{"id":927,"date":"2019-10-06T21:51:32","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T18:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/06\/how-mohamed-salah-inspired-me-to-become-a-muslim\/"},"modified":"2019-10-06T21:51:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T18:51:32","slug":"how-mohamed-salah-inspired-me-to-become-a-muslim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/how-mohamed-salah-inspired-me-to-become-a-muslim\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mohamed Salah Inspired Me To Become A Muslim!"},"content":{"rendered":"
Ben Bird<\/pre>\n
I have gone from hating Islam to becoming a Muslim \u2013 and the Liverpool forward is the principal reason for that<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Mohamed Salah was the first Muslim I could relate to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
M<\/span><\/span>ohamed Salah really and honestly inspired me. I\u2019m a Nottingham Forest season-ticket holder, I can be myself but because I made the declaration of faith I\u2019m a Muslim. I\u2019m still me and that\u2019s what I took from Mohamed Salah<\/a>. I\u2019d love to meet him, just to shake his hand and say \u201cCheers\u201d or \u201cShukran\u201d.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think my mates quite believe that I\u2019m a Muslim because I\u2019ve not really changed. I just think my heart is better. I\u2019m really trying to change on match days. Normally it\u2019s pub, put a bet on, then after the game back to the pub and realise you\u2019ve lost a lot of money. It\u2019s hard when you\u2019re used to such a culture and it\u2019s part of football for a lot of people.<\/p>\n
How Ben used to think about Islam?<\/span><\/h2>\n
I\u2019m embarrassed to say this but my opinions on Islam used to be that the religion, the culture and the people were backward; that they didn\u2019t integrate and wanted to take over. I always looked at Muslims like the elephant in the room. I had a hatred of Muslims.<\/p>\n
When I was in sixth form it was a period where I think I needed someone to blame for my misfortunes. Unfortunately Muslims got the brunt of it and I quickly discovered right-wing media pages. They sort of groomed me by sending me long propaganda pieces and suchlike.<\/p>\n
Even though I had these horrible ideas of Islam, I would never say them to a Muslim. At this point I didn\u2019t know any Muslims. My degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds changed everything.<\/p>\n
The Academic Study of Islam<\/span><\/h3>\n
We had to do a dissertation and I wanted to do something a bit different. I remember my dyslexia tutor telling me: \u201cWhat about Mohamed Salah\u2019s song?\u201d I was aware of it and I thought it was fantastic but I hadn\u2019t considered it in those terms.<\/p>\n
I finally got the question: \u201cMohamed Salah, a gift from Allah. Is the performance of Mohamed Salah igniting a conversation that combats Islamapobia within the media and political spheres?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Liverpool fans\u2019 song \u2013 to the tune of Dodgy\u2019s hit Good Enough \u2013 includes the line \u201cIf he scores another few then I\u2019ll be Muslim too\u201d, and I literally took that to heart.<\/p>\n
I was a typical white-boy student who went to a different city, would get absolutely hammered and lived the student life. My degree was the first time I learned about Islam in an academic way.<\/p>\n
University gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of students from Saudi Arabia. I thought they were evil people who carried swords but they\u2019re the nicest people I\u2019ve met. The conceptions I had about Arab countries completely dissolved.<\/p>\n
Mohamed Salah was the first Muslim I could relate to<\/span>.<\/h4>\n
It\u2019s the way he lives his life, how he talks to people. The other week he posed for a picture with a Liverpool fan who suffered a broken nose chasing after him. I know some other footballers would do that but you expect it now from Salah.<\/p>\n
At university I interviewed Egyptian students and when they found out my research was about \u201cMohamed Salah, a gift from Allah\u201d \u2013 which is also another Liverpool song \u2013 they would talk to me for hours about how great he is and what he\u2019s done for their country. One million Egyptians spoiled their ballots and voted for him to be president last year.<\/p>\n
One of the Egyptians I talked to told me that Salah encompasses what being a Muslim is, following Islam correctly. He believed that Salah is making people love Muslims again.<\/p>\n
That really resonated with me. When Salah scores I think he\u2019s scoring for the faith. When he won the Champions League I said to my friend that was a victory for Islam. After each of his goals Salah practises the sujood (prostration) and exposes a very Islamic symbol to the world. How many people watch the Premier League every week? Millions globally.<\/p>\n
Salah showed me that you can be normal and a Muslim, if that\u2019s the right phrase. You can be yourself. He\u2019s a great player and is respected by the football community and his politics, his religion, don\u2019t matter \u2013 and to me that\u2019s what football can do.<\/p>\n
True Islam is not portrayed in the media<\/span><\/h2>\n
When people read the Quran, or read about Islam, they see something different that is not always portrayed in the media. I\u2019m new to the Islamic community and I\u2019m still learning. It is hard. It\u2019s a lifestyle change.<\/p>\n
What would I say to the Ben of old? I\u2019d give him a smack, to be honest, and I\u2019d say: \u2018How dare you think like that about a people that are so diverse. You need to start talking to people. You need to start asking the questions.\u2019 We live in a multicultural, multifaith, multinational society.<\/p>\n
Last season Chelsea fans were singing \u201cSalah is a bomber\u201d. That\u2019s the first time on my social media that I had a right go. I was livid because I\u2019m for football banter but you know when things are just not true.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019d say to Muslim kids: \u2018Don\u2019t be afraid to go to a football match.\u2019 I think that\u2019s an issue we have to look at from both sides. I was afraid of being segregated. I don\u2019t want to lose my mates because I look at them as brothers to me. Now I\u2019ve got a fifth of the world\u2019s population as brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n
The community has to branch out, play football, go to football. It\u2019s up to us to realise that we\u2019re in this together. And the best spokesman for that could be Mohamed Salah.<\/p>\n
Ben Bird was speaking to Tusdiq Din<\/em><\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\n
Source: The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
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Ben Bird tells his story of conversion to Islam and how he was affected by Mohamed Salah to an extent that his hatred of Islam ends and he becomes a Muslim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":928,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[510,2],"tags":[4004,4005,4006,167,4007,4008,4009,4010,4011,4012,4013,4014,4015,4016,4017,4018,4019,4020,4021,4022,4023,4024,4025,4026,4027,4028,4029,4030,4031,4032,4033,4034,4035],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conversion-stories","category-new-muslims","tag-5-facts-about-mohamed-salah","tag-al-jazeera-mohamed-salah","tag-biografia-e-mohamed-salah","tag-featured","tag-mohamed-salah-ad","tag-mohamed-salah-en-arabe","tag-mohamed-salah-facebook","tag-mohamed-salah-goals","tag-mohamed-salah-injury","tag-mohamed-salah-liverpool","tag-mohamed-salah-no-shirt","tag-mohamed-salah-png","tag-mohamed-salah-song-download","tag-mohamed-salah-song-liverpool","tag-mohamed-salah-song-lyrics","tag-mohamed-salah-song-youtube","tag-mohamed-salah-songs","tag-mohamed-salah-supporters","tag-mohamed-salah-t-shirt-liverpool","tag-mohamed-salah-the-economist","tag-mohamed-salah-the-egyptian-king","tag-mohamed-salah-the-egyptian-king-song","tag-mohamed-salah-the-guardian","tag-mohamed-salah-the-independent","tag-mohamed-salah-the-story","tag-mohamed-salah-twitter","tag-mohamed-salah-","tag-mohammed-al-salah","tag-number-1-mohamed-salah","tag-o-mohamed-salah","tag-the-economist-mohamed-salah","tag-the-guardian-mohamed-salah","tag-the-independent-mohamed-salah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Ben-1.jpg?fit=1920%2C1152&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ZvKT-eX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}