Led by The Creator

by

Abdur Rahman Humes

As presented at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia

On 12^th April 2003

“To Him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth:

When He decreeth a matter, He saith to it: “Be”

And it is.”  Qur’an 2:117

I would like to go back in time and tell you a little bit about my history:

My culture is one of the oldest cultures in the world.  I love creation.  The history of aboriginal people, we connect so closely to the Earth that we are like the Earth.  In my younger days as a child as I grew up, I knew what I had learned about the mysteries and spirits, that everything that is made in creation has a spir-it, a formed spirit, which guides it and looks after it and also guides us.

When we walked night and day in the bush or wherever, we knew that there was a spirit, a powerful “Go”, that looked over us, all the time. Then as I grew up I was taken away to high school.  It was then I met this other God -  the same God but in a different form.  I had to go to Church and pray.  I also learnt about rac-ism.  I was taken and put in a hostel with about 180 children, (90 boys and 90 girls).  It was frightening in a way because I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t know what to expect, but I stayed there for three years.  In those three years I learnt about God, Jesus.  I also learnt about other races; I learnt how to be hurtful - how to make people cry - and it was sad really because where I came from, we were all sort of one.   The white children and the black children grew up together, sort of as one family.

I left high school and then I went back home.  I worked and then I wanted to know God more. I got baptiz-ed in the Church of England and I still wanted to know more about God; so I read the Bible a bit, and had meetings with people. I still had my Aboriginal God too, spirits, and it was very hard to know that this God  is the same God, you know?

Anyway, I went to heaps of Churches.  I went to the Catholic Church, the Methodists’ Church, and every Church that came from England, every church that came from America - I was a part of it. I went from one Church to another, trying to find this God.  In 1967 I went to the University of Western Australia, that is where I met Brother Mohammed Rais.

Brother Rais is a Muslim (revert) now.  Anyway I knew that I had to find something because I had become kind of rough.  For ten years, I became like a madman.  I’m only small but I’ve done some things, some real bad things, and I needed to find a God, so I tried again.   I went to people, to houses.  People would slam doors in your face.  I was a person.  I had had a hard life.  I wanted everything to change for myself, so, anyway, I struggled on in life.  I used to read the Bible to people, people used to come to me and ask me questions and I’d be out there talking about God and Jesus, and I’d be fighting the next day!   I would think, “Why am I doing these things, when I know there’s someone more powerful - a God, that can help me?”

“O ye who believe! seek help with patient perseverance and prayer; for God is with those who patiently persevere.” Qur’an 2:153

So I was like in a washing machine, I was tumbling around; good times then the bad, and so on.  I said, “ I don’t want this; I want more good times in my life”.  I’d give talks at schools, and I’d tell children what to do, yet I wanted a better life for myself!  So anyway, I met this lady.  We were together for a while.  We would fight, then we’d get back together again.  Then we started looking into Muslims.  I was with the lady that I’m now with, and I was going to the Seventh Day Adventist Church, one day a week. Then my family would come along and I’d go to the Jehovah Witnesses.  I was a little mixed up as to where I was.

Well, anyway, we went for a drive around and tried to find a Mosque.  We went to one Mosque and I think 

it was the right time for me. We went away and we met another brother.  The lady I’m with rang up one brother and he said, “Oh yes come around”.   So we went around, and anyway his sister was home, and she said, “Can you wait outside and my sister will talk to your missus.” And I thought this was a bit strange, because at any other time everybody piles into the house, and no-one cares less!   Anyway, I waited  outside.

My missus spoke to the lady and her sister and we left.  Then we were invited back again, and this time the Brother was there. We spoke to the him.  He was a very nice brother, and told us as much as he could at that time about Islam, and about being a Muslim.  I had about ten cups of tea!  It was nice, and his wife was very nice.

So we went to Thornlie Mosque.  I was wandering around there and I met this other brother, and he said “I know you”.  And I said “You know me?”  And it was Brother Rais who I had known at university back in 1967.  He was there.  I remembered that I was at my Mum’s once and she had been burnt and was in hospi-tal and he took me to there to meet her.  I nearly cried because he was such a nice person and I hadn’t seen him for so long.  Then I met some of the other brothers.  I felt good you know, it was all men, ladies were one side and we were just having a yarn.

I’m not trying to put other churches down, but I feel better about this one. When you’ve got the ladies and men altogether, you don’t know what’s going on... a lot of things happen in Churches!  When you are with the Muslim brothers you know where you are, you find a place where you belong, and I felt that this is what I want, what I need in my life.  So I went there for a time, and I said, “Well I want to do this for my-self”, and I became a Muslim.

In the Quran, Jesus and the Prophets were not forgotten.  I haven’t forgotten the followers of Allah, be- cause they are all still in there. What I read in the Bible is still here in the Quran, and it makes me happy, it makes me feel good.  Like it says in the Qur’an:

 “Say: ‘We believe in God, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (the Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets, from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another among them, and to God do we bow our will (in Islam).’” 3:84.

The pattern of Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) is something I need in my life. I read about his life, things he’d done and I feel free now, much freer than I used to feel.

I used to go to the Churches, and I don’t know what sort of under arm deodorant I used to wear, but no-body used to sit next to me.  I’d say “gee” and  feel a little bit shy, but I didn’t worry.  I don’t care what people are, I love them, because the Creator made them.  He managed to love everybody and if you can’t love somebody with your heart, you can’t love Allah.

It was related that Anas ibn Malik said that the Messenger of God said:

“Do not hate each other and do not be jealous of each other and do not abandon each other, and, O worshippers of God! Be brotherly, for it not permissible for any Muslim to abandon his brother for more than three days.”

Hadith - Bukhari

Allah created all things for all of us to enjoy, and I love creation.

When I look at creation, I see beauty. I see life. If you laugh with somebody, then someone’s laughing with you.

So I’d like to thank everybody tonight for listening to what I’ve had to say.