The Story of Yusuf Estes, A American Muslim Scholar
New Muslims, Yusuf Estes, Ask Islam
This article is about New Muslims, Yusuf Estes, Ask Islam. Let’s read in his own words.
My name is Yusuf Estes and originally I am from taxes I lived in now in Washington area and I came to islam about twenty years ago because of something very special. Before I came to islam I use to call people Christianity everywhere I went, I would be carrying my bible with me, I would have my crux or cross and I even had a cap it is says Jesus is lord. I dint realize then how funny I have looked but in those days I was very passionate about communicating the message that I felt people needed to know a message about love, peace and a message about being a good person. So if they will come for Youmil Akhir they will be prepared for that. The daily life that I had before coming to islam was filled with two things working hard to make business, money and working hard to tell people about Jesus the message of the peace.
It surprise me to find out there in islam I could work more and communicate more that’s for sure before I met the person that helped me to know more about islam I use to have a very bad picture about islam and Muslims. In fact I was so afraid to even meet a Muslim my father tell me would be doing business with Muslims I said no, these guys Muslims they are terrorists, hijackers, kidnapers and they don’t believe in God. In fact they are worshiping black box in the desert and they kiss the ground five times a day that’s the way I understood Islam a very bad opinion and a bad idea how they treated woman and children. I thought that really I was almost like they put everybody in prison this was the idea that I had but then I never really met a Muslim and then we started doing business with a man from Egypt.
When I first met this Egyptian gentleman I was surprised because I was expecting to see some man wearing a long dress and a black rob over it and a big turban or imama on his head and he has one eyebrow goes all way of cross maybe carrying a sword but then when I met this man I was so surprised he was wearing normal clothes and he looked normal as anybody. He dint even have a big beard. He was a nice really gentleman and I thought straight away HAY I bet; I can convert him to become a Christian. But Allah had other planes one of the things that really amazed me you can say in Arabic or Urdu Ajib/Ajiban was the way this man although very quiet, gentle, kind but what’s amazing was the way that he everyday he would do the SALAWAT he would pray five times in a day on time. He would say excuse me I will be right back. He will go and make woggle then Allah Hu Akbar do a Salah some Zikar Dua and come back to us.
He starts working again every day except one day a week Youmil Jumma/Friday he stops everything. He said I will be back in two hours. He would get ready and drive to the Masjid/Mosque do his Salah there and come back and it took almost a half hour just to get there that’s why he had to take off but he was still come back and go right back to work again. So the man would work seven days a week but he would stop for its worship another thing he did, He like to fast on Mondays and also on Thursdays one interesting thing about him that even my father talked about was how honest he was in business anytime in any transaction whatsoever he always made sure that the customer got full value for whatever they was doing and be sure they got the product that they were promise and then the follow up to be sure they were happy. I thought if we make this man a christian I can make him an angle because he is so sweet so nice but do you know what happened? One day when I was trying to convert him he asks us about the bible.
I said I have a catholic praised and my father was there with his bible so I have my bible my father has a different bible then we started saying my bible and my bible. He was sitting with us quite so we ask him how many versions of that Quran you have. He said ONE just one and it’s still in Arabic the way it came its perfect nothing is missing no words are missing, no pages are missing, not even a dot is missing. So then we had another idea let’s talk to him about God but when we started to talk about God he can you explain trendy? Can you tell how three could be one we gave many examples but not of them hold up very good. Then I asked him what you guys say about God? He said it’s pretty simple and he said what Allah said in the Quran Auzu Billahi Minash Shaitanir Rajeem, Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Raheem, qul huwallahu ahad Allah husamad lam ya lid wa lamyou lad wa lam ya qullah hu kufuwan ahad and do you know his argument was so strong we were like no expressions imaging what a beautiful meaning this has when somebody knows Allah he is ahad unique, one, no partners and he takes care of everything, he has no father, he has no son, he has no relatives, no daughters, no cousins, no uncles, and he is not like anything.
He is Ahad unique many people ask me how did you feel about being a christian? What was it to be like a Christian? Do you have any doubts about Christianity? Actually one point in my life I was so involved in christianity believing in it that I thought it was everything until I begin to find mistakes in the bible and then it make me begin to doubt, no doubt about God but the doubt about the bible and what about chiristanity some of the things we think about when we talk about this sublicense why is it called Christianity because if it is about chirstianity it means you have to follow the jesus but what about the people before that? They could not know about him because he was not here. What about Adam, Abraham, Mozez, David, Suleman, all the prophets and then what about jesus himself did he say I am Christian actually I have found in the bible it says that they would never called Christians until they took the message long long after jesus gone.
Long after pulp came into the religion and started changing things even then he said we were never called Christians now I started thinking if the name is not right the book have some mistakes but when I look another options other religions I wasn’t very impressed and I really don’t heard anything about islam and I never met any muslim not until my Egyptian friend but then I began to observe some things they really made me see a beautiful connection one of the things that my muslim friend told me is that we muslims believe in jesus . I said what because I know jewish believe in Adam, Abraham, Ishaq, Ismail, Suleman, David and all these prophets but they do not believe in jesus not as a prophet, not as a son of a God, not as a miracle. So how could a muslim believe in Jesus and he said yes we call him Essa I said ok this similar to jewish. He said we know his miracle birth and we know that he did miracles even when he was born he can speak. Essa A.S he could speak when he was born and he talked to people.
He was a prophet and I was like really I don’t know that and he did miracles people who have skin disease they were cured. People who couldn’t walk they were cured, people they were blind and they were cured, even a dead man brought back to life. Story is in the bible as it is but you are telling me a muslims believes this Huh? He said yeah I said what do you believe about jesus? We says he is the son of God what do you say? We says the son of marry (Mariyam) oh yeah that makes sense he is the son of marry he said that’s why we don’t have to try to resolve the issue of son of God. Astaghfirallah Allah has a son Naozobillah so this is really starts to making you think. When we said son of Godthey said no son of marry. When Allah wants anything he just says Kun Fa Ya Kun be and it is and that how he created jesus and I thought oh its in the bible be it is so marryam is the mother god is the creator exactly what muslim friend told me. I thought oh if this is the case what else do you believe? We believe he is not dead he is with Allah and he will come the last day. So this man became easy I can convert him right now this is almost the same thing but then it happened. The catholic friend of mine I want to go to the mosque and I want to see what they do. We went to the mosque when he came back we said come here what they are doing there? Do they making bam or something? He said no they line up is suff then they stand like a monk or preached. When they worship and silent, I said really he said then the bow in rukkoh, then sajda then sitting silent not talking to each other. The whole time until Asalamualikum and I said then? He said they left. I said what kind of music did they have? He said they don’t have any music. How do you worship God with no music I was a music monster and I was numb no music he said no. I got to know more about this. I learned more about it what happened next?
It came my turn now I became very curious so I began asking some hard questions to the muslims every time when I ask him a question he smiles and he would tell me so many nice things and I would think this is not the image I had in my mind in fact when I think about Hazrat Essa A.S what was his character like, How did he treat people and I said to myself this man is acting more like jesus then the Christians. He never drinks a alcohol, he never smoke cigarette, he never lies, he never cheats, he doesn’t chase the woman in fact when ladies comes close he puts his eyes down. I said if jesus was here A.S this is what he would do. He would be like this man. I still wondered how I can get him into a Christian. But all along I was wishing I could be like this man because he has peace inside. No matter what happens he said Alhamdulillah I wonder how this man can be in such peace all the time. I wish I would be like that you know when I think about my muslim friend I almost laugh now to remember of how patient he was with me because I have asked so many questions and he always laugh.
So finally he say to me I will go to your religion if your religion is better that my religion but you need proof. What we know in islam that dalil is something very important if somebody tell you anything but what kind of proof? Religion is not about prove its about faith he said in islam we have both. We have faith but we have proof and when he said that it came in my mind I said to him do you mean to sit there and tell me as a muslim you can prove there is God? Then he said to me do you mean to sit there as preature for the Christians and you can’t, now what could I say because I want to know what its proof because I never thought about proof for anything. In islam every single word you must be able to prove or you don’t say it. Allah said Ka La Allah Wa Ka Lah Rasool this is the huq of islam. Ka la Allah the quran wa ka la rasool the hadith sahi hadith, bukhari, muslim and when he would explain my muslim friend he would explain islam to me he would tell me in Quran Allah said and he would say it arbiya I don’t know the Arabic in those days I dint know one word but he will still recite the Quran in arbic and then he would say more or less the English could be like this and he would tell me. He would say Rasool SAW prophet Muhammad PBUH wa kala he said for instance the best of you are those who learn the Quran and then you teach the quran so he would give me the Arabic and English sometimes he would recite the quran quickly say for example he said some ayat and said stop go slow I want to listen to it. He said but you don’t know it, I said but I like it and sometimes when he would recite I feel like I want to cry I don’t know why and I was thinking this man knows more about his religion as a giggliest then I do as a pressure how come the pressures of Christianity don’t know about Christianity as much as muslims. Muslims know more about Christianity then some of the Christian people and especially how come nobody knows about islam and in the west. It is the most beautiful, logical way to explain the Huq, the proof LA ILLAH HA IL ALLAH when you look to the mountains, occasions, stars, moon, son and you realize this cannot come by an accident. This has to be somewhere, where did you come from, where did you get your brains, who takes care of you everyday, who let up, who let you sleep, who gave you life, who replaces this keen when you get hurt? Who is doing this? Anybody could say God does it but not anybody has the proof of the Quran and the Sunnah which clearly shows these proves again and again every ayah of Quran showing it proves so look at the combination we have a man living the example with his ikhlaq he has the behavior the characteristic of islam and he has the basic knowledge, the simple knowledge of what are the five colors of islam Shahadat, Salah, Serve Ramadan, Zakah and Hajj explain that, that all he did just explains the basics and what do we believe? We believe in Allah and the angles and the books all the books all away back from the beginning until now all of the prophets.
We don’t make separations any of those and we believe in the day of reaction Youmil Qayama the day of standing and he explains this very simple. We all going to be brought back everybody I said wait just muslims right he said no everybody is coming back. I said what, all the muslims, christian, jews, all of the Buddhist, hindus, all the people will be brought back at the day of the judgment. The sixth point in islam he told us is the Qadar of Allah now in this case I could actually see somebody accepting the value of Allah but how do you explain that to somebody? It means that Allah has already predestined everything. It’s already known to Allah what’s going to happened and it’s in his control. He explained it to me clearly in islam we know that everything is resolved of our intention everything is by your intention but then whatever comes from Allah this is Allah’s value and that you can live as a muslim and I said how, he said you have to know whats islam. He explained like that I understood later I took a dictionary and found the words in Arabic that is islam to surrender to give up and to submit, to obey, and to be sincere.
If you are going to be sincere this means what? You cannot force anybody to be sincere it’s impossible if you force them you are not sincere and this is required in islam so never did speared islam by the sword. Islam spread with the heart and this man touched our heart with his behavior with his kindness. I later came to know that he was crying for us he was asking Allah Ya latif guide these people and tears coming down his face. He said to me the keywords I will go to your religion as a Christian if your religion is better than my religion I said alright we got him now because in Christianity you don’t have to pray, fast, hajj, pay zakah, you don’t have to be nice if you don’t want to you just believe jesus he said no I would be in your religion if you religion is better but you need proof. Again with the proof he said yes because we nothing do in islam except we know there is a proof whether we know the reason or not that’s another subject. Why we don’t eat pork, why woman should covered themselves up, why man don’t go out touching other woman and why we must never must cheat or must never lie. The reasons are with Allah but we know the proof is from the Quran and the Sunnah this is what we live by and again no matter what happened he will say the same thing value Allah Mashah Allah. I realize he was right I dint have any proof I was just talking but then one night when I was really thinking about islam so much the catholic became muslim I could not believe it.
I started tell my wife then I found she also interested to be a muslim I was shocked. So I wanted to talk to him again one more time so we will walk around at night outside our house. I asked him something about my business, family the people I know, many questions because I dint know what to do. I wanted him to tell me why don’t you be a muslim. I want him to say that but look at the hikmat look at the wisdom he said this is not about you and me, this is not about you and your wife or you and your father, it is about you and him (Allah) so you need to talk to him. Now look at this man he is crying oh Allah guide them but he doesn’t say I want you to be guided by me. I put my head on ground and I said God if you are there guides me and when I rose up my head I know there really is God. He is one. He has no partner and I know Muhammad SAW his last and final messenger and I have to follow it. There is no option there is no other way, there is deen, and I know that I have to tell immediately tell other people. This is the beauty of islam this was the story of how Yousaf Estes accept islam in his own words. Read more about Famous Muslim Scholars.
He is Ahad unique many people ask me how did you feel about being a christian? What was it to be like a Christian? Do you have any doubts about Christianity? Actually one point in my life I was so involved in christianity believing in it that I thought it was everything until I begin to find mistakes in the bible and then it make me begin to doubt, no doubt about God but the doubt about the bible and what about chiristanity some of the things we think about when we talk about this sublicense why is it called Christianity because if it is about chirstianity it means you have to follow the jesus but what about the people before that? They could not know about him because he was not here. What about Adam, Abraham, Mozez, David, Suleman, all the prophets and then what about jesus himself did he say I am Christian actually I have found in the bible it says that they would never called Christians until they took the message long long after jesus gone.
Long after pulp came into the religion and started changing things even then he said we were never called Christians now I started thinking if the name is not right the book have some mistakes but when I look another options other religions I wasn’t very impressed and I really don’t heard anything about islam and I never met any muslim not until my Egyptian friend but then I began to observe some things they really made me see a beautiful connection one of the things that my muslim friend told me is that we muslims believe in jesus . I said what because I know jewish believe in Adam, Abraham, Ishaq, Ismail, Suleman, David and all these prophets but they do not believe in jesus not as a prophet, not as a son of a God, not as a miracle. So how could a muslim believe in Jesus and he said yes we call him Essa I said ok this similar to jewish. He said we know his miracle birth and we know that he did miracles even when he was born he can speak. Essa A.S he could speak when he was born and he talked to people.
He was a prophet and I was like really I don’t know that and he did miracles people who have skin disease they were cured. People who couldn’t walk they were cured, people they were blind and they were cured, even a dead man brought back to life. Story is in the bible as it is but you are telling me a muslims believes this Huh? He said yeah I said what do you believe about jesus? We says he is the son of God what do you say? We says the son of marry (Mariyam) oh yeah that makes sense he is the son of marry he said that’s why we don’t have to try to resolve the issue of son of God. Astaghfirallah Allah has a son Naozobillah so this is really starts to making you think. When we said son of Godthey said no son of marry. When Allah wants anything he just says Kun Fa Ya Kun be and it is and that how he created jesus and I thought oh its in the bible be it is so marryam is the mother god is the creator exactly what muslim friend told me. I thought oh if this is the case what else do you believe? We believe he is not dead he is with Allah and he will come the last day. So this man became easy I can convert him right now this is almost the same thing but then it happened. The catholic friend of mine I want to go to the mosque and I want to see what they do. We went to the mosque when he came back we said come here what they are doing there? Do they making bam or something? He said no they line up is suff then they stand like a monk or preached. When they worship and silent, I said really he said then the bow in rukkoh, then sajda then sitting silent not talking to each other. The whole time until Asalamualikum and I said then? He said they left. I said what kind of music did they have? He said they don’t have any music. How do you worship God with no music I was a music monster and I was numb no music he said no. I got to know more about this. I learned more about it what happened next?
It came my turn now I became very curious so I began asking some hard questions to the muslims every time when I ask him a question he smiles and he would tell me so many nice things and I would think this is not the image I had in my mind in fact when I think about Hazrat Essa A.S what was his character like, How did he treat people and I said to myself this man is acting more like jesus then the Christians. He never drinks a alcohol, he never smoke cigarette, he never lies, he never cheats, he doesn’t chase the woman in fact when ladies comes close he puts his eyes down. I said if jesus was here A.S this is what he would do. He would be like this man. I still wondered how I can get him into a Christian. But all along I was wishing I could be like this man because he has peace inside. No matter what happens he said Alhamdulillah I wonder how this man can be in such peace all the time. I wish I would be like that you know when I think about my muslim friend I almost laugh now to remember of how patient he was with me because I have asked so many questions and he always laugh.
So finally he say to me I will go to your religion if your religion is better that my religion but you need proof. What we know in islam that dalil is something very important if somebody tell you anything but what kind of proof? Religion is not about prove its about faith he said in islam we have both. We have faith but we have proof and when he said that it came in my mind I said to him do you mean to sit there and tell me as a muslim you can prove there is God? Then he said to me do you mean to sit there as preature for the Christians and you can’t, now what could I say because I want to know what its proof because I never thought about proof for anything. In islam every single word you must be able to prove or you don’t say it. Allah said Ka La Allah Wa Ka Lah Rasool this is the huq of islam. Ka la Allah the quran wa ka la rasool the hadith sahi hadith, bukhari, muslim and when he would explain my muslim friend he would explain islam to me he would tell me in Quran Allah said and he would say it arbiya I don’t know the Arabic in those days I dint know one word but he will still recite the Quran in arbic and then he would say more or less the English could be like this and he would tell me. He would say Rasool SAW prophet Muhammad PBUH wa kala he said for instance the best of you are those who learn the Quran and then you teach the quran so he would give me the Arabic and English sometimes he would recite the quran quickly say for example he said some ayat and said stop go slow I want to listen to it. He said but you don’t know it, I said but I like it and sometimes when he would recite I feel like I want to cry I don’t know why and I was thinking this man knows more about his religion as a giggliest then I do as a pressure how come the pressures of Christianity don’t know about Christianity as much as muslims. Muslims know more about Christianity then some of the Christian people and especially how come nobody knows about islam and in the west. It is the most beautiful, logical way to explain the Huq, the proof LA ILLAH HA IL ALLAH when you look to the mountains, occasions, stars, moon, son and you realize this cannot come by an accident. This has to be somewhere, where did you come from, where did you get your brains, who takes care of you everyday, who let up, who let you sleep, who gave you life, who replaces this keen when you get hurt? Who is doing this? Anybody could say God does it but not anybody has the proof of the Quran and the Sunnah which clearly shows these proves again and again every ayah of Quran showing it proves so look at the combination we have a man living the example with his ikhlaq he has the behavior the characteristic of islam and he has the basic knowledge, the simple knowledge of what are the five colors of islam Shahadat, Salah, Serve Ramadan, Zakah and Hajj explain that, that all he did just explains the basics and what do we believe? We believe in Allah and the angles and the books all the books all away back from the beginning until now all of the prophets.
We don’t make separations any of those and we believe in the day of reaction Youmil Qayama the day of standing and he explains this very simple. We all going to be brought back everybody I said wait just muslims right he said no everybody is coming back. I said what, all the muslims, christian, jews, all of the Buddhist, hindus, all the people will be brought back at the day of the judgment. The sixth point in islam he told us is the Qadar of Allah now in this case I could actually see somebody accepting the value of Allah but how do you explain that to somebody? It means that Allah has already predestined everything. It’s already known to Allah what’s going to happened and it’s in his control. He explained it to me clearly in islam we know that everything is resolved of our intention everything is by your intention but then whatever comes from Allah this is Allah’s value and that you can live as a muslim and I said how, he said you have to know whats islam. He explained like that I understood later I took a dictionary and found the words in Arabic that is islam to surrender to give up and to submit, to obey, and to be sincere.
If you are going to be sincere this means what? You cannot force anybody to be sincere it’s impossible if you force them you are not sincere and this is required in islam so never did speared islam by the sword. Islam spread with the heart and this man touched our heart with his behavior with his kindness. I later came to know that he was crying for us he was asking Allah Ya latif guide these people and tears coming down his face. He said to me the keywords I will go to your religion as a Christian if your religion is better than my religion I said alright we got him now because in Christianity you don’t have to pray, fast, hajj, pay zakah, you don’t have to be nice if you don’t want to you just believe jesus he said no I would be in your religion if you religion is better but you need proof. Again with the proof he said yes because we nothing do in islam except we know there is a proof whether we know the reason or not that’s another subject. Why we don’t eat pork, why woman should covered themselves up, why man don’t go out touching other woman and why we must never must cheat or must never lie. The reasons are with Allah but we know the proof is from the Quran and the Sunnah this is what we live by and again no matter what happened he will say the same thing value Allah Mashah Allah. I realize he was right I dint have any proof I was just talking but then one night when I was really thinking about islam so much the catholic became muslim I could not believe it.
I started tell my wife then I found she also interested to be a muslim I was shocked. So I wanted to talk to him again one more time so we will walk around at night outside our house. I asked him something about my business, family the people I know, many questions because I dint know what to do. I wanted him to tell me why don’t you be a muslim. I want him to say that but look at the hikmat look at the wisdom he said this is not about you and me, this is not about you and your wife or you and your father, it is about you and him (Allah) so you need to talk to him. Now look at this man he is crying oh Allah guide them but he doesn’t say I want you to be guided by me. I put my head on ground and I said God if you are there guides me and when I rose up my head I know there really is God. He is one. He has no partner and I know Muhammad SAW his last and final messenger and I have to follow it. There is no option there is no other way, there is deen, and I know that I have to tell immediately tell other people. This is the beauty of islam this was the story of how Yousaf Estes accept islam in his own words. Read more about Famous Muslim Scholars.
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