Bismillah, Alhamdulillah May Allahs peace and blessings be upon Rasoolillah and his family and companions.
Assalaamu alaikum
I was brought up in the west, in a shi'a family, who were not very religious, nor was I, however I did attend shi'a "islamic" school on weekends for 3 years as a child. During that time I really hated going there as I didn't find any spiritual satisfaction, and to this day some of the only things i can remember learning about while attending that school were the 12 imams and having to memorize their full names and titles. I also can remember one teacher going on about how great Ali [r] is and saying "he's sooo great that some people in the world even worship him!....but thats haraam, dont do that." So he was almost justifying the Alawi's worship of Ali by saying "thats how great he is". Also he never said its an act of shirk, but only said its "haraam"...as if worshipping Ali is similiar in sin to drinking alcohol. To be fair and just, the one benefit I got from there was learning to read arabic.
Anways once I got to high school, I had stopped going to the shia weekend school, and at this part of my life I had turned to the sinful life and all the evils that many youth fall into, I was engaged with those things and pretty much forgot religion, although many of my friends who drank and did drugs with me were muslims, and sunnis too, but they never really gave me da'wah, or if they tried to they were too ignorant to know how, for example one would just say "Shi'ism is no good, Sunni is the truth", and when I asked why, they wouldnt have any answer.
It wasnt until my early twenties that I encountered a Sunni who gave me da'wah in a real way. I was at a friends place one night and we were smoking and getting high, the usual thing. I was introduced to a brother and it had been mentioned to him that I was Shi'a. This brother immediately started speaking to me about Shi'a and Iranian hypocrisy and all this politic stuff which, at that time I knew very little about, I was a whitewashed type of guy.
So we started debating about shi'ism, and It was only when the brother mentioned one thing to me that a doubt about shi'ism entered my heart...and it was that he mentioned that Mu'awiyah [r] was the one who opened India, or sent an army there. Now today I'm not quite sure if it was even Mu'awiyah or someone else from Banu Umayya who sent that army, but the point is that when I heard this, i was kind of shocked because up until that point I had never heard anything positive about Mu'awiyah [r] or Abu bakr [r] or Umar[r], because I had learned as a kid that they were usurpers and hypocrites. At the end of the debate, i told the brother that I am open minded and that I intend to read both Sahih al Bukhari and Al-Kafi and then i'll decide which is true.
From that point I started my research, and this point in my life happened to be a point where I was also reflecting on my sinful past and wanted to change, and had started reading the Qur'an again. I never actually read ALL of al-bukhari or al-Kafi, or even close to all of them. But i looked at both sides and their arguments and I eventually came accross a video with Bilal Philips where he was breaking down the shi'a creed and explained how its basically a polytheistic creed with regard to what they believe about their imams. Some of you may have seen the video. This put a major doubt in my heart about shi'ism because if they dont have Tawheed, then why would anything else even matter?? Why even talk about fiqh differences or issues related to the sahaaba [r] ?? Once their tawheed was shattered, then that basically destroyed their entire religion. Tawheed was always left in my Fitra....in fact when I was jaahil in high school I used to listen to rastafarian type of reggae songs because they preached about God in a more monotheistic way than Shi'ism.
The last thing which sealed the deal for me that Sunni Islam was the truth was after visiting an islamic bookstore with the same brother who i debated with before. While there, I noticed the book Kitaab-at-Tawheed, and i noticed the author Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab who I had negative pre-concieved notions about. I remembered my father had told me that the "Wahhabis" were the worst among Sunnis and the most extreme. This actually made me want to read the book even more because I was very curious and interested in this "wahhabi" stuff that i'd heard so much about and wanted to know what it actually was from the source. So i bought the book and read it, and after coming to the chapter called "Seeking help in other than Allah is an act of Shirk" and I read the evidences from the Qur'an and Hadith and then stopped and thought and others who say "Ya Ali Madad." It was at this point i decided shi'ism cannot be the truth and that i wanted to follow the path of Tawheed which seemed to only be the way of Ahlus Sunnah Wa'l Jama'ah.
And that is how I became Sunni, w'alhamdulillah.
Some other reasons I chose Sunni Islam over Shi'a:
1) It's not logical that throughout thousands of years of mankind that all the prophets send to mankind came to just inform us that in the end of time there will be another prophet whos family you must obsess over and worship. That cannot be the purpose of life.
2) There can only be One true religion, but could it possibly be shi'ism? imagine if the whole world accepted twelver shiism....imagine now the month of muharram, everyone in the world doing mattam.....How bloody would that month be??
3) Sunni islam is multi-cultural....while shi'ah for the most part are just Persians/Arabs/Indo-Pak....and their books contain racism as well so maybe its for that reason.
3) The description of the Dajjal in Sunni books seems to be almost identical to the description of what the 12th Imam will be like when he "returns" according to Shi'ah books....so the person who the shi'ah take as their 12th imam when he "returns" will most likely be in fact the Dajjal. (Note: There really was no 12th imam since the 11th one never had any children according to historical records)
There are many other reasons but I cant list them all. The more I studied the matter the more and more I became certain that shi'ism is not the truth and that the Sunnah is the truth.
I praise and thank Allah that he guided me to the truth and saved me from the darkness of falsehood. I ask Allah to forgive my sins and keep me steadfast on his religion.
"Our Lord, let not our hearts deviate after You have guided us and grant us from Yourself mercy. Indeed, You are the Bestower. - Qur'aan 3:8
Edited by Admin
Reason for edit: Requested by the OP.
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