Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, born in Kingston, Jamaica, grew up in Toronto, Canada, where he reverted to Islam in 1972. He first acquired a B.A. from the College of Islamic Disciplines at the Islamic University of Medina (1979), then an M.A. in Aqeedah (Islamic Theology) from King Saud University in Riyadh (1985), and finally a PhD in Islamic Theology from the University of Wales (1994). Dr Bilal Philips, who was on a visit to Nigeria, spoke exclusively to Daily Trust. Excerpts:
Can you tell us your story on your conversation to Islam?
Dr. Philip Ameenah Bilal: If I have to start talking about my way to Islam it will take me about an hour and a half. To cut it short I will politely ask everyone to listen and watch my full story on YouTube on how I converted to Islam.
Tell us the turning point for you. What really touched you into becoming a Muslim?
Okay I will sum everything up, though I was raised a Christian, during my university days I joined the communist party with a desire to make the world a better place, to remove injustice and oppression and replace it with equality and freedom and all ideas that communism offers. But after some years, as a student I came to realize that communism could not deliver the goods that they were proposing. And asides that I found that it was lacking in the area of morality as well as in economic theory, which probably is the greatest aspect of communism. It could not compete with capitalism.
So at that point where I became disillusioned and after reading about the massacres of human beings under communist leader Stalin, justified in order to achieve the communist goal, made me even more doubtful. A close friend of mine in the communist party converted to Islam and that caused me to have a look at Islam. Though I had seen Islam before in America in what was called the Nation of Islam by Elijah Muhammad but its theology was so crazy that I could not give it any consideration. Though I was somehow impressed by its teachings, but it wasn’t an option for me back then.
I had read the autobiography of Malcom X which is one of the biggest factors for African Americans to Islam in the earlier stages of the 60s and 70s. But then I guess mentally I wasn’t really ready for it because in most parts he was still talking in context regarding the Nation of Islam. The last part where he talked about how he converted to Islam somehow struck in me.
So what really attracted me to the teaching of Islam was summed up in a book called ‘Islam: The Misunderstood Religion’ written by Muhammad Qutb. This, in a comparative political study, was sufficiently convincing to win me over to the religion of Islam. However it took some months after reading the book, you could say intellectually I was convinced, I read more and talked to more people and all that and then had my own personal experience with God or what I felt was the hand of God giving me that final push to make the final step into Islam. That in a nutshell was how I converted to Islam.
What was that personal experience which gave you that push?
I guess the biggest challenge for me after being a communist for so many years was denying the existence of God. It was accepting that existence that really gave me that final push. It was an experience which I had in a half-dream-half-awake state where I saw myself entering into darkness and could find no way out, feeling as if I was dying, trying to call out to those around me to help me but none could hear me. Unable to help myself, I gave up hope and thought I would die but at that point when I gave up and submitted my life I woke up and that reinforced in my mind that there was obviously a God. He helped me when I could not help myself, or when no one else could and so that experience gave me that final push and realization that there is really no other god than Allah.
What is your take on the terrorism associated with Islam?
Absolutely not! My focus has been more on education and teaching, I have lectured in many parts of the world and my focus has always been on education as a university lecturer. I have set up universities of Islamic studies. In any case I do not support the use of violence in propagating Islam and in trying to prevent political or ideological challenges for succeeding against Muslims. I speak and teach against it, my books warn against it.
What were some of the challenges you faced when you reverted to Islam?
Actually I did not face many challenges; my parents were very open minded, they had actually lived in Nigeria, Malaysia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, so they had lived amongst Muslims and they were both teachers, so teaching was in our blood. They had many good Muslim friends and were sympathetic to Islam, they were happy for me. Eventually 21 years after I accepted Islam both my parents accepted Islam. The rest of my family accepted and respected my choice to become a Muslim.
The only problem that I would say I had when I first became a Muslim was not having access to Arabic learning and a clear picture of Islamic practice. The basic teachings I understood however learning the practice I found differences from various Muslims in different places. They were all following different methods which created a bit of confusion for me and that caused me within a year after I accepted Islam to go and study Islam and Arabic from the sources in Saudi Arabia.
A lot of the controversy which is in the world today concerning Islam is a product of rising consciousness among Muslims and that on its own is obvious. Twenty something years ago Islam was not in the newspapers as it is today.
Your school has over 150,000 students from over 219 countries, where do you see the school in the next five years?
In the next five years I hope we should hit over a million students and the goal of the school is to reach out to as many as we can. We want to reach the masses of Muslims and make it as accessible to them as possible. Obviously the school is not about making money, the goal is to reach out to Muslims from an Islamic prospective.
