Muhammad Ali, formerly Cassius Clay

American boxer, Three times World Heavyweight Champion, embraced Islam in 1965.

I have had many nice moments in my life. But the feelings I had while standing on Mount Arafat (just outside Makka, Saudi Arabia) on the day of the Hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage), was the most unique. I felt exalted by the indescribable spiritual atmosphere there as over one and a half million pilgrims invoked God to forgive them for their sins and bestow on them His choicest blessings.

It was an exhilarating experience to see people belonging to different colours, races and nationalities, kings, heads of state and ordinary men from very poor countries all clad in two simple white sheets praying to God without any sense of either pride or inferiority.

It was a practical manifestation of the concept of equality in Islam.

Bogdan Ataullah Kopanski

Polish, now American. Ph.D in History & Politics.Was imprisoned twice by the Polish Communist Regime (1968, 1981-82) Embraced Islam in 1974.

When I was 12 years old I rejected the illogical and contradictory faith of the Church. Two years later in 1962 I was fascinated by the victorious struggle of the Algerian Muslim Mujaahideen against French Colonialism. It was the first 'arrow' of islaam ...

In high school and in the earliest days of my University education I was a typical example of 'rebel generation' Reds... My way to the Truth of the Qur'aan was slow and unpaved...

In 1974 I visited Turkey, and wrote my M.A. dissertation about Sultan and Caliph Suleiman Kanuni's policy towards the Polish Kingdom. There I was hit by the most beautiful voice of mankind : ADHAAN, the call to prayer. My hair stood up. An unknown powerful force led me to an old masjid (mosque) in Istanbul. There, an old, smiling Turkish man taught me the WUDOO' , or ablution. I confessed to tears the SHAHAADAH (proclamation of faith) and I prayed my first SALAAT-UL-MAGHRIB ( the Evening Prayer)..

I swept out the rubbish ideologies...

For the first time in my life my mind was relaxed and I felt the pleasure of Allaah's love in my heart. I was a Muslim...

Murad Hofman, formerly Wilfried Hofman

Ph.D (Law) Harvard. German Social Scientist and Diplomat. Embraced Islam in 1980.

For some time now, striving for more and more precision and brevity, I have tried to put on paper in a systematic way, all philosophical truths, which, in my view, can be ascertained beyond reasonable doubt. In the course of this effort it dawned upon me that the typical attitue of an agnostic is not an intelligent one; that man simply cannot escape a decision to believe; that the createdness of what exists around us is obvious; that Islaam undoubtedly finds itself in the greatest harmony with overall reality. Thus I realize, not without shock, that step by step, in spite of myself and almost unconsciously, in feeling and thinkng I have grown into a Muslim. Only one last step remained to be taken : to formalize my conversion.

As of today I am a Muslim. I have arrived.

Maryam Jameelah, formerly Ms. Margaret Marcus

American, formerly Jewish. Essayist and journalist. Author of many books. Embraced Islam in 1962.

The authority of Islaamic Morals and Laws proceeds from Almighty God. Pleasure and Happiness in Islaam are but the natural byproducts of emotional satisfaction in one's duties conscientiously performed for the pleasure of God to achieve salvation. In Islaam duties are always stressed above rights. Only in Islaam was my quest for absolute values satisfied. Only in Islaam did I at last find all that was true, good, beautiful and which gives meaning and direction to human life and death.