My way

About my conversion to Ahmadiyyat the 22nd of July 1967

I was studying pedagogic and the English language, literature, phonetics etc for my MA in English at the Lund university in southern Sweden since my matriculation examination in June 1965. I lived in a student hostel built in a series of one-story buildings in a semi-circle around a big lawn with a small pond in the middle. Each house contained 10 rooms, one kitchen, 1 shower, 1 toilet and one telephone booth (the mobile/cell phone was not invented by then) and a veranda outside. It was situated in the outskirts of Lund, Sweden, but still close enough to the university to make it possible for me to walk to my classes every day, though it would take some time.

Lund is a very small city but very crowded when all the students are at place. Lund is one of the biggest universities in all the Nordic countries. It is one of the two oldest universities in Sweden and Lund, founded in 1666, comes on second place after Uppsala. It has now (2009) almost 30000 students and several Nobel Prize winners have studied there.

I think it must have been in 1966 I fell ill with pain in my throat and high fever. The medicine I got did not work. Since I was alone in the student’s hostel, I did not get any help. Though there were other students, we were usually not acquainted with each other, I was the only one studying languages and most of the others were students of law, originating from Gothenburg actually. After over a week with a temperature between 38 and 41, I was dehydrated and could not anymore look after myself. I managed to write a note requesting anyone who saw it to call my mother and tell her I needed immediate help. I placed on the kitchen table in hope someone would see it and act on it.

Yet it took several days before anyone reacted, but eventually someone of the other students called my mother. She got very upset and called a special taxi, which could be used as an ambulance as well, and went all the way to Lund, e.g. some 300 kilometres one way. She got help to get me on the stretcher from the car and took me home to my grandmother’s (nani-jan’s, eg. Mother\s mother) house in Tranemo, where the stretcher was carried inside and I was put to bed. She had arranged for a doctor to be present on our arrival. He confirmed I was near dying and said I had a streptococcus tonsillitis and gave me antibiotics and arranged for increased fluid intake and promised to come back some few hours later. I do not remember much from these confusing hours, the fever was high.

While lying there in my grandmother’s guest room, in a comfortable bed with white bed sheets with delicate broad laces which she had crocheted herself with her own hands, after some time I was aware of my brains being clearer and I did not feel so hot anymore, but I was very afraid the fever would come back. From nowhere came the thoughts about religion. I was utterly weak but my thoughts were strong. I thought that I was a Christian only because my parents were, and their parents before them. That I actually only followed in their footsteps, but without actually knowing if this was right or wrong. Maybe by ignorance or lazyness or just not thinking of the matter of religion being a serious issue.

A few years earlier, I had been a religious teacher for children in the Sunday school held by the church in the city of Lysekil, where we lived at that time. But after rather a short time I had to leave this work, because I could not believe in what I was teaching. I felt real agony that I was teaching the small children something I felt to be a lie. I could simply not believe in the trinity. It was right out impossible for me to believe that an almighty, powerful God would need to get a son – he could surely speak to the people directly if He so wanted. So I left my position and caused quite some worry to the clergy and other responsible persons in the church sphere. My grandmother was sad since she had been proud about my doing this voluntary service. But I insisted on leaving it.

Now, back to the scene of my grandmother’s guestroom, I was so weak and very ill with high fever, but I remembered all this about my leaving as a teacher in the Sunday school. And just from nowhere came the thought very strongly to me that maybe I had based all my life up till now on a lie. How could I know that I was Christian, if I had not found out by myself? Yes, I did trust my parents and grandparents, but I was aware of that they might have been misled for the same reasons as I had. And if so, I was merely following someone else who was misled in his/her turn. I was quite shocked about my own thoughts and I started to pray to God.

This was not unusual. I did pray to God now and then, especially when in trouble. And I always believed in His existence. But now, when fearing that I would die this very day or at least very soon, in sorrow, pain and agony, I prayed: Oh God, please let me live! If you let me live, I promise you that I will try to find out which is the right and true religion. Please let me do something useful in my life and not waste it. Oh my God, please let me live!

Then I fell asleep and when I woke up, the fever had gone. I was still very weak, I could not stand on my legs at all, but the fever was gone. And I was told that several days had passed and I had been unconscious. It was difficult to imagine. But with the loving care of my mother and my grandmother I gradually regained my strength and in a way I returned to life.

Being a young person, not inclined to deep, philosophical thoughts, I soon forgot the whole thing and enjoyed life and my studies, as before.

Then one day, maybe half a year later, I suddenly remembered. I remembered that I had promised God to find out the truth – and then I had just forgotten it. I was ashamed and also afraid that God would be angry with me, so I again prayed and promised to fulfil my promise to Him. I did not want to be forgetful of His great mercy on me, granting me a new life when I was actually dying. So to fulfil my promise I went to the library and I started to study all books I could find about various religions in the world. I did not want to leave a single one aside without consideration. But in my heart, I was quite sure to find that Christianity was the correct one, so I was very confident that I was actually doing this study only to confirm that I was going on the right path. Furthermore it was too a painful thought that I had been going the wrong way all my life before and my parents and grandparents and all generations before me.

I very soon left the primitive religions aside. I could not believe that one can pray to a stone or some hand made article. And in this way, I excluded one religion after the other and in the final end I had three possible religions in front of me, and I had to make up which one I thought to be the right one for me.

These three remaining religions were Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Soon I had to admit that it could not be Christianity, for the same reasons that once made me leave my work as a Sunday school teacher. I was shaken deep down inside me about this insight and it was as if my whole world turned upside down.
And so I was left with Judaism and Islam. At this moment, Islam was still so far from my mind that I started to investigate if it was possible for me to convert to Judaism, while I was still reading some remaining books. But there came a day, when I had to admit that Judaism could not be for me.
As far as I remember now the main reason was that Judaism concerns one people, not all people all over the world. And I could not believe that God would favour only one people, one blood line rather than a matter of belief, and leave all others as something rejected. That did not fit with my strong opinion about God as most just and fair.

So I decided that Islam was my way, my religion. My belief that there was one God alone, was very clear. And Islam is for all who want to believe. Eg. everyone has a free choice to believe, meaning that everyone who so wants has a free ticket to faith and to the love of God. So I was firm in my final decision that I was a Muslim and nothing else.

But I started to wonder where the other Muslims were? It could not be that I was here all alone. The situation was odd, I did not know any other Muslims around and I did not know where to find them. Now, 2017, I know that there was for ex. not even a Pakistani embassy in Sweden at that time. But I had a strong feeling that I must try to get in touch with other Muslims.
I knew that if I want to convert to Christianity for ex, I must undergo some ceremony, be baptised etc. and to become a member in a club for ex., I would have to apply for membership and be accepted as a member, and I had some idea that some kind of procedure was needed for me as a Muslim, since it was a must for me to belong somewhere and not hang loose in the air. So I started to pray that God might open an opportunity for me.

Furthermore, there were many things I could not understand and not even accept in the books I read about Islam, but I soon found out that they were all, without any exception, written by Christians. Considering this, I realized that it would maybe be too much to demand that followers of one religion should write too positively about another religion, so I decided to leave those issues be for the time being.
I decided to pray to God to show me the right reply regarding all these questions. Since God is almighty, I felt a complete trust that He could and would give me the answers I was looking for. I was aware of these unsolved matters, but they did not worry me. At the same time I knew that whatever the answer would be, it would not change my belief in one God. It was also clear to my mind that God’s decisions and rules must be perfect, so if there was any difficulty it could only depend on my own lack of understanding.

I started to try to live as a Muslim, to my best knowledge. About prayers for example, I had no idea about direction, positions or which words to say, so I prayed, as I used to do as a child, kneeling beside my bedside.

Several months passed in this way. One morning when I went to the kitchen of the student hostel to prepare my breakfast, there was a newspaper on the table, probably forgotten by someone of the other students. While waiting for my tea to get ready I glanced through the paper and my eyes fell on a small adverticement. There was a small photoe of a mosque and the headline below read: “The first mosque in Scandinavia now inaugurated in Copenhagen, Denmark.” It is for me, I thought. This is God’s sign for me. I must go there!

I had never been in Denmark before and I was terrified to undertake such a long journey all alone, but I decided to go there next day. I wrote up all information about the locality I could find in the paper. The next day I dressed in the most beautiful dress I had, a pink suit (I have kept it with me all these years). But I knew nothing about Muslim way of dress, so the skirt was rather short. There was a long walk to the railway station in Lund and there I took the train to Malmö. I had never been there before, so I had no idea about where to find the ferry to Copenhagen, but luckily I found a policeman to ask. He looked a bit odd at me when I asked him, and told me to go to the corner of the building. I thought he was teasing me, but I had to do as he told. When I reached the corner, I realized that the railway station was actually lying on the quay and that the ferry could be seen a bit ahead. I blushed, feeling embarrassed, realizing that the policeman must have thought I was teasing him or trying to be funny.
Anyhow I walked to the ferry and bought a ticket and soon I was in Copenhagen. Again I had no idea about where to go. There was a bus stop just opposite the ferry, so I went there, but nowhere was the word “Hvidovre” (one suburb to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark) written. I anyhow decided to ask the bus driver. When the bus came, the driver told I could go with this bus now, but I would have to change to another bus later. So I went on. I had to change bus twice before I was in Hvidovre, but still I could not see any mosque and I was very worried. The bus driver kindly pointed out a direction for me, and I started walking. I had been up since early morning, I was getting tired and the walk seemed endlessly long. But all of a sudden it was there. It was really there. With a turquoise cupola and white bricks it looked so beautiful that I could feel tears in my eyes.

But now I had to face the next challenge. I had expected a lot of people to be there and that it would be all easy now when I had found the mosque. But no. I knocked the door – noone opened. I went around, forward and backward – but there was noone. I knocked again and I called out loudly: “Hello!” But no reply. I could not go back now, I thought, not when I had come this far, so I prayed in my heart, oh God, please help me. I was so tired, but there was not even a bench to sit on.

After a very long time a man came up from some stairs. He was dark and evidently not from Denmark.
“Yes,” he said, “what do you want?”
What did I want? I did not know the name of the person in charge of the mosque, so I did not know who I should ask for and again I felt very embarrassed. So I said:
“I would like to speak to the mosque man”.
“Hein”, he said, “what do you mean?” And then he laughed at me.
I repeated my words that I wanted to speak to the mosque man, feeling quite embarrassed that he was laughing at me. I came to give my life in the hands of God, now when I finally had found a mosque wgere I could do this, and the man was laughing at me. When he looked the same confused, I added:
“the man who is in charge of this mosque.”
He continued to laugh as if I had said something very funny.
“They are all out” he replied.
“When will they be back?”
“I do not know.”
“But will they come today? Or tomorrow? Or when?”
“Well, today”.
“And what time?”
“I do not know.”
“Can I wait?”
“Well OK, but it might take time.”
“Is there a chair for me to sit while waiting?”
“Well yes…” And he went to fetch a chair.

When he came with it, he asked me why I was there and I told him that I want to be a Muslim. Up till then he had not told me his name or who he was and I did not feel welcome. I was near to start crying but I felt that I could not walk away now when I had come so far. For some reason, not understandable for me, he placed the chair inside the mosque. It was cold there, and I had only thin clothes since the day was very sunny and warm outside. I could not understand why I had to sit there in the darkness and after some time I was freezing terribly, but I was too shy to say this. He fetched another chair and started to talk to me in broken English, but I was so frustrated that I am sorry to admit that I do not remember a single word of what he had said. In this way I waited for hours and hours. When I felt I could hardly endure it anymore, he said we should go out and eat and he told me to follow. So I did, thinking anything would be better than to sit there freezing. Furthermore I had not eaten since very early in the morning, so I was rather hungry. We walked and walked till my feet were aching, but he did not find any place open where we could find food. I was so distressed that I can not even remember if we ever found a place to eat or had to go back with empty stomachs.
(Later I was told he was a dentist named Abdul Ghafoor Qureshi, at that time residing in Norway, after that he moved to Frankfurt in Germany and married a Swiss lady. But these facts have not been confirmed. I also heard that he later on told others that he is the one who converted me to Ahmadiyyat, which, to my understanding, is of course not fully correct, since I studies Islam on my own initiative and I had already made up my mind long before going to the newly inaugurated mosque in Denmark, which will be obvious to anyone who reads this story of mine).

When we came back to the mosque evidently some people had arrived. The man escorting me started to speak quickly with some other men in a language I had never heard before. They looked at me but noone greeted me nor talked to me. Again I felt mostly like I would start to cry and run away from there and I started to worry about what I had done and that it was just mad of me to be there. Then someone approached me, and said that I was to see Hazur. I did not know who that was or why I had to see him, but I thought I can at least ask him about the “Mosque man” when I see him, so I remained silent. Then I heard someone saying in English slightly behind me, so I could not see who it was:
“Should we give her a bath?” Then I was really getting afraid, would these men give me a bath, by force, take off my clothes and who knows what they were going to do with me, and I was just going to run away from there the fastest I could, when a kind voice said calmly to me:
“Please come here, Hazur wants to see you.”
Relieved to escape that forced bath and whatever more, I entered the door and was shown in to a sitting room with many chairs. I was told to sit down on one of them and so I did. Then came a lot of men into the room – not a single woman, which again made me worried about what all these men were going to do with me.
Then appeared a man wearing a white turban. He greeted me and his eyes were so kind and his face so full of peace and heavenly light that all my fear and worries just vanished. Still I was a bit nervous, not sure how to explain why I had come, but at the same time quite comfortable. The man in the white turban, actually the very first turban I had ever seen in all my life, started to talk to me in a soft and gentle way. He spoke English and he asked me who I was and what was the purpose of my visit. So I tried to explain it to him. Among other things he asked me if I knew where Pakistan was situated. This was the only moment I felt embarrassed since I had no idea and did not want to say it right out, so I tried to avoid it by saying:
“Somewhere in the direction of Turkey or so.”
But he did not get angry, he was not annoyed. He continued to look at me the same kind way and talk to me in the same very soft and gentle way. Then some other difficult questions came up. He asked me if I wanted to be an Ahmadi Muslim or a Muslim. I did not know the difference. He gave me a short explanation, but I could still not fully understand. There were too many new impressions and it had happened too much during this day, my brains could not fully grasp what he was telling. I was near to cry again and said that I wanted to be a Muslim. Then he told me kindly that I must decide and I must choose between the two. I was in great agony. I could not imagine to go back home again, after all this long and difficult journey – and still not be a member, still not belong anywhere. To be sent away seemed as the worse punishment ever and I did not know what to do. So in my heart I prayed: “Oh God, help me, what should I reply?”

Then I asked the man with the turban if this mosque, where we were sitting was an Ahmadi Muslim mosque? He replied
“yes!”.
“Then, I said, “I want to be an Ahmadi Muslim.” He looked at me without saying anything, so I continued:
“Because God directed me to this very mosque, not to anyone else, so this is the mosque where I belong.”
He looked at me very intensely for some time, and I could feel that he was seeing my heart. Then he smiled and turned to the men sitting on his left and said
“She knows nothing, but she wants it very much, so please bring the Bai’at form”.

And at last a form was brought, and I could sign it, as I had wanted all the time. It was signed in the presence of the Third Khalifa, Hadhrat Mirza Nasir Ahmad, may Allah be pleased with him. Thus I signed my Bai’at at the hands of Hadrat Mirza Nasir Ahmad (may Allah be pleased with him) personally, the 22nd of July 1967 (eg. 57 years ago) in the Copenhagen Mosque, Denmark, only one day after the inauguration of the same, eg. the first Mosque in Scandianvia and in the Nordic countries. So in that sence, I am one of the ”oldest” members in Europe. And on that occasion, Hadrat Mirza Nasir Ahmad (may Allah be pleased with him) gave me my Muslim name ”Qanita” and he explained that it means “obedient”..
We remained sitting there and talked a little bit more. He gave me my muslim name Qanita and someone kindly wrote it down for me on a piece of paper. He also told me that I must write to him about everything, if I needed help. I should not hesitate to write about just everything, about my studies, if I had economical difficulties or other worries. He appeared to be just like a loving father or grandfather, and I felt such great comfort and happiness deep down in my heart. He also told me that I must pay a fee, but since I was a student with very small means, it could be a symbolical amount. He also said that it was between me and God, noone would come chasing me about money. Finally he also told that he had known that I was coming, since he had seen me in a dream during the night before.

Later I have tried to recall who else was in the room while I signed my Bai’at. I remember Kamal Yousuf, Missionary in Denmark, Saiful Islam Mahmud Eriksson, honorary missionary in Sweden, Noor Ahmad Bølstad, honorary missionary in Norway.
The only woman I saw at that time was Khadidja (Jamila Kupfmann) from Germany.

Dr. Qanita
Sweden