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In the Name of Allah, most
Compassionate, most Merciful
Becoming Muslim
Kusmari Rendrabwana
Childhood
I was born and brought up into a devoted catholic family. My
father comes from a family whose members mostly turned out to
become priests and priestesses, while my mother still has a
certain aristocratic blood in her family. My parents were
blessed with five children, of which I am the only male and the
youngest one. I never had anyone of them to play with since I
was a child because of the quite significant difference in age,
they were always occupied with their school tasks whenever I
needed someone to play with. As it turned out to be, I got used
to spending my time with the maidservant and when I was bored, I
simply went out to play. For that reason I was used to make
friends with people outside of my family, people in my
neighborhood who were mostly muslims.
In my family, everything that has a "muslim taste" in it was
usually considered inappropriate. So every thursday when the
time was for the recitation of the Qur'an (we only had TVRI, the
government's station back then) the TV set was immediately
turned off, that's how my family was like. When I got to school
age, naturally my parents chose a catholic institution, as with
all my sisters. Even so, I alwasy found it easier to be friends
mostlye with people who were muslim.
Adolescence
Perhaps it was because of my negative childhood image, that
when I grew up to be a teen-ager my family always thought of me
as being this troublesome kid. In other words, to them I was
always the one to blame for everything, anything good that I did
was practically nothing to them. Hence, I always tried to look
up for answers of my problems through sources outside of my
family. My academic records were also nothing special except for
English language.
And so I started to contemplate with questions that I had in
my high school year, I asked and kept asking, I read many books
and literature, trying to explore everything about my faith
then. But as it goes, the more I gained something, the more I
felt that, "This isn't it, this is not what I want." What's
worse is that the more I involved myself with religious
activities, the more I went further from what I expected, which
put me down more and more. What I always found in there was
nothing but negative views on somebody else's faith. Whenever I
tried to give in another view, they put me down saying that I'm
taking sides, I'm giving too much of a value judgement, so on
and so forth.
Eventually I became more distanced from them, but
interestingly (and this is what had always happenned) I felt
myself drawn closer and closer with my muslim friends, they
seemed to accept me without any sort of tendency to judge. They
knew I didn't share their faith but most of them didn't seem to
mind or be disturbed by it whatsoever.
Adulthood
My adulthood started when I entered college. I enrolled in a
private college whose students were predominantly muslims. Even
so, I still tried to involve myself in religious activities with
students of the same faith. In that community, the old
conflicting trauma appeared afresh, even worse. Eventually I
lost my interest in it. As a college student, I felt more
comfortable in my soul searching process. Naturally, I had more
access to many references, times and places of interest, because
I never felt home with my relatives, even with my sisters. And
so I went on with my life as usual, until this deep spiritual
experience happened. This is the story:
One morning, I don't remember the date, but it was in 1993. I
was abruptly awoke from sleep and just quickly sat down. Then
unconsciously went up and washed my face, hands and feet, then
got back sitting with my legs crossed. Exactly then the call to
fajr prayer started..but very differently. I listened to it with
an indescribable feeling and emotion,..it was touching me so
deeply, in short. I myself never could explain what really
happened that morning, but so it did. Ever since then I looked
for answers and learned with a practicing muslim friend, read
books, started everything from scratch.
The first obstacle for me naturally came from my family,
especially my mother. I became uncertain again, this is the most
difficult choice in my entire life. And so months I spent trying
to think over my intention to become a muslim. I felt that I had
to make a choice. And of course I chose to become a muslim
eventually.
I declared my shahadah after finishing the maghrib (evening)
prayer in jama'ah (congregation). It was really emotional,
friends from my faculty in college even made me work out a
written statement with them as witnesses, how touchy it was.
In short, I've lived my life as a new person ever since then.
After finishing my school, I started working. Even though my
relationship with my family is falling apart, I try to pull
everything together and be strong as to endure the hardships.
My new life was again put to a test when I was going to
marry. Because I'm considered an apostate in my family's view, I
had to do everything by myself, the proposal, etc., everything.
No wedding reception or any of that sort, just the obligatory
ones.
And then when my mother died, unfortunately I didn't get to
see her for the last time. Her wish, which of course I cannot
comply to, was for me to return to my old faith.
Wassalaamu 'alaikum wrahmatullahi wabarakatuhu,
Rendra.
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