...In 2002 I was asked to edit and proofread a translation of Jihad al-Nafs by al-Hurr al-Amili, and in this way I discovered who the Imams (as) were. It seemed wrong to me that I had never heard of them, and that Sunnis never talked about them, or seemed to know about them. I then read Nahj al-Balagha and was shocked to encounter the personality of Imam Ali (as) so closely, because, as a Sunni, I had just seen him as ‘one of the companions’, and had never discovered his teachings, even though he is the Gate to the City of Knowledge. Imam Ali’s (as) personality in Nahj al-Balagha is very strong, and his views on his situation are very clear. In Sunni books I had learned that Imam Ali (as) was weak, but here I found that he was very strong, a true leader. I began to read more and more, a realised that this shining path of knowledge had been hidden from the majority of the umma. Who had hidden it? I began to investigate the history and gradually discovered everything that had happened. When I realised that the path of Ahl al-Bayt (as) was the true path of knowledge, I had a dream in which a pious man told me ‘We will show you the Shi‘a path on condition that you use it for the purposes of peace.’ I took these instructions seriously, and I still do. We should not use the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt (as) to argue, or cause bad feeling, but with the aim of bringing people to an understanding.
At first my family did not like it that I had converted to Islam. They were upset, and our relations became quite bad at one time, but now, more than ten years later, they show me respect and say that they are proud of me. I have to thank Allah (swt) from rescuing me from a false way life and bringing me to the true way of life where I can gain the knowledge that I was always seeking. Salutations to the Messenger and His Purified Progeny (as)