Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Struggling to Surrender

I am currently reading Struggling to Surrender by Jeffrey Lang, an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and University of Kansas. It is a personal account about the journey and thoughts of a born and raised Catholic turned Atheist turned Muslim. The subtitle of the book is 'some impressions of an American convert to Islam' - even though I am not a 'convert' (nor am I American :P), I am finding that I can relate to a lot of his thoughts and questions, whether it came from myself or others. I am not very far into the book, but I'm finding his points of views interesting because he has so many different backgrounds - rigidly religious, atheism, loving family, mathematics - and all of these impact on the way he views Islam and vice versa. He is very eloquent in his writing - I remember myself being captivated with emotions in a train carriage filled with people as I read through the first chapter - the chapter of how he came to Islam. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to have their brain picked AND emotional roller-coaster rides.

"How wonderful is the case of a believer; there is good for him in everything and this applies only to a believer. If prosperity attends him, he expresses gratitude to Allah and that is good for him; if adversity befalls him, he endures it patiently and that is better for him."

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