The heart leaps to certitude but cannot provide precision or explanation. Somewhere in between, I think, is the human soul where faith of all kinds resides, be it religious or secular, neither or both."

And now, suddenly, I realize I'm ready, because while my understanding of Islam and my personal relationship with the Islamic tradition, its texts, and practice still require work, they will always require work, and there's no turning away from the Path laid before me now, save by hypocrisy or willful disbelief.

So, I'm going to pray istikhaara and ask God if I am right to feel that... it's time this week to go back home and say the shahaada with my closest muslim friends.


So, there's the part I find funny: someone making istikhaara to ask God if he should convert or not.