Lover of the Light - My 25 Year Journey to Islam from Trauma & Addiction to Belief & Transformation

Lover of the Light - My 25 Year Journey to Islam from Trauma & Addiction to Belief & Transformation is a book about the marathon of conversion to Islam while setting intentions to transform ones entire lineage. Conversion to Islam is often seen as a simple process, but people don’t know the layers of transformation that must take place over a period of years to truly come out the side as transformed person. The book also dives into the depths of the crisis of faith that lead to my conversion. Subscribing to this Substack supports my writing.

A Story of Intergenerational Tawfiq & Intergenerational Trauma

In the history of literature of transformation and conversion, people share their profound changes in their lives but these aren't the spiritual manuals, the great Sufi books of history. The beauty is reflected from the piercing light in that moment of transformation, but if we think about who those greats were beyond the first generations of Islam who were in the presence of the Prophet ﷺ. Most of these people came from families who were generations into their journey to Islam. For those of us as converts there is of course a deeply profound process of spiritual transformation. But it also shouldn't be understated in what the journey is in planting the flag of the Ummah of Muhammad ﷺ within the lineage of our families.

You don't really understand family and lineage and the essence of being within our ancestry until we have children of our own. My beloved Mother Mary had passed six years before I had my own children, then with the birth of my daughter here was this microcosm of my Mother suddenly in front of me, Alhamdullilah. There is a reason people believe in reincarnation because of this profound reality in how the essence of a person can travel through generations. Similarly, when I had my son, I saw reflections of my grandfather Charles’s tenderness and my father Greg’s loving heart. The set of traits we inherit can be good or they can be bad, or they can be both good and bad depending on the history of our lineage. This is why we have to understand that there is no escaping our family and these realities that are passed across generations.

This is why as much as is possible we have to strive to do a deep self assessment as it relates to our lineage to have the best chance at success on this path. We have to understand what we are good at and what are the historical challenges within our families. Just like going to the doctor where they ask for our family medical history, we have to go to some of those dark places to understand what it will take to transform ourselves. This process of self reflection (muhasaba), and contemplation of our own lineage is a process of removing the bad things in that history and replacing it with the good for ourselves and our children.

In my life as a Muslim there have been moments when I have been deeply moved by people, the spiritual luminaries of our times, and even the every day people within this path because of how beautiful they are. People with the most beautiful character and how they made you feel when you interacted with them. Think of the best people you have ever met in your life, now imagine the entire lineage of those people standing there in front of you with them. Many of these people have lineage all the way back to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and his family. This is intergenerational Tawfiq (divine assistance), and we pray for that reality to come into existence in each of our families in the generations to come, ameen.

Then compare that to the lineage that many of us come from where over the last five hundred years our families have been separated, and in some cases our lineage, our traditions have been completely destroyed. For Indigenous people of the Americas, for African Americas, for White people like myself there is this profound intergenerational trauma at the center of our being that has much to do with being cut off from knowing these ancestral realities. Beyond that is also the key fact that we are coming from cultures where virtue, and ethics have been removed and ideologies of social Darwinism, the survival of the fittest, have been placed at the center of our world view. In comparison to these people of Prophetic character, we can come across as the real barbarians, especially white people.

The Miracles on the Path

When miracles unfold in front of your eyes you become a believer no matter how spiritually dark the path had become from all sides at the time. My childhood was beautiful, we didn't have much and my parents were very young when I was born but I lived down the street from my loving Grandparents and I would walk to their house by myself when i was just two years old. I was raised in the Methodist Church and I remember profoundly my first Pastor there was Reverend Bruce Grauberger, who was a master storyteller, and someone who would always take time during his sermon with a children's sermon where he invited the youngest members of the Church up to the front of the Church to tell us a story of faith in our language that would connect with us in a profound way.

When I was just three years old I remember having the confidence to stand in front of the congregation and ask everyone to pray for my missing teddy bear. Rather than scolding me as many would do, instead Rev. Bruce would lead the congregation in prayer for me. In his obituary when he passed in 2014, his family stated that he was successful in his ministry and life by "putting the love of God into people rather than scaring the hell out of them. Rev. Bruce liked to say, "There is no end to the good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit." I grew up saying that I wanted to be a pastor, and there is no doubt that the example of Rev. Bruce played a major role in me walking down this path of faith.

Although I grew up in so much beauty and light, like all journey's of faith, my belief was challenged at a young age because something was off with part of my ancestry. My Fathers Father was an evil person, and we had to excommunicate him from our family when I was young after he abused many of the children in our family. When I was 15 I almost lost my eye in a freak accident. My beloved uncle Galen who was like an older brother to me died suddenly of a drug overdose when I was 16. My parents divorced when I was 18. It was one thing after another and I realized I couldn't believe in the trinity or the idea of man as God, it just didn't add up for me. I became an atheist and I was angry, drunk, high, and mad at everything. There were so many moments when I could have so easily ended up dead or in jail for the rest of my life.

One new years eve just a few days after my twenty-first birthday, I was hanging out with my friends at the bars in Denver and I was supposed to drive everyone home. But like most nights hanging out with a bunch of drunks just led to endless fighting, and debauchery. For some reason I decided to leave and I started driving home before midnight, my friend called me asking me where I was and when did I want to leave. I was so black out drunk that I didn't even know I was driving until he called me. I told him there was no way I could make it back, I was almost already home.

In the following days I really started to contemplate what I was doing with my life. I had finally started to get my self together with school at community college after graduating High School with a 1.7 GPA. I had just read the autobiography of Malcolm X and it moved me so profoundly that I knew I needed to make a change. I turned to my beloved Mother Mary, and I opened up to her about what I was going through. She took me to lunch at one of our favorite restaurants down the street to talk and on the way home I had to stop and get gas. Then out of nowhere while I was standing there pumping gas a man walked up to me and said to me, excuse me, I was told that I need to pray for you. I was kind of shocked, but my Mom was standing there with me, she said, 'Let him Dustin.' I responded, 'Ok, I guess.' He moved towards me and said, 'Ok but I need to pray on your heart.' He placed his hand on my heart and prayed silently, and I started to weep.

In all those nights, all the hell of those drunken stupors, I would suddenly be woken up the second I was sober no matter what time of night it was. I would feel the pain of the life I was living in my heart and it would physically hurt. It was through the brokenness that I first learned how to receive the light. I would wake up and I may have been an atheist but the pain was so bad that I would pray to God to save me, to take me out of that hell. I asked God to save me and I told Him I would be His servant.

The prayer of a loving parent, the good example of family, or a stranger placing their hand on your heart in prayer. The glance of the beloved of Allah these things are the shock, the defibrillator, on a dying heart. I was awake now it was time to do the deep, life long work.

The Light of Gaza in a Time of Darkness

Over the last fourteen months it's been amazing to see so many people embrace Islam many because of the power of faith of the people of Gaza. One of the stories that touched all of our hearts was the soul of my soul, Reem and her grandfather Shaykh Khaled Nabhan. The Palestinian people are examples of people with intergenerational trauma but also a people with the intergenerational tawfiq I spoke of earlier so their response in the midst of the ugliest of genocides has transformed peoples hearts as a miracle that no army can stop. After Shaykh Khaled was martyred in Khan Yunis on December 16, a clip went viral where Shaykh Yasir Qadhi was interviewing him. Dr. Qadhi asked Shaykh Khaled, "What is your advice to the Muslims of America." His response was so moving it brought me to tears as it allowed me to reflect on my own journey and struggles in my journey to Islam in this country,

"My advice to you my family, and my loved ones, the Muslims in America. First I extend my greetings and appreciation and respect for you for your patience in an environment filled with temptations and desires. Yet you have remained steadfast and this is the greatest form of Jihad, being patient with these challenges and trials. My advice is for a person to hold tight their Yaqin (certainty) and faith in Allah almighty.

Faith is composed of seventy some branches, the highest of which is saying, "There is no God but Allah," and the lowest of which is removing something harmful from the path, and modesty is a part of faith as the Prophet ﷺ said.

Third we must be keys to goodness as the Prophet ﷺ said, "Among people are those who are keys to goodness, and locks to evil. And among people are those who are keys to evil, and locks to goodness. So blessed are those through whom goodness is facilitated." We must be callers to the Oneness of Allah, Glorified and Exalted. Allah said, "I did not create Jinn and Humans except to worship me" (51:56). In order to get to known Allah, to affirm his oneness, as explained by Ibn Abbas, the scholar of this ummah. He used to meet in a conference with disbelievers, he was sitting at the food table with them, and a morsel of food fell while he knows the Hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, "If a morsel of food of one of you falls down, he should pick it up, and remove any dust or dirt from it and eat it and don't leave it for the shaitan." So he did so, one of his companions said, "What are you doing in front of the leaders of the people?" So he said to them, "Do you want me to abandon the Sunnah of my beloved for the sake of these polytheists? I am preserving the Sunnah of my beloved, may God bless him and grant him peace.

Therefore, we must follow the Prophet, ﷺ in his appearance, conduct, and inner self. How he thought in his heart, how all people would be guided and no one would remain miserable or deprived. May Allah have mercy on him. What is more important is that our religion urges us to seek knowledge, and you, the scholars, as the Prophet ﷺ said: “The scholars are the heirs of the prophets,” and the prophets did not leave behind dinars or dirhams, but they left behind knowledge. So whoever takes it, let him take a plentiful portion, as God Almighty said: Say: “Are those who know equal to those who do not?” They know and something very important in this advice for my family and loved ones who seek knowledge is that their main concern should be the light of knowledge. The light of knowledge (i.e. it’s spiritual benefits) is more important than just knowledge.

The light of knowledge does not guide the disobedient, as Al- Shafi’i, may God have mercy on him, said: “ Know that Allah’s knowledge is light, and Allah’s light does not guide the disobedient.” Your commitment, and I have a good opinion of you, is that in this environment of trials, you preserve the light of knowledge. We ask Allah Almighty to bless you and to bless your knowledge, and to enlighten your hearts."

May the Light of those Martyred and those struggling just to survive in Gaza continue to spread all over this earth, Ameen. Remember what Allah told us in the Qur’an when he told us the martyrs are living! 2025 100 years of Malcolm X! Allah Akbar.