My Journey to Islam

Peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.

My grandfather Majeed and his brother Najeeb Kawar moved to the West Bank of the Jordan River to live with their families near the shores of Lake Tiberias. However, when the Israelis came in 1948, they were expelled and returned once again to Jordan. My grandfather Majeed chose to live in the city of Zarqa, about 25 kilometers from Amman, while his brother Najeeb preferred to live in the capital itself.

My grandfather Majeed and his brother Najeeb Kawar moved to the West Bank of the Jordan River to live with their families near the shores of Lake Tiberias. However, when the Israelis came in 1948, they were expelled and returned once again to Jordan. My grandfather Majeed chose to live in the city of Zarqa, about 25 kilometers from Amman, while his brother Najeeb preferred to live in the capital itself.

My grandfather Majeed had four sons and three daughters. His youngest son, Dahood, who was known for his moderate religiosity, chose to leave the homeland and live in Denmark. Within a short period of time, he managed to become wealthy after owning a restaurant there. During one of his visits to Jordan, his mother chose a wife for him from among his relatives; she was his cousin, the daughter of his uncle Najeeb. Najeeb was a talented artist skilled in oil painting, and his daughter, “Kalthoum,” was known for her beauty, intelligence, and faith. I was one of the fruits of that marriage.

After the marriage, my father Dahood's commitment to Christianity increased. When my grandfather Majeed passed away in 1986, the church he had built with his own hands was closed. However, my father claimed that God had called him to reopen it in 1990. As my father’s ministry in the church expanded, he renovated it and enlarged it to accommodate more than 150 people, and he also founded three other churches in Salt, the Urban Development area, and Aqaba, in a country where the majority of the population is Muslim.

As for my mother, she is considered one of the strong female servants in the Jordanian church. She founded an annual conference attended by more than five hundred women from the Middle East to discuss women’s issues and the problems they face. The conference also included training for youth leaders and the development of special programs for camps.

I was born in Denmark in 1981, and I left it at the age of four with my family, returning to Jordan. We eventually settled in the city of Zarqa, on the second floor above the church, where we were raised with a purely Christian upbringing. I received water baptism in 1993, and I studied theology and the Holy Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. I began my service in the church as a children’s teacher at the age of twelve, then later became a leader and trainer of children’s teachers. I also created a complete educational program and introduced many improvements to the curriculum used in teaching the Holy Scriptures, the Torah and the Gospel.

In 2002, I migrated again with my family to the state of Texas in the United States of America, and I had to start my life from scratch. I enrolled in college and obtained a diploma in design and animation. My artistic inclinations helped me win numerous awards in drawing and in playing the piano and flute, in addition to performing Eastern music in competitions held at the level of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

In 2003, my father, Dahood Kawar, who was one of the great benefactors, passed away after a battle with cancer. The elders of the church took over leadership of the ministry after his death. My father was a man who helped others, strengthened their self-confidence, and gave them love, just as the Gospel taught him. He was, and still is, a role model for us in good treatment, forgiveness, and a constant smile.

The Story of Ruba Qewar’s Conversion to Islam

My contact with Islam began at a relatively early age, but my feelings toward it were not constant. They went through conflicting stages: amazement, then intense aversion, then curiosity and searching, and finally closeness and faith.

In the seventh grade, I moved from Al-Nasira Christian School to a public school, and that was the first time I mixed with Muslim girls in such a direct way. My mother did not want me to study in Catholic or Latin schools because she was Evangelical, and from the Protestant perspective, those churches are considered deviants from pure monotheism, immersed in statues, images, and icons that they regard as a form of idol worship.

In the first Arabic language textbook in the public school, I found a passage from Surat Ar-Ra’d (The Thunder), in which Allah, the Exalted, says:

Allah is the One Who raised the heavens without pillars that you can see; then He established Himself above the Throne and subjected the sun and the moon, each running for an appointed term. He manages all affairs and details the signs so that you may be certain of the meeting with your Lord. ‎﴿٢﴾‏ And He is the One Who spread out the earth and placed firm mountains and rivers in it, and from all kinds of fruits He made in it pairs, two of each. He covers the night with the day. Indeed, in that are signs for people who reflect. ‎﴿٣﴾‏ And on the earth there are neighboring tracts, and gardens of grapevines, and crops, and date palms, growing together from a single root and others from separate roots, all watered with the same water; yet We make some of them exceed others in taste. Surely in that are signs for people who reason. ‎﴿٤﴾‏

Our Arabic teacher used to explain these verses to us in a fascinating way. She spoke about Allah’s creation of the heavens and His raising them without visible pillars, about the alternation of night and day, about the pairing in living beings, and how the earth is spread out with mountains, rivers, and fruits. She would take us with her on a journey through the horizons of the universe, the mind, and contemplation. I listened with admiration and wonder; perhaps that was the first time I heard about Islam in a balanced and dignified way, completely different from the image I heard in church, where it was presented to us as a bloody, negative, male-dominated, and harsh religion.

As I progressed in my studies, especially in chemistry, biology, geology, and physics, I noticed in the school science books colored sections, like inserts or side notes, that cited Qur’anic verses or Prophetic hadiths related to the scientific topic, pointing to the greatness of this religion and its scientific miracles. This connection between science and the Qur’anic text used to astonish me deeply.

I was so influenced by this that I tried to imitate it; as a teenager I wrote a small research paper about the order of God’s creation of the universe as in the Book of Genesis, and I connected it with the “Big Bang” and the theory of evolution, trying to reconcile what I was studying in science with what I heard about miracles – and I still have that paper to this day. Today, after years and deeper research, I realize that the theory of evolution and the Big Bang, in my view, are not certainties and do not rest on a sound basis, but at that time my mind was just beginning a long journey of questioning.

Despite these positive impressions I gained through my schooling, the discourse I received about Islam in church was completely different. Over time, hatred began to outweigh curiosity. In middle and then high school in the public system, I would enter into long discussions with my Muslim friends about Islam and Christianity, trying to convince them of Christianity with all the zeal I had.

In tenth grade, my behavior even reached a hostile level; I once saw a Muslim girl praying, so I kicked her with my foot while she was in prostration and pushed her—something I can no longer bear on my conscience today after truly getting to know Islam, and I ask Allah to forgive me. I used to deliberately oppose Muslims in everything, even in Ramadan, when I would eat in front of the fasting girls at school just to provoke them.

I used to carry the Bible with me to school every day, read from it out loud, or write a verse or sentence on the board as the “wisdom of the day,” trying to draw attention to Christianity. This activity later led the Arabic teacher to call me in and inform me that they had an audio recording of me speaking to the students about my religion, and that the law forbade such proselytizing in the school. She asked me to stop. I felt great anger, and my hostility toward Islam and Muslims intensified. I began to see myself as “persecuted for Christ,” and my missionary zeal increased rather than subsided.

In high school, there were no more than three Christian girls in my class. During Islamic education class, we were allowed to go to the library or anywhere else in the school until the period ended, and we would not attend the lesson with the Muslim students.

On one occasion, I decided to stay in class and listen to what was being taught in Islamic education. The teacher noticed I was there and chose to speak about the distortion of the Gospel and the Torah. This topic made me very angry, so I protested, saying that this was impossible, and I explained to the teacher and the students that there are four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—written roughly in the same time period by different people who did not know each other, yet the stories in them are very similar and largely identical. To me, that was proof of their truthfulness.

One of the girls laughed mockingly and said, “If they didn’t know each other, then surely the jinn must have written these books!” The class burst into laughter, and another girl added provocatively, “And where is the Gospel of Christ himself? Why are these books named after people?” At that moment, I felt deeply offended. I left the class in anger and vowed never to attend Islamic education again. That incident deepened within me a sense of rejection and hostility, and extinguished any remaining openness that had begun to grow in my mind since the days of Surat Ar-Ra’d in seventh grade.

With time, my stance became more rigid. I began to quarrel frequently with Muslim students, fully convinced that I possessed the absolute truth and that I needed to “save” everyone else from error.

After graduating from high school in 1999, I enrolled at Mutah University to study chemistry. I did not abandon my missionary activities there; instead, I organized small secret meetings with Christian students to read the Bible and pray, and to start discussions with some Muslim students, inviting them to Christianity.

As expected, there was a compulsory subject I had to take at university: “Islamic Culture.” I hated this subject intensely even before taking it. It was taught by Professor Dr. Muhammad Al-Rawashdeh, and I engaged with him in several heated debates about Islam and Christianity. One day, he invited me to his office and calmly said:

“You possess sound reasoning and clear intelligence, so why don’t you embrace Islam?”

I answered sharply, “Listen, Doctor. I am Christian, generation after generation. My father is a pastor and my mother is a missionary, and we have a long history in Christian ministry. So I can never become Muslim, no matter what happens.”
He sighed and said quietly, with a kind of sorrow, “May Allah guide you, my daughter.”
I left his office that day even angrier than before, thinking that I had come out victorious from the discussion.

I continued my meetings with Christian students and persisted in my attempts to invite Muslims to Christianity within the university campus, until the Dean of Student Affairs summoned me. I sat before him, and he directly asked if I was holding such religious gatherings. I did not deny it, so he frankly told me that he would expel me from the university if I continued this activity. At the end of the semester, I found that my grades had dropped dramatically, and I was indeed dismissed from the university.

This incident greatly upset my father, as I had caused turmoil and problems in the country, and he no longer wanted me to continue my university studies. I then enrolled in a Christian institute and studied executive secretarial work, and sometime later we migrated to the United States of America, as if my life were about to take a completely new direction.

In 2002, I traveled with my family to the state of Texas in America, continuing my mission as I saw it: serving Christianity among Arabs and Muslims. I used to attend the Arabic Baptist Church in Dallas, where my uncle was the pastor. Later, I moved for a while to live with a Christian family in Arizona, then returned again to Texas because of financial circumstances and lived with my brother and sister, while my parents went back to Jordan to continue their missionary work in the Middle East.

In America, I found a wide space for dialogue and debate. There I met a group of Muslim friends, and we began to compare Islam and Christianity. I was confident in my deep knowledge of the Torah and the Gospel, and I argued with them intensely, trying to convince them to accept Christianity. At that point, they introduced me to a young man—who later became my husband—to continue the discussions with me. He was very well-versed in the Qur’an and the Sunnah, which made the debates with him more intense, and this initially increased my aversion to him and my sense that he was a stubborn intellectual rival.

I kept adding fuel to the fire of disagreement, until I became mentally and emotionally exhausted from constant argument. At that time, my mother was preparing to visit me in September 2005, and I felt it was an appropriate moment to step back from the debates for a while.

At the end of one of our discussions, that young man said a sentence that turned my life upside down: “I want just one piece of evidence from the Gospel where Christ says about himself: ‘I am God.’ You will not find a single verse that says that.”
His words provoked me, and I saw it as a chance to prove him wrong and invite him to Christianity. I replied with sarcasm and confidence, “What are you talking about? Of course there are many verses that say Christ is God!”
He answered calmly, “Just bring me one proof.”

I went home with that question chasing my mind. I opened the Bible and searched its pages, then turned to the internet and various books, but I could not find an explicit text to support my claim. I turned to my mother and began arguing with her. She said frankly, “There is no literal verse where Christ clearly states that he is God, but he did say: ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’”
I replied, puzzled, “But the Father and the Son are not one single person, are they? How do we understand that?”
I began to recall my theology lessons about the Trinity—which I had been trained on in church to answer Muslim objections about Christianity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I read John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” I was astonished: how can Christ be God while also being “with God” at the same time? Wasn’t this a contradictory equation?

Then I read 1 John 5:7: “For there are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.” I was happy at first, thinking I had found the solution, but the very next verse says: “And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one.”
The difference between “are one” and “agree in one” caught my attention.

I began to see that the theological image I had grown up with was full of confusion, and I asked myself: if God is perfect, how can the book I attribute to Him be imperfect and filled with differences and distortions?

I remembered a distinguished British professor of theology who came to teach us the history of the Bible. He once told us that he had visited an exhibition in Britain to see the original Gospel manuscripts and found only burned, torn, and incomplete fragments. I looked at the Bible in my hands then and wondered: where did all these words we read today come from? And how can I worship a perfect God using a book whose preservation I cannot be certain of?

This eventually led me to compare the Bible with the Qur’an. I thought: if we gathered all the divine books on earth today and threw them away, then asked people to reproduce them from memory, could a single Christian reproduce the Bible exactly as it was? Yet I know there are millions of Muslims who have memorized the Qur’an by heart, and that its text is one, unlike the multiple and differing versions of the New Testament.

After that, I turned to studying the issue of the crucifixion of Christ. Did he really die on the cross? Or is what we have merely narratives written by people who tried to convey what they thought was true? At that point, I came across a verse in the Qur’an that says:

﴿وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ وَمَا صَلَبُوهُ وَلَٰكِن شُبِّهَ لَهُمْ...﴾ (They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them…)

I felt that I was facing a completely different perspective from the one I had been raised upon. The Qur’an states that those who witnessed the crucifixion were themselves in doubt and confusion about it.

Suddenly, I found myself facing a weighty conclusion: Christ is not God, nor the Son of God in the theological sense I had grown up with; rather, he is a noble prophet among the prophets of Allah. This realization shook my entire life, for I had spent nearly 24 years worshiping Allah through a theological framework whose contradictions I was just starting to see. I felt as if the ground were shaking beneath me, to the point that I even thought of ending my life. But the mercy of Allah prevented me from taking such a reckless step, and I stopped to quietly re-examine everything.

Yet there remained one major obstacle for me: the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). I had not learned anything about him from a neutral source; everything I knew came through a church discourse full of distortions, portraying him as an enemy of Christianity. I asked myself: how could Muslims revere him so highly if he were not truly a Messenger? And if the Qur’an is from Allah, the prophet who received it must be highly honored by Him and a bearer of a divine message, just like the other messengers.

I also remembered what I had heard about the “Gospel of Barnabas,” which is not recognized by official churches, and which mentions that Christ foretold the coming of a prophet after him named “Ahmad,” and that Christ did not die on the cross but was raised to heaven and that another was made to resemble him.

At that point, I decided to read the Qur’an, not out of conviction or desire for guidance, but with the intention of proving to my friends that this book contained errors. I began with Surat Al-Fatihah, then Al-Baqarah, then Aal Imran. Despite reading with focus, I did not understand much, as the style of the Qur’an was completely different from what I was used to in reading the Bible.

I sat in the school lab, opened the internet, and began searching hastily:
“What does the Qur’an say about Christ? What does it say about his mother?”
Each time I tried to distance myself from the Qur’an, hoping to strengthen my dislike for it or find clear contradictions, I found myself unable to do so.
Until I came across the verse in Surat Al-Ma’idah:

You will surely find the most hostile of people to the believers to be the Jews and those who associate others with Allah; and you will surely find the nearest of them in affection to the believers to be those who say, “We are Christians.” That is because among them are priests and monks, and because they are not arrogant. ‎﴿٨٢﴾‏

As soon as I read this part, I remembered my late father, who was a pastor—righteous, humble, and far from arrogance. Tears flowed from my eyes uncontrollably.
I continued reading until I reached Allah’s words:

And when they hear what has been revealed to the Messenger, you see their eyes overflowing with tears because of the truth they recognize. They say, “Our Lord, we have believed, so record us among the witnesses.” ‎﴿٨٣﴾‏

I whispered:
“My Lord… I have believed.”
Then I read the next verse, as if it were responding directly to my heart:

And why should we not believe in Allah and in the truth that has come to us, when we long for our Lord to admit us among the righteous people? ‎﴿٨٤﴾

After a period of long reflection, searching, and inner turmoil, I left the school lab in tears, my heart repeating a supplication: “O Lord, if this is the right path, then change my life and guide me to it. And if it is not, then do not let me go astray, and take me to You in a state that You love and are pleased with.”

I contacted my Muslim friends, whom I had not seen for almost two months, and went to meet them. The young man who used to debate with me was among them. They all sat waiting for me to speak, anxiety written on their faces. Then I said:

“I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”

Silence fell over the place for several long seconds. Then the young man said, with a mixture of astonishment and teasing, “Stop it, don’t lie! The last time you told us you would never become Muslim, even if you said the two testimonies.”

I looked at him, crying, and said, “I’m not lying. I have reached the truth, and now you are going to teach me how to perform ablution and how to pray, and I want to learn everything about my new religion.”
When he saw my determination and the sincerity of my tears, he wept too, overwhelmed with joy, and said, “Glory be to Allah, Allah loves you. Tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan.”
That was on the third of October, 2005.

That night I learned how to perform ablution, how to pray, and the basics of Islam. I bought a hijab and began practicing my acts of worship from the first day of Ramadan. I hid my Islam from my family for about two weeks, waking at night to pray away from their eyes.

One day, on my way from home to college, I was carrying my bag with the Qur’an and my hijab inside. The hijab slipped out without me noticing, and my sister saw it. She did not ask anything at first, but that night she woke up and saw me praying. That is when my family discovered I had become Muslim, and a new phase of trial began.

Voices were raised in the house; accusations, insults, and hurtful words poured over me. I endured psychological and emotional pressure, then beatings and threats of death. Despite all that, I chose to remain calm and not argue much, and eventually decided to leave home, asking Allah to guide them as He had guided me.

Yes, I left my family and parted from them, and I found in the mosque and the Muslim community an alternative family that surrounded me with kindness and care.

The tests did not stop there. Psychological pressure, calls, and messages from around the world followed, filled with insults, threats, and slander. Some senior Christian clergymen from Jordan and the United States also contacted me, trying to persuade me to return to Christianity.

Before that, I used to enter debates with the Bible in my hand and the Qur’an on the other side as an “opponent” I was trying to refute. Today, the situation has completely reversed; the Qur’an has become the book I defend and rely upon.

I have learned great lessons from this journey: I learned patience and humility, and I began to reflect on the life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), how he was harmed by his people and faced denial and insults. I realized that what I went through is almost nothing compared to what he endured for the sake of his message.

I may have lost, in the eyes of some people, the honor of my family name, but I feel that I have gained the greatest honor from Allah: the honor of Islam. Since I embraced Islam, I have felt a deep inner peace unlike anything I had ever known before, despite all the losses and pain I faced.

My personality has changed dramatically from what it once was—even my husband noticed this great transformation. I have learned to remain calm in the face of those who offend me, and to smile in the darkest of times. Although I lost a job because of my hijab, Allah Almighty compensated me many times over with peace in my heart and clarity in my path.

Today, I see Islam as the path to true inner peace, and I know that such peace cannot come from people or from the surrounding environment, but from a sincere relationship with Allah, seeking His pleasure, and surrendering the heart to Him. If worship is sincerely for Allah and upon His way, the heart will remain content no matter how turbulent the world becomes.

I look at people’s faces and see much sadness and many tears; so many are far from Allah, the Creator, engrossed in this world, drowning in its worries, refusing to light the candle of hope in their hearts. All I know today is that my goal in life is to worship Allah, seek His pleasure, follow the Sunnah of His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), work for what comes after death, and ask Allah to keep me firm upon the truth until I meet Him while He is pleased with me.