This is the official text of my speech delivered at Tarbiya Camp 2025.

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السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

الحمد لله رب العالمين والعاقبة للمتقين والصلاة والسلام على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين

Hello everyone. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my story. Today, I’d like to talk about my life and how I came to discover Islam and awaken as a Muslim.

MY WAY TO ISLAM
How I found the meaning of my life

CHILDHOOD

First questions about heaven

I did not have any particular interest in religion as a child. However, when I was around five years old, I remember having an argument with a friend at kindergarten about the existence of heaven.

I believed unconditionally that it existed, while my friend said that adults had told him it did not. I insisted that it did exist, but my family told me, “Such things are just fantasies made up by people in the past.” I thought, “I see,” and stopped thinking about it.

Around the same age, I had a cassette tape of Buddhist sutras at home and memorized them. I had been hospitalized due to illness, and my grandmother stayed with me.

She bought toys for me, but when I got bored of them, I began reciting the sutras I had memorized. My grandmother thought, “Reciting sutras in a hospital is inappropriate! In Japan, sutras are usually recited at funerals, so it might give the impression that someone is dying.” She quickly went to a toy store near the hospital to buy new toys for me.

JAPANESE VIEW OF RELIGION

Religion as culture / Living in a materialistic worldview

After elementary school, I never particularly thought about religion. My understanding of religion was probably similar to that of other Japanese people: religion seemed like a collection of old stories, legends, and myths systematized over time, and part of cultural heritage.

Many people maintain it culturally without truly believing, living mostly with a materialist worldview while keeping the rituals as traditions.

2001 ― A TURNING POINT

Islam entered my awareness

However, this perception changed dramatically in my third year of junior high school, in September 2001, when the September 11 attacks occurred in the United States. The word “Islam” began appearing frequently in the news.

Of course, as a junior high school student, I knew Islam existed and had a basic understanding from social studies. I still thought of it as a foreign cultural element, similar to Japanese customs such as visiting a shrine at New Year or having a funeral at a temple.

RAMADAN & REAL FAITH

This cannot be just tradition

Then I learned that Muslims fast for a whole month, even under challenging conditions. I thought, “This is only possible if they truly believe. If it were just a custom, they would give it up immediately.”

I began to feel that there was something special about Islam. I wondered if it was a religion compatible with modern science, though I did not investigate further at that time.

INNER CONFLICT

Living for others’ approval

I noticed a difference between myself and other Japanese people: I did things not for praise or recognition from others.

I did not want to act merely to be thought well of. I wanted to do things because they had intrinsic value for me.

HIGH SCHOOL

Words and responsibility ― Surah An-Nas

In high school, I encountered religion in modern society and world history classes. I studied the conflict between the Arius and Athanasius in Christian history.

Arians argued that God is one and rejected the Trinity, believing Jesus was a creation of God. Athanasians upheld the Trinity.

I was not a believer, but logically, I thought the Arian perspective might be more correct. However, Rome accepted the Athanasian） view, and the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE declared Arians heretics. The Trinity became orthodox in Christianity.

I also remember a middle school episode: in history class, we learned about the European Reformation. People who doubted the Church selling indulgences became Puritans, which I sympathized with. Later, I thought that if I were in their place, I would also examine the Trinity and read the Quran in my pursuit of truth.

During my high school years, mobile phones became common. My world history teacher warned us that we were using words carelessly and introduced Sura An-Nas from the Quran in Japanese.

He emphasized Islam’s deep respect for words, which modern Japanese had largely lost. I felt that this 1,400-year-old teaching of Islam still applied to contemporary life.

SEARCHING FOR TRUTH

UNIVERSITY ― PHILOSOPHY

After high school, my homeroom teacher suggested I study economics, but I felt there were greater questions to pursue: the reason for my existence, the meaning of this world, and how to live.

I failed my university entrance exam and spent a year reflecting before majoring in philosophy.

I often felt out of step with others, sensing that mainstream views compromised the pursuit of truth. I admired scholars who questioned common assumptions, though I could not fully trust their conclusions.

ADULTHOOD ― WORK & DISILLUSION

After university, I became a tutor. I tried to focus on practical life, but my experiences of injustice and powerlessness reignited questions about life’s meaning.

Reading philosophy offered no final answers. I felt a persistent loneliness that no human connection could fill.

I sought a religion that could give my life meaning, even if I might be mistaken. I briefly explored Catholicism and attended Bible study but eventually lost the opportunity due to work.

I then became a wedding planner and immersed myself in the work, but loneliness persisted. When challenges arose, I again questioned the purpose of life, realizing that striving for success or money alone could not sustain or inspire me.

CRISIS AT 30

What is life for?

I resigned, around age 30, ready to find answers I had long sought. I revisited philosophy, literature such as Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and the Gospels of the New Testament. I also read the Book of Job from the Old Testament.

Yet nothing fully satisfied me. Many Japanese scholars had studied Western thought, and Western thinkers largely started from Christianity.

SPIRITUAL SEARCH

As a non-Christian, I could not accept certain contradictions, like the Trinity. Meditation and spiritualism helped me acknowledge a higher existence, but methods claiming humans could control miracles seemed misleading. From these disappointments, I gradually recognized the shape of what I truly sought.

PRAYING TO THE UNKNOWN GOD

One day, while meditating, I glimpsed an abstract pattern, reminiscent of Arabic calligraphy. I felt guided by a greater being and desired to pray, though unsure how or when. I downloaded an adhan app and began praying at Islamic prayer times on my own.

I recalled that I had never read the Quran. I was also writing fiction as a hobby and imagined a Muslim character in my story. Shortly after, an Egyptian Muslim asked me for directions at a station and mentioned it was Eid al-Adha.

Around the same time, I began freelance writing, finding work related to Islamic culture. Online resources seemed insufficient, so I wanted to read the Quran directly.

THE QUR’AN

During Golden Week eight years ago, I went to a bookstore while waiting for a train and saw a Japanese-Arabic Quran. Intuitively, I felt it was what I had been seeking, bought it, and read it on the train.

Upon returning home, I wanted to perform prayer properly. I downloaded a child’s wudu app and watched YouTube videos on Muslim prayer, starting the five daily prayers that day.

ISLAM IS THE ANSWER

I consulted a Muslim foreigner through the New Muslim Guide website for detailed questions. This person told me my heart was already Muslim.

In over thirty years, I had rarely felt a true connection with anyone. Yet with this Muslim, despite cultural differences and being a foreigner, it felt like reuniting with an old childhood friend.

I learned the words of the Shahadah from the person and recited it on my own. I was  also showed the location of a masjid, and the following week, I attended the Friday prayer and pronounced the Shahadah in front of the Imam, Hafiz Suleiman Rashari.

I felt that I had not entered Islam as a religion, but rather, I had stepped out of the prison of human misguided thoughts and come to the place of truth.

Before this, I had realized that Islam was the true religion. Only Islam met all the criteria I had sought.

Christianity seemed contradictory due to the Trinity. Judaism appeared limited to Jews, yet God created all beings.

The Old Testament was compiled after Moses, and the earliest New Testament texts were Greek translations, not in Jesus’ original Aramaic. Tracing the original message inevitably led to Islam. Buddhism, with its many sects, also seemed challenging to trace back to the Buddha’s original teaching.

Only the Quran remained as a miraculous text preserving the original message. I felt that any path I explored eventually led to Islam; becoming a Muslim was unavoidable.

A NEW LIFE

In my twenties, I struggled and suffered. For the past eight years, as a Muslim, I have lived as a husband and father, feeling peace and happiness.

Recently, I reconnected on Facebook with my high school world history teacher. He had returned to teaching after being a principal and declared that all his classes would study the Palestine issue. When I told him I had become a Muslim, he replied:”I see. Are you at the Asakusa Masjid now? I sincerely respect and support your life, praying for people, all living things, and the Earth. I hope you and others become a bridge between the Middle East and Japanese society. Let’s meet again!”

FULL OF HIDAYAH

I have been asked to share my personal journey many times before and have answered. However, this time, as I recalled and introduced these specific episodes for the first time, I felt deeply that my life has been filled with countless hidayah (divine guidance). I am truly grateful that Allah has guided me to this point.

الحمد لله رب العالمين

Thank you very much for listening.

جزاكم الله خيرا كثيرا