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Part 4: "Embracing Islam Made Me Embrace My Culture" | A Muslim Convert Story
Sh. Abdullah Oduro's cultural and spiritual journey continues with travels to Ghana, where he begins to see what the synergy between his different identities can look like.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. When she told me I was on the phone with her, she said, I know you're a Muslim, but you're going to have to come. At that point, I could have asked her, you know, Mom, what's going to be done there? Are there going to be any shirk there, you know, tribal practices that I can't participate in? No, the basis is that you obey your mother. Accept that which is shirk, but obey her. Be respectful. So I said to myself, I remember, put your head down and just listen and do what your mother wants you to do. She already knew my position as a Muslim, and she was respectful of that. Based on the fact that I knew that, let's go. Let's move. I have to serve my mother and serve my father in that which is good. She said, you're the oldest, so you have to come. This is a part of the culture that I embraced. And you even see within Islam, there's that element even of respecting the elders and having the elders of the children take responsibility. So when going to Ghana, that was a life-changing experience. That was sowing my own oats, if you will, really recognizing where I came from. Going to Ghana, I got to meet my grandmothers, my grandmother's sisters, all of my nephews that had been waiting to meet me, people that saw me when I was young and I walk into certain stores and they're like, eh, Abdu. You know, they call my name out how they knew me before, even though Abdul is short for Abdullah, but they knew me as that. When they see me and they speak the language and I don't speak it, and they look at my mother and they ask her, why isn't he speaking the language? They realize how Americanized I was. But being there, I realized how important it was for me to be a person that was understanding and knowing of his culture. So in going around and looking at these ceremonial practices, the majority of them didn't even have any polytheistic elements to them.
But there was one incident amongst many of them that I wanted to capitalize on. Being that I was the oldest, I had to speak, I had to eulogize, I had to speak at the eulogy. Being that my mother told them that, look, my son is a Muslim lawyer, you know, I graduated from the College of Sharia, that my son is someone that speaks Arabic, you know, that he can speak the language. He teaches Arabic and he preaches Islam around the world. I had to stand there with my sister, my father's coffin in front of me, and all of them sitting and listening. And I said to myself, you know what I'm going to do? Khutbat al-Hajjah, the Sermon of Need, which the Prophet ﷺ used to do. So I recited this khutbah, and I remember looking, and jaws were dropped. The king, the Asante king was there. Jaw was dropped. People looking at me in astonishment. I didn't know what to expect. Whereupon, after I was done, they were amazed that their son came to America. My mom, you know, her son came to America, learned another language, became a lawyer, and is coming back and speaking in Arabic. Been in America all his life. Because their context of Muslims were only Ghanaians that went to Saudi Arabia to study, to Egypt to study, to Malaysia, etc. But I came to America, land of the free, home of the brave, land of opportunity, and wanted to learn Islam and learn the Arabic language. That was amazing to them. And seeing their amazement of me, even though a lot of them were not pleased with my decision, but the respect factor because of my father, that was something of the custom that was amazing to me. When looking at my mother's relatives and sitting down with a sheet of paper with my sister, mapping out all of the relatives that we had,
approximately 107 on my mother's side only of relatives. 11 brothers and sisters looking at my mother and how she argued with her little sister in this three-story mansion, looking at my grandmother and seeing what are some Islamic principles I can practice. She would walk up the stairs. She had a severe case of diabetes. I would help her up. When she would sit down, I would massage her leg. And I'm just getting to know her. She's understanding that it was Islam that made me good to her. And it was me and Islam wanting to learn the culture, asking her questions about her husband, asking her questions about, you know, how life was in Ghana, how my mom was when she was young, how the sisters are all talking and running around and arguing. There was a man that was coming to sell some cloth. I have that recorded, just looking at how they bargained with him. Meeting my cousin from the UK who worked for Google, decided to come back to Ghana. My first cousin, all of this was a beautiful, life-changing experience. And that was because I validated my culture. I realized who I was. I accepted it, and I took it on. In conclusion, when looking at this, it was something that was major for me because it was a paradigm shift because, you know, I have kids, and whether I like it or not, they're going to have some kind of element of being Americanized. But it's my responsibility to make sure and teach them that it is from Islam to know your culture. It's from Islam to accept your culture because Islam beautifies your culture. The culture was there as a manifestation of harmony for certain people in a certain locality. Now, some of those normalcies may be of that which is not Islamic, but that's where we sifted out.
But also the basis is that we accept our culture, our food, our dress, our means of communication, our means of financial transactions. All of this is a way of creating harmony amongst a people. And that was what was so beautiful to me when I embraced Islam, recognizing that I had to learn who I was. And this was the process of learning who I was. Now, when embracing other cultures was something that was interesting also as a convert to Islam. You know, I remember when coming back, I remember when learning the Quran with my sheikh and Taraweeh came around. And they had the syrup. What was the syrup called? It was called Ruh al-Afzal. You know what I'm talking about. And, you know, me, I'm a new Muslim. My first time learning, you know, the Quran. And I remember, in the beginning, you know, I was like, Oh, my God, Mashallah, everyone's wearing Suqal Khamis. And my sheikh, you know, I loved him. I'd do anything for him. And Subhan'Allah, I was thirsty. So I go, you know, near the shoe area. They had some, you know, some strawberry milk and some Kool-Aid. So I thought I get over there, I drink the Kool-Aid and I was surprised. It wasn't sweet. It was very different. But then Subhan'Allah, I realized that Subhan'Allah, it was a different experience for me. It was not for me to belittle it. Now, it may not have tasted good to me. It's the first time I tasted it. And I had certain sweet expectations. But it was an experience for me that realizing that this is something that was normal for them. And it's their culture. Embracing that, understanding that. Another occasion was Subhan'Allah, we had a potluck. And I wanted to make it a potluck to where the standard food of biryani, of mindi, of samosas,
of, you know, these foods that we're well aware of and well used to, I wanted to make sure that, you know, they got exposed to some of the foods that we grew up on as Americans. So we had the hot dogs, the hamburgers, had to bring bean pies. When the bean pies were brought, ladies and gentlemen, so many of the brothers, the Indo-Pak brothers and the Arab brothers came to me. What is this? Particularly one brother, his mouth was full and he was trying to ask me, what is this? I said, I'm trying to tell you, you know, وَجَعَلْنَكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَالٍ لِلَّتَعَارِفُ We made you nations and tribes to get to know one another, to get to know the elements of culture in order to appreciate one another. That knowledge that you have of each other is an element for you to appreciate one another. So after all this experience for me, after embracing Islam, after going through the trial and error of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, when it came to my culture of being American and then my culture of being Ghanaian, embracing all of that together and realizing that all of that complements who I am as a black man on this earth and my future children, that is what made me a well-rounded Muslim. And with being a well-rounded Muslim, that is where I understood the importance of cultural knowledge, cross-cultural knowledge, appreciating each other, and as a result, appreciating the graciousness and blessings from Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى. Thank you. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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