American born Ismaili shares challanges as Christ follower.

[abdul]

To give you some background, I was born in Florida into an Ismaili family. About 85% of Muslims are Sunni, and of the remaining 15% (which are Shia); about 80% are Twelvers (a.k.a. Ithnasheri). The second largest group of Shia are Ismailis, with an estimated number of followers around 15-30 million. Ismailis are not what Americans typically view as Muslims.

When I was growing up in Florida, my parents decided to put me into a private Christian school due to the rampant drug problems in the local public schools. I attended this school for 14 years (Junior Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and 1st-12th grade), but converted in the latter part of my Junior year of High School, after studying Christianity, and challenging my teachers quite often with hard questions. Converting caused some family strife that was extremely tough for me to handle.

During my University years, I lost some of my fervor, and "put religion on a shelf" for a few years -- not wanting to make an issue of it due to the constant fighting with my parents. However, God was faithful to wake me up again, and I am happily married to a good Christian wife. As the opportunity comes up, I share with my Muslim and Christian friends my challenging journey of trying to prove the Bible false and dealing with my parents once I proved that the Bible can be trusted.

I feel that more and more people need to have a better understanding of the Bible and not discard the Bible as corrupted until they test it thoroughly as I had the opportunity to do. If you'd like to hear about some of the difficulties or apparent contradiction of the Bible that I resolved or if you have some of your own; or perhaps how to deal with parents once you have made that decision, do write to me.

If you would like to contact "Ismail", please click on the link here and write to us. We will forward your email to him.