By Kaven Siddique Lim 

“There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong.”

Quran 2:256

I wrote this 4 years ago in 2019 when initially requested by our close friend and teacher, Ustaz Sameer, for another project of his. Upon receiving another invitation to share my convert story in this year in 2023, I went back and searched for this sharing and initially intended to rewrite the entire piece to give it a “2023 update”. However, I quickly came upon the realisation that showing a more refined side of my convert story was not going to bring out the learning points of my story more than what my 2019-self had already done through the zealous, raw and rough edges of my writing and sharings. Instead, 4 years ahead, I am probably an entirely different person, and now possess a different kind of story with different lessons and vibes. Therefore, as a reminder to myself and hopefully to others that we are constantly at just chapter 1 and Allah SWT has the greatest of stories waiting for us to uncover, I will leave what Kaven Siddique Lim wrote in 2019 – young, zealous, blissfully ignorant as he was (and still is), to begin my sharing and continue with a short follow-up after his sharing, bismillah.

“My name is Kaven Siddique Lim, I’m 21, a Chinese and a Muslim. Islam has been the greatest thing that has happened to my life, I am proud to be a Muslim and I’m happy to be able to practice this beautiful religion everyday. However, this was not always the case. I wasn’t always a Muslim and things were vastly different just 2 years ago, when I was just Kaven, 19, and studying in Junior College. It wouldn’t even have been in my wildest imagination that I will become a Muslim and begin practicing Islam in 2 short years. It has been a miraculous journey filled with numerous highs and lows, and I’m here to share with you some snippets of these moments along my path that brought me to Islam. Through my experiences, I pray that you are able to find your story as well and walk towards the beautiful religion of God.

When I was in Junior College, before I knew anything substantial about Islam, I was a typical boy exploring the liberties of adulthood. Life was almost all about enjoyment with heedless entertainment and social interactions with ethical parameters. I was also not on good terms with my mother after a few years of constant arguments and fights throughout the process of puberty and my life was purposeless other than having a pursuit for enjoyment. At that point of time, I didn’t feel a need for anything more in my life as I was always busy with commitments in sports and in studies. Looking back, I realised that it was a part of my life that was not purposeful but it was covered up by how hectic my life was.

Islam came to me in the form of a romantic interest. I knew that if I wanted to spend a long time with this romantic interest, I had to learn about Islam and I had to evaluate if this faith was something that I really wanted in my life. Hence, my journey into Islam started.

There are three very memorable moments that encapsulated the process of me discovering and learning about Islam. Each represents the different stage that I went through before affirming my faith and submitting to the fitrah (the state of purity and innocence Muslims believe all humans to be born with) within me.

First time at the mosque (Masjid Ba-alwie)

I first stepped into a mosque in December 2016. It was Masjid Ba-alwie on a Thursday night. Typically, the mosque has certain recitations that it performs every Thursday after the evening prayers so I was invited to join and experience this in the mosque. 

Back then, I had little to no islamic knowledge. The only two things I knew about Islam were Friday Prayers and Fasting Month, courtesy of my secondary school friends. Friday school days will always end earlier for my muslim friends for their prayers and the canteen stalls will have considerably smaller queues during the Fasting Month. I didn’t know what to expect because I had never been invited to a mosque, much less join a group of muslims for their prayers and recitations. Thankfully, I was strongly reassured by my friend and I accepted the invitation that afternoon. 

Over the course of my life, it seemed as if I was always playing a game of catch with the concept of religion. It would always approach me in different forms and shapes and catch me at different phases of my life but eventually I’d always wind up running away from it. My family is predominantly Buddhist. Since my childhood days, we’d have religious events such as paying respects to my late great-grandparents at home, at the temple and at the columbarium. We burnt incense and paper money to honor them and also worshiped and prayed to them for health, prosperity and success. However, my family never imposed their idea of Buddhism on me nor my siblings, so the religious celebrations or practices morphed into a family tradition as I grew up. Slowly, due to the lack of knowledge and the lack of interest to seek it, I started to disassociate myself as a born-Buddhist to somewhat a free-thinker.

I’ve also been invited to the church a few times with family and with friends. Growing up around mainly Christian friends, being a Christian was viewed as something that was mainstream and cool so when I was invited to events like Easter or Christmas celebrations, I’d readily accept the invitation and show up hoping to have fun with my friends at church. Subsequently, I identified myself as a unofficial Christian for a few  years and would tell other people that I was a Christian even though I knew next to nothing about Christianity. All I knew at that point was that it was a popular choice to be a Christian then, and if you were a Christian then you were with the mainstream crowd with the newest songs and the new-age manner of worship.

As I grew up further, into my Junior College days, the heavy study into physics, chemistry and biology changed my mindset greatly. My heart knew that there was something out there – A God. However, my mind said otherwise. I started viewing religion as a silly concept because I was convinced that there were no proofs of these “miracles”. Instead, science has a reason for everything. Humans know why the Earth revolves around the Sun, humans know how the universe began and humans can explain everything under the sun with the means of a hypothesis and a controlled experiment. In science, for any hypothesis to be proven right, there must be tangible and credible data, and in religion, it seemed as though it was a case that can never be proven by science, and instead it was debunked by the existence and proliferation of the study of sciences. That was my state of mind throughout my post-teenage years.

So there I was on a fateful night in December 2016, with a tug-of-war between my heart and my mind, with my feet in front of a mosque and not knowing what to expect out of it at all. This became a turning point in my life.

Stepping into the mosque as a chinese should be a weird experience, instead, it felt as if it was just like another normal day at the mosque, with everyone focused on their own worship. A sense of relief came over me as I realised that I was not going to be made into the subject of the day and I was linked with a brother who frequents the mosque regularly, to show me around and explain to me about the fundamentals of Islam.

Initially, I intended to learn more about Islam that night. However, Allah, the All-Knowing, had better plans for me. I learnt about Islam not just through the knowledge passed on to me, but I felt the essence of Islam through the mannerism of the brothers whom I had interacted with. The entire night was about making me feel comfortable in the atmosphere of the mosque. They offered me food, drinks and hospitality, never once asking me to come back to the mosque in return. They were focused on answering my queries about Islam, never once brushing the questions off. 

It was until a while later on my conversion journey that I had the opportunity to learn about this word “Adab” (Islamic etiquette: refinement, good manners, morals, decorum, decency, humaneness). The Adab that I was shown in Masjid Ba-alwie that evening spurred me towards understanding the religion in depth and not just exploring it superficially. Coincidentally, that night, I heard a verse of the Quran coming from another brother and he recited:

“There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong.”

Quran 2:256

Al-Mawrid Library at Darul Arqam

After hearing that verse I realised that this essence of non compulsion was how a religion should be, no man should be held accountable for another man’s sins, hence one’s faith should be of his own accord, never from someone else. I was shocked, because religion always seemed like a social thing to me. I thought that the largest part about being in a religion was to be in a family and a community, and that it was the greatest benefit of a religion as well. I was mistaken, the greatest part of a religion was the religion a man builds with God, and the peace, strength and wisdom this covenant provides him. The greatest part of being in a religion was to create a bond with God, being accountable to God and living for God, and Islam encapsulated that perfectly.

Before long, a spark inside of me was ignited. I wanted to learn more about Islam but assuming that religion was contradictory to logic, I was averse to abandoning logic in order to embrace religion. However, with the pursuit of knowledge, i came across a verse in the Qur’an saying “And He has subjected to you, as from Him, all that is in the heavens and on earth: behold, in that are signs indeed for those who reflect.” (45: 13).

I was genuinely shocked. Instead of stifling the proliferation of knowledge and pursuit of the fundamental belief of the religion, Islam actually encouraged the seeking of knowledge and called for the believers to ponder upon the signs of God in this materialistic world. Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) was also reported to have said in an authentic hadith “Seeking Knowledge is a duty upon every Muslim male and female.”

I started to spend some time off my weekends at the Islamic library of Darul Arqam, Al-Mawrid, reading about books on the sciences of the Qur’an.

Conversion button

Before long, I was convinced by the truth in Islam and I started to believe in Allah s.w.t and His Messenger (s.a.w). However, the challenge came when I had to tell my family that I was interested in becoming a Muslim. My family was shocked. Just like how I never expected myself to be interested in embracing Islam, they never expected their nephew/son/brother to become a muslim. Their first reactions were very negative.

After a lengthy conversation, we decided to wait a few years before coming back to make a decision because it will be more practical then to think of conversion. I was  doing my national service and it was said that becoming a Muslim would complicate things. Initially, I agreed to this decision because it was better than a flat-rejection. However, after a while, something inside told me that there was something wrong with what I was planning to do. It was as if there was someone else inside of me telling me that I was doing something wrong.

UPON REFLECTION, I REALISED THAT WAITING FOR CONVENIENCE BEFORE BECOMING A MUSLIM WAS NOT THE RIGHT CHOICE. ONE BECOMES A MUSLIM OUT OF SINCERITY, OUT OF FAITH. IF I WERE TO BECOME A MUSLIM ONLY WHEN IT WAS PRACTICAL, WHAT IF MY CIRCUMSTANCE CHANGED AND BECAME IMPRACTICAL AGAIN, WILL I THEN CEASE TO BECOME A MUSLIM?

With this insight, it gave strength to my resolve and I explained once more to my family why I wanted to become a Muslim. Alhamdulillah, they did not oppose my decision and respected it.

The biggest change that was going to happen to my life was right ahead of me, and I had no clue how and when it should happen. I kept pondering if I were ready for such a big change to my life and I did not know when was a good date for my conversion. Hence, I was always on the Darul Arqam website, reading their articles and exploring their media, hoping something would give me that leap of faith. One day, while fiddling with the functions of the website, I accidentally booked a conversion appointment for myself when I least expected it. Looking back today, I believe that it was Allah’s way of telling me that I was ready and it was time to embrace this beautiful way of life.

On the 7th of January 2018, I took my shahada, and my life has never been the same since. Islam guides my actions, my values and my purpose. Islam encourages me to seek knowledge to get closer to Allah and motivates me to live my best life in the service of the religion. It is the source of my strength, my growth and my happiness. 

Alhamdulillah

This was my journey to faith then, but today, it is just a chapter in my life. I had embraced Islam in 2018, but I had truly found Islam in 2019 when hardship came. Through the love and support that I had received from my community of Muslim friends, I came to realise how much I have grown to love the religion and how much Allah SWT cares for everyone of us. 

I am in the realisation that I had two distinct moments which I declared my witnessing of Allah SWT, my physical shahada done in Darul Arqam on the 7th of January, 2018 and somewhere down the line, through the guidance of Allah SWT, the love and help I’ve received from other Muslims helped me to take a true leap of faith by spiritually and emotionally witnessing Allah SWT as my Lord, and me as His creation. It was only months and years later that I had taken my spiritual shahada, and started my Islamic lifestyle. 

As a 21 year-old then, I had believed that my journey was done and completed, that I had a good grasp over what Islam is and that as a Muslim, who I was in 2019 would be who I will be for the rest of my life. The 4 years which Allah SWT has gracefully blessed me with after showed me that truly whatever we have planned for ourselves, Allah SWT has planned for us better. 

To close off my journey to Islam, I’d like to highlight an insight that has always amazed me whenever I reflect upon the past 5 years of my life – the journey never stops, and it always gets better. When you start living your life for the sake of Allah SWT, waking up with this awareness and drifting off to sleep with the same conviction, life becomes easier, and radically clearer. I’d urge everyone of us to try, and perhaps fail, but try again and again until we find this hidden gem that we can carry with us for the rest of our lives.

May this strive allow us to find what we are looking for – eternal happiness and goodness.

Do You Believe in One God
& Ready to [Re]start your Journey of Faith & Gratitude as a Muslim?