How I Became a Muslim on September 11, 2001

Dear friends:

I became a Muslim on September 11, 2001.  I know that this is a strange statement, a very strange statement indeed, but please bear with me while I explain what I mean.  As you read below you will see that my life was a bit out of control on that day.  My perspective on that dreadful day was vastly different than that of most Americans.  I am in no way condoning the events that transpired that day and I believe that God fully felt our pain.  What I am suggesting is that we question whether our response and the response of our nation in the days, weeks and months that followed glorified a crucified Jesus.

The morning of September 10, 2001 seemed just like any other morning and I awoke to a promising future.  I had just begun my second year of law school.  I had a beautiful home near the college campus that I had restored with my own hands.  There was a woodshop in the basement, a study filled with books of knowledge and an adoring wife by my side.  Later that day however, my adoring wife, flew a plane loaded with her hurt, bitterness and fear into the towers of my heart – towers I had built upon the false hope of security, accumulation and the American Dream.  She would never return.  In the midst of this smoldering wreckage I sat helpless and desperate for the touch of a God in whom I hardly believed.

That day, a man—now one of my dearest friends— asked me if I wanted to join him the next morning for his daily prayer with God.  So on the morning of September 11, 2001, I walked through the darkness and dew covered grass to a small building behind my friend’s house.  For the next hour I witnessed for the first time that a man could not only pray to God, but also commune and talk with God as a man talks with his friend.  At the end of our time, my friend looked into my eyes with the piercing power of the love of Jesus and told me that he could not promise me happiness, but that if I would submit myself to God I would find joy. Then and there I decided that if I wanted to truly live I had to submit my whole life to God.

In Arabic, “Muslim” simply means, “submitted to God.”  So, in some strange way, in the very moment that misguided men flew planes loaded with hurt, bitterness and fear into the Twin Towers – I submitted myself to God and, in a sense, became a “Muslim.”

No longer could I pledge my allegiance to America or to the “Christian” institution under which I believed my beloved nation had been formed.  My allegiance was to the man Jesus.  I was and am now a man without a country.  What I found, was that in losing my national and religious identity, I had discovered my identity in God.  No longer did I have enemies, but now as a follower of Jesus the whole of the brotherhood of man had become my neighbors and friends.  God showed me that only in the place of full repentance and forgiveness could I truly live.  The story of God is the story of God with us.  The history of humankind is filled with stories of men and women who chose to forgive and love the very ones that sought their harm.  These stories are not only meant to be examples for us all, but they are the promise of our future.  A future in which Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindu’s and others set aside their respective religions and embrace each other in love and simply answer the call to follow Jesus.

The other day as I spoke to a friend about the non-violent Jesus of the Gospels, he simply responded that we lived in a fallen world, thus perhaps justifying our response to the 9/11 attacks.  I suppose the teachings of Jesus may seem a bit altruistic and even a bit naïve, but is it not the very power of God that reveals the naivety of man?

So, I ask us today, on this the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, to submit ourselves to God.  Let us go forth in the example of Jesus Christ and not only reconcile ourselves to the Muslim world, but seek true friendship.  Let us seek their forgiveness for our failure to love and bless those to whom we looked with enmity in our hearts.  My challenge today is that you find a charity or organization that is working to rebuild the places we’ve bombed and offer your money and your heart in the spirit of Jesus and let us build a world in which our children live as friends and neighbors with the nations of the world.

Blessings, shalom, salaam aleykum

Andrew