How My Conversion Affected Others' Lives Having received this great gift from Allah (may He be praised and glorified), I felt a strong desire to convey His final message to those who had not heard it. I was not very successful at the outset. Some people took it as a joke, while others advised me to take the message to the children since older people were already fixed in their ways. For a long time my only support was my wife, who shared my belief in Islam. In 1990, I returned to the United States of America to do a master's degree in safety engineering at Texas A&M University. And it was during this trip that I decided to increase my efforts to propagate Islam. I followed an Islamic training program which I created for myself from material available at the Bryan College Station Islamic Library. I used to write to my family in Venezuela about whatever Islamic topics I studied. Happily when I returned to Venezuela in 1992, after only a few brief discussions, my parents and one of my older brothers embraced Islam. Later on, two of my sisters, another brother, and a nephew also embraced Islam. The director of the recently opened mosque in Caracas approved my proposal for a Sunday program to invite non-Muslims to visit the largest mosque in Latin America. I volunteered to coordinate this program with the imam of the mosque and, praise be to Allah, our initial effort was a complete success. About 250 people attended what was the first public lecture I had ever given to Venezuelans about Islam.

Perhaps for the first time in Venezuela, a mixture of Jews, Christians, atheists and others attended a lecture about Islam. The program was such a great success that by the grace of Allah, many Venezuelans embraced Islam. The Sunday outreach program is still ongoing, and anyone interested in knowing about Islam can attend. When I lecture in different places, I notice that many people are interested in Islam. Many people have embraced this religion; many others take the available literature and go through it gradually, just as I did almost thirty years ago. Still others are more resistant toward Islam; they say that they have too many vices that they cannot get rid of. At this point, I want to tell the reader that when a person embraces Islam, his or her life may not change dramatically all of a sudden. It may, but not always. Often this is a process that develops as the person learns and gradually gets closer and closer to Allah, to his or her brothers and sisters in faith, and to the fundamental teachings of the faith. Many of those who have attended my lectures have asked the following questions: 1) Do I have to speak Arabic in order to be a Muslim? 2) Is it necessary to be an Arab if I want to be a Muslim? 3) Should I stop believing in Jesus and reject the Virgin Mary to be a Muslim? The answers to all of the above questions are in the negative. Islam is a universal religion, and Muslims are in every country around the world. Language is not a barrier. To be a Muslim it is necessary to believe in Jesus as one of the greatest prophets of Allah, and in Mary as Jesus' mother, whom Allah favored over all other women.

The first step to become a Muslim is indeed a very simple and easy one. There are no complexities or difficult requirements such as special ceremonies or the mediation of certain agents or anything beyond one's means. The only requirement to embrace Islam is to believe sincerely in and obey the one and only true God, to accept God as the Creator, the Sustainer of the universe, the One in whose hands is life and death, the Controller of all things, the only One worthy of worship, the One who has the most beautiful names and most glorious attributes, the One who has no associate, child, mother or father, and nothing is comparable to Him. All forms of paganism must also be abandoned. After testifying that none has the right to be worshipped in truth but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, everything else can be learned gradually with patience and dedication. If anyone dies after accepting this firm belief, he or she is considered to be a Muslim and may, by Allah's mercy, enter Paradise at the end of this world. When a person testifies that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, this does not mean that he is the only prophet of Allah but that he is the last messenger of Allah and the last in the line of prophets going back to Adam.