in the name of allah
the most beneficent the most merciful
bismillah my name is jim soos
i’m with ikna new jersey
my my background is that i was born into
a
christian family and then about
25 years ago i accepted islam
and i’ve been practicing ever since
by the will of allah and a number of
people have asked me
uh what we’ll call my conversion story
how did it happen
and i you know i’ve i’m happily telling
anyone who wants to know
um i did i used to work for a fortune
500 company
and i had you know it was a nice it was
a desk job
i had an office and worked here in new
jersey in piscataway
and um i used to uh sometimes when work
was kind of slow
uh go out at lunchtime and go to the
local driving range
and hit golf balls just practice my
swing
see how hard i could hit it you can
imagine
and uh one time i went out and i hit
some golf balls
and um on my way on my way back
i just you know popped into the uh the
pro shop uh for those of you don’t know
the pro shop is typically their little
little shop at a driving range or a golf
course where they sell the equipment
they saw golf clubs and tees and gloves
and balls and all these things so i just
stopped in the pro shop to kind of
browse around
and i found a few little things maybe
you know a glove and some tees
but they had this big bin there um that
was full of golf balls
and it was kind of a like a big
you know barrel wooden barrel that was
just full of golf balls
and they were they were selling them uh
buying the dozen at a very good price
um so i thought well let me let me get
some of these so
you just you know they had paper bag
there and you’d fill the bag or put
whatever you want
so the price was so good i grabbed two
buzz two dozen balls
and i threw them in this paper bag and i
went to go check out
and i put them on the counter and um the
the guy at the counter is you know he’s
tallying up the
the gloves and whatever else i bought
and he just punched the bag and said so
he got a dozen balls
and i said no two dozen and he looked at
me like
hey okay you didn’t have to tell me that
um
so i got charged for two dozen balls and
uh i’m walking out to the car
and i’m thinking geez you know um i
could have got those balls for the price
of
one dozen you know i don’t have to tell
them that and i thought you know
maybe i should kind of be more alert and
look for opportunities like that you
know
um am i being a sucker by telling him by
being so honest
um but then there was another part of me
that was
that was telling me um you know i really
feel more comfortable
being that honest and that was my sort
of automatic response
so i had this kind of conversation going
on in my head
um if you might imagine you know two
two entities on each shoulder kind of
whispering in my ears and i was thinking
about this
so i drove back to the office and just
sat down behind my desk
and then a co-worker just appeared in my
doorway
i happened to be an egyptian a muslim
and and frankly i didn’t even know that
he was a muslim
i think i assumed that he was not
christian but he had the office next to
me
and he just right then popped into my
doorway and said say what’s up
so i just told them the story about what
had happened at this uh
golf course you know at this uh pro shop
and i said what do you think what would
you do he goes i don’t have to think
about it
it’s not even a question for me tell him
you got two dozen balls
my religion tells me to do that not even
a second thought
i was like oh that very interesting so
what is your religion
and he said islam i said oh you’re a
muslim he goes yeah
so i said well tell me more about islam
so that’s how the conversation started
um so so that exchange started
a a discussion between the two of us
that lasted for several months
um we talked about christianity and we
talked about islam
i learned a whole lot about the
similarities between
christianity and islam i had no idea
that for instance i mean jesus is
referenced in the quran many times
there is a whole chapter or a surah in
the quran
that’s called miriam or mary it’s about
it’s about the virgin mary
and it says that she was the most pious
woman on earth
um these this is all news to me i don’t
think there was any connection at all
between islam
and christianity at that time um so
we’re we’re uh we’re having sort of a
discussion
about the two faiths and it almost got
into a debate
i soon realized that um
this egyptian friend co-worker knew more
about christianity than i did
he had read more bible than i had so
in the interest of this discussion and
it just piqued my interest you know
in many ways i went back and decided to
read the bible which is
a lengthy book if you look at the old
testament and the new testament
i just started from page one and read it
through
and it was very interesting because it
was almost like
you know a little book club or study
circle because i would read some
and then i would come into the office
and um
we still of course were doing our duties
as our
as employees at this company uh but we
would have these
uh discussions uh on a fairly regular
basis about what i had read in the
in the in the bible and a lot of the
time was about the old testament
and i learned a lot i mean i learned
about a lot of course by reading it
and then i learned a lot about the
muslim perspective
on the various uh books and and
uh and lines and stories in the old
testament and the new testament
and you know at the end of the day
i i did come to the conclusion
that muhammad peace be upon him is the
messenger of god
and there is only one god so by
definition that made me a muslim
and from from you know from that point i
i did make it formal
and i took my shahada you know with
witnesses and all that
and began to practice islam and
practicing islam
practicing islam basically means
adhering to the the five pillars
which are prayer charity the hajj or the
pilgrimage i made the hajj in the year
2000
and the declaration that there is no god
but allah and muhammad is his messenger
so a lot of a big part of my journey
towards islam
was through reading the bible
and finding out you know what is what is
there and getting a better understanding
it a lot of the stories in the bible are
also
in the koran in some cases the telling
is a bit different
in some cases the telling is virtually
identical
i think there are there are a good
number of
of let’s say hebrew prophets
that are talked about in the quran and
some of their stories are told there
and there are several references to the
torah
and the the gospel so that’s that’s
basically how i got to this place
thank you