A Message from Your American Brother: Being a Good Follower of Christ by Worshiping Who He Worshiped

Brother Abdurraheem Murphy from the USA, ex-Catholic, accepted Islam in June 2013

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

لتجدن اقربهم مودة للذين امنوا الذين قالوا انا نصارى ذلك بان منهم قسيسين ورهبانا وانهم لا يستكبرون

You will find the nearest of them in affection to the believers those who say, "We are Christians." That is because among them are priests and monks and because they are not arrogant.

(Surah al-Maidah 5:82)

Several years ago, I was a practicing Catholic.  By practicing I mean that I studied the catechism and sought to implement it in my life, I frequently and regularly prayed the rosary, I observed supererogatory fasts and was in discussion with my local priest on how to enter the seminary.  And, while I was increasing in my faith I met a Muslim through my work. I thanked Jesus عليه الصلاة و السلام for giving me the opportunity to share his gospel of hope and redemption with a disbeliever.

The Muslim, a convert who was previously a Protestant, would sit politely and listen to me attempt to dissuade him from Islam.  He would ask me questions about the trinity and I would explain to him that it was a mystery of faith, but that one could understand it in several ways.  My favorite explanation was that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were all God, but just God with different functions and at different times.  He would nod and respond, “Ahh, I see.”  Later, he gave me a Qur’an, without sharing much of anything about Islam before that day or afterwards.  He soon left, later that day I believe, as our work involved a lot of movement and I never saw him again.

My reason for being Catholic was that I understood Roman Catholicism to be a clear and coherent chain of custody over the true faith and teachings from the time of Jesus until today, beginning with the apostle Peter as the first pope.  I felt that Catholics had the most legitimate claim to that title.  I wanted so earnestly to worship God, for God to forgive me, to please God.  It never occurred to me to question God’s existence.  I was ready to receive God’s command; I just wanted to know what to do.  Because of this sincere desire to be near to God, I worshiped Jesus and I prayed to Mary and the saints.  I thought, “This is what I am told to do by those who inherited Jesus’ church.  And Jesus is God’s messenger and he entrusted his church to Peter who passed it down, and so on.”  Therefore, praying to Jesus for forgiveness, etc. as I was told to do, was only right.

It wasn’t until I read the Qur’an that I began to understand how Jesus worshiped – and more importantly Who he worshiped.

Jesus, like all the other prophets and messengers عليهم الصلاة و السلام, worshiped one God – they never worshiped themselves or each other.  None of them ever commanded their followers to worship them. 

I compared the Jesus of the Qur’an – a messenger, a leader, a human – with the Jesus of the four canonical gospels.  I didn’t find any difference.  I saw a human, a human rightly guided by God with a divine mission to return the people to the pure, strict belief in and worship of God, a human aided and supported with God’s miracles.  But, still a human: a person who grew tired and hungry, who slept and ate.  Most importantly, I saw part of the creation, of God’s creation, and realized that Jesus, like all other humans, needed God, depended on God and could do nothing on his own.

Once I began to see in the gospels that Jesus called on God in times of need, I realized that I could never call on anyone else.  Jesus didn’t turn to himself for strength or for salvation, but to God.  He didn’t turn to his mother or to the former prophets.  Jesus was incapable of providing for himself, defending himself or foreseeing the future.  I knew that I could never again worship someone or something limited, dependent and incapable.

The conversion from Christianity to Islam was quick and easy.  I abandoned the worship of humans for the worship of the Creator of humans, for the worship of the God of Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Noah and Adam.  I recognized that I only prayed to Jesus because I thought it was necessary. It didn’t occur to me that Jesus was sent to guide us, to guide us to the right way and that he practiced that way and taught it to his disciples.  I saw that it never made any sense to worship one who worshiped another, to worship Jesus while Jesus worshiped a God infinitely greater and incomparable to Jesus himself.

My sincerity, and God willing that’s what it was, lead me to Islam.  Looking back I can see that I wasn’t attached to any dogma or religion, but that I sought out the truth. As soon as that became apparent to me I followed it.  All of us can question what it is we are upon and look to the example of the prophets.  What was their mission?  What did they do?

They lived for God and they died for God, they worshiped Him alone and called others to His worship, to obey Him and love what He loves and hate what He hates.  Christianity as we know it is not the religion of Christ, it is the religion of Christ worship, when Christ never worshipped anything, except the one, true God, the ever-Living, free of needs, who has no partners, rivals or associates, who has no progeny nor progenitor.

وَإِذَا سَمِعُوا مَا أُنزِلَ إِلَى الرَّسُولِ تَرَىٰ أَعْيُنَهُمْ تَفِيضُ مِنَ الدَّمْعِ مِمَّا عَرَفُوا مِنَ الْحَقِّ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا آمَنَّا فَاكْتُبْنَا مَعَ الشَّاهِدِينَ وَمَا لَنَا لَا نُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّـهِ وَمَا جَاءَنَا مِنَ الْحَقِّ وَنَطْمَعُ أَن يُدْخِلَنَا رَبُّنَا مَعَ الْقَوْمِ الصَّالِحِينَ

And when [the Christians] hear what has been revealed to the Messenger, you see their eyes overflowing with tears because of what they have recognized of the truth. They say, "Our Lord, we have believed, so register us among the witnesses. And why should we not believe in Allah and what has come to us of the truth? And we aspire that our Lord will admit us [to Paradise] with the righteous people."

(Surat al-Ma’idah 83-84)

Truly, the follower of Christ is the worshiper of God and the worshiper of Christ is the follower of falsehood.  The reason we love and obey the prophets and messengers عليهم الصلاة و السلام is due to what they bring to us from our Lord.  When our Lord calls us, we must respond to the truth and cannot refuse, clinging obstinately to the ways of our ancestors or the ways of our society. 

May God guide all of us to the pure worship of Him and Him alone.

Your brother in Islam, Abdurraheem Murphy (United States of America)