Touched by Azaan, Scottish man reverts to Islam

Edinburgh: There were rumours across the sphere that Muslims are pressuring people of other religion to convert to ISLAM but a middle-aged, white Scottish man living in the Scottish Highlands has embraced Islam without having properly met a Muslim in his life.

The white Scottish man’ claimed that a spirit of enquiry arose in him when he heard Adaan (Call to Prayer) being recited from local mosque while he was on a beach holiday in Turkey.

“Back home in Inverness (a city in Scotland), I went to the local bookshop, bought a Quran and started to read. While reading, I always asked God to guide me on the journey I had set out on.”

“A lot of praying. A lot of time on my knees,” Alan Rooney wrote in the Independent.

Rooney confessed that the holy Quran ‘really shook’ him because it tells so much about yourself.

Rooney felt that if he halts the process of reading the Holy Quran at any time, it means he would be “giving up something really important.”

“And I knew what the end result of this process would be: I would be a Muslim.”

“So I kept on reading. I read it three times, looking for the catch. But there was no catch; I was quite comfortable with everything,” wrote Rooney.

The difficult part for this Muslim convert was his apprehensive about people looking at him in a different way, which also includes his family, friends and colleagues.

It took 18 months for Rooney before he could pronounce himself Muslim.

“I was praying five times a day, fasting for Ramazan, and eating and drinking only what was considered acceptable according to the teachings of the Quran.”

“Some people take less time, some people more. And I was doing all this on my own, with no-one to help. I still hadn’t met any Muslims,” he wrote.

“If something doesn’t feel right to you, then it’s a clear indication that it’s not for you. You have to listen carefully to your intuition and your heart.”

Rooney learned a mosque in his town.

“They were surprised to see me and didn’t know quite what to do with me at first, except to give me the mosque door combination and to welcome me to their community. I was accepted from the very beginning, however, and am now a constant within the community.”

“I am now a white, middle-aged Scottish Muslim. And happy with it.”