 Save 10% with my code Bobby10 on raw, organic, grass-fed and grass-finished, freeze-dried organ meats from grassland nutrition. Link in the description box. Alright guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new, my name is Bobby. Guys, you really wanted me to react to Idris Taufik's conversion story. The video is titled My Journey to Islam. Idris Taufik was a British writer, public speaker and consultant. He became a Muslim around 15 years ago. For many years, he was head of religious education in different schools in the United Kingdom. Before embracing Islam, he was a Roman Catholic priest. He passed away in peace in the UK February 2016 after a period of illness. I have never heard about this man before, may God rest his soul in peace. With no further ado, let's have a look. In the name of Allah, most gracious, most compassionate, I went to the bishop and told him that I'd like to take it a step further and become a priest. After my training in Rome would finish, I returned back to the UK, was ordained a priest and I worked as a Roman Catholic priest in a parish and that was a very privileged time too. I was working with good people and it was a privileged occasion for people to let you into their lives when their babies were born to baptize them, to marry people, to hear their confessions, to say, to anoint the sick, to get a phone call in the middle of the night and be asked to go and anoint your mother who's dying. Very privileged occasion to be a priest. And so when I look back at my time in the church, I have deep gratitude to Allah Almighty and people say to me, Brother Idris, what a change in your life. You are going in this direction and then all of a sudden you change. I see no change. I look back on my life and I see a straight line and I see when I was sitting in those lecture halls in Rome. I can totally resonate with that because it feels the same way for me personally as well. From the outside people are wondering, why would you look into Islam? Are you not orthodox Christian? But for me personally it was a straight line as well. First and foremost I was born into orthodoxy but then during my youth I of course straight up the path. In my 20s I dabbled in Buddhism, Shamanism, Hinduism and whatnot and I went fully off the path or at least it seemed like that but in reality I simply saw life how it is without religion, how it is without God and for me God knows this perspective was needed so I can see holistically how life is through different lenses. Once that fabric crumbled of Shamanism of free spiritedness, if you will, I returned to Christian orthodoxy just to further seek God and I would say that this is the red thread here. I was always seeking God no matter what I did even when I turned my back on God I was still seeking God subconsciously. It was always a path to God and for me now Islam is simply the next step in that journey. Learning about Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Bible and church history I can see now that I wasn t training to be a priest. I was training to be talking to you today as a Muslim that I know now that it was Allah Almighty s plan for the beginning of time that I would be Muslim and I d be sitting here today talking to you about Islam. So how did it happen? Why did I leave the priesthood? Not because there is no denying God s plan so even if we perceive a certain randomness within our life even that randomness just e cures a randomness to us in reality it is perfect because everything follows God s plan. I had any problem with the church. None at all. I was happy being a Catholic and I had no plan to leave my religion but Allah Almighty this is very important. God Almighty speaks to us in different ways. He wants to bring us to Him. Some people He speaks to them through sport or through a beautiful sunrise or through the words of the Quran or through science. He spoke to me through my heart because as a priest you know that priests in the church they don t marry and I was very lonely. I was lonely and I made a very difficult decision. I didn t want to leave the Catholic church but I decided I would leave my job as a priest. So I left the church. I left the priesthood and leaving the priesthood is like a death and a divorce and your house burning down all rolled into one. It s a big deal. So I needed something to cheer me up having left the priesthood. So I decided I needed a holiday. I had no money so I went on the internet and looked for the cheapest holiday I could find and the cheapest holiday I could find was a holiday to Egypt. Now I knew nothing about Egypt. Sand, camels, pyramids, oh and just one other problem Muslims. I had never met a Muslim in my life. All I knew about Muslims was what the television told. This is the UK back in the day nowadays he surely would have met a Muslim. That they chop your hands off and that they blow themselves up and that they hit ladies. So I thought to myself oh this is a bit dangerous. If I go on holiday to Egypt maybe I ll be kidnapped. Maybe these Muslims will seize me and chop my head off. But in the end I said well I have no money I have no choice. So I went and that week on holiday in Egypt changed my life because for the first time in my life I encountered I met Islam. The first Muslim I met in my life was not some important sheikh. My introduction to Islam was not through reading a book about Islam or watching a TV programme or listening to a sermon by a Muslim preacher. My introduction to Islam came from a little kid in the street cleaning shoes and I walked past him one day and he saw my white skin. This little boy he was thin and he was wearing little plastic flip-flops on his feet and he saw my white skin and he said to me assalamu alaikum peace be upon you and he meant it. You know he meant this little kid he meant peace be upon you and for the week I was in Cairo I would walk past the boy every day near my hotel and I learned some words in Arabic to say to him. I learned to say Zayek, Zayki Habib, Zayki Agamil and he would reply to me all praise be to Allah. So my introduction to Islam came from a little kid greeting me with the words assalamu alaikum and all praise be to Allah. This reminds me of my first prayer in the mosque here in Thailand. Yes I said it before I want to make a separate video about it but I didn't come around to it. Nevertheless a little spoiler alert here. When we went to prayer the mosque was full with children. It was an Islamic village and in that Islamic village obviously you have Islamic schools. So during the prayer time all the school children gathered in the mosque. It was an absolute amazing introduction for me personally. It is so innocent it is so beautiful of course to be surrounded by all of those praying little children. Moreover even the adhan the call to prayer was recited by a little boy. It was absolutely heartwarming. So when I went home from Egypt to the end of the week I knew nothing about Islam but I knew that Muslims weren't what the television told me. So I went back home I was without a job. I needed to get a job so I got a job teaching in a school. Remember my background was in a teaching order. So I got a job in a state school. I think in the US and Canada you'd call it a public school and this was a very naughty school. The kids in this school were very very naughty kids but they were also Arab children. So a lot of them were Muslims. So my job was to teach the children in the school about the six major world religions. Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Now I knew about Christianity and I knew enough about Judaism but the other four I knew nothing about. So to teach Islam to these Muslim kids and I was teaching them for public exams. I had to get the books out each night and read about Islam to teach them and the more and more time went on the more I read the more I liked what I read. I liked what I was reading until it came maybe three four months into into this journey and I found myself I was mentioning the name of Prophet Muhammad upon him be peace and tears would come in my eyes when I was teaching the kids or a lump would come in my throat which I quickly had to disguise because these were rough kids you know you couldn't you couldn't let anything away with them. Ramadhan came and they approached me and they said sir we've got nowhere to pray in Ramadhan and your classroom is the only room in the school with a carpet coincidence. My room was the only room in the school with a carpet and a wash basin they needed a wash basin to perform the evolution before prayer so they said can we use your classroom to pray. So again this was part of the journey the long and the short is that during Ramadan they prayed and I sat at the back and marked my books and prepared my lessons but basically after a few days began to watch them pray and I'd look up and say oh they're doing this now and now they're doing this and I became fascinated and I went to the internet and without telling them I learned off by heart the Arabic words they were saying so at the end of Ramadan I knew how to pray these kids had taught me how to pray and as well at the beginning of Ramadan when they'd said can we pray in your room I said yes but also I said in solidarity with you I'm not a Muslim but I'll fast with you during the month of Ramadan so at the end of that Ramadan I'd learned how to pray and I'd fasted not for Allah's sake but I'd fasted to encourage the children's faith so more and more months went by and by this time I knew what Muslims were like I knew there were good people I felt comfortable with Muslims so I began to go to London Central Mosque to learn more about Islam for myself not to teach but for my own for my own heart for my own mind and the the final one of the talks that was given by use of Islam Kat Stevens the the famous singer and at the end of his talk I went up to him and said brother what do you do to become Muslim and he said well I said I don't want to be Muslim but if someone wanted to know what would you do he said well first of all Muslims believe in one God I said well I've always believed in one God he said on Muslims pray five times a day I said well actually I know how to pray in Arabic and he gave me a very puzzled look and he said and Muslims fast during Ramadan I said well actually I've fasted in Ramadan for the whole month and he looked me directly in the eyes and he said to me brother you are Muslim already who are you trying to fool and with those words brother you are Muslim already who you are trying to fool the call to prayer sounded in the mosque allahu akbar four salafi maghrib and everyone got up to go and pray in the prayer hall above and I was like a drunken man because I could hear in my mind brother who are you trying to fool you're Muslim already and then outside I could hear allahu akbar and we went up to the prayer hall and the brothers prayed in the hall and the sisters up above in the balcony and I sat at the back against the wall when salafi maghrib began and it was as if it was as if angels beyond number came into the mosque it was just the most beautiful thing when the Quran began to be recited and I began to cry and I cried and I cried and I cried like a baby and I knew in my heart that the whole journey of my life had led me to that moment and when the prayer was finished I went to use a stand and I said brother I want to become Muslim tell me what to do he said say these words after me say I bear witness that there's no created being worthy of worship but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad peace be upon him is his messenger and then of course all the brothers greeted me and it felt wonderful all right guys and this is it for today's video guys thank you so much for recommending this video as always you guys really make my work here an absolute pleasure again a total goosebumps moment in the end there I can relate fully to this story of course I wasn't a priest my journey was different I traveled the world spent time with the buddhist monks in their monasteries practiced yoga met the shamans started brewing the shamanic brews myself got initiated countless ceremonies countless temples countless churches and now I am here this video was a reminder for me personally that we should never stop pursuing God either is Taufiq an amazing man an amazing storyteller may God rest his soul may he rest in peace all right guys but this is it for today's video if you liked it leave the thumbs up if you haven't subscribed already guys please do so and if you want to support this channel all the links are in the description box below thank you so much for your ongoing support guys as always may God bless you all much love and peace