HOW COULD YOU ABANDON THE RELIGION OF YOUR FATHER AND YOUR FOREFATHERS

Before the city of Bursa was taken by the Ottomans, one of its Greek residents had secretly become Muslim. A very close friend of his asked about the reason as a criticism: “How could you abandon the religion of your father and your forefathers?” The answer of that Greek Muslim was meaningful: “Once, one of the Muslim captives was left with me. One day, I saw that he was sitting down and standing up in the room where he was kept. I went near and asked him what he was doing. When his movements stopped, he rubbed his hands on his face and said he performed a ritual prayer and, if I allowed him to go on performing it, he would give one gold coin for each ritual prayer. I became greedy and day by day I increased the payment to the level of ten gold coins for each time of ritual prayers. He accepted it and I was amazed at his sacrifice for his worship. One day, I told him that I would set him free. He became very joyful and, his hands outstretched, prayed for me: ‘Oh My Allah! Honor this human of Yours with iman (belief in Islam)!’ At that moment, a wish to become Muslim occurred in my heart and it increased so much so that I became Muslim by reciting kalimat ash-shahada immediately.