I was impressed, and I contacted the CAIR office and offered my support for the article I had read.

This was not my first time encountering those who believed the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was their religious leader. Wherever I have lived, I always have encountered Muslims, and have found them to be generally good people.

Growing up, the Muslim leader, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, influenced me greatly in the areas of politics.

The people at CAIR, however, were not icons like Malcolm X.

They were humble servants who had time to answer my questions, who graciously offered me literature on Islam, and who even invited me to a Ramadan dinner at the mosque in Mission Viejo one evening. And that’s were I was blown away.

Having never been inside a mosque, the whole experience was different than visiting a church or a synagogue. The separation of men and women; the foot washing stalls. What was all this, I wondered?

But when I sat down to eat the dinner that was being served, many of the men sitting by me offered conversation.

They seemed as genuine as the people at CAIR. Then I met Hussam Ayloush, the executive director of that CAIR chapter. He took me and another visitor on a tour of the masjid.

He explained that the mosque was a place for man to become closer to God, and that prayer was the way that Muslims became closer to Allah. He explained why the mosque had no pictures of the Prophet (pbuh), and how Islamic calligraphy developed as a way of showing praise to Allah without the use of pictures.

I remember seeing all of the men in the masjid reading the Qur’an. It was just too much to resist.

So, a few weeks later, I took Shahadah for the first time. A member of the CAIR staff suggested that I take it again under the direction of an imam. I did so, and began attending classes for new Muslims at a local mosque.

But I must be honest and share that there have been growing pains and issues to work out. Some practices of the Muslim world I do not completely understand. I feel I need a greater knowledge of Muslim history and culture.

Nonetheless, I feel good having adopted Islam as my religious orientation. You might want to consider doing so yourself if you are not now a Muslim.