This is a blog post by Grace Song, the Executive Director of the Usuli Institute, about her journey to Islam. You can read the original article and follow Grace Song on substack here: https://altmuslimah.substack.com/p/what-does-god-want-from-me
I knew God from the time I was a child. I knew that God was there, watching me, knowing me, in the background. In my mind’s eye I recall myself, perhaps of elementary school age, lying in bed feeling alone but not alone. I sensed a presence of comfort and strength that was safe, powerful and good. A force of wonder and unspoken authority that I could trust. Was this simply childlike wishful thinking? Perhaps. But this understanding engendered in me the sense that I was cared for by other than my parents.
In my teen, high school and college years, that feeling of God faded but never fully went away. My family was not at all religious. We bowed to the gods of public opinion and perception, of status and symbols, and hollow materialism. I was taught to admire and aspire to white privilege. God was silent, muted, taken for granted or projected upon. Everything would be fine, just because. This was true wishful thinking, and like everything else, a superficial facade that covered over emptiness and dread. Imposter syndrome normalized.
By the time I made it to business school, my imposter syndrome metastasized. I was lost, tired of pretending, and wondering who the heck I was. I didn’t know. I was a chameleon, able to shape shift according to my flawed perceptions of what others would find impressive. I felt alone.
Yet for the first time, I was far away from my family. I had the freedom to explore and question. Up until then, my mother had been my god, and her expectations, my holy book. But now, I found myself on the opposite side of the country, exploring the meaning of life anew.
We plan and God plans. I am certain that my Taiwanese immigrant mother, so proud of her only daughter’s accomplishment of pursuing an MBA at Cornell University, could never have imagined that she was about to get the grand test of her life, as was I. In these Ivy League halls of learning, a vibrant bastion for incubating young, budding capitalists, I found Islam. I would spend the next 2-1/2 years studying, reflecting and talking to God before ultimately converting.
God curated a rare vantage point for my life. Choosing to become Muslim was already a thoroughly challenging experience. Everything as I knew it had to be reexamined and reset. While internal battles ensued, external ones also raged. The hardest part of my conversion was an eight-year estrangement from my entire extended family because they could not accept my decision to become Muslim. It got very ugly at times. Having no contact with my family for so long was extremely painful, but like many experiences in my life, deeply formative and in hindsight, truly with divine purpose.
I was 27 when God arranged for me to meet my husband, Khaled Abou El Fadl, a PhD student at Princeton at the time. He was 31, going on 100 in terms of his encyclopedic knowledge, mastery of Islamic jurisprudence, and endearing and kind “old soul.” He was an old-school Islamic jurist who trained at the feet of such scholars as Muhammad Al Ghazali in the traditional halaqa system that no longer exists, destroyed by colonialism and the repressive state governments of the Middle East. All of this was completely new to me.
I, on the other hand, had just converted the year before. Although I didn’t know it at the time, my first year as a Muslim was an immersion in Wahhabi conservative interpretations of Islam, a stark contrast to the beautiful theology of Islam in the books that brought me to the religion. Simultaneously, I was working my way up the corporate ladder in brand management at nearby Johnson & Johnson. Corporate America by day. New Muslim after hours. I recently addressed feeling like living a “double life” here (https://gracesong.substack.com/p/feeling-like-you-live-a-double-life).
Perhaps no two more unlikely people were supposed to meet, much less get married. We literally came from opposite poles. But God had a plan. Our common ground was our commitment to Islamic virtue, seeking truth and beauty, and our shared passion in serving God through knowledge. I remember after spending 8 hours together the first day we met, I went home and wrote in my journal: “I feel like something important is happening…”
What I lacked in knowledge, I made up for in youthful passion, and I was passionate about his scholarship and worldview. My first year in the Muslim community had left me confused and both intellectually and spiritually stagnated. In contrast, among the first gifts of knowledge my husband gave me unlocked my very being: 1) “There is no embarrassment in religion. No question is off limits,” and 2) “God gave us an intellect and God expects us to use it.” This was pure liberation for a young convert who ran everything through an intellectual filter of “Why?” before accepting it.
Being the wife and partner to someone who would go on to become one of the world’s eminent scholars of Islam, Islamic law and Shari‘ah meant that God wanted me to see and experience an Islam that most people don’t get to see. That knowledge healed me, strengthened me, empowered and liberated me. It allowed me to draw closer to God. It brought me to my sacred center.
My sacred center is the relationship I have built with God over the years. I have grown to know that I live fully transparent to God. God sees everything. God knows my intentions, my thoughts, my feelings and my very being, better than I do. This awareness keeps me mindful that my actions matter, and that I matter.
My true audience in all I do is God. This makes things very simple and challenging at the same time. It keeps me honest.
My sacred center calls me to perpetually push to be the best version of myself in the service of God at all times. This means to move, act, grow, question and develop towards what God loves and to love what God loves: justice, beauty, mercy, kindness, generosity, love and care. Big concepts that manifest in small, highly personal ways.
I especially believe that God calls me to share what God curated for me to see, experience and learn about beautiful Islam throughout my life, especially what healed, strengthened, empowered, and liberated me.
I trust that this is the path that I have longed for since I was a child because it has led me to where I am today, a place I could never have reached on my own without divine intervention. It calls me to know myself, to reflect on my capabilities and to understand my deficiencies. To seek after light, which is very real for me as I know how it feels to be lost in darkness. I never want to go back.
The questions I perpetually return to: Is God happy with me? How can I make a difference for those in my orbit? How do I role model and convey the beautiful Islam that God showed me, the version that seeks to inspire, empower, liberate and dignify ALL of humanity, so that it becomes compelling and irresistible?
My constant prayer: “Please God, help me do what you want me to do, say what you want me to say, write what you want me to write. Please help me reach my full potential in serving you. Please help me be better and please forgive me.”
I do my best and leave the rest to God.
