Revert vs. Convert

"To grow in compassion, there must be suffering and the choice to ignore. And so it is with all of the virtues: love, charity, justice, forgiveness, and the others. To grow in each of them, we must have the alternative to do otherwise and the possibility for the existence of hate, indifference, greed, vengeance, and, obviously, suffering. Of course, we must have at least an inclination towards goodness from the start, at least the seed of virtue and piety when we come into this world. This is precisely how Muslim exegetes understood the statement of the Qur'an that God 'breathed into him (man) something of His spirit' (15:29) and the saying of Muhammad that every human is born with an inclination (fitrah) towards self-surrender to God." (Jeffrey Lang, "Struggling to Surrender," emphasis mine)

This inclination towards surrender to God - literally, towards islam with a little i - is why Muslims generally prefer to call converts "reverts," because one who comes into Islam is returning to their original nature, to that seed of virtue and the innate desire to nurture that seed in accordance with and obedience to God. Of course, whether and to what degree a revert to islam (Islam) continues on that path toward surrender to God is entirely personal.

I never liked to call myself a revert to Islam because I never understood the term; I knew the definition, but did not grasp the difference between the "convert" who changes their religion and the "revert" who returns to the divinely-commanded path. "Revert" sounded too religious, too pious, too self-righteous to me. And, looking back, I can see that I was correct to call myself a convert: I had changed my religion, and with that came many changes in behavior and belief, but I had not yet engaged with the path of surrender to God. I did not submit (islam) and I did not have the inner peace that comes with that surrender (salam). Rather, I fought with everything asked of me that was not easy or desirable, or at least interesting. I fasted with great reluctance and suffering, I avoided the dawn prayer, I made excuses for not completing all the (few, really) requirements that the ritual part of the of religion requires.

All right, admittedly I'm being a bit hard on myself here. I don't honestly think I've been a complete hypocrite as a Muslim, but, at the same time - Ya Rabb, what kind of Muslim is this?

And neither am I saying that I'm suddenly all better, I'm a model worshipper and wholly surrendered to my God. No, I'm still awaiting Ramadan with reluctance and not getting up for the dawn prayer. But I am getting awfully tired of making excuses. And I am changing: in my worldview, in the way I think about islam and Islam, and in the thoughts I have about the person I want to be. I'm finally beginning, just beginning, to understand why a convert is a revert, why that is a significant (actually, fundamental) distinction, and how that applies to me. I'm beginning to accept the name and idea of being a revert to islam/Islam and I certainly don't find that the term conveys self-righteousness. Rather, it's humbling in its childlike connotations and challenges me to actually BE one-who-submits ("muslim"), rather than just one who talks about submitting.

Oh, this is shaping up to be an interesting Ramadan. And it doesn't begin for another two weeks.

I'm going to get off my aurah (if you don't know, don't ask me, try Wikipedia : ) and go pray before I get tired and put it off, now that I've put my own feet to the fire, and publicly at that.