Twenty yet as sinless as a baby

"Will my parents go to paradise? They are good people, you know. They deserve rewards for their good deeds, right?”

How does one answer that question posed by someone who is interested in becoming a Muslim but has a lot of worries and concerns about this and that?

I gave her rather an awkward smile and muttered something along the line of “Hmm… maybe you can learn more about that later…”

Paradise and hell is not an easy matter to be discussed. I mean, while there’s an ayat or hadith saying that whoever seeks a religion other than Islam will be one of the losers in the Hereafter, there’s also the belief in Allah being the AlMighty who finally decides who goes where. And who’s to say that the girl’s parents will not go to paradise – who knows if they decide to embrace Islam in the future, and be better than born-Muslims?

The girl has been learning about Islam on her own, mostly from books and reading materials published by Japan Islamic Center. Being a student at International Christian University and with a background of Shinto family, it wasn’t until she met a Kuwaiti guy during a short-term English course in York last summer when she started to have an interest in Islam.

The Kuwaiti guy introduced some basic principles in Islam, and she found out more on her own as soon as she returned to Japan, just as she had promised him. I was not quite sure why she picked Asakusa mosque to convert though, since her house in Nishi Kasai is nearer to Gyotoku and her university in Mitaka is closer to Otsuka. I thanked Allah anyway, for giving me the opportunity to know her and witnessed her conversion.

Twenty is the coming-of-age in Japan. It’s such a big deal that Japan even has a public holiday to celebrate people turning twenty (the second Monday of January). She chose to embrace Islam a day before her twentieth birthday. Where others might celebrate their twentieth birthday by legally drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes, she decided to celebrate hers by refraining from alcohol and all haram substances for good.

The first time she visited the mosque was more for a chit-chat – a counselling of some sort – to discuss her concerns and worries. She is still staying with her parents after all, and becoming a Muslim means she has to make a lot of adjustments – such as not eating pork and other haram substances. She was especially worried about telling her parents because she knew her father does not look favourably at Muslims (they always show Muslims as terrorists on the TV) and her mother would be devastated because her only daughter might not be marrying a respectable Japanese guy with decent family background after all. She believed that her elder brother would be more accepting though, because he is quite open-minded when it comes down to making personal choices in life.

“I was planning on telling my parents that I’m going on a diet, thus I cannot eat any kind of meat,” she confessed. I told her that if she’s not ready, it’s not compulsory to tell her parents about her conversion. And if it’s easier (and makes sense too) to tell them that she’s on a diet to avoid them asking questions about her not consuming meat, then why not. After all, it’s true that she would be going through a new diet – the Muslim diet.

She asked about praying, fasting, wearing scarf and if I ever got bad treatment from others for being a Muslim… She shared her doubts about becoming a practising Muslim since she thinks it would be difficult to pray at her university and she doesn’t want to draw too much attention by wearing scarf, especially since she’s attending a Christian university.

I told her not to worry too much about these things, since they might hinder her from embracing Islam, where else first and foremost what is more important is for her to proclaim her faith in Allah as the One True God and Rasulullah as His last messenger. “Don’t worry too much, once you become a Muslim, Allah will guide you. Besides, you still have a lot to learn, and insya Allah I will introduce you to some other Japanese muslimah, since they might be able to offer more advice and guidance.”

There are times I felt not quite adept and incompetent as the imam’s wife – and that was one of the moments. It’s different because I was a born Muslim, with a rather religious family background. While I can imagine, I have no real experience of being anxious to become a Muslim. I have no anxieties about facing parents’ objections in order to become a Muslim. I have no worries about praying, fasting and wearing scarf in public because I had been trained to do so since I was still a child. Thus I have a lot of respect for people who become Muslim by choice, and even higher for those who become practising Muslim within a short period of time – because I realize that it must not have been easy for them…

She returned to the Mosque one Sunday morning, as she promised, this time carrying two copies of passport-sized photos and her Insurance card as proof of identification. She brought along the navy blue scarf I gave her as a present when she first came and asked me to help her put it on just before she proclaimed the shahadah. She happily told me that she had confessed to her parents about her wanting to convert the day before and alhamdulillah they had accepted the news well. Throughout the process of shahadah and her first briefing on Rukun Iman and Rukun Islam, she paid close attention to what hubby said (and I interpreted) looking oh-so-serious about learning , but more importantly she looked serene, far different from the distraught-looking girl she first appeared a few days before.

After listening to some suggestions from hubby and Rusdi (who acted as one of the witnesses), she chose Sofea as her Muslim name. It means pure or beautiful and it matches her Japanese name - Sofea Haruka. She stayed on even after lunch (I cooked mee bandung) to perform wuduk (ablution) and solat. It wasn’t until after Asar when we said goodbye, and I was glad to note that she kept her scarf on even after she left the mosque.

As I watched her walking to the bus stop, I could not help thinking – what better way to celebrate coming-of-age than to start anew as sinless as a baby…