Following the recent release of a video testimony by Sister Nela about leaving Islam after 27 years, and the theological response by Sheikh Hamzah Raza, writer and activist Umar Lee invited Ustadh Ubaydullah Evans to offer his reflections.
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Ustadh Ubaydullah’s unique perspective—rooted in deep theological training, cultural awareness, and lived experience as a Black American convert—brings valuable insight to the complex issues raised. In this conversation, he and Umar discuss faith, doubt, identity, and the broader social and spiritual challenges facing Muslims in America today.

Umar: So one of the things I've thought about for a while is being a convert after the thrill is gone. We've all been there. Coming in energetic, idealistic, everything is fresh and new, at the masjid and with the Muslims as much as possible. Due to life, bad experiences, work, family, personal battles, or whatever, that thrill most often fades. So, how does a Muslim convert maintain the energy to just be a basic Muslim after the newness wears off and the thrill is gone?

​Ubaydullah: Bismillah. Thank you for allowing me to participate in this conversation. Last week, when I read the transcript of the dialogue between Sister Nela and Sheikh Hamzah I was deeply intrigued. I found Sister Nela’s honesty and sincerity compelling. And I thought Sheikh Hamzah’s insights were brilliant. To be sure, my desire to participate in the conversation wasn’t for inadequacy on either side. It was just good to see a conversation about the real issues. Conversion to Islam and the sustained, intergenerational practice of Islam are different things. I’m deeply invested in the American Muslim project and would like to see it go from the former to the latter. In that connection, the experiences of folks like our sister Nela are extremely valuable. I’m genuinely interested in knowing ‘what went wrong?’

The issue you raise here, about the novelty and romance of conversion wearing off, is something that goes wrong a lot. I loved your analogy of conversion being like a marriage. However, the analogy only makes sense for people who fall in love before getting married. Arranged marriages are different–I presume. Having a deep affinity for someone, maybe even considering them a soulmate and choosing them, only to be let down by them or worse yet harmed by them, must be incredibly discouraging. My heart goes out to anyone that has experienced that; in love or in faith.

One way of counteracting this “Paradise Lost” phenomenon is to remember yourself. Nearly all converts experience what I call a “pre-orthodoxy” phase. Aside from a tiny sliver of people (usually academics) who research Islamic tradition before converting, no one converts to Sunni or Shi’i Islam with a capital S! Usually, conversion doesn’t involve fiqh, aqeedah, madhabs, shaykhs, tariqas, minhajs, movements, tafsir, etc. Quite the reverse, conversion happens when what one understands of Islam coincides with what is in their own mind. This is why the experience is so deeply personal. When tradition is learned correctly, it provides new believers with tools, rules, and a broader context to deepen the exploration of what is in their minds. Conversely, when tradition is mistaught, it tells us that what’s in our minds is of no value. Overwrought notions of orthodoxy tell us that sound belief involves having someone else’s mind. This is incorrect. In summary, I don’t think it’s the monotony of religious practice that wears us down. Mastery of anything requires monotony. Rather, it’s the loss of personal connection to what we’re doing that starts to feel cumbersome. A person could practice Islam for 30 years and spend 29 years and 10 months as an imposter to herself. How is that sustainable? Converts have to find ways of combining their growing awareness of the tradition with that “pre-orthodox” personal spark that brought them into the faith. And Allah knows best.

Umar: I think we also need to make a class distinction before we go too far. I'll use myself as an example. I was in and out of juvenile, in the streets, a lot of friends getting shot and locked up (most would later be killed), kicked out of high school, and ended up at Job Corps. I just can't look back and see a scenario where anything other than Islam would've kept me alive. And I know many people with similar stories. And when you come in like that you're usually gonna cut ties from friends and even family so Muslims are basically all you have at that point and become your family. So family can be messed up and dysfunctional but it's still family. Those outside the family, Mainstream American society, become very strange. Your only non-Muslim vantage point ended during the time of your conversion. So honestly I have difficulty understanding many normative aspects of American culture now and even my family.

So I see Islam as giving me and others life and keeping us above the dirt. But I have a friend who became Catholic after 30 years as a Muslim and he has a much different background. He came from an affluent family. In his mind, he would've been much more financially successful, had a more stable family and home life, and had less drama in his life had he not gotten so deep into the Salafi Muslim experience. Is this two separate conversations based on class and entry?

Ubaydullah: Allah is the One from whom help is sought! I honestly don’t know if this is two separate conversations. I mean, the human condition can always be viewed from different vantage points. There is the universal and the particular.

I think the particular circumstances of one whose conversion entails a loss of financial stability, familial cohesion, and professional direction is different from the circumstance of one who seeks to enhance their access to those values through Islam. The stakes are actually much higher for the latter. As Islam, for him, has a broader promise on which it has to deliver.

However, from the universal perspective, both of them are voluntarily walking away from what they know to embrace a future that is unknown. Even a toxic normalcy still provides the continuity, familiarity, and comfort of a “norm” and giving up a norm is hard for anyone. And Allah knows best.

Umar: The inevitable fundamentalist burnout is another issue. It's not a matter of Salafi or Sufi because it's real with both. Once that engine burns out it can get really bad for some. I think the class distinction is also real here as well. I've seen women burn out in their middle aged years and go through a promiscuous college girl phase. Have also seen guys return to the streets and end up dead, in jail, or strung out. A friend of mine and Imam Suhaib Webb left the masjid, got back into the streets, and ended up getting bludgeoned to death and set on fire in a vacant house.

Yet, on the flipside, others have gone to college, got law degrees, are making nice money, and seem happier and much more stable once out of the door. Their relationships with their families most often improve as well.

Ubaydullah: May Allah have mercy on our brother. I think I can see more clearly where you’d like to go in addressing the issue of religious fundamentalism and social class. Henry Ford famously said concerning his customers, “they can have any color they want as long as it’s black!” In many ways, this is the logic of fundamentalism: What’s important for you to learn, is what I have to teach. So if I don’t know anything about recidivism, addiction counseling, family counseling, workforce development, parenting, college preparation, etc. those things aren’t important. In other words, for us, the mind-numbing appeal of fundamentalism is that it seduced us into the belief that all of the negative consequences of being poor, uneducated, fatherless, an ex-offender, and lacking employable skills, don’t matter as long as we know that God is literally established on His Throne–or as long as we know that God is not literally established on His Throne. I blame this inattention to improving the practical conditions of our lives on ourselves and our teachers.

As children we were taught, “self-preservation is the first law of nature.” If WE don’t insist, ourselves, on cultivating an ethic that addresses our real challenges, how dare we blame Islam for not providing a remedy? But it’s important to moderate my tone. There is no condemnation, only concern. I empathize deeply with brothers and sisters who went that route. I understand: Many of us embraced Islam in a society in which we felt devalued. We made Islam a source of counter-rejection of that which we felt had rejected us. So of course undergoing the rigors of learning classical Arabic and taking up temporary residency in the Muslim World was a more worthwhile pursuit than learning to write standard English and enrolling in college. I understand. I was there. And were it not for an encounter with Dr. Sherman Jackson (thank God for him), I could have been irreparably harmed there.

Admittedly, it is a little harder to find a similar place of empathy for the teachers. But this is the struggle to be Muhammadan in character. He (upon him be peace) said “Go, you are free!” to his former enemies. The teachers within these fundamentalist movements, most of which originated abroad, were the “ideological dope-dealers” that supplied our habit. And extending that analogy (for those familiar with addiction), they watched our lives come apart, families disintegrate, careers break down, health worsen; watched us get skinny and lose our teeth! And they kept supplying us. That’s brotherly love? And Allah knows best.

Umar: I feel this is a conversation many don't wanna talk openly about in public formats so let me be the bad guy. I can't tell you how many Black Muslims I've known over the years who have given me some version of this story; the WD masjid is a bunch of senior citizens, the Black Sunni masjid is too harsh, a bunch of guys who took shahadah in the joint, has a prison vibe, and brothers always hit them up for money, and the suburban “immigrant” masjid is cozier on many levels and a nicer experience, but the cultural gap will never be filled. This critique is particularly coming from middle-class and college-educated Black American Muslims. Maybe you can say the Atlanta Masjid of al-Islam is an example (who had a smaller Ramadan fundraising goal than any mid-sized Black church in America) or Masjid Muhammad in DC, or even a few spots in the Philly metro area are exceptions, but isn't the broader story that there is a shortage of spaces for middle-class and college-educated Black American Muslims? Particularly once you leave WD-oriented spaces? 

Ubaydullah: Look, Islam in the Black experience has always been a mostly urban, working class, phenomenon. And in many ways, that’s a blessing. One commentator observed, “Black Muslims and White Muslims are mirror opposites. The epicenter of Black conversion is prison and the draw of Islam is moral guidance. Conversely, Black Muslims have failed to make inroads among the middle-class and affluent within their community. This has resulted in Islam enjoying great authenticity among Black people but very little mobility. Whereas the epicenter of white conversion is college and the draw of Islam is mysticism. White Muslims have yet to make significant inroads anywhere but have even less among poor and working-class white people. Islam won’t enjoy authenticity among white people until Joe Sixpack has at least a familiarity with Islam.”

So to answer your question, I’m not sure I’d like to see Black masjids that resemble Greek letter organizations. I would like to see exchange and unity become the organizing principles of our masjids. One tendency I am critical of, in that regard, is the way we alienate Muslims that would otherwise contribute to our community. We treat religious authenticity as though it exclusively resides in religious knowledge and devotional outward appearance. So brothers and sisters that could potentially offer classes on financial literacy or nutrition or CDL acquisition, etc. feel as though the masjid has no interest in their expertise. This needs to change.

Umar: I know we've both seen a lot of converts pass away over the years. Some got Muslims funerals and some were unfortunately buried as Christians by their families. Forget about death for the moment, I routinely discover that brothers have no funeral plans and have told no one in their non-Muslim family whom to contact in the event of their death, but just aging. Most of our kids are thoroughly American. Even if the kids are Muslim, which isn't a given, the culture here is to put aging people in nursing homes. Most of these places are awful and many are abusive. Yet I see more and more Muslims enter them. Isn't the creation of nursing homes for Muslims in America a necessary evil? Isn't this something ISNA, ICNA, and other organizations should be making plans for?

Ubaydullah : Bismillah. Yes. Hard to imagine because respect and care for the elderly is a hallmark of most Muslim cultures. But inasmuch as many of us have adopted the model of the two-income, nuclear family, I think something will have to give.

Umar: I feel one of the things that really hurt Sister Nela is the condition of the second-generation Muslim kids. I know where she is coming from. We thought all these kids learning Quran and Arabic from a young age, studying deen, and being saved from “kafir schools” was gonna create a generation of super Muslims. It didn't turn out that way. A lot of these kids have left Islam. A lot! And I'm talking about even the children of high-profile Muslims and many of us know of these cases. Of course some other kids are on their deen and doing great. Some are not on their deen and still doing great. And some never miss a salat and read the Quran daily because they're in prison! One of my teacher's daughters abruptly left the masjid as a teenager and got knocked up by a neighborhood drug dealer. But there are many more examples of the Muslim girl at college with the white guy “who is really interested in Islam”. In fact, I was asked to be a witness just last week for one of these weddings where the white guy has basically faked a shahadah in order to protect the reputation of the South Asian family he was marrying into.

I feel these conversations are real, and we are talking about them privately, but the public discourse in the Muslim community ignores this? Still basic street corner dawah talks or dives into fiqh and aqeedah. Is there an avenue and a right place and time to discuss these issues?

Ubaydullah; Thank you, Umar. Thank you, Sister Nela. Thank you, Sheikh Hamzah. I’m grateful to all of you for talking about it. This is the most important conversation we need to have within our community. Conversion occurs within individuals and only requires moments. intergenerational sustainability occurs within communities and requires institutions. Conversion only needs to happen. Sustainability needs to work! The Blackamerican Muslim community is proof that people can convert to Islam. We are not yet proof that Islam works. To be fair, however, we have to take into consideration the mission Islam in Black America has undertaken. We’re talking about the lower bottom–a term that is sometimes used to describe the rung on the social ladder many of us come from–what Malcolm called the “armpit of America.” We’re trying to create productive people and sustainable communities in places that other religious groups don’t even attempt to go to. As one brother put it bluntly, “I became Muslim because the church couldn’t put the fear of God into me.” That’s strong. So the mission requires patience. But I’m really happy we’re talking about it. I mean, the Prophet (upon him be peace) didn’t have the charge of establishing Islam among the Abyssinians, Persians or Byzantines—all of whom were far more advanced than the Arabs in their civilizational achievements–he (upon him be peace) had to do it among the Arabs of Jahiliyyah (Ignorance). And with God’s help, he did it.

Umar: I think theology is important. There is no Islam without the shahadah.. but isn't sociology and the lived communal experience what keeps people or drives them away in the long term? If you're a single mother and want to raise your children around some positive role models and the local masjid is full of nuts (who are also usually broke) doesn't she begin looking at other offerings at some point? We know that for a lot of people, that suburban South Asian or Arab dominated Islamic Center is just not gonna be an option.
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Ubaydullah : Glory to Allah! You know, bro…I was so intrigued by Sister Nela’s conversation with Sheikh Hamzah (may Allah preserve him and make him a true inheritor) that I ended up watching her entire interview with Darius on the Encourage Faith podcast. The interview was good, mashallah. But I just kept thinking, I can’t believe how unimportant theology is to her. Unsurprisingly, Darius’ line of questions led her down the “woman trapped in the patriarchal horrors of Islam” corridor. In her responses, Nela referenced her personal experiences in a manner that felt very genuine. Yet when she spoke about those things that she and Darius contended make Islam unsuitable for women, I couldn’t help thinking: And your response to the supposedly male-dominated Islamic religion is to embrace the belief that the Almighty, ineffable God is literally an anatomical male? That’s definitely a plot twist. But the more I reflected upon it, Nela’s experience was consistent with most people who embrace and/or leave Islam. It wasn’t theology that brought us into the faith and it isn’t theology which takes us out. And Allah knows best.

Umar: Studies show that Americans are becoming less and less religious. In educated circles, and especially more liberal and progressive spaces, religion is increasingly seen as something taboo. In many ways universities are functionally seminaries nowadays teaching Western secular humanism.

Ubaydullah: Powerful insight, Umar. May Allah elevate you. I’m worried about that too. It kind of reminds me of a statement attributed to Imam Malik. He said, concerning the emergence of systematic theology (Kalam): “If your faith in God is based on a rational proof, what will you do when someone gives you a superior rational proof that God doesn’t exist?” In that vein, if your identification with Islam is based on the cultural zeitgeist, what will you do when the zeitgeist changes? Unfortunately, for all of the pointless bickering we do about aqeedah (theology), when we actually need aqeedah, we can’t access it effectively. Aqeedah is supposed to represent a shared subjectivity through which we as Muslims see the world. I think our task at this time is recognizing that aqeedah can’t survive on its own. It must be supported by a world of culture (literature, song, performance, dance, theatre, architectural design, interior design, commerce, etc) that makes it feel real. This is the time of the Muslim artist, the culture creator. The difficulty is making sure we’re creating from the vantage point of our world view, not someone else’s. The trick of modern secularism is that people think they’re evaluating the propositions of secularism in a vacuum of objectivity. What!? You’re completely soaked in a lived experience that makes the claims of secularism seem plausible even before you start thinking about them. That’s actually what Islamic civilization used to do! And Allah knows best.

Umar: People end up back in the church for various reasons. One reason, and Sister Nela said this, is because it makes them feel good. Even I love old Black gospel music. I still think of my grandma's gospel songs as well. The Catholic Mass is also a very peaceful and serene experience. Then people go to the masjid and there's no singing, no clapping, and no serenity. You may have an imam screaming at you and telling you how bad you are. Of course, there are many Sufi traditions where there are joyful worship experiences. Is part of the issue Salafi thinking has become so dominant in America that people see that as the only practice of Islam? So, I'm gonna be that or not Muslim? Even if people don't claim Salafi, they may be familiar with a more Salafi style of worship. This is the norm in American masjids. If you wanted to gather and make dhikr or sing most of us wouldn't even know where to go.

Ubaydullah: You make a well-founded point about the hyper sober, nearly cold atmosphere of communal Muslim religious service in America. I think many would probably agree with you that this is the importation of Saudi Salafi influence. I actually think the real culprit is a completely different group. The Nation of Islam (NOI) always located its appeal in being an alternative to the Black Church. Black Protestant congregations across the spectrum routinely conducted religious services which included kinetic orality, song, dance, live instrumentation, inducing ecstatic states (catching the Holy Ghost), glossolalia (talking in tongues), etc. I think the NOI denounced much of that religious expression as slave religion. The idea being that it was both undignified or –to use the idiom of the movement–“civilized” men and women didn't conduct themselves in that way and it was ineffectual. What did all of that whooping and hollering do to liberate Black people from their oppressors? In fact, more than just song or dance, the NOI rejected the entire religious category of the metaphysical or “spooky”--in their idiom. Prayer was mostly invoked as a source of discipline but very rarely connection with the Divine. This is where the normative culture of Islam in Black America first began to crystallize. I think most of the subsequent dynamics in our history have been different responses to that point of origin. History is remarkable. Things never change as much as we think. The ethic of the NOI was mostly about in-group solidarity, right-moral behavior, and participation in the collective mission of the movement. The ethic of modern Salafism isn’t that different. It’s just that instead of a mission of resurrecting the Black man from his mental death. The mission is instead to establish the Prophetic way upon the understanding of the Pious Forbearers and purge the community of unsanctioned innovation. In both, however, a thoroughgoing connection with Allah through personal religious experience seems to be less of a focus.

​Our community is now at a place where we’re beginning to question that precedent and explore what our legitimate Islamically acceptable options might be in that regard.


And our last call is always:
All Praise is Due to Allah, The Lord of all being