From Darkness To Light

I grew up being one of the most anti-Muslim, anti-Islam people you could ever meet. If someone like me can become Muslim, there’s hope for anybody.


I was born Anna Linda Traustadóttir to Icelandic/Danish parents in Reykjavík, Iceland in 1966 and baptized into the Lutheran Church. My family moved to Vancouver, Canada and then to New York City when I was young. I finished high school at 16. In 1988, I got my B.A. from McGill University, Montréal, Canada. Since then I have been traveling around the world, studying and working. Denmark has been my base since 1990.


In 1997, while studying Arabic in Cairo, one of my English girlfriends, a born-again Christian bought me a portable Bible, with both the Old and New Testaments. I was extremely pleased because I had decided that I needed to know what the Bible was and what was in it. And I felt that I could hardly call myself Christian without consciously studying the Bible.


In 1998, whilst studying at Damascus University, I read the whole Bible, from cover to cover, taking notes as I went along. Once I had completed it, I realized that there were too many inconsistencies, too many things I didn’t agree with. Like the Old Testament’s portrayal of God and women, not to mention all the things that Paul wrote in the New Testament. And when I read about the holy men, the Prophets, like Noah, Lot, David, etc., I found that I didn’t respect them. I love and admire Moses (from the Old Testament) and Jesus (from the New Testament).


Having already read the Torah, I tried getting a complete Jewish Talmud, to no avail.. My mum and I used to discuss Hinduism and so I was very interested in it, but there are just too many Hindu gods for me. Therefore Hinduism was out of the question. When I had my son, Andrés Ómar, in October 2001, I was asked whether he would be baptized, and even then I refused. I felt that innocent children would surely be welcome in Heaven, baptized or not. Anyway, how could I introduce him into the Christian religion when I myself did not call myself a believing Christian, though I was born and raised as a Protestant? I didn’t believe in the Trinity, in Mary as the “mother” of God, in Jesus as the “son” of God.


I grew up being one of the most anti-Muslim, anti-Islam people you could ever meet. I had also been anti-Arab before moving to Cairo to study Arabic (I thought Arabic calligraphy was beautiful). I’d grown up in the States, raised on American movies, which always portrayed Arabs as fundamentalists, radicals, women-oppressors, religious fanatics, terrorists, never normal, average people. When I read the Qur’an, I thought it was beautiful, so scientific, so compassionate, so feminist!


In 1999, I went back to Damascus to work at an embassy. There in 2000, I met an engineer named Mohannad. We married soon after we met. To be honest when I married Mohannad, I married him because I loved him, even though he was Muslim. Over time, I realized I loved him because he was Muslim. A good Muslim. I had met many Muslims here in Denmark and in the Middle East, and just like in my life, I’ve met some nice and not-so-nice Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. I thought all those Muslims I’d met were representing Islam. And whenever I asked Muslims questions about Islam, one thing struck me: Nearly everyone claimed to be an expert in Islam, even those who gave me, I later found out, false information. It would have been more prudent just to say: I don’t know/I’m not sure. Yet I never judged Christianity or any other religion by its followers. Strangely though, I judged Islam by every Arab I meet.


During Ramadan, November 2002, I asked Mohannad whether he would help me read the Qur’an in Arabic. He had little time, but I was determined to read the Qur’an in Arabic with the help of a good translation. When I read the Qur’an, Islam’s holiest book, I thought it was beautiful, so scientific, so compassionate, so feminist!


It says in the Qur’an that Allah can put a veil over our eyes and a stone over our hearts so that we can neither see nor feel the message of the Qur’an. Only when Allah is ready for us to know it, do we understand. On 12 December 2002, I had an incredible dream that started me thinking and contemplating religion more deeply. Dreams are very important in Iceland and dream interpretation is practically a science! I never thought I needed a religion. Religion fascinated me, but I had believed I was doing fine just believing in God, taking bits from different religions until I got my own cocktail: “Anna’s Mix.”


In January 2003, I started looking at the Internet, just doing searches like: “Islam,” “Qur’an,” “Muslim,” etc. In March, whilst in Reykjavík, I got the opportunity to speak with one of my best Icelandic girlfriends, a Muslim, and she recommended a really good English translation (the Abdullah Yusuf Ali version), to go along with the original Arabic. In April, I received it and started using it as a supplement.


In May 2003, my Icelandic Muslim friend returned the visit and stayed two weeks with us. We started talking about the Qur’an. I told her that I wanted to translate it into Icelandic. She told me it was her dream too.


Now I found myself seeing myself Muslim. I told my husband about my revelations, and he questioned me at length. He asked me to wait with changing my religion. He told me that becoming Muslim would make my life more difficult, that people who didn’t know Islam would treat me differently, that at this time, in the year 2003, and in this world we live in, people would ridicule me. He said I might lose contact with my family and my friends if I took on the Muslim faith. He feared that people that didn’t know me so well or that I hadn’t seen in a long time, or ever met him, would think he was forcing me to become Muslim. I told him if that were true, we could not have got married, for when we married, I was Christian, and had remained Christian up until then. Also, I argued, people who have known me at all know I am a strong-minded, true feminist/humanist, that I am opinionated, but not narrow-minded, and that no one can control me... My parents have tried for years to no avail!


When I read the Qur’an, I feel it in my stomach, deep in my gut, that this is right for me.

I decided then and there that if friends and family didn’t want any contact with me because I decided to become Muslim, so be it! My religion is mine and I am proud of my research into Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. It has taken me years and countless hours of reading and soul-searching to get to this point. My belief in God is something I have always taken seriously and I have never been ashamed to declare this faith, even when others ridicule me for believing in something they say we cannot see. I argue, look around you, how can you not believe in a supreme being that created everything around us. And for those of you that view Islam as some kind of cult, it isn’t. It’s one of the biggest religions in the world, if not the largest: One in four people on this planet is now Muslim, and it’s the fastest growing religion.


So finally, on 4 June 2003, I decided to officially become Muslim so that I could go on Hajj to Makkah.


I always try to be positive, so I think it’s a very exciting time, the 21st century! If someone like me can become Muslim, there’s hope for anybody! The friends that I have discussed religion with recently know that I have become Muslim, and without fail, they have been extremely supportive. Some even call me by my new Muslim name: Núr, which means light. I also still use Anna Linda, because it’s the name my parents gave me and it represents part of the person I was for 36 years. Núr is just the continuation of me!