Why Did They Become Muslims

Moreover, the ecclesiastical credo that attaining God would
require expiation was altogether meaningless too. In my
idealization, the great being who was (and always is) the only
being worthy of being worshipped would not demand compulsory
expiation from His born slaves.
Upon this, I began to examine the Judaic religion. I saw that
their approach to the unity and grandeur of Allâhu ta’âlâ was
much more reasonable and that they did not attribute a partner to
Him. Perhaps Judaism was not so badly interpolated as today’s
Christianity. However, that religion also contained some
grotesque tenets which I could not understand and would never
accept. There were so many rites, prayers and compulsory
religious practices in the Judaic religion that a pious Jew would
have no time left for worldly occupations if he were to observe all
those religious obligations. I knew that most of those rites were
stupid parodies that had been inserted into the religion later by
people. Thereby the Judaic religion had been thoroughly stripped
of its social character and become the religion of a small minority.
Concluding that there was nothing in Judaism for the world to
benefit from, I left it aside, and focused my quest into other
religions. In the meantime I attended both the church and the
synagogue. Yet those visits were done for quasi-religious
purposes. In fact, I was neither a Christian nor a Jew. Alongside
the Anglican Church, I examined the Roman Catholic Church,
too. I saw that the Catholic credo contained more superstitions
than did the credo of those Protestants who were adherent to the
Anglican Church. Especially, the Catholics’ excessive adherence
to the Pope and their semi-deification of him made me hate them
all the more.
Now I turned my face to the east and began to examine the
oriental religions. I did not like Magians’ religion at all. For they
gave too much prerogative to the priestly caste. A pariah, on the
other hand, would deserve what remained from their scorn for
beasts. It never occured to them that they should have compassion
for the poor. According to them, a person’s poverty was his own
fault. If he put up with it silently and without any complaints,
there might be some improvement in his situation owing to the
priests’ intermediary invocations. The priestly order purposely
spread this belief in order to strike a fear of themselves into the
people’s hearts and to make the people feel dependent on them.
Therefore I hated the Magian religion. And my hatred even
doubled when I knew that the Magians worshipped animals. A
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