In a past life, my name was Christine McCain. I was born in the City of London, England, to a family that didn't really practice any religion. My mother Abigail Rosenberg comes from a Jewish background and my father James McCain comes from a Christian background. By the time they had me, they were both Atheists. I attended Cambridge College for Business Administration studies, and that's when I met Aziz Muhammad, a tall and good-looking young Black man originally from the City of Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This handsome Muslim man changed my life and I fell madly in love with him. Aziz was born in Jeddah to a Saudi father and Senegalese mother. He's biracial, though like many people of partial African descent, he's a Black man in the eyes of the world.
Aziz Muhammad changed my life by introducing me to religion and to love. To him, Atheism was a truly vile concept. Even though he was raised in the most conservative society within the Muslim world, he told me he had much more respect for Christians and Jews than for Atheists because at least they believed in something. I didn't believe in God or Jesus Christ, nor did I believe in the prophet Mohammed or Allah. I didn't believe in Jehovah or Buddha either because to me, all religion seemed like nonsense. I looked down on all faiths, especially Christianity, Judaism and Islam. At the time that I met Aziz, I was dating a young woman named Kristin Dawson. I met Kristin at Cambridge College, where she was the President of the Gays, Lesbians and Bisexual Students Association on campus. This five-foot-ten, stocky woman with short red hair, piercing blue eyes and tattoos took my breath away.
Before I met Kristin Dawson, I dated this guy named Joel Sanchez, a handsome Mexican-born American student who came to Cambridge College from the University of Brandeis in the State of Massachusetts. My sexy Latin lover thrilled me sexually but I was curious about women and he wouldn't understand that. In Joel's eyes, homosexuality and lesbianism were wrong because of his strict Catholic upbringing. That's why I left him for Kristin Dawson. The first time I had sex with Kristin, the butch lesbian from Liverpool made me feel more alive than anyone ever has. We became an item, and I publicly dated her. I came out to my parents, and fully embraced my new identity as a lesbian. I became passionate about gay and lesbian politics. Whenever a gay or bisexual person on campus felt harassed or mistreated in some way, I was there to speak up for their rights. As a GLBT advocate, that was my job. Yup, I was passionate about my cause, my sexuality and the wonderful woman who changed my life.
They say that life can take some funny twists and turns, and you can never know for sure where you're going to end up. My third year at Cambridge College I met someone who changed my life forever. A six-foot-four, lean and athletic man with light brown skin, curly Black hair and golden brown eyes. Aziz Muhammad, the son of Saudi multi-millionaire Mustafa Muhammad and Senegalese-born Black British singer, lecturer and author Marina Camarra. The tall, dark and handsome young Black man was treated like royalty by all the Muslim students at Cambridge College. Now, as an openly gay female student who advocated for the rights of gays and lesbians as well as the cause of Atheism, I often clashed with the Muslim students on campus. Christian students will back down if an Atheist opposes putting up a Christmas tree on certain parts of campus, and Jewish students will back down if other students oppose the Israel Lobby, but Muslim students won't back down before anyone if you offend their religion. They'll come after you and in all likelihood, they'll get you. Trust me when I tell you that as a gay White female Atheist, I was terrified of Muslims. They had no respect for women's rights, or for any religion other than Islam, and they saw gays and lesbians as abominations in need of extermination. Yeah, we did not see eye to eye.
I was walking through the university center one morning when Aziz Muhammad walked up to me and offered me a flyer. It had to do with Islamic Awareness Week at Cambridge College, one of the most secular institutions of higher education in the City of London, England. I don't know what made me take the flyer. I looked into Aziz Muhammad's eyes, and what I saw there amazed me. I expected this tall dark-skinned Muslim guy from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be cold, mean and condescending. He was polite and friendly, and he had kind eyes. When I asked him why he was giving me this, since I wore a button that said "challenge homophobia" on my shirt and I was clearly a gay woman, the Muslim guy smiled and told me that Allah loved all human beings, including the gays and lesbians of the world. Looking upward, he told me that we were all the offspring of the Most High. With a beautiful smile, he nodded and wished me a good day before walking away.
When I went home, I had a good look at the flyer and went online to look at the website listed on the paper. It showed a lot of interesting stuff. Tales of westerners who came to embrace Islam. A sixty-year-old White American woman who identified as a feminist left the feminist movement to embrace Islam. A Jewish woman who was once a captain in the Israeli Defense Forces embraced Islam. A bisexual White policeman from the City of Galway, Ireland, who once identified as a pro-LGBT, Atheist Irishman converted to Islam, married a woman from Yemen and was now studying to become an Imam. Wow. I wasn't expecting that. When Kristin came home, she found me on the website, still reading the testimonies left by Western reverts to Islam. My butch lesbian girlfriend wasn't amused, and she told me to get off the web. I did, because in our relationship, Kristin pretty much ran things.