Abdalhaqq bewley biography of george

Part of an interview with Abdalhaqq Bewley

How did you get in touch with Islam?

There is no, one, simple answer to this question. The true and fundamentalresponse to it, which I now know from the famous Qur'anic ayat in Suratal-A'raf (7:172), is that I came into contact with the reality of Islambefore I even arrived in this world when Allah asked all the gathered spiritsof the human race whether they acknowledged Him as their Lord and we allsaid that we did.

So in one way my discovery of Islam was just Allah's mercyto me in allowing me to consciously acknowledge in this world what had happenedin the world of spirits before I was born.

There is, however, also the way that this realisation unfolds within thecourse of a person's life and I think that it is true for almost everyonewho becomes Muslim that their entry into Allah's deen is rarely theresult of a flash of inspiration which comes suddenly out of the blue.

Itis more usually the end of a process of searching for th