How
Austrian Mrs. Cecilla Cannoly Became Rashida: In Her Own
Words
Islamic Rulings -
Living Shariah Verdicts
Islamic Questions & AnswersBy
Cecilla Cannoly
Why did I become a Muslim? Let me tell you sincerely
that I became a Muslim without even noticing it
myself. For, at a very young age I had already
completely lost my confidence in Christianity and had
begun to feel apathy towards the Christian religion. I
was curious about many reli-gious facts. I was
disinclined to believe blindly the creed they were
trying to teach me. Why were there three gods? Why had
we all come to this world sinful, and why did we have
to expiate it? Why could we invoke Allahu ta'ala only
through a priest?
And what were the meanings of all these various signs
that we were be-ing shown and the miracles that we
were being told? Whenever I asked these questions to
the teaching priests, they would become angry and
answer, "You cannot inquire about the inner natures of
the church's teachings. They are secret. All you have
to do is to believe them." And this was another thing
that I would never understand.
How could one believe something whose essence one did
not know? However, in those days I did not dare
divulge these thoughts of mine. I am sure that many of
today's so-called Christians are of the same opinion
as I was; they do not believe most of the religious
teachings imposed on them, yet they are afraid to
disclose it.
The older I became the farther away did I feel from
Christianity, finally breaking away from the church
once and for all and beginning to wonder whether there
was a religion that taught "to worship one single
God." My entire conscience and heart told me that
there was only one God. Then, when I looked around,
the events showed me how meaningless the
unin-telligible miracles that priests had been trying
to teach us, and the absurd stories of saints they had
been telling us, were. Didn't everything on the earth,
human beings, beasts, forests, mountains, seas, trees,
flowers indi-cate that a great Creator had created
them?
Wasn't a newly born baby a miracle in itself? On the
other hand, the church was striving to indoctrinate
the people with the preposterous belief that every
newly born baby was a wretched, sinful creature. No,
this was impossible, a lie. Every newly born child was
an innocent slave, a creature of Allahu ta'ala. It was
a miracle, and I believed only in Allah and in the
miracles He created.
Nothing in the world was inherently sinful, dirty, or
ugly. I was of this opinion, when one day my daughter
came home with a book written about Islam. My daughter
and I sat together and read the book with great
attention. O my Allah, the book said exactly as I had
been thinking. Islam announced that there is one Allah
and informed that people are born as innocent
creatures. Until that time I had been entirely
ignorant of Islam.
In schools Islam was an object of derision. We had
been taught that that religion was false and absurd
and infused one with sloth, and that Mus-lims would go
to Hell. Upon reading the book, I was plunged into
though-ts. To acquire more detailed information about
Islam, I visited Muslims living in my town. The
Muslims I found opened my eyes. The answers they gave
to my questions were so logical that I began to
believe that Islam was not a concocted religion as our
priests had been asserting, but a true religion of
Allahu ta'ala.
My daughter and I read many other books written about
Islam, were fully convinced as to its veracity, and
eventually embraced Islam, both of us. I adopted the
name 'Rashida', and my daughter chose 'Mahmuda' as her
new name.
As for the second question that you ask me: "What
aspect of Islam do you like best?" Here is my answer:
What I like best about Islam is the nature of its
prayers. In Christianity prayers are said in order to
ask for worldly blessings such as wealth, posi-tion
and honor from Allahu ta'ala through Issa a.s..
Muslims, in contrast, express their gratitude to
Allahu ta'ala and they know that as long as they abide
by their religion and obey the commandments of Allahu
ta'ala, Al-lahu ta'ala will give them whatever they
need without them asking for it.
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